Page 40 of Love Me Carefully
“It’ll all sink in once we get moving.” Crossing the room to stand in front of her, he placed his large hands on her shoulders.
“Please don’t say ‘sink.’ ” She rolled her eyes and rested her head against his chest. When she felt the rumbling of his laughter, she had to chuckle herself.
“Come on, let’s get unpacked. Then we can take the grand tour.”
“Maybe we can just stay in our room,” Rosie suggested, her voice sultry. “It would be a shame to put such a big bed to waste.” Her arms circled his waist to pull him closer.
“I guess you have a good point there.” Moving his hands from her shoulders, he caressed her back, then slid his hands further down to grip her plump ass. “A very good point.”
* * *
Perched on the steps, Leah ripped the tape from a box marked photos. Lifting the cardboard flaps, she explored the contents. “I think we can safely assume we’re in Donald’s basement.” Her voice was bland as she flipped through the photographs.
“Let me see.” Terrell abandoned the box he’d been going through to join her on the steps. He’d been looking for a crowbar, or something to wrench the door open, but so far all he’d found were pictures and real estate documents.
Without so much as a glance in his direction she handed him a handful of pictures she’d already viewed. Donald was in almost every one. She didn’t recognize anyone else in the pictures. Some showed him with two younger women whose faces she’d seen repeatedly in the photos. She figured they might be the daughters that Nikki had told her about.
Dropping the pictures she still held in her hand back into the box, she sat straight up and stretched. She arched back and lifted her arms above her head. “This is tiring.”
Out of the corner of his eye Terrell watched the rise and fall of her breasts. His mouth went dry at the sight of the heavy mounds molding themselves against the cotton of her shirt. Continuing to flip through the pictures, he tried to concentrate on the people in them, or the people that weren’t in them, anything but the fact that with Leah he was trapped in this basement, which seemed to be getting smaller and smaller by the moment.
“You didn’t find any tools over there, huh?” Unaware of the effect she was having on her fellow captive, Leah spoke calmly as she looked around the room to the pile of boxes Terrell had already gone through.
“Nah, I didn’t see anything.” Terrell cleared his throat. “I did find some papers that I think might shed some light on the type of person we’re dealing with, though.” Dropping the pictures into the box, he crossed over to where he’d set a pile of papers he’d pulled from a file cabinet and came back to sit beside Leah. “It looks like Donald owns some property.”
Tension crackled between them as they touched. Terrell focused on the papers and tried to ignore it.
Leah closed her eyes and tried to ignore it.
“You’ve heard of Negril, right?”
“Of course, I have. It’s one of the many popular honeymoon spots my clients go to.” Opening her eyes, she looked down at the papers he held. “What are those? Deeds?”
“Yeah, it looks like it. I guess he owns land in Negril.”
“They’re dated within the last two years. Why would he buy property in Jamaica?”
“Maybe he’s planning to relocate,” Terrell mentioned quietly.
“Yeah, maybe.” Leah shrugged. Then his silence caught her attention and, taking a chance, she glanced at him. He was no longer looking at the papers but was staring straight ahead, a blank expression on his face. No, not blank, she thought, sad.
“What’s the matter?”Besides the obvious, she thought to herself.
“I was just thinking that he’s probably planning to take my mother to Jamaica with him.”
“And that would bother you?”
“Of course, it would bother me! What kind of question is that? Would you want your mother living an ocean away from you?”
“Actually—” She thought of Marsha and all her problems.
“Never mind, you wouldn’t understand.” Gathering the papers into a neat stack, Terrell started to get up from the steps.
“You’re right.” With her hand on his arm she stopped him. “Why don’t you explain it to me? I know that you love your mother. When I see you with her I know there’s nothing in this world you wouldn’t do to make her happy. What I don’t understand is why—before you found out all this about Mr. Donald—why you didn’t want her to get married.”
She wouldn’t understand, he thought. He barely understood it himself. Still, he found himself preparing to tell her. “You really want to know?”
“Yeah, I really want to know.” Placing her hand on his knee in what she meant as a purely innocent gesture to reassure him, she continued, “It might help you to talk it out with someone and, as it stands, I don’t have anywhere to be just now, so I’m all ears.”
