Edge Of Midnight (The Mccloud Series Book 4)

by Shannon McKenna

  He was relieved to get inside, where the wind wasn’t whipping at those tender pink ears, that exposed throat. He wanted to wrap his warm coat around her, but she’d never go for that in her current mood.

  The odor of sawdust, plasterboard, polyurethane and paint tickled his nose. People gawked as they went by, but he was laser-beam focused on that elegant, upright back. Only Liv could wear a paint-spattered gray flannel frock and waffle stomper boots and still look somehow regal.

  She led him through the refurbished and refitted café, and into a small back office. It was just a plasterboarded, taped-up cube, not yet spackled or painted. Liv went to the window and stared out, as if she could somehow see out of the thick plastic that was taped over the hole.

  He looked around. A space heater blasted stale warm air over his ankles. A hot plate sat on a desk crowded with invoices. A mug, tea bag dangling out of it. A sleeping bag and pillow lay on a cheap couch.

  “What the hell is this?” He looked at her, appalled. “Are you sleeping in here? Don’t you have a place of your own?”

  “Sure, I have a place,” she said. “Sometimes I lose track of the time. I crash here if it’s late. Some nights I don’t have the nerve to…”

  “To go out in the dark?” he finished.

  She frowned. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

  He swallowed hard. “You shouldn’t be here alone, Liv. Not ever.”

  Her snort was eloquently derisive. “Well. Isn’t that just too bad.”

  He reached to stroke that gleaming mass of hair. She sensed him moving in on her, and jerked away. “So?” she asked. “How are things?”

  He was nonplussed. “Huh? What things?”

  “You know. With your family. How is Erin? Margot?”

  “Oh. Them. Fine,” he said, relieved to have a starting place. “Erin’s almost there. Few more weeks, and I’ll be an uncle. Connor’s out of his mind. Won’t leave her alone for a second. Drives her nuts.”

  “Ah,” Liv murmured sourly. “Good for her.”

  He pressed on. “And Margot, she’s good too. Starting to show. She felt the baby move last week. She called everybody, she was so excited.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Liv whispered. “Are Miles and Cindy OK?”

  “Fine. Miles’s hand and arm are all healed up. Cindy’s good, too. Teaching music in Seattle. Gigging a lot, cutting a new album with her band. She and Miles are a big item these days. Inseparable.”

  “Oh. That’s lovely.” Her voice was bitter. “How very nice for them.”

  Shit. Every damn thing he said underscored how furious she was.

  “The last time I talked to your brothers, they mentioned that there was an investigation in progress,” she said. “To verify if Kevin was…”

  “Buried up on the hill?” He said it for her. “No. It was Craig Alden’s body in that grave, not Kev’s. Dental records have confirmed it.”

  That startled her so much, she actually turned, wide-eyed. “Oh, my goodness,” she whispered. “So you don’t know where Kev is buried?”

  He shook his head. “Nobody left alive to ask. Craig was reinterred, in Tacoma, with his folks. But we left Kev’s headstone up on the hill.”

  Her throat worked. “Do you think he could still be alive?”

  “Fucked if I know.” His voice was raw. “I’ve done everything I can for him. All I can do is try to learn how to live my life…not knowing.”

  “I see.” She turned her back. “Well. Good luck with that, Sean.”

  He took a step closer, reached to touch her shoulder. “Liv—”

  “No!” She wrenched away, huddling into the corner. “Don’t you dare touch me! Not after three goddamn months of shutting me out! Like I didn’t matter!”

  “Not true,” he said. “I thought of nothing but you!”

  “Then why?” she almost shrieked. “Why did you do that to me?”

  He shook his head, groping for words to describe the hell of shrinking fear, the bottomless, airless pit of self-loathing. The words wouldn’t come. “I was…afraid. For you,” he started, lamely.

  She gave him a narrow look. “Excuse me?”

  “Stress flashbacks,” he blurted. “I guess that’s what they were. Hallucinations. Real horrific fuckers. They were so real. You would walk into the room, and I would grab you and kiss you, and all of a sudden you were dead, and I was the one that had stabbed you, or shot you, or whatever. I was scared even to see you. Scared that I could still hurt you. I thought maybe Osterman had…that he could still…oh, shit.”

  Her hands moved up to cover her mouth. “Oh, God. Sean.”

  “I tried medicating it,” he plodded on. “It just seemed to get worse. I thought maybe I’d snapped, gone nuts, like Dad.”

  “So you decided to do the hard thing?”

  The cool tone in her voice made him wince. He was still in a world of hurt, with no end in sight. He clenched his teeth, and nodded.

  “Of course. Expect me to understand,” Liv raged. “You had to be alone. You had to leave me alone. Wrong move, Sean!”

  “Was it? What did you want me to say?” he broke in savagely. “Hey, babe, I’ve got this little bitty problem. I keep murdering you whenever I see you. Sounds like a real confidence builder, huh?”

  “It’s better than being abandoned!” She lashed out at him, flailing.

  He blocked her slap, and the flurry of frenzied blows that followed it, then pinned her hands to the wall. “I never stopped loving you,” he said roughly. “It’s been tearing me to pieces.”

  She shook her head. “Let go of my damn hands. I need a tissue.”

  He gave her one. She blew her nose, hid her face. “Just go, Sean.”

  “No,” he said. “I just can’t do that.”

  She dropped her hand, and glared at him. Her curling lashes glittered with tears. He could practically hear her spine stacking up. The look of fury in her beautiful eyes rang all his bells.

  “Forget it. You can’t bully me into trusting you again,” she announced. “Let go of me!”

  “No.” He scooped her up before she could wiggle away and lifted her, pressing her body against the wall so that she straddled his hips. He dug his fingers into the wind whipped hair, and kissed her, hard.

  It was like lightning through a wire, the need that roared through him. The emotion, the sensations. Her soft female heat pressed against his crotch, her shabby skirt twined around his legs. She shivered, fighting him even as her thighs tightened and pulsed around his.

  She kissed him back, angrily, hungrily. His heart revved up.

  He tilted her face up. “You love me,” he said roughly. “I can make you want me. That’s enough for now. We’ll work on trust later.”

  “No way, you arrogant jerk,” she hissed. “You got it backwards.”

  “No, I don’t. I understand you perfectly.” He scooped her up, hands under her ass, and carried her to the couch. He sank down, depositing her on the cushions. “But if it’s the only card I have to play, I’m goddamn well going to play it.”

  She pushed his face away with shaking hands when he tried to kiss her again. “OK,” she said. “Granted, you can muscle me around. You’re very strong. And yes, you’re good at making me come. But that’s all. It ends there. When you’re done, I’ll still tell you to leave. So leave now. Spare us. It’ll just hurt that much more.”

  “No.” He put his hand over hers, rubbing his cheek against it. Kissing her palm, her fingers, that delicate knob of bone on her wrist. “If I make you come once, why not again? And again, and again, and damn, before you know it, sixty-five years have gone by.” He slid his hands beneath the skirt, over the thick wool socks until they gave way to bare, smooth female skin halfway up her thighs.

  She swatted at him. “Stop it, you lust-crazed pig. So that’s your plan? Just enslave me sexually for all eternity?”

  “Ah, man,” he said thickly. “Sounds like heaven.”

  She wiggled furiously. “Smart-as
s dog,” she muttered.

  “Yeah.” The dress was so loose, there was no impediment to sliding his hand still farther, feeling her cotton panties, the humid female warmth between her thighs, the deep, sexy dip of her waist.

  Her murmurs sounded like protest, but her breath was jerky, her cheeks hot pink. His hand insinuated itself under a thermal weave undershirt, and found the tender, jiggling heft of her tits, propped in the scaffolding of a cotton bra. Her nipples were tight.

  Her heart thudded, quick and fast, against his hand.

  Tears flooded his eyes. He hid his face against her chest, let her paint-spattered sweater absorb them. It moved him to tears. How fucking beautiful she was. How fragile. Her body was a treasure box that held the priceless jewel of Liv Endicott’s soul.

  His princess, his queen, empress. His goddess.

  A sharp tug, and the cotton of her panties gave way, leaving her hot nest of curls naked to his caressing fingers. He tossed her skirt up over her waist. Oh, man. That soft skin, torn panties clinging to one white thigh, that lovely, hot pink slit in her dark curls. Beckoning him.

  Her eyes were closed, tangled hair spread out across the couch cushions, the smudgy, sooty shadows of her lashes dark against her tear-streaked face. That stain of sunrise pink in her pale cheek, the soft lower lip caught between her white teeth, every detail devastated him.

  The contrast between her delicate female body and the thick wool socks, the shabby skirt, the battered boots, was unspeakably erotic.

  She moved against him, gripping his shirt, shoving his heavy jacket off his shoulders as if it pissed her off that he was still wearing it.

  He let go of her just long enough to wrestle the sleeves off his arms. His hands were starving for contact with her hot skin. His dick felt like a ravening beast lunging at the chain, but he had to redeem himself first, as best he could. Making her come was his favorite way, cheap, short-term solution though it might be.

  He didn’t care.

  He slid his finger reverently into the tight, suckling heat of her pussy, mouth watering. He’d been aching for a taste of her sweet girl juice for months. He sagged down to pay passionate homage to her tender female flesh with his tongue.

  Ah, God. Like always. Silken salty sweet. Delicious. Every sobbing breath, every lapping sliding stroke. He loved the way she struggled and writhed, bucking and heaving against his face, though he could feel her anger in the sharp, nervous bite of her nails through his shirt.

  She was wound so tight, vibrating with furious excitement, but he was instinctively wary of making her come too soon.

  Better to drag it out, make her wait. Keep her in this drawn up state of shivering need, for as long as he possibly could.

  God knows, he was content to wallow with his face between her thighs for hours. Forever, even. Seeking heaven with his tongue.

  That manipulative bastard took his own sweet time about it.

  He brought her up to an agonized point of shivering desperate need, and kept her there, for an endless, struggling eternity.

  When he finally had mercy and shoved her over the crest, the climax was so violent, it wiped her out completely.

  She was a sobbing mess. Destroyed. All dignity dissolved.

  He didn’t gloat, though. He had that much sense. He just pressed his face against her belly, nuzzling her, his breath tickling her mound.

  Liv twisted to the side, insofar as she could with her legs wrapped around a huge, gorgeous man’s broad shoulders, and hid her face in her hands. She expected him to follow up his advantage, and make love to her. Pleasure shimmered through every nerve. Her heart felt hot, glowing. Squishy soft inside her chest. She was melting down. She ached to be filled up, to feel his heat, his weight. His wonderful steely strength. She was poised for him to mount her, enter her, give her a long, hard, furious ride. She was braced for it, breathless for it.

  But all he did was nuzzle her muff. It was driving her nuts.

  “Stop that,” she muttered. “You’re tickling me.”

  He nipped lazily at her thigh, stroked his faintly scratchy jaw against her. Petting her damp curls, her slick, sensitive folds, as tenderly as if he were caressing a purring kitten. “Never,” he whispered.

  Sean looked thin, his features cut sharper. He seemed so different with such short hair. Hard and intense.

  She turned away and stared, hot-eyed, at the plasterboard. Three months of pent up hurt and confusion was bottlenecked inside her. The grief, the abandonment, the piercing loneliness. She couldn’t bear it.

  “Why?” she burst out. “Why are you here, after all this time? What changed your mind? Did you have a goddamn vision? Or what?”

  He lifted his head, but she didn’t dare meet his eyes. She couldn’t let him hypnotize her. She had to stay sharp.

  “I guess I did,” he said quietly. “I went up to the mountains. I realized a couple of things up there. One, if I can’t trust my own self, I might as well be dead. Two, I don’t want to die. Three, if I’m going to live, I have to have you. Because my life isn’t worth a handful of shit without you.”

  “Oh. Really.” A teary giggle shook her. “Such poetic eloquence.”

  “You inspire me, babe.”

  She wiped her eyes on her sleeves. He shoved a tissue into her hand. He turned her face ’til she was looking into his somber eyes.

  “I haven’t had one of those episodes since then,” he said quietly. “Which isn’t to say that it won’t happen again. I got messed up pretty bad. But I think—I hope, anyway—that the worst is behind me. So you decide, Liv. If you want to risk it, that is. I can’t wait around until I feel like I’m good enough for you. Because I never will.”

  “Oh, shut up.” She tried to wiggle free, but he was having none of that. His embrace just tightened. She sniffled angrily into the tissue. “That’s insulting and ridiculous. I never expected you to be perfect. But I can’t be with a man who shuts me out whenever the going gets rough.”

  His face tightened. “I’m sorry. I promise you I won’t do it to you, ever again. Before God, my parents’ graves, my sacred honor.” He hesitated. “Such as it is.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with your sacred honor,” she snapped. “It’s your lack of plain common sense that bugs me.”

  He muffled his laughter against her chest, and peeked up at her, sidewise. “Uh, well. Like I said,” he ventured. “I’m not perfect. Not even close. But I do have my strong points. And I promise to do my best.”

  He waited for her to answer. She couldn’t. She shook with conflicting emotions. Anger, doubt…and a wild, crazy hope.

  Her voice was locked in her throat. She could hardly breathe.

  Sean groped behind himself for the thick, fleece lined leather coat, and pulled something from the pocket. He held out a tiny velvet box.

  She stared at it stupidly. Sean made an impatient sound, grabbed her hand, closed her fingers around it. “Open it,” he urged. “Please.”

  She flipped it open, and stared at the ring inside. Mouth agape.

  The white gold ring seemed to flash and pulse against the black velvet backdrop. A diamond glittered, slightly off center, and around it, a ruby, an emerald and a sapphire were mounted in a sensual, geometrical setting that looked somehow both modern and ancient.

  It was a stunning piece.

  “I thought I should use the same diamond,” he said hesitantly. “But I thought I’d jazz it up, give it some color. Make something fresh and new out of it. I hope that you…” His voice trailed off.

  She struggled to speak, tried again. “Did Tam make this?”

  He nodded. “She said to tell you that if you were foolish enough to give in to my bullshit, that she wanted to be your maid of honor,” he said, sounding embarrassed. “It’s becoming a sort of a family tradition.”

  She covered her trembling mouth, still staring at the ring. “She’s a little ahead of the game, isn’t she?”

  He shook his head slowly. “More like about fifteen years
behind.”

  She gulped. He took the hand that held the ring box, and gave it a slow, reverent kiss. “I want to make love to you,” he said softly.

  “I know,” she whispered.

  “But I don’t want to be kicked out on my ass afterwards,” he said. “Can I tell you how I want it to be? My wildest, craziest fantasy?”

  She shrugged. “Nobody’s stopping you,” she muttered.

  His eyes gleamed. “I want to slip that ring on your finger,” he began. “I want to crawl up on that couch on top of you, and very slowly, push my cock into that tight, red hot pussy. I want to stare deep into your eyes and kiss you while I make sweet, slow love to you. For hours. Make you come til you’re just glowing. Beaming. Shining.”

  She looked away, pink. “That much, I could have guessed.”

  “Oh, am I too predictable for you? I’m not done yet. When we’re exhausted, we’ll go home. Your place, since it’s closer. I want to take a bath with you. Uncork some wine. Cook some dinner. Snoop around, check out the books on your shelves, your DVDs, your photographs. Get in bed with you. Make love again, if we have the strength.”

  She couldn’t meet his eyes. “You would, I bet. Knowing you.”

  “Probably,” he admitted. “I want to wake up in the morning, and feel how right it is, to have your sweet, warm, naked, silky, womanly body wrapped up in my arms. We’ll make love again. Take a long, sexy shower together. I’ll lick the drops of water off you with my tongue. Comb your hair. Make you coffee. Cook you some bacon and eggs.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “You mean, you’re not going to make love to me again between coffee and the bacon and eggs?”

  His grin turned brilliant. “That part’s implied. Then I’ll take you to work, and spend the rest of the day bouncing off the walls because I’m so fucking happy, I just don’t even know what to do with myself.”

  She dissolved again. She clapped both hands over her face.

  Sean tugged them gently away. “I want to spend all my days and all my nights with you.” His voice vibrated with emotion. “I want to protect you, stand by you, honor and comfort you. Have children with you. Grow old with you. As many years we get.” He kissed both her hands. “I want your company, Liv. Forever.”