ASHFORD (Gray Wolf Security #5)

by Glenna Sinclair

  I shook my head. It was hard to think of my brother being dead. Even if I hadn’t spoken with him in a year, I always had it in my mind that he was out there, working toward a time when we could be together again. Now that I knew he wasn’t, it was difficult to fathom.

  “Where is his body?” I asked. I knew that probably sounded weird, but I’d done this before. There was a body, and there were people who took care of bodies, and there were still more people who took care of all the other details.

  “It’s in the city,” Levi confirmed. “I also wanted to consult with you on the funeral arrangements.”

  “No need for a funeral,” I said. “I’m the only one left. There’s no one else.”

  Levi opened his mouth as if he were about to argue with me, and closed it again. “I can contact the facility where he’s at to have them cremate his body, if you want.”

  I didn’t know what I wanted. Matt wasn’t supposed to die. He was always supposed to be there to catch me, to take me away from all of this. To save me.

  Even as I thought that, I knew it wasn’t true. He hadn’t known what was going on while he was in the city. He hadn’t known what happened to me, or what I’d become.

  He’d died and left me alone, and yet I found myself no more alone now than before.

  “Whatever,” I said, feeling tired. I could’ve curled up on those pillows and fell fast asleep, but I’d be afraid that Levi would be gone when I awoke, a fever dream of salvation that would never come to pass.

  If Matt had died, he’d sent Levi in his place to save me, to finish what my brother had started.

  “I’m going to say something, and you’re going to be offended, and I don’t want you to be.”

  I cocked my head. “Say what you want to say. We’re supposed to be talking.”

  “You don’t seem very upset about your brother.”

  I shrugged. “It’s been more than a year since I’ve spoken with him. I got used to him not being around.”

  “But you were close before?”

  “We were siblings,” I said, shrugging. “He was older. He left home first. We had different experiences growing up, but he knew I wanted to leave here, and he was going to help me.”

  It suddenly dawned on me why Levi was asking what he was asking.

  “You want to know why he made you promise to help me,” I said.

  “That doesn’t matter.”

  “It does,” I insisted, “and you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.” Even as I said that, a little voice inside of me screamed in despair. I wanted so many things from this man that he probably didn’t want to do. I increased the speed of my pacing if only to make myself think of something else, like dodging the pillows I was kicking all over the floor.

  “Meagan, the last thing I want to do is shock you, but your brother died in my arms.” I slowed, then stopped again. “The last thing he said on this earth was that he wanted me to find you and help you. I don’t know how many last words you’ve ever heard, but there’s a gravitas there that you can’t just decide to ignore.”

  “How important are you?” I demanded.

  “Excuse me?”

  “How important do you have to be to have people dying in your arms, whispering their last words to you?”

  “I’m the CEO of a renowned architectural firm,” Levi said.

  “I didn’t know that was a job that incited violence.”

  “It’s not. I have a lot of money, but there’s not a good reason I could think of for why someone would want me dead.”

  “How much is a lot of money?”

  “I’ve been in Forbes.”

  I wasn’t sure what the requirements for that achievement entailed, but it seemed to come with bullets.

  “Do you think it was just a random act of violence, then?” I asked. “Did you catch a glimpse of the shooter?”

  “I don’t know,” Levi admitted, casting his gaze downward, looking chagrined. “I might’ve seen him from behind. At least, I think it was a him. I don’t know. I told the police this. I just saw someone hurrying away. Could’ve been anyone rushing to get out of the cold. Your brother saw him coming, though. Shoved me out of the way. Saved my life.”

  It just didn’t seem real that Matt had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time—or that he’d sacrificed himself to make sure that Levi wasn’t in the wrong place at the wrong time. It seemed so…meaningless.

  “So, whoever it is, he’s still out there,” I said. I searched my heart for righteous anger, for the desire for justice, but I didn’t think my heart was capable of feeling anything anymore. I’d taught it how to curl up and die out of pure necessity, so it was wrong of me to try and prompt it to function. All I felt there was a sort of dull throb—not its usual state of being, but not altogether unpleasant. It was as if the grief I should’ve been feeling was muted by nearly soundproof walls. Someone was crying in there, but I wasn’t sure who, or why.

  “The police are good at what they do,” Levi said. “I know really excellent investigators, and I have connections that go beyond the police force. What I’m telling you is that we’re going to find the shooter. It’s just a matter of when and where.”

  “You’re not scared?” I’d spent so much time being scared that I just assumed it was a default emotion for other people under duress.

  “Not scared,” he said, shaking his head. “Angry. Matt didn’t deserve to die. I wish…I wish he hadn’t pushed me out of the way. If I could go back, I’d push him out of the way, instead. I’d take the bullet that was fired at me.”

  “Why did you hire a bodyguard in the first place if you didn’t want to be protected?” I reasoned. “You care about your life.”

  “Not enough for me to want anyone else to die for me.” Levi heaved a sigh. “I’d do anything to give your brother back to you. I really would, Meagan. Please tell me you believe me.”

  It was then that I realized that Levi was suffering from an acute and very recent case of survivor’s guilt, and that made us more alike than he could know. I wished I could let him know that it wasn’t going to become any easier, no matter what anyone told him, but I didn’t want to make him despair.

  “I believe you,” I said. “Maybe we’ve done enough talking for now.”

  “You’re ready to go to the jet?” he asked, surprised. “Are you sure you don’t want to know anything else?”

  “I’m satisfied—knowledge-wise, anyway,” I said. “I could be more satisfied….” I took a step toward him, and another step, until our torsos were pressed together, angling my chin up to look him in the eye, dare him to do something that would further satisfy me.

  “You don’t have to feel obliged to…um…make me come,” he said. “Earlier, I understand that it was just a response to trauma. It was just shock, you wanting me to…have sex with you. You’re not obligated. I was glad to have helped you during your time of need, to give you some comfort.”

  I laughed in his face. “You really think I was in shock?”

  “Were you not?”

  “I saw something I wanted and I went for it,” I said. “You’re the one who keeps trying to find meaning that isn’t there.”

  “You mean you just wanted to have sex?”

  “Is that so hard to understand?” I cocked my head at him, goading him to contradict me. “A person wants what she wants.”

  Levi kept his face carefully blank. “And what does a person want right now?”

  “A going away party.” I kissed him, and he didn’t resist. I hadn’t wanted him to resist, but it surprised me all the same—Levi with all these hang-ups and sensibilities and meanings he thought he understood. Levi, whom I barely knew, pulling my pants apart for the second time that day. I couldn’t think of a single man I’d been with more than once. Each one was a means to an end, the quickest way I could come up with to get to the nothingness I craved—the momentary completion.

  “A bed,” Levi said hoarsely, pressing his arousal against
me, showing me just how interested he was in a repeat performance.

  “Here is fine.” I fell backward onto the cushions splayed over the floor, kicking my pants off, relieved beyond words that I was going to get this—easy as pie—from someone I knew was capable of getting me off. A part of me I hadn’t accessed in a while actually felt good that I was going to be able to make Levi feel good. I felt almost magnanimous. He’d taken care of me earlier. I was about to make sure he was going to feel just as good as I was.

  Levi felt good inside of me. The way he buried himself in my body felt amazing, compelled me to feel the kind of happiness I usually only found in orgasm. Each stroke he made strummed something inside of me. The way he held my head, still mindful of how I’d bumped it against the door earlier, made something inside of me feel so good that it almost hurt.

  We moved together, breathed together, and there wasn’t desperation, guilt, or obsession. It didn’t matter that we were there on the floor of the house that I hated, pushing and pulling against each other, our movements softened by the pillows beneath it. Each thrust was something of beauty and pleasure. When we finally reached that peak and tumbled down, almost in tandem, there wasn’t darkness but light. It was something that was beyond my grasp of understanding.

  I’d craved that darkness, that nothing. It’s why I had initiated sex with him in the first place—because I knew he could take me there. I wasn’t prepared for this—this light. I didn't have a clue how or why it happened, but I wanted it again. It left me lighter, banished my pervasive self-loathing.

  It confused me, but lying there, my arm around a man who was just full of surprises, I was willing to see it through to the end.

  We took turns in the shower, got dressed leisurely, all in a comfortable silence that I was strangely at peace with. Normally, after climaxing, my brain played host to a tumult of anger and grief. I felt almost normal, almost at peace.

  “I know that you want to go to New York City,” Levi said, buttoning his shirt as I pulled my hair back, “but I understand that you might have a lot of loose ends to tie up around here. You’ll have to make arrangements for the house, I imagine, and give notice at the bar.”

  I smiled at him and bent down to retrieve the only thing I actually needed.

  “I’m ready when you are,” I said, shoving a shoebox into a plastic shopping bag.

  He blinked at me. “How can you be ready? You haven’t even packed.”

  “I’ve packed everything I intend on taking with me.”

  “You have a purse, the clothes you’re wearing, and a shoebox in a bag,” he said, incredulous. “Out of the contents of this entire house, that’s all you’re taking?”

  “It’s all I need.”

  Levi laughed. “Look, I promise the jet isn’t going anywhere. We’re not in any hurry here. This is a decently big house. Don’t you want to at least pack a suitcase?”

  I barely suppressed a shudder. All of my suitcases were upstairs, in the closet of my bedroom, and I simply didn’t go upstairs anymore.

  “I don’t need a suitcase,” I said. “If I need something, I’ll buy it once I get to New York City.”

  “You’re being ridiculous,” Levi said. “Now, we’re not leaving here until you’re properly packed. You’re used to living here. Things are different in the city—more expensive. You don’t want to rebuild your wardrobe from scratch. You’ll need more clothes. Your jacket is pitiful. It won’t keep you warm.”

  I sighed and opened the shoebox, tilting it so he could see inside. It was full of paper money, tips and paydays I’d squirreled away for an entire year, buying nothing except the bare essentials to keep me alive. I hadn’t counted it lately, but I knew there was a lot there. Enough to start fresh in the city.

  “You’re packing a bag,” Levi announced. Apparently the billionaire was unimpressed by the savings account. He walked briskly away, and I stared after him dumbly, not comprehending just what he was doing until I heard the creak of the staircase and gagged.

  “Don’t!” I tried to shout, but it came out in a weak rasp. The shoebox fell from my limp grasp and bills scattered across the floor. I forced my legs into action and dashed after him, pulling him backward from the stairs, making him struggle to keep his feet.

  “What the hell are you trying to do?” Levi demanded, whirling around to face me. “Trying to kill me, too?”

  “Stay off the stairs,” I hissed, surprising him with my vehemence.

  “Meagan, I’m just trying to make sure you’re prepared to leave all of this behind,” he said slowly. “You have to have things you care about beyond the money in your shoebox.”

  “Stay the fuck off the stairs.” I yanked at him again so that he was standing back on the first floor, with me.

  His mouth tried to form words, and he looked at me, then past me at the living room, understanding finally dawning on him.

  “You’ve been living just in the living room,” he said. “Not even sleeping on a bed.”

  “Your pity is the opposite of helping,” I snarled at him, relieved to have access to my rage. Rage was much more preferable than horror.

  “Is there something bad upstairs?” Levi asked gently. “Something we should tell someone about?”

  I laughed derisively at him. “If you think there’s a body decomposing up there, you’re an idiot.” No one needed to know what happened up there. I wouldn’t wish that knowledge on anyone.

  “I don’t understand why you won’t go upstairs,” he said. “Help me understand.”

  “It’s none of your concern why I won’t go up there,” I said, trying to be flippant and distract him from the fact that I was having the strongest urge to gag again. I wasn’t so sure that the whiskey I’d had earlier was going to stay put this time.

  “Why have you been sleeping on the floor? There have to be at least three bedrooms in this place. What’s wrong with them?”

  “If this is your idea of helping me, then my brother’s probably rolling around in whatever box they put him in.” I glared daggers at Levi, willing him to just shut up and let me leave with the shoebox. I’d already resolved to trip him no matter what the physical consequences were if he tried to go up the stairs again.

  “I do want to help you,” Levi insisted, “but I need to understand how to help you. Do you want me to go upstairs for you and pack a bag with whatever I might find?”

  “If you try to walk up those stairs again, I will lose my mind,” I warned him. “It’s as simple as that. Zero mystery.”

  “All you’re going to take is the shoebox with the money?” he asked.

  “Yes. That’s all I want, and all I need.”

  “I have to tell you,” Levi said, stepping away from the stairs, making me breathe a little easier. “I didn’t think helping you was going to be this complicated.”

  “I don’t think there’s anything complicated to it,” I said, turning away from him and bending down to pick up the money I’d dropped in my panic. “I want to go to New York City. All I want to take is this box. I’m sure there are people who crave that kind of simplicity.”

  I walked right by a gaping Levi and into the dusk, not as sure as I usually was that he’d follow me, and not so sure I wanted him to.

  Chapter 5

  We drove to the airport in a much less comfortable silence than before. If only he hadn’t tried to go upstairs, or if he’d deferred to my reasoning—even if I was beyond reason—that he should just forget about it. We could’ve traveled in comfort, happy with each other, secure in the knowledge that this was the right decision. This was really what I wanted, wasn’t it? For the first time, I wasn’t so sure.

  Escape was what I’d wanted—that much I knew. I’d wanted desperately to get out of that house, out of that town. Matt had gone to New York City to try to find his place in this world, and I’d envied him for it. I didn’t like being left behind, and liked it even less when the true ugliness reared its head. But Matt was my big brother. His courage in leavin
g the small town behind for the big city inspired me to do the same.

  Now that my brother was dead, however, what did I have to aspire to?

  He’d asked me to stay put while he tried to establish himself, tried to build a safe place for me to be with him, and I had, but now I didn’t have Matt to think about. I could go wherever I wanted to go. It didn’t have to be New York City; I could try and find my fortune anywhere.

  But Matt still existed, in a way, in the form of Levi, who frowned into the night in front of us, illuminated by the headlights of his rental car. For a billionaire, I wasn’t sure why he was driving himself. I wasn’t sure why he was so much as tolerating my brand of crazy. I still couldn’t believe that I’d had sex with him inside of the hell house. It was like giving a huge middle finger to some of the shit that had happened there, which was incredibly empowering, but still scary. I didn’t want people in that house. I didn’t want people knowing how insane that place made me.

  Yet here Levi was. Even after everything, he was driving me to the airport, ready to fly with me on his jet to New York City.

  He didn’t even know me.

  “Levi…”

  “Yes?” He glanced at me briefly before redirecting his attention to the curves in the road ahead.

  “You’ve already helped me.”

  He raised his eyebrows but didn’t say anything—didn’t even glance at me to see where I was going with this.

  “You’ve already helped me,” I repeated like an idiot. “My brother asked you to help me, and you did. You don’t have to do anything else, once we land in New York City. I release you, I guess, from whatever obligation you have.”

  “You mean like I released you from the obligation you thought you had to give me an orgasm?” he retorted. I realized he was mocking me, and snorted at him.

  “Whether you realize it or not, you helped me by coming to that town and telling me what had happened,” I told him. I wanted him to know as much as the truth as I could tell him. Maybe it would help Levi fill in some of the blanks. He probably deserved that much. I could tell that he cared for my brother—cared enough about him, at least, that he’d seek me out as per my brother’s wishes.