“Take care of it,” Farrell said to Leo.
Leo nodded with speaking, He didn’t have to ask questions. He knew what Farrell wanted done.
“N-no! Please… I swear it will never happen again! I can pay it all back! Every cent!”
Leo was already shoving him out of the room. Farrell waited for the door to close to lean back in the chair. He should call one of the women in his phone. He needed a distraction. Needed to sink into someone who would make him forget Jenna.
But even as he thought it, he knew it was impossible. He hadn’t forgotten her once since she’d left him. Hadn’t gone a day without thinking about her, wanting her with him. Had resisted the urge to get on a plane to New York at least a hundred times over the years.
He’d been with other women. Lots of them. Each one had been a chance to forget Jenna. Each one had been an utter failure. It was her face he saw when he was fucking someone. Her body he dreamed of plundering when he took from the sea of faceless others.
But he’d managed it. Had been able to wake up in the morning, go about his business, take care of Evan. Now she was back and her very proximity was like a homing beacon calling to him across the city. She was so close.
So close and so far.
What would happen if he went to her? If he pulled her into his arms, touched his lips to hers, slipped his tongue into her mouth, stripped the clothes from her body…
A knock at the door pulled him from his thoughts. “Yes.”
Leo stepped inside, looking uncommonly nervous.
“I know you didn’t do him on the premises,” Farrell said.
Leo shook his head. “We’re taking him outside the city.”
“Then what are you doing here?” Farrell asked. “Get him off the property.”
“In process,” Leo said. “But you have a visitor.”
“A visitor?” Farrell didn't get visitors. He had employees and he had customers. Customers didn’t come to the office, and employees spent the entirety of their employ hoping they were never called to do so.
Leo rubbed at the dark scruff along his chin. “It’s Jenna. Jenna Carver.”
Farrell had to fight not to flinch. “She’s here?”
Leo nodded. “Heard it in the headset on my way out.”
A thousand images moved through his mind, all of them too bloody dangerous to entertain. “Send her up.”
“Will do.”
The fact that Leo’s face showed no sign of concern is part of why he was Farrell’s right hand man. He didn’t need anyone asking if he was okay. Didn’t want anyone looking out for him. Leo knew he could handle himself. He gave Farrell information and he left it the fuck alone.
A moment later the door opened. And then she was there, stepping into the room.
Jenna.
She was wearing jeans, her shapely legs filling out every inch of them. Through the opening in her coat he could make out the soft swell of her breasts, the delicate angle of her collarbone.
But it was her face that captivated him. The same combination of vulnerability and strength, wisdom and innocence, that he could never quite decode. Her eyes looked green today, although he knew from experience that they sometimes appeared amber, or even slightly brown. She gave him a tentative smile, revealing the tiny gap between her front teeth.
And that was when he knew he was fucked.
12
He regarded her impassively, his eyes unreadable. She allowed herself a moment to drink him in, needing the time to calm the rapid beating of her heart, to even out her shallow breathing.
It had been like that since the moment he’d appeared at her side in that pub almost six years ago. She hadn’t been able to explain it. Still couldn’t. It was as if he emitted a frequency that was keyed into some primitive channel in her body. A channel that was all need and desire, that was so powerful it left no room for logic, for reason.
And it didn’t hurt that he was still sexy as hell.
His wide shoulders pulled at a fine black sweater. It clung to his muscled chest, the slight V-neck revealing a sliver of the smooth skin where she’d once lain her head as she drifted off to sleep. She knew how it would feel to run her palms up the planes of his chest, knew how his body would respond if she bit one of his nipples.
Behind the desk, gray trousers stretched across his big thighs. She forced her eyes away from the visible bulge between his legs, trying not to remember how big he was, how totally he filled her, so completely there hadn’t been space left for the darkness that had dogged her most of her life.
His eyes were dark, and she knew if she got close enough they would appear deep blue instead of gray.
Lily's eyes.
Except Farrell’s were cold, his jaw set in an expression that said she was nothing to him. An expression that had once been reserved for anyone but her.
“What are you doing here?” he finally asked.
She cleared her throat, forcing her mind back to the reason for her visit. “I… Can I sit down?”
He hesitated, like he might actually decline the request, then nodded.
She lowered herself to one of the chairs across from his desk, then removed the passport and key card from her pocket. “My father was carrying these when he died.” She slid them across the desk.
He lowered his eyes to them. “So?”
“So… it’s weird. It’s not like him.”
He picked them up reluctantly, like he was hesitant to become part of whatever mystery she’d brought to his door. Or maybe he was just hesitant to have anything to do with her.
He flipped through the passport and turned the key card over in his hand. He tossed both back on the desk. “It’s not unheard of for someone to carry their passport,” Farrell asked. “They’re used as identification in all sorts of situations.”
“Maybe,” she said. “But his is stamped.”
“I saw it,” Farrell said. “Madrid, Amsterdam.”
“Except my dad didn’t travel,” Jenna said.
His smile was cold. “Apparently he did. Maybe you didn’t realize it because you were in New York.”
There was a bite to his words, a glimpse of the anger and pain she’d caused him by leaving. She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Maybe, but he wasn’t carrying it in his wallet. It was sewn into his coat.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Sewn?”
She nodded. “We got a package with Dad’s things from the police station, but the passport and key card weren’t in his wallet. They were sewn into the lining of his jacket.”
Farrell’s brows knitted together. He reached for the passport again and flipped through it before meeting her eyes. “I don’t understand what this has to do with me.”
Jenna tapped her foot, wondering if this had been a mistake. What had she been thinking? So her father had a passport and a key card. Kate was right; he’d probably been having an affair. Did Jenna really want to know? And why did she think Farrell would want to help her if she did?
“I want to know what he was doing,” she said. “He had very little money, and he hated leaving my mother alone, yet he visited two different countries in the months before his death. If it was innocent, why didn’t he carry this stuff in his wallet? Why go to the trouble of sewing it into his coat unless…”
She was only now fully articulating what had her worried.
“Unless he was trying to hide it,” Farrell finished.
She nodded.
“Maybe he didn’t want your mother to find it.”
“Maybe,” she conceded. “But it seems a bit extreme for someone like my father to sew anything into his coat.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment, just tapped his fingers on the passport. “I have friends at Heathrow,” he finally said. “I’ll see what I can do about the passport. But the key card might be harder to trace.” He picked it up, turned it over. “This number could be anything.”
She nodded. “I understand. I appreciate anything you can do.”
> He raised his eyes to hers, studied her for a long moment. “Why me?”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Why come to me for help after all that’s happened between us? You made it abundantly clear you want nothing to do with me.”
She clasped her hands in her lap to hide the fact that they were shaking. “I told you in the letter it wasn’t personal. We just wanted different things.”
His gaze hardened. “That’s bullshit, Jenna.”
His eyes tunneled through all the excuses, all the lies, until she was sure he could see everything. The months alone in New York. The birth of their daughter, attended by no one but Jenna and her doctor and a nurse she’d never met before that day. The days and weeks and months afterward when she was terrified, when she saw Farrell every time she looked at Lily.
“Thank you for looking into this,” she said, rising from the chair. “I have to go.”
She hurried for the hall, desperate to get away from his gaze before she told him everything. She’d only opened the door a crack when she felt him behind her. He shut it with the flat of one hand, then put the other one over her head so she was captive under the archway of his arms.
For a moment, neither of them moved. His presence was palpable, even though he had yet to touch her. Her pulse was racing, moisture pooling between her legs as her body answered the silent call to his. She kept her hand on the door knob, as if that meant there was still hope that she would escape the room.
That she would escape him.
He dropped his head to her shoulder and turned his face toward her neck. She felt the whisper of his breath on her ear, and a shudder of pure need swept her body, so powerful it almost brought her to her knees.
She held still. Maybe if she didn’t move he would step away. Except she didn’t want him to step away. Didn’t want him to stop breathing her in like his life depended on it.
He lowered his lips to the sensitive spot where her collarbone met her shoulder and she almost moaned out loud. Her head involuntarily dropped to the other side to give him better access to the base of her neck, his lips searing her skin as he kissed his way toward her ear. The sensation was made all the more erotic by the fact that she couldn’t see him, that he stood just behind her without letting any part of his body touch hers.
She was breathing too fast. She needed to leave. Needed to get back to New York. Far away from Farrell and her memories and all the things he could still do to her.
All the things he’d always done to her.
But she couldn’t move. Didn’t want to move. She closed her eyes instead, sinking into the feeling of his mouth on her ear, the tug of it between his teeth. She fought against the urge to nestle her ass against him, to feel the hardness she knew would be there, to give herself over to him the way she once had.
He trailed a line of soft kisses along her jaw, finally leaning in close enough that she could feel his hard-on brush against her ass. A surge of wetness raced to her center, and a sigh escaped her mouth before she could stop it.
He nudged her legs open from behind with his knee, forcefully enough that she might have been knocked off balance if not for the hand that snaked around her waist. It found its way under her sweater, and the heat from his palm against the bare skin of her stomach was a new kind of torture.
There were no words between them. Only this.
He cupped her breasts, thumbing her nipples through the lace of her bra as he licked her neck. She moaned, and he moved in closer, grinding his cock against her ass. She gasped at the feel of it, impossibly big and hard, then tried to press her thighs together to stop the throbbing that was pulsing between her legs.
But he wouldn’t have any of it. He growled, nudging her legs open farther, rubbing against her with more force while he massaged her breasts, now painfully sensitive, in dire need of his mouth and tongue.
He nibbled at her neck while his hand slid down her stomach, into her jeans. It was like a branding iron against her mound, and she opened her legs wider even as a part of her brain was rebelling, demanding to know what she was doing. What she was thinking.
She trembled as his fingers brushed against her clit, then gasped when they found their way through her soaking folds. She cried out as he moved them inside her, his thumb massaging her tiny bud while he fucked her with his fingers. She was moving against him now, out of her mind with the need to come, in a place where there was no logic.
No past and no future.
“God, I’ve missed feeling you come,” he murmured against her throat.
The voice jolted her out of her reverie. She was back in the one place she swore she’d never be. Back in Farrell Black’s arms, losing herself to him all over again. Forgetting all the things that mattered.
Like Lily, and giving her the life she deserved.
Jenna stiffened, wrapping one hand around Farrell’s wrist. He stopped moving his fingers inside her. She drew in a deep, shuddering breath, trying to clear the fog from the part of her brain that wanted nothing more than for Farrell to keep touching her. That wanted him to fuck her with the kind of abandon that had spoiled her for any other man.
“I’m sorry,” she said, still facing the door. “I just… I can’t.”
His hand slipped from her jeans, and she knew from the chill at her back that he’d stepped away from her. She took a few seconds to catch her breath. Then she left like the room was on fire.
Like she was on fire.
13
“How’s the bloke?” Jenna asked Kate.
They were at the park, sitting on one of the benches near a gaggle of mums while Lily played in the sandbox.
Kate took a drink of her coffee. “Which one?”
Jenna laughed. “Really?”
Kate shrugged. “Life is serous enough. I don’t need to be serious about a man.”
“You never think about finding someone?” Jenna asked. “Someone special?”
“Don’t see the point,” Kate said, scanning the playground.
“Someone to watch movies with on the sofa? To go to sleep with and wake up next to in the morning?”
Kate looked at her. “You had that once. Do you miss it?”
“That’s different.” Jenna was glad she was wearing sunglasses. She didn’t want Kate to look into her eyes. To see what had happened between her and Farrell, or worse, to see that she hadn’t been able to stop replaying it for more than five minutes since it happened.
“Not really,” Kate said. “You seem to be fine on your own, and you haven’t even had a shag. I’m at least getting laid.”
“Stop!” Jenna laughed, looking around to make sure the mums hadn’t heard them.
“What about the guy from Stafford?” Kate asked. “Petrov. If steady is what you’re looking for, he seems to fit the bill.”
Jenna had been forced to tell Kate about the visit from Alex Petrov to explain the Indian food in the fridge. She’d been relieved to get off with nothing more than a knowing smile and a raise of Kate’s delicately arched brow. Now it seemed she had only delayed the inevitable.
“I don’t even know him,” Jenna protested. “Is this what we’ve come to? Pimping me out to total strangers?”
“Not a total stranger,” Kate said. “He did bring you dinner.”
“He brought us dinner,” Jenna corrected.
“Right,” Kate said.
“What?”
“Nothing.” But her shrug was a little too practiced to be innocent.
“Mummy, look!” Lily called from across the playground.
Jenna walked over to the sandbox, grateful for the excuse to end the conversation about Alex. Yes, he was good looking. And successful. And seemingly stable.
But he wasn’t Farrell Black. Didn’t move her the way Farrell did. She might not be able to have him, but she couldn’t bring herself to settle for a candle when she’d had a taste of a wildfire. Not yet anyway.
“That is amazing!” she said, taking in the complex struct
ure Lily had built out of sand and the old toys they’d found in the hall closet. “What is it?”
“It’s a palace,” Lily said. “Where the queen sits on her throne.”
“She’s a very lucky queen to have such a beautiful palace,” Jenna said.
“That’s what happens when you’re the queen.”
“I suppose it is,” Jenna said, laughing. “Shall we go back to Gran’s? She’ll be home from work soon.”
“Can we have tea?” Lily asked.
“Can we have tea?” Jenna reached down, scooped her daughter into her arms. She was so big already. So much heavier than she’d once been. “We are in England, aren’t we?”
Jenna tickled her until she shrieked.
“We are! We are! We’re in England!”
“Right, then,” Jenna said. “We will definitely have tea. Let’s go see Gran.”
Kate met them on the path, and they walked home holding Lily’s hands and talking about her castle. Kate was so good with her. Lily would miss her when they went home, and while it was nice to be near Kate again, Jenna knew it was time. They’d sent their father’s things to charity, had gone over the monthly expenses with their mother. There was really no reason to stay.
Except for Farrell.
She told herself she was waiting to see if he would still look into the passport, but she knew it for the lie it was. She was loathe to put distance between them again. She’d come back to discover that the fire between them burned as hot as ever. Leaving again felt like tempting fate. Like putting the final nail in a long-buried coffin. She would have to do it eventually. She knew it; she just hadn’t worked up the courage to follow through.
They were almost to the house when Jenna spotted someone on the front porch.
“Who is…” Kate started. Then she broke into a grin. “Looks like your gentleman caller,” she teased when she saw that it was Alex Petrov.
Jenna gave her an elbow in the ribs and continued toward the house. Alex turned when he heard them approach, and his face lit up with a smile.
“Hello, there,” he said. “I’m glad you’ve arrived. I was beginning to feel a bit of a stalker standing on your stoop.”
Savage Page 7
