The Finish Line

by Stewart , Kate

  The renewed connection between us feels molecular, and it hurts as it heals. I’m certain that if God granted me only one minute of life on this earth, I would want it to be this minute, this moment with him, where I know exactly why I’m alive and who for.

  Gazing up at the love of my life, I accept him fully back into his place in my heart, giving in to the one thing I’ve never had control of, and never will as long as his own heart beats.

  Because it’s mine.

  “I love you,” I murmur.

  And with one last thrust and my whispered words, he comes.

  Tobias cradles me in my clawfoot tub after hours of the most intense sex of my life. He’s already hard despite our last exhausting session where our only words were softly delivered ‘I love yous’ between pleasure-filled moans, grunts, and desperate breaths. We’ve wasted ourselves with our greed while attempting to heal each other with our bodies, lips, and needy hands. When he lifts a warm, soaked rag and runs it along my shoulders, I tilt forward, giving him access, my hands braced on his muscular thighs.

  “Do you think we’re cursed?” I ask, and he stills the rag, mulling over my question before running it down the center of my back.

  “I think we’re our own worst enemies at times, and we’ve allowed too many outside forces to rip us apart. Me especially.”

  “Star-crossed,” I whisper.

  “I don’t disagree.”

  “What about the other outside forces? Where the hell were our fairy godmothers when we needed them?”

  He grunts in agreement. “They did a terrible job.”

  “Cupid?” I ask.

  “He shot one too many arrows into you.”

  “Well, he’s fucking fired too. Did no one show up for us?”

  “Non.”

  “The saints?”

  “Not one,” he whispers, running his fingers along my stomach as I lay back to rest on his chest. “Not Lady Luck, not Father Time, none of them.”

  “Assholes,” I harrumph. “Who else is supposed to be looking out for us?”

  “Well, there’s God. But I think I pissed him off before I was born.”

  His statement tugs at my heart. “No, you didn’t, Tobias. Just remember, Job was a favorite, and He took everything from him, his riches, his family, everything he had before He plagued him with disease to prove a point to the devil. He put him through hell, so maybe it’s not so great to be God’s favorite.”

  “Well, in that case, maybe I am a favorite.”

  I run my nails along his legs. “You’re my favorite and the best man I’ve ever known.”

  His fingers still.

  “After all I’ve put you through, you believe I’m a good man?”

  I turn in his arms and straddle him, and he laces his fingers at the small of my back, his brows creased.

  “You’re an incredible man. You revealed your true colors when we were together before. In recent years, your actions were mostly due to pain, and you’re still in pain, my love. I’m not going to start pointing out all your flaws because fuck that, I have my own, but the core of you is made of pure gold, and nothing you ever say or do will convince me otherwise.”

  Wordless, he cups the back of my head, running his palm down my soaked hair.

  “You say you don’t like my perception of you, Frenchman, but my perception isn’t skewed. I love all parts, all sides of you, good and bad. This thing between us is still new. We aren’t going to come out perfect straight out of the gate. But all of you gets all of me, my stubborn King, always.”

  His eyes roll down my body, warming me from the inside. “We may not be perfect, but you are.”

  “No, I’m not, but I’m over the fact that I’m not going to get my way with you at times. Tantrums need to fall to the wayside at some point for what’s important.”

  He bites his lip briefly. “Is it weird to say you sound like Sean?”

  I shrug. “Is it weird to say Sean sounds like you?”

  He glances down. “Is it weird that people sit in bathtubs full of filth, thinking it makes them clean? I can see scum floating on the top of this water.”

  “No, you French prude, but baths are good for a woman who was just bent like a pretzel and jackhammered until she nearly passed out. And don’t knock my housekeeping skills.”

  “I’m not, Trésor.” He rubs his thumb and pointer finger together in inspection. “You have absolutely none.”

  “Or maybe you’re just too high maintenance.”

  He lifts his hips, running his erection along my center, hitting my clit just…so.

  “Maintenance appeals to me very much.” His eyes flare, and I shake my head with a grin as he traces my nipple with his finger, bringing it to a stiff peak.

  “Tell me something I don’t know, Frenchman.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Anything I don’t know, which is apparently a lot.”

  He gathers the hair on the side of my neck and bites down on the skin of my shoulder before soothing it with his lush lips.

  “Talk, King. I’m going to look beaten at work tomorrow.”

  “You’re not going to work tomorrow.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “One day. You haven’t taken a single fucking day for me since I got here.”

  “What will we do on this day?”

  He pulls at my hips again, and I groan. “Tobias, I can’t.”

  “Then let me.” Even in the water, I feel myself slicken as he rubs a finger along my clit before curling it inside of me.

  “We didn’t use a condom,” I point out. “All four times.” His finger stills before he pulls it away, bracing both hands on the side of the tub.

  “You’re on birth control. I saw it in the cabinet. You take it religiously.”

  I nod.

  “So, is this conversation necessary?”

  “Isn’t it?”

  His jaw ticks, but his question comes out pained. “Have you been with anyone since me?”

  I shake my head. “No, Tobias, no, of course not.”

  I pose the same question without words.

  “Cecelia,” he sighs. “No, fuck no. That night I took you so roughly…and the weeks after you left, I couldn’t even look at myself.”

  “I thought as much, but—”

  He shakes his head, cutting me off. “Even when I was a bachelor, I never really indulged much in women,” he confesses. “And I had plenty of chances.”

  “With lingerie models,” I add dryly.

  “And one French movie star,” he chimes in with a wink.

  “Fuck you, King,” I move to get off his lap, and he pins me easily, a satisfied chuckle coming from his lips. “There’s my jealous bébé.”

  I wrinkle my nose. “It’s not healthy for either of us.”

  “It’s who we are and how we feel when it comes to each other. And so we really don’t give a fuck, do we?”

  I hang my head. “We’re going to end up in couple’s therapy, and with our tempers, we probably need it.”

  He pinches my chin and lifts it. “I’m addicted to you and have been since the minute I touched you. In the past…sometimes I would go…a very long time without any human contact at all. I was so focused for so long, it wasn’t a priority for me—until you. One hit of you and I was like a fucking fiend. Now I’m positive that I was waiting for the right woman, for you. And it’s a good thing I saved what little patience I have for you, or I’d be a dead man.”

  “Har, har. And you think you’re so easy to deal with?”

  “Non. I’m the devil you chose.”

  “And who am I?”

  “You’re the angel who constantly stabs me in the ass with my own pitchfork.”

  “Okay, you’ve avoided my question long enough. Tell me,” I insist, running my palms down his muscular arms. Because I can. Because he’s mine.

  “Something you don’t know?” The glint in his eyes dims. “Shelly almost had me committed, and there’s no punc
hline. I went fucking crazy when you left, when I let you leave.”

  “I wanted to hate you.”

  “I tried my best to make sure you did, but you called my bluff, stubborn ass woman.”

  Neither of us smiles because the pain of that truth hurts too much.

  “You were so much safer in that life, Cecelia.”

  “I wasn’t happy. I would have never been fulfilled.”

  “Nor me. I totaled my Jaguar the day you left my office, left me, left Triple Falls.”

  “What?” I jerk back in his arms as he lifts some water and cups it over my shoulders.

  “When they lost you,” he shakes his head, “fucking idiots, I knew you’d done it purposely and had no intention of being found. I had nothing to go on. You ditched your cell phone, everything. You even left your Audi in impound. I knew I was fucked the second they called, and I think I blacked out because I don’t remember the minutes that led up to the wreck. I just went…fucking crazy.”

  “And you totaled it?”

  He nods.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You gave me every chance to stop you.” He rests his head back on the lip of the tub. His eyes fixed on the ceiling. “God, Cecelia, I’ve never in my life been so fucked up. Just thinking about that phone call.” He lifts his head, his eyes demanding even with his plea. “Promise me you’ll never do that again.”

  “Tobias—”

  “I’m begging you, Cecelia. If we fight, if we are at our worst, no matter how angry you get, this is all I’ll ask of you. Our biggest fights are going to be about security, I know it. But please just let me protect you for my own sanity, my own peace of mind, even if you feel you don’t need it. I can’t take it. I can’t fucking take it.” He looks so damned beautifully tortured, his features twisted with pain, his lashes darker from the dripping water. If this life is really mine, if in time Tobias proves his intentions sincere, I can’t imagine a better way to live.

  I press my forehead to his. “I promise.”

  He grips my jaw and backs away an inch, still intent on getting his own way. “Always?”

  “Yes, you pig-headed sonofabitch.”

  “This promise above all others,” he insists, “above everything.”

  “I promise you, Tobias.”

  “Merci.” There’s nothing but relief in his tone.

  “And what about me protecting you?”

  He draws his brows, and I scoff. “Maybe I don’t like your perception of me. Sometimes I see the reflection in your eyes, and I know you still see the naïve nineteen-year-old you met. You obviously forgot whom you came back for.” He rakes his teeth over his lip as I grip him firmly in my hand, digging my nails a little into the silky skin covering his cock. “It’s past time I remind you.” His eyes flare and follow as I lift my hips and slowly sink onto him.

  Age Thirty-One

  Incompetence. If there’s one thing I can’t fucking stand, it’s the fact that I have money and resources at my disposal, and fuck them both for all the good they’re doing me now.

  My search for Abijah has proven fruitless. His last whereabouts reported on the very street I’m walking. But the man doesn’t frequent the same places, ever. He’s as elusive as they fucking come, and the fact that he’s evaded us for this long is wearing on me.

  My phone rattles in my pocket as I change directions and head toward the bar at the end of the street, intent on one drink before I shower to scrub off the failure of another day.

  “Oui?” I bark, answering my cell, and am met by hesitance on the other end of the line.

  “Tobias, it’s Matt, Virginia.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, man, but you were right.”

  “How so?”

  “They brought a girl to the meetup not long ago, and I really didn’t think anything of it.”

  Motherfucker.

  For the last few months, Dom and Sean have become oddly absent, only reporting the minimum, and have become harder and harder to reach the last few weeks. I assumed they’d taken on a new pet project between them, up to old tricks, and I was fucking dead on.

  “My sister met her that night. Said she seemed like a good girl, but not exactly the type for the club.”

  I run a hand through my sweat-slicked hair, scanning the street one last time, my irritation growing. Leave it to my brothers to drag an innocent into the mix, and for what? At the most, she’s a chew toy. I swore I would be patient about this when the time came. Obviously they aren’t taking nesting seriously, which only pisses me off because at least that would be a good reason for their distraction.

  “She said her name is Cecelia.”

  I stop mid-step, crimson snaking through my vision as Matt continues. “But she didn’t get much more than that.”

  It takes every bit of restraint I have not to hurl my phone at the building next to me.

  “Can you repeat that?”

  “She said she seemed like a good—”

  “No, the name. Are you sure it’s Cecelia?”

  “Yeah. Cecelia, right?” I can tell he’s talking to his sister. “Yeah, man, that was her name. Said she was reluctant to drink or even hit a joint. That’s not exactly the club type.”

  Ignoring the urge to correct him that you don’t have to be a joint smoking, alcoholic with low moral standards to be in my club, I opt for a pressing question. “When was this meetup?”

  “I want to say a month and a half, maybe two.”

  “Which is it?”

  He holds the phone to his chest, no doubt consulting with his informative sister. “Alicia, that’s my sister, says two. We haven’t been to a meetup since, but I can try and find out if she’s been to any others.”

  “You shouldn’t be able to find that out, should you, Matt?”

  The whole club is based on anonymity, as in you had to have been there to know what went on. Loose lips aren’t tolerated, and his hesitance tells me he knows better. “Both this favor and my interest in this information are restricted to only me, am I clear?”

  “Crystal.”

  Two months.

  Two that I’m aware of. Two months of a summer that I resigned to stay in Paris, trusting Dom and Sean to run the club while I dedicated my time chasing down my birth father. Months of brokering deals so they never have to worry about their financial future. Months where I’ve taken the risks, put my name in ink on the paperwork, my life on the line. Months where I’ve had to barter my way out of doing unspeakable acts to keep Antoine from ripping the remaining humanity out of me.

  The kicker? Dom’s gone off the radar on more than one occasion when I desperately needed his help, leaving me open and vulnerable. My brother has never left me open and vulnerable, and because of that, I got suspicious and enlisted the help of one of our originals.

  “Do you need me to go down there?”

  “No. I’ll handle it. Thanks, Matt.”

  Ending the call, I summon my driver, and in seconds, I’m in the back of my car, my laptop open as I look up the reports from the Raven in charge of keeping eyes on Cecelia Leann Horner.

  “Où allons-nous, monsieur?” Where are we going, sir?

  Tapping into my email, I shake my head. “Je ne sais pas encore.” I don’t know yet.

  Their reports have been coming in weekly, like clockwork, with no change in frequency, and neglectfully, I haven’t checked a single one in months. In truth, I haven’t had a reason to. Cecelia and Roman’s relationship has been non-existent since I saw her last, ten fucking years ago.

  It’s when I open an email from a month ago that I feel the brunt of Sean and Dom’s deception. As of a month ago, Cecelia was still reported as living in Peachtree City.

  Dom.

  He would easily be able to manipulate this, as he’s done countless times before. It’s child’s play for him.

  “What about Helen?”

  “We’re leaving Helen out of it.”

  R
oman’s. Fucking. Daughter.

  Anyone but her. Anyone but Roman Horner’s fucking daughter.

  Literally, any woman but her.

  And worse, they’ve chosen her over me.

  If it were a move to gain ground in taking Roman down, they would have told me. But Dom…if I had his loyalty and trust, why would they keep this from me?

  Betrayal courses through me as spiked needles begin ripping through my chest. Uncapping a bottle, I pour a drink with shaky hands as my driver eyes me while I rip off my jacket and loosen my tie, feeling my world closing in.

  Why? Why would they do this? I’m so close to bringing Roman down. Years of waiting, years of making moves. They know this. They know how close we are. Sean left the garage to go back to the plant to try and dig a little deeper to see if we missed anything before we make our move.

  We’re months away, at most, after fucking years of waiting.

  It doesn’t make sense.

  Resisting the urge to call either of them only to be fed more lies, I palm the burn in my chest, my back trickling with sweat.

  “Tout va bien, boss? Avez-vous besoin d’aller à l’hôpital?” Are you okay, boss? Do you need a hospital?”

  I shake my head in reply before I toss back more gin, my head spinning with only one question—why?

  There’s only one way to find out. And I’m fucking dreading it because somehow, I know, it’s already over. I shoot a text to Palo to let Antoine know I’m leaving.

  I’m going stateside.

  His reply is almost immediate.

  Tell him yourself.

  Though our relationship dynamic has changed for the better over the years, Palo is a moody fucker, but a bit unpredictable. But he’s had my back more times at this point than he hasn’t. And I can’t blame him for being the hateful bastard he is, with the company he keeps. His growing hate and resentment toward Antoine—I’m already using to my advantage. He’s closing in after years of pining for his wife, which I know will be the final step in securing an alliance. I just have to bide my time.

  With my father just out of reach, and my brothers slipping through my hands, anger I’ve never felt builds inside of me. They turned my own tactics against me, making me the outside fucking man, pushing me out of the circle—one I had cemented us all in. From this moment forward, I don’t know if I’ll ever trust my brothers the same, no matter their reasoning. The ache that thought causes has me rubbing my chest.