I kissed him. Roughly. Slid my fingers in his hair and tugged him as close to me as I could. His hands moved over my body again, touching me everywhere all at once. Clothes began to fall to the floor, things spilling and staining. Somehow we managed to get naked without separating too much, our hands always exploring, our lips always touching, our bodies connected in a dozen different ways.
And then he was inside me, his cock full and hard, his hands tugging me, releasing me, orchestrating our rhythm. I threw my head back, let my hair fall down against his knees, let my breasts move into the perfect position to allow him a little nibble here and there. I lost the ability to put two thoughts together as his lips moved over my chest, my ribs, my belly. He knew exactly where to touch me, exactly how to touch me. I wanted to scream … it felt so good. I’d never imagined that this could be as good as it was. But it was so good!
When it was done, when we were satisfied for the moment, he gathered me in his arms, carried me upstairs, and laid me in the center of a massive king-sized bed that sat on a pedestal in an even more massive master bedroom. I didn’t really have time to look around before he was touching me again, distracting me from the opulence of it all. We moved together again, touched again, making love in the full definition of the term. I closed my eyes and imagined how amazing it would be to feel this way for the rest of my life.
That was one thing that was easy to imagine.
***
He slept soundly late in the night. I’d slept almost constantly from the moment I arrived at the hospital yesterday morning, so sleep was a little more fleeting for me. I watched him for a while, watched the lines on his face smooth themselves out, watched his lips move just slightly as he breathed in and out.
He was a beautiful man. I couldn’t imagine why he wasn’t already taken, why he didn’t have a houseful of children and a wife chasing him around. He seemed like the kind of guy who should have had a domestic kind of life, a good job, and a big family. What made me so lucky that he waited this long to settle down?
I slipped out of bed, curious about the personal belongings of this man I both knew inside and out and knew nothing about. I stepped into the bathroom, closing the door with care so as not to wake him. He was neat, all his toiletries hidden behind cabinet doors and in drawers. I looked through them, not always recognizing the brands. It all looked incredibly expensive, especially the razor that was made out of some sort of heavy gold material. I imagined going to the store and picking these things out for him. I imagined watching him shave in these mirrors. I imagined him coming to kiss me goodbye, his cologne still damp on his cheeks.
I caught sight of myself in the mirror, naked and flushed still from his touches. I didn’t recognize myself in this beautiful woman. I didn’t know the happiness in her eyes or the glow on her face. This wasn’t me. This was a happy woman.
I snuck out of the bathroom and just wandered restlessly around the room, sneaking little peeks at him from time to time. I tried to imagine him as a child, growing up with a little sister and brother. There was a picture on his bedside table, him as a child of about twelve with his sister and brother—his brother couldn’t have been more than six or seven and he had such a look of mischief on his face that it was almost comical. And Luke—a childhood friend, he had said. The son of his parents’ housekeeper and Megan’s husband now, though he looked a lot different than he had back then. When I asked … Peter just said it was a long story.
Everything had a story, apparently.
His cell phone chirped once or twice while I was standing at the windows that overlooked the front of the house. He was right. This view was pretty awesome.
When the phone chirped again, I wandered over to the bed, searching for it. I found it on the side table, glowing with the news that he had several emails. I picked it up, assuming it would have a lock on it and I wouldn’t be able to snoop. It was a dangerous slope to slip down, snooping on a boyfriend.
But he had the phone set up so that the content of the emails were previewed. One was Dragon, from someone named Waverly. Another was from a credit card company reminding him his bill was due soon. The last one was from a company called Surrogate Finder. They’d found a perfect match for him.
I didn’t understand at first. Surrogate. What would a man like Peter need with a surrogate? And then it hit me.
A surrogate. A womb for rent.
Peter was looking for a woman to have his child?
I looked sharply at him, listened to him whimper suddenly in his sleep, like he knew what I’d just discover. And then he rolled over, crying out. I put the phone down and climbed back into bed beside him, sliding my body up against his. His restlessness quickly dissolved, the moans quickly disappearing. He fell back into a deep sleep, whatever it was that disturbed him gone now.
But now I was deeply disturbed.
What was this man hiding?
Chapter 16
Peter
I was in the kitchen, chopping the last of the fruit that was threating to go bad in the fridge. I already had dozens of bags of frozen, chopped fruit for smoothies I never made. I hated the idea of wasting food. It had never bothered me before, but when my captor would often become so absorbed in his own little world and forget to feed me for days, or when he was feeling particularly controlling and he would sit and eat full meals in front of me, tossing away the leftovers rather than sharing them with me even when he could clearly see I was suffering … I didn’t waste food now.
And sometimes I would go on food binges that should have made me balloon up to John Goodman—during the Roseanne period—size. Thank God for good genes and an affinity for jogging.
Heather was asleep upstairs, her soft little snores so cute that I’d lain there for a good twenty minutes just listening. I wondered if the baby would make sounds like that.
“Hey, big brother!”
I should have been surprised to see Megan walking through my back door, but I wasn’t. I swear she made a habit of calling down to the front gate to learn all my comings and goings.
“Megan.”
She groaned. “No love today?”
I glanced at her. “My report on the Austin job should be sitting on Hayden’s desk. I can’t imagine what else you could want this early on a Thursday morning.”
“I just wanted to see my brother.”
“We work at the same place, Meg. You could have waited until I got to the office.”
“What’s the point of living so close together if we don’t take advantage of it?”
I groaned, but I didn’t say anything else. I just turned back to chopping the strawberries with a bit of a vengeance. She watched for a moment, stealing a couple of small bites before wandering to the door.
“Willis, the guard on the front gate? He said you came home with a pretty young woman yesterday.”
“Did he?”
“Said she looked a little beaten up.”
Confirmed my theory. I really should have thought twice before buying this place.
“When are you going to stop treating me like I’m about to go postal?”
“I don’t do that.” She said the words, but then she shifted on her heels the way she did as a child when she knew she was caught in a lie. “I was just taking Sammie to school, and he happened to mention it.”
“And you came running over here to check it out?”
She shrugged. “You’re my brother. I was curious.”
I picked up the cutting board and watched the strawberries slide into the open freezer bag I’d tucked over the lip of a bowl. Megan moved up behind me and stole a couple more pieces, sucking on them as she watched me move around the kitchen, sealing the bag and placing it inside the freezer.
“Are you going to tell me about her?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Why not?”
I glanced at her. “Because you’re invading my privacy.”
“What privacy? You used to sneak into my bedroom and read through
my diary.”
“I was fifteen.”
“Doesn’t matter. We don’t have privacy because we’re family.”
I washed my hands, doing my best to ignore her, part of me afraid that Heather would come strolling into the kitchen, part of me hoping Heather would come strolling into the kitchen wearing nothing but one of my shirts. That would shut Megan up.
Finished with the fruit, I brushed past Megan as if she wasn’t there and made my way into the living room. I’d forgotten the mess we’d left there the day before and remembered just seconds before Megan followed me into the room. I quickly gathered bra and panties, jeans and briefs, balling them up and tossing them into a corner. Then I picked up the spilled fruit that already smelled half-spoiled in the warm room.
“Had quite a night last night, huh?”
I ignored her, but I couldn’t quite ignore the look of amusement on her face.
“You look as though you’ve never caught me in such a situation,” I finally had to say. “Don’t you remember senior year when you got home early and caught me with Kala Hunter?”
“Yeah, that was an image I had a hard time getting out of my head.”
“Like you and Luke hadn’t done more by that point.”
“For your information, Luke I didn’t sleep together until I graduated high school.”
I glanced at her. That was news to me. The way they were always holding hands and stealing little looks at each other, I would have assumed they’d been intimate a lot longer than that. I think Mom and Dad thought so, too.
“Who is she, Peter? And does she make you happy?”
Before I could answer, Heather came around the corner of the archway that led into the room. She was fully dressed, her hair still wet from the shower. The bandage on her head was gone, but the bruises seemed even more intense in the bright sunlight steaming in through the windows. I flinched a little, the memory of the number and depth of the bruises burned into my vision. I wanted to kill the guy who’d done this to her, but first I wanted to torture the hell out of him.
“Hi,” she said softly, her eyes filled with curiosity as she checked Megan out.
Megan turned, curiosity also radiating from every pore of her body. She smiled politely enough, holding out a hand to Heather.
“Megan Bradford-Murphy,” she said.
“I know. The pictures,” Heather said, making a vague gesture toward the array of photographs sitting on a table across the room.
“And you are?”
“Oh!” Heather blushed. “I’m Heather Bryant. Peter and I worked together at Reynold Robotics for a short time.”
Megan studied her for a moment longer and then glanced over her shoulder at me. There was laughter in her eyes and something that looked a hell of a lot like relief. I don’t know what she thought, but she seemed impressed.
“Are you in sales?”
“No. I was the manager’s secretary.”
Megan inclined her head slightly. “Sorry. I read about his death.”
Heather nodded. “It was a shock to everyone.”
Megan studied Heather a moment later, then she took a few steps back. “I guess I should head out. They’re expecting me at the office.” She looked at me. “And we’re expecting you there at some point, too.”
“Of course.”
She smiled at Heather. “It was nice to meet you, Heather.”
“You, too.”
“We should all get together for dinner sometime, the four of us.” She shot another glance in my direction. “If you’re going to be in town for a while,” she added.
Heather just nodded. “Of course. That would be lovely.”
Megan smiled one last time, then headed out, shooting one more curious glance in my direction before she disappeared around the corner. When she was gone, I crossed to Heather, pulling her into my arms.
“Sorry about that. She has a habit of just stopping by whenever the mood strikes her.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I do. That was awkward for me, so I can only guess how awkward it was for you.”
Heather shrugged, pulling out of my embrace. “Am I keeping you from work?”
I frowned, getting the impression that she was upset at me for some reason. “No. I don’t need to be there for another hour.”
She moved around me, crossing the room to clean up the fruit mess that was still scattered on the floor in front of the couch. I followed, kneeling beside her to pick up a few strawberries and a couple of pieces of peach. Our fingers brushed and Heather pulled away, reaching for a piece of fruit as far from me as possible.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, snagging her wrist.
She shook her head. “I’m just … nightmares, I guess.”
I stood and helped her to her feet, pulling her down onto the couch. “Want to talk about it?”
She shook her head. “I just … it was a strange experience. I’ve never been attacked like that.”
“Did it bring up bad things about your parents?”
She glanced at me, a light clearly going off in her head. “Do you think …? I’ve been trying to put it out of my head, to forget it even happened. That’s what I did when I was kid and I’d hear what my dad was doing to my mom.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why? You didn’t do it.”
“No, but no one should have to experience that sort of thing, especially a child.”
She shrugged. “My dad was a drunk. My mom was … I don’t know what she was. A woman who couldn’t make herself see what the love of her life was until it was too late? She tried. I know she tried to get us out of there, but he made it nearly impossible. I think she always felt like it was going to be him or her someday, and she couldn’t leave me behind if it was her.”
“She loved you in her own way.”
Heather was quiet for a long moment. “Do you think I’ll be a good mom? What if … is that sort of thing genetic?”
“You mean domestic abuse?”
She wrapped her arms around herself, tension bursting across her spine. “I’ve had this same thought at the back of my mind for the longest time. Rose sat me down when I was fifteen and told me it was a sin to have premarital sex and to take birth control, but she wanted me protected because she knew that my genetics were not the best. She didn’t want me to have a child and treat it the way my father treated me.”
“Rose Phelps is a dangerous woman,” I said between gritted teeth. “She thinks that she’s doing God’s work, but what she’s really doing is spreading hatred and misinterpretation of the Bible.”
“She took me in when I had nowhere else to go.”
“And promptly disowned you when the moment was right.”
Heather glanced at me. “She did kind of catch us in a compromising position.”
“It’s not like she saw us having sex. She just saw me less than completely together. It could have been an innocent situation.”
“But it wasn’t.” She blushed a little even as a small smile slipped over her full lips. “We couldn’t really hide what we were doing.”
I couldn’t help but be drawn in by the obvious flirt in that statement. I touched her face, careful not to brush any of the bright purple and blue bruises. Then I kissed her, feeling like it was the first time and the last time all rolled up in one.
“Are we crazy?” she asked softly. “We barely know each other, but we’re having a baby.”
“I think we’re just like everyone else, babe. Just living in the moment, hoping for the best.”
“Do you want to be with me? Or did you just bring me here because of the baby?”
I pushed her back a little so I could see her face. “I want to be with you. I asked you to come here before you told me about the baby.”
“But—”
I touched a finger to her lips. “I adore you, Heather. I want to be with you. Today, tomorrow, a month—a year—from now I will still want to be with you. You know that, right?”
/>
“I do now.”
I kissed her again, pulling her close to me. “I wish I didn’t have to go to work.”
“I’ll be here waiting for you when you get home.”
I sighed softly against her temple. “I’m counting on it.”
***
Waverly was sitting behind her desk, typing frantically on her computer keyboard. I watched for a moment, struck by how beautiful she was. I’d known Waverly for more than the four years I’d worked here, but it still caught me by surprise every time I looked at her. If I was a smart man, I might have asked her to dinner a long time ago.
But now there was Heather.
I tapped on her door. She smiled brightly when she looked up and saw it was me.
“Hey, Peter,” she said, reaching behind her for a file folder sitting on the low table behind her. “I was just about to call you. I have that information you asked for.”
“Thanks, Waverly. You’re a champ.”
She chuckled softly. “Tell that to Hayden. If he doesn’t stop looking at me with daggers in his eyes, I might have to quit the best job I’ve ever had.”
“Hayden will loosen up eventually. It’s just … Sam was the love of his life.”
“So everyone keeps telling me.” She sighed as she turned her focus back on her computer screen. “It would be convenient if he’d remember that I’m just doing a job. I’m not trying to replace anyone.”
“He knows.”
Waverly glanced up, and I winked at her, trying to reassure her. She smiled after a moment and waved me away.
“Some of us work around here, Mr. Bradford.”
“Yeah? And I thought this place was just a hiding place for people who didn’t want a real job.”
“Just for you.”
I laughed as I backed out into the hallway. She seemed a little surprised as she watched me go, but then she laughed, too.
I stepped into my own office on the second floor and, before I settled into my own chair, began to page through the file she’d handed me. Naomi Bryant was housed at a federal correctional institution in Phoenix, Arizona. It was a medium-security prison that housed both men and women. Although she was allowed visitors three times a week, she’d never had a visitor. Not even a lawyer.
DRAGON SECURITY: Volume 2: The Complete 6 Books Series Page 11
