Until she suddenly stepped out of my arms, embarrassment and horror covering her face. “Oh God, you are.”
I narrowed my eyes in confusion. “I am what?”
“Shit. I’m sorry.”
I inched toward her and impatiently repeated, “I am what?”
“Married,” she replied, lifting her gaze to mine. “Shit. Your wife probably wants to claw my eyes out. You should have introduced us when she dropped off your bag today. Maybe I could have talked to her and smoothed things out for you,” she rambled adorably.
Her disappointment was unmistakable, and that alone did some seriously good things in my chest. Really fucking good things.
I barked a laugh. “My wife doesn’t want to claw your eyes out.” I swayed my head from side to side in consideration. “I mean, she might, but seeing as to how she doesn’t exist, I don’t think she’s an immediate threat.”
One side of her mouth tipped up in a grin.
“I’m not married, Clare. The girl who dropped my bag off today was my little sister, Maggie. And I would have introduced you, if I hadn’t thought she’d embarrass the ever-loving shit out of me.” I flashed her a smile and winked. “I’ve got a reputation to uphold here.”
Her smile spread. “You have a sister?”
“Four,” I replied, my smile growing to match hers.
Her mouth fell open. “Four?”
I laughed at her surprise. “Yep. Jenna, Laurie, Melanie, and Maggie. I’m the oldest, and they have an ongoing competition to see who can fuck with me the most. Laurie currently holds the title after she ran into me out on a date last year. She was eight months pregnant at the time and came over to our table, fake-crying and asking me if I was at least going to show up for our son’s birth. My date took off, never to be seen again, and my sisters all got a big laugh. We’re tight. And I love ’em. But they are serious assholes sometimes.”
She cupped a hand over her mouth to stifle her laugh. “Wow.”
And that’s when it hit me. I’d always acted like Heath when I was with her, but as far as my past was concerned, I’d only been able to give her Luke Cosgrove—twenty-nine-year-old only child from Orlando, working as a personal trainer until I was able to open my own gym. Lies. Lies. And more lies. Yet I wanted her to trust me.
“Hey, I’ve got an idea,” I said, shoving my hands in my pockets to keep from pulling her back into my arms. “Why don’t you let me take Tessa downstairs while you take a long bath and get ready for bed? We’ll come back up in thirty minutes with some food and ibuprofen, and I’ll tell you anything you want to know about me.”
Her smile fell, and she uncomfortably cut her eyes to the side. “Tessa stays with me.”
“Okay,” I replied immediately. “Then get in there, take a bath, put on some of the clothes Elisabeth bought you, and I’ll be back up in thirty minutes with some food and ibuprofen to answer anything you want to know about me.” I grinned.
A shy smile played on her lips as she continued to look off to the side. “Okay.”
“Thirty minutes,” I reminded her, backing away.
“Thirty minutes,” she repeated before biting her bottom lip.
She didn’t move. Nor did she look at me.
However, I kept backing toward the stairs because it was either that or bite that fucking bottom lip of hers, too.
Thirty long minutes later, I headed back up the stairs with a bottle of ibuprofen, a large Italian-sausage-and-onion pizza, two cups, and a two-liter of Coke—and not the diet shit she drank.
I rapped softly on the door, and seconds later, she pulled it open an inch.
Literally. One inch.
“It’s just me,” I assured, but she didn’t open it wider.
She put her lips to the crack. “Do you remember when you told me about your sisters and how they liked to embarrass you?”
I twisted my lips. “Uh…it was thirty minutes ago, Clare. Can’t exactly forget.”
“Right. Well, I think Elisabeth might be my long-lost sister because this is what she bought me to sleep in.” She swung the door open, and it was all I could do not to drop the pizza.
The box bumbled in my hand as I raked my eyes over her from head to toe—then again for good measure. Then again because…well, I was a man and she was wearing a tiny, black, silky dress that clung to every curve of her petite body. She was still wearing a bra, but the swells of her breasts were exposed at the top, a fucking perfect line of cleavage taunting me.
I was going to lose my mind if I had to sit and talk to her while she was wearing that.
“I see your point,” I mumbled, raking my eyes over her one last time before pulling my shit together.
“This is all she bought!” she exclaimed on a whisper. “Twelve of them to be exact. All in different colors and styles. Not even so much as a pair of yoga pants.”
Well, there was one positive. I’d stared at her ass in those enough to know they weren’t much better than this little nightgown thingy. Though I feared that Clare in a potato sack would still have the same effect on me.
“Okay. We can fix this,” I declared, walking into the room and setting the pizza and the Coke on the foot of the bed, where Tessa was sound asleep, headphones still on, iPad still curled against her chest.
I glanced back at Clare, biting the inside of my cheek to suppress the groan when I got another eyeful. Then I stripped my T-shirt over my head and tossed it in her direction. “Here. Put this on.”
My groan finally escaped as her eyes lingered on my abs just before she tugged it on.
Offering her that shirt was quite possibly the worst decision I’d ever made.
Because, while my shirt covered her exposed chest, it left her standing in front of me, in a bedroom, wearing my shirt.
Do not go there, Light.
She is not yours.
But she could be…
“Jesus fuck,” I mumbled, searching around the room.
Surely, Elisabeth had to have bought her a robe—or, if I was really lucky, a burka.
No such luck, but I found a throw blanket hanging over the chair in the corner.
I tortured myself with one last glance at her before offering the blanket in her direction. “Maybe you should cover up with that.”
“I’m sorry,” she apologized, her face flashing bright red as she wrapped the blanket around her shoulders.
I gripped the back of my neck. “You’re beautiful, Clare. Nothing to apologize for.” For fuck’s sake, what is wrong with me?
She cleared her throat and then pointedly dropped her gaze to my chest. “Well…um…with that same sentiment in mind, perhaps you should go grab another shirt.”
And take a cold shower.
And bleach my retinas to forget how goddamn sexy she was in that nightgown and even more so in my shirt.
I’d promised I wouldn’t take from Clare, but I was willing to bet that jerking my dick to visions of her would most definitely fall into that category. Son of a bitch, I was an asshole.
“Yeah. I’ll be right back,” I replied, hauling ass from the room.
What was I doing? I’d been able to contain myself for three fucking months with this woman. And, after one night and sleeping in an uncomfortable hospital chair at her side, I was losing it?
Or maybe it had more to do with the fact that she was finally away from that maniac and my head wasn’t filled with worry and fear that something would happen to her.
Or maybe I was a head case who was falling in love with a witness who had worked her way under my skin with nothing more than a brave heart and a smile I felt all the way down to the marrow in my bones.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
It was a good five minutes before I’d collected myself enough to make my way back over.
“Hey,” I said, fully intent on telling her I was going to call it a night. We could talk later…after my lobotomy…and my castration.
“You bought me a sausage-and-onion pizza,” she stated with sparkling
eyes as I entered the room. The blanket was thankfully wrapped tight around her shoulders as she perched on the corner of the bed.
I shrugged. “Actually, Roman’s assistant, Seth, bought you a sausage-and-onion pizza, but yeah, I asked him to get it.”
Her lips pursed, and for a split second, I thought she was upset.
A tear rolled from the corner of her eye.
My whole body came online as I searched her face. “What’s wrong?”
She dried her cheek. “You hate sausage. You gagged when I told you this was my favorite.”
I chuckled as relief flooded me. “I can pick sausage off. And besides, I ate that weird pork stuff Elisabeth made.” I tipped my chin to the box beside her. “That pizza’s for you. Well, half of it, anyway. That weird pork stuff Elisabeth cooked was shit.”
She giggled, and just the sound soothed my exposed nerves.
“How old are you?” she asked out of the blue as she started picking sausage off a slice.
“Thirty-four,” I answered.
Her eyebrows popped up. “Wow, gramps.”
“Ass,” I teased, walking over to Tessa. I gently removed the headphones and tucked her under the blankets.
When I turned back to face Clare, she was smiling.
“Thanks for the pizza, Heath.”
“Thank me by passing me a slice.”
“Are you sure you should be eating pizza? My grandpa always got indigestion if he ate too late.”
“Aren’t you just hilarious,” I deadpanned.
She giggled again, and I knew there was not a chance in Hell I was calling it a night.
Not when I had the opportunity to spend even a minute with her.
Snagging the sausage-free piece she was working on from the box, I asked, “All right, what else do you want to know about me?”
“Where are you from?”
“Augusta.” I took a bite and settled in the chair across the room.
“Parents?”
“Mom died when I was sixteen. Breast cancer. Dad didn’t take it so well, became a drunk. He and I don’t get along so well. Next.”
“How old are your sisters?”
“Shit. You gonna make me do math while I’m enjoying some onion pizza?”
She laughed before taking a bite. A sexy-as-hell moan rumbled in her throat as she chewed.
Christ, she was beautiful. The blanket was doing its job up top, but her petite feet crossed at the ankle drew my attention up to her toned thighs.
Yep, time to talk about my sisters.
“So…Jenna’s three years younger than me, thirty-one. That would make Laurie twenty-nine, Melanie twenty-five, and Maggie twenty-two. Despite the age gap, I’m closest with Maggie. She came to live with me after high school so she could go to Georgia Tech without having to sell her organs to pay for room and board. She graduated last May and moved into her own apartment over the summer.”
“Where do you live?” She took a bite.
“House in the northeast burbs.” I took a bite.
She finished chewing. “College?”
I finished chewing. “University of Georgia.”
“How’d you become a DEA agent?” Another bite.
My hand froze in midair, the pizza halfway to my mouth as a slow grin pulled at my lips. “A ‘show me your titties’ sign.”
Her chin snapped to the side as she laughed. “Um. What?”
“St. Patrick’s Day, downtown. I was a rookie cop, and we’d gotten word from the Captain that we were cracking down on the Mardi Gras–style flashing for beads that year. You know, trying to keep the biggest drinking day of the year family friendly and all,” I joked.
She rewarded me with another soul-soothing giggle.
“Anyway, I concocted a plan. Captain agreed. I drove my truck down and parked along one of the main strips with a fuck-ton of beads and a handwritten ‘show me your titties’ sign. Chicks walked by, showed me their titties, then my boys picked ’em up for indecent exposure. Eighty-seven arrests. Captain was so impressed he threw my name out to the DEA. Rest is history.”
“You did not,” she gasped.
I smirked with pride. “Can’t make that shit up. I got paid to sit around and be flashed all day. Best job a man could have.” I took another bite of pizza, talking around it as I said, “But that was before I found out I could get paid for sitting around, bullshitting with you.”
Her eyes lit at the compliment. “Well, in the nightie Elisabeth bought, it’s practically the same thing.”
I pointed at her with my crust and winked. “This is not a bad thing.”
Aaaaaaannnnd…now, I’m flirting.
Fuck. Me.
But, as she started picking sausage off another piece of pizza for me, I realized I was already fucked when it came to Clare.
And, Christ, it felt good.
“Mr. and Mrs. Noir. It’s so nice to see you again,” Doctor Fulmer said as he entered the room. His balding, gray head was down as he flipped through the pages of a medical chart.
I had an overwhelming urge to light it on fire and pray that the flames would engulf me too.
I was flat on my back, an IV in my hand, a paper blanket covering my lap, and tears rolling from my eyes.
“Don’t be nervous, sweetheart,” Walter purred before placing a chilling kiss to my forehead.
I wasn’t nervous.
I was devastated.
It was the day of my egg retrieval. The day my eggs would be paired with Walt’s sperm and innocent children would be created. When I’d been a little girl, I’d had dreams of having sweet, little babies with my eyes. But not like this.
During the IVF process, I’d prayed every night as Walt gave me my shots that my ovaries wouldn’t stimulate. However, the monitoring ultrasounds revealed three “beautiful” follicles steadily maturing.
I hadn’t given up all hope. From what I’d read on the Internet, not all follicles contained eggs and three was an extremely small number for the amount of medication they’d given me. But Doctor Fulmer had assured us that he’d been successful with less.
Just that morning, I’d dropped to my knees in our bathroom and begged whatever God was out there that he’d fail.
The doctor reassuringly squeezed my foot and glanced up to Walt. “We’re all set.”
“Perfect,” he replied sinisterly.
“All right, Mrs. Noir. The anesthesiologist is going to get you sedated and then we’ll wheel you to the back, retrieve those beauties, and you’ll be right back at your husband’s side before you know it.”
That only made the tears fall harder, and a loud sob tore from my throat.
“Clare,” Walt scolded, sliding his hand under my neck and squeezing painfully hard. “Get it together,” he seethed.
“Sorry,” I said to him before looking to the doctor and lying. “I’m just nervous. That’s all.”
His eyebrows regretfully pinched together, but his gaze darted back to Walt. “Okay, then. I’ll just give you a moment to collect yourself, and then we’ll get things started.”
“Just send them in now. She’s fine,” Walt replied, his hidden fingers biting into the back of my neck.
More tears spilled from my eyes, but I managed to squeak out, “Yes. Send them in.”
Doctor Fulmer shook his head but didn’t say anything else before exiting the room.
No sooner had the door clicked than Walt was in my face. One of his hands slapped over my mouth. The other twisted in the back of my hair, forcing my head to the side.
“I swear to God I will fucking kill you if you pull that shit again.” The veins on his forehead bulged from the exertion.
Panic thundered in my chest. I had no doubt he was telling the truth. Just a week earlier, I’d heard him say those exact words to a man he’d considered his best friend since childhood as he’d sat on our couch as a welcomed guest. An hour later, I’d been on my knees, cleaning his skull fragments off my living room wall.
I nodded vigorousl
y.
He studied my frightened eyes for a few beats longer before finally releasing me. “I’d appreciate it if you tried to be a little more grateful here.” He sauntered over to the door and peeked outside. “It’s not my fucking fault we’re in this situation. It’d do you well to remember that. My shit tested just fine. It’s your white-trash, inbred ovaries that’s costing us thirty fucking thousand dollars.” He raked a frustrated hand through his dark-brown hair before smoothing it back into place. “A ‘thank you’ and ‘I love you’ would go a long fucking way right now, Clare.”
“Thank you and I love you,” I repeated immediately, vomit creeping up the back of my throat.
He glared at me and cracked his neck. “You’re fucking lucky I love you. If I was a different kind of man, I would drop you and move the fuck on. Your kind’s a dime a dozen, and most of them aren’t broken like you. Don’t fucking forget that.”
Oh, how I’d wished he were a different kind of man. I wouldn’t wish a life with Walter Noir on my worst enemy, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t enjoy walking away if he found someone new to torment.
“I know,” I whispered to keep the shake out of my voice.
He scoffed and planted his fists on his hips. “Then fucking act like it. I’m sick and tired of these doctor’s appointments. Any other woman I’d be able to fuck in the ass and still knock her up. You though? I had to jerk my own cock into a cup to make a baby. Something is seriously wrong with that bullshit.”
A few years ago, that rant would have destroyed me. But I’d become numb to his verbal abuse. Nothing he could say could hurt me as much as living at his side.
Being forced to carry his baby, though, would be a close second.
“I’m sorry,” I said, using the back of my arm to dry my cheeks.
He rolled his eyes, snatching a tissue from the box on the counter. “Clean up your face.” He waved it in my direction.
I followed his order and dug down deep in order to keep fresh tears from reappearing.
Crying was useless.
But, then again, so was breathing when you were married to a monster.
A knock sounded at the door just seconds before a middle-aged man pushed a cart inside.
“You ready?” he asked.
The Complete Retrieval Duet Page 25
