by Lucy Score
Xavier hung up with him and switched back to Travers on Kate’s phone. “What have you got?”
“A steaming pile of shit. That’s what I’ve got. Car’s plates are bogus. A blue 2001 Honda with a primer gray rear door was reported stolen two days ago. I’ve got some of Detective Hansen’s patrols sweeping the 405, but I can already tell you they won’t find him. Bomb disposal unit should be arriving at the Sinner estate in the next two minutes to check out whatever present this asshat left.”
“All right. Call me back when you know what it is, and I’ll send you Arnie’s number. You’re going to want to talk to him soon. He’s paparazzi.”
“Well if that just doesn’t make my day even better,” Travers grumbled.
Xavier hung up and tossed both phones onto the rolling serving tray next to the chair. “Fuck,” he muttered.
He felt the weight of two stares on him. Waverly and Kate were sitting side by side on the couch gaping at him like carnival goldfish.
“So…”
“So thanks to budget cuts, the FBI didn’t have anyone watching your house, so they weren’t there to catch Ganim dropping off a ‘present’ at the gates. Arnie, the neighborhood photog just happened to be there and gave me a call. He then proceeded to trail Ganim to his car and onto the freeway where he lost him before the FBI could even get their heads out of their asses.”
Waverly got up and walked over to the bar. She opened a decanter, dumped some scotch in a glass, and brought it over to him.
“Thank you.” But he didn’t drink yet. He put the glass on the tray next to the phones.
“When you say a ‘present,’ do you mean another explosive device?” Waverly asked, chewing on her lip. “My father might be home or some of the staff might be there.”
Xavier shook his head. “Your dad is out of town, wrapping up a shoot. He gave the staff the week off. Micah’s had some of our personnel do drive-bys and random property checks a couple times a day.”
His phone rang again.
“Saint.”
“If this is this guy’s idea of a present, I’m glad he’s not my Secret Santa.”
“What is it?”
“Let’s just say we now have conclusive evidence that Tiffani Plotts and Daisy Louchner are no longer among the living. It was a box of pictures with a note.”
Xavier shoved a hand through his hair. “What’s it say?”
“This is what happens when women disrespect their men.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
They hit five more cities in ten days. Liam and his wife peeled off on their own to double the international coverage, and at every stop, the fans and the enthusiasm about the film were even better than the last. It was exhausting with long hours and non-stop travel, but it was clear that they had a massive hit on their hands, and the studio was bending over backwards to make the trip tolerable.
Waverly’s entourage now included an additional three studio PR executives whose job it was to tweak the publicity of the film to match the local culture. Every stop had slightly different talking points and a different film trailer. Xavier managed the local security teams for the duration of each stop and kept up with the investigation at home. The FBI had found the stolen car Ganim used abandoned in a shopping center parking lot, but he was still sending messages to her Facebook page and Travers was confident they would be able to pull some information out of him soon.
Xavier was tireless, Waverly thought. Up every day before her, he remained by her side throughout the day. And at night, when Waverly’s obligations were finally finished, and Kate had conspicuously wandered off to give them privacy, he took her upstairs where they tormented and pleasured each other until late into the night. They made love in cities around the world, carving out a corner just for themselves where nothing else mattered.
They both played a part during the day, trying not to stand too close or stare too long. But at night, they were free to explore each other. Every evening, the elevator ride in whatever hotel in whatever city was charged with anticipation.
They didn’t touch inside the elevator. Instead, they stood side-by-side watching the floors tick up. And when the doors finally slid open, Xavier would guide her to the room with a hand on the small of her back. By the time the suite door was closed and locked behind them, she was trembling with need.
He knew her body better than she did. And no matter how slowly or sweetly they began, it always ended in a fiery race to a finish that decimated them both.
Tonight had been no different. As Waverly lay in his arms with Rome twinkling outside the window, she thought about tomorrow. Tomorrow they went home. Tomorrow everything would change. But at least they had tonight.
She stretched languidly on the rumpled sheets.
“Mmm. I feel like I just did an hour of hot yoga,” she murmured.
“I think it was an hour of orgasms followed by a spontaneous nap,” Xavier said, dragging her on top of him. He kissed the tips of her fingers one at a time.
“And to think I’ve been doing yoga wrong all this time.” She traced her fingers over his bare chest in a gentle, swirling pattern. “I can’t believe we go home tomorrow.”
“You don’t sound happy, Angel.” Xavier twirled a silky strand of her hair around his finger.
She’d spent every night in his bed, wrapped in his arms. But she only felt that they were close enough when he was inside her, driving her up. Nothing else was close enough. She felt safe with him—and not just from Ganim. For the first time in her life, she felt like she could put her faith in a man who wouldn’t be tempted to betray her. That, in itself, was terrifying because there were no guarantees.
“Just dreading the return to ‘normal.’” She picked her head up to look at him. “How strange is it that I consider having a stalker who plans to kill me and dealing with my mother in rehab as normal?”
He gave her one of those slow, belly-flopping smiles of amusement. “What do you wish your normal looked like?”
“I couldn’t even begin to imagine,” she sighed. But she could. A scrap of her still clung to the hope that Ganim would be behind bars before the end of the summer leaving her free to attend Stanford. A new path with new opportunities. But the likelihood of that dream coming true was even slimmer than the possibility that her mother’s stay in rehab would stick this time.
“Maybe I can help you with normal…at least for tonight,” he told her.
“I’d like to see that,” Waverly said, arching an eyebrow.
He slapped her bare buttocks. “We’ll start with dinner. Go get dressed.”
“Xavier, it’s after ten. That’s late even for Rome.”
“Trust me, Angel. Have I ever led you astray?”
“I’m sprawled naked across your spectacular body. If that isn’t astray, I don’t know what is.”
He dumped her on her side on the mattress. “Prepare to be amazed and well fed.”
She took a moment and watched him pad naked into the walk-in closet. There wasn’t a city in the world better equipped to worship the flesh of a man like Xavier Saint. Every statue here looked as if it had been carved in his honor.
He came back out and tossed a long skirt and a soft black t-shirt at her.
“Why do you have my clothes in your closet?” she asked rising to her knees on the bed.
He gave her a wolfish look. “You seem to lose a lot of your clothes in my room. I have more of your clothes than my own in my luggage.”
She dressed quickly, looking forward to a meal that wasn’t room service, and hurried back to Xavier. He’d pulled on a pair of jeans and left his white button down untucked. He looked her up and down and gave a mock frown.
“What?” Waverly looked down at her clothes.
“You’re missing something,” he said with a wink and plopped an Invictus ball cap on her head. “Now you’re incognito.”
They snuck out the hotel’s side entrance and avoided the lobby altoge
ther. On the street, Xavier took Waverly’s hand in his and led her west. They walked along like just any other happy couple enjoying the warm summer night.
He tugged her to a stop just a few blocks from the hotel. Neon signs blinked “gelati” and “pizza” in the arched front windows of the old building. A scattering of tables and chairs flanked the front facade. Only a few of them were occupied by raucous Italians enjoying the night.
No one paid them the slightest bit of attention as Xavier led the way inside. The shop was long and skinny with most of the space dedicated to a brick pizza oven and mile-long case of gelato flavors. They ordered at the counter by choosing slices of pizza from the display case. She went for the margherita while Xavier ordered the diavola. They grabbed drinks from the greasy cooler and settled into the back corner of the shop.
The wobbly table was covered in a well-worn burgundy cloth that didn’t match the wooden chairs with red vinyl seat cushions. The air was thick with garlic and warm from the oven.
He was watching her with an amused smile. “When’s the last time you went out for pizza?” he asked.
Waverly leaned forward and took a big gulp of her soda. “I can’t remember. I don’t know if I ever have,” she confessed. “My parents always had a chef, and if we were going out, it was to a cocktail party or Nobu to be seen.”
“You poor deprived child,” Xavier teased, taking her hand in his.
“I feel like this is a date,” she told him, looking at their linked hands.
“When’s the last time you went out on one of those?” he asked.
She thought back. “Probably three or four months ago. He was a baseball player, and his agent called mine. His contract was up for negotiation at the time. He picked me up in a McLaren, and we went to Spago.”
Xavier stared at her for a beat.
A waitress in a flour coated black polo and green apron dumped steaming pizza on paper plates in front of them and bustled off.
“I’m afraid to ask how it went,” Xavier said dryly.
“His contract was successfully renegotiated, and he didn’t make it past my front door,” Waverly said, picking up a slice from her plate. “How about you?”
“Two months ago… maybe three. An attorney I met at a conference. She called me at the office when she was back in town and asked me to dinner.”
“You didn’t fall in love over candlelight?” Waverly asked.
“She told me the never-ending saga of her last divorce over mediocre Italian. I gave her some solid advice that she didn’t like, and we didn’t even order coffee.”
“I’m not sure which of our stories is sadder,” she commented.
“Mine didn’t involve a McLaren.”
“You’re right. Yours was sadder.”
They ate and laughed until the kitchen closed and the waitress booted them out. They took gelati to go, and tucked under Xavier’s protective arm, Waverly enjoyed the late night quiet of Rome.
They wandered a circuitous route heading back in the direction of the hotel with neither of them in a hurry to arrive. The cobblestones beneath their feet were worn by centuries of feet. Here, ancient buildings were glued together on narrow laneways, rolling uphill and down. Bouquets of flowers spilled over window boxes on every floor. Most windows were dark now in this neighborhood. It felt like they had the world to themselves.
Waverly knew what neither of them was willing to say. This relationship that had bloomed between them was possible only because of the bubble they were enjoying. Temporarily safe from Ganim, on the other side of the world from her parents, and not chained to a movie set, Waverly and Xavier could just be. It was easy to fool a handful of studio execs who were more concerned about profits than personal relationships. But once at home, there would be others to consider and consequences to weigh.
This night might be the last one they could share.
He brought her to a halt and brought his finger to his lips. With a furtive glance around them, Xavier reached into a window box and nipped a freesia bloom from its stem. He tucked it into Waverly’s hair behind her ear.
Charmed, she wrapped her arms around his waist and smiled up at him. There was a look in his eyes, a softening, a warmth. He ran a thumb over her lower lip, then skimmed his hands through her hair. And when his mouth lowered to hers, it was magic. Softly, softly his lips moved over her, teasing her until she opened for him. His tongue swept in to claim new territory, mating with hers in the kind of gentle possession she’d never before known from him.
He kissed her under the inky night sky until she forgot everything. Nothing else existed beyond this postage stamp of cobblestones. Just Xavier offering her the gift of one more magical night.
As gentle as he was being, she still felt fierce need ripple through him. He was hard against her. She felt him straining against the denim and it made her ache. She broke free of the kiss, and when he moved to pull her back, Waverly shook her head.
She took his hand and pulled him into the skinny, arched alleyway carved out between two buildings. Three feet into it, the light from the street disappeared leaving them completely isolated in the dark.
When her fingers moved to the fly of his jeans, Xavier stiffened.
“Waverly, what are you doing?” his voice carried a warning.
She brought her mouth to his as she lowered the zipper. “What I want on our last night here,” she whispered.
She felt his glorious abs tense when her fingers slipped inside, heard his intake of breath when they closed around him. Carefully, Waverly freed him from his jeans, and he fell heavily into her waiting palm. She realized she’d never seen him not hard. Their physical reaction to each other was so visceral and, it seemed, never-ending. Just as her desire to do this.
She sank down to kneel on the stone path in front of him.
“Angel.” Any further words died on his lips when her tongue darted out to steal a taste of him.
He sucked in a sharp breath, and she felt the tension radiate off of him. She was going to take Xavier Saint’s formidable control and shred it. Waverly gripped his shaft by the root and without preamble slid her mouth over the blunt head. His gasp turned to a groan of agony when he hit the back of her throat.
Waverly moaned, and the vibration of it had him fisting his hands in her hair. She drew back, stroking with one hand while her other palmed his balls, tugging and rolling.
Again, she slicked her mouth over him, and this time, his hips met her with a shallow thrust. His hands weren’t gentle in her hair, and she matched his violence with her mouth. She slicked her tongue over him and dragged lightly with her teeth. The growl that escaped him was no longer human.
Again and again, Waverly took his steely length to the back of her throat, pumping him from root to tip with her hand. She could taste him, that salty sample of what was to come, and she moaned again. He was moving for her now, and he swelled, growing impossibly thicker when she sucked at him gently.
“God, yes, Angel. Just like that.” His murmured words were labored, desperate, and nothing in her life had ever been such a turn on to Waverly.
She gripped him hard, stroked faster, and was rewarded with the low animal sound from deep within his chest.
“Angel, you’re making me—”
She didn’t even have time to prepare because he was coming with a violence that had his thighs trembling against her. She swallowed desperately over and over again, wanting to destroy him the way he so often destroyed her. Xavier was out of his mind with pleasure as he worked his cock in and out of her willing mouth. He didn’t start breathing until she milked the last drops of his release from him. Then his breath came in shuddering groans.
His knees buckled, but he caught himself before dragging her to her feet. He rested his forehead on hers and struggled to get his breath back. Even spent, his penis remained hard against her belly.
“Jesus, Waverly. What did you do to me?”
“Destroyed y
ou. Just a little bit. I wanted to make sure you knew what it felt like.”
“Angel, you destroy me every time. Don’t ever think that you don’t.”
He let his hands roam over her back and sides, and she felt him twitch against her.
“You can’t be serious, X. You can’t have anything left after that,” she said in wonder.
“I’m never done with you, Angel. Remember that.” And on that threat, his hand found its way under her skirt. When he found her bare, she heard the rumble of approval from deep in his chest. “I’ll always want you again, Waverly. Always.” His fingers dipped into the slick folds, and it was her turn to sag against the wall. He worked them in and out, gently at first and then building up to speed. He was driving her insane with need.
“Are you ready for me, baby?”
“God, yes, X. Please,” she begged. Then he was lifting her in his arms and when he pressed her against the wall and entered her on one swift thrust, she was his.
There was no time or need for finesse. They were two joined as one racing to the finish. Racing to salvation. And as the stone bit into her back, and Xavier filled her from the front, Waverly felt a door in her fly open.
He gripped her hips and squeezed. With just the slightest shift in angle, she was coming on him, around him, over him. The orgasm raced up and detonated inside her. He covered her mouth with his, swallowing her screams, and on the next thrust, poured himself into her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Their international honeymoon ended somewhere over Colorado.
“So what’s new?” Waverly asked lazily as she flipped through the pages of a glossy magazine.
The drone of the plane’s engines exacerbated the extended silence. She looked up and found Xavier staring at her over his laptop. His expression was unreadable. He’d been in a crappy mood the entire flight, spending most of it on his laptop or muttering into a phone. The closer they got to home, the stronger Waverly’s sense of impending doom.
Even though her return was cloaked in secrecy, she felt like she was flying back into a trap. The studio was throwing a splashy party for the cast and crew tonight on the strip in L.A.: a kind of “thanks for making us a ton of money” thing to make up for the premiere and after party that hadn’t happened. Waverly’s presence had been very firmly required by the higher ups.
