She nodded her silent approval while running her fingers along the three dark-wood stools sitting at the island, noting that he didn’t have a real dining table as she made her way through the living room.
Her eyes surveyed the brown leather sofa flanked by two matching sitting chairs, the fabric on the sofa the most rumpled and used. Veda was relieved to see that Linc’s place wasn’t messy at all, but wasn’t impeccably neat either. It was wonderfully in between. Lived in. Just as much of a man cave as she’d imagined, with leather everything and dark wood finishes. She could definitely see herself getting comfortable there.
She passed the living area, in a hurry to get to the floor-to-ceiling windows that had been beckoning her since the moment she’d stepped inside. The view that greeted her was just as breathtaking as she’d imagined. From the nineteenth floor, nearly every mile of Shadow Rock Island waved up at her. The dark waters of the ocean in the distance, with it’s rolling waves and the white bubbles that lived on them, flirted with the bottom of the mountainous black cliffs that had given the island its name. The half moon that loomed over the horizon. The massive hill to her far right, where colorful shacks blared into the night from the island’s most poverty stricken mountainside, packed in like sardines. The large expanse of modern homes and mansions to the far left, where the rich had locked themselves away from the rest of the island, pretending no one else existed, for decades. And, in Veda’s opinion, the best part of Shadow Rock Island, the part that was beautifully in-between, where the people who weren’t quite struggling but weren’t quite prospering, lived. The lights from the modern apartments and modest homes of the island’s middle class seemed to glow a little brighter to her, giving her hope that the deep divide that had plagued the island for decades hadn’t quite finished taking over.
She hoped it never would. “This view…”
“Reason I bought the place.”
She swiveled on her heel, her body moving toward the sound of his voice as naturally as it inhaled and expelled breath. The breath she only breathed because of him.
“It smells like you,” she said.
A frown pinched his eyebrows as he set her duffle bag on the living room’s glass coffee table. “What do I smell like?”
“I don’t know. Like Linc.” She made a face. “It doesn’t stink or anything.”
He hissed out a laugh as he stood tall, holding his arms out. “Hope not.”
Veda played her fingers together. “You have a lot of hair, so you probably smell like whatever shampoo you use.” Realizing she was babbling, Veda cut to the chase. “You smell nice.”
He licked his lips with the very tip of his tongue, letting his voice fall. “You do too.”
Her chest expanded slowly, and the play of her fingers quickly escalated into the wringing of her hands.
Clearing his throat, Linc lowered his eyes, breaking their gaze. “Remote’s there.” He pointed to a side table next to the sofa, where a plethora of remotes that controlled the plasma on the opposite wall sat. He motioned behind him. “Kitchen’s all yours.”
“The last thing I want is for any kitchen to be all mine.”
“Good, because you won’t find any food in the fridge. I don’t cook.”
“How do you explain all the used pots and pans?”
“Mom.”
Veda nodded at the one-word response. “Then I guess we starve. Unless your mom is here every night. I don’t cook either.”
“What kind of woman doesn’t cook? Only reason I invited you here was for the home cooked meals.”
“How could an SVU detective be so sexist? How dare you attempt to force these antiquated social norms onto me?”
“A lot of big words to sidestep the fact that you can’t cook.”
“Why can’t you cook?”
“I’m not a woman.”
“Yeah, this isn’t gonna work.” She fought a grin at the sound of his breathy chuckle. “I can already see that you’re going to drive me to smother you in your masochistic ass sleep before the night is out. Maybe there’s an open cell at the precinct I could sleep in. We might both be safer that way…”
He dropped his smiling eyes.
She broke her gaze from him with her own grin, moving her attention from one of the abstract photos he had hanging on the wall to the other, looking for any real pictures. Pictures of friends. Family. If she were being completely honest, as her brown eyes dashed desperately across the living area she’d already visually dissected, she longed to see a picture of Lisa Hill. For months she’d wondered what the woman who’d stolen Linc’s heart looked like. The woman who’d also broken it—even if she hadn’t meant to—so terribly that he hadn’t been able to bring himself to love, or even touch, anyone else in the five years she’d been missing.
But not a single picture of Lisa welcomed her. Not even a picture of his mother.
Maybe he has more pictures in his bedroom, Veda thought. Feeling Linc’s eyes on her, she crossed the room to the surround sound radio, sitting on a long wood shelf in the corner.
She switched it on, the small smile on her face widening when a Stevie Wonder song came floating through the speakers that were hidden away.
“How did I know?” she teased, meeting his eyes. “My r&b connoisseur… What’s next? Keith Sweat’s greatest hits…?” Her words slowed to a stop as her eyes narrowed passed him, toward the foyer table she’d failed to notice when she’d first walked in.
Linc raised his eyebrows, clearly knowing what she’d caught sight of without even having to look.
Veda’s mouth fell open, and she gave him a look of disbelief before barreling past him without another word, bumping him on her way by.
Racing over to the foyer table, she slapped her hands down on either side of it, her eyes drinking in the glass bowl that was filled to the brim with every flavor of Blow Pop known to man.
“Still gonna smother me in my sleep?” he asked, laughing as she sank her hands deep into the bowl of suckers, making some of them spill over the edge as she fingered her way to the bottom.
“You got all these for me?” She looked over her shoulder.
“‘Course I did. Withdrawals can make a person crazy, and you have an addiction, woman.”
“Well, I guess you would know…” she droned, giving her eyes a soft roll before they landed on his.
Linc winced. “Why don’t you file down those fangs, huh? They’re getting a little sharp.”
“Why don’t you stop being so syrupy sweet? It’s not you, and it’s freaking me out.” Moving her eyes from him, Veda seized a sour apple blow pop and had it open in seconds, popping it between her lips, eyes fluttering shut the moment the slightly sweet, slightly sour flavor assaulted her tongue and made her mouth water. Her eyes blinked open, and she snuck a look at him from the corners, voice muffled around the stick. “The baby hated suckers. Couldn’t even touch one with the tip of my tongue without getting violently ill. Twelve whole weeks fantasizing about sour apple….” Her voice trailed off into a faraway place, and her eyes were right on their heels, going glassy as she stared off into space.
Linc blinked slowly. “You wanna talk about it?”
Snapping out of her haze, Veda snatched the sucker from her lips. “No. I don’t. And since when do you solicit conversation?”
He acquiesced. “Hungry?”
She shook her head, pushing the sucker back between her lips.
“‘Course not. Almost forgot I was speaking to a woman sustained solely by processed sugar and artificial coloring.” Fighting a smile, he nodded behind him while reclaiming her duffle bag from the coffee table. “Come on. I’ll show you where you’re sleeping.”
Veda followed his nod toward the door that led to his bedroom. “Linc, I can’t put you out like that.” She motioned to the leather couch that actually looked pretty damn broken in and comfortable. “I can sleep on the—”
“I’m taking the couch.”
Veda faltered at the finality in his
voice and the even more definitive sight of him turning without another word and moving towards his bedroom.
With a shrug, she followed, picking up her pace to catch up.
——
Veda could see Gage’s mansion from Linc’s bedroom windows, which were also floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall. Gage’s house sat in the faraway distance, alone on the island’s most notorious black cliff. Every time she looked at it, her stomach rolled a little more.
She pressed her eyes shut when the voicemail he’d left on her phone zoomed through her head for the millionth time. She’d only listened to it twice. Once when Linc had returned her phone to her, and once more when she’d played it back for Gage. Two listens was enough to leave the words burned into her brain. Words that had hurt her so deeply, she wasn’t sure she could ever find a way around the storm they sent blazing through her heart.
The darkness.
As the message played on repeat in her mind, making her grow more emotional by the moment, whispered expletives flew from her lips as she ruffled through her duffle bag which she’d sat on Linc’s bed moments earlier. The duffle bag that Jake had packed for her, its contents leaving her on the verge of explosion as she ripped out one piece of clothing after the other, none of them appropriate.
Longing for nothing more than a pair of yoga pants and a t-shirt, Veda instead found herself snatching out one silk nightgown after the other. She shuffled through various random sex toys, thongs, and even an extreme push up bra she’d purchased solely for a Catwoman costume she’d worn to a Halloween party years earlier. Every inch of her body ached to call Jake and cuss him out, realizing he really hadn’t been bluffing about filling her overnight bag with nothing but thirst traps for Linc.
As if the crotchless panties and KY-Jelly had beckoned him from the living room, Linc knocked on the closed bedroom door.
Veda bit her lip to stop the flurry of curse words that had been flying from them for several minutes. “Come in…”
The door creaked open, and Linc appeared, holding a pile of fresh white washcloths. He’d told her just minutes earlier that he was gathering a few of them from the linen closet.
Veda stood tall, running her palms over her jeans as he entered and set the towels on the foot of the bed. His bedroom decor matched the living area, with a tufted brown leather headboard and two dark wood side tables. Just like the living room, not a single personal photo existed. Veda had barely been able to resist the urge to snoop through his things, so hungry she was for the picture of Lisa that he clearly didn’t want to be seen.
Linc stood tall after setting down the towels, shoving his hands in his pockets.
Veda played her hands together, using them to motion to the door of the bathroom while looking up at him. “Do you want the first shower?”
He looked toward the master bathroom. “There’s a standing shower in the guest bathroom out front. This one’s all yours.” He met her eyes, pausing as he searched them. “It’s got a Jacuzzi tub, jets, whole nine…”
“Yeah, I saw it.” Veda pictured the master bathroom that she’d already fallen in love with. “I can’t wait to start a bubble bath. If I’m not out in an hour, please come and check to make sure I haven’t accidentally fallen asleep and drowned…” Her words trailed off as it occurred to her that if anyone could be trusted to fish her out of a body of water, it was Linc.
Seeing her go off into her own head, he spoke in a deep voice, snapping her out of it. “You okay?”
Veda’s teeth clenched, speaking through them. “Linc, you were kind enough to invite me here, so I can only assume you have a vested interest in keeping our friendship alive?”
His face tried to frown, but as he swallowed thickly, the lump that moved down his throat seemed to take the grimace with it, and he answered, hoarsely. “Yeah, I do.”
She took a deep breath. “Then stop asking me that. I’m fine.”
His silence screamed surrender, but his eyes told a different story. He held her gaze, headstrong, a knowing gleam flashing across his face.
She ripped her gaze from his, searching his bedroom. “Why don’t you have any pictures of Lisa?”
Linc scratched his chin, breaking his eyes away from her as well. A moment later, he chuckled. “No boundaries whatsoever.”
“You knew this about me, and you invited me here anyway. You have no one to blame but yourself.”
He threw his eyes back to hers, tilting his head. “It’s bad enough that I can’t get the image of her face out of my mind for more than two seconds. Last thing I need is to be surrounded by reminders during the two precious seconds my mind is mercifully blank.”
She gave a small nod. “I guess that makes sense…”
Linc paused. Then his hand sank into his back pocket, where his cell phone was and, presumably, where the only picture of Lisa was. “You want to know what she looks like that badly?”
Veda’s eyes rose to his, noting the tone to his voice. “No.” She quickly shook her head. “No. Two seconds isn’t a long time. I want you to have them. As many as possible. I’m sorry I even said anything.”
Linc pulled his hand from his pocket, appearing grateful, even as he shook his own head at her. “You don’t have to be sorry.”
Veda looked down at her duffle bag. “Do you think you can take me back to my apartment? Jake did a horrendous job packing for me.”
“‘Course…”
She reclaimed his eyes.
He raised his brows. “Right now?”
She shook her head with a small frown. “I’m so tired. I just want to take a long bubble bath and go to bed.” A hint of hope filled her voice. “Tomorrow?”
“Whenever you want. Just say the word, a’ight?” Linc waited for a response, and when nothing came, he turned for the door. “I’m right outside.”
Veda stared at his broad back when he turned away, coming to her toes. “Linc?”
Pausing at the door with his hand on the handle, he shot her a look over his shoulder.
With a small smile, Veda nodded behind her. “Saw the bag of Blow Pops in the side drawer.”
He breathed out a chortle, dropping his head.
“You’re one hell of a host. Gotta give it to you,” she laughed softly but sobered in the next instant. “Thank you.”
He kept his chin in his chest but lifted his green eyes to hers.
Veda searched those eyes, wondering if she’d ever be able to look into them without being blasted back to the first time she’d ever seen them. To the night he’d fished her out of the water and given her mouth-to-mouth. The worst night of her life, when she’d wanted nothing more than to give up on life forever. A life he’d refused to let her concede without a fight.
Even if he was the lead investigator on the case that could put her behind bars for life, and even if that did mean, for the time being, she had no choice but to put that fight on hold, Veda still had a lot of fight left in her.
And it was only because of him.
For the first time that night, she understood why Linc couldn’t have pictures of Lisa around. Why he couldn’t look at them without being blasted back to a place he found impossible to escape.
She understood because she couldn’t look at him either, for more than two seconds, without being rocketed back to the night he’d saved her life.
To the night he’d renewed her fight.
“Thank you, Linc,” she said, again. “For everything.”
11
Gage’s eyes flew open in the dead of night. A gasp quickly followed, parting his plush lips as his wide eyes claimed the ceiling fan spinning overhead. A flash of pain zoomed across his skull, and as his mind slowly recalled the events of the past few days, his stomach went deathly sick. Curled into a fireball so tight he worried it might rip itself to shreds.
His sweat-soaked skin tried to hold onto the sheets as he sat up, kicked the heavy blanket off his body and threw his legs over the bed. He scooted to the edge and buried his head in his hands,
trying to complete a deep breath.
He couldn’t.
In the next instant, his hand flew out, and he snatched his phone from where it was charging on the bedside table, removing the charging chord with trembling fingers and pulling up his phone’s contacts.
His thumb couldn’t press on her name fast enough. The name that had kept his stomach in knots all night and had made a swimming pool of his bed sheets.
“Hey guys, it’s Veda, leave me a message, and I’ll call you back.”
Gage took a deep breath as he heard her voicemail greeting for the millionth time that day.
“It’s me—” His voice was groggy from sleep, so he cleared his throat. “Veda, I can’t sleep. I can’t stop thinking about you. Please pick up the phone…”
A long silence passed. Of course he knew she wouldn’t pick up. Not just because she’d been ignoring his calls all night, but because he knew this wasn’t an old school answering machine where she could hear him in real time.
“That message I left was…” He slammed his eyes closed. “Not real, Veda. I mean, it was real… but it wasn’t. It wasn’t me. Of course I don’t loathe you. Of course I don’t abhor you. Of course I don’t…”
When Gage realized he was just repeating the same terrible words that had hurt Veda so deeply the first time, he stopped himself. Just saying the words out loud, even if it was to refute them, could only be hurting her more. So he made a silent vow never to say them again.
He ran a hand down his face with a deep sigh, his swollen eyes rising to the moonlight spilling into his bedroom window.
No.
No more hateful words.
Only love.
“I love you,” he whispered. “I love that you order take-out just so you can put it onto real plates and pretend you made it. I love how soft you are, even though you want so badly to be hard. I love that your hair has a mind of its own—how it’s always talking back.” He smiled softly. “I love your laugh and the way you make me laugh. You’re the funniest person I know. You make me happier than anyone else ever has—” His voice broke, and he covered his mouth, taking a moment. “I love the person I am when I’m with you. How you gave me the strength to stand up against my parents for the first time in my life. I love—”
Pulse (Revenge Book 5) Page 9
