by Amy Gamet
Slowly she relaxed beneath him, though he dared not move. Her arms came around him and she held him tightly. “I love you, too.”
He lifted his head and she kissed him, her hands moving up and into his hair as her hips began to move. The sensation was at once overwhelming, his release already on the horizon as he met her movements with his own. She wrapped her legs tightly around his waist, her cheeks flushing a deep crimson. “You feel good.”
He needed to pull out before he came inside her, but making love to this woman was more powerful than his will to stop. He needed to stay with her, to be buried as deeply in her body as he could to chase the demons away that waited to choke him the moment he stopped.
He pumped harder, faster, deeper. With one final thrust, the world exploded in a rush of sensation and color, his climax ripping a feral growl from deep in his abdomen as he emptied himself into the woman he loved.
How could he have known she would betray him less than a week later?
A flight attendant stopped beside him, snapping his attention back to the present. “Would you care for a drink, sir?”
He felt an intense craving for something alcoholic and strong. “Water.”
She smiled the bright smile of a woman more interested in getting his number than serving him a beverage, and he turned away, looking out the window. They were nearing the airport, a cloudless sky showing they were closer to the ground than when he’d last checked, and his jaw hardened at the thought of landing in Houston.
It didn’t make any goddamn sense. If Wyatt really was his child, Davina must have known she’d been pregnant when she came to see him at basic training. Why in God’s name hadn’t she said something then, before she’d married his brother?
“Sir,” said the flight attendant, and he took the drink, thanking her. He drank it in one chug, instantly wishing he’d gone for vodka after all.
He swirled the ice in the plastic cup. Maybe Davina hadn’t known who the father was. Maybe she still didn’t know, and she was fucking with him to get him to help Ben. Her husband was being charged with murder. What wife wouldn’t go to great lengths to free the man she loved?
The thought pierced the armor that protected his heart. He flagged down the eager flight attendant with the slightest of waves. “Vodka, please. And make it a double.” He stared back out the window. The plane was about to land smack dab in the middle of hell, and he might as well do it with a drink in his hand.
3
Davina stood in her kitchen slicing fruit, a little black dog whining at her feet. “You don’t even like cantaloupe. You’ll just spit it out somewhere, and I’ll step on it in the middle of the night.” She added the cubes to a big bowl of fruit salad, the second thing she’d made since waking at four a.m.
Zach was on his way here, and there was no sleep for the wicked.
The dog whimpered as she opened the refrigerator, and she shook her head with a sigh, selecting a package of hot dogs instead of the grapes she’d meant to grab. “Just one.” The dog danced, his tail wagging furiously as she cut up the meat and put it in his dish. She ran her hand down his curly fur as he ate. “This is going to be a very bad day, Piggy.”
She stood, her attention catching on the sound of a car pulling into the driveway. The dog took off, barking furiously as adrenaline doused Davina’s bloodstream. She hastily threw the cutting board into the sink and wiped her hands on her jeans, looking around the kitchen to see what he would see.
It hadn’t changed much since he’d lived here—a fresh coat of paint, new countertops. It was the house where Zach was raised, and she suddenly felt every bit the interloper. She headed for the door, hoping the barking dog wouldn’t wake up Wyatt. “Stop it, Piggy. It’s okay.”
She saw the red sports car before she saw him, standing out against a threatening purple sky and as out of place in this neighborhood as a vehicle could be. She picked up the dog and opened the door, a wave of vertigo washing over her as Zach got out of the car and stood.
She held her breath. Calling him had been an act of desperation, a necessary evil to help his brother. But she didn’t want this man here any more than she wanted the devil himself to roll up to the curb, and she certainly didn’t want him anywhere near her child.
Even still, she was aware of the traitorous rush of blood down low in her abdomen, the heat in her cheeks. At least her mind knew not to trust this man, her body’s reaction be damned, and she cursed the desperation that had made her bring up Wyatt on the phone.
But she was desperate. Ben’s freedom hung in the balance, and whatever his faults, he was certainly not a murderer. He’d been an integral part of her life and Wyatt’s since before the boy was even born, and for that she was grateful. If she could repay even a fraction of what he’d done for them, she owed him that.
She was hyperaware of Wyatt upstairs in his room. The sudden arrival of his father was bound to be confusing for the boy on the best of days, and with the charges against Ben, this was drastically far from being the best of anything.
Zach walked up to the house, removing his sunglasses as he went. Damn, he looked good, his black hair tousled and thick, those eyes that had once seen into her soul now narrowed at her in scrutiny. He didn’t want to be here. That was perfectly clear from his body language alone.
She hated the way his presence made her feel, like a piece of garbage he couldn’t even bother to pick up and throw away. A lifetime ago, she’d lit up whenever he was near. Now, she could barely keep her chin in the air.
She forced it a notch higher as he climbed the steps, and she found her voice. “You came.”
“You told me I have a child. What did you think I was going to do? Ask you to email pictures?”
She was struck by his height, an inch or two taller than the last time she’d seen him, though he’d already fathered the child in her womb. That was how Wyatt’s life had begun, and while she couldn’t be sorry for the existence of her son, the older and wiser Davina could see just how young they’d been. A part of her ached for them both, and what life would bring.
She opened the screen door and held it. “Come in.” Piggy growled in her arms, and she loved that dog more in that moment than in all the ones before. Davina led the way to the living room and gestured for him to sit down. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“Was it your idea to call me?”
“It was Ben’s. He says without your help, it’s an open-and-shut case.”
He crossed his arms, the corded muscles standing out against his tan skin. “How could you not tell me, Davina?”
He was angry. She couldn’t blame him for that. Long ago she’d made a decision to keep her son’s existence a secret from his father, and it was time to pay the price for the choice she’d made. She moved to the well-worn corner of a leather sofa and sat. “I was going to tell you at basic training. That was why I went.”
So much was tied up in this story. So many thoughts, so much angst. Shame. That’s what she was feeling. God, this was even harder than she’d feared it would be. “Can you sit down, please? You’re making me nervous.” He sat in the matching leather chair, which was so rarely used, it looked brand new. She took a deep breath. “I went there to tell you about the baby. You were angry with me, do you remember?”
“Of course I do.”
She winced at the disdain in his voice. The dog hopped off her lap. “It was all I could do to get you to listen to me.”
“We went to lunch.”
She nodded, remembering the scene. She’d been nauseated, the smell of Zach’s burger doing nothing to quell her stomach. “You thanked me.” Her eyes stung sharply, surprising her. Damned if she would let him see her cry. “You said you’d been ready to give up everything for me—the Navy, your dreams of becoming a SEAL—and that you were glad you’d caught me with your brother, so you could be free.”
His gaze was steely, reflecting no emotion, just as it had been that day. She could remember the pain of her plans slipping away, her hopes for
a reconciliation, that maybe they could be a family. He hated her, and nothing she could possibly say would change that.
“You said there was nothing for you in this town,” she continued. “That you would have become a used car salesman like your father. That you’d have been a loser, just like Ben.” She shook her head at that. “Your words, not mine.”
“Sorry if I badmouthed your future husband.”
So he knew. A weight slipped off her shoulders. At least she wouldn’t have to confess that, too. “He’d asked me just before I went to see you. He knew about the baby.” She stared, unseeing. “I had a choice. I could tell you I was pregnant, taking away everything you ever wanted and tying us together forever, or I could let you go and marry Ben. I could have a chance at a happy life with a man who loved me.”
“So you lied.”
“Yes, I did.”
“Fuck you, Davina.” He stood and began to pace. “It wasn’t your choice to make. You had no right to take my child away from me.” He ran a hand through his hair. “To be raised by my brother, of all people!”
“Ben has been a tremendous help.” She hated to hear him talk about Ben like he was worthless. “But he didn’t raise Wyatt. We didn’t get married after all.”
He stopped pacing. “What?”
“We were engaged for a few months, but in the end we realized we made better friends than anything.”
“Than lovers?” He crossed to her slowly, like an animal on the attack, and her heartbeat accelerated. He squatted down in front of her. “You’re blushing. That’s a nice touch. Can’t you even say it? Lovers.”
She could smell his scent, a heady mix of sandalwood and spice, and she wrestled with whether to set the record straight or preserve what was left of her dignity. Lying to this man had only brought her sorrow, so she opted for the harder course. “I never slept with Ben.”
He stood abruptly and scoffed. “Don’t insult my intelligence. You were damn near fucking him the last time I saw you together.”
“You don’t have a clue what you saw. He was upset, devastated by your parents’ deaths. He made a mistake.”
“Upset? I was upset! They were my parents, too, and my girlfriend was in bed with my brother.”
“It was a misunderstanding.”
He crossed his arms, nostrils flaring. “Why were you in Ben’s room?”
“He’d been away at college. It was a guest room, remember? It never occurred to me that room was his space when he was in town. I just needed to sleep.” Her palms broke out in a sweat. “He thought I was waiting for him. I thought he was you. He curled up next to me while I was sleeping. By the time I opened my eyes and realized it wasn’t…”
“Your eyes were open when I walked in. You knew exactly who you were kissing.”
“It wasn’t like that.” She swallowed hard. “I felt so sorry for him, Zach.” A muscle in his jaw twitched, and she knew how a mouse must feel staring up at a cat. “I was comforting him.”
“Stroking his face. Resting your forehead against his.”
She remembered it all, knew how compromising a position he’d found them in. Yet she hadn’t cheated on this man, no matter what he believed. “I explained that to you.”
He leaned down, his face only inches from hers, the scent of him filling her lungs and setting her nerve endings on fire. His gaze raked over her features from brow to chin and back up again. “I want a paternity test.”
She put her hands on his chest and pushed him away. Piggy barked at Zack.
“Hey!” yelled Wyatt. She turned toward the door just as her son lunged awkwardly toward his father, hands balled into fists. “Leave her alone!”
How long had he been standing there?
For the briefest moment, she stared at the tableau they made. Father and son, anger and hurt, mirror images of one another separated by only a difference in height. She grabbed Wyatt’s arm to pull him away, surprised to realize he was too strong. “It’s okay, he wasn’t going to hurt me.”
Wyatt’s glare never left Zach. “Who is this?” he demanded.
“This is Zach. He’s here to help Uncle Ben.”
Zach held up his hands defensively. “I wanted to meet you.”
She watched Wyatt’s features for a reaction, any kind of softening, but saw none. She knew what this moment meant to him, knew how much her little boy had pined for his father in his life, but Wyatt’s mouth settled into a sneer. “I don’t give a shit about you.” He shook off his mother’s grip and pointed at his father, just as Zach had pointed at her. “Don’t you freaking touch her. You understand me?”
Zach’s palms were still facing him. “I got it.”
Wyatt turned and left the kitchen, all but storming up the steps.
It was quiet in the boy’s wake, the significance of the moment seeming to hang between them for long moments.
“Where’s Ben?” Zach asked.
She rattled off the address. “Are you going to help him?”
“No. I’m going to kill the rat bastard.”
She could only hope that wasn’t true. The Sato brothers had a lot to sort out between them, and she doubted physical violence was out of the question.
He opened the door, then turned around. “Tell Wyatt I’ll be back.”
A burst of nervous energy danced in her stomach. He wasn’t going to give up on their son so easily, and the first flicker of hope lit in her breast. She nodded. “Dinner’s at seven. Don’t be late.”
4
It was pouring, steam rising from the hot pavement as rain fell hard on Moto’s windshield. It was all he could do to keep from flooring the gas and flying through the rain-drenched streets like a speedboat on a collision course with disaster. How could Ben do it? Conspire with Davina to keep his son a secret from him, even offer to raise the child as his own? Yet even as he asked the question, he already knew the answer.
Ben wanted Davina for himself. He always had.
“Fucking bastard.”
It was the wedge that had driven Moto away all those years ago, the image of his brother with the woman he loved too much for him to bear. It was his most vulnerable moment, his soul gaping from the deaths of his parents when he’d found the two of them like that, betrayal springing Zach into motion just as fury was doing now.
Damned if he hadn’t reacted to her nearness today, the soft curves of her body calling out to him to touch, grab, hold against him. There’d been women through the years, beautiful women, smart women, but none of them had been Davina. He’d lost his virginity to her, coming into her body as he came into manhood, and she still held a grip on his emotions like no other woman ever could.
Shit. He prided himself on his independence, his lack of need for others. He had total control of his life and his choices, and he liked it that way. Since he’d left the SEALs, his brothers at HERO Force were the closest thing he had to family, but he could trust they would always be on his six—and not with a knife waiting to stab him in the back as his real brother had done.
He was going to fit his hands around his jealous brother’s neck and squeeze the very life out of him, for this was far worse than anything he’d done in the past. Ben had kept his child’s existence a secret from him, while situating himself into the boy’s life in his place.
Turning onto another road, he nearly ran into a little girl with a bike, walking it across the road just past the intersection. He slammed on his brakes, heart racing, as the girl looked at him, wide-eyed beneath a pink and green helmet. She must have gotten caught in the storm. Jesus Christ, he needed to slow down.
Pulling to the curb, he put the transmission in park and squeezed his eyes shut. He took several deep breaths as the rain pounded on the roof. His emotions were running the show, and that was never a good game plan. He needed to get control.
Lightning flashed. The image of a tiny baby wrapped in a pale blue blanket appeared in his mind, a nurse handing the infant to Davina. In his mind’s eye, she was as young as she had bee
n back then—just a kid, he could see now—the new life in her arms bearing the full weight of adult responsibility.
He should have been there, damn it. If that was his kid, he should have been there. How could she not have told him right then, right after he left? The Navy had been his life’s dream, that was true, but he would have given it up in a second if he’d known.
Instead, she’d kept the child a secret, raising the baby in the very house Moto had grown up in, and Ben had been there the entire time. They never would have called him if Ben hadn’t needed his help, no matter if it was a fresh grave Ben had likely dug up himself.
“Fuck you,” he said quietly, the very idea of helping Ben suddenly too much to tolerate. The only thing he truly wanted to do was beat the ever-living crap out of that man. He put the car back in drive and headed down the road more slowly than before, making the turn onto State Street.
Old mansions lined the road, their monstrous floor plans long since divided into apartments of various sizes. Number two-eighteen was a tudor-style castle-looking thing with a wide driveway. There was a small lot in the back, and he pulled his rental car in beside a late-model Ferrari with dull red paint. He had a car just like it back home, but his was the current model year and shiny as the surface of a pond, and he knew instantly the car belonged to his brother.
That was the way they’d been. Two peas in a pod, their parents used to say. Both of them had wanted to enlist in the military. Both had a lust for computers, fast cars, and beautiful women.
The same woman.
He ducked into the rain, making his way to the door. Stickers with last names demarcated seven doorbells, and he pressed his brother’s. Lightning flashed and he counted to four before the thunder boomed. The door opened, and Ben stood before Moto for the first time in ten years.
A grown man stood where a young one had been. Ben strongly resembled their father, the shock of it like a punch to the solar plexus. They appraised each other, neither moving or saying a word. When Ben turned and headed upstairs, Moto followed. The hallway smelled like an Italian restaurant, with distant sounds of people talking and someone playing music.
