Above The Surface

by Akeroyd, Serena

  But she was here now. In my arms. In bed with me. And she was going to stay here.

  I didn’t give a fuck what I had to do. Didn’t give a shit if I had to stalk her to stay by her side. There was no way I was doing without her.

  Not anymore.

  Now that Cain was free and she’d won those medals, there was nothing to stop me. I’d wanted her to achieve those goals, to reach the dizzying heights I knew she’d been destined to soar to. I hadn’t wanted to distract her, had wanted to give her time and space, the freedom to attain what she deserved.

  And now?

  That was gone.

  Over.

  Done with.

  She was mine, I was hers, and we were about to fucking live.

  She could carry on swimming professionally, she could do whatever the hell she wanted. Fuck, if she wanted a job at Target, I’d support her. But she’d do it at my side.

  That was the only condition.

  She wasn’t the only one who was determined, and now that I knew the stupid reason behind her enforced distance, I was going to hammer at all her walls until she couldn’t think to live without me. Couldn’t even consider it without it tearing at her.

  Mean?

  Maybe.

  But so was having to exist in this half-life.

  If we were cursed, then I’d felt that without her at my side. Every day, waking up without her, wondering what she was doing, knowing she’d ignore my message if I tried to contact her, knowing she’d cut any call I tried to connect—it had worn on me.

  Ripped at my soul.

  I’d tried to move on, but how could you move on from a connection like this?

  There was no freedom when you were tied to someone with invisible bonds.

  If we were cursed, then it was a curse that existed when we were apart. Because my level of misery had urged me to work like a motherfucker.

  I’d worked a hundred hours a week, minimum, busting my ass to get through the days. Sure, it had made me rich. But fuck, what was money if you were unhappy at a soul level?

  She wriggled in my arms, resettling swiftly with a little snore that made me smile, that cut through that soul deep unhappiness I’d been feeling ever since she’d left for Stanford without a goddamn goodbye.

  This was where she should have always been.

  And I needed to show that to her.

  I knew, from the light outside the curtains, that we’d slept through the night, and some of the morning. It was too bright not to be midday or early afternoon.

  To be honest, I didn’t give a shit what time of day it was.

  I was just happy to be here.

  Staring down at her sleeping face, I wondered what it was about her that annihilated me.

  She was pretty, sure. But there was something in her features that brought me to my knees.

  Literally.

  She was too slender, and I wanted her to eat some more shitty food before we left just to change that, and her form was ultra-slim. She was made to race. It was in her bones, in her limbs. Looking at her was like viewing the human version of a high performance machine.

  She was a Porsche in comparison to every other woman’s Ford Focus.

  She was a walking wet dream, one that had plagued me for half a decade, and one I hoped would plague me for decades more.

  Her nose crinkled, and in her ears, the little rings she wore with the faint frill around the edges, the slightest Creole design, flopped to the side as she scrubbed a hand over her face.

  When her forearm tensed and she pushed it into her eyes, she muttered, “How come I’m sleeping in the wet patch? It’s crusty. Gross.”

  My lips curved because I’d half expected her to leap out of bed in horror—it wouldn’t be the first time she’d woken up like that. Disgust at her breach in self-control, flustered at what we’d done—like it was illegal. So, because I was relieved, I teased, “Woman’s prerogative.”

  “No fair.”

  “I’ll sleep in it next time. How about that?”

  She mumbled, “Only fair.”

  “Equal rights,” I concurred with a smile, even as I dipped down and pressed a kiss to her temple.

  She sighed, then twisted around and pushed herself into my body. Within seconds, she was wrapped up tightly in my arms, one leg over mine, and I wasn’t surprised when her hand grabbed my morning wood and she maneuvered it so that we were joined again.

  I always wanted her.

  Always.

  That would never die.

  But at the moment, I’d been happy just to lay with her.

  That she wanted to connect made me angry even as my dick was singing with joy.

  I knew why.

  She was trying to eke out as much as she could from this vacation. Take as much of me as she could, absorb it all in preparation for the next drought.

  But I was tired of feast or famine with her.

  So I stilled her hips when she started to move, knowing full well that she couldn’t be ready to make love.

  “There’s no rush,” I muttered against her cheek when I dotted a kiss there.

  “I want you,” she said breathily, making my dick twitch because she was talking its language.

  But I was more than just my dick.

  Said appendage had had its fill of pussy that it didn’t particularly want, and was using only to slough off the need and desire that came when you were denied the one woman you—and your cock—truly wanted.

  So, I hauled her higher up against me, and rolled us over so I was on top of her. When her toes dug into my calves, I almost purred. Fuck, that felt good.

  I sighed as I pushed my forehead into hers and grumbled, “You trying to kill me?”

  She tensed, and I cursed my stupid fucking brain for asking something so moronic when I had to figure that was a major concern of hers.

  Fuck, how that was a concern at all was ridiculous. If I could have told her mother what I thought of her, I fucking would have.

  Rather than apologize, I kissed her. Long and slow. But hard and wet. I had her begging for breath, begging for more.

  Begging for me.

  She rippled underneath me like she was water itself, flowing around me until I was absorbed by her. Her arms came to gather around my back, and she held me close, her legs gripping me tightly even as she burrowed into me, going as far as she could in her position.

  I didn’t fuck her.

  I loved her.

  I gave her everything I had to give and more, all in the vain hope that she’d realize how right this was.

  How pure and perfect.

  I shuddered as she tightened around me, her orgasm spiking from out of nowhere, as it made me wonder if, for once, she’d read my mind. If she’d felt how wondrous this was for me, and it had triggered her climax.

  I groaned into her mouth, still kissing her, refusing to let go, refusing to breathe air that wasn’t from her lungs.

  The intensity had shivers rushing through me like I was cold turkey and going through withdrawals, but if anything, I was saturating myself with my own personal drug.

  Theodosia Kinkade.

  I ground my dick into her, going slow and thrusting deep, not stopping until I was fucking throbbing with the urge to come, my balls aching with the need to explode inside her.

  Suddenly, she tore her mouth from mine and released a high scream that hurt my ear drums, even as I gloried in the sound.

  She shattered around me, and in turn, brought me into the explosion. As I cascaded around her in a thousand pieces, I felt us unite, our broken bodies fixing into one cohesive unit.

  I gasped into her throat, gulping in air that was tinged with the scent of her and soap. As I came down from that high, I loved how she didn’t let go. Her hold was just as fierce as it had been during that explosive act.

  I knew I was sweating, I could feel it gathering on my face, making our bodies stick together, and I didn’t think it could have been more perfect than it was at that moment.


  Life, for once, didn’t suck.

  And I wasn’t about to complain about that.

  THEA

  I knew Adam was being serious. He wasn’t going to let me go, and the worst part of it was, I was starting to believe that we should be together.

  One night in his arms, sleeping with him and waking with him with nothing else to do than be with one another for the rest of the vacation, and he was turning my head.

  Danger, danger.

  It bleated a warning in my subconscious, but I pushed it aside. Doing as my mother had begged me not to.

  Maybe it was apt that, as soon as we woke up, things started to fall apart.

  The curse.

  I’d never thought about stuff like that before my visit with my mother, but in the aftermath, it was there, at the front of my mind as I fought the constant battle to be with Adam.

  But I’d never seen it working.

  Never seen it roll out.

  Destined to know one another, but to never be together.

  I couldn’t think of a worse punishment.

  “Why us?” I’d asked her, and she’d flinched at the plea in my words.

  “Because Fate was jealous. No mortal should have been able to see as far as Eulalia Kinkade could, so she was punished for that sight, and the punishment tainted us all.”

  I shook my head. “That’s stupid. That makes no sense.”

  “Our culture is stupid? Our culture makes no sense?”

  The words were like a whip lash to my mind.

  I gulped. “I wasn’t raised like you.”

  “And I can tell. You’re more Gadže than Roma.”

  I shrugged, even though I knew she’d said that with the intent to insult me. “It was either fit in or fade away.” I refused to be ashamed of that, and maybe she’d seen that, because her temper had dispersed, even as her shoulders had sagged.

  “More guilt to weigh on my shoulders,” she muttered, and I’d watched her pick up the box of Mike and Ike’s again and tumble more candy into her palm.

  “You don’t have to believe it, but you’re living in the aftermath of its effects. Nicodemus would never have hurt me. He was a good boy. Only the curse would twist him.”

  I refused to believe in something so stupid, refused to let my life be ruled by that, until she’d said, “I won’t see you again, Theodosia. I meant it before, but this is the final time I’ll see you—and I want you to give me your word that you’ll take heed.”

  “Why won’t you let me visit you?” I’d ground out, angry.

  “Because it’s too late for us. I’m tainted, and I won’t have you stained with my mahrime even more.”

  The word had sunk into me like a knife through butter.

  Mahrime.

  One part of our world that I still stood by.

  She was sacrificing our relationship because of it. She believed in this nonsense to the point where she was willing to lose me forever over it.

  “Did you believe in the curse?”

  Her lips curved into a bitter smile. “Momma told me about it. But no, I didn’t believe it.” She sucked in a breath. “Not until he raised his fist to me that first time, then I started to have doubts, and only when I sunk that knife into him, did I realize she was right. I should have left him alone.”

  The words still resonated with me. I could hear them on an endless repeat. I often used them to buoy me up, to shore up my defenses to help me evade the siren song that was the link I had with Adam.

  But I’d left Adam alone, until yesterday. I’d done as she asked, but fate had still worked its wiles against us.

  Maybe it always would.

  It all started with Adam grunting as he realized his battery had run dead on his phone.

  Then we’d had to dig through both our bags on the hunt for a charger which, for whatever stupid reason, was in his suitcase and not his carry on.

  When he’d found it, plugged it in, and let it charge some before turning it on, I’d switched on mine, which I hadn’t bothered with since I turned it off for takeoff in Tokyo, and the immediate pings didn’t altogether surprise me.

  I ignored them as I went about making us some coffee, thanks to the basic goods in the kitchen, but when I instantly received a call, I peered at the screen and saw it was Robert.

  Seeing his face light up the screen, Adam scrunched his nose.

  “Do you have to answer that?”

  “Probably. Must be about a contract he might have finalized.”

  He heaved a sigh, then muttered, “Shame.”

  I smiled a little, grabbed my phone, even as I filled the back of the Nespresso machine with water, and connected the call.

  “Hey, Robert. I just woke up so be—”

  “Thea! Thank God. I’ve been calling you all night.”

  I blinked. “Why? What’s wrong? You knew I’d be landing soon.”

  “I know you and Adam are close,” he rasped, sounding so unlike the Robert I knew that I scratched the crown of my head in surprise.

  “I wouldn’t say we’re that close,” I muttered, rolling my eyes when Adam snorted.

  “Well, we both know that’s a lie, Thea,” he rumbled, making my eyes widen. “Do you know where he might go in a—well, in a crisis?”

  A crisis? What the hell was Robert talking about?

  I cleared my throat. “This isn’t about a contract?”

  “No, Thea. It’s about Adam.”

  “I don’t want to talk about Adam,” I retorted stubbornly. “You know I value my privacy, and I’m on vacation, Robert. You were only supposed to call me when you had finalized the contracts.”

  “Thea, for God’s sake, this is more important than a fucking contract. My son and my grandson’s lives are on the line. Do you know where he is? Where he might take Freddie if he was trying to, I don’t know, get away from everything?”

  “Get away from what?” I ground out, getting mad. “What the fuck’s going on, Robert?”

  “He killed Maria, Thea. He killed her, and he took Freddie with him. The cameras on the estate recorded most of it.” He choked for a second, before he whispered, “I-I didn’t believe it until I saw it.”

  “Maria’s dead?” I whispered, and not unsurprisingly, Adam grabbed the phone out of my hand.

  “What the hell, Dad? Maria’s dead?”

  “Adam? What are you...? Oh fuck.” A choked sob burst down the line. “Are you in Australia? With Thea?”

  “Yeah,” he spat. “I’m with Thea.”

  A shaky breath came down the line. “I-I didn’t want to think you’d done it.”

  “Done what?”

  “Killed her.”

  Adam shook his head, and I didn’t blame him for being confused. “Why would I kill her? I was getting a divorce. I’d have won the custody battle, you and I both know that. Sure, they usually side with the mother, but in this instance, with all the crap I have against her, I wouldn’t have needed to.” He blinked then reached up and rubbed the back of his neck. “She’s really dead?”

  “She’s really dead, son.”

  “And the cops think I did it?”

  “The cops knew you did it. They saw you.” He gulped. “T-They saw Cain.”

  “That bastard. He tried to pin that shit on me?” A snarl escaped him, and he surged onto his feet and started pacing.

  My mouth worked as I stared at him, then gaped at the phone.

  This was it.

  This was how it was always going to be, wasn’t it?

  The most crazy, random ass shit being hurled at us from all directions because we dared to be together.

  My mouth trembled, but I forced it to stop. I needed to stay strong. I had to.

  Adam was innocent, and his presence here would prove that, but...

  Cain had murdered Maria.

  He’d murdered her.

  And somehow, even worse than that, he’d pulled one of his usual moves and had tried to pin it on Adam.

  I couldn’t stop myself f
rom rounding the counter and walking into his path. He grabbed a hold of my shoulders and pinned me in his grasp the second he saw my eyes.

  “When did this happen?” Adam snarled.

  “Last night.”

  His tension surged, and he grated out, “Did Mom talk to him? Tell him when my flight out was supposed to be?”

  Robert sucked in a sharp breath, and it was clear to me that Anna still refused to see her son for the evil dick he was.

  I couldn’t believe she was still talking to him.

  Maybe a murder one charge would change her goddamn tune.

  “Where’s Freddie?” Adam rasped.

  “With Cain.”

  He tensed. “Sweet fuck. I’ll be getting the first flight out.”

  “No!” Robert barked. “Get your ass to the cops, tell them what’s happened, and have them send the verification of your presence there to the Boston PD.”

  “Surely they just have to check my records, my flights, to see I’m telling the truth.”

  “Let’s make it even simpler,” Robert ground out, “then get your ass back here the second that’s done.”

  “O-Okay,” Adam replied, for the first time sounding shaken. Because I wasn’t used to seeing him like that, I replied for him, “We’ll be on the first flights back as soon as we get everything arranged.”

  Robert cleared his throat. “I didn’t want to think it was you, Adam.”

  “You should have known I’d never do anything like that—”

  “I know. You’re right. We just keep letting you down.” Robert sucked in a breath. “I’m sorry, son. We’ll find him and your boy.”

  Then he cut the call, and Adam was pretty much vibrating in my hold.

  “We’ll find Freddie, Adam,” I told him softly.

  “You’re coming back with me?”

  The words throbbed with emotion, both a torrent of rage and confusion, and a welter of panic too.

  I got it.

  I did.

  Freddie was his son, and his psychotic brother was somewhere out there with him.

  But why? Why the hell had Cain done this? It didn’t make any sense.

  “Yes,” I answered easily, because I couldn’t not be at his side as he went through something like this.

  “You’re not going to spout that curse shit at me?” he rumbled.