Then he looked up and caught her eye, winking at her.
“I don’t know. I’ve gagged her.” He was still answering questions. Rachel couldn’t help but feel sick at the thought of her husband on the other end of the line. Any connection between David and her, no matter how tenuous, was too much to contemplate.
“I’ll have to drag her over. I’ve tied her up good.” Murphy looked like he was enjoying this a little too much. He beckoned her over with his hand, and she reluctantly walked down the stairs. Each step felt like it was too far.
As soon as she was close, he reached out and pulled her against him. He put his hand over the mouthpiece, and leaned down to whisper in her ear. “You think you can talk to him?”
She shook her head rapidly, the fear clutching at her gut as she tried not to think about David. To hear his voice would make her want to scream. Murphy’s eyes softened as they caught her gaze, acknowledging her angst with a worried smile.
“She’s struggling a little too much. It won’t be long before you can tell her face to face. I need to get out of here, though—the town’s starting to wake up.”
Murphy pulled the receiver away from his ear as David shouted a tirade of abuse down the wire. Holding the phone as far away from Rachel as possible, he leaned down to kiss her, his lips soft at first, then firmer as his tongue pushing against hers. She dropped the bag, reached her arms up until they were locked around his neck, her nipples already hard at the sensation of his touch.
David was already forgotten.
“Yeah, I’ll call you from the road. Bye.” He didn’t even try to talk into the phone, just mumbled it against her lips, and then hung up before he turned to give her his full attention. His fingers tangled into her hair, and his tongue pushed into her mouth; Rachel found herself submitting to his insistence. The sensation of his hard cock against her stomach was making her want to beg.
“Jesus, you do it to me every time.” He thrust his hips against her. “Just when I think I can’t fuck anymore, I touch you and get hard.”
“Didn’t seem to work last week. I couldn’t tell if you liked me or not.”
“I was suffering a professional dilemma,” he protested. His hands moved down to brush against her nipples, making something flare between her legs. “I was there to work, yet all I wanted to do was bend you over the bar.”
“Now I’m disappointed we’ll never get to try that.”
“Doesn’t have to be this bar.” He lifted her up, making her wrap her legs around his hips. His cock was rubbing against her clit enough to drive her mad.
“But it could be …” She ran her lips from his mouth, down the line of stubble to his jaw. “You could fuck me so good here.”
“Sweetheart, I could fuck you so good anywhere. Next time, I plan to take a while. I’m not taking you over the bar for a quick knee trembler.”
He said there would be a next time; why did it make her heart stutter?
Maybe because she suspected there wouldn’t be another time. Not for them.
He placed her back on the floor and picked up her bag, and together they walked into the bar. Rachel flushed when she saw the torn up remnants of her sweater next to her hastily discarded jeans. Somehow, in the heat of last night, the bastard had managed to keep his own clothes on while hers were flung left and right. While she picked up the remains, Murphy searched through the trash can, his nose turning up when he fished out the discarded condom.
It made her want to gag.
She turned to look at him with a grimace, wondering why the hell he was taking the dirty thing out with him. Was he some kind of pervert?
“DNA,” he replied to her unasked question. “Just in case the police get involved.”
She stuffed her own dirty clothes in her bag. “Can we at least drop in and tell Buddy I’m going?” she pleaded. “He’ll be devastated if I up and leave.”
Murphy turned, and she hated the look of sympathy which covered his face. “Rachel… Lucy? Jesus, I don’t even know what to call you.” He took a deep breath. “If we stop and talk to Buddy and give him any information about where we’re going, then whoever David sends up here next is going to squeeze it out of him ... and when I say squeeze, I think you know I’m meaning something much worse.”
Tears stung at her eyes at the thought of Buddy getting hurt. He was nearly seventy years old, for fuck’s sake, and wouldn’t hurt a fly. When she was at her lowest, he was the one who offered her a roof over her head and some money to buy food. As much as it hurt her to leave without a word, it would hurt her more if she left Buddy exposed.
It was another reason to hate David Eversleigh.
“Hey, c’mere.” Murphy pulled her to him, letting her hot tears moisten his sweater. “You know, one day, when things are safe, you’ll come back and have a drink here. You can tell Buddy all about it then.”
Rachel nodded wordlessly, trying not to think that by the time she’d return, Bud would probably have died, and Marianne would have sold off the bar, or shut it up for good. That sort of reasoning would do her nothing but harm.
“Rachel, babe, we need to go now.” He tipped her head up with his finger and brushed away her tears. “Let’s get on the road and get some breakfast somewhere. Is there a diner somewhere on the road?”
“Depends whether you want to go east or west. It’s about a half hour if we’re going eastward.”