by Nicole Snow
Sighing, he nods. “I'll tape it to my chest before he knocks my teeth out. Don't get me wrong, babe. I'm confident I can take on any man, but I've got no desire to talk to your crazy Marine brother using fists again. Congratulations – you've talked me into the impossible.”
“I'll call him as soon as we're on the tarmac back home tomorrow, then.” I'm holding him to it. I won't let up for a single second because I can't stand the thought of losing him again, especially if Matt or mom try to turn him in before hearing us out.
“Yeah, and I'll put my statement out to corporate, soon as it hits the sheriff's office. Everyone in Seattle, Split Harbor, and Marquette is going to want to know why the hell Tanner is suddenly Ryan.”
“Won't it feel good to be who you are?” I run my nails against the nape of his neck, loving how his muscles bristle under my fingertips.
“Not half as good as this.”
The instant his lips touch mine, I know he's right.
This is explosive. Outrageous. Divine.
When we're alive and electric and touching like this, I don't care what he calls himself. I've known this man by his heart, deeper and truer than any name.
Each flick of his tongue against mine comes like fire, honest and enticing, leaving every nerve in my body begging for more. When I move in to get it, trying to press my mouth against his firm jaw line, he lifts me away, beaming his gaze into mine.
“You've made me happier than I've got any business being,” he says, pressing his forehead down on mine. Icy excitement runs up my spine, and it's got nothing to do with the cool night breeze lashing us from the east. “I'm still going to ask you two things.”
“Yeah?” I whisper, trembling in his arms. Whatever it is, it's going to be enormous.
Despite my expectations, I'm not prepared for the shock when he reaches into his pocket, plucks something out, and sinks to his knees. He takes one hand in both of his. It's a serious grip, almost painful in its intensity.
“Kara, we're going home tomorrow,” he says, lifting one leg so he's crouching. “We're clearing up the shit I did, setting the record straight, and then I never want to think about it again. I don't want to dream about the five years we lost, or wonder how much worse it could've been if I'd come back too soon, too late, or not at all. I want to live every day with you by my side, babe. I need you living, breathing, and loving by mine. All those years ago, I gave you a cheap ring, one it took me two months to save. This one's got a price tag a whole lot higher, but it's the heartbreak and sweat that's the real reason it's expensive. I meant to hold out for this, love, just a little while longer. But hell, deep down...I'd be a fool to wait another day.”
The tiny purple box in his hand springs open. My jaw nearly hits the floor. I'm frozen in place, staring at a ring studded with so many rocks it's probably worth more than a small nation.
“Ryan...”
“Marry me, Kara. Marry me again. Truth is, I'm impatient. Can't stand holding your hand around town, or feeling it running down my back when it's bare. Empty. I need to feel this ring where it belongs. Need you loving it, loving me, wearing the finest mark I can put on you forever.”
I'm too numb to speak. I just fall down with him, so much like the first time he ever asked, crashing into his arms. We're laughing, rolling on the floor of the Space Needle's observation deck, wind rushing through our hair.
He takes me in his arms, rolling me over, pressing his mouth down on mine while his hand pushes the ring into my palm. My fingers close around it, trying to bend around his. In just a few seconds, the gold warms on my skin, and I know this is right.
Call the timing insane. But it couldn't be clearer.
He alternates between my mouth and kissing away the hot, chaotic tears rolling down my cheeks. Ryan's weight presses down, down, his hand brushing up beneath my dress. He groans when his fingers find the spot, feeling how wet I am.
“I need to be in you, wife,” he rumbles.
Wife?
God, yes.
“Right here. Right now. That's the second thing I had to tell you tonight.” His voice drops an octave, so low it reverberates in my bones. Adding new warmth, an electric energy sweeps through me as surely as it does when his bulge presses on my swollen center through our clothes.
I don't resist when his hands start pulling down my dress. It's gone a few seconds later, and my panties zip down my legs, disappearing in the mess next to us.
His fingers brush my clit, and I'm panting.
Lust hits so fast and hard I barely recognize the sound of his belt coming undone, the shuffle of his trousers coming down to expose his pierced, perfect cock.
Cool air drifts around us. I sit up and grab his length, bending down so I can take him in my mouth.
“Yeah, baby. Sweet fuck.” He inhales roughly, making me smile when I push my tongue beneath his pulsing tip. “There. Right there.”
The soft, warm underside of his cock becomes my target. Pressing my tongue into him, my fist pumps its rhythm, loving the heat in his heavy balls every time they pucker.
He grunts again, drawing another tense breath when he notices my fist. His hand reaches out, wraps around mine, and I suck him harder. He sees the new ring.
“You're wearing it now?” Lust and amusement make his eyes glow. “Fuck, babe, I think you've just shown me the prettiest sight in the world.”
I'm smiling inwardly while I'm sucking him. My tongue rolls deep, lips tightening each time I take his length up and down, desperate to make him explode down my throat.
Of course, he's right. I can't imagine anything that gets me hotter than knowing how much he's enjoying my hand on his cock, the brand new gold and diamonds looped around my finger.
His cock brushes my tongue again and again, growing hotter and harder all the time. Growling, his fingers mesh through my hair, shielding them from the wind, adding new heat when he pulls it taut.
“Love you, Kara-bou. So fucking much.”
So fucking much. The sweet phrase echoes in my head, heartwarming as it is naughty thanks to the tension in his voice. Not to mention how he bucks up a second later, filling my mouth with as much as I can take, groaning like he's coming undone.
Swelling, overloaded, and lost somewhere between love and lust, he's coming.
His hot, thick essence erupts a second later.
The man I love thrashes, grunts, and spills his seed in my mouth faster than I can swallow it. I take everything I can. The next sixty seconds are more than just a blowjob ending.
I'm worshiping my future husband, the man I was always meant to marry, who's lifted me up over and over again. There's forgiveness and hope, disguised in sweltering heat.
His come is running out the corner of my lips when his fist in my hair softens, turning to loving strokes instead. I'm going to be a mess by the time we get out of here.
My stomach growls, reminding me there's more than desire begging to be satisfied. I guess we're ordering in tonight after this.
I don't care. Nothing else matters except how he holds my face, brushes away the trickle I couldn't swallow with his thumb, and then comes in for a kiss.
His other hand finds mine, takes it, and squeezes the ring he's been dying to put there. We kiss for what seems like forever, until he breaks off, staring at me with fresh hunger in his eyes.
“Stand up, and bend the fuck over,” he says, guiding me as he brings me to the railing, lifting my hips. “There's more than half a million people down there, going about their lives. Any one of them might look up, spot us moving in the dim light, and wonder. I want them all to know we're in love, babe. They're going to see how you twitch, flail, and scream when my balls hit your clit.”
“Oh, God. Ryan...”
Everything he's suggesting makes me wetter than before, even if my mind is screaming every insecurity I've ever had about sex and good manners.
They're silenced the second he pushes into me from behind. His cock sinks in, drives deep, and anchors with my ass
against his warm, hard body.
His heavy breath falls against my ear before he speaks. “First time we're fucking in front of an entire city. Take a good, long look out there when I'm owning every inch of your sweet pussy, love.”
I obey, his willing slave as his hands grip my ass, and his cock starts slamming into me.
Several thrusts in, I forget all about the people down below. It's an incredible sight, the vast cityscape blurring before my eyes, melding with the rush, the heat, the ecstasy.
His teeth graze my neck, sink down to my shoulder, and take hold. It causes me to straighten, an angle which takes him deeper. Each thrust slaps my body again and again, pushing me a little closer to bliss.
Ryan's hand takes my breast, finds my nipple underneath my blouse, and squeezes it hard. I'm going over his cock again and again, taking him, losing my mind when that bead planted in his tip rubs the right places.
I won't last long.
I can't.
Fireworks explode in my brain when I go over. He fucks me harder when he feels my pussy clenching, and then he's grunting in tune to my moans, swelling and spilling his come.
We go off together, two shadows moving in the night. Our love, our sex, stands against the blackness, the cold, and every inhibition.
There could be dozens of eyes on us now, maybe someone with a telescope who can see everything, and it doesn't fucking matter.
Nothing else does in this moment except having him fused to me, emptying his fire, pinching the finger with his ring a little harder each time his hips crash against mine.
I come down from the insane high shaking. He turns me around, drags my hands around him, and makes me open my eyes with another kiss.
“We're picking this up at my place,” he says, running the stubble on his cheek against my skin. “Then we're crashing until morning. Come light, we're heading home, handling everything we need to, and finding a place to settle down. Soon as my name's cleared, I want our wedding date in all the local papers.”
No words can adequately tell him how bad I want everything he's promised.
So, I just press my mouth on his instead, huddling against him for warmth, hating that I have to get dressed before he rips my clothes off all over again.
Another magic night passes. We end our time in Seattle with sex, sleep, and coffee, watching the sunrise peek through thick clouds threatening rain.
It's been a marvelous time, but I'm ready to go home. Ready to get back to my business, fix everything that's kept us apart, and start planning a future with the man I love.
We're both tired from last night. Huddling underneath a blanket, we doze on the jet ride, sleeping through most of the three and a half hour trip to Michigan. When I open my eyes, he's got his face propped up with one hand, looking at me through the golden haze coming through the windows.
“Perfect timing, beautiful. We're about to touch down.”
Sitting up, I rub my eyes, falling back into him a moment later. Tucking my face into his shoulder, his arm goes around me, and I wish I could stay here forever.
It's him I breathe, inhaling his calming, masculine scent.
He holds me tighter. It's hard to believe we're together again.
I can't believe he held on after all these years. His heart stayed true, even when I gave up, tried like hell to move on with my life because I believed the worst about him.
Next time I open my eyes, the plane is almost on the runway. I'm clenching his hand, staring intently into the eyes I love, the ones that strip me bare to my heart over and over.
“I'm sorry I ever doubted you,” I whisper. “The first night you came to me, when I was at home with Holden, I almost turned you in.”
“I don't want apologies, Kara-bou,” he says, taking my hand warmly in his. “I want to rebuild. Soon as we're on the ground, we're getting to work building the life we always deserved. The one we had robbed away by circumstance, plus one evil bastard.”
He's right. There's no sense looking back, holding onto the pain in my heart, whether I'm hurting over something that happened a couple weeks ago, or four years, during my darkest days.
I'm too close to him when the plane hits the ground. We knock heads gently and I pull away, giggling. His hand goes down my thigh, rubbing with a stroke that's teasing and loving. Every time he touches me, there's more complexity than anything with Reg.
How did I do it? How did I nearly marry the wrong man?
It's not just my new found hate that's making me wonder. I haven't heard from the asshole, despite the movers coming through our old place while we were gone.
The town's probably in full gossip mode already, if they've heard the wedding is off. If not, they will be soon. They'll have plenty of red meat when they find out the truth about Ryan and Split Harbor's fallen hero, Nelson Drayton.
An attendant tells us we're about to disembark. Ryan kisses me before helping me stand, leading us to the little staircase they've rolled down to the tarmac.
I'm still smiling, lost in his kiss, and halfway down the stairs when I see the cherry-blue lights. One glance, and I know there's something terribly wrong.
Ryan stops on the last step, his hand clenching the railing tight. There must be half a dozen black security vehicles surrounding the plane, their lights flashing an evil contrast to the morning's gold.
“Ryan Caspian – alias, Tanner Brooks?” A large man with a goatee speaks as he approaches us. He's dressed like a secret service agent.
Ryan nods, ignoring me behind him. He's standing like the entire world is about to come down on his head. The man never stops moving, ignoring the fear building in my eyes. I'm so shocked I can't even scream when he grabs my love, throws him to the ground, and throws handcuffs around his wrists.
“You're under arrest for the murder of Nelson Drayton. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and may be used against you in a court of law...”
No. My brain is on fire. No, no, no, no, no!
I stumble back against the railing, catching myself. Clenching the cold steel is the only thing that stops me from keeling over. My knees shake, spreading numbness through my body, watching as he's hauled away in handcuffs.
Several other people move through the special agents ringing the plane. A man steps up, grabs me, pulls me off the last step. I don't start screaming and beating his back with my fists until I recognize his voice.
“Come on, Kara. Let's get you home. Reg told me everything.” Matt locks me in his Marine grip, and carries me toward the small gaggle of people waiting below. “Can't believe the motherfucker thought he could brainwash you like this. He's going away for a long damned time, don't you worry.”
“Reg? He's lying!” My hands pound into my brother's back repeatedly, too weak to dent his hardened frame. “Matt, don't do this. Please, fuck, you can't. You don't know what he's done. You don't know Reg is lying.”
He isn't listening. He just holds me, ignoring every punch and kick, hauling me away from the plane. I stop hitting my brother for a second to look over his shoulder, just in time to see Ryan staring out the tinted window.
He's shaking his head, his eyes narrowed. They're sad, angry, and imploring me to stop. Don't hurt yourself, baby. This is my fight.
When the dark SUV pulls away a second later, I'm screaming. My brother releases me slowly, and I slide down to the ground, sobbing. My brain hasn't stopped spinning before I see the familiar, polished black shoes hovering close to me.
I look up slowly, and see the asshole who's twisted my brother into helping him do the unthinkable. Reg stands there, calm and expressionless as ever, staring down at me like the ant I've become.
“I'm sorry it has to come to this, Kara-bell,” he says, using an old pet name he has no fucking business speaking ever again. “I couldn't let him get away with it. The lies, the bullying, accusing me of...of cheating. You were hanging out with a murderer, Kara. He killed Uncle Nelson.”
His voice cracks on cue. He stumbles. Like h
e's practiced it about a hundred times in the mirror, no different than one of his speeches to business associates. Staring through my hatred and confusion, I see the bandage conveniently plastered on his cheek, covering the edges of a bruise that looks more like a special effect than a real injury.
“Asshole. You heartless, depraved lunatic!” Words and fists fly simultaneously, but they don't do anything to soothe the anger ripping out of me. I strike him on the kneecaps several times before he backs away.
He's retreating, just like the coward he is.
I never expect him to lunge when I keep crawling after him. Usually Reg runs when he's under siege, but not this time.
He tackles me to the ground, pinning my wrists down on the pavement. We're face-to-face with a gaggle of people screaming around us.
“Told you I wouldn't walk away, you little idiot,” he hisses beneath his breath. “As soon as I found out who he was, I got your family on the line. Had a feeling they'd know exactly where you'd gone with the jackass who wanted to put me in a coma.”
I'm too stunned for words. I just look at him, my hatred overflowing, and mouth the only words I ever want to say to this pathetic, spiteful man again.
“Fuck you.”
He smiles. “That's all right, Kara-bell. You've fucked yourself over enough for both of us. See, Drayton's do more than cuss and complain: we bury anybody coming after us.”
More screaming. Reg has just enough time to change his sinister smile into a sad one as he's jerked up. Arms slide under me, hauling me to my feet, dragging me away from him.
I'm screaming, spitting, cursing him the entire time. I must look totally insane, and I don't care.
“Kara, come on!” Matt wraps me in a bear hug so tight it's hard to speak, squeezing me until my fight runs out. “Have you lost your mind? I know you're mad at him because Ryan told you some shit he shouldn't have. He was lying, Kara. You need to calm down. Clear your head. Then we can all sit down, talk about this, and set the record straight. We'll bring in the shrink you two've been seeing. I love you, sis. I'm here for you. God knows, we all are. However long it takes to get you through this.”
