Stranger

by Robin Lovett

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t lie to me.”

  “I never lied to you!”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He snarls. “Because there was nothing to tell.”

  “You’re hiding something.”

  His hands bunch into fists, but he refuses to answer.

  Penny, in her upset, doesn’t realize how volatile he is. Afraid he might grab her again like last weekend, I shove between them. “That’s enough. We’re going.”

  Blake points at me with daggers in his eyes. “You! This is your fault.”

  I back Penny toward the exit. “Your father did that by himself. I had nothing to do with it.”

  “Everything was fine until you came. You fucked it all up!”

  “No!” Penny screams and pushes me out of the way. “He’s making it right. What’s been fucked up for years is finally getting fixed because of him. You could’ve done that and you chose not to!”

  The growl in his throat makes me tug at Penny. “We need to go.”

  She shakes me off and shouts at her brother. “You did nothing! You knew what a horrible man he was and did NOTHING!”

  “I did EVERYTHING!” He shouts at the top of his lungs, his face and arms contracting in rage.

  I grab Penny around the waist and pull her out of Blake’s way. “Penny, you can talk to him another time about this. Somewhere not in public. Sometime when he’s not so angry.”

  Blake covers his face and growls through his fingers, “He’s right. Go.”

  Penny stops and stares at him—his shaking hands. He turns away so we can’t see his face and lets out a yell that is so full of anguish, even I feel bad for the guy. I’m consumed with questions. What happened to him?

  She takes a step toward him, but I pull her back. “Tomorrow,” I say. “He needs space right now.”

  Layla nods. “You should go.”

  Penny reluctantly lets me guide her out the door to the car. The valet brings her Lexus around, and she holds her emotions together until we’re inside.

  Then she grits her teeth and screams. “Why? How could he keep it a secret from me?”

  I’m dumfounded I missed it too. Of course her mother was a victim. “It makes sense. We just didn’t see it.”

  She screams again in frustration and repeats to herself, “I will not cry. I will not cry. I have to do something!”

  “Yes.” She could be in a puddle of tears right now. A week ago she would’ve been. Instead, she’s fueling herself for action.

  “How do I make this right?”

  “You’ll find a way.” And so will I—for her. I drive faster, speeding for home.

  “I have to. This can’t go on. I have to fix this. How could he keep this from me?”

  “He should’ve told you.”

  “Do you think . . .” She covers her face. “My God. He was only six years old when she died.” Which means . . . Her breath stops and so does mine.

  He was less than six while his father was hurting his mother, and somehow he knew about it.

  My stomach twists itself in knots. Hearing that Penny’s mom was a victim too—it’s like learning the truth about my sister all over again. I shake the thoughts from my head and drive faster. If she won’t give in to being upset, neither will I.

  Inside the condo, she places her purse on the table and turns to me. “I know what I want to do. At least right now.” The slope of her shoulder, the curve of her hip, the line of her legs—the desire in her eyes.

  “What do you want?” I know. But I want her to say it. She needs to say it.

  She steps toward me. “It doesn’t make it right, but it makes it better for me.”

  “It’s the same. If it makes it better for you, then it is right.”

  She reaches for my cheek, her finger grazing my jaw. “Thank you.” Her eyes, those depthless blue pools had scared me. I didn’t want to see myself, I didn’t want to lose myself. But it’s changed.

  Somehow I’m less afraid. “Thank you for what?”

  “For the truth. You didn’t have to give it to me. But you did.”

  I swallow, unable to hide how it eases my guilt to hear it. “I didn’t want to. I wish I could’ve kept it from you.”

  “But I needed to know.”

  “You needed to know.”

  I stroke her cheek. “Your brother should’ve told you.” Her eyes glaze, and she struggles to keep eye contact with me. “You deserve the truth.”

  Her tears brim and drip onto her cheeks.

  I kiss the little drops. “Cry into me. Give me your sadness. Let me help you.” The way I’ve always wanted to help and be helped.

  She pulls my head down, and her sweet lips pour grief and gratitude into my mouth. It feels too good not to accept. My life has been one of fighting, for my sister’s life, for the right to tell her story. And this woman kissing me—she’s allowed me to tell it.

  And she’s thanking me for it.

  Her mouth is a haven, a safe place for me. I want to be the same for her.

  I lift her. Her head level with mine, I nuzzle into her mouth and massage her lips with all the softness and gentleness that I feel in her and that I want to be.

  The softness that is her—that before I wanted to wreck—now I see I was afraid of it. Afraid of how much I wanted to lose myself in it.

  The need is there, the need to seize control of her, to use her, to tease her until she begs for me to let her come.

  But I ignore it this time.

  I want to savor her. To soak in what she’s giving me, and give to her everything she begs for, before she even begs.

  I ease her legs around my hips.

  “My room, this time,” she says against my mouth.

  “Yes.”

  Chapter Thirty

  He sets me down long enough to undress me, and for me to undress him. Then he lays me on the bed and settles on top of me.

  I wrap him with my arms and legs as tight as my muscles can squeeze. He buries his face in my neck and breathes against my skin. His weight is a euphoric thing he hasn’t given me—until now.

  I think to ask for more, but he lifts up on his forearms and moves his lips over my face. He graces my eyes, my nose, my chin, with caresses so gentle, I don’t understand who he is. How can this be the same man?

  If I had wits left, I would weep for bliss, but all I do is feel him. He glides hungry hands down my body, and his mouth follows, licking my shoulder, lingering on my breasts, sucking my nipples.

  He doesn’t ask me questions. He doesn’t taunt me or make deals with me about how many times he’ll let me come. His mouth is too busy to speak, his hands too generous to negotiate. His fingers seek between my thighs and find me lush and ready for him.

  His cock lies hot and hard on my belly, and with both of us ready, I expect him to bury himself inside me. Instead, his head descends between my legs.

  His tongue laves over me, stroking and probing. I should stop him, beg him to not let me come yet, beg him to let me come with him inside me. But it’s too good. I can’t stop him.

  I come, clawing at my sheets, pumping into his mouth.

  He leaves me, and fearing he won’t come back, I reach for him. But he’s reaching for a condom in my drawer. He stands naked, his cock fully erect, and rolls the latex down the length of him.

  I open my legs for him. He hovers over me and watches himself slip into me.

  It’s slow, agonizing. I wait for the thrust, for the pounding, for his urgency, but he withholds it. His mouth pinches with restraint. His hips meet mine, filling me. His eyes fall closed, and his groan matches mine.

  He grinds into me and rests on top of me again. With him inside me, unmoving, it satisfies a longing to be filled, but awakens a deeper need, one I feel into my bones, into my blood. And it’s not just the need to come. It’s more.

  His eyes meet mine, and I see it there too. The same awakening. The same denied craving that’s
beyond physical. It’s an opening in my heart, an opening in the core of me that so often I ignore.

  Words try to form in his mouth. “I . . . I feel . . .” But the struggle in his eyes remains unexpressed. His hips instinctively rock against me. Desperation shines in his eyes, his fight to express the inexpressible.

  I mold my hips to his and kiss him.

  He drops his forehead to mine and moves.

  First in long, languid pulls, then his discipline breaks and he speeds.

  To my delight, he reaches between us and with his thumb, massages my clit. Pleasure shoots straight up my spine and with him thrusting into me, rubbing against me, I come, my mind splitting into pieces.

  I return to myself, to him pounding into me, to sounds growling from his chest. He gasps and climaxes, his hips jerking against me in orgasmic bursts.

  He collapses on me and lets me hold him, breathing heavily and in sync with me. His chest rising and falling as one with mine, connected to me.

  I don’t know when it happened, and I don’t know how it happened but I think, he might, that possibly . . .

  He’s in love with me.

  Almost as much as I might be in love him.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  My hand wrapping Penny’s hip, my ear pressed to her belly, I wake to a grumbling sound.

  I realize what woke me: her stomach.

  Penny didn’t eat last night. We left the benefit before she got dinner.

  The morning sun peeking through her windows, I pull the sheet over her, covering her too-perfect skin. She sleeps with her mouth open and an arm blocking her eyes from the light.

  Something locks into place inside me, a merging, a cinching, a fitting of a final puzzle piece.

  I want to keep her.

  I think I made love to her last night.

  I think I really felt her, maybe felt what it was like to love something. Someone.

  A warning goes off in my head. The same one I always get whenever I get close to someone who I will inevitably lose. And I will lose her. The same thing that’s connecting us, this fucked up business with our families, will be the thing that separates us.

  The kinds of people at her party last night made it clear: I don’t belong with her, and she doesn’t belong with me.

  But I still have a threat to make good—I still need money.

  How shallow and simple that seems now. Not that I ever cared much about the money anyway. I’m not sorry about giving her the truth, but I am sorry there wasn’t a better way to give it, without manipulating her. Though I’m not certain with any less drastic way she would have believed me.

  If there was a way this could’ve gone where I didn’t lose her at the end, I don’t see it.

  At least I still get to make her breakfast.

  I get the coffee brewing and the oatmeal heating, then there’s a knock at the front door. It’s way too early on a Sunday for anyone to be awake, so I do the normal thing and ignore it.

  Except it doesn’t stop. It graduates to a pounding fist, then a two fisted bang, then a feminine shout, “Penny, you have to let me in! This is important.”

  Christ, Layla. I stomp to the door and throw it open. “Quiet!”

  She takes a deep breath. “Where’s Penny? I have to talk to her.”

  “She’s sleeping. I’ll have her call you.”

  “No.” She pokes a finger at my chest. “You let me in now. This involves you as much as it does her.”

  I shake my head, determined not to let this person ruin the good thing Penny and I have. “I don’t think so.”

  “Blake is coming after you.”

  “What?”

  “This is serious. Not by himself either. You need to let me in.”

  I groan and step back from the door.

  She charges past me. “Penny! Wake up.”

  This is not how I wanted this morning to go. I didn’t want it to be over this soon. I don’t want it to be over ever. But somehow, like every other aspect of my life, I don’t think I’ll have any choice.

  * * *

  I’m startled awake by, “Penny, you have to get up,” and Layla running into my bedroom.

  I sit up in bed and scrub sleep from my eyes, unable to fight the lethargy that’s seeped into my marrow. The lethargy that only comes from feeling well-loved. Not that I’ve felt it before. It’s a new sensation to me, but I know what it is.

  “You need clothes.” She turns her back to me and goes into my closet.

  Too slowly, I tuck the sheet around my bare chest. It’s nothing Layla hasn’t seen before. We were roommates for years, but still, awkward. “What are you doing here?”

  “Put this on.” She throws clothes at me. “You have a serious problem.”

  I can’t fathom that. The satisfaction breathing through every cell in my body contradicts it. Surely, nothing can be wrong in the world if I feel this way. “Besides the fact that you barged screaming into my house on a Sunday morning? How did you get past Logan?”

  He leans in the door frame and watches me put on clothes. “She said Blake’s coming.” I watch him watching me with the same fullness in his eyes that I feel in my chest. I want to be alone with him more than I’ve ever wanted anything.

  “Did you ask him?” Layla says to me.

  “Ask who what?” I’m dizzy, stumbling into shorts and twisting a tank top over my head.

  “Ask Logan if he’s keeping something from you.”

  It takes my blurry mind a moment to remember what she’s talking about. But what registers first—Logan stiffening in the doorway.

  I blink, fast. “I need coffee.”

  “It’s brewing,” he says, and I follow him to the kitchen.

  Layla breathes down my neck. “Blake’s going to be here any minute with . . .”

  Logan hands me a cup of coffee, and I stop. “With who?”

  She bites her lip and looks nervously out the window. “I came to warn you.” She looks at Logan. “To see if there’s any truth to this.”

  “I’ve always told the truth,” he says.

  “Oh, really?” Layla crosses her arms.

  A vicious knock pounds at the door. “Open up, Penny!” It’s Blake.

  Logan moves to get the door. I hold out a hand to stop him. “I’ll get it.”

  From the front window, Blake’s glare is less angry than he’s been in a week and more . . . triumphant. There’s a bitterness in his expression that’s not unlike what I’ve seen on Logan when he’s focused on revenge.

  My hand shakes on the doorknob, and I open it. Two police officers stand in front of my brother. “What’s going on?”

  “We’re here to speak with a Logan Kane,” one officer says.

  It takes two tries for my voice to work. “W-why?”

  Blake looks past me. “Is he here?” He spots Logan and the look in his eyes—pure vengeance.

  Nothing about this can be good.

  They follow me into the condo.

  Logan stands stiffer than I’ve ever seen him. He has no trust for law enforcement. They let his sister down too many times. All the softness in him from last night, the relaxing of his shoulders, disappears. He transforms back into the fearless, intimidating man he was the day I met him.

  I don’t have the courage to ask questions. My tongue fists in my throat, and I can’t manage a breath.

  Layla glances from me to Logan, agitation shifting her feet. She comes to my side and puts a comforting hand on my shoulder. I wish I could ask what’s going on, but I’m afraid to find out.

  “What’s this about?” Logan asks in a low tone, his gaze a stern broadcast of don’t-mess-with-me.

  One of the officers steps toward him. “Are you Logan Kane?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’d like to ask you some questions.”

  Logan grits his teeth. “What about?”

  “Regarding the death of Malcolm Vandershall.”

  “What?” I blurt. “That makes no sense.”

  B
ut Logan doesn’t protest. I expect to see shock, outrage on his face. It’s the opposite. He nods, like he understands, like it’s expected. “Not here,” he whispers to them.

  “Would you like to come down to the station?” one officer says.

  “I need a lawyer.” Logan points to Blake. “He doesn’t count.”

  “We’ll supply you with counsel, Mr. Kane.” The officer moves aside to let Logan out the door.

  I grab his hand as he passes. “What’s going on?”

  He pauses and glances at Layla.

  She crosses her arms. “If you don’t tell her, I will.”

  Logan sighs and squeezes my hand. “I worked at the hospital where your father died. I was on the shift that night.”

  “You were?” The words hardly leave my throat, the air sticks in my lungs.

  “And you quit the day after,” Blake gloats from behind him.

  Logan’s face is sincere, not aggressive but not guilty either.

  I can’t say it louder. “What does that have to do with it?” A panic builds in me. I don’t want them to say what I think they’re going to say.

  “His hospital equipment was tampered with,” Blake says. “Logan murdered him.”

  An officer corrects him. “We’re here to question Mr. Kane, not accuse him.”

  I can’t see. My vision clouds and my hearing muffles. I try to focus on Logan’s face, to keep it clear. “Is it true? Did you . . .” I swallow my own words.

  He closes his eyes and looks away, “I have to go,” then he follows the officers out the door.

  The door closes behind him and I want to chase him, to scream at him to come back. Except my legs don’t move, and my voice won’t work.

  Blake lingers, unable to hide a victorious smirk. “I’ve gotten rid of him for you. You never have to see him again.”

  Before I can think better, I pull back my hand and slap him across the cheek so hard my palm stings. “Fuck you, asshole. Get away from me.”

  His eyes bulge and he inhales to yell at me, but Layla shouts over him, “Blake, leave!” He hesitates and she cries again, “Now!” He listens and with a growl, storms out the door, slamming it behind him.

  My knees go weak and I have to sit down.

  “Over here.” Layla urges me backward to the couch.