by Jo Raven
He looks strangely small and fragile slumped on the bed, his face pale, dark smudges under his eyes. Of course, the moment I sit beside him, making the mattress dip, I find that’s not true. He’s not small at all.
His mouth pulls into a tight smile. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to see you.”
“And how did you know where I was?”
“Rook called me.” I lift his hand from where it’s resting on his leg, turn it over. It’s bruised and scratched, the gashes taped. “Said he’s your friend?”
Hawk nods. Swallows hard. “He is.”
“Said he borrowed your phone.”
The ghost of another smile touches his lips. “Rook’s just cross I didn’t call immediately to tell him about the accident.”
Okay. Right. “But your parents have been here, I bet, as you recovered?”
He stares down at his hand in my hand. “They dropped by once.”
“Once?” I’m horrified, and I try to regain control. “Why?”
“They’re busy people.”
Are all millionaires’ lives like that? I want to ask him, but his face is blank, and it looks like a façade of sadness.
“Well, you could have told me. I’d have come.”
The corners of his full mouth lift. “Thanks.”
“What happened?”
“Took a tight corner. Lost control of the bike.”
God. “And you hit your head?”
“Rook said that?” He chuckles, although I fail to see what’s so funny about that. “It wasn’t so bad.” He turns so that I can now see a small shaved patch on the side of his head and a neat line of dark stitches. “I’ve taken quite a few hits to the head in my life. I’m fine.”
“Crap. I’m sorry.” I lift my other hand to touch, and he leans just out of reach. “Sorry you’re hurt. What do the docs say?”
“That I’m good to go. Tomorrow.”
I let my hand drop. “Were you going to tell me?”
He shakes his head.
And why am I asking? Haven’t we established already that he’s not my boyfriend and feels no obligation whatsoever to keep me in the loop of his activities?
“I shouldn’t have come,” I whisper, and stand up. I turn away and tug on my coat. “I’ll leave you to rest.”
“No, wait.” He comes after me, throwing his legs off the bed and staggering across the floor to reach me by the time I turn back around. “Just fucking wait.”
He pulls me into his arms, and I’m shocked by how thin he feels under the loose sweater. How long has he been here? When was the accident?
But he doesn’t give me time to ask. The moment I look up, his mouth comes down on mine, and he kisses me like he’s breathing me in.
Hungrily. Then softly. Then he backs me up against the bed and I don’t stop him.
I don’t want him to stop.
Sifting my fingers through his longish, silken hair, I draw him down with me, on the bed. He could have died in the accident. I might not have known until it was over.
But he’s alive, and he’s here, and he’s beautiful.
He pulls down my leggings, and I push up his sweater. He lifts my blouse, and I tug down his pajama pants. He’s already barefoot. I slip off my ankle-high boots and we roll on the bed together.
He comes on top.
He likes that.
Pressing my hands to the covers, he licks and strokes and makes love to me with his tongue, then he enters me, and we rock together, our panting breaths echoing in the room.
“Missed you,” he rasps as he thrusts deep inside me, each stroke stoking the fire in my belly. “So much.”
“Need you,” I whisper back, lost in the haze of desire. “Don’t leave.”
Then there’s pleasure, and a plunge into space, and more, crazy pleasure that has me writhing and moaning and shouting his name.
And less than a week later… he’s again gone.
Chapter Seven
“I’m not doing this again,” I tell Dorothy after a week of phone silence. “I can’t.”
So it’s not been weeks and weeks of him gone without a word this time.
But I feel closer to him. More worried about him, after the accident and his comment about his parents only visiting once. The thought of him sitting alone in that hospital room for days and days without visitors just about broke my heart.
He could have called me.
He didn’t, and I need to remember that.
Same now. Whatever is happening in his life, he chose not to make me a part of it. He cut me out before I even edged in a little. Promised me from the start that he couldn’t be with me.
And that I wouldn’t be with him.
A man of his word.
Mom is really pushing for me to visit her, and I’m looking into flights, because, why not? Nothing keeping me here.
“Give him a few more days before you bury him,” Dorothy mutters.
“Why are you on his side?”
“Because he’s way too handsome to give up on?”
Good point.
But not good enough.
“It’s soul-sucking, okay? I can’t do it.”
“You care about him,” Dorothy states, matter-of-factly, as if she knows. Have I told her anything? Have I talked in my sleep?
“I don’t,” I protest at last.
A bit too late, it seems, because Dorothy’s eye gleam. “Call him.”
“No frigging way.”
“Come on, Laylay. Last time you got pissed at him, it turned out he was in an accident. Maybe something else happened now, keeping him from you.”
“What, his fingers are broken and he can’t text? Oh wait, he got amnesia and can’t remember me anymore?”
“Yikes, you’re really mad at him, aren’t you?”
I blow out a breath. “I shouldn’t be. He hasn’t done anything he wasn’t supposed to do. I shouldn’t expect more.”
“But you’re human, Layla.” Dorothy comes around the kitchen table and gives me a quick hug. “Of course you expect more. Maybe it’s time to move on? I promise I’ll let up with the teasing.”
Maybe.
I thought I had this under control. That it was all fun and no strings attached, and that it was a good thing—but I don’t know what I’m doing, or feeling anymore.
Only that it hurts.
***
I turn and look over my shoulder at my reflection in the mirror, checking out my legs in my boots and short skirt.
The boots Hawk asked me to leave on whenever I wore them as he fucked me into bliss.
Stop. Thinking. About. Hawk.
I have a date tonight. With Norman. To watch a movie. I don’t even know which one. He mentioned an action flick and that sounds good. Definitely not in the mood to watch romantic drama right now. Some explosions might be good for my bruised soul.
I’ve also booked my flight to visit Mom next month. A change of environment might lift me out of my funk, remind me that everything’s fine.
That I don’t need Hawk.
“You look great,” Dorothy gushes, coming to stand in front of me and tweaking my ponytail. “And happy. Good for you, girl.”
I’m not happy. I’m tired. I’m sad. But I keep my smile on.
“What about you? Going out with Kenny?”
“Nah.” She and Kenny have been going out for a month now, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to last much longer. “I have an assignment to work on, anyway.”
“Come with us to the movies.”
“That’s not exactly conducive to kissing and sexing, is it?” She wags a finger at me. “Go get him, tiger.”
Only I don’t know if I want to get Norman, if I want to kiss and have sex with him.
The thought makes me gag a little. That’s not a good sign, is it?
Okay, all ready to go. Got my cell, my watermelon-flavored chewing gums, my lipstick, my coat. Norman is picking me up, which is sort of old-fashioned and might ev
en be cute, only I don’t feel the vibe. Should I find a pair of fifties horn-rim glasses and a polka dress?
And why am I pissed at Norman before I’ve even gone to the movies with him?
Jesus.
Waiting for Normal to arrive, I flip through the photos on my phone. There’s one of me and Dorothy, making scary faces outside the place where she works part-time. Another of me and Mom at the old harbor, drinking Martinis.
And one of Hawk. He’s asleep on his stomach, blond hair hiding his face, his magnificent back and ass on full display.
I run my fingertip over the screen and bite my lip, and hell, how can anyone top this? This body, this intensity. The way he makes my heart ache sometimes, when he lets his guard down.
Stop it, Layla.
But of course my phone starts jumping in my hands, and Hawk’s name blinks on the screen, as if summoned.
Jeez.
My heart thumping unsteadily, I connect the call. “Yeah?”
“Hey, Doll. How have you been?”
The thrill of hearing his deep voice again stirs heat in my belly and sends my pulse booming in my ears.
It’s impossible to stop my body from reacting to him.
“Okay. Studying a lot. And you? Where did you vanish to this time?”
A small pause, and I hold my breath, because it came out more accusatory than I meant it to be. Less aggressive than I feel, though, too, so there’s that.
“Remember my friend who was missing?”
“Jordan. The one you went to Mexico for.”
“That’s the one. He surfaced, and there has been some trouble.”
“Trouble? You okay?” My heart speeds up again at the thought of anything happening to him.
“Yeah. Everything’s fine.” I hear voices talking in the background, and I wish he’d tell me more.
How long can you wait for someone to let you in?
“That’s awesome,” I say, meaning it. “So glad you got your friend back.”
“We’re cousins, in fact,” he says—one of those crumbs of info he bestows on me occasionally and that I cherish long after, because they are so rare. “But we’re more like brothers.”
And I’m glad he has some family to call his own—someone closer to him than his distant parents.
God, I shouldn’t fall into this trap again. Shouldn’t worry about him.
“Wanna meet tonight?” he asks, and my mouth is already forming the Yes I want to give him.
I force myself to stop. “Can’t. I’m going out.”
“With your nerdy roommate?”
“Nah. A classmate.”
“A girl?”
“A guy.”
“What the hell?” I flinch at the anger in his voice. It’s hot and sharp and intense, like him. “You sleeping with him?”
“No. I’m not.” I draw a breath, and blurt, “not yet.”
The silence that follows is rolled in broken glass. Suddenly I’m sorry. So sorry for what I said—and it’s not even true, because I don’t want to sleep with Norman, or anyone else but Hawk.
Isn’t it insane?
“Why?” he asks, his voice like gravel.
I wince. “You keep vanishing. You don’t tell me anything. We’re not really together, Hawk.”
Another silence.
“I thought we had an agreement,” he finally says. “From the beginning, it was all on the table. I haven’t changed the rules.”
No, he hasn’t. “Hawk…”
“Fuck, no. Not letting this happen. I’m coming to pick you up,” he says. “I’ll be there in two minutes. Be ready.”
***
He’s already parked outside my building when I come out, in my coat, clutching my purse. I honestly don’t know why I’m not fighting this.
Honestly don’t know if I ever could. From the very first moment, he caught me. Neither of us admit it, but I’m his.
Maybe I should move to Alaska. Or Europe. Or Mongolia. Far enough the sound of his voice can’t reach me and lure me back to him. Fighting against the pull is like trying to swim upstream, to run upslope.
Not sure I’m strong enough.
Not sure what I’m feeling, what to call the emotions he brings out in me, this worry, this need, his warmth, this sadness.
Don’t know what to do with them. With someone who doesn’t feel anything about me, and yet won’t let go.
He gives me a wide grin as I approach his bike, and I can’t read his face.
“Get on,” he says, and I climb up behind him. “Hold on tight.”
Always. He’s a wild ride. Every single time.
I pull on the extra helmet and slip my arms around his waist, let him rev the engine and dive back into traffic. Weave through the city, not really caring where he’s taking me, lost in the feel of his muscled back pressed to my front, his hard abs under my hands.
Just one week apart and I missed this.
Him.
This is bad.
We ride for a long time. He doesn’t seem to have a destination in mind as he drives down avenues and through quiet neighborhoods, and I’m content to cling to him and let the thoughts flow out of my mind, leaving a pleasant numbness behind.
Strangely, he sometimes glances sideways, or over his shoulder, as if expecting someone to be following us.
And then I know I’ve been watching too much TV with Dorothy lately. I mean, why would he think we have a tail? What could he possibly have done for such a possibility? The paparazzi rarely, if ever, manage to catch a glimpse of him.
We end up far from the town center, as far as I can tell, and ride through an open gate into an obviously private property.
Trees line the paved driveway. A mansion looms in the distance.
He turns onto a path between trees and bushes, the headlights of the bike the only illumination, and comes to a stop beside a pond with floating water lilies.
He kicks the stand into place and stays there for a long moment. The quiet seeps in. A bird trills in a bush.
It’s not as cold as I expected. There’s a promise of rain in the air, which is heavy with the scent of some aromatic herb and the freshness of the pond.
He takes off his helmet, but he still doesn’t make any other move.
“I wasn’t supposed to meet you,” he whispers, and I wonder for a moment if I imagined the words.
“Hawk?” What does he mean? Meet me today? Or ever?
He shakes his head. “It’s peaceful here.”
Carefully, I slide off the bike and take off my helmet. There’s a wooden bench beside us and I place it there. “Is this place yours?”
“Belongs to an uncle of mine.”
The lights of the bike reflect on the still water of the pond, washing back on us, turning his hair and beard to polished gold.
“Were you really going to let him fuck you?” he asks, finally turning toward me. He climbs off, muscles bunching in his powerful thighs through the soft leather of his black pants. “That guy you were going out with tonight.”
I look away, unable to meet his gaze. “I don’t know.”
“Fuck.” He walks a few steps to the edge of the pond, pushes his chin-length hair out of his face.
“You set the rules,” I remind him quietly. “You’re not my boyfriend.”
“Hell, don’t I know it.” He lets his helmet drop to the sodden ground and kicks at the mud. “Son of a bitch. I shouldn’t have called you. Shouldn’t have come. I wish...” He mumbles something that sounds like, “It’s killing me.”
But I probably didn’t hear well. It would make no sense.
He turns and comes toward me, hands fisted at his sides, and I take a step back. He’s never been violent with me before—well, at least not in a non-pleasurable way—but anger sparkles in his gaze.
It fades as he reaches me, replaced by a darkness I know well.
Desire.
