Dark of Night Read Free Page A

stroked by the softest of hands, except not really, because it was even better than that.
    Kathy/Anise had liked sex hard and fast, and she'd always,
always
been running the show, even when she'd been beneath him. It had been 180 degrees different than these long, slow withdrawals, and equally endless deep,
deep
thrusts that made Sophia moan—dear God, much more of this and he was going to lose it—except what the hell was he doing thinking about Kathy now when he was making love to Sophia—Jesus, he was making
love
to
Sophia.
Dave wondered inanely if she were thinking of Decker or maybe her dead husband, Dimitri, or even some distant, long-ago lover that she'd let slip away, and there was no way he could compete against any of them, except now he was
way
too much inside of his head so he tried to clear his thoughts of everything but this intense, mind-blowing pleasure he was feeling—that she was feeling, too.
    “So good …,” she breathed.
“So
good.”
    Good didn't begin to cover it, but good was better than bad, it was better than get me out of here, don't touch me, get your fucking hands offa me…
    Good couldn't kill you, except Dave
was
dying, he was choking, he was
drowning,
and he didn't want to die, but Jesus, he didn't want to go back to that basement with the bright light and the questions and the pain.
    They'd taken all of his fingernails off his right hand and had made it clear they were ready to start on his left because they hadn't caught on that he was stronger than anything they could throw at him. The waterboarding, the electric shocks, the blows to his face and body…
    He just ran to Sophia in his mind, losing himself in his vivid memories of the too-short time they'd shared. Seven weeks. It had been slightly more than seven weeks since that first night.
    His favorite escape was to go back to that night, to that very first time they'd made love. While it wasn't the best sex they'd had—because God, they'd had a lot of sex in seven weeks, even with both of them out of town for part of that time—it was, for him at least, among the sweetest.
    Although this time the monsters had gone too far but then pulled him back before he'd had the chance—in his mind—to reach his very favorite part. To make Sophia come. Which pissed the shit out of him.
    They yanked the rag from his throat, hauled him up, and bent him over so the water they'd forced into him left his stomach and lungs as he coughed and choked and vomited his way back to reality—which sucked ass.
    He fucking hated it here, yet his body gasped for air, tears streaming down his face as he puked even more, as he spit out a tooth that he must've broken as he'd savagely bit at that rag they'd stuffed in his mouth.
    Here in the land of light and pain, those beautiful weeks that he'd spent with Sophia seemed distant and blurred, like a rapidly fading dream—only he knew it had happened. He knew that, in her own way, Sophia loved him, that she'd been ready and willing—and yes, even eager—to spend the rest of her life with him.
    Dave clung to that truth, like a distant echo of the most beautiful, pure music cutting through the cacophony of angry demands and the shrill buzz of pain.
    It was his love for Sophia, his memories of their time together, that was keeping him sane, keeping him alive, although it wouldn't help him for much longer—he knew that, too. He could feel his already damaged body weakening—the infection from his knife wound getting more severe with each passing hour. And each time it was harder to come back.
    But back he was, and he waited, still gasping and coughing, for the questions that would come. And for the blows that would follow when, once again, he failed to give his captors the information they wanted.
    His world had shrunk to four absolute truths.
    He loved Sophia—heart, body, and soul.
    He would die before betraying his teammates, his friends.
    He
was
going to die. He knew that when these monsters who were