by Katee Robert
To feel more?
That way lay ruin.
He gave himself over to punishing her with his mouth, letting her know in no uncertain terms that for the time they were together, her pleasure was his to deliver. But when she came with a cry loud enough to rattle the windows, it only made the turmoil inside him worse. Because it wasn’t enough.
He wasn’t sure it would ever be enough.
Frank shoved to his feet and kicked the chair out of the way. He guided his cock into her and reached up to bracket her throat. “No one else, Duchess,” he repeated.
Those hazel eyes saw right through all his bullshit to the wild thing beneath his skin. She called to part of him on a fundamental level that he didn’t know how to deal with. Journey licked her lips and pressed her throat more firmly against his palm. “I’ll consider it.”
His control snapped. Frank gripped her hip with his free hand, pinning her in place as he fucked her slowly, letting her feel every inch of him in torturous detail. “I know what you’re trying to do.”
“Do you?” She swallowed hard enough that he felt it. “Prove it.”
“You want me to fuck you hard enough to break this table. To drive you out of your damn mind and leave marks all over your body that will have you walking funny for a week.”
She grinned. “Come on, you know that sounds like a dream.”
“Not this time.” He kept up the slow strokes. “You aren’t in control, Duchess. It’s time you remembered that.” He narrowed his eyes at her hands gripping the edge of the table. “Over your head.”
She hesitated, but ultimately obeyed, stretching her arms over her head and lacing her fingers together. He released her long enough to untangle the apron and toss it aside. Frank ran his hand up the center of her body to take her neck again. “You’re with me.”
She met his gaze directly, fully present in what they were doing. No hesitation. No fear. “I’m with you.”
He started moving again, picking up the motion that made her eyes go heavy-lidded and her body writhe as much as he’d allow. It felt good, so fucking good, to be inside her, to know that he was the one putting that hazy look on her face and chasing away her shadows.
Like maybe his armor wasn’t as tarnished as he’d let himself believe.
Frank guided her legs up to rest on his shoulders. The new position allowed him deeper, and she made that sexy-as-fuck whimpering sound with every stroke. He kept going, driving her slowly, inexorably back to the edge again. This time, when she came, he couldn’t restrain himself. He pounded into her, pursuing his own pleasure even as she went wild beneath him. Frank came with a curse and braced a hand on the table on either side of Journey’s limp body.
She wiped her forehead, leaving a trail of flour across her skin. “We’re fucked, Frank.”
Fucked about summed it up. “I know.” No matter what he told himself—told her—his response just now spoke louder than his words had. If he was actually able to leave Journey King the hell alone, the thought of her moving on to someone else wouldn’t make him damn near homicidal. He dipped down and pressed a kiss over her heart. “Come on.” He helped her to her feet as the oven timer dinged. “What’s that?”
“Breakfast.” She grinned. “Or maybe what we just did was breakfast and this is brunch? It doesn’t matter. It’s desperately needed calories.” She went to grab her apron off the floor, but Frank got there first.
He held it just out of reach and pointed at her discarded clothing. “Go put on some clean clothes before you burn off something vital. I’ll get the damn breakfast out of the oven.”
She raised her eyebrows suggestively. “Come now—I’ve been cooking naked since I moved out on my own. I have more than enough experience protecting my important bits.”
He blinked. Picturing her in his kitchen, wearing nothing but that ridiculous pink apron…Fuck. “Get dressed.”
“Bossy.” She put a little swing into her walk as if she knew he couldn’t keep his eyes off her ass. Flour marked her skin, and there was a nearly perfect white handprint on her hip that had him wanting to follow her upstairs to ensure that whenever she thought of this house, it was attached to memories of coming on his cock.
Get the fucking breakfast, asshole.
He managed to find the pot holders and get the thing out of the oven, and then he cleaned up the mess they’d made. A couple of minutes later, he heard Journey rushing downstairs and turned to meet her in the doorway. The look on her face stopped him cold.
She held up her phone, her skin bleached of color and her eyes too wide. “Eliza’s been in an accident. We have to go. Now.”
Chapter Seventeen
The trip back to Houston simultaneously took too much and too little time. Journey couldn’t seem to sit still, and Frank was smart enough to leave her alone as she paced back and forth in the plane. After they landed, he drove her to the hospital in silence, seeming to sense that she wasn’t capable of holding a conversation.
No reason at all to blame herself for what happened to Eliza. People got in car accidents all the time, and it was never part of some sinister plan.
But no matter how many times she told herself that, she didn’t quite believe it.
Frank pulled to a stop outside the hospital and grabbed her hand before she could rush from the car. “Duchess, look at me.”
Each second she sat still instead of rushing to her baby sister’s side was sheer agony. “I have to go.”
“Journey.” He tightened his grip until she lifted her gaze to his face. His expression might be the familiar cold lines, but there was sympathy in his dark eyes. “Sure you don’t want me to go in with you?”
No. “Yes.” She swallowed hard. “Anderson is closing ranks, which means family only.” She refused to think about who else was considered family. It didn’t matter if Elliott showed up—Eliza needed her, and so Journey would deal with their father. Full stop. She managed to squeeze Frank’s hand. “I appreciate it, though.”
“If you change your mind, or need anything, call me. Doesn’t matter the time.”
Warmth flared, eating away at the coldness that had wrapped around her as soon as she got off the phone with Bellamy. “Thank you.” She hesitated. “Would you do me a favor?”
“Of course.”
So easily, he answered her, as if favors were something Frank Evans handed out for free. Something changed between us, something big. She didn’t have the time or energy to pick apart what it was right then, but she appreciated it all the same. “This sounds crazy paranoid, but is it possible to pull the traffic cameras where she had the accident? I guess the cops will probably do that, too, but I’d feel better hearing the news from you.” It wasn’t that she didn’t trust the police, exactly—more that Journey didn’t trust anyone beyond a short list that included Samara, her siblings…and Frank.
“Consider it done.” He leaned forward and pressed a quick kiss to her lips. “I’ll text you when I have it. Good luck, Duchess.”
“Thanks.” She’d need all the luck she could get at this point. She grabbed her purse and opened the door. “Seriously, Frank—thanks. For everything.”
He leaned over so that he could see her better. “I’ll see you tonight, Duchess. Text when you’re leaving here and I’ll meet you at your place.”
By all rights, she should tell him to get the fuck out of there with that kind of talk, but the truth was that the thought of going back to her empty apartment with the events of the last week hanging over her head wasn’t a good one. If he was going to offer to stay over, she wasn’t going to tell him no. “I’d like that.” Journey shut the door before she could expose any more weaknesses than she already had.
She followed Bellamy’s directions to the waiting room outside the ICU. Journey loathed hospitals, from their dull color schemes to the faint smell of antiseptic cleaner that seemed to permeate every inch. And, underneath it all, suffering. She wasn’t sure if she believed in the supernatural, but if ghosts existed in
any form, they haunted the walls of places like this, their energy affecting every single person who walked through the doors.
Both her brothers sat in the waiting room, and they looked up as she walked through the door. She tensed. “Elliott?”
Anderson grimaced. “Hasn’t seen fit to make an appearance.”
Thank fuck. Journey slung her purse onto the floor and took the seat between her brothers. “What happened?” Bellamy hadn’t conveyed more than the basics over the phone—Eliza was in a car crash and in serious condition, followed up by directions for when she arrived.
“Hit-and-run.” This from Bellamy. He dropped his head into his hands. “She was leaving Houston—going back to New York—and I tried to get her to stop.” He cursed. “I was on the phone with her when the accident happened.”
“Oh, Bellamy.” She started to reach for him but hesitated. They weren’t exactly a touchy-feely kind of family, and it might make it worse. Stop making excuses. Journey held her breath and gingerly rubbed her brother’s back. He shuddered, which was almost enough to make her snatch her hand back, but then he reached out and clasped her knee with a shaking hand.
She looked at Anderson. “How is she?”
“She got out of surgery right before you arrived.” He looked at his watch. “It took twice as long as it should have, and no one will tell us anything but that we need to wait for the surgeon. She’s alive. That’s all I know.”
“God,” she breathed, even as her mind raced. She’d known it was serious from Bellamy’s reaction, but if Eliza had been in surgery for hours…It was so much worse than she’d imagined.
Tension laced through her body as footsteps sounded in the hallway, approaching the waiting room. She reached out and touched Anderson’s shoulder. “Someone’s coming.”
No one relaxed as two uniformed officers stepped into the room. The men were cast from the same mold—fit and straight-backed, expressions wiped from their faces. The older one had silver coloring his temples, but otherwise they might have been related. The younger one took them in at a glance. “You’re Eliza King’s family?”
Journey glanced at her brothers in turn, but they just stared at the cops, as if their baby sister being in danger had broken something in them. She squeezed Anderson’s shoulder and kept her other hand on Bellamy’s back. “Yes, we’re her siblings.”
The cops exchanged a look, and the younger one took up a position just inside the door while the older one strode over and sank into the chair across from them. He leaned forward and braced his forearms on his thighs. “As I’m sure you’re aware by now, your sister was involved in a car accident late last night.”
Why are they telling us something we already know? Journey shook her head and tried to focus. “Did you find the other driver?”
A muscle jumped in his jaw, though his expression remained frustratingly bland. “It was a hit-and-run. The other car left the scene.”
Bellamy lifted his head at that. “You’ll have pulled the traffic cameras.”
Again, that twitch in his jaw. “There was nothing identifiable about the vehicle. It was a dark truck without plates, and the windows were tinted dark enough that the driver isn’t identifiable. We’re checking local repair shops, but I’m telling you right now that it’s not looking promising.”
Something isn’t right.
Bellamy practically growled. “Tinted windows and a missing plate don’t sound like an accident.”
“We have no evidence suggesting otherwise.”
She stared hard at the cop and then looked at his partner, taking in the way he kept his gaze pinned to the window in the waiting room—and the thin bead of sweat along his hairline.
“Last time I checked, a hit-and-run is a crime in the state of Texas,” she said. “There’s got to be something more you can do to catch whoever did this.”
The cop pulled a card out of his pocket. “If you have further questions, feel free to call my supervisor.”
This wasn’t how the police conducted investigations. Journey might not spend a lot of time up close and personal with the law, but even she knew that. A crime had been committed, and, as such, they should be investigating to the fullest extent of their abilities.
She barely waited for their footsteps to fade before she pushed to her feet. “What the hell was that about?”
“That’s what I’d like to know. I saw her car, Jo—it looks like a crumpled Coke can. There’s no way another vehicle should have been able to do that damage and drive off before the police arrived. It doesn’t make any fucking sense.”
She ran her hands through her hair. “They have to know this was intentional—that she was targeted. That changes this from a simple hit-and-run into attempted murder. Why aren’t they doing anything about it?”
“You know why.” Bellamy leaned his head against the wall behind his chair and closed his eyes. “The cops we talked to right after we got here were different ones, and they seemed much more willing to help find answers. Strange coincidence, them being reassigned and those two assholes ending up with a case they’re all too eager to close.”
“You don’t know they were reassigned.” He opened one eye and pinned her with a look, and she sighed. “Okay, I’m reaching. You can’t honestly think Elliott got to them.”
“Don’t be naive, Jo.” This from Bellamy. He stretched out his legs. “The Bancrofts are just as powerful as the Kings.”
Damn it. Damn it. She paced from one side of the room to the other. “There’s got to be something we can do, someone we can go to.”
“It won’t work.”
She spun on Anderson. “How can you know? You haven’t even tried.”
She stared at her brothers, the two steady beacons in her life. They were crumpling around her. Anderson might cover it up better, but it was there in the tightness around his mouth and the way his eyes seemed to see something a thousand miles away. He was fighting for control, to be the calm leader that he knew they needed…and he was failing. Bellamy wasn’t even trying to keep a steady face, his frustration and anger riding close to the surface, but then he’d always been closer to Eliza than the other two.
Her brothers needed her.
They needed someone to step up and relieve the burden, at least for a little while.
She never would have considered it would be her. She was the weak link, the one who spent the majority of this mess trying not to fall to pieces while everyone else stood strong.
She gave her brothers what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “I’m going to go see if I can track down some information and some coffee. Just…hang in there. She got through surgery. Eliza is tougher than anyone gives her credit for. She’ll be okay.” The words felt like a lie, but neither of them called her on it.
None of the nurses had any information for her, so she collected the coffee and headed back to the waiting room. She barely made it into the room when the surgeon appeared in the doorway. He was an older black man, his short hair gone silver and laugh lines bracketing his mouth. He wasn’t laughing now. “You’re Eliza King’s family?”
“Yes.” Journey stepped forward, aware of Anderson and Bellamy standing and moving to either side of her. “Is our sister okay?”
“She came through surgery just fine, and she’s awake.” He hesitated. “She doesn’t want to see you—any of you.”
* * *
Frank swung by the apartment he kept in the city long enough to shower and change, and then he headed to the office. He’d already asked Mateo to pull the traffic cameras before they’d taken off, so there should be answers by now. It was a struggle to focus on the facts and not think about the lost and determined look on Journey’s face when he’d left her in front of the hospital. She wanted to go in alone and he respected her choice—but that didn’t mean he liked it. Ethan and José were already on their way to the hospital to ensure nothing went sideways, though he doubted Elliott would be so blunt.
Then again, he’d never expected the man t
o go after his youngest daughter, either.
Make no assumptions. We don’t know what happened yet.
Maybe not in facts, but he knew what his gut said—Elliott was somehow responsible for Eliza’s accident. Whether it was to bring Journey back to Houston or for some other reason remained to be seen, but the timing was too neat to be coincidental. Journey takes Frank and bolts out of Elliott’s reach and, within twenty-four hours, a terrible accident befalls one of her siblings, forcing her to return. Not only that, but she wouldn’t be thinking clearly because she was worried about her sister.
What better time to strike?
It’s what Frank would do, though he never had to stoop to harming people to get what he wanted. Not physically, at least. There were so many more effective ways to hamstring a person without lifting a hand. Obviously, Elliott had never learned that particular lesson.
He took the steps two at a time, heading for Mateo’s office. Something about this situation had bothered him from the beginning. Elliott was crafty—there was no denying that—but why not make his move years ago if he was really after the power?
Because Lydia King was still in Houston. Even with the power of the Bancrofts behind him, only a fool would underestimate that woman.
Mateo looked up as Frank walked in, his expression severe. “Your girl has gotten herself into a vipers’ nest by accident of birth, and it’s going to get worse before it gets better.” He turned his monitor so Frank could watch the grainy black-and-white video he’d already queued up. It showed a dark sedan sitting at a stoplight. The light turned and the car started forward, right into the path of an SUV. The impact crumpled the car in on itself as the SUV pushed it through the intersection and out of view of the camera.
