Stranded but not Alone (Midnight Moanings Collection) (16 page)

The serious look on his face gave her flutters. He wasn’t having sex with her any longer. Seth was making love to her.

In one swift caress, she found herself straddling his lap, arms around his neck, and him thrusting up into her. The mattress dipped and the bed knocked against the wall, echoing their efforts to the neighboring room. She didn’t care. Seth’s hands dug into her behind, forcing her to accept him pumping up into her soft flesh. Muttered curses were tossed about. Heat closed over her breast as he pulled one into his mouth, sucking and licking, kneading the other like clay. She kept their rhythm going as he feasted on her body.

She felt a tightening in her lower belly, signaling her climax burning through her body, reaching for the source of her pleasure—Seth. She was close and could see he held on for her. A visual she would have long after the plane landed in America tomorrow.

“Touch me,” she begged into his neck, tasting his salty skin. His fingers began working her, slipping over her slick skin covering the length of him deep inside her. Her body responded throwing her head back. Encouraging his efforts, calling his name, she fractured as her climax hit fast and hard. She clung to him riding out wave after wave of pleasure. That seemed to break Seth’s control as he rose up on his knees, her legs still around his waist. She clung tighter, his hands clamped around her body now.

Sweat beading on his temple, Seth yelled out, cursing through gritted teeth, lips parted, made Simone’s body grip tighter. The vein along his temple strained with his climax. She held him to her breast, brushed kisses over his forehead—and rocked him through the sensation. It was the most handsome thing she thought she’d ever seen. He gave himself over to the moment and took the pleasure she offered. What was happening to her? To them? She was becoming attached to this man.

Together they collapsed in a heap of arms and legs. Their entwined bodies were sweaty and their breathing was labored. Once her skin began to cool, she lifted her chin away from the soft moist hair on his chest and looked up to see him smiling down at her. His palm cupped her naked bottom.

“Well good morning to you too, Mr. Dragoslava.” She teased his chin with her mouth, brushing back and forth. The gentle rasp a masculine tickle along her lips urging her to lean up and nibble his swollen bottom lip. “How early do they serve breakfast? All of a sudden, I’m hungry.”  

~~~

The meal came and Seth stayed to share Simone’s breakfast. He still had an hour left. He eyed her flipping through photos on the laptop as they sat at the little table.

“I know who he is,” she said excitedly. “The guy from the lobby and the club.”

He tilted the screen and peered at the man beside the fireplace in the hotel lobby, then over to Simone. “How can you tell? His face is angled away from the camera.”

Simone scrolled the screen back. “Look. Here is the night before the tour. That man right there with his back to me.” She pointed at the person in the photo. “I remember him eyeing you while you were checking in. I thought you were—a couple—but you never acknowledged him.” She clicked through some more pictures. “Then the next day… here he is again checking you out.”

He just stared at her, then angled the screen, and took a second look. “The same guy,” he said and realized he did know the man. He sank into himself and scrubbed a finger across his brows.

“You know who he is?” she asked coming around the table to ease down on his leg. “Seth, what’s going on? What am I involved in being with you?”

“He was from my platoon, but never made it past training. We never got along. He was a wimp, couldn’t take it,” he told her, pulling her down on his lap. “He only lasted a matter of weeks before he was shipped out. Sim, it was years ago, I wouldn’t have recognized him if he walked past me in the lobby.” He tucked hair behind her ear. “You and I must’ve gotten on the van at the same time. He probably figured you’d be an easier target. Someone I cared about.”

“Seeing as how it was Mikhail following us through the woods, it couldn’t be about the adoption.”

“There’s gotta be another connection between him and the people that hacked my parents’ email.”

“Whatever happened to Patrick… the guy working with Mikhail?” she asked

His brows rose with her question. Where had he gone? He never came back to the house with Mikhail.

“Didn’t your brother say he hired him because he was a sharpshooter in the military? Said every so often a wolf needed to be scared back into the woods when they came too close to the main cabin. Both men were military.”

They both startled at the buzzing from his cell phone. Reaching back, he forgot he had placed his phone on vibrate last night. Six messages. Must be Mikhail wondering if he was still coming to breakfast.

“What’s wrong?” She asked.

“My alarm.”

She peered at his phone. “You’re gonna be late for breakfast. Go ahead jump in the shower.”

“Together,” he urged, pulling the robe from her body and tossing it on the bed. His jeans followed.

Huddled beneath the showerhead he made love to her one last time, knowing he may never get the chance to again. He’d fallen in love with her and now she was leaving.

Back in the room, Seth watched her dress.

“How long has it been since you broke up with your girlfriend?”

He stared at her combing her hair out. “Seven months.”

“Can I ask what happened?”

His jaw tightened.

“That bad?”

“Let’s just say she wanted something I couldn’t give her.”

“Must’ve been important if it came between you two.”

“It was.” The acid in his stomach churned. The memory of seeing Gretchen’s text message informing him she’d left because he was sterile, as she put it, made him sick. They were planning to be married and found out his sperm count was too low and she would probably never get pregnant. And after seeing more than his share of abused children in the war and those without families or worse being used by their families to make money, he questioned if being sterile was a bad thing. Now knowing how much Simone wanted a family, he couldn’t get too attached to her. 

“Who knows? A year from now you could be married with a little one to show around…” Simone’s hand stilled as she pulled the sweater over her head and he waited for the full impact to hit her. “Something you couldn’t give her.”

He wrapped a hand around the doorknob and opened it before Simone could get to him. The sight of her holding her stomach was what he hadn’t wanted to happen. “I’ll come back about four.” He held up a hand. Her beautiful face became sullen and he knew she figured it out. “Don’t, Sim. Don’t try to fix it. I’m okay.”

“Seth, wait,” she pleaded.

“My cell number’s in your phone, call me if you need something before I come back down. Stop worrying, it’s in the past—leave it there.”

He couldn’t look at her after what she went through.

Nine

Simone stood at the elevator, thinking about everything she’d been through the last couple of days. Never in a million years would she have seen herself with someone she met on vacation. And then Seth’s confession about his girlfriend. “Last night was wonderful,” she murmured, blushing at the thought of being with Seth. She could still feel him inside her. Filling her. Feeding her until they both came, screaming the others name.

The elevator doors slid open, snapping her out of reverie. Two men stood there, baseball caps pulled low to hide their faces.

She took a step back. Elevators made her edgy when strangers were on them.

“Miss, there’s room for you. Come on,” one said, keeping his gaze on the floor.

That voice, she knew it.
The lobby—the guy from the freaking lobby! I’m outta here,
she thought. “No thank you, I'm waiting for my roommate. He's so slow.” As Simone took another step backward, dread whipped through her body. She pivoted as the doors closed and she walked down the hall.
His accent was a lot stronger in the lobby the other day
, she thought. Before she got five doors down, she could feel the pressure of other people in the hall with her, their muffled footsteps crossing the carpeted floor. She glanced over her shoulder. The familiar face from the lobby and a taller man she didn’t recognize was trailing her every step.

“Miss, just come with us and no one will get hurt,” Mr. Lobby said. Their footsteps matched her own.

She took off running, hit the corner of the hall, and raced at top speed past the rooms and toward the stairwell. Her lungs bellowed with every step. The lingering odor of Lysol from a nearby room swamped her senses. Running past the painted doors, she prayed someone from the cleaning crew would see her and call security. If she could just get to a public spot, she’d be okay, she thought as her lungs pumped out oxygen to her limbs.

“Stop her!” the other men ordered as they ate up the space between them.

“She’s fast. Damn!” Lobby man said.

Who wanted her eliminated, and why?

One of the guys called after her. “Ms. Daniels! I will shoot you! I don’t want to, but only you can decide that! Your loved ones are counting on you to co-operate.”

She threw her body into the silver bar of the metal door, shoving it open to the sixth floor. Grabbing her wallet from her purse along with her cell, Simone jammed them into her front pocket and tossed her purse up the stairs, hoping to throw them off, then slipped down to the fifth floor.

She paused, took her shoes off, and squeezed against the wall. Once out of sight, she eased down to the fourth floor. Footsteps shuffled over the landing up the stairs. One of the men had taken the bait. Eyes narrowed, she cocked her head, listening for the other man’s footsteps.

She prayed she could make it to the lobby. Her thighs burned and her lungs ached with adrenaline.

Who would want to harm her? What did they mean about her family? She was alone and didn’t know anyone except Seth and Mikhail.

A door above her opened. Feet pounded down the stairs toward her. “We don’t want to hurt you, Ms. Daniels. We just need you to come with us,” he called, sounding murderous.

She bolted down the stairwell, her stocking feet making an almost silent slap on the concrete. Cement and steel came together to resemble a jail cell and mock the opulent hallways just outside the doors.

Simone jumped the stairs like a gazelle. Landing on the balls of her feet, pain reverberated up from the soles through her hips to the base of her head. Looking back, she made her first mistake. She ran into a wall of muscle, as the other guy came up the stairs.

Her Krav Maga instructor’s favorite phrase, ‘burst forth, strike twice and get out’ pounded in her brain. Five words she now cherished.

Stale breath assaulted her face as her attacker blocked her escape.

He moved forward. “Be a good girl and I won’t hurt you. It would be a shame to mess up such a pretty face.” He held his arms out wide as if they were old lovers reuniting. “Let’s walk out together and no one gets hurt.” His voice was deep and abrasive.

Her stomach acids roiled as his greedy stare felt like it would undress her. She held her ground, nausea stood by her side and ready to speak up if needed. He faced her on the landing and grabbed her wrist. She did a quick wrist release, which pulled her arm down at an angle and back, torqueing his wrist as she broke free.

Shoes scrapped the cement stairs above her as the other guy stopped to watch them spar.

Not wanting her back to the man above her, she angled herself against the wall, her attacker backed onto the banister.

Mr. Smug lost his footing and leaned into her reach, grabbing her left forearm. She took advantage of her position and went for a solid strike, striking with rigid fingers—six inches deep into his eyes. It was soft. Disgusting. Affective. He grabbed at his face, keening over what she hoped was excruciating pain. It wasn’t enough because he never went down.

“Strike twice, Daniels” flashed in her mind. To ensure she hit the mark, Simone drove her right leg forward with bended knee between his legs. She hit the target dead on, sending him over the banister. He cried out and fell between the floors, heading toward ground zero with her chasing his fall.

“Shit!” Mr. Lobby snarled, charging after her, his gun pointing up, his fingers over the trigger guard. “Halt! Don’t make me do it, Ms. Daniels.”

Simone raced to the first floor with Mr. Lobby on her heels. If she could just get to the door, she’d find other people.

“Open the door!” she screamed as she got closer.

Fear is just an emotion until it grows legs and chases you. Then it morphs into terror, like falling down a well.

Just as she thought she might make it, she heard a loud bang. It ricocheted off the walls as she approached the last floor to the garage. then she felt a burning in her left leg.

He caught her in mid-jump for the landing. She crumbled to the cement floor. Fire burned through her leg. A moist warm dampness seeped through her jeans.

She grasped the latch on the door, and couldn’t keep her hand gripped around the knob. She grappled with the cell in her pocket. It crossed her mind that she still didn‘t know who or why they were after her. Thankfully, she remembered to get a phone while overseas.