The Bliss Factor (25 page)

Jonas took that for a rhetorical question.

Conn tied Jonas to the chair, using electrical cords ripped from every appliance in the place.

“You can’t leave me here.”

“You won’t be alone for long,” Conn said. “But the sheriff is going to be pissed when he gets here and finds out we’re gone because you got greedy.”

“Maybe you should worry about yourself,” Jonas said.

“A backwater sheriff is no trouble.”

Jonas laughed. “I meant you lying about your memory problem. Your lady friend isn’t going to be happy when she finds out. And women are way scarier than the law any day.”

RAE HAD BEEN HALFWAY THROUGH THE KITCHEN
window when Conn came in the front door, Billy slung over his shoulder like the week’s dry cleaning. He slammed Billy into a chair, hard enough to knock him out, if he hadn’t already been unconscious, then collected Rae off the windowsill.

“Predictable,” he said, setting her feet on the floor and stepping away, all in one quick move that reminded Rae of the way he’d avoided her in the bedroom moments before.

Well, if he wanted a fight, she’d give him one. “What do you think ordering me around is, if not predictable?”

“What exactly were you planning to do?”

“I don’t know, stop Jonas from shooting you?”

“He wants to ransom us, not shoot us.”

“Then I probably would have been successful.”

Conn shook his head, taking the bag from her, going back through the house, and opening the front door.

“What’s wro—”

He put a hand over her mouth, pulling away almost immediately. “Yell at me later. I’m going to push the car far enough so it doesn’t alert attention when it starts. You’re going to steer it.”

“So much for not ordering me around,” Rae said, but she kept her voice down, as he had.

As soon as they stepped outside, Conn all but disappeared into the night, moving so silently in his dark clothes she wouldn’t have had a clue where to go if not for the occasional light and the fact that she remembered where they’d left the car.

When they arrived and she’d coded it open, he tossed the bag in and went to the back of the car. Rae slid into the front seat and put the car in gear. It began to move almost immediately. They’d gone more than a mile, and Rae was about to risk Conn’s anger again when he jumped in the front seat.

He wasn’t even breathing hard. “You can start the car now.”

She did, resisting the urge to floor it and get the hell out of there. Instead she brought up the GPS. “What about the bridge? Do you think the sheriff will still be waiting there?”

“I doubt it. They think Jonas has us stashed somewhere, so why would they lose sleep waiting for us to cross the bridge?”

He had a point, even if he did get it across in that superior man-is-the-master-race tone of voice that always ticked her off, not to mention making her want to argue with him just because he was being an ass. Which always ended up biting her in hers, because he was almost always proved to be right.

And of course he was. They crossed the bridge with no problem, but Rae left I-75 as soon as the GPS gave them an alternate route that didn’t mean wandering around the Upper Michigan backwoods any longer than necessary.

“Best not to push our luck,” she said to Conn. “The sheriff may know we’re gone by now. If they put out an alert every state cop between here and the Ohio border will be on the lookout for us.”

“I’m not arguing,” Conn said, settling back into his seat and closing his eyes.

“Not unless you count the passive-aggressive kind of argument.”

She glanced over at him then back at the road, doing a double-take and finding his face as calm as ever. She told herself it was just the faint wash of dashboard light that had canted his expression toward pissed off for a second, since he couldn’t possibly understand a term like passive-aggressive.

“Is everything all right?”

“I don’t know.”

He exhaled heavily. “It’s been a long day.”

It had been a long three days. As apologies went it wasn’t the most eloquent, but she got his point. They were both tired and touchy.

“We can’t go back to your house,” Conn said, “and we can’t keep running.”

“And that leaves what? The Renaissance festival?”

“Do we have any other choice?”

“But that’s where all this started . . . Oh. My parents.”

“They may know something that will help me,” Conn said, not sounding all that happy about the prospect.

Rae could identify. Facing her mother after . . . everything . . . wasn’t on the top of her list of fun activities.

“It’ll be after midnight by the time we get there.” Conn’s gut was telling him to get on with the mission. But his gut wasn’t talking loud enough. “If we arrive after your parents retire, we’ll have to sleep in the car.”

“Not very comfortable.”

“No, and I do prefer to be comfortable.”

“I think I can find you a bed,” Rae said.

“If you can find me a bed, I’ll do the rest.”

She looked over at him, smiled. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”

He tried, really tried, to get that picture out of his head, but even if he could’ve managed it and fought off the craving that came along with it, he just didn’t see how he could avoid spending the night in her arms without telling her the truth. But then, he’d always known he had the kind of job that required sacrifice. Sometimes you had to take one for the team.

 

 

RAE KEPT TO THE BACK ROADS, WORKING HER WAY steadily south. They passed dozens of motels, but she thought they’d be too memorable in a small town where everyone knew everyone else on sight. So she kept driving until she got to Frankenmuth, where there were several large hotels and, due to the huge outlet mall close by, even in the fall there were decent-sized crowds.

Founded in the mid-1800s by a Bavarian missionary and his congregation, Frankenmuth had become a tourist mecca, famous for tulips, Christmas ornaments, and home-style chicken dinners. Tulips were out of season, they bypassed Bronner’s, the world’s largest Christmas store, and Conn had worked his way through a mountain of fried chicken, buttered noodles, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, and the vegetable of the day.

Rae had made a fairly good rendering of Snoopy in mashed potatoes, with a gravy Woodstock. The rest of her dinner migrated from one side of the plate to the other. Not much of it made the trip to her stomach, but not because of nerves. Because of anticipation.

For once in her life she was living in the moment, accepting Conn for who he was. Just for tonight, she hoped his memory never came back. She had plans for him tonight, plans that had begun with her sliding her hands under his shirt, smoothing her palms over his back as he struggled to unlock their hotel room door with suddenly clumsy hands.

Now she slipped her arms around him, took the key card, and swiped it. Conn hit the door handle, pulled her into the room behind him, and had her up against the door before it closed all the way. He took her mouth, his hands on her everywhere, his body hard and hot against hers. She went under between one heartbeat and the next, aroused on so many levels there was no choice but to taste and smell and
feel
.

And then he was gone, the absence so shocking it took her a second to realize he was pulling her clothes off, and then she returned the favor, hands fumbling, pulse racing, tripping over her own feet because his mouth was back on hers, feasting as he backed her across the room. They fell on the bed, rolling together, legs tangling, and then Conn was driving her to peak, knowing how and where to touch her so it felt incredibly good, unbelievably perfect, until she came apart, helpless under his hands and his mouth.

Then he was inside her, before she could begin to recover, pushing her again, impossibly higher but drawing it out, too, making every stroke an event, his mouth on hers, at her breasts, both hands under her bottom, scooping her up so she had to take him deeper, so deep she would have screamed at the sheer bliss if she’d had any breath. And then the orgasm rolled over her, rocketed through her, and she did cry out because it was too much, a million bits of heat and light and waves of pleasure before she collapsed, spent, breath and heart racing, skin slick and tingling from head to toe.

Conn sank down beside her. The air was cold on her bare skin, but she laughed because her bra was still hooked and peeled down inside out, the straps pinning her arms to her sides. Conn was only half out of his jeans and boxers, one shoe and sock still on because he’d only taken the time to peel one leg out.

Rae sat up and took off her bra, running a hand over his clothed thigh. “I’m flattered,” she said.

Conn laughed, too, getting rid of the rest of his clothes, then gathering her close. “I like hearing you laugh,” he said, sounding bemused, probably, Rae thought, because she wasn’t a laugher.

It sobered her a little, realizing how much she’d changed in the few short days since Conn had invaded her life. And she wasn’t the only one. “I guess we’re both a little bit different.”

“Are we?”

She shrugged, tucking her head under his chin. It had been different this time, making love with Conn. He’d been intense, driving her to peak, not giving her a moment to catch her breath before he took her again. Not that she objected to being taken. What women didn’t want to be overpowered once in a while by a man who knew how to temper his strength?

There’d been a focus this time, though, the feeling he’d been striving for the destination rather than savoring the journey. As if he was still in danger mode. She liked danger mode, but she liked it when he was laid-back, too. She couldn’t say that to him, though.

He tipped her chin up, and even in the meager light from the window she could tell he knew what was on her mind. It was a little scary, but also liberating, knowing he understood her so completely that she didn’t have to explain herself.

And then he kissed her, gently, thoroughly. It was incredible and familiar, and while she was a woman who appreciated the tried and true, just now she was into variety. She wanted him every way she could have him. She didn’t know how long Conn would be in her life, and she refused to waste a moment.

She smiled against his mouth, shifting until she was straddling him. Conn wasn’t going to be taken, though. He came up to his knees, his hands around her waist as he moved behind her, pulling her back so she was sitting on his thighs. His hands were on her breasts, his mouth hot at the nape of her neck. She slipped her hand down, curling her fingers around him, hard and thick between her legs, and he groaned. She felt his hands tremble, the muscles of his thighs quivering just at her touch, making her feel strong and humble at the same time. And then he slipped inside her and began to move, surging into her, his hands sure at her waist as she eased forward to brace herself, to take him deeper, until he touched something that made her go blind and deaf, that stole her breath and sent her soaring.

She cried out as he came into her over and over, harder and faster with each thrust. He curled over her and around her, as his hand slipped down between her legs and stroked over the center of her. He drove himself deep one last time, his groan a rumble of joy and triumph as he went over, and her body tightened around him as she flew high, floating back down to find herself curled in his arms, her back to his front. Her head was pillowed on his shoulder, one of his arms wrapped around her waist, the fingertips of his other hand making lazy circles on her belly.

He sighed, his breath warm at her temple, his arms tightening as if to pull her closer, and when he couldn’t, he slipped one leg over hers instead and made a sound of contentment deep in his throat, an “mmmmmm,” that told her he was feeling everything she was, and it shattered the walls around her heart.

AFGHANISTAN, FIRST WAVE BEFORE THE TALIBAN
had been chased into the mountains, when the fighting had been town by town, and sometimes street by street
. Conn was there again, in that village with the crumbling huts and the artillery and machine-gun fire, and the kid with the wide, terrified eyes. Running out of a shack filled with explosives. He hadn’t known that at first. He still didn’t know if the kid had been a suicide bomber or an innocent dupe, but Conn was right back there, breaking the first rule of any mission, reacting without thinking. He’d dropped the knife he’d been about to throw, shouted at his nearest team member and dove for the kid. He didn’t get there in time.

He woke up, not with a jerk like he had before, and definitely not hard enough to wake Rae, who was still wrapped in his arms. Or maybe she was exhausted, but even remembering why wasn’t enough to block out the rest of the flashback. His warning had saved his unit, given them time to take cover. He’d been the only one wounded. The scars along his side and back that Rae had noticed were from shrapnel, not bullets. The real damage had yet to heal.

He nuzzled his face into Rae’s neck, and she sighed softly, settling herself more firmly against him. And the memories faded.

What would it be like, he wondered, to get in the car tomorrow and keep driving south, past Holly Grove, across the Michigan border, just the two of them, until they landed on some beach with blue water stretching to the horizon. What would it be like to throw Rae’s cell phone out the car window, forget Mike Kovaleski, the FBI, and his obligation to arrest her parents for violating federal law? To forget that when he did Rae would hate him.

It was a nice fantasy, but he dealt in reality. If he took off the Bureau would just send another agent, and the Blisses would be arrested anyway. And Rae wasn’t a runner. Even if he could convince her to go with him, she’d ask . . . no, she’d
demand
an explanation, and telling her the truth wasn’t good for her life expectancy. As justifications went, it was a hell of a good one, being that it was true.