by Cari Quinn
On my knees. Fuck that. I could do this just as well standing up.
She wore no panties beneath. Damn tease. She never slept naked like I did, but she went without underwear at unexpected times. Like this one, where her scent was like fresh lavender set to bloom under a heat lamp. Spicy and tangy, I could taste her even before I took the first lick.
Bending my head, I arrowed my tongue along her slit, flattening it over her clit as she tried to wriggle away. I pressed my hand low on her belly and nipped, pleased when she spread her thighs and kicked out, either to nail me once more to loosen her pants. I tugged them down with one hand and used the other to open her up for my mouth, plunging deep in one long stroke. She cried out and speared her fingers into my hair, again making me wonder if she was going to draw me closer or push me away.
She dragged me into her warmth, and I was glad to oblige. I buried my face in her folds, kissing her in a way I’d barely gotten to do tonight with her mouth. Then, she’d ended things too quickly. Now, her thighs were inching farther apart, the pants dangling off her foot as she curled her leg around my back. She arched, nails digging into my scalp, toes scraping along my spine.
Pussy wide open and pink, and so, so wet.
I rubbed her clit with the flat of my thumb, circling, circling. Lapping up everything she gave me and demanding more, burrowing into her sexy flesh until her dampness soaked my chin. I slid my fingers lower and slipped them inside, unwilling to miss even a second of her orgasm.
That was mine too. Just like the rest of her. I might take a long time to decide I wanted something, but once I did, there was no going back.
I didn’t share. I might’ve had siblings in reality, but I’d been raised alone. Classic only child syndrome, and one I would never apologize for.
“Tell me again,” she whispered, rocking her pelvis restlessly against my mouth. I didn’t know what she meant, so I lifted my head in question.
And licked my lips.
She moaned and dropped her head back off the edge of the counter, probably giving herself one hell of a blood rush. “Tell me you’re mine,” she breathed, the words barely audible over the throbbing need that had my cock surging against my zipper.
Even in the midst of my own sexual turmoil, I frowned. “I never—” She raised her head and gazed challengingly into my eyes, and somehow I said something I’d never planned to say.
To even think. In my world, belonging was a one-way street.
Not in hers. And if I wanted her to come—and holy Christ, I did—I’d get her there in whatever method she required.
One more truth in the center of a million lies and misdirections.
“I’m yours,” I said against her flesh, absorbing her shudder as if the energy pouring off of her powered my own heart. I flicked her stiff clit, wanting nothing more than to watch her go off before me. She was so unconsciously beautiful, so unstudied in her reactions. “Now show me you’re mine. That you’ve always been mine, even before you knew.”
A long, slow lick and she combusted beneath me, her hands fisting in my hair as she bowed off the counter. I hated that I hadn’t stripped her of her top, simply so I could watch her perfect tits bounce while she lost herself.
All I wanted was to be in that same place, lost with her. Hopelessly. Inexorably.
She sat up and grabbed my face, dragging it up to hers. Her mouth was on mine before I’d caught my breath, and definitely before she’d had a chance to catch hers. She wound her legs around my waist and pressed her soaked core against the front of my pants, taunting me with all the wetness I could have if I just ditched the pants.
And found a condom. Jesus, I couldn’t forget that part, though it was getting harder and harder to remember when we were intimate. In the crazy thrum of passion, it was hard to remember the life preserver. That little piece of latex that turned everything from a madcap moment to a life-changing decision.
Hell, who was I kidding? She’d changed my life a million years ago. I’d been trying to survive her ever since.
I tugged out my wallet and flipped it open to the condom I never left home without nowadays. In a few flicks of my fingers, the wallet was back in my pocket and the packet was open. Grace pried down my zipper, not about to wait for me. She never did. That was one of the many things I lo—
Her fingers slicked up my length as she rolled on the rubber. With one touch, I was a goner. Even after these last couple of months, her hands on me were like a miracle. I was a planner in every sense.
I couldn’t have foreseen this. Not after the day I’d gone to Annabelle’s and been turned away. So many fucking years ago.
Yet Grace was here, her eyes so big, her hands so steady as she wrecked me. Pieces of me fell at her feet and she kept right on destroying, her callused skin rubbing against mine a thrill of its own.
Once the condom was in place, she went back on her elbows and braced her heels on the edge of the counter, inviting me to take when I was on the verge of begging. With her, my veneer dropped away, and she left me stripped. I became simply a man who needed so much more than was fucking wise. Always had, when it came to her.
“Not on my knees,” she said silkily, and my gaze flashed to hers. Her chin came up. “But I’m willing to try to let you make that annoyingly arrogant comment to me. Oh, and the stalking. And the lies. And the—”
I was half on top of her with my mouth crushed to hers before she could verbalize the rest. There was no doubt in my mind that I was far in her debt.
Snapping my hips back, I drove forward without checking my thrust. I knew she could take. Her scream proved me a liar, until the blissful relief of her nails raking down my back took away my momentary concern.
As did the madness in her eyes. I wasn’t the only one riding the edge. She was right there with me, her body revving under mine. Insisting on more.
Pushing up her top, I slid my hands beneath to cup her breasts. Gripping them tight, so tight, I stroked into her again and again, watching as the hunger in her gaze flared into desperation. She reached down to touch herself, probably thoughtlessly, and I was riveted by the sight of her pale fingers moving between us. She skated their damp tips up my belly and I swallowed a roar, focusing only on the flush of pleasure coloring her cheeks while I struggled to hold on.
Just another moment. Two.
For her, I’d wait a lifetime.
Almost as long as had passed before I’d had her.
She cried out and squeezed around me, her walls fluttering up and down my length. I would’ve encouraged her with the dirty words that sprang up so often when I was balls-deep inside her, but I couldn’t find my voice. Could do nothing but hold on while she reared up and clamped her arms around my neck, bringing us forehead to forehead.
Trapped in her fever-bright blue gaze, I surged forward one last time. And clasped her soft, giving breasts that much harder while I exploded deep within her pussy.
Even before it was over, she fumbled to take my lips with her own. Our kiss was rough, artless. Sloppy. So goddamn desperate, still.
Sex couldn’t sate what we’d gone way beyond.
She drew back enough to trace shaky fingers over my damp, well-used mouth. “Though I’m a feminist, if you wanted to carry me to bed just now, I might not say no.”
Recognizing the concession for what it was, I gave her back one of my own.
“After that, Ms. Copeland, you just might have to carry me.”
Four
Grace
I stared at the ceiling. My body was still crackling in response to his touch.
Blake.
My…something.
Lover seemed to tame a word, even if the L-word twined around it in distracting shades of intense reds and hues of blue. That’s what he was. Passionate rage and cool blue.
I was somewhere in the middle.
An amalgam of us both. A steadier version for sure, but that seemed almost boring compared to Blake on either end of the spectrum.
Tonight
had been red.
Cool hadn’t even been on the surface of us. I wasn’t sure what to think, to be truthful.
I almost laughed out loud. Truth.
Such a stingy word used in our relationship. My lies, his lies, our lies—and somewhere in there was a truth buried under lines of code—both in computer language and my grandmother’s flowery, dramatic prose—add in worry, and an endless need for Blake to control something…
Well, then you had me, the limp noodle who’d barely survived the aftermath.
And yet I couldn’t turn my brain off.
He could.
As focused as he could be about work, about making me insane both in and out of a bed—when we actually used a bed that is—dear God, what he could do with a &&&&&. My nipples beaded up and my breath hitched in muscle memory.
God, I wished I could turn things off like he did.
I turned my face to him in the dark. His chest rose and fell in that deep sleep he could magically summon.
Usually he turned away from me in the dark. As if he still needed to block me from his world even when he was unconscious. But not tonight.
Tonight he faced me, and his fingers had crossed our tentative thresholds to slip under my pillow. One more piece of him that he’d finally shared with me.
Part of me wanted to slip under the cool sateen fabric and curl my fingers around his. Maybe then I could soak up some of his restful mojo and follow him into blissful oblivion.
But my too busy brain just wouldn’t let things go.
Especially not the memory of my grandmother’s panicked gaze burning through the screen in that twenty-second message.
Annabelle Stuart could be as dramatic as an actress trying out for a Broadway play sometimes, but that was often done for fun. She loved messing with the blue bloods of Lady’s Cove. To use their taste for power against them with pieces of spicy gossip.
Sometimes made up by her, sometimes a whisper in her ear.
But this was no game.
And the people who’d broken into my home—okay, Blake’s home, but it would always be mine in my head—weren’t scheming harpies at a dinner party. No, these men had guns and a desperation that didn’t fit in my world.
I reached across the invisible line between us and danced my fingers through the lock of his hair that had fallen forward. The only time he was slightly ruffled was in sleep or in passion.
I trailed the back of my fingers over the hollows of his cheek to the beard that he’d grown in recently before I slid out of our bed.
My chest constricted at the idea of our anything. Lies stretched between us with tendrils of love trying to bridge the gap. I saw it in the fierceness of his gaze on me, felt it in the possessive nature of his touch. I recognized it because it echoed in my own.
I just wasn’t sure if the love would win, or the lies.
I swiped his dress shirt off the chair by the door and shrugged it on over my nakedness. Downstairs, moonlight crept through the shadows via the skylights and wide windows done in his signature glass.
Protection in the light.
I clicked on the lamp next to the oversized leather chair beside the fireplace. I was tempted to light the gas to chase away the chill, but I was afraid I’d fall asleep thanks to its warm glow.
Instead I pulled one of my many sketchbooks out of the end table drawer. I used the cool moonlight and crisp white light of the lamp to sketch by memory. The stained glass of the back of my home came to life under my hands.
Of my grandmother’s home.
Now Blake’s.
The panel where I’d found her journal had been a nearly flawless replica of the frosted glass I’d chosen for the original design.
Now it had been replaced with his glass. Blake’s glass.
Had he chosen it for her?
Hidden the journal for her?
How had they been in contact this whole time and I’d been so freaking oblivious? Nothing made sense.
Were there other places with hidden nooks in the home that I’d lived in for so much of my life? How many more facets of my grandmother had I been blind to?
I set the sketchpad aside and stood. Jack’s network-secure MacBook sat on the kitchen island. I crossed to it and smoothed my hand over the chilly casing. The only way I was going to find answers was to dig. I opened it and logged in with the passcode he’d given me.
I scrolled through the pages of spreadsheets to open the diary pages with Annabelle’s scrawling script. Where were the originals?
Had she burned them?
Buried them?
None of this made sense. Yes, my grandmother had a knack for electronics that few of her contemporaries could rival, but to create a code like this?
It seemed unlikely.
And yet here it was—nearly hacker-proof.
Had she really wanted to keep it such a secret? Or was she creating her very own DiVinci Code to screw with us all?
Were there more answers in the house?
Sure we’d had moments of fun and intrigue with our trips to the cove to bury treasure for the mermaids, but nothing on this scale.
Nothing that would make her personal version of hide and seek any more decipherable.
I skimmed the pages filled with more codenames and her biting humor. Even here, she’d filled the pages with gossip.
Kitty and the Tomcat were on the prowl again. Could they be more obvious? Tomcat wasn’t exactly a genius when it came to keeping his gentleman in his pants. The problem for both of them was that it required far too much money to keep their respective sidepieces. So much so that Kitty came looking for play money again. Just a touch too expensive to keep her boytoy in Boston. Even with the interest rising, she still wants more, the fool.
I wasn’t sure why she hid this journal entry. She hadn’t bothered to bury her distaste for Catherine Bishop in any of her other entries. Then again, she rarely held herself in check when they’d been face-to-face, so it really wasn’t a surprise she’d only give Cat a perfunctory codename.
Husbands were about as faithful as tomcats in my grandmother’s social circle. The rich liked to play a little to much as far as I was concerned. My own circle didn’t fare much better, but then again I didn’t really keep track of those that I’d gone to school with. I didn’t care about social standings. I’d cared even less for their one-upmanship at parties.
Art was all I cared about for so long.
My grandmother had even tried to get me involved with other children from surrounding towns in the summers. As I’d gotten older she’d encouraged me to teach, and though I’d obliged her for a while, I didn’t have the head for it.
All I wanted to do was create, not help others find their way into art.
That made the fact that I’d met Blake all those years ago even more damning. Was I truly that in my own head?
Evidently so.
I wanted other children to understand and love it like I did, I just didn’t want to be the one doing the teaching. That required patience, and I’d been sleeping off an artistic fugue state when the gods had been handing out that particular virtue. My own projects? I could sit for hours with shards of glass and find my way into a design.
As long as people left me the hell alone to do it.
When glass was on the table, that’s where my focus stayed. Eventually my grandmother had left me to my own devices in college. My internships had been wretched, but I’d endured them to find new techniques and test new materials.
In the end I’d returned to the antiques, and the broken. I found that I liked to restore just as much as I loved creating new.
Philomena had understood that. She’d used that fire to get me into the gallery, and showed me how to channel it into money. How to let go of the pieces I hoarded and believe they were worth something to other people.
She’d helped me sell my first piece. Oh, I’d had my first showing in college, with a few prospective buyers, but I’d gotten caught up in a typical college romance and ha
d slacked off on coming up with more items to sell right when I was on the cusp of breaking through. That she’d given me another chance later, and that she’d been at my side when I finally first sold, meant more than I could ever say.
I owed her a debt that I’d never be able to repay. But instead of working my ass off on another piece to sell, I was hip-deep in gossip and spreadsheets that didn’t make any sense.
I toggled to the spreadsheets and lowered to lean on my forearms as I scrolled through names of companies I didn’t recognize. It was obviously a ledger of some sort, but for what?
The companies had nothing to do with Marblehead—hell, nothing to do with Massachusetts for most of them.
A hand slipped over my hip and I screeched.
“What are you doing, Ms. Copeland?”
I whirled around and punched Blake in the arm. “Do. Not. Do. That.” Each word was a hit.
Instead of wincing, he simply stood there and took it, one eyebrow raised. His hair was disheveled and he was only wearing a low-slung pair of sleep pants, his feet bare.
I should be used to his body by now.
I should be used to every part of him after the last few months, but I’m not. The moonlight from the skylight tripped down the wide plane of his chest, down the rigid muscles of his torso. If that wasn’t bad enough, his tattoo was on complete display.
It swirled over one half of his chest and down his left arm. So intricate, just like the man himself.
“Continue to look at me like that, and you’ll end up on the counter.”
I swallowed. “Again?”
“Don’t test me, Ms. Copeland.”
We’d gone at each other desperately only hours before, but it didn’t seem to matter. The want was always there. It was the only constant between us.
He reached around me to the laptop, but instead of pushing me out of the way, he urged me to turn around. “Did you find something?”
