Secrets and Seduction: 5 Romance Novels (20 page)

“Don’t panic, Nick. I’ll put out an immediate APB on Scott’s and Marisa’s cars.”

“If anything happens to her … ” Nick couldn’t finish. He didn’t know how he’d be able to go on if she wasn’t in the world. He gripped the steering wheel tighter.

“Don’t think that way. I’m hanging up now to call in those APBs.”

Nick prayed for the first time in a long time. He prayed to see Marisa again.

• • •

Marisa jerked the steering wheel to the right onto the Showboat’s drive.

“Hey! Turn the car back.” Brooke held the gun out toward Marisa.

Marisa didn’t care. She had nothing to lose and everything to gain with her plan. She wasn’t going to let a gun stop her and she didn’t think Brooke would risk firing while Marisa was driving.

The car gained speed down the inclined driveway. She could see moonlight shimmering off the lake through a gap in the trees.

“Turn the car around,” Scott said from the back seat.

But Marisa pushed the accelerator further to the floor. The car slewed around the curves. It sailed over the last hill landing with a whump that jarred her teeth.

In her peripheral vision, she was happy to see Brooke thrown against the door. Ha! There was a reason seatbelts were the law.

Scott gripped her seat. “What the hell are you doing? Stop this car at once!”

When hell freezes over,
which was where she intended to send Scott and Brooke.

It was a clear, sloped path to Seneca Lake from here. She stomped the pedal to the metal. The car raced for the water.

“Jesus Christ! What are you doing?” Scott’s voice was high with panic.

“Stop this car!” Brooke waved the gun at Marisa.

Die, bitch,
Marisa thought at her.

“Omigod!” Scott shrieked as the front tires hit the wooden retaining wall.

Suddenly the car was airborne over the water. Marisa had a moment to savor the beauty of flying before she worked the electric window controls. As the front end of the car dipped toward the water, she locked the doors, turned off the engine and removed the key.

Brooke screamed. “You bitch!”

The impact was more jarring than Marisa had expected, and with the windows cracked open and the driver’s side completely down, the car sank a lot faster than she’d anticipated. Cold water flooded in. She released her seat belt and slid the seat all the way back. It all happened so slowly and that made her desperate. She didn’t want to drown in this car. She had a lot to live for.

Working her way out of her seat, Marisa found it hard at first to push against the water.

Scott pummeled the car door. “Open the door!”

Marisa thanked God for childproof locks.

Brooke pushed against the door on her side. Marisa thought she’d get away free while they were occupied, but Brooke turned and seemed to realize Marisa was about to escape.

“Oh no you don’t!” Brooke raised the gun and fired.

Marisa felt the burn against her arm as she ducked her head beneath the water, but it didn’t stop her from pushing out through her open window and kicking free of the car. Nothing was going to stop her now. She swam in the direction she thought the surface was, kicking for all she was worth.

Before she expected it, her head broke the water’s surface into air that felt chilled against her face. She gasped oxygen into her straining lungs. She was about 25 feet from shore. She marveled at how far the car had flown. She began a breaststroke to the retaining wall. Ahead of her, floodlights came on at the motel. A man ran across the lawn toward her.

Behind her she heard a splash. Damn! Marisa whirled and saw Brooke’s pale hair and face reflected in the floodlight. If Brooke still had the gun, the people on the shore were in danger.

For a moment, Marisa was torn between trying to warn them and trying to eliminate Brooke’s lethal threat. Protecting people seemed to have become second nature to her and she’d never have a better chance than now.

Marisa flung herself back toward Brooke. If she could catch the other woman by surprise … By the time Marisa reached her, Brooke had raised the gun out of the water. It glinted in the light.

“Stop right there.” Brooke didn’t look so dangerous trying to stay afloat in the still disturbed water.

With all her strength, Marisa swung her arm up under Brooke’s. The impact made the gun discharge, the loud blast echoing through the darkness. Marisa bobbed below the surface and when she kicked upward again she powered both her fists into Brooke’s throat.

The other woman made strangled noises and then her eyes rolled up in her head. Her face sagged into the water. She deserved to drown.

Marisa sighed. Damn it, she’d have to save Brooke. She turned Brooke over so that she could grip the other woman around the neck. Slowly she paddled backwards to shore. Twenty-five feet had never seemed so long a distance.

When she was close enough she shouted, “Call 911.”

“Already did!” a man shouted back.

Well, that was good. Marisa was feeling a little worn out from this hero business. She hoped she could see Nick soon and let him take over from here.

• • •

“What’d you find out?” Nick asked as Brian replaced the radio in his squad car.

“We just got a call. A car drove into the lake fifteen miles north of here.”

Nick already had his car keys in his hand. “Jesus. Is it Marisa?”

“I don’t know, but I’m heading up there now.”

“I’m going too.” Nick headed for his car at a run.

“The Showboat Motel & Restaurant. Watch for the sign. I’ll lead the way.”

Please God, let Marisa be all right,
Nick prayed. He knew it had to be her, but he wondered what had happened. All the way there, as he drove at reckless speeds behind the strobing red and blue lights, his thoughts tortured him with what he might find when he arrived.

He skidded his car to a halt in the parking lot next to Brian’s, jumped out and ran after his friend toward the lake. There was a line of people standing at the edge, and a ring of people around a woman’s body on the ground.

A woman’s body!

“Marisa!” He pushed the bystanders out of the way. “Marisa!” His brain couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing — the woman was blonde. Brian dropped to his knees beside her.

“Nick.”

Nick’s head swiveled toward the voice. There stood Marisa with a blanket around her and her dark hair soaking wet. He nearly sagged with relief. He stumbled to her.

“Are you all right?”

“I am now.” Her words came out through chattering teeth.

As though she was as breakable as spun glass, with wonder that she was alive and safe, he gathered her into his arms and sighed when she snuggled against him. “I was afraid I’d never see you again.”

“Me too. When they told me to drive, I knew they didn’t intend for me to come back.”

He pulled far enough away to look into her face. “They?”

She nodded. “Scott and his secretary.”

The blonde woman on the ground. He turned them so he could watch Brian work on Brooke. “What happened to her?”

Marisa lifted her chin. “I hit her in the throat.”

Nick couldn’t help the smile that broke free. “Good for you.”

“She made me mad. She was the one who kept trying to kill me.”

“No wonder Scott had an alibi. Where is he, by the way?” Nick looked around.

“In the car.”

His gaze followed hers to the water. “In the car.” He sounded as stupid as he felt.

“He killed Carolyn.”

Now he understood. He looked at the water again and agreed with what she’d done. But, “Why didn’t you try to get help? Why didn’t you stop at my place instead of here?”

“I found I can be a hero too, Nick.”

As more cops pulled into the parking lot with sirens blaring and lights strobing, he wondered where he’d heard that recently. He had the women he loved in his arms. He was content for the moment.

The sky contained the first hints of sunrise by the time Marisa had had her gunshot wound stitched at the hospital, she’d satisfied her mother that she was fine, satisfied herself that Scott was truly dead and Brooke was in jail, and had given her statement to the police.

Marisa and Nick had escaped to his cabin to slake the desperate edge off their need for one another. Now she lay in his arms, soaking in the fire-hot heat of his flesh. Still, she couldn’t seem to get warm enough. She pressed her lower body closer to his where their legs were tangled together.

“Give me a minute. That time nearly killed me.” His voice sounded thick.

“You say that every time.” She tried to joke; only she didn’t feel like joking. This time with Nick was precious.

“I have to go home tomorrow,” he said in a quiet voice.

Her happiness bubble burst. “I know.” It was difficult to speak. She needed to tell him she loved him, but he was leaving and she didn’t know how he felt about her.

“I wish I could stay, but as soon as I see the department shrink, I’ll be cleared to go back to work.”

“I know how important your job is to you.”

“It is.”

“Have you ever considered being an EMT someplace less … stressful?”

“Brian mentioned it to me. He said I could get a job almost anywhere in the country.”

“You could go to California, learn how to surf.” Marisa swallowed. She needed to know if he was another Kevin.

“I’m a New York boy. I don’t think I’d be happy there. I like the seasons.”

Marisa took a breath and plunged. “Do you think you could be happy here?”

Nick gripped her face between his hands. “Marisa, it’s too soon for you. Less than a week ago you were preparing to marry another man.”

“I know what I want, Nick, and that’s you. I love you.”

He hugged her tight. “You’re mistaking desire for love.”

Marisa pulled away from him, far enough to see his face was strained and serious once more. “I know what real love is now.”

Nick shook his head. “We’ve hardly spent any normal time together. When we haven’t been making love, we’ve been at the hospital, or fighting unknown villains, or fighting fire. That’s not real life.”

She opened her mouth to argue, but he placed a finger over her lips. “I bought another stimulator ring. Let’s use it now.”

Marisa kissed his finger and then moved it aside to kiss him hard. The fool. The sexy, warm, wonderful fool. What did it take to get through to him that she loved him when he’d lost hope that anything good would happen to him?

He swept his tongue into her mouth. She slipped a hand between their bodies to where his cock had hardened and stroked him. He groaned.

His hands found her sensitive nipples, stroking them to urgent tightness. She writhed against him, her breath coming in pants.

“How can I want you this badly?” He groaned, thrusting into her hands.

“It’s only as badly as I want you. Please, Nick, fill me. Fill me hard and deep.”

He growled and reached into the nightstand. Together they ripped open the packages and sheathed him with the condom and the vibrator ring. Then he entered her and to Marisa it felt like coming home.

Nick turned the vibrator on and began to ride her, pressing against her clitoris with each stroke. Marisa tried to hold back the tide, but Nick had taught her body to give in to the pleasure. The first orgasm crested fast.

She helped Nick pull her legs high up his back so that he applied constant stimulation to her clitoris. She rode him, accepting his deep thrusts, wanting to take him fully into her body and become one with him.

As the minutes wore on, he seemed to catch her desperation. He drove deeper, harder, almost violently.

“Come on. Give me everything, Marisa.”

She tried. She raised her hips to his. He folded her body practically in half, seeming driven by her cries to seal himself to her.

But they were still separate. She wanted no division from him. “Make me yours.”

Nick rolled her over. Repositioning her on her knees, he became a wild man. His thrusts were urgent. “Mine. Mine. Mine.” He chanted to his thrusts.

No sooner had the vibrator ceased, than Nick thrust hard and came with a hoarse shout. For a moment, she felt the unity she desired. But it lasted only a moment.

Marisa dropped her head to the bed, panting. Behind her, Nick’s breaths sawed in and out.

As he withdrew, wetness slid down her inner thigh.

Nick groaned. “Shit.” She knew what had happened before he told her. “The condom broke.”

It was as though fate had intervened, but she wouldn’t be ruled by fate. She rolled over to face him.

For a moment, his expression looked pained. Then it firmed with resolve. “I’ll marry you if you’re pregnant.”

It was not the words she wanted to hear, not when she wanted a profession of love. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“I know my duty, Marisa. I won’t do to you what your father did to your mother.”

“I don’t need to be rescued, Nick, and you don’t have to sacrifice yourself for me. I love you too much for that.”

“You don’t love me. You’re still in love with Kevin.”

“No, I’m not.” She shook her head. “Kevin was puppy love, a high school crush. You … you’re the only man for me.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying.”

Marisa sat up. “I’m saying I want to make you happy. I want to see you smile every day. I want to wake up to you making coffee, and I want to go to bed every night so sated by your lovemaking that I don’t hear thunderstorms. I want to make love to you every fall at Eagle Cliff Falls with the cold water and your heated flesh. I want to walk the gorge with you and watch you go off fishing with Brian on weekends. I want to have children with you.”

The reminder of children brought pain to his eyes. She tried to chase it away. “But not if it means trapping you where you don’t want to be. I want a partner, not a savior.” She read in his eyes that he wanted what she offered, but he couldn’t believe it.

If you love something, set it free, so she did. “You can go home if you want to, Nick. Go home to the stress of a joyless life. Or you can stay here with me. I don’t want you to go, but I won’t hold you here. If you need time,” she swallowed, “take all the time you need. I’ll be here waiting.”