Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Zoe
W arrick was grinning, and small lines crinkled near his eyes.
I liked seeing him smile.
Hell, I think I’ve eked out more smiles and chuckles from him in the short time I’d been there than I believe he’d ever had before I’d gotten there. This was a slippery slope, because if we did cross the line—no, not if, when we did cross that line, there would be no going back.
At one point, we turned onto a dirt road that took us higher into the mountains. Warrick seemed to instinctively know his way, turning at places that had no signs or trees or rocks to mark the intersection.
“You know this route well, huh?”
“Like the back of my hand,” he replied.
I looked back to where Warrick had latched Goose in. Goose was laying on a blanket, tongue lolling out, looking as happy as a pig in a mud puddle. Hesitant, I reached over and rubbed his ears, and he licked my hand.
“He likes you,” Warrick mentioned.
“I like him too,” I replied.
He took an unmarked crossroad, and this time, the truck…down-sloped? It wasn’t a huge tilt, but I certainly knew we were going down.
When Warrick pulled off the road, killed the engine, and parked near a brick and wood cabin—its redwood so rich it nearly blended into the forest around it—I could see why he wanted to be there so badly.
I hadn’t stepped inside, but I could already feel it was peaceful inside.
“Here it is,” he nodded. “My great-grandfather built it with his own hands after leaving school at thirteen to work. It was the Great Depression, so times were hard.”
My jaw dropped. “He made this? It’s gorgeous.”
“Yeah, it is,” he said, but his eyes were on me.
I didn’t want to blush, but it came out anyway. I stepped outside, and when Warrick did, he let Goose out too—the dog took off down a path, and after shooting a look at him, he nodded to me.
We both followed Goose, but at one point on the muddy path, I slipped, and Warrick grabbed me, both arms wrapping around my middle.
This was the first time I felt pressed tight to him, and I felt nothing but muscle. His forearms were toned and tan with a sprinkle of dark hair, and the veins of his arm stood out starkly near his wrist.
“Steady?”
I nodded numbly as I fixed my feet and headed down, but I still kept my grip on him. He held my hand firm as we walked down to the small boardwalk jutting into a lake.
The beautiful, glistening water of a small lake hidden in the trees was shimmering and blue, with no bottom to be found. Goose was splashing and shaking and dog paddling, smiling like an Olympic swimmer out there.
I had to stop and take a moment to appreciate this part of the country, and the hills arching green in the east. “Look at that magnificent view.”
“It’s fantastic, isn’t it?”
I glanced over at him and then looked out at the rolling hills. A stiff breeze toyed with strands of hair that had wrestled themselves out of a tied ponytail. I took a deep breath of the freshest air I had ever smelled and exhaled.
“This place is beautiful. Your great-grandpa had a good eye for choosing a spot.”
“One of my favorites.” He pointed toward a smattering of trees. “Me and my brother used to play Marco Polo over there when the tide was low.”
“What?” I spun and nearly tipped into the lake, but he grabbed me. “You have a brother?”
“Dallas,” he said, his eyes dimming. “But he left the ranch at sixteen while I was ten, and we barely heard from him. He does send a Christmas card here and there to let us know he is alive. The cards come from California, so I suppose that is where he lives with some corporate job.”
I felt like a parrot. “ What ?”
“He snuck out in the middle of the night before Thanksgiving,” he said, pulling me into him by my waist. “Needless to say, that holiday was more of a nightmare.”
“I can only imagine.”
He closed the remaining distance between us and cupped my face in both hands. Warrick’s touch was soft as he slanted his mouth over mine and claimed my mouth in a tender kiss.
I could see the train wreck coming a mile away. I felt powerless to stop him. Taking his time, he worked magic with his mouth, and I fixed my body to his.
My ego soared to the sky. I hungrily returned his kiss with my heart pitter-pattering and my body throbbing for more. How can a man make me feel this good? I shuddered in his arms.
“Are you cold?"
“A little bit,” I replied. “The wind coming off the water is very chilly.”
“Let's get inside.” Warrick whistled for Goose. He came paddling back and stopped two feet from us; I jumped a mile when he showered us with his aggressive shake.
“Bad Goose,” I scolded him, but he sauntered by and stopped to use my jeans as a towel.
Warrick snorted as we headed back to the cabin; he unlocked it and sent me inside. He got the towel from the truck and dried Goose off.
Inside, I looked around. The cabin didn’t have much in the way of furniture or décor, for that matter. Warrick had simple tastes; it seemed he needed what was contained within these walls. A decent open room with a tidy kitchen, a wood table with two chairs on the left, an old recliner, and a beat-up loveseat.
Straight ahead was a door to possibly a bedroom and a bathroom behind the kitchen. There was a ladder up the side of one wall to a sleeping loft over the living room.
“I built that myself in case I ever had guests stay over but I find that I am using it more than the real bedroom,” Warrick replied. “Wanna go see why?”
“Sure.” I stuck a boot into the rung and climbed, acutely aware of Warrick staring at my butt while following me. When I got to the loft, I saw a simple double bed on a stand, but above it?—
“Oh my God, you put in a skylight?” I gawped.
The wide window, tinted grey, spanned the whole length and breadth of the bed. I could only imagine what it would be like lying on that bed and watching the sunrise.
“I love coming up here when we have a rainy spell,” Warrick replied. “It’s magical when it rains.”
“Can we stay here tonight?” I asked.
“Sure,” he replied. “But first—” A sudden, fierce heat flared in his eyes, his jaw tightening as his hand tugged the tie out of my hair to dig his fingers into my scalp, pulling me close as his mouth came crashing down onto mine again, hard. His kiss was so full of need that it took my breath away.
His tongue tangled with mine, searching, thrusting, and I moaned against his lips as the door suddenly opened, and he half-lifted me up and set me inside the room. “Zara—” He groaned the false name against my lips, the door slamming shut as he spun my back against it, one hand beside my head on the heavy wood as he devoured my mouth again.
“Fuck—”
“I love it when you swear,” I breathed out against his lips, and then I lost all thought as he deepened the kiss, his body pinning me to the nearest wall as his hips rocked against my middle. “When I first met you, I never thought you had a potty mouth.”
He held my hips as his lips brushed over my cheek, and down the edge of my jaw; a hard shiver of pleasure rippled through me. A tiny moan slipped from my mouth as his hips ground against me again, his heavy erection pressed between my thighs. Warrick groaned in my ear, a shudder passing through him, too.
“More,” I whimpered, without even really knowing what I’m asking for, my body arching towards him as I strained for sensations I couldn’t even put names to. “Please, more.”
“How dirty do you want my mouth to be?” he asked, hands trailing up my shirt, lightly cupping the curve of my breast through my soft bra. My nipples were immediately stiff and hard, tender and sensitive as his thumb brushed over them. I was getting wet.
“Filthy,” I groaned. “Fuck me with your words too.”
“I want to put my mouth on you. I want to eat your pussy,” he whispered roughly.
“Yes,” I begged, my thighs parting instinctively as one of his hands dropped between my legs. I was soaking wet, my pussy drenched, almost slipping down my inner thighs.
Warrick shucked his bomber jacket off, then dropped to his knees and unlaced my shoes, tugging them off and dropping them aside. He pulled the button off my jeans and yanked them down my legs, then reached up to snap the clasp of my bra away but left my shirt on.
“On the bed, now,” he ordered.
As I scampered to the bed, he tugged his boots off and flung his shirt away before crawling onto the bed and covering my body with his. “If I tell you I wanted to do this the night you screamed for my help, would you believe me?”
“Yes,” I replied. “Because a part of me wanted you to.”
His stubble rasped against my cheek as he kissed down my body, pushing the shirt up to tease my nipples before he pushed my knees open and pulled my panties down. “What I want now is to taste you.”
Warrick's fingers coasted over me, and I shivered. “God, you’re soaking wet.”
With his fingers stroking over my folds, I realized that my most intimate places were revealed to a man in a way I’d never allowed before. He spread me apart, his fingers sliding between, and the sudden pleasure of his fingers made me light-headed.
“So wet for me…”
I felt his lips trailing up my inner thighs and down again, his strong hands spreading them wide. I opened myself to him. I flushed at the helplessness of it, but he just groaned, his eyes hot with lust as he leaned in to run his tongue over my folds.
“Fuck!” I grabbed his head.
He slid his tongue up my folds like a big cat, right up and over my clit, then circled my entrance and pushed his tongue slowly inside, thrusting his tongue slowly like a cock breaching me.
The sensation shocked me, and I froze for a second, my hands clawing at the sheets, and then I arched upwards with a gasping moan as he fucked me with his tongue.
“W-warrick!” I cried out.
With his lips sealed over me, he growled, the vibrations sending another sensation right through me as his hands gripped my thighs, holding them apart. I could feel him sucking and licking at the same time.
The wet heat of his mouth overwhelmed me as he lapped up my arousal, his tongue pushing and fluttering at the sensitive nerves as his mouth fastened on my clit.
My thighs were spreading wider of their own accord, the muscles in them trembling. My back arched as I clawed at the bed and cried out senselessly, a never-ending stream of mindless whimpers and cries—and then he pushed two long fingers inside of me—and my world shattered.
The world dissolved around me as my climax bolted through me and I let out a strangled cry at the sheer intense pleasure of it. I felt like I was bobbing in the sea as his tongue slid once more over my throbbing flesh.
My back arched so deeply that it almost hurt as my nails scratched against his scalp, my other hand pressed against the door to brace myself. I screamed his name again as Warrick prolonged my climax higher, wringing every bit of pleasure he could from my shuddering body.
Fuck stars: pure galaxies burst to life behind my closed eyes, and the orgasm I’d just had combined with this one.
When I sagged back to the bed, I was a boneless, liquid puddle of sensation, my body vibrating with aftershocks, and I couldn’t catch my breath. I never knew it could feel like this, never imagined it—maybe it was because the boyfriends I’d had before were all shit.
As his fingers slipped free and he moved up my body, I felt his hard cock pressed hotly against my hip, but he made no move to fuck me. Instead, he cradled me against his body as he brushed my hair away from my eyes.
“You all right, Zara?” he asked gently as he gathered me into his arms.
“Define all right,” I laughed softly.
His hand stroked up my leg as I shuddered and moaned with the last aftershocks of my climax. “You came so hard for me. That was so good, feeling you come on my tongue like that.”
“I want to repay the favor, but you’re putting me to sleep right now—” I held back a yawn.
A smile played over his face. “We’ve got time. Go to sleep, and I’ll wake you when I have the steaks ready.”
“Are you sure?” I asked. “I feel shitty letting you go like that.”
“I’ll be fine,” he grinned. “You’ll make it up to me.”
Before he went off, I kissed him, and he licked into my mouth with tempered hunger, then slipped from the bed and descended the ladder. More satisfied and sated than I had been in months, I slipped off to sleep almost immediately—and then the dream came.
“These are serious accusations, Zoe.” Elise Munroe, my editor, dropped the stack of papers I’d given her and whipped her glasses off her nose.
I knew what she was looking at: the piles of notes I’d made over seven months, how the “legal” health clinic was nowhere near legal, how the monies coming in and the monies going out were not adding up, not to mention the list of clients they had shown people who were nowhere to be found.
“I am one hundred and twenty percent sure that they are ripping off the government and funding the mob, maybe the local drug cartel leader, Donatelli Santori,” I’d said.
“It’s a money laundering scheme. And I am damn sure that if I dig deeper, I’ll find some politicians backing it, too. Most likely that scumbag Senator Rosenberg, who cut funding to public schools by fifty percent,” I added, seething.
“If this gets out, they will have no problem denouncing this as fiction.”
“You mean facts. All my findings over the last six months' deep dive have been backed up by several different sources. The funding from the government to cure or treat these people’s various diseases. None of these people have IDs, and some are long dead. The money comes in, is ‘spent’ on people, but no drugs are bought, no surgeries happen because these people are not alive. It’s all credible and verifiable.”
Elise looked strained. “I can't run this.”
The hairs on my arms stood up. "What? What—why would you say that? There is clear corruption and a cover-up by at least one member of the government. Our job is to report the truth, and I have the facts to back this up.”
Her face went stony. “You're playing with fire and need to drop this, Zoe. You’ll get into a lot of shit if you keep going down this road—” Elise scooped up the pile and dumped it into the trash. “—and go back to writing those puff pieces. What types of coffee exec women drink or why pop stars keep those tiny little dogs in their purses. Not this.”
I couldn’t believe what she was saying. “The people of New York have a right to know. Hell, the Department of Health needs to know. They’re being milked for millions."
She closed her eyes and sternly instructed, “I said drop it, Hamilton. You're not to discuss this anymore, and you’re certainly not to continue digging into this.”
“They're using taxpayer money to run the mob and God knows what else, and you won’t do the right thing and get the attention of the police?” I stood up in disgust. “Are you in their pockets, too?”
“I won't tell you again. You're to drop this—now. Do you want to destroy our newspaper, to drag it down? Who do you think we are? We’re not untouchable like CNN or the New York Post.” She snapped. “And I'm moving you off anything that has to do with politics or people or agencies. Until further notice, you're to shadow Snow.”
“You want me to do gardening?” I gasped. “What?”
“You heard me.” I leapt out of my chair.
“I'm an investigative journalist! It’s my job to look into these things.”
“If you don’t shut up about this, I will have your license suspended. Now get out of here." She jabbed a pen at my face. “Stop sticking your nose where it doesn't belong, Zoe. You're going to end up dead!”
Time jumped…and I was in my bed.
With two thumbs jammed into my throat, cutting off my air. Chest heaving, I blindly flung out my hand, trying to stop whoever was trying to kill me. The self-defense classes that I’d kept putting off? They would’ve come in handy right about now.
I tried to jam my finger into my attacker’s eyes, but I couldn’t see beyond my splitting, doubling vision.
My attacker’s jade green eyes were like ice, and his finger was forced into my mouth. He pulled at my lip, forcing me to open my mouth—most likely to shove a gag inside. He’d forced his thick latex glove into my mouth, and I bit down on it. Hard.
He’d roared and yanked me off the bed, my legs skittering as I landed on the floor, trying to fight him off while he was dragging me out the door. I grabbed the closest thing I could get—a shoe I’d discarded earlier after coming from work—and slapped him in the back of the knee with it.
It didn’t take him down, but he lost his grip. I ran to the bathroom, slammed the door behind me, and yanked the window up. Frantic, I kept looking over my shoulder; he was going to catch me, and when he did, he was going to kill me.
I felt his hand on my throat. He’d choke me to death.
I was halfway through the window when the door behind me crashed in half, a hammer digging a long crack in the middle. He screamed my name, “Zoe! I have a message for you ? —”
Another bang. Another tear.
Soon, he would take it off its hinges. Frantic, I wiggled through the window and landed on the fire escape. The steps all blurred into each other and slowly started floating up. I was going to miss a step and go tumbling down. It was a hell of a way down. I was sure to end up dead.
“I’ll never stop looking for you!” the man yelled.
“He’ll find you, and he’ll kill you.”
I tried to remember where the fire escape led to. The lobby? The car park? Certainly not out onto the street. My bare feet landed on the wet sidewalk, and I clutched at my side, at the stitch that was tearing me up, stealing my breath. But I couldn’t afford to stop.
Desperate, I rounded the corner, and in the blink of an eye, I ran into a hard body—one who grabbed me and sneered, “He’ll be so happy when he gets you. Big Billy will be so glad to cut you open ? —”
I screamed.