gone. Very much like how you disappeared. He’s never been seen or heard from since.”
Nick frowned. “Is there any chance he was kidnapped like I was?”
She shrugged. “I suppose. We know AbaCo held more prisoners over the years than the dozen or so they’ve released in the past twelve months. For all I know, there are more men and women just like you still floating around in international waters where law enforcement agencies can’t touch them.”
“Maybe we’ll find the rest of them in the files Kloffman gave us.”
“God, I hope so,” she muttered.
Turning his attention back to Paris, he asked, “Do you have any idea how I found you that first night or why I pulled you out of there?”
“You refused to answer any of my questions about it and just said you ‘had a feeling’ there might be trouble.”
He grinned ruefully. “I highly doubt I was psychic back then. I had to have known something.”
She sighed. “That’s what I thought. But every time I brought it up, we’d end up kissing and then … well, you know. My superiors thought we might be able to develop you into an asset once we learned more about you, so they told me not to press you too hard.”
It was his turn to sigh. “I do wish I could remember falling in love with you the first time. I’m immensely grateful I got to do it again.”
Her arms tightened around his waist. “I’m just grateful I found you. I swore I wouldn’t give up until I did.”
He murmured into her hair, “And it’s that same stubbornness that’s going to bring Adam home to us.”
“From your lips to God’s ears.”
He lifted her chin lightly, sealing her words with a kiss. He’d meant for it to be a simple gesture. Harmless. But instead, her arms wound around his neck, and with a sound of need in the back of her throat, she was suddenly all over him. And her desperation was all the excuse his needed to cut loose.
His arms came around her fiercely, lifting her off her feet and crushing her against him. They traded frantic kisses, tongues clashing as their hands ripped at their clothing. Never breaking the chain of heated kisses, they stumbled toward the master bedroom. He kicked the door shut with one foot as she dragged him by the open shirt toward the bed. They fell across the mattress, and his hands plunged into the deep V-neck of her dress, finding and seeking plump handfuls of female flesh. He shoved her clothing aside, his mouth fastening on one rosy peak. She arched up into him with a cry of need, filling his mouth with her bounty.
And then she was tearing at his remaining clothes, dragging his zipper down and freeing his rock-hard erection. He lifted his mouth away from her long enough to mutter, “How do you feel about three children?”
She laughed and fumbled in his back pants pocket, freeing his wallet, and fishing out the ubiquitous emergency condom inside.
He yanked her dress up and her panties down while she shoved his slacks aside and put on his protection. And then she grabbed his hips with eager hands, pulling him forward impatiently, her legs wrapping around him hungrily. He plunged into her heat, groaning at her tightness as she surged up around him.
It wasn’t pretty or elegant. It was a fast and furious tangle of clothes and limbs and heavy breathing as they raced pell-mell for escape from everything to do with their real lives. It felt so good to lose himself completely in her, to sink into the pleasure of her body, to turn himself over to pure sensation, to turn off his mind completely and think of nothing at all. Just the blinding ecstasy of nerves shouting for release and the ever-more-urgent collisions of flesh on flesh as they both strained toward oblivion.
The cries started in the back of her throat, small at first, then building in intensity as her climax neared. He kissed her deeply, sucking up her pleasure hungrily. Their tongues took on the rhythmic movement of their bodies and the slick slide nearly pushed him over the edge. Her body went taut beneath his, arching up hard into him. He tore his mouth away from hers to stare down at her, reveling in the way her eyes glazed over and her breath stopped as a shattering orgasm broke over her. Her shuddering groan was the final straw. He plunged deep one last time as his own body exploded.
It was almost as if he passed out for a second. Everything went dark and peaceful and quiet, and nothing existed but shivering pleasure tearing through his body in wave after wave of exquisite, almost painfully intense, sensation.
Time lurched into motion once more. Laura was panting and her hair was a disheveled and entirely sexy mess around her face. Perspiration coated his bare chest, and somehow his shirt had gotten tangled up around his shoulders. Laura’s dress was askew and her lips were pink and slightly swollen.
“We shouldn’t have,” she gasped.
“Why not?”
“Adam. Here we are having a good old time … wasting precious minutes we should be using to find him … so selfish …” She rolled away from him, yanking violently at her clothes, putting them back in place if not exactly to rights.
Who was she referring to when she spoke of selfishness? Him? Her? Both of them? “Sweetheart, a little emotional release isn’t a bad thing. We’re both stretched to the breaking point—”
She cut him off with a sharp gesture of denial.
If he knew one thing, it was how to survive. And that meant being supremely selfish sometimes. Grabbing happiness whenever and wherever he could find it, hoarding it to himself, and reliving it greedily. He tried again. “You’ll be no good to Adam if you don’t take care of yourself.”
“I’m fine. He needs me, and I let myself be distracted…. I can’t believe you went there with your son’s life on the line.”
“I’m sorry. But I think you’re underestimating how stressed out you were. Don’t you feel even a little bit better?”
“No. I feel guilty and self-indulgent. If something happens to Adam, it’ll be my fault.”
“Laura.” He took her by both shoulders and forced her to look up at him. “You did not kidnap him. You are not responsible for this. Don’t take guilt onto yourself that is not yours to carry.”
“Easy for you to say,” she snapped. “You conveniently forgot everything in your life you should feel guilty for. You’ve got a built-in free pass.”
He pulled back sharply. So. The truth finally came out. She did resent his memory loss, and she didn’t forgive him for it. He’d long suspected she harbored hidden anger about it, but she was such a damned good actress, she’d never really let on how she felt.
He understood her perspective. Really. But it wasn’t as if he could do anything about it. He was what he was, like it or leave it. And recent mind-blowing sex notwithstanding, apparently she’d rather leave it. Leave him.
He went cold from the inside out. It was as if he froze, every cell and fiber of his being crystallizing in an agonizingly slow spread of needle-sharp pain. The muscles of his face froze, and he couldn’t make a meaningful facial expression in that moment if his life depended on it. Only his thoughts continued to function, spinning fruitlessly round and round like a car doing donuts on sheet ice.
How were they supposed to proceed from here? Either she trusted him or she didn’t. Forgave him or she didn’t. Accepted him—all of him, his past and his problems included—or she didn’t.
The verdict was in. His attempt to make a life with her and the kids was an epic failure.
His survival instinct kicked in. Must keep busy. Give himself small jobs to do. Count the ribs in the walls of his box. Check his food and water supply. Exercise and stretch. Press his eyes close to the small hole in one wall of the box. Keep his retinas acclimated to light. Think about the business plan for the new company he was going to start when he got out of here. Just. Keep. Moving.
Mechanically,