Dark Truths: Kiss Her Goodbye #2

by Royce, Rebecca

  I nodded as I tried to calm my racing heart. Trace’s arms came around my waist while he tugged my back against his chest. It was nice, secure. And very un-Trace.

  “This doesn’t seem like you. Even in the Caribbean, we weren’t these people, not really. It was… tense in between hot.”

  His breath on the back of my neck was comforting. “I’m not sending you off like the last time. I’m not going to be mean because I can’t deal with you leaving. Look at me, this is me… this is the best I get, okay? I’m not good at this. So try to take this as I meant it, okay?”

  I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant but it seemed like the time to be quiet and not chatty. Eventually, when I was half convinced he’d gone to sleep, he spoke again. “Don’t fall in love with Derrick. Or at least not more in love with him than you are with me.”

  And there we were. I rolled over to face him. “Trace, who says I’m in love with you?”

  “You are.” He kissed the end of my nose. “So no falling in love with Derrick more than you are with me, while you’re out there in his mansion in Montana. You haven’t gotten to see my life yet. Don’t assume his is better.”

  I leaned on my elbow. “Are you implying, no sorry, pretty much explicitly saying, that I might love Derrick for his house?”

  “We’re both adults, Everly. Let’s face it. Someone having that kind of life is never a bad thing.”

  Okay. I sighed. “Trace, I liked the beginning of this night better. Let’s go back to that. You can work out whatever this is, whatever this insecurity is, another time.”

  He groaned. “It’s not how it’s done, this sharing. You meet a girl, you like her, you pursue her until she loves you, and then you lock that up.”

  This was the most out there conversation I’d ever had with Trace. “Lock that up? This from a guy who’s never been married.”

  “Well, maybe I’d never met Everly Marrs.”

  I pushed at his chest. “I’m not your mark. You aren’t going to manipulate me into this. Not even for a minute. You forget, I know you. Sort of.” There were whole gaps of knowledge in what I knew about Trace. “Don’t try to push me. I do have feelings for you. Yes, big ones. And I do for the other guys, too. If it’s too much this should probably be the last time we do this.”

  He shook his head. “I never shared well. But I’ll work it out. I’m not going anywhere, and I’m not trying to manipulate you.”

  “You don’t want to marry me, Trace.” I laid my head back down.

  “Don’t fall too much in love with Derrick, Everly.”

  I supposed that was all we were going to say about that. He drew me against him, and although I should have been throwing the bastard out of the bed, I did know who Trace was. I’d always known. We went away together for the soul purpose of manipulating a terrible man to do what the Alliance wanted. Or what Trace wanted. I wasn’t altogether clear on that.

  In any case, I was crazy about the man. I did want Trace. But he wasn’t wrong. I wanted Wounded Kade, too. And Haunted Warden. Lost Derrick. And Mysterious Judson. Intense Trace. I was more fucked up than I cared to admit for wanting all of that.

  Of course, they still seemed to desire me and I was definitely Damaged Everly.

  I was warm and it was safe in the dark with Trace here. “Are you really doubting yourself that much, Trace? You don’t think you can hold my affection?”

  “And she taunts me.” He laughed against my ear. “I want to take you back to the Caribbean. I want to bring you home. I want this whole mess to be over and to figure out the new normal. Instead, I have to do my requisite visit with the moron James Robert and hand you over to Derrick for who knows how long because Judson says that he needs me to lean on some of the people involved in this fuck up.”

  I kissed him. “Come and see me wherever I am when you’re done. That’s what you wanted right? For me to go hopping around the country fucking all of you on some kind of schedule? Come see me. You do the travel.”

  “Yeah… that was never going to work.” He kissed me back. “I’ll come.”

  I pressed closer to him and let my lids close. Our back and forth was done, for now.

  He must have fallen asleep, too, because I woke to Trace talking in his sleep. He tossed and turned, muttering words. The moon was bright through the window, and I could see his face wasn’t restful.

  “I’ve got to find Everly.” He thrashed again. “No.”

  I didn’t think, I just reacted. He was having a bad dream, or maybe a memory, and it involved me. Well, I wasn’t going to leave him to it. I kissed his cheek, hugging him close. “You’re having a bad dream, Trace. I’m okay. I’m with you.”

  He jerked awake, his gaze hitting me like he had lasers in his eyes that were set to just find me. “Everly. I…” He shook his head. “Sorry. Bad dream. Or…”

  I kissed him to stop him. He didn’t have to explain it. Trace’s arms came around me, holding me tight again. If he said something shitty, I was going to punch him in the arm. But he didn’t. Intense Trace just held me in the quiet of the night, neither of us saying anything.

  I’d lived in the basement, but I was clearly not the only one who had taken a look at the darkness and not necessarily come out the other side unchanged.

  Eventually, I smoothed his hair off his forehead. “I guess I’ll have to go swimming at night now, too.”

  “Hmm?” He made a sound more than an answer before clearing his throat. “What do you mean?”

  “You don’t go swimming in the daytime so that people can’t see your back. I’ll have to do the same thing.”

  He shifted slightly on the bed, adjusting so that he could lean his head on his arm. “That’s right. I told you that. Well… I guess you could go swimming in a full body suit. Like always swim as though you’re scuba diving.”

  I groaned. “I can’t be that woman at the beach. Forget it, I’m going to take up skiing. I’m not swimming anymore.”

  “I hate to point out the obvious, but you are living in the house of the best plastic surgeon on the East Coast. You’ve already had Alliance surgery to fix your face when you were little. They can do all kinds of things not available to the general public yet.”

  That was right. My father had dug himself deeper in the Alliance mess by using an Alliance doctor who had a procedure for fixing scars the regular public had no access to yet. Of course, this was after my father murdered my mother. While I might be grateful, I hated the man.

  I blinked, pushing away those thoughts. Everywhere I went, men doing wrong things surrounded me. I had somehow gotten to the point where I was able to have feelings for the guys doing the nasty acts. Maybe I wasn’t so light inside. Maybe I’d never been.

  Or maybe it was the basement.

  Fuck, maybe it didn’t matter.

  “Is your point that Judson could fix me?”

  He nodded, playing with a strand of my hair. “Yes.”

  “He’s hardly spoken to me in days. I think he’ll be grateful when I’m gone.”

  Trace made a sound that was something in between a groan and a snort. “You couldn’t be more wrong about that. If he’s staying away from you then he’s doing some sort of Judson punishing himself thing. Who knows with him? Trust me, he turned down the seat on the Alliance we fought for because you went missing. He literally blew up everything.”

  The truth sunk into my gut like a rock taking up room in my stomach. “Right before I left you and Derrick were talking. You told Derrick to leave or that it would make it harder. You called him Romeo.”

  He scrunched up his face. “Did you take that to mean something?”

  “Well, that was the last thing you said to me, Kade wouldn’t look at me, Derrick stopped to tell me I was beautiful after you all said he was full of shit, and who knows with Judson and Warden. I went over and over in my mind.” My breath hitched. Good gracious, was I crying? I wiped at my face. “Sorry.”

  He rubbed his thumb over my cheek. “You’ve hardly cried
. Do you think you can’t?”

  “I… I don’t want to be weak in front of any of you.” There, I’d said it.

  Trace was quiet for a little bit. “We do tend to eat the weak, don’t we? I’ll tell you the truth, the first time Ben took a switch to my back I cried like a baby. Kade was right next to me. He kept his eyes fixed on the ground and decidedly didn’t remark. Like I didn’t when he begged to go home.” He smoothed his thumb over my bottom lip. “The difference is that we knew at the end of it, we were Alliance. We endured until we didn’t have to anymore, because there was an end result. You were there, thinking the only end was the final one. I didn’t know that was going to happen. I was giving Derrick a hard time, calling him Romeo, because he was so attached. That was all I meant. That he’d better just go.”

  That made sense. “Trace, I spent a lot of time adding up things in my head. Just picturing things…”

  He kissed me hard. “You own me, Evy.”

  I sucked in a breath. “I don’t feel like you’re playing me right now. Not that I could necessarily tell. You’re accomplished at this, but I swear you are telling the truth.”

  “I am.” He pushed his thumb into my core, finding my clit and rubbing. I cried out, not expecting the touch, not initially ready. My body adjusted quickly, and I closed my eyes for a second to really feel what he was doing to me.

  He knew how to touch me. Trace had been the first person to give me a real orgasm. I opened my eyes but placed my forehead on his shoulder. I tugged at his underwear until I could slip my hand through the waste of his boxers. It was convenient he’d gotten in the bed half dressed.

  Trace hissed out a breath. “Your sweet hand.”

  I smiled. “We could use it. Put this inside of me.”

  “I don’t have a condom and you’re not on the pill. I’m clean but we’re not going to be taking that risk given the current circumstances.”

  I wasn’t going to ask him what that meant. Given the current circumstances? Did that mean there were circumstances in which he thought risking a baby might be something he wanted? Forget that. I was not there. He was right. No risking a baby. Period.

  “I’ll get on the pill. So the next time we do this, we don’t have to worry.”

  He kissed my neck for a second before he moaned in my ear. I must have gotten the right rhythm. Or maybe he just liked the idea that there would be another time. I couldn’t imagine ever not wanting to fuck Trace.

  “Then I guess we’ll just have to make do with getting each other off.”

  He stroked my clit, matching his rhythm to the noises I made. I closed my eyes and did the same to him. Trace made me feel hot, made me feel wanted. There was a heady power to knowing how he wanted me. I wasn’t above owning it.

  His cock grew in my fingers as I stroked him with his boxers still on, my hand on his skin, bumping the material as I moved. As he grew, it was clear that wasn’t going to work anymore. I pulled the boxers off of him to free his impressive length.

  Trace moaned again in my ears, this time louder. There might not be anything sexier in the world than knowing what I did to this man. He pressed a second finger inside of me before resuming his speed on my clit. If there was one thing Trace understood, it was that I needed consistency to come like this.

  My insides clenched in response to his ministrations, and I squeezed the top of his cock. His hips jerked, pressing him further in my hand. Yes, he liked that. We ground against each other’s hands. I whimpered, and he sighed. Our mouths fused together, and I didn’t need air. It didn’t take long until I was ready, and when I came on his fingers, it was an explosion. He captured my cries, taking them inside of his mouth while I drank down his own. It felt like I came forever, like it would never stop, and I didn’t want it to.

  I just wanted Trace right then.

  When it was over and only my tremors remained, leaving me trembling in his arms, Trace kissed my face. His eyes were slits, and I doubted either one of us would be awake very long. This middle of the night respite from whatever happened in the daylight would probably seem like a dream when we actually got up.

  He kissed my eyelids. “Don’t fall in love with Judson more than me either.”

  I groaned. Trace would always be Trace. “Not worried about Warden or Kade? You’re not concerned about them?”

  “That’s already done.”

  I shook my head before I kissed him on the lips. “Go to sleep, Trace.”

  He grinned at me. “At least I’m not sending you off acting like I don’t care.”

  “Dr. Hill.” I used his title purposefully. He needed to remember that I knew who he was when he wasn’t just here on this island. “This is a temporary stop somewhere for you. I have to eventually figure out how to go back to life. It may not be safe yet but someday. You have one, too. And you’re going to rule this new Alliance. Why do you care who I do or don’t love?”

  He brought my hand to his mouth, kissing my palm. “Don’t try to get back to that life too soon, Evy. It’s not safe. And I care because I care. Derrick’s not the only one who can make big proclamations. I can figure out how to share…”

  “Can you?” I asked him in a whisper.

  He continued not stopping. “But you can’t love them more.”

  I groaned. It was a good thing I had so much oxytocin from that orgasm. I was just going to pretend that T’s pillow talk didn’t include telling me what I could and couldn’t do.

  Or that there was part of me that liked knowing that my feelings were so high on his list of worries.

  * * *

  The bed dipped and I opened my eyes. Derrick sat next to me. He wore a white t-shirt, a pair of jeans, and his man bun was right in place. “Hey.” He winked at me. “Time to go.”

  I rubbed my eyes. “What time is it?”

  “Morning.” He patted me on my back, and I winced. He quickly removed his hand.

  Trace groaned. “If you haven’t noticed, we’re sleeping here. It’s not like you have to catch a plane or a bus. You’re going private. Leave later.”

  Derrick shook his head. “No, now. You had her all night. You and Kade. My turn.”

  I eyed him. “How did you know that? Did you install cameras?”

  He pointed at his ears. “I can hear. And Warden told me about Kade.”

  I didn’t want to think about all of them talking about who I slept with when.

  “Hey.” Trace leaned over to kiss my cheek. “Even if Judson will do it, don’t take away your scars on your back. You earned them.”

  As though he didn’t care who looked, Trace jumped out of bed and walked completely naked to the bathroom. He called over his shoulder to Derrick. “Take her to a doctor on our side and get her put on the pill.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to go on the pill.” I did, but he didn’t get to make pronouncements like that. I’d already told him I would so he had to get the point I was making.

  “You do.” T shut the door behind him.

  * * *

  Derrick didn’t say anything on the boat ride off the island. I hadn’t seen Kade, Judson, or Warden to say goodbye. Other than apparently reporting to Derrick that I’d had an interlude with Kade, Warden hadn’t said anything to me since I’d suggested that they look for Zoey with a y. Judson was clearly avoiding me, whether that was because he didn’t like me or for some other reason, and Kade hadn’t popped up since our time in the bathroom.

  Trace waved from the porch when I got on the boat.

  Now, we were on an airplane, the same one Derrick rescued me in once before, and we were heading to Montana.

  “Did you, ah, get him?”

  He continued to stare out the window. “I didn’t, actually. Josh was gone when I got there. Left Zoey alone. Real piece of shit, that guy.”

  I put my hand on his thigh, and he finally turned to look at me. Derrick’s gaze showed tired eyes. “What happened to Zoey?”

  “I left her alone. I mean she’s broke as a pauper now. It’s possible
Josh will come back for her, but not likely since I showed her his marriage certificate. He’s left his wife and kids alone, too. I’ll get him.” He yawned. “There’s a doctor we can take you to see in the closest town to my house.”

  Oh that was right, Trace ordered him to get me on the pill. “And if he sees the marks on my back?”

  “Well, he never remarked about mine, so I think you’ll be just fine. Did you think I had killed Zoey?”

  Did I? That was a good question. “I don’t really know what I thought. I got kidnapped from my home. Then kidnapped from my kidnappers. Locked in a basement. Hurt. Do I think it’s possible you would have killed Zoey with a y to hurt Josh? Yes, I think that was possible.”

  “And are you happy or sad that I didn’t do it?” He shifted in his seat.

  “I don’t particularly want to think about Zoey dying. I’ve never met the woman. I just got to hear about her from sicko Ben.”

  Derrick nodded. “Would it have affected how you feel about me? If I had killed her.”

  He was really pushing at this thing. I dug deep for the answer because only the truth would do in times like this. I lived in a swirl of constant lies. The best I could do was to be honest when I could. “I don’t think so. I’m so… gone to this. I think that there isn’t anything you could do that, if it didn’t directly involve me, would make me change my feelings for you.”

  “That’s what I thought.” He undid his seatbelt and knelt in front of me. “If Ben were here right now I wouldn’t kill him.

  I opened and closed my mouth twice. I was on this plane with this man who out of everyone had expressed his feelings for me the most openly. Of course, Trace had just stepped into that ring and Kade seemed devoted. That didn’t matter right now. Derrick and I hadn’t been intimate yet. I was attracted to him. But I’d also ripped a gun from his hand one night when he’d fired it incessantly into the ice. He dragged dead deer across living room floors. Out of everyone, seeing as he was the one most regularly killing people, I’d have thought he would want to take out Ben considering how he claimed to feel about me.