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  She smiled against him, but she did not want him to stop, wanted his words in her ears. His voice was all the things you would hush to hear— a whispering breeze, a soothing creek, a haunting black thunderstorm . . .

  Snuggling closer, she laid her ear on his chest, just over the steady, provocative pounding of his heartbeat. “Tell me more about me and you.”

  He stroked her back as he did, his words resonating in his chest under her ear. “Fridays you used to stay over at your friend Francine’s . . .” Her entry felt sensitive after the sex, and even then, she was teeming wet, felt his hardness surge against her tummy as he remembered. And his voice, richer still, darker, deeper. “But you weren’t really with Francine— you were sleeping with me.”

  The thick, long staff between their bodies began to pulse with heat, and a dense arousal coated his speech. “We kissed for hours. Until the sun came up. We touched, ate, talked, didn’t sleep. We parted every Saturday morning, trembling with wanting each other.”

  She shivered. Her breasts throbbed. She sought out his mouth, blindly, and he gave it to her. They caught, burned, blended. Then his words misted across her face, and his voice. God, his rich, delicious voice.

  “Every time, we kissed a little longer. Touched more, petted heavier.” He stroked a finger along the back of her arm, his voice changing, becoming terser and gruffer with longing. “I lived for those moments, when you were in my arms and I was drinking from your lips, filling my hands with your breasts, your little hands all over me.” He fisted her hair in his hand, heaved her up, and kissed her firmly, possessively. “We kissed at school, but it drove me insane not to talk to you. I couldn’t touch you, couldn’t hold you, couldn’t be with you.”

  Her voice broke. “Why?”

  “My father. Your father.” A thousand questions tumbled in her mind. She wanted to know everything and at the same time, she didn’t. “We were watched at school, and I was ordered to stay away. But there was old Mel’s closet— Mel was the janitor. And we hid between classes and kissed until our mouths were swollen.” He seized and enjoyed her lips until her chest felt like exploding, too. “Nothing, nobody could keep me away from you.”

  Her lashes rose, and his incandescent green eyes trapped her, sucking her into their depths, spinning her within the whirl pool of her needs. His needs. He lowered his hand, scraped his knuckles across a breast that had become accessible when she shifted.

  “Any time, every time you’d let me, I’d latch on to this little peak until you were writhing with pleasure, screaming ‘Zachary.’ ”

  She shivered, got wetter, hotter, her rising temperature causing her to desperately press her breast into his hand. “I wanted you,” she whispered. I still want you.

  The look he leveled on her blazed with heat. “You loved me, Paige.” The words buffeted her with a blow of searing pain, mingled with yearning and longing and regrets. That someone remembered what she couldn’t drove the sharpest, longest dagger into her chest.

  Because she should remember this, too.

  A choked noise darted out of her as his hand turned, engulfing her flesh. His fingers teased, tweaked, plucked the nipple, and his timbre dropped another notch. “We wanted to make love.”

  She could picture the eighteen-year-old girl in the picture, a good girl, full of hesitation, and too easily conjured up the isolated, enigmatic new boy who’d been patient with her. “And?” she softly prodded.

  In a startlingly easy move, he flipped her onto her back and slid down her length, easing her knees apart. “And I waited.”

  Moisture pooled between her legs. He knew her. She knew him. Somehow it was as if she’d been born for those hands whisking up the inside of her knees, for his hands to trek across her skin.

  God. What had she found here? What had she missed her whole life?

  His palm stroked languorously up her left thigh. Deliciously callused, the hands of a man who used them. Paige had forgotten about her scars, but at his gentle handling, she burned bright red with embarrassment. “Please come back here.”

  “Shh. Baby, shh.”

  He nuzzled her stomach, both hands kneading her thighs. They weren’t lovely, her scars. Despite what he’d said. They were painful to see and had been painful to wear, but suddenly they knew his lips, and they became another part of her body. Another part he could kiss.

  “Poor baby.” He kissed her scars from tip to tip, side to side, one at a time. “Poor baby.”

  His hands slipped under her body and cradled her cheeks as he ducked his head. His nose nuzzled the tender fluff between her legs. Then he expertly parted her folds open with his thumbs. “Poor”— his tongue sampled—“wet”—he licked again—“baby.”

  Pleasure jolted up her spine. “Zach!”

  “I’d tasted only what had coated my fingers all those years ago, but this . . .” He made a pass across the swollen glistening lips and, eyes closing, repeated several passes until he stopped at her center, lapped, and melded his mouth with that part of her. “I could drink you up, Paige. I could live on you, eat and eat and eat your sweetness all day.”

  She arched her head in delirium, gasping, “Oh God, when you speak I go crazy.” Sexy, sexy voice. Wicked, wicked tongue. Dirty, dirty words.

  Her hips moved to his mouth, her hands grasping his head, plucking and pulling at his satiny hair. “Zach. I want you up here.” As he came up, he kissed the tip of each breast before he readied himself, his cock glowing pink, his bronzed skin coated with perspiration.

  Her mouth watered. “Strawberry,” she said, and spread her legs apart as he lowered himself above her. What did Zach taste like under the strawberry? What did his skin taste like there, and the moisture that came from him?

  His hips sank between her thighs. As their heated flesh collided, her thoughts scattered. He smiled down at her, caressing her face with one hand as he trapped her ankle with the other and guided her leg around his hips.

  She cried out anxiously, going rigid with anticipation, her leg tightening reflexively around him. “Oh God!”

  He rolled his hips, prodding her with his cock. “Shh. Ease up. It’s just me here.”

  He entered slowly, his hand opening on her cheek, pushing his thumb past her lips and beyond. She made a sound of relief as he filled her, latching on to his thumb, tasting it with the same fervor she’d wanted to taste that larger, more mesmerizing part of him, and eagerly swiveled her hips to take more of him inside of her.

  He bent and caught her earlobe between his lips, savoring that little tidbit as he began to move. “Just me, Paige.”

  Me.

  Me . . .

  Me!

  CHAPTER 6

  “THE EVENING of the accident, Paige.”

  The day had come. Sooner than she’d wanted. Or perhaps later than it should have.

  Her mother had had her reservations about “this kind of assistance,” but Paige hoped now she’d understand. That Mom would know she had to do this, that she owed it to herself, to her dad, to try.

  She lay woodenly in a lounge chair— the sort you’d find at a psychiatrist’s office— inside the O’Neills’ home, where Sue Ellen had her practice. Their house was a small castle, in Paige’s opinion, furnished so tastefully, with sweeping draperies and artworks gracing each and every wall, that she’d at first been taken aback by such a lavish setting. How much would this woman charge?

  Now she stared up at the crystal chandelier suspended from the ceiling. The crystals sparkled prettily with the light. Both her hands were fisted over her stomach; which, by the way, didn’t stop churning. “Not yet,” she gently pleaded to the middle-aged woman.

  Relaxation seemed impossible at this point. Her senses were on high alert. She was aware of everything, aware of Zach in the other room, of Zach listening, Zach watching through the cameras . . .

  Over a long console behind the hypnotist, a trio of incense sticks burned. The room smelled faintly of cedarwood.

  “You aren’t allowing your
self to relax, Paige, you must let go.”

  Paige nodded listlessly.

  The lieutenant’s wife, Sue Ellen, had the pinched look of someone with little patience, or of someone working under dire stress. Her voice was perplexingly flat, and this somehow increased Paige’s anxiety.

  “Close your eyes now,” the woman said evenly, crossing her legs and linking her hands. “We will try this again.”

  “Again. Yes.”

  Paige tried easing her muscles. Zach had explained that the “procedure” had to take place with her in the room alone with the hypnotist.

  The moment she had been guided into the room, Zach— strong, armed, delicious Zach— had been dialoguing outside with Lieutenant O’Neill, a bald, stocky man who looked to have spent the last couple of years without sleep.

  “My husband has checked the perimeter,” Sue Ellen had soothed. “This is a safe neighborhood. And don’t worry, the men will be watching next door. Both rooms are set up specifically to enable forensic hypnosis. There are cameras in ours, and a monitor in the other. This allows the detectives to watch and tape your testimony.”

  “O-okay,” she’d said.

  Paige, you don’t have to do this . . .

  Zach’s words this morning danced in her head. She’d answered, I want to.

  And she did! But goodness, she was nervous.

  “Ready, Paige?”

  Next door, she told herself. He was next door.

  “Ready,” she breathed.

  ZACH SAT SO STILL before the TV screen he could be just another of the sculptures in the room.

  On a chair next to his, O’Neill lowered his soda can, clearing his throat. “Rivers, perhaps it’s better if you—”

  Zach lifted one hand that effectively silenced him. “No, no, no. I need to hear this.”

  He needed to hear what she’d been through. He needed to hear her remember him and know that he had not made her up, that his entire life was not centered on something that could never be. He needed to know what had happened— how, when, and why the fuck he hadn’t been able to protect her.

  He ran a palm down his hot face, then clasped his hands together in front of him and leaned on his elbows. Had she seen the bastard? What had he said to her? Done to her? Fuck.

  “All right, Paige, so relax.”

  “Is Zach . . . is Detective Rivers listening?”

  Oh, baby. Oh, sweetheart, I’m here.

  “Yes. And Lieutenant O’Neill.”

  Zach schooled his expression into one of detachment, aware of O’Neill scrutinizing his profile. Damned if he’d let the ruthless bastard see what Paige did to him. Damned if he’d let himself tear apart in front of him.

  “Let’s start again, shall we?”

  START AGAIN, YES. Paige nodded, appeased, and shifted on the old chair, trying not to notice that it felt as if the soft seat were swallowing her. Her eyes kept sailing across the room, distracted by all the adornments on the wall.

  “Eyes closed, Paige.”

  Swallowing, Paige stretched her legs out until her toes rested at the very edge of the chaise, and attempted to concentrate.

  Sue Ellen told her— no, she ordered, really— to get comfortable. So she “did.”

  They started with her breath. Paige inhaled. Paige exhaled. Releasing tension and anxiety. Allowing your body and your mind to relax. Her mind whirled and whirled.

  All around making love with Zach.

  The memory of his taut, strained face as he came made her weak inside. Zach probably hadn’t realized as he drove here— deeply immersed in his own thoughts— that as Paige sat unspeaking beside him, she’d been kissing his lips and his hot, hard mouth had been pillaging hers, and that huge, thrusting part of his had been pushing and pushing into the depths of her.

  Zachary Rivers, I am addicted to you!

  In a solid, monotone voice, Sue Ellen began to count down. She started at ten . . . Feeling your muscles relaxing . . . welcoming a deep sleep . . .

  I want you to visualize looking across a deep blue ocean. Above the water the fishes form a number ten . . . then skim apart to form a nine . . .

  Release your fears, Paige . . . You are free . . .

  Release your thoughts . . .

  When you hear the words “deep sleep,” you will come to this place of relaxation and open your mind . . .

  Out of respect for the process, Paige kept her eyes firmly shut, but inwardly resisted opening her mind to . . . to her. To a videotape.

  But she wanted, oh, how dearly she wanted, to give Zach what he must need. A name. A lead. Find this evil bastard. Give justice to a man who’d dedicated his life to it.

  Sue Ellen began to question her, and finally opening her hands on her tummy, Paige relaxed a little, trying unaccountably to open her mind to herself only.

  “Deep sleep . . . deep sleep . . . Think back, Paige,” the balmy voice urged, but Paige now only half listened to what she said. Her body singularly limp and heavy, she was delving into that big black nothingness, surprised to no longer feel the accompanying anxiety. “First, let us go back to a moment of your life you remember fondly.”

  Hmm. So easy. Lying awake last night. Feeling wonderful. With her body tucked into the immense, sculptured form of Zachary’s.

  “Deep sleep, Paige . . .”

  And he had lain awake with her. With those large, safe arms around her waist. Every once in a while resting his lips on her temple, her cheek, her shoulder.

  For the longest time you just stared at me. And I stared back and thought, “God, is there a prettier sight than this girl . . .”

  Wondrously, magically, a thought fluttered down on her in response to his. It was like being hit by a raindrop, wet and spreading across your skin until you were soaked.

  In that instant she knew exactly what she’d thought as she stared across the hall at that bronzed, dark-haired boy. And then dozens of thoughts were raining down on her. Her mind was giving her these gifts, beautiful, surreal, so incredibly vivid she gasped with the wonder of reliving them.

  Her first kiss. Her first real kiss. Zach’s kiss.

  She’d been robbed of it, too. Now it was hers. Her kiss once more.

  Fiery. Passionate. A kiss after days and days of wanting, days of covert glances, of brushing shoulders as they passed the halls, of catching each other watching.

  She’d been on a hall pass and the corridor had been empty when he appeared, coming the opposite way. They stared. Their paces slowed. They halted. Then he grabbed her wrists, pinned her against Penny Morgan’s locker, and kissed her heart out.

  Her eyes stung at the memory. Her throat worked to dislodge the clog of emotion in her trachea, because God, yes, she remembered it all. She remembered love. Being loved by him. Loving him innocently. Completely.

  “Tell us where you are, Paige. Tell us . . .”

  Paige scarcely heard, because it had been years since her memories talked to her, and the sound of them was the sweetest thing she’d ever heard.

  This was not the reason she was here. She knew they wanted something else from her, and yet she was drowning in her own memories, thoughts and thoughts swirling in places that had been empty before.

  “Zachary Rivers is staring at you, Paige.”

  “Well, well, look at that blush when you tell her!”

  “What are you guys talking about? Paige can’t even talk to Zach Rivers, Francine.”

  “Trista, seriously. Get real. And Paige, swear to God, if Zach bumps your shoulder one more time as some lame excuse to touch you and straighten you up and you go all blushy like you do I’m going to slap the both of you!”

  Her friends, Paige thought tenderly. What were they doing now? She hadn’t told them then that every day, she and Zach kissed their mouths red. She couldn’t tell them that Zach was everything— everything—to her.

  And she’d just about had it with hiding.

  The halls were bustling with students, but suddenly determined, Paige squared her shoulders
and walked up to Zach as he shut his locker. To his broad back, she whispered, “I love you.”

  He stiffened. It took him forever to turn around, and then he stared at her as though she were a bizarre creature from another planet. It seemed that everyone else stared, too.

  “What are you doing?” he asked. Just a whisper. In his eyes, she could see storms, she could see he wanted to grab her and say the words back to her. But he was far more careful lately than she.

  The bell rang.

  As soon as the halls were clearing, he dragged her down the hall and into the tiny, shaded interior of the janitor’s closet, and shut the door. “That was reckless, baby, reckless.” But he grabbed her ass, boosted her up and against him, and pushed her lips open with his, plowing greedily into her mouth. “Christ, what am I going to do with you?”

  She cupped his strong cheek. “Love me.” Her smile faltered on her face. “I’ve been waiting and hoping and praying for you to say it, so then I thought—”

  “I love you.” He braced her against the door and kissed her with such rampant passion she quaked. “I love you, Paige. I’m crazy about you. Crazy. Crazy. Crazy.”

  They kissed crazy crazy crazily, and when he tore free, Paige said tearfully, “I don’t care what my father says. I don’t care what anyone says, I want to—”

  A sound out in the halls broke them apart.

  Zach set her on her feet, briskly kissed her upturned forehead and smoothed her hair down her shoulders. “Button up your sweater.”

  She frowned and looked down. “I’m not wearing a sweater.”

  Ahh! she realized. He was teasing. Because sometimes she was wearing a sweater, and “button up your sweater” meant “people are coming, they could see us, they could catch us. Beware.”

  The story of their young lives: Paige “buttoning up her sweater.”

  She sighed dejectedly at that, suddenly wanting to have a good, long cry, she felt so frustrated. “Zach, I don’t want to button up my sweater anymore.”

  “Tell us what you see, Paige, where are you? What are you doing?”

  Her heart thundered in her breast as a marvelous exhilaration swept over her.