“I get things every few months,” I continued, calming slightly as I went through the facts, as I focused on something other than his presence, looming large in my living room. “There’s no pattern to it. No way to trace the packages. They’re always postmarked from different cities in the metro area.”
“I didn’t send you those papers. I never would have put you in the middle of something like that. Do you have any idea how dangerous that information is?”
My gaze drifted over the trashed living room. Definitely bullet holes in my pillows.
“Yeah, I have some idea,” I answered, my tone wry. “I have copies in a safe-deposit box. I wasn’t totally stupid.”
“I want to look at them. Tomorrow.”
I hesitated. “Fine. But only if you tell me what happened to you. You want answers? You have to share what you know. I’m in this. I’ve been in this for a year. Longer, really. Don’t try to keep me in the dark here.”
His mouth tightened into that harsh line again, but he nodded.
“You can start sharing.”
“Why you?” he asked, ignoring my impatience.
“What do you mean, why me?”
“Why is someone sending this stuff to you? You said it’s been a year? Why you? Why not someone else? Someone in the media? Someone with the connections to investigate this and release the information.”
My half sister, Jackie, had been a blogger for the notorious blog Capital Confessions. Part political blog, part gossip column, Capital Confessions had exposed many a scandal throughout the past few years—including Jackie’s relationship with her then-boss and now-fiancé, Will Clayton, Virginia State Senator. Jackie had begun blogging for them and had used the media pulpit to attack our father as much as possible. When her secret blogging had threatened her budding career as a political consultant and her relationship with Will, she’d made the decision to step down from Capital Confessions and unknowingly given me the inspiration to strike at my father.
I’d used Capital Confessions as a vehicle to leak information about my family—anything and everything I could think of to chip away at my father’s image and standing. Unfortunately, I’d done the unforgivable and I’d utterly fucked up, hurting my sister Blair in the process.
Considering the packets had begun arriving around the time I’d started feeding stories to Capital Confessions, I didn’t doubt that it wasn’t a coincidence. Despite the intense secrecy behind my identity there, someone had figured it out and seen an opportunity to filter documents to me. I just didn’t know who. Matt would have made sense, but once you took him off the table, I was back where I’d started. Completely in the dark.
“Do you know the blog Capital Confessions?”
Matt nodded.
“A year ago, I began sending them information about my family. Stuff about my father.” I swallowed, my throat tight, not wanting to give him the rest, not wanting to see the look in his eyes when he learned that I’d violated my sister’s trust. “The packages began arriving after I started working for them, so I figure someone wanted to use the connection,” I continued, hoping he wouldn’t push for more details. “And, considering what the packages contained, they knew I had a vested interest.”
“You worked for a gossip site? What were you thinking?”
I stiffened. “I was thinking that my father needed to be taken down a peg or two. I was thinking that I’d lost the only man I’d ever loved, and that my father was somehow involved. It wasn’t anything formal. I never interacted with them in person or anything. I was careful to keep my relationship with Capital Confessions a secret.”
“Wait. You said that you started feeding them information, and then you started getting packages. Your issue with your father began before you got the wire transfer paperwork and the classified documents. Why were you suspicious of him?”
“I overheard an argument between our fathers after your funeral. They were in my father’s office at home and the house was supposed to be empty, but my plans had changed at the last minute. I couldn’t hear what they were saying exactly, just that ‘it had to be done.’ They were talking about you.” I sucked in a deep breath, the memory coming back to me. “I confronted my father.”
“And?”
“He told me to stay out of it. That I was mistaken. That I’d misunderstood what I’d overheard.” I shook my head. “I saw the look in his eyes. I saw it and I knew he was involved somehow. That was pretty much it for my relationship with my parents, and I made myself a promise that I would find out what happened to you and that if he was responsible, I’d destroy him.” My gaze met his. “Except you’re not really dead. So I need to know the rest of it.”
Matt sat down on the end of the couch, putting distance between us. My fingers itched to reach out and soothe the cuts on his face, the growing bruise, even as my heart felt like he’d stabbed it repeatedly tonight.
He cleared his throat. “I was on a mission in Afghanistan.”
We’d been told that much when we were notified that he’d died. He’d been Special Forces, a few months into a six-month deployment when we’d received the news.
“My unit was charged with protecting a warlord who was supposedly a U.S. ally.” He looked down at his hands. “He wasn’t.”
I leaned forward, listening while he painted a picture for me of the life he’d lived since he’d been gone. As he filled in the details of a day that had haunted me for years.
“We were ambushed. There were six of us. I was the only one who survived.”
“How?”
“They shot us. They thought I was dead. I pretended to be. Hell, I nearly was.” His knuckles turned white. “They piled us into a ditch. A mass grave. When they left, I crawled out. Some farmers found me. Took me in. Brought me back to life.”
Oh my god.
Bile rose, the image of him like that …
It was a moment before I could speak.
“How did you get out of Afghanistan?”
“I made connections while I was there. Called in a few favors.”
“Where did you go after that?”
I was so hungry for this part of him, desperate to fill in the blanks of our time apart. I’d always known him better than anyone, and it seemed wrong to feel like he was a stranger now, like he’d shut me out, leaving me on the other side of a locked door, no idea how to break it down.
“I just drifted. Someone wanted me dead. The smartest thing seemed to be to pretend like I was.”
“Does everyone think you’re dead? Your family? Friends?”
He nodded, still not meeting my gaze.
“How …” Tears clawed at my throat. “I would have gone anywhere with you. If you were in danger, I would have run with you.”
“It wasn’t safe.”
“I wouldn’t have cared.”
His gaze whipped to me. “I cared. I wasn’t going to put you in danger.” He rose, his arms reaching out, gesturing to my ruined living room. His big body tensed. “This is what I was trying to avoid.”
“I don’t need protecting.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? You had someone in your apartment who could have easily killed you tonight. What would you have done if he didn’t come here to steal something? Or if I hadn’t been here? Do you really think a baseball bat would have protected you against a hitman?”
“It brought you down.”
He glared at me.
I ignored him.
“Why was someone targeting your unit in Afghanistan? You don’t think the warlord was acting on his own, do you?”
“No, I don’t. They had weapons they weren’t supposed to have. We protected him for a while. There were private security forces with him.”
“Intech,” I answered, filling in the blanks.
“Yes. We saw things. Money changing hands between Intech employees and the Afghanis. Lots of money. Things we shouldn’t have seen.”
I’d grown up around Matt’s family. His father wasn’t exactly warm
and fuzzy, but I’d never thought he was a complete and total monster. Never thought he was capable of killing his own son.
When Matt enlisted in the Army, his family cut him off financially. He’d already been admitted to Princeton, his path to taking over the reins at Intech when his father retired nearly written in stone. We’d all been surprised when he’d announced that he was joining the military, that he wanted to serve. I’d been so worried about him, but also so proud. His parents had just been angry. My family, equally so. The relationship that had cemented my father’s ties to one of his most important contributors had gone from a source of pride to a repugnant association overnight. Both of my parents had tried to get me to break up with Matt, but I’d refused. As far as I knew, he hadn’t spoken to his parents since the day he left for basic training. I knew that for all intents and purposes they’d written him off, but murder?
“Do you think your father is behind what happened to you?”
He didn’t answer me for a beat. “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe he didn’t know I was involved.” He released a frustrated sigh. “I want to think he isn’t capable of that, but …”
Yeah. I knew what he meant. Absolute power, and all that. Our fathers ruled their respective kingdoms wholly unchecked, the world theirs for the taking.
“I need to see those papers.”
I nodded. “I can go to the bank when they open tomorrow. I’ll call in sick.” Not the best start at a new job, but whatever. Hopefully, I’d win some brownie points for having worked on the holiday.
I didn’t know what to say next, where to go from here. There were so many questions in my head, so many feelings unresolved between us. And more than anything, I couldn’t ignore the worry that something between us had been lost and was now irretrievable.
Was this really it? Were we really over? I’d missed the breakup, apparently. One minute we’d been in love, the next he was gone. And now he was back and I was somehow supposed to look at him differently? Just forget everything between us?
“Can I stay on your couch tonight?” Matt asked. “I don’t want to leave you. Not until we figure out what’s going on. It’s not safe for you to be alone right now.”
He was right, of course, and still, the idea of having him this close to me and not having him at all felt unbearable. Everything about this felt unbearable—too much hurt, too many memories, too much emotion bubbling up inside of me when everything in him felt like a void.
I nodded, practicality winning out over my stupid heart.
“I’ll get you a blanket and a pillow.”
I walked to the linen closet, pulling out a folded-up quilt, heading back to my bedroom and grabbing an extra pillow off of my bed. The adrenaline had worn off somewhere along the way, and the shock had dulled to something else that flooded me with melancholy.
I hesitated, but I made my way to the bathroom, grabbing some ointment and disinfectant from my medicine cabinet. Everything about him screamed, “I don’t want anyone taking care of me,” but I couldn’t resist.
What now? He was back, but he wasn’t really. Would he stay to figure out who was responsible for his friends’ deaths and then leave? He hadn’t really even answered my question, had left blanks in the time he’d been away.
I’d never stopped loving him. Not for a second. As much as my heart had ached inside me, that love had kept me company when he’d been gone. It was as though we were in different places in our relationship. In my head we’d continued on, and apparently for him everything had ended.
He looked at me now like I was a stranger, as though we’d never meant anything to each other. Was there someone else? How was it possible that I loved him with everything I was, everything I had, and he’d moved on?
He’d promised me that he’d love me forever. Where did forever go?
I went back to the living room and stopped in my tracks.
I watched, unable to tear my gaze away, as Matt pulled a gun out of the waistband of his pants with brutal efficiency, as he divested his pockets and boot of knives and another gun, setting the weapons on my ruined coffee table. His boots came off next, then his socks, his hands at the button of his pants, and even though I knew I shouldn’t stand there gaping at him, I couldn’t help it.
His pants hit the floor, and then his shirt, until he was only wearing a pair of black boxer briefs that hugged his upper thighs, cock, and ass.
A noise escaped my lips, somewhere between a gasp and a hum, and Matt turned, our gazes connecting across the living room.
My nipples tightened; an ache settling between my thighs. I didn’t bother pretending that I hadn’t been staring and I definitely didn’t shy away from looking my fill. If he was going to sleep in his briefs in my living room, then I wasn’t going to be a blushing virgin about it. Besides, I couldn’t have looked away even if I’d wanted to.
It wasn’t just his personality that had changed.
He was hard in ways he hadn’t been hard before. His face had lost the last vestiges of youth, his cheekbones angular and defined, the beginnings of lines around his eyes and mouth that spoke more to the life he’d lived since we last saw each other than his age.
He’d always been an athlete; I’d spent years going to his soccer games and cheering him on. Once he’d joined the military, he’d bulked up, but this was a different sort of bulk. He had the kind of body that looked hard from use and not because he spent hours in the gym. He was all muscle, his smooth, tan skin decorated with puckered scars. A slash here. A round scar there. A lump formed in my throat.
There it was—proof that he’d been shot. His stomach, his chest.
How did he survive?
And then I saw it.
There was ink on his skin now, swirls on his bicep that hadn’t been there before. But that wasn’t what knocked the breath from me. On his left pec, near his heart, he had a letter inked on his skin. A “K.” My heart clenched at the sight of my initial on his skin, at the knowledge that he hadn’t forgotten me, that despite his coldness now, I had taken a chunk out of him much as he’d done to me.
Matt held my gaze as though daring me to say something. I couldn’t.
“I brought you a pillow and blanket,” I sputtered, choking on all the words I wanted to say. “And some medicine for your face.” My fingers curled around the bundle in my arms.
I wanted to touch him. To run my fingers over his puckered skin. To lay my palm over that “K” and to feel the beat of his heart. I wanted to stroke his beard. Wanted to feel for myself that he was real. That he was safe. God help me, I wanted to kiss him. Wanted him to fuck me. The need, the desire to feel alive, to confirm that he was alive, thrummed through me like a madness that wouldn’t be contained.
I didn’t want sweetness. It was clear as day that whatever feelings he’d had for me had disappeared and I didn’t know if I had any hope of them ever returning. Right now, I didn’t care. Right now, I wanted an escape. And maybe to pretend that nothing had changed, that we were still too people utterly in love. Easy enough when my heart remained constant.
He felt like a stranger. Looked like a stranger. Talked like a stranger. But the arousal filling me now felt very familiar.
There hadn’t been anyone else. Ever. He’d been my first kiss. My first time. My last kiss. My last time.
In this moment, I didn’t really care about anything else.
I waited for Matt to walk toward me, to take the pillow and blanket from my hands. He didn’t. He just stared at me, his gaze intense, eyes dark.
Fuck it.
I walked to him on shaky legs. I didn’t stop until I stood right in front of him, inches away. So close that it forced my head up to look at him, so close that our skin nearly touched. I set the bundle down on an end table that had somehow escaped the same ruination the coffee table had suffered.
Matt’s head lowered, his gaze narrowed. I swayed toward him slightly, my body recognizing that look, the hint of emotion lingering in his eyes.
Just one m
oment. I knew he wasn’t the Matt I’d loved, my Matt, but for just one moment, I wanted to pretend. Maybe it made me a fool, but I didn’t care. It had been so long since someone had touched me. Since he’d touched me.
I ached for him to touch me.
I lifted my hand, my fingers skimming across his cheekbone, ghosting across the burgeoning bruise. He flinched beneath my touch, but he didn’t step back. My fingers trembled.
“I don’t want this,” he murmured, the sound swallowed by the groan that escaped his lips, his hands coming to rest on my hips. Despite his words, his hands didn’t push me away. Instead, his fingers stroked the strip of skin exposed above the low waistband of my shorts, tracing my hipbones.
“This is a bad idea,” he growled, pulling me forward so that his cock brushed me, his temple rubbing against mine, his lips grazing my cheekbone.
That was all it took.
He was hard. Big. Powerful. Exactly what I wanted right now.
“Uh-huh.”
One of his hands left my hip, stroking up my body, the heat of his fingers branding me through my thin cotton tank top.
He sucked in a deep breath, his entire body heaving with it, as though he held himself back, his desire on a tight leash.
I wanted to snap the tether. Wanted to watch him lose control. Maybe it was anger. Maybe it was madness, or the feeling that this was still somehow little more than a dream. Whatever it was, I didn’t care about logic or sanity or rules or caution.
Just this.
My nipples pebbled as I arched in his arms, rubbing myself over him. His hold on me tightened, leaving no doubt that he’d noticed. I wanted his hands on my breasts. I wanted it hard, and rough, and dirty. I’d basically been re-virginized at eighteen, and my body craved the sex it remembered and had lost.
Craved him.
My hand slipped down between us, stroking him through his briefs. He was hard as fucking rock.
Falling For Danger Page 4
