by Angel Payne
The crowd buzzes louder as reporters order their cameramen to mark the time on their feeds. My man’s zinger at the annoying Quinn will be tomorrow’s leading soundbite—not that Stall Girl is going to rest on her laurels with that. Clearly, she’s after juicier material here.
“So that’s really just it for Bolt?” Her narrow face pinches into an accusatory pout. “We’re not going to get the behind-the-scenes on those effects? The explanation of how your ‘experimental’ lightning pulses took down all those criminals—and about how you survived all those showdowns?”
Reece flashes an indulgent smile. “Come, come, Blair. You write for Silver magazine. You know a good magician never exposes all their secrets. Everything we have to reveal at this point was contained in yesterday’s press release. When Richards Research has something new to share, you’ll all be the first to be informed. Until then”—he caresses my back, captivatingly possessive, inciting yet another burst of camera shutters—“I’m just a guy running a couple of businesses, dating the girl he’s crazy about, and enjoying life in La-La Land.”
He punctuates that by unhooking a couple of his shirt buttons, just enough to reveal the distinct purple and gold of a Lakers T-shirt beneath. A new round of laughter fills the air.
“Just like the rest of us, huh?” someone cracks.
“More than you think.” I snuggle closer to Reece, hiding any tells about my white lie by turning my face into his chest. Ironically, it’s the whitest fib of the bunch. Like them, Reece has good days and bad. He puts on his pants one leg at a time, struggles to tame his hair in the morning, and has true cosmic dilemmas about what to binge next on the Roku. They don’t have to know that between all that, he’s formed Richards Research as a front for keeping tabs on the whack-a-doodle scientists who call themselves the Consortium. Keep your friends close and your enemies on at least three different monitoring platforms.
And, oh yeah—between all that, be sure to pleasure your woman like the ever-charged battery you really are.
As that erotic thought heats my gaze, Reece’s nostrils flare. His gaze drops to my mouth—for the two seconds before he crashes another kiss on me, hotter and deeper and fiercer than his first. My balance falters. My world spins. He’s the rock in my storm, sheltering and crushing me at once, turning me into a helpless heap in his brutal embrace.
At the edge of the tempest, I hear the same reporter chuckle out, “Yeah. Sure. Just like the rest of us.”
Without breaking our contact, Reece deftly turns, trapping me against the car and deepening our kiss. The mob of media, receiving our messaging loud and clear, starts to dissipate. They’ve gotten what they came for—and with this hotter-than-hell kiss, we’ve probably even given my bathroom buddy her story—and are content to let us be just another couple indulging pent-up passions after being apart for too damn long.
I’m home.
It resounds in my head as Reece rolls his tongue through my mouth, drenching my senses with his cinnamon taste, his smoky scent, his penetrating power. While it’s been awesome to be the one driving the beat for the last few days, there’s nothing like letting someone else lead the dance again. It’s a sweet, calming harmony to the throbbing melody of my lust, grounding me in a way nobody else can. Yet, at the same time, tempting me to burn even hotter…
Which is exactly why I push at his chest, reluctantly breaking the seal of our mouths. “Mr. Richards.” My protest is infused with my heavy pants. “If we keep this up, they’re going to arrest me for man mauling in public.”
My boyfriend slides out a grin that should be illegal in its own right. “How about mauling him in private?”
“Now you’re talkin’.”
He glides back by a step, fanning his fingers as if merely batting a bug away. The motion is a perfect disguise for the pulse he sends to the car, unlocking its two sleek doors, which rise up like wings.
For the first time, I actually focus on the vehicle—before vocalizing my resultant surprise.
“This isn’t one of the babies.” From the start, his nickname for his mini fleet of BMWs has always held a fond place in my heart. Even now, my invocation inspires a bigger grin from Reece before he issues an explanation.
“New kid on the block. A little prototype I’m testing out for Elon.”
“A prototype,” I echo, on top of the realization that aside from the license plates, the sleek cobalt car is devoid of any identification or branding. “For…Elon? Whoa.” Anyone gawking at the vehicle might mistake it for a cross between a Maserati and an Aston Martin. “It’s a…Tesla?”
“You like it?”
“So far?” I reply as he helps me into the plush leather bucket of a passenger seat. “Oh, yeah.”
“Good,” he answers with crisp command while sliding in behind the wheel with elegant athleticism. “Because the ride will be a few hours.”
“A few hours?” I’m honest about my delighted surprise, my mind taking off with possibilities about his end game—though whatever he has planned, I really hope it involves him, me, and someplace with a Do Not Disturb sign. Between Richards Research going public and RRO making its debut, our schedules have made his superhero days look like a pleasure cruise. Still, I don’t miss the Bolt days. Not for one damn second. “Guess it’s a good thing I have bags already p—” I’m jolted by my own stunned gasp. “Hey! My luggage—”
“Is safe with Zalkon,” Reece assures, reaching over to scrape his fingertips across my left thigh. “And on its way back to your apartment.”
Blissful sigh. “Then I’m not worried.” For my Valentine’s Day gift, I’d asked Reece to hire Z as a full-time driver, valet, and go-to guy—and these days, I think he’s thanking me more for the decision. The affable Armenian has become an invaluable gear in the logistical machine of our crazy life.
As Reece slides his touch higher on my leg, the tips of his magical digits take on a light-blue glow…and send electric thrills straight to the core between my legs. “I borrowed your essential toiletries from the suite at the hotel,” he explains further, referencing the penthouse at the Brocade that’s becoming more and more like my second home lately—especially because the second half of my Valentine’s Day gift was a wall in the suite, newly redecorated with framed candid photos taken during the project that inspired RRO to begin with, at a Brocade employee’s home, just a few miles away. “They’re all in a bag for you.”
I follow the backward jog of his head to find the small stow space behind our seats occupied by his rolling leather overnight bag and the gorgeous new Bendel train case I’ve been lusting after. After my soft squeal of delight and his cocky chuckle, I chill out enough to toss a wary side-eye. “You’ve packed stuff other than the toiletries, right?”
“Of course,” he insists, only to tack on in a mutter, “Maybe not anything you can stroll out to the balcony in…”
“Oh, dear.”
As I groan, he snickers harder—but takes my mind off pondering his wicked intentions as he accelerates onto the 405 and zips the sports car across to the fast lane. “Tell me about New York. I want to know all about the meetings. Are you feeling good about things?”
I twist in my seat, facing him more fully. Okay, here’s a subject with which I can be comfortable for a while. “‘Good’ doesn’t even come close.” I’m gushing and I don’t care. “Reece…this is all going to be so epic. You know your dad showed up yesterday morning for the meetings, right?”
“Yeah.” His answer, dotted by the discernible tick in his jaw, is exactly what I expected. “That was…decent of him.”
“Maybe because he’s ready to believe the same thing about you.”
He returns my soft suggestion with a hard grunt. “Or maybe he’s just morbidly curious about you.”
I don’t demand clarification for that. He’s already given it to me—though it wasn’t such a secret, even before we met, and perhaps for years and years before that. I really have no definite idea of when Reece was relegated to black sheep
status in the Richards fold, but instinct tells me it was long before he, Chase, and Tyce had even achieved puberty. With that kind of reinforcement, was it any wonder he grew up to be the family fuckup for so long?
A status he couldn’t shake even after revealing himself as the world’s real-life superhero.
“All right,” I finally offer. “So what if he did show up just to vet me? At least he showed. And stayed. And even helped facilitate our call with India.”
“India?” He lowers his brows until they’re ducked beneath his sunglasses. “I thought they’d already turned the RRO concept down.”
“They did.” I gaze out past him at the modern white buildings of the Getty Museum up on the hill. “But your dad said he wanted to help us try again.”
I give in to a soft smile, realizing how strongly Reece resembles Lawson Richards. They have the same bold blade of a nose. Their gazes, though a few shades different, both become brilliant when they’re challenged. And that forceful but graceful profile, speaking to the family’s carefully documented noble heritage—and right now, taking me back to the crucial twenty minutes in which Lawson had become RRO’s knight in shining armor.
“Hmmm.” Reece breaks into my musings with his contemplative grunt. “Dad is good at international negotiations.”
“He sure as hell was yesterday,” I concur. “There was something about what he said to the reps about the program…no different than what we’d presented last week but just spoken in a different way, that made them really hear that our purpose is simply to help some of their most deserving students get a leg up, not to indoctrinate them.” I pull my focus away from the memories, back to being all in with the man next to me. “I think it’s hard for some people to realize that we really have no agenda but to help.”
“Because nobody believes the world still possesses people as good as you.”
“Or you.” I lodge the argument as he finds my hand with his. “Don’t glower. It’s true and you know it, mister. Holy shit. Reece…” I shake my head as the hills of Getty View Park whiz by, covered in sage scrub and mustard flowers. “If it weren’t for you, RRO would still be just a pipedream on paper, not a legitimate nonprofit getting ready to actually put our mission statement into action.” I take a long moment to fill my lungs, certain I’ll break down into happy sobs without the extra air as fortification. “In a few weeks, we’re actually going to change the world for the better—and you’re the reason why.”
His attention doesn’t sway off the road, but his grip meshes into mine with defined intent. “Because you’re my more, Velvet.”
Take heart. Insert into towel wringer. Forget turning the crank, because this man and the depths of his love have already done the job.
His confession pulls my thoughts backward, to the day when I’d first thought he might be my “more,” as well. I hadn’t known his full truth then, that he was actually Bolt the superhero disguised as your run-of-the-mill bad-boy-billionaire hotel mogul having some fun on the side with one of his executive team. Back then, we were just a couple of consenting adults with mind-blowing chemistry in the sack and nothing more…
“That’s important to you, isn’t it? Living…bigger. Having…more.”
“No. Not having more. Being more. There just has to be…something more.”
“There is. There is more, Velvet.”
“Easy for you to say. You’ve already had more.”
“Not yet.”
“Not yet? What part of ‘not yet’ are you referring to? Swimming with the sea turtles in Tulum or skiing the Alps at Christmas? Or maybe…”
“You’re my more, Emmalina.”
He’d shown me that truth—that very afternoon, in fact—and so many more after it, as well. But no matter how explosive the sex, nothing told me how much I really meant to him until the Sunday he’d surprised me with a “field trip” to the home of a young engineer on the Brocade’s team. Cal, a twenty-one-year-old who was raising his twin sisters on his own after their mother’s unexpected death, had all the raw material to make his life better but not the time or financial resources to boost himself to the next level. After we’d spent the day helping repair and beautify his house, I’d found a part-time helper for the girls so Cal could get into some night classes and study his passion, Bio-Chem. And we’d gotten him into educational and career guidance to form five- and ten-year plans toward achieving his goal of a college degree.
He’d become the inaugural beneficiary of Richards Reaches Out.
The very same week Reece had helped me solidify a mission statement, a working budget, and an organization logo.
The week after that, he was helping me file papers and locate foundation office space.
He was giving me wings to be my own more.
The impact of the realization sparks the backs of my eyes with emotion I can’t fight. “Reece,” I rasp, unable to tame the quaver in my voice. “You do understand all the good you’ve already done here, don’t you?”
We’ve cleared the Sepulveda Pass and the 101 exchange, meaning traffic’s thinned enough for him to flash a polite smile. “Yeah, bunny. Of course I do.”
“No.” I grab his hand, squeezing it between my own. “You really don’t.” I tug again, waiting for him to look over once more. “In three months, we’re going to be welcoming fifty kids from eight different countries to New York. They’re going to get real-life, hands-on career experience and one-on-one mentorship from executives at every level of the Richards Corporation. Until now, every single one of these kids has thought their life wouldn’t get any better than what it is now—but worse, that they have no power to control that path. That they’re trapped.” A hard swallow takes over my throat. “That they can never be anything more.”
A long, heavy breath leaves Reece. He twines his fingers tighter through mine. “The same way you once felt.”
I don’t give my answer in words. He doesn’t need them. Even the intensity with which I work my fingers over his wrist and forearm isn’t necessary. He already knows what I’m trying to say.
Yeah. The same way I once felt.
We travel another ten miles like that, until the urban outskirts of LA give way to the rolling hills on the back side of Topanga and Malibu, before I finally speak again. “We’re doing really important stuff, Reece. Giving these kids one of the best gifts a human being can ever give another.”
“Damn right.” He pulls my hand over, smashing his lips atop my knuckles. “We’re giving them hope.”
I try to pull in my own inhalation—though it barely does me any good, since the man has, once again, deprived me of the ability to process air. And frankly, if given the choice to live on Reece Richards or oxygen, I’ll be forced to tell the latter goodbye.
He slays me.
Gets me.
Sees me.
And yet still chooses to look over at me like some guy who snagged himself the perfect date for homecoming.
How have I gotten this lucky?
How come I still feel like Cinderella at that sparkling ball—looking to see that midnight was fifteen minutes ago?
So just in case…
“I love you, Reece Richards.” I utter it with soft adoration, but the words are like a skin scratch compared to the sweet, deep wound he’s dealt to my heart.
“I love you too, Emmalina Crist.” And why does his declaration sound a thousand kinds of perfect—and flip a matching number of neurons throughout my body while activating twice as many misgivings in my brain? Things that sound like insanity but feel like wisdom…
If it feels too perfect, it probably is.
Happily-ever-after isn’t free.
Books aren’t their covers. And pretty pages often hide ugly truths.
I shake my head, freeing it from the images that invade along with the warnings. That always seem to. But why? They’re senseless blobs, seen in my mind like lumps through frosted glass, which never make any sense beyond the dread they dump in my chest and the anxiety they
prick into my mind…
Energy I will not allow to invade a perfect day like today.
I firm the resolve after we clear Ventura, where the highway rejoins the Pacific. Reece pushes a button that sends the roof sliding away, letting in the brilliant afternoon sun and the tangy ocean air. As we speed along, waves crash against beaches, wind breezes at wild grasses on the hills, and seagulls cavort in the air overhead.
I’m finding it tough to believe I woke up this morning in the Obelisk Manhattan, looking out the window at the Freedom Tower—but I’m so not knocking this scenery as Reece exits the highway at Calle Real and drives us beneath the distinctive white stucco entrance of the Bacara Resort. Within minutes, we’re whisked by golf cart down the hill to a standalone villa with a private arched entrance through which I can already see the panoramic ocean view.
“Holy…wow.”
My whole life, I’ve taken pains not to be “that” jaded Southern California girl—still, it’s tough to get wowed-up about the ocean when it’s ten minutes away every day. But the Pacific, from this particular Santa Barbara balcony, its whitecaps kissed by the molten gold of this California twilight…
It’s a dream.
It must be.
Maybe I really am still back in New York, slipping in and out of subconscious fantasies before I fully wake for my day. Maybe I do want this particular dream to last a little while longer, especially because the pre-poured champagne is such a sweet sizzle on my tongue, mixing with the sea salt on my lips and the chocolate seashell Reece offers with a devastating smile. I bite dutifully into the candy, flicking my tongue out to catch the caramel that gushes from inside…and savoring how that induces him to spew a soft hiss.
Yeah. This dream is a keeper.
Slowly—because I’m definitely dreaming, I’ve missed him like freaking crazy, and I deserve this—I roam my gaze over his forearm before following the same trail with my mouth. Nibbling at his wrist. Sucking at his skin. Gently pulling his coarse hairs with my teeth until his hisses turn into throaty snarls. Relishing all those sounds as I turn, pulling him closer by the loosened tie around his neck, until his shirt is in my hands and I gain enough torque to rip it open, scattering the buttons. Loving his guttural “fuck” before he rips the ruined thing all the way off, along with his jacket. Loving it even more as he chucks the clothing behind, leaving it slung over the balcony rail, while ramming his beautiful body against mine.
