Strange Secrets

by Lexy Timms

  “Get that article down,” he told me, and he turned on me with a blazing anger in his eyes that made me stop in my tracks. He was so different from the man that I had seen before, the one who had gone out on that date with me—the one who had made me feel so wanted, so alive, so desired. I could still remember the way that he had kissed me that night, but that seemed to be the very furthest thing from his mind as he stood there, fists balled at his sides, in front of me.

  “What are you talking about?” I demanded, crossing my arms over my chest defensively. There was no way in hell that I was going to pull that post down—I had worked too hard on it, and I wasn’t about to let this guy storm in here and tell me how to do my job. Not a chance in hell.

  “Get it down,” he growled to me, and his voice had dropped to this deep tone that I knew was meant to scare the shit out of me. I felt fear begin to ball up in my chest. I knew that I should have been able to stand up to him, but when he had just walked in here as though he was owed an apology, I didn’t know that I could. I wasn’t sure how he could have shifted so swiftly from the version of him that I had seen on that date to whoever this man before me right now was...

  But it was clear that the article that I had posted about him had been the difference one way or another. Whatever I had said there, it had been enough to earn this reaction from him, and that, in itself, was interesting. I knew that I shouldn’t have been thinking in terms of my next story, but there was a journalistic instinct in the back of my mind that had lit the fuck up now that he was here in front of me and acting like he was the king of the world.

  “It’s my work,” I snapped back at him. “It’s not going anywhere. I’ve worked hard on it and I intend to—”

  He took a step toward me. I moved away without thinking. There was something about the way he was starting at me, the intensity in his eyes, that made it impossible to think about anything other than what he wanted to do to me right now.

  “Take. It. Down.”

  His words were sure. But I sure as fuck wasn’t.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Jesse

  “I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE it down,” she said, turning her back on me and heading back through to her kitchen area. She seemed totally unbothered by all of this. I didn’t want to have to scare her, but that was the only tool I had in my arsenal right now, and I needed to use everything that I had to make sure that the article was gone from the internet by the time that I walked out of this room.

  “Yes, you are,” I told her sharply. She spun around again, her eyes narrowing as they locked on to mine.

  “You’re really not going to drop this, are you?” she asked. I shook my head.

  “It’s important.”

  “Why?” she demanded. “Why is it so important that you make sure that nobody in this town find out that you had a life before you came here? That’s what I want to know...”

  “No, you don’t,” I replied. I could see the curiosity written all over her face, and I didn’t blame her. I wasn’t exactly doing a good job at making it sound innocent. But at the same time, I knew that telling her would open up everything that I had been trying to hold back. She might have found out more about me than anyone else ever had since I had come to this town, but that didn’t mean that I had any intention of putting her in harm’s way and making this any worse than it was.

  “Then tell me,” she replied, planting her feet on the ground and hitting me with a hard stare. “Go on, tell me. I want to know. Tell me what I’m risking by having that article up there.”

  I took a deep breath. My mind was racing. I wanted to spill everything to her, but I didn’t even know where the hell to start. I knew that my head was too stuffed full of everything that had happened to make sense of a word that wanted to come out of my mouth, but I had to find some way to contain and control myself. I had to make it clear to her that all of this was for her own safety just as much as it was for mine, and for Luke’s—that, if she left all that stuff out there, it could come back and bite her hard on the ass. Her name was attached to me now, and that meant that there might be people out there looking for her just the same way that they were looking for me.

  “Besides, if I take it down, my editor will freak,” she continued. So she did have some way of getting her hands on that article and making sure it came off the site? That was something.

  “I’ll deal with any backlash from her,” I promised her. “I’ll pay twice as much as what you were going to pull in with the advertising.”

  “And what about social media?” she asked. “It’s already going to be everywhere there. You’re going to have to rip it off all of the sites there, too...”

  “I can handle that,” I replied. I had a social media manager, and I was sure that I could tap her in to find some way to make it illegal for anyone to share any details of the article without my strict consent. And I wasn’t going to give it to anyone.

  “But why?” she demanded again. “I don’t understand. We wrote the interview on you, you came in and did that yourself—what’s changed now? It doesn’t make sense to me...”

  “It doesn’t have to,” I fired back. “You just have to listen to me. It’s for your own good.”

  “You keep saying that, but you won’t tell me why it’s for my own good,” she pointed out. “And I’m not going to do anything when you’re just trying to spin me on shit that I have no reason to believe.”

  I put my head in my hands for a moment. Every second that that article was still out there was another that someone could see it—another that someone from my past could put together the pieces and turn up on my doorstep. On Luke’s. Even on Sarah’s, since she was the one who had written the article, and they’d probably believe that she was the one who had the inside track on everything that had happened with me...

  “What’s wrong?” she asked me. At least she could sense that I was a little more serious now. This wasn’t about my pride, this wasn’t about some urge to make sure that everything out there about me was exactly what I wanted it to be—this was for her safety, and for the safety of the people around me. It came with a whole heaping of danger. And I didn’t want her to be a part of that.

  “It’s the picture,” I explained to her, with as much urgency in my voice as I could muster. “That’s what I’m worried about.”

  “But why?” she asked. “It’s just an old picture of you. Okay, it’s not the most flattering, but still...”

  “It’s not whether it’s flattering that I’m worried about,” I explained to her. “It’s...I’m worried about someone from my past seeing it. And knowing that I’m here.”

  Her face paled. Finally, she seemed to be getting it. Some of the combative edge dropped away from her voice, and she took a step toward me.

  “What might they do if they know that you’re here?” she asked me.

  I shook my head. “I don’t even want to think about that,” I confessed. And it seemed like, finally, all of this was starting to sink in for her. She gestured for me to take a seat on her couch, and I did as I was told. All the fight had left me. Now, all that I could think about was convincing her to get rid of that article, and then I could leave her alone once more and be done with all of this.

  “What happened to you?” she asked me.

  I shook my head. “It’s better that you don’t know,” I replied. I wasn’t sure, not really, if it was better for her or for me if she didn’t find out—I hated the thought of her discovering everything that I had kept from her all this time, and I knew that she would never look at me the same way again. Maybe I wanted to protect, for just a little while longer, the way that she looked at me, to know that I wasn’t going to lose her yet. Because I was certain that when she found out about my past, she was going to drop me faster than I could blink. Any sane woman would. And Sarah was the kind of girl who did nothing but confirm that she had her own best interests at heart.

  “If I take it down,” she asked slowly, “will you tell me?”
>
  I looked up at her again. I couldn’t promise her that. I wasn’t going to let her find out the truth of what had happened—I wasn’t going to let her get any closer than she already had. Besides, deep inside, I knew that I couldn’t trust her. She had already published this article on me, and I didn’t know if she would do it again if I gave her the inside scoop that she wanted.

  I shook my head. “I can’t tell you anything,” I replied. “It’s not safe. For you or anyone else.”

  She took a deep breath, and then reached for the laptop that had been shut on her coffee table. She opened it and pulled up the article, and then clicked around a little more until she came to the page that she must have been able to delete it from.

  “Are you sure about this?” she asked me. She was clearly hoping that I was going to change my mind and back out, but I just nodded. I couldn’t risk it. I wouldn’t risk it.

  “I’m sure,” I replied. And, with that, I watched as she went over a few more pages, and then took me back to the main site so that I could see that the article wasn’t there anymore.

  “Thank you,” I replied, and I found that there was an edge to my voice that hadn’t been there before. I sank my head back into my hands and realized that I was shaking slightly. I hadn’t even really been able to get my head around the fact that all of this was actually happening until now—I had been in so much danger, as had the whole of Kingston, to be honest. I knew that if the people from my past had found out that I was here, they would have done everything they could to rain havoc down on Kingston and everyone who got in their way. I was glad, at least, that I would never have to deal with that. Not as long as I could keep that picture off the internet and make sure that it never came to be connected with me or anything that I was doing here.

  She didn’t reply for a moment. I knew that she had to be handling a whole lot of shock right now—she must have been stunned to see me just walk through this door and demand so much from her, refuse to give her an answer, no matter how much she asked for it.

  “I’m sorry that I made you feel that way,” she confessed, and there was a softness, an apology in her voice that made me sure that she understood the extent of what she had done. I nodded. I knew that she hadn’t intended for this to happen—it was just damn bad luck, that was all. I couldn’t blame her. She was a reporter, and that picture, along with the name that came with it, was one hell of a story for her to get her hands on.

  She reached over and slid her hand into mine. Her touch was enough to bring me back down to Earth, at least for a moment. Some of the panic that had been circling my system began to recede, and I looked up at her. She really did have the most beautiful eyes—there was something sharp about them, the way they burned into my own, that made me smile.

  “Hey,” she murmured, and she reached up to touch my face, cupping my cheek in her hand and tilting me to look at her. “Hey, it’s over now. It’s done.”

  “I know it is,” I replied. And something about all the stress of the last few hours, about all the panic that had gone into this moment, suddenly, all at once, seemed to lift from me. As I looked at her, I knew that I could cope with all of it, no matter what the world threw at me or at us. I slid my hand over her leg and smiled at her, and she offered me a slightly nervous but very genuine smile back.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” she confessed, and her gaze drifted down to my mouth. I nodded, running my hand up her arm and over her shoulder.

  “I am, too,” I replied. And, with that, finally, I moved toward her to plant my lips against hers and to lose myself to the sweetness of the way her mouth felt against mine. I had been so scared, not just for me and my brother, but for her, too—but here she was. Right in front of me. In one piece. And I wanted to celebrate every inch of her while I still could.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Sarah

  AS HE PUSHED ME DOWN on to the couch, I wrapped my arms around him and kissed him back like my life depended on it.

  I knew that this was crazy. Just a few minutes before, he had stormed in here and been ready to throw down with me about the article that I had posted, and I had been ready to fight to make sure that he didn’t get to remove it. We had been butting heads, so angry that we couldn’t see through it.

  But now—now, it felt different. There was something vulnerable in the way that he looked at me, and I wanted to enjoy every moment of it, every moment of the way that it made me feel, and I needed him. I needed him right now, and I knew that he needed me. That was why he had come here. His touch, his kiss, his mouth on mine, it was everything that both of us had been craving this entire time. And now that we were finally taking it from each other, I didn’t want it to stop.

  I sank my fingers into his shoulders, gripping tight to make sure that he wouldn’t slip through my fingers again, like he had done when I had climbed out of that car and let him go home without me. I pushed a hand through his hair as I felt his cock beginning to swell against my hip, and I knew that there was no way in hell that I was going to be able to resist having him inside of me. I wanted to feel him filling me—I wanted to feel every inch of him inside of me. I craved so much about this man—craved knowledge of his past, of his present, of everything that he might have been trying to hide from me. But right now, all that I craved was his body, and I was going to gorge myself on every inch of it.

  “You taste so good,” he murmured against my mouth, before he moved his lips down to my neck so that he could bare his teeth against the sensitive skin there and make me shudder helplessly. Damn, he felt good. He knew just what he was doing to me. I wondered how many women he had done this to before—how many women he had made feel this helplessly, hopelessly good. I wanted to stop him, to ask him, but I knew that it was irrelevant, anyway. All that mattered was that he was with me, right here, right now, and that I was going to enjoy every moment of it that I possibly could.

  “Please, fuck me,” I begged him, my mouth against his ear, my legs wrapped around him tight. I had to feel him—I had to feel him inside of me. I had waited for this for too long as it was and there was no way in hell that I was going to be able to hold back for any longer. He reached down and unzipped his pants, and I wriggled out of the sweats that I had thrown on as soon as I had gotten up this morning. This wasn’t exactly how I’d pictured our first time—I wanted something passionate, something intense, something that I could lose myself to totally once and for all. And I had all of that, but it came at the price of having to have him basically bust my door in to tell me to take down the article that I had written about him. I was sure that he was still mad about that, somewhere deep inside, but if he was, he wasn’t letting anyone see it.

  He didn’t wait to take me, planting his cock at the entrance to my pussy and then, slowly, guiding himself all the way inside of me. The sensation was incredible—I was already soaked for him, and he slipped deep into me as though this was where he belonged. I tightened my grip around him, pulling him deep inside of me. I wanted to feel every inch of him that I possibly could. I needed to. His touch, the desire that I felt for him, it was more than I could control, and I had no intention of letting anything get in the way of the pleasure that I could experience from this moment onward.

  “Fuck,” he growled in my ear. There was still that edge of anger to his voice, but it seemed to have taken on some other form now—something more intense, something more passionate. It wasn’t anger that he aimed at me. It was desire, even though the two things had some serious overlap inside his head. I knew that I should have been able to tell the difference, but right now, I didn’t care to. I just wanted to make the most of this, of having him here on top of me, inside of me, as though the two of us had been made to go together like this.

  “You feel so good,” I told him, and I meant it. It wasn’t as though I was some innocent virgin who had never been with a guy before, but he really did feel incredible. He was thick and long, his cock pushing right to the hilt inside of me, and I knew that I coul
dn’t have managed to take an inch more of him if I had tried. I knew that this was what I had been waiting for, from the moment that I had laid eyes on him outside of that coffee shop—I might not have known it then, but I did not. We were always coming toward this moment, the pressure of his erection filling me, and the tension in his strong body as he held himself inside of me.

  He began to fuck me then—hard, fast, not holding back. The pleasure was impossible to contain, and I cried out with each move he made into me, my body trembling and shaking with that teetering edge of orgasm as he refused to hold back, sliding in and out of me with a merciless roughness that was enough to make my toes curl.

  I wrapped my legs around his and slid my hands down to his ass, grasping tight to his bare flesh to push him deeper inside of me. I felt as though I couldn’t get enough of him. I needed this, so deeply, I needed it on some primal level that nothing else would be able to sate. I gritted my teeth and pressed my head against his shoulder and tried to contain myself, but I couldn’t hold back. Before I knew it, I felt it rushing through me, the orgasm taking control and wiping my brain clear of everything else that had led us to this moment.

  “Fuck,” I groaned as my pussy clenched around his cock. The pleasure was almost more than I could take, and I felt my body explode with helpless lust as the want pulsed through me, spread from between my legs out to consume each and every one of my nerve endings. My whole body was alight with pleasure, the fire coursing through me, and the corners of my vision started to blur as I lay there beneath him, his cock still pistoning in and out of me, harder than before, using the pulsing pressure of my muscles to take him where he needed to go...

  And, sure enough, after a few more seconds, I felt him finish inside of me. He let out a deep, guttural sound that was somewhere between a growl and a shout, and I held him close, running my fingers over his scalp, keeping him right there in place on top of me. I didn’t want to lose him. I didn’t want to lose this moment. I wanted to keep him right here, where he belonged, inside of me, for a little while longer. I had no idea what came next, no idea what would happen after this, but for now, all I cared about was that we had each other, and that we had finally been able to give in to what we knew was right.