To Trust Her Heart (6 page)

Maddie shook her head until it nearly fell off, all of the nerves of the past few descending on her at once. She found herself trying desperately not to think about what “got ‘em all” meant, exactly. It wasn’t just her head that was shaking, she was trembling all over, uncontrollably. Ty held her tight against him, taking her mouth with his all of a sudden, as if he couldn’t deny himself any longer. This wasn’t the time or the place, but she’d never been able to deny her response to him, which was always bone deep, even now, when she was scared to death and still pretty mad at his high-handed treatment.

She knew that likely wasn’t ever going to get any better, not until his last breath left his body. Ty Scanlon didn’t change for anyone even the woman he purported to love. She’d found that out the hard way when she’d filed divorce papers while he was away doing Lord knew what and she never saw him again. The signed papers arrived by messenger at her lawyer’s office, signed and sealed. No note, no call, no nothing. He’d just disappeared out of her life.

Yet here he was. Somehow, she’d known, deep inside her, that it couldn’t be over that easily between them. And she was right.

As he moved confidently about the nicely appointed plane, he kept her plastered tightly to his hip, checking the windows and barging into the cockpit. There were four men on the plane besides him, and every one of them deferred to him as the boss of the operation, whatever that operation was. It was an interesting side to see of him. She’d seen a lot more of Ty than most people ever got to see, but never this, like most normal women did, a work situation. There was never any picking up or dropping him off at the office, or office parties, or any of the usual situations like that between them when they were married. None. Beyond what little Rafe imparted to Carolyn, who then imparted it to her, she knew nothing of Ty at work.

As he made his way around the plane, he introduced her to people incorrectly as his wife, which she corrected each and every time, not that it made a dent in that thick hide of his. He introduced her incorrectly till the last person, the huge, mountain of a man that had held the door of the plane for them. He reminded her of Ty himself, somehow. His name was Kaz, who rather than shaking her outstretched hand, turned it over and brought it to his lips in a gentlemanly manner that betrayed his looks, while Ty scowled fiercely.

“Charmed, I’m sure,” he rumbled with an entirely unapologetic smile.

“Down, boy,” Ty commanded wryly, with not a small edge of jealousy, but he only got a big, white-toothed grin for his attempt at curbing the man. “Let’s get this hunk of junk in the air.” It didn’t help that she continued to stare back at the behemoth, until Ty forcibly sat her down on the plush white leather couch, saying, “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Maddie turned and nodded. “Yeah. I’m shook up. I’ve never been so scared in all my life.”

Ty reached up and cupped her cheek in his strong hand. “Well, if it’s any comfort to you at all, these are my best men, and they’d all die to protect you.”

Maddie frowned. “No, that’s no help. And I don’t want anyone to die for me and that includes you. I noticed how you covered me all the way up the stairs. I didn’t hear any shots fired, but you would have been the one who got hit… ” Her voice trailed off and she couldn’t finish that sentence. She just couldn’t. It wasn’t even the tears that filled her eyes. It was the constricted feeling in her throat at the thought of him getting hurt, or worse killed, because of her.

Ty brought Maddie to him and held her tight, rubbing a big hand up and down her back and shushing her softly. “Of course I was shielding you, Maddie. This is what I do for a living, and I never intended for you to be touched by it. I couldn’t live if you were hurt. That’s why I’m here. I’m going to take you to a safe place that no one knows about, and have people watching you round the clock. You’ll be perfectly safe.”

“And then what? You’ll go find this maniac, whoever he is? All by yourself, with your best people watching me? That definitely makes me feel better.”

“She’s got you there, Boss,” the smaller, younger man, named Doc, piped up.

Without missing a beat or even looking away from his pretty Maddie, Ty slapped him down. “Shut up and go find out what’s taking so long.”

“Aye, aye, Boss.” He didn’t seem to be very concerned about Ty’s displeasure.

He caught her chin with his fingers and answered her rhetorical questions. “Yes, then I’ll go kill the man who’s trying to kill my woman.”

Maddie’s eyebrow rose. “You seem to be conveniently forgetting that I’m no longer your woman.”

“As far as LaValle is concerned, you’re as good as my wife. He’ll kill anyone he thinks I might have feelings for to draw me out.”

“And isn’t that exactly what you’re letting him do right now? Draw you out once you tuck me safely away?”

“Maddie.” She recognized that tone from long ago, and she didn’t like it. It meant she should drop the subject, or she’d find herself heartily wishing she had. But he wouldn’t spank her in front of all of his men, would he?

After deciding that she didn’t trust him not to, especially this new side of him, Maddie ceased and desisted, although she wasn’t going to forget the subject. She was just choosing the better side of valor, which was a less spanked butt.

Ty pointed out her safety belt for the take off that they were, finally, rapidly approaching, then completely ignored his own need for one and headed up to the cockpit. She could hear the way he issued orders in that short, clipped voice, and was glad she wasn’t on the other end of them.

She looked around herself curiously. This was the first time she’d been on what appeared to be a rather expensively appointed private plane. It certainly beat the sox off of the cramped flights she’d had to take out of Logan on the squalling infant express. Everything was done in shades of white or tan – the comfortable sofas, the coffee tables, what seemed to be a wet bar, and the whole place was paneled to within an inch of its life.

He meandered back to her, though, checking with every man as he did so, his machine gun still lying casually across his back. He looked like the epitome of what any pulp fiction author would label a mercenary.

“Are you hungry? Thirsty? Need to use the bathroom?” he asked as he sat down, giving her the once over as if still looking for wounds that weren’t there.

“I’m fine, thank you,” she answered primly, as if they’d just met and he hadn’t spent more than an hour with his mouth on her clit last night. Alarmed at the way that thought had just popped into her brain unannounced; she asked the first question that came into her mind. “Where are we going?”

“Away.”

Maddie rolled her eyes at his obvious dodge. “Are you ever going to shed the tommy gun, or are we likely to get shot down at fifty thousand feet?”

His hesitation did not give her a warm fuzzy feeling, but he did put the gun down.

“I take it you’re not going to tell me where you’re taking me.” She made it as casual a statement as she could, not a question.

“No, I’m not.” He seemed to almost regret having to give her that answer, but when she met his eyes they were as hard and inscrutable as ever. “But if it helps, it’s a pretty nice place.”

She had imagined being tucked into a hole in the ground, a la Hussein’s spider hole. “It is?”

“Yeah. It’s my own cabin, and there are the usual amenities. I bought it after we split.”

Maddie asked softly, perceptively, “And how many days have you spent there since we divorced?”

His frown was enough of an answer.

Maddie’s eyebrow curved upwards. “If there’s a pool on this, I’ll take less than ten days.”

“Then you’d be wrong,” he countered smugly. “I’ve been trying to relax more. I’ve even taken a vacation and,” he added reluctantly, “that might become more of a permanent situation in the near future.”

She’d had to practically drag him on the one and only vacation they’d taken while they were together. She was amazed. “Who are you and what have you done with Ty Scanlon? Are you some kind of slacker clone?” The idea of Ty as a slacker was so patently ridiculous she couldn’t help but chuckle.

He didn’t say anything, just looked at her, with every one of his myriad, nasty desires bright in his eyes.

A shiver ran through Maddie that she tried, with absolutely no success, to suppress. He was too damned potent for her own good. Her body answered his call with absolutely no help, hell, with no consent from her either.

But he didn’t need it. He knew her better than she knew herself.

Chapter Five:

Deliberately breaking eye contact with him, she tried to marshall her runaway libido and crossed her legs against the deep ache between them. Suddenly, he got up and grabbed her hand, tugging her down a long hallway and through a door, into what looked like a bedroom in a hotel suite. It was gorgeous, king sized bed and all, done in earth tones with maroon accents and lots of wood that reflected the paneling in the rest of the plane.

Maddie turned and glared at Ty. “Why, exactly, did you bring me back here?” she asked, her back up defensively as she crossed her arms over her chest.

He closed the door behind them and gave her an evil, if laconic, smile. “Why, Maddie,” he drawled in a Southern accent he knew turned her on incredibly, even though he wasn’t from the South, “are you implying that I brought you back here,” he advanced on her very slowly, trapping her with depressing ease against the wall of the plane and putting a hand on either side of her head to keep her there, “with less than honorable intentions?”

Their bodies weren’t touching anywhere. He made sure of that. But that was almost worse, and Ty knew it. He could smell her heat, smell that particular scent of hers that was all his Maddie’s, and he wanted to revel in it. Her smell triggered several of his baser instincts, beyond protection. She smelled like home. He’d been more at home with Maddie than he’d ever been with another human being in his life. Well, as open as he could be in his line of work. More settled.

Unfortunately, when they were together the first time, settled wasn’t as appealing as it should have been to him, and he’d been an ass taking too many assignments and spending entirely too much time away from his gorgeous wife.

Well, that was no longer going to be a problem, and he wanted his wife back. And he intended to have her.

She had that wary look in her eyes again, and he was tiring of seeing it. At least last night when he’d hooked up with her on the dance floor she’d been too relaxed from the alcohol to be wary of him. He didn’t like that look at all. She had nothing to be afraid of from him, he thought, if you discounted psycho killers on a vendetta. But he’d certainly never hurt her. Hell, he’d throw down his life for hers in a heartbeat, hadn’t he just shown her that?

But there she was, looking up at him with that edge of caution causing crinkle lines around those beautiful baby blues of hers, and he just had to kiss it away.

Maddie watched him come closer and closer, knowing he was going to kiss her and powerless to stop it, powerless to hide her desires from him. She wanted him to kiss her more than she wanted to take her next breath, and that was entirely unacceptable. But when their lips met and he slanted his mouth across hers, taking the access that she knew he firmly believed was his, dueling with her tongue, nipping it in soft rebuke, then plundering further as he lay his body against hers, shoulder to knees.

He fit between her legs perfectly, as he always had. It was his home. She had no choice but to splay her legs some to accommodate her size, and Ty reached down casually to fit them around his waist, hot, willing crotch to hot willing crotch.

She could feel the size and heat of him behind the zipper of his jeans. She knew how big he was first hand, how slow he would usually go to make sure she had no problems accommodating him, driving her crazy by entering her in deliberately torturous increments that sometimes had her climaxing around him before he was fully seated within her.

Usually he took it very slowly, treated her as if she was so fragile she might shatter into a thousand pieces beneath him if he but moved too quickly or harshly.

Other times, especially if he’d been gone a while, he’d nearly taken her on the hard Italian tile of the kitchen, but even then he had his head on straight enough that he wouldn’t risk hurting her that way, and he’d lift her onto the big oak farmer’s kitchen table and let loose with everything he had, slamming himself up into her without so much as a by your leave. And he’d never once misjudged her receptiveness, either. She’d always been more than wet and ready for him. Ty loved her guttural moans as he sank himself inside her all at once, till she couldn’t physically accept any more of him then drew out and began plunging hard.

He had her. He had her wrapped around that solid wall of flesh that was always raring to go. Even now, after so many years, she was still as much his as she’d ever been when they were together. And he knew it, the snot.

He’d kept his hands to himself, at least. They were both still planted on the wall beside her shoulders, but Maddie knew that if she made a move to get away, they’d be all over her. So she kissed him, kissed him well and good, until the both of them were panting and moaning as if they were filming an X rated movie in here. Maddie’s face flamed what she knew was an unbecoming bright red. She could imagine what his friends were thinking and saying about the noises coming from this end of the plane.

They were probably just outside the door, cheering him on.

That was the impetus she needed to steel her resolve. Maddie slunk her lips out from under his, despite the fact that her body completely rebelled at the mere idea of detaching herself from him; The ache that had bloomed at his nearness and their necking become just that much sharper and harder to bear when she moved her face to the side of his, refusing to let him capture her lips again.

“No. No, Ty, we have to stop. We have to.”

Suddenly, she felt her back on the bed. “No, we don’t.” Maddie remembered that raw, guttural tone from so many long hours spent trying to sate themselves in their big bed. They had never quite managed to satisfy their desire for one another, just top it off for a while.