Freedom's Price (13 page)

She could hear him breathing hard, trying to control himself. But she didn’t want him in control. She wanted him wild and frantic. She wanted him as lost in his passion for her as she was for him.

She lifted her hips, driving him more deeply inside of her, pulling his mouth down to hers for another kiss, a harder, hungry kiss. She felt more than heard him groan as he began to move, first matching her rhythm, then kicking it even higher.

“Mara—” He tried to slow them down, but she pushed him even faster. Yes, this was what she wanted.

She felt his shuddering release, heard her name in his ragged, breathless cry. She gripped him tightly as his name, too, was ripped from her throat, as she, too, exploded with wave upon scorching wave of pleasure that shook her until she trembled, until she lay exhausted, her face buried in the warmth of Liam’s neck.

And then there was only silence. Minutes passed, and Marisala started to float, half-asleep. Liam was no lightweight, but she loved the sensation of his body still on top of hers. She hoped he would stay there, still inside of her, all night long.

But finally he stirred and rolled off her, pulling her into his arms. “That was incredible,” he murmured. “Do you always do that? It was unreal….” He paused. “It
was
real, wasn’t it? I mean, you weren’t just trying to keep me from being embarrassed because I, you know, couldn’t stop myself from…”

Marisala opened her eyes and looked up at him. “Real?” she repeated, not quite understanding. “You don’t think I’d actually just
pretend
to?…”

“Some women do. They fake it so the man doesn’t feel bad. And the guy never even knows that it’s not the real thing.” He smiled sleepily down at her. “You’ve honestly never done that?”

Marisala shook her head no.

He kissed her. “Good. Don’t start, okay? I like the real thing.”

He pulled her so that her back was pressed against his front, and draping one arm possessively across her, he sighed. “Let’s get married over Thanksgiving break.” His voice was distant as if sleep were very near. “We can go down to San Salustiano, have the ceremony there.”

“If that’s what you want,” Marisala whispered.

“Yeah. I want to make love to you in the moonlight, on the beach. And up in the mountains too. I want to take you back there as my wife.”

Emotion closed her throat and she couldn’t speak. “My wife.” He sighed again, his breathing slow and steady as he drifted into sleep.

He wanted her to be his wife. Or did he? He had been drawn to the way she’d looked tonight, the way she’d walked and talked and acted. But that wasn’t her. That wasn’t the real thing.

It wasn’t even close.

TEN

L
IAM KNEW AS
soon as he opened the door that there was going to be trouble.

The man standing there was in his early thirties, and he was accompanied by two little girls—a four-year-old and another, slightly older, maybe a second grader.

The man held out his hand. “Ron Hughes,” he introduced himself. “We’re here about Fluffy.”

“Fluffy?”

“Hi, I’m Marisala. We spoke on the phone.” Liam turned to see Mara coming down the stairs, Evita in her arms.

The smaller of the two girls let out a shriek. “Fluffy! Daddy, it’s Fluffy!”

Evita let out an excited bark, and Marisala set the puppy on the floor.

Little girl and puppy met in a tangled heap of arms, legs, and paws. The older girl soon joined the pile. “Sally’s right, Daddy,” she called out joyfully. “It
is
Fluffy!”

“It looks like you found our dog,” Ron said cheerfully.

Liam’s heart sank and he swore silently. He
knew
this was going to happen. He’d
told
Marisala….

She was sitting on the stairs, arms wrapped tightly around her knees as she watched the two girls hugging the puppy she had come to love.

“I’ve never done this before,” Liam told Ron, “and I’m not sure how we go about proving the dog’s yours. Do you have papers or pictures or—”

“The dog is theirs, Liam,” Marisala said quietly. “Look at them. The dog is theirs.”

Ron reached for his wallet. “I’m prepared to pay a reward, of course.”

Liam’s temper flared. “We don’t want your money. Although it might be nice to know how you could lose a puppy and not manage to find her until weeks later.”

Ron lowered his voice, his eyes apologetic. “The girls’ mother was in an accident while on a business trip in D.C. We had to fly down there to be with her while she was in the hospital. I got a neighbor to take Fluffy, but the dog managed to get free. I do appreciate your caring for her all this time, and I’d like to reimburse you for—”

“Is your wife all right?” Marisala had come to stand beside him. Liam slipped his arm around her shoulder, and she pressed herself against him, as if she needed his solidness and his warmth.

“She’s got a pin in her hip, but she’s going to be okay.” Ron had his wallet out again. “Please, I’d like to repay you—”

“Send a donation to the Boston Refugee Center,” Marisala told him. “That would be a good way to repay us.”

Ron nodded. “I’ll do that.” He looked down at Fluffy and his daughters still giggling together on the floor. “Well, I guess we better get going.”

Marisala started toward the kitchen. “I have a leash—”

“That’s okay, I brought one.” Ron drew a leather-and-chain leash from his jacket pocket. “Come on, girls.”

The two blond cherubs stood up, and the puppy, ever playful, ran in circles around them. She took a spin around Liam, too, then skittered into the kitchen.

“Fluffy, come back!” the smaller girl started after her.

“I’ll get her,” Marisala told the child. She went into the kitchen, calling the puppy to her in Spanish.

The older girl’s eyes were wide. “Does Fluffy speak French?” she asked her father.

“That’s Spanish, Ashley. And yeah, after a couple of weeks she probably understands quite a bit.”

Marisala came out of the kitchen, Evita—Fluffy—in her arms. As Liam watched she kissed the top of the puppy’s head before setting her on the floor and helping Ron attach the leash to her collar.

She looked up at the two girls. “You take care of…Fluffy for me, okay?”

They nodded.

“Treat her nicely and give her lots of hugs. I know you will, right?”

Another nod.

“Good.” Marisala straightened up.

“Thanks again,” Ron told them both as he led the puppy and his daughters out into the hall.

The door closed behind them, and they were gone.

Marisala looked at Liam and forced a smile. “What a nice family.”

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. You told me this would happen, and…I’m fine.”

Santiago wouldn’t have recognized her. She was wearing one of her pretty cotton dresses again today. Liam hadn’t seen her in her trademark shorts and tank top in days. Not since the night of the ball—the night they’d first made love.

She’d spent every night since then in his bed, and some long, delicious mornings too. It was funny, but Marisala was more shy than he would have imagined, more restrained than he would have thought when it came to making love. But her only other lover had been a man from San Salustiano. It was possible Enrique had been controlling. Perhaps she’d learned to be so passive from him.

But it didn’t matter. She was going to marry Liam. They had all the time in the world to truly learn to please each other in bed. They had a lifetime.

He reached for her. “We could get another puppy.”

“No. Thank you, but no.” She stood for a moment in his embrace, but then pulled away.

This was weird. He’d expected tears and an out-pouring of emotion and pain, not this cool, much too mature acceptance of the situation. It was as if someone had kidnapped Marisala and replaced her with one of the Stepford Wives.

She smiled at him again and he realized she was wearing makeup and her hair was neatly combed and pulled back from her face. “I’ll be upstairs. I have some letters to write.”

Liam watched her go up the stairs, watched her hips swaying gently beneath the fabric of her dress. He heard the door to her room close, heard her switch on the radio he’d bought for her. That, at least, was still tuned to the rhythmic sounds of the local Spanish station.

He stood there for a long time, unable to shake his feeling of unease.

Marisala held the jeweler’s box, knowing well what was inside.

An engagement ring.

Liam was watching her, expectation and anticipation simmering in his eyes.

She didn’t want an engagement ring. She didn’t want a diamond. She didn’t want to wear a ring on her finger, a symbol of love, yes, but a symbol of imprisonment too.

“Open it,” Liam urged her. He was leaning back, propped up on one elbow, his hair a disheveled jumble of waves and curls, messed from their recent lovemaking.

She knelt on the bed, leaning forward slightly as she opened the box, so that her hair fell over her face. She didn’t want him to see her first reaction to the ring. Although she was getting quite good at hiding her feelings, she didn’t think she could handle this.

But he reached for her, sweeping her hair back from her face with one hand.

Marisala steeled herself and…

It wasn’t a diamond.

It wasn’t a traditional engagement ring at all.

It was silver and handcrafted. And in the center of the band was a roughly cut and only partially polished, very small ocean-colored stone.

“It’s turquoise,” Liam told her. “It was made by a guy I know from Montana—a Native American artisan, a Navajo.”

“It’s beautiful,” Marisala breathed.

“I figured you wouldn’t want to wear a ring all the time, but I
did
want to get you an engagement gift, and I thought—”

Marisala threw her arms around him and kissed him.

He laughed. “Does that mean you like it?”

“I love it.” She took it from the box and put it on her finger. It fit perfectly. She could feel tears welling in her eyes, feel emotion crowding the back of her throat. “How did you know?”

His eyes were almost the exact same shade of blue as the stone in the ring. “Oh, come on, Mara, it wasn’t that hard. You’ve got to figure I know you pretty well by now.”

“Do you?”

Something shifted in his eyes. “Why, don’t you think I do?”

“I don’t know.”

He shifted, sitting up to look at her. “My God, are you crying?”

“No.” She turned away.

He caught her arm. “You are. Marisala, what’s the matter?”

“I’m crying because I’m so happy,” she lied. She reached for him. “Liam, make love to me again.”

Sex was the only thing she was certain of. She knew that she turned him on, even though she was still careful to let him lead. She knew he couldn’t resist the sweet invitation of her body.

She could feel his immediate response to her as he drew her into his arms and kissed her.

“Inez will wonder why we’ve spent all day upstairs.”

Marisala had to laugh at that as she wiped her tears away. “Inez won’t wonder at all. She sees the way I look at you.”

“And the way I look at you.” He kissed her again, pulling her on top of him as he lay on his back. “Don’t you have a class or something this afternoon?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Marisala told him. “It’s all foolishness anyway.”

“Whereas making love is
very
serious business,” he teased.

Marisala kissed him, shifting her hips so that they melted into one, and just like that his teasing stopped.

Marisala sat with Liam at Ricardo Montoya’s Thursday-night meeting at the Refugee Center.

This was the second meeting they had come to, and like the first time, Liam sat near the back and did little more than listen.

Listening was good, but what Liam had to do was talk.

Halfway through the session, he excused himself quietly and disappeared.

After fifteen minutes passed, Marisala went looking for him.

She found him sitting on the steps out in front of the Refugee Center, watching the people walk by in the cool evening air.

“You’ve been out here for a while,” she said.

Liam nodded, turning to smile up at her as if he hadn’t a care in the world. God, he was good at doing that. “Yeah.”

“Maybe you should try coming back inside.”

He didn’t move. “I know. I should.”

Marisala sat down next to him, smoothing the skirt of her dress over her knees.

“I like it when you wear dresses,” he said, slipping his arm around her shoulder.

“I know.”

He nuzzled her neck. “You wear them for me, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I like knowing that too. It turns me on.” He pulled her chin toward him, covering her mouth in a long, slow kiss.

Marisala knew what he was doing. He was trying his best to distract them both. It was working. She took a deep breath as she pulled away from him. “Come back inside.”

He made circles with his thumb on the palm of her hand as he gave her his best bedroom smile. “I’d rather go home and make love to you.”

It was impossible to resist him. She closed her eyes as he kissed her neck again. “I would too.”

But he didn’t stand up to go back inside, or to go home. “I’m not doing very well with these meetings, am I?”

Marisala opened her eyes to find him still smiling at her. His smile had a touch of chagrin, but everything else he was feeling was very neatly concealed.

“You’re doing fine.”

“I’m not doing fine. I’m sitting outside.” He paused. “Why aren’t you yelling at me for copping out?”

She hesitated. “Because…you’re trying your best?”

He laughed and said something extremely obscene. “This isn’t my best.” And just like that, he wasn’t laughing any longer. Just like that, the easygoing, laid-back front he always wore was stripped away, exposing the very uncertain, very frustrated, very angry and frightened man underneath. “This is just sitting on the stairs because I’m scared to death of—”

He stopped himself. “I’m sorry.” As Marisala watched he took a deep breath and hid nearly all of his fear and frustration behind a smile.

It was all she could do to keep from grabbing him and shaking him. Don’t stop, she wanted to shout at him. Keep going, keep talking! But instead, she kept her voice calm. “Don’t apologize for being honest.”

He was silent, just staring out at the street.

“Come back inside,” she finally said again.

Liam managed another smile, but shook his head. “I…can’t.”

She stood up. “All right. Then let’s go home. Maybe next week—”

“No, Mara, I need…” Liam rubbed his forehead in frustration. He needed her to shout at him. Some things needed to be shouted about, she’d told him. Why couldn’t she see that this was one of them? He didn’t need her gentle understanding. He needed her outrage, her scorn. He’d told her he would attend these meetings. He’d told her he wanted to try to talk about everything he’d been through. He needed her to throw that in his face, to toss out a challenge, to fight for him—even if the enemy was his own self, his own weakness.

But she was backing away from him again, tiptoeing around him the way she had been for weeks now.

At the same time what was he doing, blaming her for his own shortcomings? He knew he and he alone had to take responsibility for his life. If he wanted changes, he had to stand up and face the darkness he’d hidden from for so long. Marisala couldn’t do that for him.

And maybe that’s why she was pulling away from him. Maybe after two weeks of watching him come to these group sessions and
still
be unable to talk, she was doubting his ability to change. Maybe she was realizing he’d never be the man he was before he’d been thrown into hell. Maybe she dreaded the thought of a lifetime filled with nightmares.

Although, the nightmares weren’t as bad with Marisala in his bed. He still woke up far too often with his heart pounding and his mouth dry. But his need to light every corner of his condo when he awoke in the night had let up.

She was still watching him. He wanted to take her into his arms and beg her never to let him go. But he knew he’d sound pathetic and that could very well drive her further away.

She held out her hand. “Let’s go home,” she said again.

“No.” Liam stood up, straightening his shoulders and back. “I’m going back inside.” He knew he wasn’t going to talk. He knew he was just going to listen, but that was better than nothing, right?

He hoped Marisala would think so too.

Marisala made tea while Inez sat at the kitchen table, her baby to her breast.

“I hope William’s crying didn’t wake you,” Inez said.

“It didn’t.” Marisala pulled all the boxes of herbal tea down from the shelf, unable to decide which blend to have. “Liam fell asleep early, but I was still up.”