by Elise Noble
“Oh, I can’t…”
“How can I make them come true if I don’t know what they are?”
“We’ve only just met.”
“Then we should start as we mean to go on, don’t you think?” Those soft brown eyes locked onto mine. “If it doesn’t involve kids or animals, I’m probably gonna be good with it.”
“Well, one of them sort of does involve animals.”
Alaric raised an eyebrow, and I covered my face with my hands. He gently removed them.
“Beth…”
“Fair’s fair. You have to tell me one of yours first.”
“Okay. I want to nail my secretary over my desk. Think you can help with that?”
“Yes, Mr. McLain, sir.”
“Fuck. Tomorrow I’m buying a desk. Your turn.”
I hurriedly shook my head to clear the image of myself sitting on Alaric’s blotter with my legs spread. If I’d still been wearing my knickers, I’d have been able to wring them out by now.
“I want a man to catch me unawares in the hay barn. To bend me over a bale and take me from behind while we’re still wearing our clothes. Then we just walk out as if nothing happened.”
“Seems as though we’re gonna have a busy day tomorrow.”
“Are you serious?”
He wrapped my hand around his solid cock. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s your turn.”
“Mile-high club. Commercial flight.” His eyes rolled back as I stroked. “I can’t take this any longer.”
I glanced between us. That thing had to be nine inches at least. “I’m not sure I could either.”
“Beth, you’re killing me, but at least it’s a pleasurable death.” Before I could blink, I was underneath him again. “Are you sure about this? Bare?”
“I’m certain.”
I didn’t ask whether Alaric was clean. I knew he wouldn’t risk hurting me. And weirdly, his “arrangement” with Ravi made me feel better because if they were taking care of each other, then they weren’t hooking up with random people they met in bars.
Alaric stretched me to the point of pain as he slid slowly inside, and I began to wonder whether fantasy number one was a good idea after all. But he gave me a moment to adjust, peppering me with those sweet, sweet kisses that sent shivers through me before he started to move. Oh, fuck again.
Earlier when I’d snapped at Priscilla, when I told her she should get out more if she thought Piers was decent in bed, I feared I’d been bluffing because I really didn’t know any better. But now I knew I’d been telling the absolute truth. At this rate, I’d need to soundproof the ceiling. And the floor, and probably the walls too. By the time I fell back on the mattress, I’d found a new religion.
“I love you,” I gasped, then regretted it as Alaric stiffened, and not in a good way. “Uh, too soon?”
“When you know, you know. I love you too.”
A warm glow spread through me.
“Say it again.”
“I love you, Beth.”
“Again.”
“I love you.”
Piers had made me believe I was unloveable, but thanks to Alaric, I’d seen the truth. Felt the truth. The problem had been us, not me. But now I was part of a new “us,” and I was free to become the person I’d always wanted to be.
“It’s your turn again,” he told me, pulling me closer so our hips pressed against each other. The tip of his tongue rimmed my ear before he murmured, “Tell me your deepest desires.”
Uh, perhaps not.
“I don’t need fantasies anymore. I’ve got reality.”
“No, I think you should confess.”
“You might hate me. I don’t want to ruin this.”
“Does it involve spanking?”
“No.”
“Rope?”
“No.”
“Candles?”
Candles? “No.”
“Tell me.”
So I did. I leaned forward and whispered my darkest thoughts into his ear, and his eyebrows shot into his hairline. Oh, shit. Had I broken us before we really even started?
Alaric blew out a breath. “Not quite what I was expecting. You’re a dark horse, aren’t you, my sweet?”
“Please, forget I said it.”
“Forget it? Never. But maybe I’ll just file it away for the moment.”
Thank goodness. “It’s your go again.”
Now it was Alaric’s turn to look nervous. “I’m not sure it’s entirely appropriate given today’s events.”
“What happened to ‘we can talk about anything’?”
He made a show of covering his balls with his hands before he answered, then he leaned in close to whisper the way I had with him.
“I want to fuck my wife in her wedding dress.”
“Oh, that’s an easy one,” I blurted. Stupid, stupid mouth. “Uh, what I meant, without wanting to sound presumptuous, was that if maybe at some appropriate point in the future you happened to ask, I would definitely be willing to keep the dress on. Can I go and die quietly now?”
“As long as you do it in my arms. Out of interest, what would you consider to be an appropriate point in the future?”
“Huh?”
“A month? Two months?”
“Uh…”
“I’m not sure I can wait much longer than three.”
Was he saying what I thought he was saying? My post-sex brain was still drowning in endorphins.
“Three months,” I choked out. “Three months is good.”
CHAPTER 43 - EMMY
“READY TO GO?” Black asked.
“Not remotely.”
Over a week on, and I still hadn’t forgiven him, not even a little bit, but he was trying. Very trying.
When I’d said to call me if anything work-related came up, he’d taken it to heart. He called me about work every five fucking minutes. And now he’d come up with the marvellous idea of the two of us heading to Penngrove to get a head start on the search for Dyson.
But I could hardly complain, could I? Not when I’d told him to fix things. Nor could I send him on his own because Alaric and I were the only ones who’d seen Dyson in the flesh. Well played, Black. Well played.
On the plus side, at least if I was away I’d be able to avoid the ever-increasing number of questions about why Black and I were no longer sharing a bedroom. First, I’d blamed it on my nightmares, and then I’d complained that he kept snoring.
Why didn’t I come clean? Why didn’t I tell people we’d had an argument? Because then they’d want to know what the argument was about, and if I didn’t tell them, or they didn’t believe whatever fake explanation I came up with, the rumours would start to fly. And I wasn’t going to turn Black in. I’d almost lost him once, and even though I was really hacked off at him, I didn’t want it to happen again. Not permanently. I’d had a week to consider things now. Blackwood employed too many people to risk it all by casting shadows on Black’s reputation.
Two wrongs didn’t make a right.
And do you know the crazy thing? The sick, sick part of me, the rotten little kernel in my brain that mapped out the paths to men’s destruction, had to admire the elegance of Black’s on-the-fly act. The simplicity. The sheer fucking balls of it.
The whole situation made my head want to explode.
So there we were, getting ready to travel to a dinky town near Chesapeake. Penngrove had a population of two thousand and change plus a pair of pot-bellied pigs who seemed to be the town mascots. In another masterful piece of planning, it turned out Penngrove only had one hotel. No penthouse, no suites. Of course, since we were a married couple on vacation, according to our cover story, Black had booked us one room with a king-sized bed. But I’d soon wiped the smile off his face when I informed him he’d be sleeping on the floor.
I’d toyed with the idea of taking a separate car, but again, that would be weird. Grrr. I shoved my last bag into Black’s Porsche Cayenne. Couldn’t put it off any l
onger, could I?
Oh, saved by the bell. I walked away from Black to take the call from Alaric, although that was probably pointless. Black no doubt had my phone bugged anyway.
“How’s it going?”
I hadn’t spoken to Alaric since he left. I’d been working on the “no news is good news” premise.
“We might need to borrow that spare stable.”
We? “You told her?”
“No, I just thought I might take up horseback riding.”
“I’m so happy it worked out.” And I really was. After everything that had happened, Alaric deserved happiness. “I knew it would, though. You’re a real catch. When are you coming back? Still Sunday?”
“We fly at ten a.m. UK time. Can we have a think about our trip to Penngrove? I know it’s been eight years, but I don’t want to leave it too much longer.”
“Yeah, about that. We’re planning to head there in an hour or so.”
“Who? You and Dan?”
“Me and Black.”
The long pause told me Alaric was as bemused as I thought he’d be. Probably a bit suspicious too, although thankfully, I had a plausible explanation.
“When it came to the choice of him coming with me or me going with you, he picked the lesser of the two evils.”
“I guess I can understand that. Maybe he’ll lighten up now that I’m with Beth?”
“Here’s hoping.”
“Emmy, I also want you to meet Rune.”
I was looking forward to it, although I’d admit to being a teensy bit apprehensive. What if Rune didn’t like me?
“Perhaps I could come over for dinner?”
“Yes, perhaps.”
“On my own.”
“Good idea.” The relief in Alaric’s voice was evident. He didn’t want to inflict my darling husband on his daughter if Black was still being a prick, and I couldn’t blame him.
“I should get her a gift. What does she like?”
“Science. She wants to get a PhD in molecular biology and help to find a cure for diabetes.”
“Wow.”
“Told you she was smart.”
“I’d better not mention this to Bradley or he’ll buy her a whole lab.”
“Just a book or two will be fine.”
“Do you need anything else? I’ll get Bradley to stock the kitchen at Hillside House with groceries. And drop off a car.” Was a little guilt kicking in? No, a lot of guilt. “The place comes with a gardener, and I’ll check the pool’s been cleaned. Does Bethany want to go horse riding? If she’s feeling brave, she’s welcome to borrow Stan. Or Majesty—Tia won’t mind. But Majesty’s out of the same mould as Stan, just not quite so nutty.”
“Thanks for doing this, Cinders. I mean it. You’ve made coming back far easier than I feared it would be.”
“I meant it when I said I was happy to see you. Beth’s a lucky girl.”
“We’ll see you soon.”
I could hear the smile in Alaric’s voice, and it made me smile too.
“See ya.”
Dammit, I couldn’t put this off any longer. Once Alaric hung up, I traipsed back to the car. Road trip. Yay. I only hoped Dyson had gotten worse at hiding over the years.
Penngrove was a Hallmark movie come to life. Twee little shops, a bakery run by two bubbly sisters, a cutesy library, a gallery full of local art, and an auto repair shop staffed by an impossibly hot mechanic, which we found out when the Porsche got a puncture driving past the Christmas tree farm. I smiled at the dude. Black saw me and shot daggers from his eyes. Realised what he’d done. Attempted to smile himself, and when that didn’t work out, he tipped the guy a hundred bucks. I had to give him points for effort.
And we tried everything we could think of to find Dyson. After breakfast at the Penngrove Lodge Hotel each morning, we took Barkley for a walk around town so we could be nosy. Yes, Barkley. We hadn’t intended to bring her, but she’d jumped into the car as we were leaving and refused to get out. Black cursed liberally, but he’d developed a soft spot for the mutt whether he admitted it or not.
A week into the search, we were still no farther forward. But we didn’t have many clues to go on—just the call to the feed store, the fact that Dyson had a deep knowledge of art and an affinity for boats, and a possible fondness of Chinese food. Penngrove didn’t have a Chinese restaurant, and it was twenty miles from the sea, which left art and animals. The feed store catered to everything from hamsters to horses, from geese to guppies, so there was no way to know whether Dyson kept farm animals or fish or feathered friends. And the art on show in the town was definitely on the amateur side.
I’d dyed my hair brown to lessen the risk of Dyson recognising me, and although Black’s size usually worked against him on surveillance jobs, here it didn’t matter so much because we weren’t trying to sneak around. Plus Dyson had never seen him. Even so, he’d taken to wearing glasses and a day’s worth of stubble. If anything, I was the one who should have been jealous because all the local girls kept staring at him, and the waitress in the diner had not-so-subtly written her phone number on the receipt. Dolly at the café paid him particular attention too, but I didn’t mind that because she was about eighty and it meant we got free cake.
The other advantage? The café was right opposite the feed store, and Dolly saved the table in the window for us each lunchtime because she knew it was our favourite.
“I’ve made peach cobbler today, and apple pie,” she told us when we walked in on Thursday, a week to the day after our arrival in Penngrove. Black had placated Sloane over the scheduling, but she was still juggling like crazy to keep us in town. We couldn’t stay there forever. “And we’ve got fresh Chesapeake Bay crabs, big ones.”
“Salad?” Black asked, the same as he did every day. “What about salad?”
Dolly’s answer was always the same too. She laughed.
“A big man like you can’t live on salad. I’ll bring you ham biscuits.”
“I’ll need to have my arteries scraped when I get back,” he muttered.
Things were still frosty between us. It reminded me of the weeks right after I moved to the US, those hellish days where I respected his abilities but his presence exhausted me. For sure he’d had more sleep than yours truly.
“Put me down for the apple pie. And the peach cobbler. And do you have any of those stoneground pancakes?”
I glanced at Black, daring him to challenge me, but he stayed quiet. Good plan.
“Of course I do, honey-pie. I’ll fix them right up.” She pinched Black’s cheeks, and I turned my snort into a cough. “And I’ll bring all the fixins with your ham biscuits, handsome.”
“I think she likes you,” I stage whispered as she swished off to the kitchen.
“If I were forty years older…”
We lapsed into silence. I’d taken to bringing a book with me so I didn’t have to talk, and I bet Black was bang up to date with his emails. I breathed a sigh of relief when Dolly came back with the food.
“Eat, eat. What are you doing this afternoon? There’s a classic automobile show over in Suffolk.”
“I’m going to a painting class at the Marshall Gallery. We’re doing dolphins.”
Which should be fun since I couldn’t draw for shit.
“Oh, you’ll have a wonderful time. Who’s teaching you? Loretta? She’s such a talented artist. Quite young, but she went to some fancy art school in New York.” Dolly pointed at a vivid landscape on the wall opposite. “That’s one of hers.”
Way to make me feel inferior. It was no Monet, but at least the boat looked like a boat rather than a tadpole.
“I’m looking forward to it.”
“And what are you doing, sugar-pie? Are you gunna paint fishes too?”
“I’m taking Barkley to a dog-training class.”
At the sound of her name, Barkley lifted her head. Dolly didn’t mind her coming inside as long as she lay quietly under the table, and now the grey-haired woman picked a piece of
discarded pie crust from an empty plate at the next table and held it out for Barkley to snaffle.
“But she’s such a good girl already.”
Black pulled Barkley’s nose out of Dolly’s crotch.
“Her obedience needs work. She’s no good at staying where she’s told.”
Every evening, Black put Barkley into the new pet bed he’d bought and ordered her to stay. And every morning, he woke to find her squashed against his chest. Or draped over his legs. Or curled up on his pillow. If he overslept, she huffed doggy breath all over his face. She’d had some training—she knew how to sit, and give you a paw, and roll over—but her recall was non-existent, and if she started barking, stopping her was impossible.
“If anyone can teach her, then Dillon can. He’s wonderful with animals.”
“Do you know if there’s anywhere I can ride around here? I’d love to see the scenery from horseback.”
“That’d be Fletcher at Hope Valley Ranch. Ten years ago, the place was a ruin, but he’s fixed it up good and now he offers trail riding. I’ll find you his number.”
“I really appreciate it. And are there any evening activities?”
Even another knitting class beat sitting around the hotel room with Black right now. We could bury our noses in our laptops, but we couldn’t escape the awkwardness that shrouded us.
“The Penngrove Community Theater’s putting on a performance of Much Ado About Nothing.”
I was beginning to think this whole trip was much ado about bloody nothing. Dyson was a ghost.
“Shakespeare? Lovely.”
“Their patron’s a big fan of the Bard. He spent time in England when he was a young man. I’ve got a brochure with all the details somewhere—I’ll hunt it out, but let me go and get your lunches first.”
“Diamond, we could just talk in the evenings,” Black said once Dolly had disappeared.
“How does that help to fix things?”
“We might have to face the fact that Dyson won’t be found. That this can’t be fixed. Then what?”
“Congratulations. Now you know how Alaric’s been feeling for the last eight years.”
“I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
“And yet it did. I’ve got a horrible feeling your biggest regret is getting caught.”
