by Hagen, Casey
“We’d have to have a contract because I feel like you’d try to make yourself an endless well of money and I won’t have it.”
“Fine, we’ll put it in writing.”
I pointed at her. “And, I want investment caps per year with them falling off by year three.”
“Five years is more in line with a new bus—”
“Three years, Soraya,” I warned, squelching my excitement so she knew I meant business.
“Fine, three years. Deal?” Soraya said, reaching out her hand.
I took it, smiled, and gulped back the last of my wine. “You’ve got a deal.”
6
Leaning against my car, I stared up at Emory’s building. Three stories high, it sat tucked back on a quiet section of Clinton Hill’s mansion row. A commanding oak tree in the front yard overtook two thirds of the ivory siding. Limbs jutted in every direction, even poking through the wrought iron fence along the retaining wall and sidewalk, obscuring the floor-to-ceiling windows aglow with soft light.
It looked like her, the girl I knew then.
Charming and warm.
Ethan and Emory’s home, their parents, their life became my tranquil lifeline. A place to calm the turmoil brewing in me when my father pushed me to the ragged edge. I craved the peace I found there, the way they never hesitated to embrace me and the turbulence threading through the very fabric of who my father molded me to be.
Uncertainty, fear, anger, explosive rage, and violence had no place within their walls.
Every time I walked through their door, I pretended it didn’t exist behind my own.
My stomach roiled as the past I had shoved into oblivion flickered to life again. Another reason why coming back for more might be the dumbest thing I’ve ever done. There was no happy ending in this situation so why the hell was I so damned determined to torture myself?
Still, my feet didn’t move to carry me to the safety of my front seat. My body betrayed me and my struggle to hold on to the frail peace of mind I’d found by settling in even more against the driver’s side door. My head might be screaming to flee, but my body said I wasn’t going anywhere.
At least, not until after I went inside.
Streaks of blue, magenta, and orange blazed across the sky in the distance behind the house, and I wondered if she had a way of enjoying the view she loved so much. Or used to love. Maybe she didn’t anymore. I didn’t know the woman she turned into.
Just like I had no right to the girl she’d been all those years ago.
She lived for sunsets, especially as we slid through autumn into winter when the colors intensified with vibrant slashes streaking across the sky riding the wave of bitter cold settling into the northeast. Wrapped in a blanket, a mug of hot chocolate in her hands, and fuzzy socks covering her father’s wool ones, she padded out onto their deck night after night, until darkness blanketed her. Until her nose and cheeks turned bright red and her fingers became white and numb.
If we’d still been young, and were still friends, I’d join her for a few minutes, under the guise of dropping the handful of marshmallows in her cup she’d forgotten on the counter in her rush to get outside. But really, I’d do it to be near her. To watch her warm breath freeze in the night air. To hear the wonder in her voice, as though each sunset were her first. We’d stare out at the horizon draped with nearly every shade in the rainbow and she’d tell me how it looked like her secrets. The colors, the way they wove tight against one another, not clashing, just nestling together as one. Each sliver of blue, violet, orange, and yellow mirroring emotions she hid behind a soft, secret smile on her pink lips.
My secrets looked like the inky darkness on a cloudy night when the moon struggled to break through to the world below. Threads of the darkest onyx shimmering in the charcoal night, barely visible, like the tentacles from hell reaching out to me from the malevolent underworld.
Harsh truths hid in the shadows after dark, never letting me forget who I was, where I’d come from, and what I was doomed to become, no matter how much time I spent escaping to my best friend’s house.
A deep ache bloomed in my chest, the cords in my neck clenched tight until soreness throbbed in the back of my throat. I’d spent years flying jets in the Air Force, screaming through the air, taking risks, catching shit for pushing boundaries. I’d almost been kicked out of the Air Force Academy twice. And still, this was about the dumbest idea I’d ever had.
I had no business being here.
She canceled the date with Hawk. It should have been enough for me to leave it alone. If my friendship with Hawk couldn’t stop me, the partnership, having everything I’d ever wanted now in the palm of my hands should have.
I clenched my fist and the paper bag crinkled, a lifeline to reality, reminding me what I’d come here to do. Check her foot. Buddy tape a toe or two if necessary. Then get the fuck out. The more time I spent in a space I had no doubt she’d turned into a home, with a bed nearby, and a goddamned vendetta of the heart resurrected between us, the more chances I’d obliterate every damned line vital for dividing us.
The betrayal count stood at three. Born with a stained soul, I could take the hits. The lie by omission about knowing Emory, touching her in the back room after Hawk left, and stealing her address off of Hawk’s desk. Hell, I wasn’t even counting the numerous opportunities I’d shunned to come clean.
But with every encounter, my resolve wavered. I flirted with selfish desires. My underlying nature urging me to push boundaries, reach for forbidden fruit, and run into raging infernos had been dragged out of hibernation the minute she sauntered into the back room at Rigby’s.
I fucking resented it.
Resented her.
Loathed me.
Who the fuck knew.
Self-preservation took a back seat the minute Hawk said she’d possibly broken a toe or two but wasn’t going to go to the doctor yet. Plans forgotten, I headed out the door, on my way to the pharmacy. The minute our lives collided again, the need to care for her, to protect her reared it’s demanding head so all-consuming, it brought me to my knees—or to here, staring at her building, the bag of first aid supplies resting against my thigh.
Fuck it. I had to go in. Get it over with. Get out before she embedded any deeper inside me.
I jogged across the street and up the concrete steps, my heart pumping heavy in my chest. Silently opening the door, I climbed two flights of stairs and found door 3A. Hanging from the small hook in the center, the wooden owl with sunflowers for eyes Emory’s bedroom door had been adorned with years before. The words across the belly faded with time, but I could still make out the phrase, “my dreaming place” in script.
The past swallowed me whole, taking me right back to that night, back to her bedroom. I closed my eyes and struggled against the onslaught, willing to go back to Mrs. Brooks clutching Ethan’s dead body if it meant I didn’t have to go back to the moment that caused it.
The scent of warm rain floated through Emory’s open bedroom window. Tiny flowers dotted her walls—forget-me-nots she’d told me once with a roll of her eyes. She hung her head, her chin resting on her chest. Stock-still, her toes curled into the plush beige rug next to the burn mark her curling iron left years before when she had her vanity on that side of the room. Dried tracks from her tears stained her cheeks, and the clip holding her heavy hair fell askew. Her sundress drooped low, revealing the round curve of her breast where it disappeared beneath her plain white bra. The shoulder strap hung loose, the fabric torn where the bastard she’d gone out with decided he wasn’t taking no for an answer and instead started tearing at her.
She’d been lucky to get away when she did, before he ruined more than her dress. He may not have wrecked her completely, but he’d left his mark on her skin and in her heart.
His brutality changed her.
My Emory. The son of a bitch took a piece of her spirit, something he had no right to.
Red marks marred the ivory skin stretched over her
collarbone. I forced myself to unclench my fists as the urge to find the little shit and break his scrawny little neck coursed through me.
“Look at me,” I said, my voice full of carefully banked rage, the kind I’d only ever heard out of my father, reminding me who and what I was, and why I didn’t belong in her room.
“I can’t,” she said in a broken whisper. “I’m so embarrassed. Why did he do it? He wouldn’t listen to me. I told him no and he wouldn’t listen,” she said with a soft cry. Fresh tears poured down her cheeks, and she covered her face with shaking hands.
Her pain punched right inside my chest, lashing at my heart, making it impossible to walk out of her room and save us both. If I did, then what? She’d curl up in a ball of shame and relive the experience over and over.
Alone.
She’d bury the violence and she’d find a way to make it her fault. She’d already begun by hiding her face and the humiliation painted over her features.
His actions didn’t get a chance to change her, to shape her future.
Not on my fucking watch.
She shivered under my palm, but not in fear. This is why I avoided this.
Avoided her.
The charge in the air whenever we got close. I recognized the thrumming in her, the same pulsing attraction I’d felt a thousand times stirring between us. Gravity drawing us together, a living, breathing constant no matter how I tried to break it.
Standing before her, I tugged her hands free from her face and nudged her chin until her head fell back, exposing all of her to me. All except the heart she kept shuttered behind her closed eyelids.
A dot of dried blood on her bottom lip and the small split above it caught my eye. “He hit you,” I said, forcing the words out despite the murder racing through my veins.
“It was an accid—”
“Don’t make excuses for him,” I growled. I fought to keep my touch light as I caressed her skin, leaving the storm raging inside me nowhere to go.
She flinched. “Once. No one will know. I can cover it,” she whispered.
“But I know,” I said, forcing my voice to be gentle.
She shuddered, the sound a sob and a deep breath all in one.
And opened her eyes.
Those aquamarine orbs speared through my heart, robbed me of the air in my lungs, and brought me to my knees with the secrets she kept there. Straightening her shoulders, she dared me to see the truths she’d hidden somewhere between those sunsets and her heart.
Cupping her jaw, I brushed my thumb over the cut, the sudden need to retrace every last part of her he’d touched filling me, so my hands and my mouth were the last memories she carried from this night.
I kissed her there, at the corner of her mouth, lingering until her lips parted. Her jagged breaths full of heat and need washed over me, encouraging me to continue, until nothing remained of the brutality she’d suffered.
Leaving only the dangerous, forbidden current arcing between us.
Taking what I could, knowing this would be the last time I’d ever let myself be in this situation with her, I let myself cross the line. Exploring her with my tongue for the second time in my life, my blood flared when she used my lesson in how to kiss a guy against me.
Turning into my kiss, she bit my bottom lip and soothed the sting with her tongue.
My cock throbbed behind my jeans. My blood thundered in my ears, and God help us both, I needed more. I dragged my mouth from hers and tasted the soft spot under her jaw, memorized the flex of her throat as I trailed hot kisses over her slim neck on my way to her collarbone.
Staring at the mark her attacker left, an unspoken challenge sparked to life. My temperature spiked as acceptance of just how far I was willing to go to erase the pain settled in.
Brushing my fingers over the bruise, I watched her breasts rise and fall with each gulp of air she dragged into her lungs, committing the sight to memory. I met her eyes and noted the moment they shifted from wonder and innocence to a lust-filled haze—the exact moment she gave me permission to push even farther. I hooked each of my fingers under her straps and dragged her dress and bra down, bunching the fabric around her waist, exposing her to me.
I was going straight to hell. God might just smite me now, right on the spot, and gladly hand what was left to the Devil, but fuck if I could muster up one single regret with Emory’s tight nipples bared to me, her back slightly arched, telling me what she hoped I would do.
Curling my hands around her ribs, my thumbs tucked under the curves of her breasts, I covered her bruised collarbone with my demanding mouth. Glancing up at her, I made sure she watched me, made sure she fucking paid attention and would forever remember my touch over his.
Threading her delicate fingers through my hair, she tugged—instinct driving away inexperience—sending chills shot straight through to my cock.
Fucking hell.
I fought to go slow, to savor her, burying my mouth in the valley between her breasts, pressing hot, hard kisses along her skin followed by swipes of my tongue. Her salty, yet sweet flavor exploded over my taste buds, propelling me faster, harder, more demanding—until all control snapped and I sucked her nipple into my mouth hard.
She cried out but held my head tighter, giving me permission to keep going.
Her mewling sounds and wonderous gasps throwing rocket fuel on a five-alarm fire.
Taking the other nipple, swiping the tight bud with my tongue fast and furious, I kneaded her flesh with demanding fingers, desperate for so much more of her, yet knowing nothing I might be able to justify taking could ever be enough. Boundaries fell away, and resigned to betrayal, I wandered to places I didn’t belong. Snaking my hand under her dress, I found the edge of her panties and slipped my finger under the hot, wet cotton.
The fist of heat that locked on my finger tested my last threads of honor, and for a second, and with my lungs heaving as I devoured her sweet breasts, I told myself I could have her. I could fuck her right here in her childhood bedroom. I could take her virginity and make her mine forever. She’d be tethered to me and even the promises I broke to get us there couldn’t destroy us.
Until I eventually destroyed her.
The house of cards I’d assembled in my head rained down. I yanked my head back, the suction of my mouth breaking free from her nipple echoing through my head over the sound of us both gasping for air. I snatched my finger from between her thighs and held on to her, my forehead resting on her shoulder where I could see the moisture from my mouth shining on her skin. “Jesus, what the hell am I doing?”
“It’s okay,” she said soothingly as she smoothed her hands over my shoulders.
“No, it’s not okay.” I reared back and jammed my hands through my hair. “You were fucking assaulted by that prick and now I’m mauling you. It’s definitely not okay.” With my hands locked behind my neck, I glared at the fucking picture she made standing before me with her dress and bra around her waist, a nymph, ripe for anyone who came along to take advantage.
Anyone being me.
Tearing my gaze away, I yanked off my flannel shirt and wrapped it around her, yanking it closed over her breasts. “When I walk out this door, lock it.”
“Stay with me,” she said quietly as she took a step toward me.
I couldn’t look at her. Couldn’t stand to see the pleading in her eyes. “No.”
“But you feel it too. I know you do.”
“What I feel doesn’t matter. I’m no good for you, Emory.” If I continued to cross the line, I’d eventually lose Emory and Ethan—their parents—and I couldn’t survive that.
“Why not?”
“You know why,” I growled.
“You’re not your father, Falcon.” Shaking my shirt loose, she reached for me.
I twisted free from her grip. “You’re too damn young and stupid to recognize danger when you see it,” I said, heading for the door, hating how I called her stupid and knowing damn well by doing so I’d ignite that rare temp
er of hers.
“Stupid? Stupid!” she yelled.
“Yes, stupid,” I said with my hand on the doorknob, not daring to glance back and see the barb land.
“I never should have called you!”
The minute I stepped into the hall, she slammed the door, sending the owl swinging on its hook. Smacking against the wood, the force carved a deep scratch into the white semi-gloss coating it.
7
I shook my head and ran my palm over my mouth, the memory fading away, leaving me jittery, even as the door to 3A flew open, setting the owl to rattling so much like it did long ago.
I swear I’m anchoring that fucker so it’s never part of the soundtrack of us ever again.
“Well, look who’s here,” Soraya said from the doorway. “This is perfect; you can settle the debate. Forever Begins Here…good name for a wedding planner business?”
“I—”
“Who is it?” Emory said, peeking around Soraya’s shoulder.
“It’s the blast from your sordid past here to tickle your bits. Answer the question hot stuff. Forever Begins Here—practical and romantic or hokey?”
“Oh no, he does not get a say in this,” Emory said, shoving Soraya to the side.
All of a sudden, I wanted just that, to have an opinion and make sure they both heard it.
Limping, Emory teetered for balance in a pair of cut-off jean shorts…and my flannel shirt I’d wrapped her in years ago.
I looked her up and down, clenching my teeth, my cheek jumping as I bit back a rush of anger. Why the hell did she still have it, and why the fuck was she wearing it? To torture me?
Except she had no clue she’d see me tonight, leaving me nothing—not one single clue how to interpret it.
“I don’t know anything about romance, but I’ll go with practical. Not hokey,” I said, realizing by the gleam in Soraya’s eye I inadvertently took her side against Emory.
“Ha! See, I told you,” Soraya said, shooting a look at Emory while Emory glared at me. Oblivious to the standoff brewing between us, Soraya grabbed her cell phone and swiped the screen. “Oh, that’s me. My ride's outside waiting. You going to be okay if I’m not here to babysit?”
