by Lyric James
“They shot me.” Her voice didn’t sound right. “They were going to...to…” Fog circled behind her eyelids. Everything she wanted to tell him muddled in her mind.
“I know, baby. I know.”
Sirens wailed in the distance. The police? An ambulance?
Then her world went fuzzy again. She remembered someone asking Rhys to move away, being put on a stretcher, an oxygen mask, an ambulance with the ringing of the siren in her ears. Rhys didn’t leave her. His calloused but soft hands gripped hers. The smell of him filled her nose as she focused on his face. It wasn’t until being rushed through the hospital doors did she remember Cecily and Dewayne. She’d solved the puzzle. They were the ones threatening Rhys and his daughter. But it was over now. It was over.
Hours later, the hospital staff treated her and she was questioned by the police, multiple times. Rhys held her hand the entire time. When the last detective walked out, she turned to him. “What happened with Maya? Is she okay?”
He exhaled a deep breath. “Cade missed the accident by minutes. As soon as he arrived on campus he heard the sirens. A bystander told him she’d been walking across the street to the university bookstore when a dark sedan came out of nowhere and hit her. The paramedics were still on site. They told him she’d been lucky.” He shook his head. “Lucky. When I called Cade before my flight took off the only thing he could tell me was she was in the emergency room and she might have to have surgery depending on the severity of her injuries.”
“But she’s okay?”
“She’s good. Luckily she only sustained a broken arm and a slight concussion after the car hit her. She spent a couple of nights in the hospital, but she’s back at home now with her mother.”
“What about Cecily and Douglas?”
“Cecily is in jail and Douglas is still in surgery I think. My driver shot him when he saw him shooting at you. He called 911 after that.”
He reared up and kissed her temple. “When I saw him chasing you and he lifted the gun and you fell…my heart froze. I thought I’d lost you.”
Jade closed her eyes. “I’m just glad it’s all over.”
But what did that mean for her and Rhys.
Rhys took her home. The flesh wound on her arm was bandaged, and the head wound she sustained when she fell after being shot was patched. Thank goodness it wasn’t a concussion or she’d be spending the night.
The high from solving the case dissipated quickly when Rhys pulled up to her house. Her lips compressed into a thin line as she struggled to find the right words. There was no reason for either of them to see each other again other than the occasional get together at Karyn and Zechariah’s house. She tried to tell herself that it was for the best, but her heart was heavy in her chest.
Moonlight streamed through the branches of the trees surrounding her house. As he parked, the slow hum of the engine lulled them into silence. Her brain scrambled for something logical to say
The expressions shifting over his face made her think he wasn’t so sure what to say or do either. He looked positively delighted she said something first.
“I’m glad Maya’s going to be okay.” God, her heart ached. Jade needed to get out of the car, go in her house and accept the inevitable. Their liaison, their business relationship, was over. She wanted to tell him how she’d fallen in love with him but she wouldn’t embarrass herself. From the beginning she’d been aware they would end up like this, going their separate ways. She just didn’t know it would hurt so much. She reached for the door. “Well, thanks for bringing me home.”
Rhys switched off the engine. “Look, Jade. Can I come in?”
Oh no. The memory of him breaking her heart in her own house? She couldn’t allow that. In this car was fine enough. “The case is solved, Rhys. We found out who was sending you the letters. It’s over. Let’s just end it here. Okay?” she said, staring down at her hands.
“What about us?”
She looked up at him, searched his face, saw something in the smoky depths of his gray eyes she didn’t want to hope for or define. “Rhys, you didn’t call me at all while you were gone. I was almost murdered trying to find out who was threatening you, and you couldn’t even bother to pick up the phone for one minute and call me to let me know how your…” There were so many other things she could, but wouldn’t, say. “It’s over. I did my job. That’s the only thing that matters. You don’t have anything else to worry about. No one is going to tell your secret.” Jade reached for the passenger side door with her left arm and struggled to pull the handle.
When it swung open, she rushed toward the front door. But when she got there, Rhys moved in front of her while she struggled to put the key in the lock.
“I’ve told you all along, Jade. It wasn’t my secret to tell.”
She rounded on him. “Seriously? After everything, you’re still going to tell me that? She’s your daughter, Rhys. How can it not be your secret? It’s been your secret for eighteen years.” She tried to move around him. The slight indentions on the side of her key would leave an impression on her finger she was holding it so hard. “And you ask me about us? How can there be an us if you can’t even tell me the truth?” She could have sagged against the door when she heard the lock unlatch.
But Rhys took her hand and turned her around before she stepped inside her door. “Maya is my sister.”
“What?” Her gaze roamed his handsome face, loving the angles of it, the curve of his chin.
He took her hand and pressed it flat against his chest. “She’s my sister, not my daughter.”
Jade shook her head. “But…how? I don’t understand.”
Rhys nodded toward the house. “Can I come in? I’ll explain everything.”
Pivoting, she went inside, turning on lights as she moved down the hall. At a small table in the hallway, she placed her keys in an oval plate and set her purse down. In the living area she sat down on the sofa, and Rhys sat directly in front of her on the ottoman.
Again, he took her hand and linked it with one of his. He was quiet a moment, before he lowered his gaze and said, “About twenty years ago, my father began an affair with a young lady he met on a business trip when he went to Arkansas.” Pausing, he pinched the bridge of his nose. “It went on for several years. She got pregnant.”
She palmed the side of his face. “Oh, Rhys.”
“My father. The great educator, the honorable philanthropist, was a man after all.” He dropped her hand and stood, walking from one end to the other, touching the knick-knacks she had scattered around the room. “My mother still doesn’t know.”
Jade’s eyes widened, and she swallowed a gasp.
Across from her again, he placed his head in his hands. “I didn’t find out about it myself until after my father got sick. Maya was already ten or eleven by then, I think.” His gaze shot up. “He was always in her life, please understand that. He didn’t send her mother money and never spend any time with her or see her. He was actually a father to her, just like he was to me. He just kept it a secret,” he said softly.
The idea of it made her stomach knot. How could his father do that? Transfer the burden of his secret to his son? He’d made his son look at his mother every day, knowing his father had not been just unfaithful, but was a father to someone else’s child. “And you’ve kept it, haven’t you, all this time?”
“Yes. He told me about her a few months before he passed away, made me promise that I’d take care of her, spend time with her. Not as a surrogate father or anything like that, but he wanted me to be her big brother.”
A myriad of emotions crossed his face. Sadness. Grief. But she also saw relief. It wasn’t his secret alone anymore. He’d shared it with her. Jade moved to sit beside him on the ottoman.
“The first time I saw her, the first time I met her, I fell in love with her. Of course she was sad because our dad was sick, but she didn’t resent me, neither did her mother. They both accepted me into their lives, no question.” He smiled then.
“She was such a cute little kid, so open, so friendly. She already knew who I was, of course. I guess my dad had shown her pictures. She said, ‘you’re my brother,’ and I said ‘yes.’ She grinned and told me that I looked better in person than I did in my pictures and gave me a big hug. I couldn’t help but love her.”
“And you’ve been looking after her, being a big brother to her ever since.”
“Yes. We promised each other, me and her mother, that we wouldn’t tell anybody who her father was unless one of us got serious with someone or decided to get married and we’d tell each other about it before we did. And Maya understood. They both knew who my father was and didn’t want to ruin his reputation or hurt my mother.”
“So, all of you have kept this secret for almost twenty years.”
“Yes.”
Jade tried to ignore the words, serious…married, and she wouldn’t dare bring them up. She wasn’t a masochist. He was only telling her because after everything she’d been through, she deserved to know. “Thanks for telling me. I appreciate it.” She tried to make a joke of it. “I would hate to stand at the polls next year thinking that our lieutenant governor had a secret child he wasn’t telling anyone about. Now I can vote with a clear conscious.”
She rose and moved away from him. Being next to him was too much. All she wanted to do was wrap him in her arms, well her good arm around him and ask him to take her to bed, bandaged, head wound and all. “You didn’t have to tell me. So…thanks.”
She was walking toward her front door when he asked her. “What about us, Jade?”
Swiveling back around, she took him in. He looked so handsome and sexy standing in the middle of her living area. So right being there. “I don’t know what you want me to say.” Did she have the courage to tell him love swelled in her heart every time she looked at him? Did she have the courage to find out the depths of his feelings for her, if they even existed?
Jade wasn’t sure what he wanted. Did he want to continue what they were already doing? Or did he want more?
Rhys rounded the couch and stopped in front of her. He grazed a single fingertip down the side of her face. “Tell me what you want me to do Jade because I love you. I didn’t tell you about Maya simply because it wasn’t time yet. Then you got shot trying to help me. I want you to know because there shouldn’t be any secrets between us, between two people who love each other and plan to spend the rest of their lives together.” He shrugged his shoulders. “At least, that’s what I want. But I need to know what you think about all of this? Have I imagined what’s happened between us? ”
She fought against the happiness, the sheer joy of his words, against the dream she’d wanted to come true since the first moment she laid eyes on him. “We hardly know each other.”
“I know enough. Plus, I’m not saying we run off to Vegas tomorrow to get married, but I don’t want anyone else either. Ever. Just you and me.” He pulled her close, being careful of her arm and smiled. “So, Ms. Undercover Extraordinaire, will you stay under my covers with me? Forever?”
Jade didn’t know how to express what she what was happening inside her. It was hard to believe that only three months ago they were tearing each other’s clothes off in a hotel room expecting never to see each other again. Now, he was offering her the world. He was offering her forever.
With the arm that wasn’t bandaged, Jade linked her fingers with his and led him down the hallway to her bedroom. Once inside, she turned to him. “Can you help me get out these clothes?”
A teasing, sexy grin slid from the corners of his gorgeous mouth. “Sure.”
It was awkward, but he managed to help her get out of her blouse and her skirt until she stood in front of him in only her panties and bra. “It’s been a long night.”
Rhys nodded. “Yes it has.”
Jade climbed on top of her covers. “I think we should go to bed.”
“We?”
“Uh huh.”
He took off the hospital scrub shirt a nurse had given him in the hospital and his pants and joined her. “I think to really get a good night’s sleep you need to take off everything.”
Playful now, Jade touched her chin with an index finger. “Yeah? I hadn’t thought of that. I think I’m going to need some more help then.” She waved the fingers of her free hand. “I only have one good arm.”
Rhys held both of his up. “Wow. What a coincidence. I have two that are perfectly capable of giving you some assistance.”
“I knew there was a good reason I invited you in here.”
Jade lay back as Rhys took the rim of her panties and slid them over her waist, down her legs. Every ounce of desire she’d been holding burst out. Need, delicious and hot sizzled inside her. From the moment they stood facing each other at their mutual friends’ wedding, she knew now, their joining had been inevitable. Some higher power understood she and Rhys were the other half of each other’s whole.
“Gorgeous,” he said.
“Even with this patch on the side of my head and this arm brace.”
“More so.”
Rhys took a nip from the inside of her right calf muscle and slid his tongue over the knee. Desire cascaded down her like a river and took her breath. He moved up, bit into her thigh and she widened her legs, urging him toward the one spot that cried out for release.
The drugs she’d received from the hospital were starting to wear off, but the ecstasy Rhys offered was the only medicine she needed. When his lips crested between her legs, a powerful longing swept over her. From this moment on, Jade realized the one place she always wanted to be, the only place she’d ever truly belong was under the covers, with Rhys.
The End
Vindication
Coming March 2013
Warning: This book contains a submissive ready to embrace her dark side…a Dom unwilling to dominate the woman he loves…and a killer with a dangerous secret to hide.
Private Investigator Karyn Harris’ sister was killed in the line of duty and branded a rogue cop. She’s spent the last year grieving and wishing she could find the one clue that will vindicate her sister. Zechariah Washington, an ex-cop and law student, is there to help ease her pain, but he wants to be more than a shoulder to cry on. After a mid-afternoon booty call, an unexpected phone call sends Karyn and Zechariah to the last place her sister was seen alive…the BDSM club, Twine. Karyn finds out more than she bargained for about the last few months of her sister’s life and realizes the only way to find her killer is to follow in her footsteps, become a member of the club and enlists Zechariah to go under cover with her. Before too long, Karyn realizes she’s going down the same path. When the dark fantasies of floggers, spankings and collars become her own, finding her sister’s killer no longer drives her desire to return to the club again and again, but her erotic need for Zechariah’s dominance. Will she come to her senses before it’s too late or will Karyn and Zechariah fall victim to the same people who murdered her sister?
Lover’s Revenge
Beach House Nights Book #1
Available NOW
Throwing a summer party at the beach house she inherited from her grandmother is just what Dayna needs to take her mind off her two-timing ex. After his best friend arrives to check up on her she realizes her desire may have been focused on the wrong friend. When they share a late night walk on the beach, it’s clear he shares her lust. Now, Dayna is determined to take advantage of their mutual attraction. What’s a little revenge sex among friends?
EXCERPT
She crossed and then uncrossed her arms around her knees. She didn’t want to talk about him. “Why are you apologizing for something you didn’t do?”
Jared came up, picked up a rock, and tossed it into the ocean. “He was—is—my friend. What he did… You didn’t deserve that.”
Dayna stood and walked into the water, slicing her leg through the cool liquid and said, “Forget about it.”
“If I was lucky enough to have someone like you, I’d never fuc
k that up.”
That gave Dayna the opening she was looking for. She turned to face him. “And if you had me, say, for one night, what would you do with me?”
Even in the darkness, she saw his irises flair and smolder. He was up in one fluid motion and came toward her, splashing water on her legs as he did. Jared didn’t touch her, but his nearness caused heated desire to slither down her spine. “I would worship every inch of your body. When I was done, you’d know you were the only woman in my life and no other could ever take your place.”
Here goes nothing. “They why don’t you? Have me for one night.”
Jared moved closer until their toes touched in the water. The look he gave her could cause a lustful and lethal combustion. “Don’t say it if you don’t mean it.”
Dayna reached out, touched his chest, and willed the butterflies zinging around in her stomach to settle. She stroked him right above the slit before the buttons began, moving her finger in a slow, sensuous circle. What she wanted to do was tease him, tempt him, but instead she struggled for breath as her skin connected with his. Every cell in her body blistered with unbridled need. “Who says I don’t?”
He grabbed her forearms and squeezed. It didn’t hurt, but it let her know that she was playing with a fire she might not be able to put out or contain once it started. “He could come crawling back. If we do this, how will you feel when he does?”
Slowly, she began to unbutton his shirt. Eager to see him naked, her tongue snaked out over her bottom lip. “I wouldn’t take him back if he came to me crawling across a pile of diamonds and gold.”
He enclosed both of her hands in one of his and tilted her chin up with the other. “Are you sure about that?”
She moved around him to return to the blanket and glanced around. She took off her tank and removed her shorts, carrying her panties down with them. Once she stepped away, she was completely naked. “I’ve never been surer of anything in my life.”
