Shadows and Silk Page 14

  She tried to breathe, but even the simplest of requests her brain was making to her body weren’t being heeded.

  “Please, please—” she chanted over and over again.

  “Whatever you want, baby,” he crooned.

  His fingers left her and he scooted out from underneath her, leaving her bereft and hanging on the precipice of pleasure. Her nipples grazed the terrycloth of the towel, and her hips searched for him. She was seconds away from ripping the blindfold from her eyes when she felt the tapered end of something unfamiliar.

  “You asked what I had hidden away in my suitcase,” he said, pressing the device inside of her without stopping to let her adjust. She was more than ready for it, but it grew wider and wider as he continued to push, until she felt stretched and flames of pleasure seared her to her very soul.

  “I wish you could see yourself as I do,” he whispered. “Just relax against it. Take it all, baby.”

  She bit the back of her hand as the toy grew impossibly big, and then the flared base popped in easily, so it was locked inside of her. Darcy cried out as the oxygen finally exploded from her lungs, and the electricity gathering in her womb crackled through her nerve endings and across her clit.

  It was too much. She’d never take it and him too. Her hands clenched at the towel and she tucked her knees beneath her, huddling against the shivers that wracked her body.

  “I can’t—I can’t,” she cried out, rocking back and forth.

  “Shh,” Brant said. “I’ve got you, baby.” He soothed her with a caress and a soft kiss, and then slowly turned her body so she lay on her back. He splayed her legs wide and then settled himself between them.

  Darcy felt the head of his cock probe at her entrance, and she whimpered, her hands grasping at the taut muscles of his arms for an anchor. He settled over her, but didn’t enter her, and before long the anticipation had her shuddering with what was to come.

  And then the tie around her eyes loosened, and she saw reddish light through her closed lids.

  “Look at me,” he commanded.

  His voice sounded strained, almost as if he were in pain, and Darcy’s eyes fluttered open. The dark green of his eyes was all she could see—as if she were looking straight into his soul and to the man he wanted to be. It was a powerful connection, and she realized with a start that when he walked away at the end of their time that there would never be anyone else like this. It would have been a mockery of everything she’d ever believed in.

  Her knees hitched higher around his hips, begging him to slide inside of her, while the toy stretching her ass made her burn with a dark desire she was almost ashamed of. He moved against her, slicking the head of his cock in her juices, but still not pushing home.

  “Tell me what I want to hear, Darcy.” He pushed against her just a little so she could feel the stretching at her pussy. “Tell me,” he demanded.

  She shook her head in denial, wanting to close her eyes to block out the pain she saw in his face, but she couldn’t look away.

  “I said tell me. You’ve told me before.”

  She bit her lip to stay silent and keep from giving in to his demands. He couldn’t keep asking her to tear what was left of her pride and her heart to shreds. It wasn’t fair.

  “Damn you,” he said, his eyes blazing now with a combination of need and anger. “Damn us both.”

  And then his lips came down on hers just as he pushed the full length of his cock inside of her with one stroke. He swallowed her scream at the invasion, and her legs clamped around him as he began to move as if hell itself were licking at his heels.

  He was so thick and full inside of her, just a thin wall separating his hot flesh from the toy in her anus, and the pleasure was indescribable. Fiery licks of sensation devoured her from the inside, so she was stretched between a fine line of pleasure and pain as he began to move with short, forceful thrusts.

  Sweat dampened his skin and the thick cords of his neck muscles strained as he pounded inside of her. But the green of his eyes never wavered from hers.

  “Fuck. You’re so tight. It almost hurts.”

  She was incapable of speech. Even of breathing. Her back arched and her hips welcomed every thrust, and her pussy spasmed in uncontrollable surges that were beyond her control, milking him deeper inside of her.

  Her nails dug into his arms as liquid flames erupted from the center of her body, and she heard him cry out her name as the world dissolved around her.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Brant wondered what the human body’s threshold for pain was. And then he wondered how close he was to achieving it. Because he swore the hole where he thought his heart should have been was breaking right in two.

  He pulled away from Darcy’s still quivering body, and quickly removed the toy, storing it in a bag to be cleaned later. And then he rolled onto his back and threw his arm across his eyes in case the tears he felt building inside of him actually came. The breeze cooled the perspiration on their bodies, and he knew he should hold her right now, but to God’s honest truth, he needed someone to hold him first.

  “If I could love anyone it would be you,” he said, his throat dry and the words barely audible.

  But the sharp sob of breath told him she had heard, followed by a self-deprecating laugh that made him hate the man he’d become. She rolled away from him and curled into herself, but he didn’t have the strength or the courage to pull her back.

  “I was married before.” He didn’t know he was going to say the words until they were already out, and now he had no choice but to follow through. He owed her an explanation. She needed to know why. He felt her go still beside him, and knew she was listening, even though she stayed unusually silent.

  “Her name was Vivian Rothschild, and we met in a Miami bar while I was working undercover doing surveillance. She caught my eye because I thought it was you at first, and I wondered what the hell you were doing in Miami and how I was supposed to keep my hands off you without your brothers around to run interference.”

  Brant kept his arm over his eyes, but he felt Darcy turn toward him and knew her eyes were watching.

  “But she wasn’t you, and I was almost grateful. It was an instant click for me, and I thought This is it. She’s the one. I didn’t find out until later that she’d studied you—how you moved and the expressions that crossed your face. Even that smart mouth. She knew you inside out, and reeled me in like a goddamned fish. We got married that weekend. I didn’t need to wait. I knew she was the one.

  “Your brothers didn’t even find out about the wedding until later, and I could see the knowing disappointment in their eyes as they looked at her and thought of you. It’s as pissed as Cade’s ever been at me. He didn’t talk to me for months. But I made them swear they wouldn’t tell you. I figured I’d break the news when the time was right. Maybe you’d settle down yourself, and then it wouldn’t be so hard.”

  “Am I so hard to love then?” she asked. The sadness in her voice was enough to break him.

  “You were a fucking child. What kind of bastard would I have been to have pursued you that young?”

  “I was eighteen. Not a child. And adult enough to recognize love when it slapped me in the face. Age doesn’t put limits on things like that.”

  “Believe me, society and your brothers would have. You have no idea what it felt like to look at you at sixteen and know that everything about the way you made me feel was wrong. And the older you got, the harder it became to fight. But you still had a lot of growing up to do. I wanted you to come to me as a woman. But if Vivian hadn’t come along when she did, I would have stolen what was left of your youth and dreams and taken you for myself.”

  “If that’s what you thought then you knew nothing of my dreams,” she said, the anger coming through. “I guess it’s lucky Vivian came along. Maybe I should thank her.”

  “You’d have to take a one-way ticket to hell to find her. It turns out she was a Russian double agent, and I had just enough s
ecurity clearance to make me a target. Political stirrings were rising in Russia, and DHS had moles everywhere over there. They have the largest supply of weapons of mass destruction, and things are volatile politically.”

  Brant sat up and scrubbed his hands through his hair. He still hadn’t looked at her. It was hard enough to get this out without those witchy eyes on him. He watched the waves coming in closer and closer to where they sat, and he wondered briefly how long they’d been out in the sun.

  “Like I said,” he continued. “She studied you and spent months setting the stage. We were married for six months before the lust started to clear and my brain began picking up on small things it should have seen from the beginning. My security clearance had been raised again, and I was working my way up the ranks pretty quickly. I knew identities of agents we had undercover in Russia, and several of them reported to me directly. Declan help me set a trap for her.” He laughed but there was no humor to be found. “I went to him with my suspicions, and Dec just gave me this look like, “What took you so long?”

  “Dec suspected her as a plant from the moment he met her, but he waited until I saw it for myself. If he’d had hard evidence he would have come to me of course, but some things a man just needs to realize on his own.”

  The breeze had picked up and clouds had begun to roll in. It looked like a late afternoon storm was brewing, and it fit comfortably with his mood. The waves grew larger and more violent the longer they sat.

  “What happened?” she finally asked.

  The frisson of fear gripped his belly as he thought of what he had to tell her. Of what could make her look at him with revulsion instead of the love she’d tried to hide.

  “We laid the bait and waited. I can’t tell you how eerie it was to look into her face and still see you. Even after six months of marriage the resemblance took me off guard on occasion. But I knew in my heart and my head you weren’t the same, even though it was still you who clouded my mind.”

  “Should I be flattered?” she asked. “You think it does anything for my ego to know you couldn’t stomach the thought of loving me, so you had to find the first substitute that crossed your path.”

  “No. I knew it would hurt you. But every time I looked at you, I felt the noose tighten a little more around my neck. I was scared. And I was afraid I wouldn’t be the same man, be as effective as an agent, if I gave in.”

  “You have no idea how hard it is not to hate you because of that,” she said.

  “I can make it easier.”

  His stomach clenched in fear, and he wanted to punch something—anything. Darcy had every right to hate him, and he deserved it. He’d married another woman who reminded him of her and kept it from her. And then, years later, when he’d gotten tired of fighting the attraction, he’d taken her to his bed and then run away as fast as he could because one time with Darcy had made him feel like his fate was sealed. And the fear she could betray him as easily as Vivian had clouded his mind and his judgment.

  “I know this hurts you,” he said. “But I need to tell you all of it. Tell you the truth.” He took her silence as agreement and forged ahead. “Vivian knew how to get to me. How to seduce me with little glimpses of you. And she used that any time she thought I might be watching her too closely. That’s what happened on the afternoon she took the bait. I knew when she walked through the door that she meant to kill me, but I let the scene play out. I told myself I was in control, and I was already trying to separate the two of you in my mind at that point. It was difficult, because when I tried to think of your face it was hers I saw, and my loathing of her began to eat away at what I felt for you.

  “She saw me waiting for her when she came home, and she gave me that look you sometimes give. The one that makes the dimple flutter in your cheek and your eyes sparkle like you have a secret. She stuck out her chin and propped a fist on her hip, and I just lost control. I was so angry that she could manipulate me that easily. That she could make me want her by pretending to be you. So I took her with every raging emotion that was left in my body, and I said to hell with the both of you. I couldn’t see past the haze of anger, so I barely felt it at first when she slid the knife between the ribs in my back.”

  Darcy gasped, but he couldn’t seem to stop talking, and he sure as hell couldn’t face her.

  “She was a trained agent, so she knew where to put the knife to kill me the easiest way. But I guess luck was on my side, because the knife didn’t nick my heart. I had just enough strength left to roll off the bed and grab the gun from the nightstand. I didn’t even blink when I shot her. I was just glad it was over, and I lay there just waiting to die. I figure I had a few minutes at the most. I tried thinking of you. To remember your face instead of hers, but it didn’t work.”

  “My God, Brant.”

  Her breath hitched on a sob, but he forged ahead, ready to get it over once and for all. “Declan knew she’d taken the bait and was already on his way over, so he’s the one who found me and got me to a hospital. I don’t remember much after that. I just remember being angry. I’ve been angry for a long time. I threw myself in my work, and said to hell with you and any memories I had of her. They weren’t real anyway. And I knew the whole time I was fighting a losing battle.”

  Her fingers lightly traced the scar on his back, and he dropped his head down when he felt her lips kiss it lightly.

  “You told me I looked at you like I hated you that summer I came to stay with your family to recover.” he said. He turned to look at her and saw she sat behind him, her knees up against her chest and her arms wrapped around them protectively. Fat tears slid down her cheeks, but he couldn’t read the emotions in her eyes.

  “And the truth is, part of me did hate you. If I hadn’t wanted you so much I never would have ended up where I had. I was angry and bitter, and I realized I couldn’t trust anyone, much less myself. That didn’t stop me from wanting you, but wanting and loving aren’t the same thing. I thought I’d loved Vivian at first. And now that I know what a fool I was, I just can’t take that kind of a chance again.”

  The reasoning for the paths he’d chosen smacked him between the eyes with the force of a hammer. Vivian’s betrayal had almost killed him literally. But if he ever broke down and vowed to Darcy that he’d love her forever, and then she betrayed him by leaving or deciding she didn’t really love him, then he would truly be destroyed, heart and soul.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Darcy didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t possibly think of the right words after the story Brant had just told her. And the words still didn’t come an hour later after they’d each showered in separate bathrooms and gotten dressed.

  Brant had pulled up the photographs they’d taken of the glyphs the night before, and she was studying them on the computer and trying to ignore the way he was watching her. He’d closed in on himself as much as she had, and neither of them knew quite the next step to take.

  A storm raged outside, much like the one raging inside of her, and rain slapped against the glass doors and shadows danced across the hardwood floor.

  “These glyphs are different,” she finally said, breaking the silence.

  She took a drink of the cold juice at her elbow to wet her dry throat. They’d been out in the sun long enough for her to get a fairly dark tan. If she’d had a fair complexion, she’d have a hell of a sunburn. As it was, she just needed to hydrate.

  Brant came around and sat on the bar stool next to her, but she edged away so not even their arms or thighs touched. She needed some distance to think. The corners of his mouth pinched at her slight, but he looked straight ahead at the computer screen.

  “How is it different?”

  “The other clues all had coordinates included. I’m assuming it’s a backup system just in case whoever is reading the glyphs can’t figure out the clues. Though they’ve been pretty straight forward up to this point. These glyphs have no coordinates. Only the clues.”

  “What do they say?”
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br />   “This group here,” she said, pointing out the symbols that had been found inside a janitor’s closet at the Palacio Concordia, “says, The land of temples and Kings has turned to dust, and the fiery mountains protect their memory.”

  “Fiery mountains,” Brant said. “Volcanoes?”

  “That would be my guess.”

  “What does the other group of glyphs say?”

  “The jaguar king sits upon a broken throne, and the heads of the fallen rise.”

  “Hmm, not as straight forward as the whole fiery mountain thing.”

  Darcy’s lips twitched at his wry tone. “The problem with volcanoes is that Mexico has something close to three thousand of them. We need to find a group of them together that has ruins in the valley below. The land of temples and Kings is somewhat vague, but it leads me to believe it was one of the major sites.”

  “What about that last part with the broken throne and the floating heads? Which is creepy as shit, by the way.”

  “You haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of creepy with the Maya,” she said, draining the rest of her juice.

  Brant got up and refilled her glass and then put it back in front of her. He grabbed a beer for himself.

  “Good to know. Though I guess they missed the mark with the whole end of the world thing.”

  Weren’t they being polite and civilized, Darcy thought, somewhat amused. It might have been the first time in fifteen years where they were going out of their way to not ruffle each other’s feathers. She was already missing the sparring.

  “The second clue is a little harder to decipher,” she said. “The jaguar king is pretty common. And broken throne could either be a literal or figurative reference if it’s talking about a fallen kingdom. What you said about the floating heads might be a more accurate term than the actual heads rising. The problem is, I can’t think of one single site in Mexico where all of these things add up.”