Unlawful Contact

  She’d fled the room in tears, leaving Marc with only his anger.

  He opened another box. And another. And another.

  Winter clothes. Keepsakes. Tax records.

  Nada.

  And a pattern emerged—important things in the attic, junk in the basement. And Megan’s things had been relegated to the basement.

  “I’m sorry.”

  He jerked his head around, saw Sophie standing at the top of the stairs, wearing the gray angora sweater and black leggings she’d bought at Macy’s, her arms hugged around herself. He could tell she’d been crying, her eyes red and puffy. And just like that his anger vanished.

  He walked over to her, drew her against his chest, held her tight, her body soft beneath the silky angora. “No, Sophie, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I dragged you into this. I’m sorry that bastard Brody manhandled you. And I’m really sorry I acted like an ass.”

  She melted into him, held onto him, and he realized how deeply shaken she still was. “I keep thinking of those two women and wondering if they knew they were going to die. Were they forced to take the drugs? Did they take them by choice? Did they—”

  “Don’t, Sophie. Don’t let your mind go there.” He rocked her in his arms, kissed her hair. “You’ve got enough to think about.”

  “I’m scared, Hunt. I’m scared about my arraignment Thursday. I’m scared of seeing my friends again and seeing on their faces how I’ve lied to them. I’m scared for Megan and Emily. I’m terrified for you.”

  “I know.” He wished he could tell her that everything was going to be all right, except he didn’t believe that himself.

  She looked up at him, fresh tears on her cheeks, then stood on her tiptoes and pressed a kiss against his lips. “Make me forget. Just for a minute. Please!”

  She didn’t need to ask twice.

  He ducked down, brushed his lips over hers, then kissed her, a slow, soft kiss that smoldered, growing deeper and hotter by degrees, sexual need fueled by raw emotion.

  Sophie. His Sophie.

  She was worried, afraid, overwhelmed, and she needed to escape into him as badly as he needed to escape into her. A caress. A shiver. Soft lips against lips. Tongues and teeth. Lust in the blood like adrenaline. Frantic hands searching, shoving aside clothing, sliding over soft skin, offering pleasure, comfort, oblivion.

  She reached inside his zipper and freed his aching erection.

  And then he remembered. “Damn it! I need to get a—”

  She held a finger to his lips. “No more condoms! I want you. All of you!”

  Marc shook his head, but the thought of being inside her again…of truly feeling her around him…of coming inside her…

  Christ

  Heat sheared through his gut, his brain buzzing with hunger. He pushed her up against the wood panel wall, jerked her pants down, and lifted her off her feet, his fingers digging into her bare ass. Her legs clamped around his waist like a vise, and then—Jesus God!—he was inside her, driving home. She felt so good, so impossibly good, her slick heat gripping him as he pounded into her again and again and again, her soft cries driving him crazy. She came hard and fast, her head falling back on a groan, her contractions milking him until he spilled his soul inside her in a rush of wrenching bliss.

  For a moment, it was all he could do to breathe, his mind empty and dazed, his heart still slamming in his chest, Sophie limp in his arms. It was a good while before reality hit, but when it did…

  Shit.

  “We shouldn’t have done that. If we’re not careful, I’ll get you—”

  “Pregnant. I hope so.” She spoke in a dreamy voice, bliss still on her face. “I didn’t take those pills, just so you know. I spit the Plan B down the sink.”

  He was so stunned by what she’d just said that it took him a moment to realize why it felt like the earth was moving beneath his feet.

  The wall behind her had come open.

  CHAPTER 25

  HER BODY STILL feeling warm and liquid, Sophie watched as Hunt looked inside the hidden closet. Barely more than a cupboard, it was kept shut by a latch that opened under pressure. Well, leave it to the two of them to discover it the way they had.

  Hunt reached in and turned on a light. “Why didn’t you tell me upfront? It’s not like I would’ve forced you to take the pills. That’s your decision to make, not mine.”

  Though he was trying not to show it, she could tell that he was angry. She couldn’t blame him. “It shocked me, too. I guess I didn’t say anything because I didn’t know how to explain it.”

  “Do you want to give it a shot now?” He bent down and started opening boxes.

  “Well…I kept thinking about what you’d said about always wanting to be a father and how that was your biggest regret. And then I realized that this might be it—your only chance to be a father—and I spit the pills in the sink.”

  “So you heard me say I wanted to be a father, and you decided to put your uterus at my disposal. Is that it?” He glanced over his shoulder at her, his gaze cool. “That’s awfully selfless of you, Sophie.”

  When he put it like that, it sounded so stupid and…demeaning.

  “Well, you said—”

  “I said I wanted a family.” His voice was hard now. “My knocking you up doesn’t make us a family. It just creates another struggling single mother and another kid growing up without a dad. That was pretty stupid, Sophie. It’s the only truly stupid thing I’ve ever known you to do.”

  His rejection felt like a slap in the face. “You’ve done your part, too.”

  “Yeah, I certainly have, and I’m not proud of myself.”

  “Besides, there’s more to it than that.” She needed him to understand.

  “I hope so, because I can’t see a woman with your brains offering her womb to any man out of pity.” He shoved a box out the door behind him, then another.

  “It’s hard to tell you something this personal when you won’t even look at me.”

  He stopped what he was doing, turned to face her, and leaned against the door frame, arms crossed over his chest, a telltale muscle clenching in his jaw. “I’m listening.”

  “I didn’t do it just for you, and I didn’t do it out of pity. I wanted”—she drew a deep breath, tears blurring her vision, the words catching in her throat—“to keep some part of you…with me.”

  There. She’d said it. And he could think whatever he wanted.

  He stared at her, a strange expression on his face. “What?”

  “I-I wanted to keep a piece of you with me. I still do. At least there would be something left of you…of us…no matter what.”

  For a moment he stood there, looking at her. Then he took one step and another, until he stood right in front of her, his gaze searching her face. He brushed a knuckle over her cheek, then drew her into his arms. “God, Sophie…If there were any chance that we could be together…If there were any woman I’d want to be the mother of my…Shit, this is so hard.”

  “No, Hunt, it’s simple. If right now is all we have, if this is all we get, then I’ll grab it with both hands and take all I can.” Sophie looked up at him, desperate to reach him. “I’ve never felt about any man the way I feel about you. Let me have a baby for us.”

  Marc felt her words wash through him, pushing up against that deep, aching loneliness in his gut. It was more than he’d ever hoped for, more than he’d dreamed she’d ever say. A part of him wanted to drop onto his knees, to tell her how much he loved her, to give her any part of himself she wanted, any part of him she would take.

  What she was offering him, what she was willing to do…He’d be a damned liar if he said some selfish asshole part of him wasn’t hoping that he’d already done the deed, that she was already pregnant. She wanted his baby? Well, he’d be more than happy to drain his balls dry to make it happen. But he wasn’t worthy of her, and he never had been. Not twelve years ago, and certainly not now. Besides, they had more than themselves to think about.

  ?
??I know what it’s like to grow up without a dad, Sophie, and I know what it’s like to grow up with a parent in prison. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.” He slid his hand to her nape, massaged her neck, kissed her temple. “I don’t want any child to feel ashamed because of me.”

  “You grew up alone, Hunt. Your mother might have loved you, but she wasn’t there for you. I’m not like her. I have a job and good friends and my brother—”

  “And how will you explain it to them? What will you put on the birth certificate where it says ‘father’—no name or a name that could land you in prison? How will you handle a career and a baby?”

  “I don’t know! I don’t know!” She buried her face in his chest, fear and grief rolling off her in waves. “All I know is that I feel sick when I think about you being locked in a cage forever or…”

  She didn’t finish, but they both knew what she was thinking.

  He stroked her hair. “Having a baby together won’t make any of that easier, Sophie, just more complicated.”

  Then it hit him that he might not live long enough to know whether she was or wasn’t. But he didn’t say that. “What’s done is done, but I won’t take that risk again.”

  Even as he said it, a part of him wondered if he’d be able to stick to his guns on that score. A few minutes ago he certainly hadn’t.

  “No happy endings?”

  “For you, I hope one day. Not for us. Not for me.” It was a damned awful thing to have to say. “You’ll meet someone, a man who can be what you need him to be, and then—”

  She drew away, changed the subject, obviously too upset by the topic to continue. “So have we discovered Blackbeard’s lost treasure?”

  Her desperate attempt at humor humbled him. She was everything a man could hope for—strong, smart, beautiful, funny, compassionate. And soon, she would be out of his life forever one way or another.

  Accept it, Hunter, and move on.

  He walked back to the boxes he’d set aside and pulled out a VHS tape. “Put some popcorn in the microwave. It’s home movie night.”

  THEY WORKED THEIR way through the box of videos, going chronologically according to the dates on the labels.

  “Happy birthday, dear Megan, happy birthday to you!”

  On the TV screen, Megan was blowing out twelve candles on a white cake dripping with pink frosting roses. She was wearing a pretty blue party dress, and her hair was pulled back in a braid and tied off with a matching blue ribbon. Freckles on her nose, a smile on her face, she looked young and innocent and bright, her friends gathered around her, a stack of brightly wrapped gifts on the picnic table. It looked like an idyllic childhood—at first glance, anyway.

  The reality was something very different, as the videos also showed. Rarely a minute passed without Mrs. Rawlings criticizing her daughter in some fashion, doing her best to impose her rigid ideas of femininity and control on her outgoing, cheerful child.

  “That’s not ladylike, Megan.”

  “Good little girls sit quietly.”

  “Now you’ve scuffed your shoes! Honestly, Megan, you are a trial!”

  “Quit making silly faces.”

  “Look at how quiet and ladylike Jennifer is, Megan. She would never get mud on her dress like you have.”

  Sophie snuggled deeper into Hunt’s chest, felt his arm tighten around her. She couldn’t imagine what he was feeling, watching his sister’s life roll by, years that he had missed. She’d felt the tension in him almost from the beginning and knew there wasn’t anything she could do to make this experience easier for him beyond just being with him.

  Not that watching these videos had no effect on Sophie. She’d come to care deeply for Megan during the months she’d covered Megan’s story, and it hurt to watch while Megan’s parents slowly squeezed the spontaneity and joy out of her, their disapproval subtle but constant. It was just as painful to see the sweet child Megan had been and to know the horror that lay ahead of her—imprisonment, rape, addiction.

  Sophie knew that Hunt hoped to use information from these tapes to find his sister, but apart from the name of the church her parents attended and the first names of a few of her friends, the videos had offered very few clues.

  On the television, the scene now switched to summertime in the mountains. Megan stood in a white blouse and blue skirt with other preteen girls singing a song about the women of the Bible, a sweep of ponderosa pines behind them. Each girl had a solo, Megan’s shy soprano sending thin but clear notes skyward. The song was pretty, even if the lyrics rubbed Sophie’s feminist sensibilities the wrong way—like the part about Eve being made from Adam’s rib.

  “I am not your rib,” she said, giving Hunt a nudge.

  He chuckled and hugged her tighter against his side. “I don’t know about that. You seem to fit really well right here.”

  When the song ended, the choir of young girls beamed as their parents applauded, Megan looking hopefully toward the camera.

  Mrs. Rawlings’s voice came from somewhere nearby. “I don’t know why they gave Megan a solo. She never could sing.”

  Megan’s face fell, her expression of hope shattering like glass.

  “God, I hate that woman!” Sophie felt her face burn.

  Hunt said nothing, his anger dark and palpable.

  While the other girls ran to their parents, Megan wandered off to the side and up to an older man—a preacher from the way he was dressed.

  “Did you have a good time at camp?” The man wrapped his arm around Megan’s shoulders and hugged her.

  “The best time ever.” Megan hugged him right back.

  “Where is this?” Hunt reached for another cookie.

  In addition to popcorn, Sophie had shared the family secret and made him chipless chocolate chip cookies. She’d eaten three. He’d eaten at least a dozen.

  “I think there’s a glimpse of the sign off to the left when the girls are singing.”

  Hunt pointed the remote at the television, hit rewind, scrolling backward through images until he came to the beginning of this segment.

  Sophie sat up, leaned forward, and waited. “See there? Pine River Christian…I can’t see the last word.”

  “I think it said ‘Girls Camp.’” He scrolled back once more, then hit play again.

  “Yep, that’s it.”

  “I think we should find this place, see if we can track down that old preacher. She seems like she really trusted the old guy.”

  “I hope he’s still alive.”

  ON THE NEXT video, it became clear exactly why the tapes had been kept in that little closet. Although the first twenty minutes of each of the remaining videos had footage of Megan, the rest had been taped over with something entirely different.

  It was just another insult, another way of proving how little Megan had been loved, and it made Marc want to hit something. Mr. and Mrs. Rawlings had wanted the perfect daughter, and instead they’d gotten a little girl who’d been loved but also neglected and traumatized. Rather than helping her heal, they’d heaped their expectations and disappointment on her, shredding what little self-esteem she’d had.

  “So Mr. Rawlings has a thing for hard-core porn. I wonder what his uptight holier-than-thou wife would have to say about that. I think she ought to know, don’t you?”

  “Absolutely.”

  On the screen an extremely hung man was fucking the lipstick off some starlet’s mouth, while another young woman buried an enormous dildo in the starlet’s vagina.

  Marc turned off the TV, popped out the tape, and switched it with one of Mrs. Rawlings’s cooking videos. “This ought to do it.”

  But Sophie was still staring at the TV screen, looking perplexed. “Was that anatomically advisable? I mean, that thing was…really huge.”

  And then Marc remembered. Oh, shit. “You know, I took something from your apartment when I was there. I found it in your bedside table when I was searching for the drugs and…well, I figured you might not want Julian or the other cops to find
it.”

  She looked up at him, confused, then her eyes went wide and her face turned bright red. “Oh, my God! You have my—”

  “I don’t know what it is, but it’s pink and looks like a dick and buzzes and has little pearls and rotates.”

  She buried her face in her hands. “I’m going to die now.”

  “Instead of being embarrassed, show me how it works and let me use it on you.”

  She looked at him, her cheeks still pink. “I don’t know if I can—”

  “Sure you can.” He ducked down and nuzzled her ear, willing himself to set Megan and her troubles out of his mind for just another hour or two. “Think of how it will feel when I slide it in and out of you while I go down on you. Imagine how it will be when I hold that buzzing head against your clit and pound my cock into you. Or maybe while you’re on your hands and knees, I can slide it into you from behind and—”

  “Is this one of your fantasies?” She was breathing harder, her pupils dilated.

  “Damn straight it is.” He’d made himself hard just talking about it.

  She stood, reached for his hand. “In that case, I’m willing to give it a try.”

  He scooped her up in his arms. “You are so selfless.”

  TWO HOURS LATER, Sophie collapsed, boneless and breathless, against Hunt’s sweaty chest. “You…are…incredible.”

  He traced a lazy line up her spine with his fingers. “Are you talking to me or your battery-operated lover over here?”

  She couldn’t help but laugh. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous of my vibrator.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you scream like that before.”

  It had been a-ma-zing. “That wasn’t the vibrator. That was you.”

  “But I don’t have pearls, and I don’t buzz.”

  She propped herself up on his hard chest, kissed a wine red nipple, whispered, “No, but you have fingers and killer lips and the most amazing tongue—and you rotate just fine. Besides, I love it when you come. Your muscles get so hard and tense, and then you shake apart, and your head goes back and you say my name like it’s a prayer. ‘Sophie!’ No vibrator does that. I’d take you over rotating pearls any day, Marc Hunter.”