by Pamela Clare
That wasn’t Colin, of course, but he might still leave. I had to be sure.
I squeezed slightly, just to see if he was awake. He tightened his hand on mine.
“I think we have to talk,” I said.
He tensed, his whole body did, with an air of expectancy, and then said on an exhale, “I’m sorry.”
Well, okay. He was sorry for leaving, that was fine. What I was more concerned with was whether he was coming home—
“I’m sorry I did this to you. You lost your job because of me. That was fucked-up, like you said, but it wasn’t supposed to—you were hurt. Almost raped, almost killed, because of me.”
I have an inkling that the man feels guilty as sin.
He blamed himself for all of that, everything. No wonder he was so stressed out. Next thing he’d be blaming himself for what happened with Jacob, since he wasn’t there to protect me from it.
“Christ, Colin. What an ego you have.”
“What?” He sounded strangled.
“You didn’t make your brother hire that guy; you protected me from him. It wasn’t your fault that the shit went down with the cops. It was just dirty cops and bad business and circumstance. You saved me from getting hurt and killed.”
He shook his head.
“And look, the Rick thing, you did that, and it was wrong. But I could have found another job. Or I could have borrowed money from Shelly or called my dad or a bunch of other things. I went to see you because I wanted you, and that was as good of an excuse as any to have you.”
I could see he wasn’t going to believe me, at least not for a long time. And that was okay, he could take his time, so long as he did it with me.
I sat up and faced him. “I love you. I want you to be with me. To live with me. I don’t want you to feel guilty, but if you do, at least stay with me. We’ll work it out together.”
“It can’t be that simple.” He said it so solemnly. My heart broke and put back together all in that moment for the boy who thought he couldn’t just love and be loved.
“It won’t be easy, maybe, but I want to be with you, and I think you want to be with me. You said you loved me. Did you mean it?”
“You know I did.”
A smiled played on my mouth. It couldn’t be held in. “Maybe so, but I want to hear you say it again.” I thought he’d refuse or maybe say it begrudgingly, but he sat up with me and looked me straight in the eye and said it.
“I love you.”
It was too much again, too much emotion, but I wasn’t going to run into the bathroom or away or anywhere. I turned into his arms where he held me safe. There was something to be said for being able to defend myself, but I liked it better that I didn’t have to.
As the night turned to early morning, I asked, “You are coming back with me, right?”
He nodded against the pillow.
“Let me just shower first,” he said. “You can pack my stuff.”
He looked so hopeful I didn’t have the heart to tell him no. I dressed back into my club trappings and began to pick through the wreckage. What a mess he’d made. Though I couldn’t even grumble about it. I liked that he could depend on me for these small things. He didn’t really need me, but he could rely on me.
And the same was true for him. What I’d said back at the club, that I’d needed it, needed him, hadn’t been right. I didn’t need him, or even his house or any of that. I wanted it and him and everything, but I would be okay no matter what.
I threw his clothes into the one piece of luggage there. Everything else went into a large trash bag I found. I’d sort it all out later and clean all the clothes. I tossed a pair of jeans into the bag, and they thudded against the floor. I pulled them back out—maybe it was his phone or something like that.
I reached my hand into the pocket and pulled out a small velvet box.
And stared at it. Marveled at it, rejoiced, then rejected it.
It had to be jewelry. Maybe a—No, don’t even think it. It had to be a necklace or something. Maybe an apology necklace. Or maybe it wasn’t even for me, but Rose or Bailey or anyone but me.
I didn’t want to know. Well, I did, but I didn’t want to guess. Madness lay that way. It was like Pandora’s box, only worse. I hadn’t even opened it, and already it couldn’t be put away.
If I put it back in the jeans and put the jeans back on the floor, he’d know I’d seen it. If I put the jeans in the bag, I’d only have to pull them out again to wash them, and then I’d be in the same dilemma and he’d know I’d seen it.
In a situation like this, damned if I did and damned if I didn’t, there was only one thing to do. I opened the box. A big, square diamond winked at me from its satin bed.
Yes, I immediately thought, only no one had asked me a question.
“Damn,” Colin said.
I hadn’t even heard the water shut off. He stepped out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist and plucked the box from my hand, snapping it shut.
“Pretend you didn’t see that,” he said.
My jaw dropped. “You’re just going to leave me hanging?”
“You’re not pretending.”
“Have you changed your mind?”
He shrugged. “Wait and see.”
“Uh-uh.” I shook my head.
He sighed, resigned. Then I saw the spark in his eyes. He was enjoying this, the sadist! I ought to say no. I ought to make him ask me and then say no, but there wasn’t any chance of that.
He dropped the towel and pulled on the jeans from the floor. He was going to do it.
I clapped. “You didn’t have to do that. In fact, it could have helped your case.”
He gave me a look.
“Okay, I’m sorry,” I said. It was all in good fun, but now wasn’t the time to risk it.
He dropped to one knee and took my hand. I shivered. Don’t cry.
I had dreamed of this, once. I’d thought all those wishes and hopes had evaporated away, but now I greeted them like an old childhood friend. It had never been like this, in those dreams, in a motel room where we’d had sex, me wearing slutty clothes and him wearing only jeans. Well, he might have been wearing only jeans in my adolescent dreams. He looked damned good that way. The packaging was different, but this was what I’d always wanted.
Not just getting married, but the forever and ever, I love you, amen.
“Allie,” he said. “You told me once I had a white-knight complex. You said I saved you.”
He was going to say I saved him. It was going to be so romantic.
“But the truth is,” he said, “I didn’t save you—I stole you. I wanted you and I knew I didn’t deserve you, but I didn’t care. And for some reason it seems like you don’t either, so it seems to me that I should make it permanent before you come to your senses. Will you marry me?”
The whole last half of that speech, I hadn’t been able to see his face, but I’d heard him. God, had I heard him. It was the very best possible proposal I’d ever heard. More than I’d ever imagined, but so incredibly us. Only Colin could have said that, and only to me. Don’t pass out.
“Allie?”
“Yes.” I sucked in a deep breath. “I do. Yes, yes.”
The ring slipped on my finger. Then he was kissing me, and I tasted my tears on my tongue and then impatiently swiped my face and kissed him some more. He pulled me into his arms and kissed me harder, but I pulled away.
“No,” I said. “Not until we get home.”
We packed everything else up together, and then we drove separately back to our house. The sky was already in that dusky color of almost light of the very early morning. Shelly lay sleeping on the couch, and I decided not to wake her. We tiptoed past her into the bedroom like two teenagers late from curfew.
In our bedroom we pulled off our dirty clothes and jumped into bed together. We rolled and roughhoused. We played.
A spring must have squeaked or something, because Bailey began to fuss from across the hall. I
threw on a nightshirt and undies before settling her back down.
She blinked at me groggily, the slight light through her curtains probably keeping her from sleep. I’d stay here by her side until she fell asleep again, whatever it took. I rubbed her back while she tossed on the bed.
A few minutes later Colin padded in wearing jeans and a T-shirt.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I think she’ll take a while.”
“It’s okay,” he whispered back. “I thought I’d sit with you.”
We sat in a daisy chain: Colin, me, and Bailey. It turned out to be not great that Colin had come in. When Bailey saw that there were two of us, the sleeping gig was up, but I didn’t mind. It was sweet that he wanted to be with me and her as a family. It had always been that way with him. From the beginning we’d had the sex, but also the closeness. The love, if I’d been able to put a name on it back then.
Bailey climbed off the bed and sat in my lap as she fully woke up. Then she moved around the room, picking up toys and discarding them, and putting some in Colin’s lap until it was stacked with toys. She explained a complicated game to him involving her giving him a toy and him giving it back, and there may even have been a point system. Colin did his best, but he got scolded a few times.
The nagging part of my mother’s brain knew her sleep schedule would be all messed up now. She’d fuss and be cranky, and I’d have to work extra to get her back on schedule. It could take days, really, but I couldn’t be upset, not as the day dawned on our family, playing and happy. It could take days, but we had forever.
The End
Thank You
Thank you for reading Giving It Up. I hope you enjoyed the ride! I appreciate anything you can do to help spread the word about the Lost Girls series, including leaving a review or telling a friend. Selling Out is the next book in the Lost Girls series, with Shelley, Allie’s best friend, and it’s available now. The third book, Tempting Fate, is about Rose, Philip’s sister. If you’d like to know when my next book comes out, you can sign up for my newsletter.
About Amber Lin
Amber Lin writes edgy romance with damaged hearts, redemptive love, and a steamy ever after. Her debut novel, Giving It Up, received The Romance Review’s Top Pick, Night Owl Top Pick, and 5 Blue Ribbons from Romance Junkies. RT Book Reviews gave it 4.5 stars, calling it “truly extraordinary.” Since then, she has gone on to write erotic, contemporary, and historical romances.
To stay up to date with upcoming releases, sign up for her newsletter.
Against the Dark
The Associates Series
Carolyn Crane
RITA Award Winning Author
Chapter One
Angel Ramirez sipped her club soda and lime, a stand-in for a gin and tonic, and carried on a mindless conversation with her old friend Macy. It was the kind of babble that let them devote their attention to potential threats in their surroundings. They were posing as party girls—hookers paid by Borgola to have sex with the party guests. They’d been propositioned a few times, but they’d put the guys off by pretending to be waiting for somebody.
So far, so good.
Nobody was paying much attention to them anyway. Unless you counted the guy in the corner, leaning against a fountain, looking perfectly at home at a party full of men who would never do the right thing.
He had sandy brown hair and a scruff of a beard, and his tux fit just a little tight across his muscular shoulders—brainy and brawny, like a fair-haired Clark Kent.
But what she mostly noticed was his intense and gem-like gaze, burning behind thick-rimmed glasses.
Burning at her.
Something told her he wasn’t watching her for security reasons. And that’s not why she was watching him.
Don’t look, she told herself.
Of course it didn’t help to look away, either. His relentless gaze made her feel excited and melty inside. Even standing off to the side, he was the center of the room, like the human equivalent of a bonfire. And he riveted her. Which told her everything she needed to know about him.
Do this job and get out, she told herself.
It was a horrible place. She kept her back to the action on the couches in the sunken living room. Beyond was the Grecian pool where couples outright fucked. Everything was gilded gold and velvet, and the walls were hung with disturbing pin-up style paintings of women being fondled by monsters. Borgola would’ve commissioned them. Angel thought she recognized the artist, though he’d never sign such obscene work.
But it was the massive bunches of white roses that truly offended her interior design sensibilities.
Their beauty and innocence were all wrong here. If she were designing this home, she would get rid of them, or else she’d go in the other direction and do something perverse to match the mood of the place.
But of course, she’d never take a client like Walter Borgola, the owner of this vulgar mansion and thrower of this disturbing party.
Macy lifted a glass of champagne off a tray carried by a waiter, who disappeared into the crowd around the sunken living room. “I always did love that dress on you, Angel,” she said.
Angel smiled. “Thanks.” The vintage pink empire waist dress was one of her favorites from her former life of crime—it was sexy and also good for concealing a handgun in a thigh holster along with her old safecracking tool. The tool was disguised as an mp3 player; she hadn’t been able to bring herself to throw it away for sentimental reasons. She never thought she’d use it again.
For five years now she’d walked the straight and narrow, building a nice little business as an interior designer. She’d been proud of her honest new life, and she even felt like she was starting to repair some of the damage she’d done to the people she loved. And now here she was, buzzing with adrenaline, all geared up to hit a place.
She hated how good it still felt.
Macy wore a designer gown Angel didn’t recognize—a slinky silver affair that popped against her skin. Angel used to know all of Macy’s clothes, but of course her old friends would have moved ahead without her. At least Macy’s hair was still the same, shorn close and dyed white-blonde, all in kinky little nubs the size of thimbles. Some bejeweled.
“Should we be worrying about this guy?” Nothing escaped Macy’s notice. “He looks too brainy for Borgola security, don’t you think? But if he wants a go with you, he’d come over and request it.”
Angel tried to keep her face neutral. “Yeah, I don’t know.”
“Oh my God.” Macy smiled. “You think he’s hot.”
“Don’t,” Angel said.
“Doot doot doot,” Macy made a radar sound. “We have detected a bad boyfriend.”
“Stop it,” Angel said.
“Dangerously self-destructive man at oh-four-hundred hours. Angel, start your engines.”
“It’s not funny. At all.”
They used to joke about it back in the day—if they wanted to know if a guy was troubled or self-destructive in some way, they just needed to check if Angel thought he was hot.
Bad boyfriend radar, they called it.
Because if Angel was attracted to a guy, it meant he was probably wounded or feral, a doomed thug with a hurricane for a heart. It meant that she could love him, but never save him.
Which was why she didn’t date men she was attracted to anymore, a policy that made for a shitty sex life, but the new and reformed Angel was all about avoiding trouble. Anyway, she rarely met her type anymore. You had to come to parties like this to meet the really bad guys.
So yeah, this one looked all brainy and in control, but Angel knew better; no man fooled her bad boyfriend radar. It was as if she could feel men like this. She wondered cynically how far this guy had gotten along on his yellow brick road of self-destruction.
Not that she needed to care.
“It’s a problem if he’s Borgola security,” Macy said.
“He’s not the sadistic type,” Angel said. She could tell everything about a
guy like this. “His fury doesn’t turn outward, it turns inward.”
Macy smiled. “So says the Jane Goodall of the self-destructive man.”
“Not funny.”
Yelps and screams sounded from the direction of the pool. Macy shot Angel a dark gaze. “Tell me you’re not just a little happy about ripping off this dirtbag. Tell me your adrenaline isn’t pumping.”
“My adrenaline is pumping to see Aunt Aggie safe.”
“Yeah, we’re all here for Aunt Aggie. Doesn’t mean you have to lie to yourself about the thrill of the job. The rush of it,” Macy whispered. “The cool motherfucking weight of a stolen rock in your palm…”
“I like sleeping at night,” Angel snapped. “Feeling good about myself.”
Macy simply watched the pool. Angel wondered if her old friend heard the lie in that. Because Angel didn’t feel good about herself, that was the horrible truth of it. Working a straight job hadn’t made her feel any better than being a rich jewel thief had. Five years she’d spent making amends, and she still felt stained, somehow.
Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly cuts clear to the bone, so the saying went.
Maybe that ugly would never go away. Angel only felt good when she was hidden in the shadows. “I like feeling good about myself,” she repeated pathetically, as if saying it twice would make it come true. Did her friend hear how pathetic she was?
Macy turned to her. “I feel good about you.”
Angel snorted, as though amused, but really, she wanted to cry. She missed her girl gang so bad it burned.
And Macy was right, too—Angel couldn’t wait to melt into the shadows and do her thing, unlocking what nobody else could. Her friends had no idea how much she missed it. And yes, yes, yes, she wanted that guy in the corner with a kind of fever.
Do this job and get out, she told herself.
She just needed to work harder. Her parents and her abuela were on the road to forgiving her for the shame that she’d brought to the family—they’d even invited her back home for pumpkin and sweet potato tamales this past Thanksgiving. They’d hate that she was back in the game, but she’d do anything to save Macy’s Aunt Aggie, who had been like a second mother to her. The Flesh Boys, a small-time gang, had nabbed the old woman and demanded Borgola’s diamonds in ransom. Only a few people in the world could crack that rare Fenton Furst model safe up in Borgola’s bedroom. Angel was one of them, unfortunately.
