“No,” she breathed out, faintly, swaying even closer. “Definitely not that.”
He trailed his hand down to the join of neck and shoulder, thumbing briefly at her collarbone, sharp and just-visible in the open V-neck of her shirt. Then back up, pad of his thumb pressed to her chin, to her lower lip. He reveled in the way she responded, mouth parting, breath sighing out of her. He wasn’t a dumb kid anymore; he could make her feel good, could make it so, so much better than Jason ever had – why shouldn’t he show off a little? Why not enjoy making her pulse race and her skin shiver and her blood pool low in her belly, down near where she would start to ache for him?
“Leah–”
“Wait.” He froze, worried as she moved – but it was only to lean over and set her glass on the coffee table. When she leaned back, she leaned all the way back, got up on her knees on the cushion, put her hands on his shoulders, and she was right here, lips damp and glistening from the pass of her own tongue, dark lashes thick as fans against her blushing cheeks. “Okay,” she breathed.
He tangled both hands in her hair, finally, its cool, silken heaviness, pulled her in, and kissed her.
Gentle at first, careful. But her hands tightened on his shoulders, and her lips opened right away, and it was easy as anything to angle his head, and slip his tongue between her lips. Opening her up for him, sealing their mouths with a hot, wet press.
He got lost to it, for a minute. The slick slide of lips, and tongues; she tasted like wine, and her lips were so soft, and her hair was watered silk through his fingers.
She made a sound, a little whimper, and Carter realized he’d gotten way too aggressive way too fast. He pulled back, and found that he’d bent her back against the arm of the couch, bearing down on her with intent, kissing her with the kind of wild avarice that led to skin on skin. Not kissing because it was nice, but kissing with intent.
Shame washed through him, and he opened his fingers, intending to push back from her. He’d gotten so used to Jazz’s no-frills, forward approach to sex that he was skipping all sorts of steps, violating Leah’s trust; shit, he was all but dominating her.
“I’m–” he started. Sorry got caught in his throat when he got a look at her face, her lips kiss-swollen, her eyes low-lidded, cheeks flushed.
Her lashes fluttered as she glanced up at him, lips parting on a soft breath. “Why’d you stop?”
He leaned back in – but caught himself. Paused. “Is it too much?”
She smiled. “No, you dummy.” Caught his shirt collar, and reeled him in the rest of the way.
~*~
Carter was the sort of guy that people her grandparents’ age always described as a “nice young man.” Unfailingly polite, and modest; quiet, careful, mannerly. He opened doors and always thanked people properly; said ma’am and sir. When he was nice, he was so nice, and it would have been easy to imagine him as a sweaty-palmed, fumbling, overeager lover, done in a minute and not worth the effort, in hindsight.
But there was another side to him, lurking underneath. The side that had made him so light on his feet on the football field, such an accurate passer, so rarely sacked. It was visible, in rare moments, in the sharp corner of a smile, in the way the light would catch his blue eyes just so, a sparkle, a sly little sideways glance. At times, he looked like he had a secret; it was visible, in those moments, the way he tucked that cockier persona away behind his polite mask.
Leah had been glimpsing more and more of it lately, especially tonight. She thought tonight she’d gotten her first good, long look at the real Carter; the person he was when he wasn’t trying to obey orders or toe the line. His father’s ready backhand had molded him into someone eager to please – but tonight she thought she understood that he wanted to be pleased, too.
She realized now that she’d still managed to underestimate him.
His kiss was straight-up sex.
She couldn’t get over his hands in her hair, and the hot, relentless stroke of his tongue, forward, and intimate, and unforgiving. She’d thought he might be a good kisser, but she hadn’t anticipated him taking control like this.
It was spine-meltingly good.
Right up until he pulled back.
Her pulse throbbed in her temples, and throat, and beat wildly against her ribcage. It was an effort to open her eyes; catching her breath wasn’t possible.
She saw the guilt flash across his face. Saw him gather a breath to speak.
“Why’d you stop?”
She watched hesitation war with want on his face, open, and raw, and the most unguarded she’d ever seen him. Doubt, and worry, and hunger – the kind of hunger you wouldn’t think to see in a self-professed sex fiend. He’d gotten up to some wild shit, the particulars of which she didn’t ever want to know, but it hadn’t satisfied him, she saw now. He was a boy with two appetites, and only one had been served.
“Is it too much?”
Her insides were already liquid, and they rippled and shivered in response to his earnest question, hushed and almost frightened. He didn’t want to scare her; didn’t want to push her too hard.
Any ideas she’d held about going slow promptly evaporated.
“No, you dummy,” she said, and pulled him back in.
He breathed a low, ardent groan against her mouth, and his hands tightened in her hair as he kissed her again. She started it, but he took over, that same relentless slide of lips and tongue, totally overwhelming.
She lost time, in the heated middle of that kiss. Her neck grew weak and she let her head fall back; let him hold her, and ease her back against the arm of the couch. Felt the cushions dip beneath his weight; felt the heat and strength of him caging her in, and his mouth was as worshipful as it was aggressive.
Her whole body throbbed like a pressed-on bruise, alive and thrumming and ready; his hunger was contagious. She gripped the front of his shirt and tried to pull him closer; let her thighs fall open, and he settled between them. He was already half-hard; she could feel him stirring against her belly, plumping behind his fly.
His tongue stroked behind her teeth, and his hips hitched forward, an involuntary roll that pressed his hardening cock more firmly against her; his breath hitched, a sharp little inhale through his nose.
It was – so much, so fast.
It hit her suddenly, a little bolt of apprehension.
He felt it, too, because he drew back, braced above her, panting, flushed, his hair tousled – and, oh, when had she threaded her fingers through it? When had she slipped down to lie flat? His hand braced on the couch arm overhead.
He angled his hips back, away from her, so they no longer touched below the waist – save where her thighs bracketed his lean hips. They were halfway to dry-humping, and his eyes blazed, the blue shrunk down to a thin ring around his blown pupils.
Leah felt swoony, shocked at her own ardor.
She wet lips that were swollen beneath the stroke of her tongue; watched his gaze track the movement. “Maybe…”
“Yeah.” He sat back, and swung his legs around so he sat flat-footed, upright. No longer touching her anywhere.
Leah pushed up more slowly, and mirrored his pose, elbows on knees, feet braced apart. It wasn’t exactly ladylike on her part, but then, neither was what had just happened between them. So.
“That was…” she started.
“Too much?”
“I was going to say amazing.” She glanced over, and watched his head turn; watched his brows go up in quiet, beautiful surprise. She dredged up a smirk. “Were you aware you were that fantastic of a kisser?”
After a second, he smirked back. “Well. Maybe.”
She chuckled, and it eased the unnecessary tension in her chest. “Damn.” She knocked her shoulder into his. “Kudos.”
He chuckled, too – and then full-on laughed, face creasing with it, eyes scrunching up. “Kudos?”
“Take the compliment. Trust me.”
He laughed again, then it died away, slowly, his gaze
still fixed on her. “I don’t…”
“You don’t what?”
He hesitated. Licked his lips – which was distracting. “I don’t really know where to go. From here.”
“Good.” The sudden, painful tension in her chest loosened. “Neither do I.”
They traded glances, and it felt like progress.
“Wanna watch TV?” she asked.
He nodded, and so they did.
Thirty
Fox assumed that Tenny wouldn’t come, but he appeared halfway through cheese and cocktails, and set an expensive bottle of red down on the kitchen island as a hostess gift. He was an asshole, sure, but he was a good actor; he played it up to Emmie until she was smiling quietly, in that subtle way of hers. She’d always been easily impressed, Emmaline – though, secretly, Fox admired and liked her. She’d seen through all Walsh’s bland effrontery straight off; been drawn to him in a way no one ever had. She’d earned major points for that; Walsh deserved to be loved, unreservedly, even if he would have denied himself.
They ate. Eden tried – and occasionally failed – to keep work out of it. After dinner, all the girls wound up in the small, back living room, a cozy den with a stone fireplace and plenty of overstuffed couches. Fox knew Eden was pitching her crusade to Emmie and Becca. He went to have a smoke on the porch with his brothers, but wandered back in for another beer, eventually.
It was only then that he realized Tenny had stayed inside; that he was in the kitchen, now, squared off across the gleaming island from Emmie.
Fox tucked himself in a dark corner to watch and listen.
“…horses, sometime?” Emmie was saying.
Tenny nodded. “I have – equestrian experience.”
Fox was surprised. It made sense – he knew that Tenny had been trained in so many things, as part of his creation as a prime operative. Rich, influential types – the types manipulated and targeted by the government – had horses, especially in Europe. Of course Tenny could ride – but it felt different, hearing it here, hearing him tell Emmie so, haltingly, awkwardly.
Emmie, to her credit, didn’t acknowledge his stiff, inhuman response. Only nodded. “I’ve got some lesson horses – school masters. Older and dependable. One’s even a western pleasure mount,” she said, smiling. Tenny smiled back, faintly, helpless to do otherwise. His hands, Fox saw, where they were splayed against the lip of the counter, were open and relaxed. They twitched in response to her words. “But there’s my boy – he’s confirmed Prix St. George, and advancing. Finicky, though. He chooses who he likes and who he tosses. I’ve got a couple young ones, though. I1 and ready to advance. I could always use a learned hand schooling them,” she said, head tilting in obvious invitation.
Tenny hesitated – and Fox didn’t think it was for show. He glanced down at his own hands, shifted his weight, and wet his lips. He looked nervous. “I can. If you want.”
Emmie beamed at him – Fox had honestly never seen her smile that wide. “Awesome! Can you come by Tuesday? Some of the babies are due to be worked.”
Tenny nodded, and mumbled something in the affirmative, before he slipped out of the room, ducking into the dining room.
Emmie stared at the place he’d been, smiling faintly, and nodded to herself.
Fox slipped into the room, taking up Tenny’s spot at the island. “Interesting.”
She adjusted smoothly; no sign of a surprise, just an indulgent, amused lift of her brows as she poured herself a glass of wine. “Is it?”
One of the reasons he liked her so much was the effortless way she made him work for every conversation. She could take the sort of comment that would send one of his brothers off in a huff, spin it right back on him, just as vague and deceptive, and suddenly he was explaining himself, and she was grinning. “His whole bashful real-boy routine with you just now.” He gestured toward the door Tenny had gone through. “All I get is teeth.” He imitated one of Tenny’s nastier sneers for her, and she grinned.
A grin that faded quickly, though. Her voice lowered – and softened. It was sincere. “That is one very broken boy, Charlie.”
He bit back a sigh. “Yeah.” He tipped his head, and pretended to consider her – though there was a note of truth to his request when he said, “Want to help me with him?”
She breathed a laugh. “You just need more practice.”
“Handled many government assassins, have you?”
“Horses,” she countered. “So, so many horses. You learn how to handle aggression. And fear,” she said, seriously. “I don’t know what he’s scared of, but it’s something.” Her head tipped, not quite an accusing angle, but close. Are you addressing that fear?
He lifted his chin, hands braced on the edge of the counter. “Alright, horse trainer. What do you think he’s afraid of?”
She snorted. “Everything, probably.” When he frowned, she said, “His whole world got upended. Every aspect of his life was planned out for him. They told him when to sleep, and when to work; which persona to put on. He didn’t have a shred of autonomy. He also didn’t have anyone to care about – or to care about him, beyond his usefulness.”
“Do you think I haven’t thought of this?” he asked, and though his tone was mild, he knew Walsh would have decked him had he been in the room and heard him ask that.
The little sideways twitch of Emmie’s mouth told him she knew it, too. “I’m sure you have. I’m sure you all have. But have any of you tried being kind to him? Or have you just barked orders and told him it was time to act like a member of this club – which he doesn’t know, and to which he has no loyalty.”
Fox had never liked the mental sensation of having a bucket of cold water poured over his head – he liked it even less now.
“You’ve treated him like he’s dangerous. Like he needs handling. Have any of you asked him what he wants?”
He swallowed – with effort, and he saw her gaze track the movement. Of course someone used to working with animals knew to search for the nonverbal cues. In Tenny…and in him.
Emmie’s tone gentled. “What is he? Twenty-three, twenty-four? He’s young, Fox. Maybe ask him if he wants to watch a ballgame or something. Go fishing.”
“Do I look like I fish?” he asked, aiming for teasing.
She shook her head, wry smile widening. “Maybe you ought to.” She picked up her glass and went to rejoin the other old ladies.
Fox stood staring at the place where she’d been a moment; above the sink, the sky had gone indigo beyond the window glass, that last flush of purple before the light failed completely.
He grabbed the beer he’d come to get – grabbed two – and then slipped silently through the house, and out the front door.
Tenny was visible as a lean slice of shadow halfway down the long, curving driveway that led down the hill to the barn. His strides easy, but ground-covering, his hands in his pockets. There was enough filmy twilight left that the white threads of his bottom rocker – PROSPECT – seemed to glow. He paused when he reached the circular parking pad in front of the barn, staring through the open double doors and down the aisle, face bathed in the soft glow of the overhead security light.
He stepped inside, and Fox headed that way.
If pressed, he would have admitted that he understood why Walsh loved this place. The cool, spring dark was alive with the chirp of crickets, and the first peep of tree frogs; it sounded like there were leagues of them, their trilling calls echoing across the fields, bouncing off the tree trunks at the forest edge. A gentle breeze ruffled the leaves overhead, and fireflies flickered to life out in the gloaming. He couldn’t hear any traffic, or sirens. No human shouts, no slamming doors, no horns honking; no domestics in progress. It had been like this in Texas, to an extent, drier, the coyotes always yipping. Tennessee had coyotes, too, but they were much larger, and much more likely to be part of a massive pack.
A part of him would always miss the bustle and crush of London, though. Even if he could breathe better here, there w
as a certain reassuring quality to the chaos. Humans he could handle; nature, not so much.
The barn – along with the rest of the property – was an overly fanciful dream of an estate, the sort of place neither Walsh nor Emmie could have owned individually, without the club’s help. Cupolas set at intervals down the center aisle contained chandeliers on dimmer switches, set to low, now, offering enough ambient light to illuminate the stall fronts, and the drowsy horse heads hanging over the doors.
Tenny stood halfway down the aisle, little more than a silhouette, hand held up for inspection while a horse with a frankly huge head – why did anyone need a horse that big, honestly? – sniffed at the backs of his fingers.
Fox debated, and decided he would announce himself; doubtless Tenny had already heard some near-silent tell: the scrape of a shoe, a kicked pebble. But Emmie’s words from minutes ago sat large in his mind. The quip he intended was bitten back; he took a breath, and called, “I have to get away from them all sometimes, too.”
Tenny’s only reaction was a sudden closing of his hand. The horse nudged him, and he opened it again, and let the animal lip at his palm.
Fox strolled the rest of the way to him and offered one of the beers.
Tenny looked over, slowly, whites of his eyes gleaming, gaze narrow, before accepting it and twisting the top off. The horse stretched out his neck, big nostrils flaring at he sniffed at it.
Kindness. He might have to fake that, at first, until he got the hang of it. “I didn’t know you were into the whole horse thing.” He aimed for curious.
Tenny shrugged, and went back to stroking the horse’s nose. It was a chestnut with a big white marking on its forehead. Its gleaming stall plaque proclaimed him Toby. “I have equestrian training. I worked an op in Saudi Arabia once; the crown princes all ride.”
A simple explanation, delivered without fanfare, but a sharp reminder: this boy had done unspeakable things, and been subject to them in turn, because he was ordered to. Not because he’d chosen to. Fox had honed his body and his mind, perfected languages and accents and personas – and all of it had been because he felt driven to do so. Because he’d seen the usefulness in it. Because he was, at heart, cold; he’d inherited all the worst of Devin Green.
Homecoming (Dartmoor Book 8) Page 32
