Jill’s body was discovered off the coast of Lois Key in a swampy area. The wide cavity surrounding the wreckage indicates her life came to an end after a high-speed impact.
The Transportation Safety Board is investigating the crash. Officials have yet to confirm the cause. Memorial services were held today at 2:00 PM at Summerland Key Cove Airport.
Chapter 37
Liv lay on her side on the mattress, showered, fed, and…depleted. Josh had kept her talking through the night, prompting her to share memories of Mom and preventing her from crawling inside herself. Eyes itchy and sore, she’d cried more than she had in seven years. If she didn’t stop, she would find herself ass-up in the prison of her own self-pity.
Mom had survived her death. She could survive Mom’s. And she would. With Josh’s hand in hers.
He’d run their dirty soup bowls downstairs two minutes earlier. Her fingers were clenched so tightly in the sheets, one would’ve thought he’d been gone for hours. Her lungs didn’t seem to suck enough air, her focus blurring on the door, awaiting his return. When had she become so fucking needy?
The angel in the photo she’d tacked to the wall smiled down at her with eyes and hair as dark as hers. So much better than a video. She had a snapshot of her daughter’s face, forever looking back at her. Perhaps Mr. E gave it to her to cushion the murder of Mom. Or to lessen his own regret. But she knew that was bullshit.
She’d failed to nail the deal with Traquero, which earned her Mom’s death. But he’d still given the referral, which earned her Mattie’s photo. His motivation for not sending a video had to do with the fact he didn’t trust her with a tablet and access to e-mail without Van present.
That thought awoke an unwelcome feeling about Van’s departure. It wasn’t odd for him to hunt immediately upon receipt of a buyer’s specifications. But given his enraged reaction to the meeting with Traquero, why hadn’t he waited for her return and the opportunity to punish her?
What if Van had left to kill Mom himself? Was he cruel enough to not only let it happen but make it happen? Despite his violent nature, she struggled to believe he was the hand that brought down Mom’s plane, but how well did she really know him?
She and Josh had discussed going to the FBI to request an investigation into the plane crash. Hell, they wanted to divulge everything. How closely was Mr. E monitoring them? How easy was his access to Mattie? Could the authorities hunt down a masked man before that man hurt her daughter? It was too much risk.
The door clicked open, and Josh’s broad frame brimmed her horizon. Relief whooshed from her lungs. He tilted his head to the side, and his alert eyes narrowed on her fists. She uncurled her fingers.
A muscle jumped in his bare chest. “You still think I’m going to leave you?”
She shook her head swiftly. No, the stubborn bastard wasn’t going anywhere. “I think I’m just feeling a little raw.” And exposed. Definitely not a feeling she was used to.
The sharp lines in his face softened. He closed the door and strode toward her, the towel around his waist hung low beneath crowded bricks of abdominal muscles.
He bent over her and planted his fists beside her hip, the mattress depressing beneath the weight of his vascular arms and upper body. Jesus, his proximity was distracting to a fault. It wasn’t just the cuts of his body, crystalline green eyes, and strong lips that demanded attention. His pursuit to please her was a perceptible aura that charged the space around him.
Looking up into the face of a man who would damn himself to protect her, she knew she’d found her sanctuary, her deliverance, her future.
He swooped in to kiss her, and she got a lungful of his nourishing scent. Clean, pure, Josh. She kissed him back, licking his mouth, tasting the familiar intimacy, and clinging to his love.
His tongue trailed fire around hers, leaving no part of her mouth untouched. It was impossible to be afraid when he was so close, so intense, that the barriers between them burned away. He moaned against her lips and kissed her with a pressing necessity, stoking a flame in her belly and coaxing a curl of something she hadn’t felt in years. Joy.
Guilt breathed through her, a foul-smelling intruder, whispering her failings. Seven years of slavery, chained by a threat, and she still lost Mom.
Her lips stretched back. Their teeth tapped. She turned her chin away, but he caught it. Then he caught her eyes.
Fingers pinching her jaw, his expression swam in contemplation. He stared at her, panting from the kiss. “What would your mom say to you right now?”
A quiver interrupted the rigid set of her chin, her lungs pumping to hold in a thousand clogged tears. She closed her eyes and saw Mom laughing, jumping into the wind, her hair whipping around her smiling face. “She’d say, use a condom.”
He huffed. “I think your mom was much more profound than that. Try again.”
She opened her eyes, diving straight into his. “She used to say, what defines us is not how we fall but how we land.”
He leaned in and stroked his nose along her scar. “You’ve survived the hardest landings. You’ll survive this one.”
Was that what she’d been doing all these years? Landing? “Feels more like plummeting out of control.” Every harrowing moment was chained to the next one. What if the cycle was finally broken? If she could find Mattie, then what? She’d never considered a future outside of the attic walls. Until Josh.
He stood and adjusted the towel at his hip, watching her. “You’re hurting, Liv. I want you to give it to me. All of your hurt.”
Her eyebrows snapped together, her chest pinching. “What?”
He studied her, rubbing his jaw, gears spinning behind his eyes. Then he turned and paced to the cabinet. The round brawn of his ass flexed beneath the towel. The muscles in his back compressed and expanded as he worked the combo lock. Clearly, he’d figured out all her lock codes were the same. He opened the door. What the hell was he doing?
With a length of chain and a flogger in hand, he returned to the mattress. “You feel like you’re plummeting? Like you don’t have any control? Then control me.” He grabbed her wrist and put the implements in her hand. “Do this on our terms. Not Traquero’s or Mr. E’s or anyone else’s.”
She glanced at the flogger and chain then searched his hopeful eyes for a long moment. He wasn’t just new to sexual submission. He was new to sex. He might not have consciously known what he was asking, but it was a request voiced from a sequestered part of his identity, one she’d seen rise to the surface with the first cut of her cane. Of course, he wanted her to fuck him. But he also wanted her to hurt him. His hard powerful body seemed to crave the rough handling, being pushed to its limits.
Letting the chain spill into her lap, she slapped the leather tips of the flogger against her palm.
He didn’t flinch, his eyes hooded and penetrating as he crouched before her. The towel separated at his thigh, the downward angle of his legs hiding what was beneath.
“You want to explore your naughty side, Josh?”
His chin tilting slightly, his cheeks sucking in with a steady inhale, he traced a knuckle over her nipple where it tightened against her t-shirt. His eyes didn’t waver from hers, a luminescent glow beneath the determined mantle of his dark eyebrows. “I want to explore everything with you.”
The idea sent a tremor through her, fanning a needy blaze between her legs.
It was around three in the morning, but they were both too restless to sleep. They had nothing but time on their hands until Van returned. She could either spend the days wallowing in misery or…