by Megyn Ward
She’s nice.
Polite.
Sincere.
As she passes the pond, she waves at an enormous, blood orange koi fish with a large, bright yellow spot on its back. “Hi, Buck,” she says as she keeps walking toward the waterfall. Behind it is an elevator.
“What?” She flicks a quick glance at me as she presses her thumb against the private elevator’s security screen. The doors open and she steps in, me trailing after her like a lost puppy.
“Nothing.” I dig my hands into my pockets and think about all the antics and attitude she’s thrown my way over the years. All the times I’ve had to throw her over my shoulder and carry her to her limo because she’s had too much to drink and is too out of control. Every time I’ve felt her and her friends laugh behind my back. “You’re just… different, I guess. Nicer to them than I expected.” I don’t even know what I’m trying to say. All I know is that I suddenly get the feeling that most of her spoiled the little people don’t matter vitriol has been directed solely at me and that feeling is kinda shitty.
She looks at me, eyes wide, mouth open, like I just hit her in the face. “Gray—”
Before she can finish what I’m sure will be an apology I don’t want to hear, the elevator doors slide open in front of us on what has to be the most lavish hotel suite I’ve ever seen. I’m not even sure what I’m looking at could be considered a suite.
Palace, maybe.
Definitely more of a palace because this place takes up at least half the top floor.
Instead of moving forward, she stands stock still, gaze darting from corner to corner like she’s waiting for someone one to jump out at her. The doors start to slide closed again and I have to reach out and slap a hand between them to keep them from shutting on us.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, sliding it to attack-dog mode in an instant.
“Nothing.” She shoots me another fake smile and forces herself into the suite’s foyer, which is seriously, bigger than my apartment in New York. “I’m just relieved to be home.”
It’s an odd choice of words considering she spends the majority of her time in New York. Instead of commenting on it while I follow her across the polished marble floor and into a huge, beautifully appointed living area. It’s not at all what I’d expect from her. No zebra print wallpaper. No faux fur throw pillow or trashy, nouveau prints on the walls. This place looks like it belongs to royalty. Priceless antiques mixed with newer pieces with clean, strong lines. Artwork everywhere—I see Klimt and Picasso. Cézanne and Kandinsky. What I’m pretty sure is an original Van Gogh hanging in the dining room. Mixed in with them are pieces by an artist I don’t recognize but feel like I should. Like they were painted by a master I’ve never heard of or seen before. The entire space is tasteful and understated. Elegant and refined—but accessible. Comfortable even.
It feels like a home.
A real home.
Delilah stops and surveys the space. Seems to be looking for something. When she doesn’t find it, her shoulders relax and she sighs. Leaning against a chair—a Louis the XV that cost ten grand if it cost a nickel like it’s a college-town curb find—she kicks off the pair of Ugg’s Henley lent her on the plane like they’re killing her feet and sighs. “The guest rooms are that way,” she tells me, gesturing toward a wide hallway on the other side of the dining room. “Everything you need but clothes should be in any of the bathrooms, so—”
“Delilah.”
“Went lives next door so I don’t even have to leave the floor. All I have to do is—”
“Delilah.” I say it heavier this time, pushing my tone deeper in an effort to stop her rambling but it’s no use.
“—right through that door.” She flings her arm at a door I’m assuming is behind me. “When my grandparents died, we split the suite in two so, I’ll just go next door and grab you some—”
In two?
This place used to be twice as big?
Shaking my head, I squeeze my eyes shut and up the volume on my voice. “Delilah, I’m not taking a shower.”
“Yes you are—so am I.” She sounds exasperated. Like I’m being ridiculous. “We’re both filthy.”
Just like that, I have a vision of a very wet Delilah, trapped between me and the shower wall. Her smooth, strong legs wrapped around my hips while they piston fast and hard between her thighs. My thick cock pumping in and out of her slick, swollen pussy. My hands tangled in her hair so I can pull her head back. Sink my teeth into the soft, delicate skin of her neck. Trace my tongue along the tight cord of muscle that runs the length of it while her long, manicured nails dig themselves into my back and she screams my name.
You realize she doesn’t remember it—whatever happened between the two of you, she doesn’t remember, so unless it’s an ongoing thing—
Fuck.
“order room service while you shower—”
“No.” My eyes pop open and I level a look at her that feels almost hostile. “No room service. No one comes up here until we catch this guy—got it?” When all she does is stare at me, I glower at her. “It’s nonnegotiable. Someone tried to take you so until we know who that someone is, no one comes up here that you don’t know and absolutely trust—are we clear?”
I expect her to argue.
To tell me I’m overreacting.
That she’s perfectly safe, locked away in her ivory tower.
She doesn’t.
“Okay.” She nods. “But no one knew I was coming so I don’t have any food here and I’m hungry so I know you must be—”
“We’ll figure it out.” There’s that we again. I keep saying it like I have every intention of staying. Like I belong here.
Again, she doesn’t argue.
“Okay.” She nods again. “But you are going to take a shower.”
Stifling a groan, I start to protest. “Look—”
“No, you look—” She lifts a hand and jabs her finger at me. The nail at the end of it is chipped and dirty. Seeing it. remembering why it looks that way, goes a long way toward quelling the lust bubbling in my belly. “If you insist on staying here and waiting for Went, then I insist that you take a shower because there is no way I’m going to let you sit on my grandma’s sofa like that and you sure as hell can’t just stand around and lurk—”
“I was in the Marines for eight years,” I tell her, the corner of my mouth lifting a little she drops her finger and her gaze widens. “I can assure you that I’m capable of any number of things—managing to keep my dirty boot prints off your grandmother’s sofa would be the least of them—but if it will shut you up, then okay, Ms. Fiorella—I’ll take a shower.”
TWENTY-TWO
Delilah
AS SOON AS GRAY RELUNCTANTLY DISAPPEARS
into one of the guest rooms, I make my way to the door connecting Went’s suite to mine. It’s unlocked. It’s always unlocked. Even when I’m not here. Pushing my way through it, I make my way through a foyer that looks almost identical to mine and into the living room.
The foyer is where the similarities end. While I’ve pretty much maintained a shrine to our grandparents next door, Went has made this place his own. Dark-colored furniture with sleek, modern lines. Charcoal gray paint on the walls. Artwork everywhere—some which would be considered priceless but most of it is his own work. He calls them sketches but they’re not sketches. They’re beautiful, museum-quality works of art and a symbol of his own particular brand of family disappointment, on display. A slap in our mother’s face, on the rare occasions that she chooses to grace us with her presence.
I don’t understand, Wentworth. I don’t understand why someone with your tremendous talent would choose to waste it on such a tasteless medium.
That’s what she calls his tattoo work.
A tasteless medium.
I used to think she ignored us because we were products of a failed marriage and reminded her too much of our dad. As much as it hurt, it didn’t matter because our grandparents filled the v
oid. Loved and spoiled us rotten the way grandparents are supposed to. I was fifteen when they died. My grandmother first—she suffered a massive stroke in the lobby of the hotel and never recovered. When my grandfather came home from the hospital that night without her, he came into my bedroom, kissed me on my forehead with tears in his eyes and said, sweet dreams, Liliah girl. I’ll see you in the morning.
Then he went to bed and never woke up.
My mother sat beside me at their funeral in her haute couture funeral blacks, knees demurely pressed together, dabbing at the corners of her dry eyes with a lace handkerchief and I realized her indifference didn’t have anything to do her failed relationship with our father or that fact that our presence was too painful for her to bare. That wasn’t it at all.
She just doesn’t love us.
Doesn’t have the capacity to love us.
For a long time, I was convinced I was just like her. A vain, selfish creature who cared more about the envy and adoration of perfect strangers than I did about my own flesh and blood. That I couldn’t love anyone more than I loved myself.
Then I met Gray.
Pushing my way into Went’s room, I stand in its doorway. Here the walls are blood red. The furniture is dark wood and heavy. His huge four-poster, canopy bed looks like something out of a medieval romance novel. It’s unmade because he rarely lets housekeeping in. The only piece of art on the wall is a single line drawing, frameless, trapped between two pieces of thick glass. It’s of a faceless young woman. She’s nude, sitting cross-legged in the middle of a hotel bed. All you can see of her is a thick tumble of long, dark hair curling and licking against the curves of her generous hips. The soft slope of her shoulders. The graceful lines of her neck. The gentle swell of her breasts.
I don’t know who she is, but I know my brother loves her.
I can see it in every line he drew.
Looking at it used to make me feel jealous.
Not because he loves her but because he can.
Looking at it now makes me feel terrified and hopeful.
Which considering the circumstances I’m currently in is a pretty stupid way to feel.
Turning away from the drawing on my brother’s wall, I make my way across the room and mercilessly raid his closet.
Ten minutes later, I’m back on my side of the door and following the sound of rushing water to the bedoom Gray chose to shower in. Dropping my load of pilfered clothes, I look around the room.
It used to be mine.
Double canopy bed covered in imported French lace. Under it, a beautiful hand-knotted Persian. Pale pink silk wallpaper. A pair of ridiculously ornate French Baroque chairs I fell in love with at an auction I went to with my grandmother when I was nine. She gave me her paddle and let me bid on them myself. I’m sure she paid ten times what they were worth, her eyes sparkling with a mixture of amusement and pride at my determination to win them, every time I raised I my arm.
I wish she were here with me.
Maybe if she were, maybe if I’d had her to look at me the way she did that day for just a little while longer, I wouldn’t be where I am now. I wouldn’t be this person I let myself become.
Gray’s clothes are on the floor in a sooty heap, his dirty boots kicked into the corner. His wallet is on the dresser, still wet from last night, damp cards and photographs spread out next to it in an attempt to save them.
Impulsively, I pick up one of the pictures. It’s of a family—a handsome father and a beautiful mother on a white sandy beach, their smooth brown skin and dark hair shining in the summer sun, sparkling blue waves crashing and rolling behind them. The mother has her arm hooked around the waist of a pretty little girl. She’s about seven or eight, her gap-toothed grin wide and infectious, strands of her long, black hair dancing with the hem of her sundress on an invisible breeze. The father has a boy, about four or five, perched proudly on his hip. His arms are slung around the father’s neck, a small gold ring encircling his pinkie, shining in the sun.
The father looks like Gray.
So does the little girl.
Setting it down reluctantly, I pick up another picture. I spot Gray immediately I the middle—a teenager now—his arms slung around the shoulders of two other boys even though he stands nearly a head taller than either of them. One of them is Tobias. The other is a blond—Jase. The last in line is younger. Thin and lanky, with dark unruly hair and light-colored eyes, practically hidden behind a pair of thick framed glasses. They’re all grinning into the camera, Gray’s smile the widest and brightest of them all. A big white building looms in the background and his family is nowhere to be seen. In front of the building is a sign that reads:
BRIGHTON HOME FOR BOYS.
Setting the photo down where I found it, I stand still for a second, listening to the sound of the shower running through the cracked bathroom door.
Making up my mind, I strip out of my borrowed clothes and toss them into the pile, on top of Gray’s, before I make my way into the bathroom and shut the door quietly behind me. Through the glass of the shower enclosure, I can see him.
His back is to me, giving me a spectacular view of his perfectly-shaped ass, head bowed while he lets hot water pound the ache and fatigue from his powerful neck and shoulders. Reaching for a bar of soap, he scrubs the hard wall of his chest, his power torso twisted slightly as it tapers into a pair of thick, muscular thighs, dusted lightly with swirls of soft, dark hair. I was right before. There are scars. A lot of them—some in shapes that I recognize as battle scars from knives and guns—scattered across the smooth olive skin stretched across his back and shoulders. I run my gaze down the length of his left arm until I find his hand. The place where his pinkie should be at the end of it. The same pinkie the little boy in the picture wore a glimmering gold ring, now half gone, the abrupt end of it stunted and puckered.
Looking at him, I feel my resolve begin to weaken.
I almost turn around. Almost leave because I’m suddenly sure he’s going to shut me down. He’s going to look at me and laugh. Call me a spoiled brat and go back to washing his hair without giving me the time of day because he thinks all I know how to do is push buttons and play games. That I’m just a bored little rich girl and he’s my favorite chew toy.
Instead of running, I push myself across the room and step into the shower behind him before I lose my nerve.
“Gray.”
As soon as he hears me, the wide plank of his shoulders goes stiff, like the sound of my voice is a blow across the back of them. His arms go still, stops scrubbing at his chest, a second before he drops his hands away from it altogether, the bar of soap clenched in his fist clattering to the slick, tile floor.
“What are you doing, Delilah?” He doesn’t turn around when he says it. Doesn’t look at me. When I don’t answer right away, the line of his jaw goes tight. “Get out. I’m not in the mood for games.”
“That’s good.” My voice is stronger than I expected it to be. My tone firmer. More confident. “Because neither am I.”
He shakes his head, gaze sliding over his shoulder, in my direction, for just a second but he jerks it back before it can touch me. “I’m serious—you shouldn’t be in here. You were just attacked for fuck’s sake. This isn’t okay. You’re not thinking strai—”
“Look at me. Please…” For a second, I think he’s going to refuse. Tell me I’ve lost my mind. To get the hell out. But then he sighs, his shoulders relaxed in what looks a lot like surrender as he turns toward me, the sight of him enough to suck the air out of my lungs and loosen the hinge on my knees.
He’s hard.
Impossibly hard—the thick length of his engorged cock jutting from the center of his hips, so stiff it’s practically kissing his bellybutton. I imagine myself dropping to my knees to take the hard length of him into my mouth. Licking and sucking his cock while I pump and stroke the root of it in my fist. The thick, swollen head of it bumping against the back of my throat. The pull of his blunt, rough fingers t
angled in my wet hair. Guiding my mouth along the length of him while he fucks my mouth. Urging me on until—
Like it has a mind of its own and its reading mine, Gray’s cock jerks under the weight of my stare and I look up to find him watching me. “You shouldn’t be in here,” he says quietly. Scowl settled on my cheek, he’s careful not to look any lower. “I’m serious… you need to leave. Now.”
“I don’t want to leave.” I take a step forward and he counters it, swaying back, away from me. “There’s nowhere else I want to be.” I take another step, my gaze locked on his face and he counters the move again. “I’m okay. I know that sounds impossible but I am. Maybe if I remembered what happened last night I wouldn’t be. Maybe—” For some reason, the scowl on his face deepens when I say it but I’m too far gone, too close to what I want, to wonder about why. “But I don’t, so I’m okay. I promise I’m okay.”
“You don’t…” He shakes his head at me, his dark gaze slipping past my face to the shower wall behind me. “You don’t know what you’re asking for. You don’t—”
“Yes I do.” I take another step forward. This time Gray stands still. Stays where he is like he’s waiting for me. “I’m asking for you.” Taking another step, this one brings me against him, so close, I can feel the thick, hard length of him pressed against my belly. He looks down at me, his expression slightly confused like he can’t figure out how I got so close to him, how he let it happen. “Please, Gray—I’m asking for you.”
His face changes. His gaze goes hot and dark, pinning itself to mine for less than a second before he gives in and lets himself touch me. Lifting his hands, they settle heavily on my shoulders and I expect to be pushed onto my knees. His cock shoved roughly into my eager mouth.
Instead, I’m pushed back, under the hot spray of the shower and held in place while he kneels in front of me to rescue the bar of soap he dropped when I walked into the shower. Soap rescued, he stays on his knees, head bent, while he works the bar into a lather between his hands before he runs it up the length of my leg, starting at the top of my foot.
