Acceptable Risks

by Natalie J. Damschroder

  “Of course it matters.”

  Lark took a deep breath, ignoring his repeated list of reasons why it wasn’t a good idea for her to be involved with Jason, and why—though he didn’t say it—he wouldn’t admit to his feelings for Gabby. She’d watched him since they left the hospital. Her father never did or said anything that anyone else would pick up on. But he’d been discreetly attentive, and the look on his face—well, she’d seen a similar look on Jason’s.

  And she didn’t want to give it up.

  She sat on the ottoman in front of her father and took his hands in hers. “Think back to when you first met Mom. First fell in love with her. What would have kept you apart?”

  “Nothing.” It was an automatic response, and she could see he regretted it immediately.

  “Exactly.” She squeezed his fingers. “You guys had me when you were twenty.”

  “I know, but—”

  “You knew, right? You knew it was going to last, no matter what. And it did.”

  “It was different.” He tried to pull his hands away, but she held on.

  “Why? Because your job wasn’t dangerous yet?”

  Something shifted across his face, something she’d seen before but had nothing to connect it to. She felt him withdraw, even though this time he didn’t move.

  “No, that’s not why. My life was infinitely more dangerous than yours has been, Lark. I never wanted anything that I’ve seen to touch you.”

  She let go and leaned away from him. “So you think I can’t handle adversity.”

  “No!” He thrust a hand through his hair. “Dammit, Lark, stop twisting everything I say.”

  “Look.” She took a deep breath. “The day of Jason’s funeral, you tried to convince me the loss was worth it. That having someone in your life was an acceptable emotional risk.”

  “I meant some regular guy,” he argued. “There are degrees of risk.”

  “I love Jason, Daddy.” The words came out much softer, more plaintive than she’d intended. But her father softened and reached for her. She stayed back, not done. “I know it seems sudden and that relationships borne of adversity don’t last, yada yada, but I know.” She pressed a fist to her chest, unsurprised at the pain building there. Deep inside, the old Lark was screaming a protest, struggling to pull a cloak of disinterest around the mass of raw, desperate, expanding emotion. But she wanted her father to be happy. Wanted them all to be happy. “I don’t care what the risks are.” Liar! the inner Lark screeched. She ignored it, the truth ringing through her words as she really got what he’d been trying to say then. “I want to be with him. I want to make it work somehow. And nothing that happens in the next few days will change that, or hurt less if something happens to him. Please, Dad, stop fighting it. Embrace it.”

  He stood and pulled her into his arms, blinking back tears he hadn’t produced since Kelly died. “I’m happy for you then, honey.” He released her and gripped her shoulders, his eyebrows folding together again. He couldn’t stop seeing all the potential pitfalls. “Are you sure he feels the same way?”

  She grinned. “I’m going to go find out.” Her kiss landed hard on his cheek, and she tossed “Good night” over her shoulder as she dashed through the doorway into the kitchen hall.

  “Good night.”

  He stood alone in the living room for a few minutes, absorbing all the things a father felt at such moments. Fear for his child, acceptance that she was an independent woman and he couldn’t put a protective bubble around her, and pride and happiness for her choice.

  The subtext of what she’d said—that her words applied to his situation as well—wasn’t lost on him. Stop fighting it. Embrace it. His own decade of loneliness added to the message. Too much protection could just mean lost time. Wasted time. And now that he was older, he had less to lose.

  He turned off the lights, checked the alarm system, and headed upstairs. Doing it properly would be smart, he knew. He had champagne in the back of the refrigerator and fresh strawberries from a grocery store run during a break in their brainstorming. But for now, he didn’t think they needed trappings.

  The upstairs hall was silent. Gabby was in the guest room next to Matthew’s bedroom, which was closest to the stairs. Jason was probably in Lark’s room, at the far end of the hall. He grimaced and shook the thought out of his head. Luckily, the thick carpeting and solidly built walls muffled any sound from that distance.

  He crossed to Gabby’s door and knocked softly. He wasn’t sure when she’d come upstairs and hoped she wasn’t sleeping. But he’d barely had time to drop his hand to his side before the door opened.

  For several long seconds, Matthew couldn’t find his voice. Gabby had been getting ready for bed. Her hair was piled haphazardly on top of her head, and she wore a pale green silk robe that ended well above the knee and plunged in a deep V from where it draped around her neck. She made no move to cover herself or tighten the robe’s belt, and Matthew’s throat relaxed. She wasn’t going to send him away.

  “Do you have everything you need?” He winced at the impersonal question.

  “Yes, I’m fine. I picked up some toiletries at the store earlier, and Lark loaned me some more clothes.” She brushed a curl away from her face and touched the side of her glasses. “Thank you, Matthew, for everything.”

  “No. I did nothing but bring you trouble.” He stopped himself. “But that’s not what I want to talk about. Can I come in?”

  She backed up and motioned into the bedroom, and he stepped inside.

  Her skin seemed to glow in the soft light from the bedside lamp. Her eyes definitely did. His already rapid heart rate kicked into a higher gear, anticipation rising, making his whole body buzz slightly.

  “What did you want to talk about?” She continued stepping back as he approached her, so he stopped moving. “Tomorrow’s plan?”

  “No.” He stepped forward again, slowly. “I want to talk about you.”

  “Me?” A finger pointed at her chest and her eyebrows went up. “You’re going to fire me after all, aren’t you? I was hoping you’d wait until we could get back into the office, so I could…well, I can still show you. Jason’s data is inaccessible. I’ll have to show you how to get into it, and I’m sure Tompkins will do a great job overseeing the next stage of research. It would be nice if you could give me a letter of recommendation—”

  “Gabby.” Matthew took one long stride forward and slid his hands around her face, cradling her jaw and the back of her skull. “I’m not firing you.”

  “Oh.” The sound came out on a puff of air. Matthew tilted toward her, and her breath shuddered into her lungs, her whole body tensing even as it eased closer to his.

  “Can I kiss you?” he murmured, his eyes already latched onto her mouth. Suddenly, he couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t want to taste her. She jerked a tiny nod, and he slowly dropped his head, savoring the warmth of her skin under his palms, the anticipation of her soft body under his hands, the heat of her mouth around his tongue.

  The reality was infinitely better than the anticipation. Gabby opened to him immediately, coming up against him and wrapping her arms around his back. Matthew sank into her, losing awareness of himself and his surroundings in a way he hadn’t in forever. His hands roamed over her body, taut yet womanly, shaped perfectly to mold against him. He maintained enough presence of mind to be careful with her sunburn, but as the kiss went on he got hungrier and hungrier, fueled by her near-frantic response to him.

  He slowed the kiss, gentling by degrees, and when he lifted his head he was shocked to see tears trembling on her lashes. “I’m sorry,” he said automatically, lifting a finger to brush them away.

  “Don’t say that, please. Ever.” She blinked hard but didn’t let go of him. “Matthew, please don’t pull away from me. I’ve—I—”

  “I won’t.” He gripped her waist with his hands so they wouldn’t tremble, and stole another kiss. “I want you, Abigail.”

  “Now?”
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  The word could have meant a lot of things, but Matthew understood. “Now, and for as long as you’ll have me.”

  Gabby threw herself against him, and Matthew couldn’t have explained why he’d resisted this for so long.

  * * *

  When Lark went into Jason’s room, he tried to pretend she was there to talk about tomorrow. She rolled over that discussion, but he hid in the bathroom, putting away new toiletries, while she waited patiently on his bed. Her conversation with her father had cemented everything for her. Maybe Jason’s relationship with her father—and, hell, her relationship with her father—and their jobs would doom them. Maybe one of them would die, if not in the next few days, on some other mission or circumstance. But none of that was any different from the obstacles in any other relationship, and Lark couldn’t believe how differently the world looked to her now. Instead of her mother’s slow decline, she remembered the way her parents had been together. How could she have witnessed that, and not wanted it for herself? There had to be joy to balance the pain.

  So she was going for it. All the way. To hell with the consequences. She crushed a spurt of fear as she stood, went into the bathroom, and dragged Jason back out, mouths locked. He had no chance to protest or spout his tired argument. She knew exactly how and where to touch him to make him lose it. And then she played dirty.

  Jason loomed over her on the bed, his gorgeous body touching hers from shoulder to ankle. Moans echoed in the room as she stroked him into a frenzy, accompanied by the gasps and cries she couldn’t hold back every time he dipped his fingers deeper or pulled a bit of her skin between his teeth. He reached for one of the condoms he’d bought on the grocery run and rolled it on. Lark lifted her hips, knees bent, ready to take him in.

  That’s when she said, “I love you, Jason.”

  He convulsed, as if wanting to pull back, but she dug her fingers into his shoulders. He groaned, closed his eyes and thrust deep into her. Sparks shot through her vision, pleasure flooding her body, her heart. She sobbed his name. His face buried in her neck, Jason moved in the rhythm they’d perfected, and Lark lost control, blinded by the sheer ecstasy of the climb. Part of her was aware he hadn’t responded, but she hadn’t been looking for a response. She’d said what she felt, at what she’d thought was the peak of emotion.

  She’d been wrong. God, she ached. She pushed her hips up against him, wanting him deeper, wanting to crawl inside his skin. Her right hand gripped his hair, while her left pulled at his hip, his lower back, his ass, trying to get closer, harder. “Oh, God, Jason, I love you.” She repeated the words, not sure she was even coherent, and Jason reared back with a shout he tried to muffle. He shuddered and burst, and then pumped into her with short, fast strokes that sent her soaring, shattering into pieces that would never go back together the same.

  Neither of them spoke for a long time. Lark held him to her when he tried to roll off, firmly stroking his hair and his back and shoulders, just feeling. She held as tightly to her joy and despair as she held on to him.

  Eventually, as they cooled and the air conditioning brought goose bumps up on Lark’s skin, Jason maneuvered the covers over them, somehow doing it without letting go of her or moving his face away from her neck and shoulder. She’d just about given up and was about to allow herself to drift into sleep when his hands tightened on her waist and tugged her even closer to his chest before he murmured, “I’m sorry, but I love you, too.”

  * * *

  Gabby lay draped on Matthew’s chest, listening to his heart beat and watching the numbers flip on the old alarm clock next to the bed. Matthew’s hand stroked her arm, and she rubbed her thigh on top of his.

  She’d never been happier in her life. Even if he opened his mouth and said it couldn’t happen again. Even if he was taking what was available because he was overwhelmed and lonely, and he didn’t really care about her. She didn’t care. Nothing could spoil what they’d just shared.

  And he didn’t say it couldn’t happen again. He didn’t apologize, or ask if she was okay. He just lay underneath her, holding her close, and breathed.

  “Thank you for not starting out with caveats,” she finally said when her brain couldn’t take it anymore and forced her to speak.

  “Hmmm?”

  She lifted her head a little. His eyes were closed, but his hand was still moving. “Are you awake?”

  His lids lifted slowly, lazily, and he looked so satisfied her heart skipped. “Barely. What did you say?”

  “I said thank you for not starting out with caveats.” She put her head back down on his chest, this time at a steeper angle so she could breathe him in, taste his skin. “About how you don’t know what will happen tomorrow, and the last thing you want is to hurt me, and if I don’t want this I can say no, and—”

  “I get the picture.” He lifted his shoulders off the bed and rolled them both over so she was on her back, looking up at him. His blue eyes burned with emotion, and her tears welled up again.

  “It’s been a very long time for me, Gabby.” He traced his finger down the side of her face and across her mouth. “Both the sex and the emotion.” His mouth curved briefly. “One longer than the other. I haven’t opened myself to anyone since Kelly died.”

  “I know,” she whispered. “I’m—”

  “You’re not grateful.” There was bite in his tone. “You’re deserving. I’ve been fighting this for a long time, and tonight it just didn’t seem worth fighting anymore.” He relaxed a little, settling onto his side next to her, propping his head with his arm under the pillow. “I don’t know if you realize it, but I avoided coming to the lab as much because of you as because I was ashamed to face Jason.”

  “Oh, Matthew.” Sorrow swirled with happiness she didn’t dare allow. She rolled to face him and touched his cheek. “Why?”

  “I told myself it was because I didn’t want to lead you on, but it was really because I sensed what we could have, and it scared me.” His face puckered in a slight frown. “I don’t admit to fear well.”

  “I know.” She snuggled closer and braced herself. He’d overcome that fear tonight, but that didn’t mean anything for the future. “I want to go with you guys tomorrow.”

  “You will.”

  “I will?” She raised her head to stare at him. “No argument? No, ‘you’re safer here, let the professionals do the hard work’?”

  “You’re not safer here. Even without knowing who the other people on Isaac’s list are, Hummingbird is more secure than my house, and leaving you alone is not an option.”

  “Thank goodness.” She settled back onto the pillow. “I was prepared to stow away in Jason’s Range Rover, but I was afraid you’d take the Town Car instead.”

  Matthew chuckled, his fingers toying with her curls. “We also need you. I want to pull all the RT-24 development data and prepare it to send to the government. If we can get it established before Isaac’s plan is complete, we might have ammunition against treason charges. And I want to destroy all the data on Jason.”

  The doctor in her rebelled at that. “Even if we can’t use it for research purposes, Matthew, I can’t destroy his medical file. He’s unique. He’ll need special treatment for the rest of his life.”

  “One file, yours, as secure as possible. You’ll be his doctor. As well as an attendant at his wedding, I imagine.” He grumbled more than stated the latter.

  Gabby laughed. “I hope you come around before the wedding,” she teased him. “Is he really about to propose?”

  He sighed and shifted under the sheet. “No. But if he doesn’t soon, Lark will. I don’t want to talk about that.”

  “Okay.” Gabby let the subject go. If Matthew was relenting about his daughter, maybe his whole perspective was shifting, and she didn’t have to guard against a reversal. “Let’s talk about the plan some more, then. I didn’t think you’d include me, so I didn’t pay full attention before,” she admitted.