by M. S. Parker
Reaper had heard. I knew it in the pit of my stomach that he had heard – maybe he had heard all of it.
James knew as well, and he tried to offer a reassuring smile. But it fell flat. “Perhaps I need some time to myself before they come up.”
Reaper gave a short nod. “I’ll see to it.” He turned on his heel, striding away.
I rushed after him, but when I touched his arm, he gently brushed me aside. “I need to talk with the people downstairs. They’ve already been waiting ten minutes.”
“Adam, wait.”
“You had a rough day,” he said in a level tone. “Perhaps you should go get someone or something. I need to take care of this.”
“Adam…wait. We need to talk.”
“Not right now.” He gave me a tight smile and continued on his way.
Helpless, I watched as he strode away from me, and I tried to understand just what I’d done.
I knew how I felt about him.
There was really no question.
So what had I done just now?
Aching inside, I fell back against the wall, rubbing at the pain in my chest.
Chapter Six
Reaper
It was probably close to three when I finally found my bed.
Falling face down on it, I closed my eyes and told myself to go to sleep.
I could catch a combat nap and be ready to go for another day if I had to. I still hadn’t lost that knack.
But just as I was drifting off, I heard the softest of sounds.
The door opening.
Clothes rustling.
O.
Once the floorboards started to shift under her weight, I rolled onto my back, about ready to sit up and tell her to leave.
I was still trying to figure out how I felt about everything I’d overheard earlier. I should have kept my ass out in the hall. It was clearly a conversation I shouldn’t have overheard.
So she didn’t know how she felt about me. We hadn’t known each other all that long, and we hadn’t spent all that much time together. The fact that I was thinking about forever had no impact on whether or not she was thinking the same thing. She needed to come to that conclusion in her own time, and logically, I knew that.
But fuck logic.
“Olivia…”
“You move like a ghost, and you’ve got the hearing of…well, something that hears really, really good.” She straddled me in the darkness, seeking me out unerringly.
My hands went to her hips. “You need to sleep.”
“I will. After this.” Her mouth sought out mine.
And I felt the damp tracks on her face.
She’d been crying.
Fuck me.
How can I send her away when she’s been crying?
She reached for the buttons on my shirt, her mouth moving from mine to trail a line of kisses down my jawline and neck. Letting my head fall back, I blocked out everything from earlier, told myself that all that mattered was here and now.
Then I stopped trying to pretend.
Flipping her onto her back, I sought out her face in the dim light. She was still struggling to see me, but my night sight had always been acute and years in the Navy had only strengthened it. “What is this to you?” I asked, cupping her chin and staring into her eyes.
She blinked, finally focusing on my face.
“Adam…”
I kissed her hard and fast, using my knee to nudge her thighs apart. “What is this to you?” I asked again. “Am I just a good, handy fuck, or do we have something? Are you just using me to forget about everything in your world going to hell? If so, trust me, I get it, but I need to know.”
She slid her hands up my chest and cupped my face.
“Everything in my world is going to hell,” she said bluntly. “Everything but you.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Isn’t it?” She tugged me down and kissed me. “Everything inside me tells me it would be smart to keep my distance from you. This is going to complicate everything so much. I know it. You know it. But I’ve got a much better idea of how it will complicate things. And I just don’t care.” She laughed, but it was a low broken sound and just hearing it hurt. “You know, it wasn’t until Elise died that everything hit me. But I’ve been wondering if we really should do this. I just don’t know if it’s smart. I want this. I want you. You’re the only good thing in my life right now, but I just don’t know if we should have anything more than this.”
It wasn’t what I wanted to hear.
But it was going to have to be good enough.
She pushed at my shirt, but I caught her hands and stretched them over her head. She tugged against my hold for a minute, but when I parted her folds and thrust a finger inside her, she forgot about breaking free and arched up against me, riding my hand and moaning.
I worked her until she was vibrating right on the knife’s edge of climax and then I withdrew my fingers, lifting them to my mouth and licking them clean. She panted, staring at me. I used my index finger to trace her lips then lowered my head and followed the path with my mouth.
“No more talking tonight. No more thinking. I just want to fuck you until neither of us can think straight, until neither of us can move.”
She swallowed. I heard the sound of it even if I couldn’t make out how her throat moved within the dimness of the room. “Yes…yes, please.”
She sounded like a school girl, trying to impress her teacher.
Catching one thigh, I pushed her leg up, hooking it over my elbow, opening her. She moaned as I passed the head of my cock up and down her slit, rocking back and forth, letting her wetness bathe me. I kept that up until she was twisting under me, her nails scoring my flesh.
“Look at me, O.”
Her eyes came to mine, and as we watched each other, I sank inside her, slowly, feeling her stretch around me, the milking sensations of her pussy so sweet it almost drove me out of my mind.
Words tumbled up my throat, hovered on the tip of my tongue.
I didn’t dare say them though.
Not now.
I wanted to lose myself inside her, wanted to lose myself to her.
Or maybe I’d already done it.
Maybe she already owned me.
She cried out my name, arching closer.
As she started to come, I thrust harder, faster.
I buried my face against her neck as I came and let myself mouth the words she wasn’t ready to hear.
I love you.
* * *
“I’m sorry.”
Looking up over the cup of coffee, I saw James standing in the doorway. He looked gray and tired. It seemed he’d aged five decades in the few months I’d known him.
“Sorry for what?” I wasn’t about to discuss my love life with him. I’d come to respect the man and some part of me even loved the man who’d fathered me. But we didn’t have a close relationship, and the cancer that was eating him alive would probably make sure we never had the time for one.
“Please don’t dance around the subject.” He sighed and sat down at the table across from me. “I’m too tired for it. You weren’t supposed to hear any of that. But then again, I suspect you know that.”
Leaning back in my chair, I studied him for a long moment. Then I shrugged. “Look, the two of us are involved on a…physical level. Maybe it’s more, maybe it’s not. Only time will tell, right?”
“Of course. It’s purely physical.” James went quiet as one of the household employees appeared and offered him breakfast. He requested coffee and oatmeal.
I declined. I’d eaten several hours ago. It was already almost noon, and I’d been making phone calls and talking with the butler, helping him with whatever arrangements I could. Most of it had already been taken care of. James and Elise were big believers in pre-planning.
But I didn’t do well with sitting around. I was a man of action, always had been. Even if I was just taking phone calls and accepting condolences and flo
wer arrangements, it was better than sitting around on my ass.
If I sat around on my ass, I’d think about O.
I’d think about how she didn’t know if she was in love with me or not.
I’d think about how I wasn’t ready to discuss–
“How can you not know if you love somebody?” I blurted out, glaring at James. A split second later, I realized what I’d done and shoved upright. Moving to the buffet set next to the coffee service, I shook my head. “Forget I said that. I’m just thinking out loud.”
“I don’t think it’s a matter of not knowing if you love somebody. I think it’s a matter of being afraid to admit it.”
“I said I didn’t want to talk about it.” Pouring more coffee into my cup, I took a drink, let it feed life-breathing caffeine into my system and pretended I wasn’t really thinking about what he’d said, what O had said.
“You’ve had love given to you easily, your whole life. Your mother was a loving woman. You had friends, girlfriends, acceptance, everywhere you went.”
“And a father who abandoned me.” The words escaped me as easily as they had earlier. Turning, I met his eyes. “No matter how it’s painted, no matter what Mom’s reasoning was, or yours, that’s how it’s always felt to me.”
“I understand that. And you have that right. I did abandon you. Both of you.” James looked away. “But you had her, and your mother loved as easily as she breathed. She loved as easily as you do.”
I scowled into my coffee. “Shit.”
He laughed. “There’s no shame in loving easily. The men you served with, they became like your brothers, didn’t they? You loved them.”
Uncomfortable now, I shifted and turned away. “I don’t need some armchair psych trip, James.”
“No. You’re comfortable in your skin. Even after the rough road you’ve had the past year, you’re comfortable. You’re confident. You know who you are. That comes with having people love you.” He paused a moment. “She never had that. At least, not when it mattered the most. It wasn’t until Elise and I took her in that she began to understand what it was like to have somebody love her, without condition. It took her even longer to trust that was what we had for her – unconditional love.”
I looked back over my shoulder and met his eyes. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I know my girl, Adam. Give her time.”
* * *
I know my girl.
His words circled through my head, a nagging buzz that just wouldn’t shut up. Finally, I gave in and hunted her down. It didn’t take much to find her. She was exactly where I expected her to be, in the library she preferred over the stuffy office downstairs.
She had a cup of coffee that was mostly empty and a pot that was down to the dregs.
I sniffed it and put it down, making a mental note to make some more after she’d eaten. I had a feeling she hadn’t bothered to even touch food.
I couldn’t say I blamed her. Food was the last thing on my mind after my mom died. I just wanted to lose myself. In anything, it didn’t matter. If some critical situation had blown up out of the blue, I would have been the first man ready to go.
And it would have been a mistake because my head hadn’t been where it needed to be. The beauty of hindsight.
For a moment, I watched her, waiting to see when she’d notice me. She didn’t, not for almost a minute.
Then her spine stiffened, and her head came up slightly, turning toward me.
I had a tray of food balanced on my left hand as I watched her turn fully around, meeting my eyes for just a second before she looked away.
“Did you need something?” she asked politely.
You could try loving me, I thought. But I kept the words behind my teeth. James had been right. She needed time. Her life had gone through almost as much upheaval as mine lately, and I wasn’t someone who’d come from a lifetime of expecting rejection.
“No. I was just wondering what you’re doing.” A look at the desk behind her answered that easily enough. She was busy at work already, juggling details for meetings, responding to emails that were probably my responsibility and handling details for Elise’s memorial service.
The funeral would be small, but that wasn’t going to do as far as the memorial service went. Before her health had declined so severely, Elise had been a fairly well-known philanthropist, and people wanted to come and pay their respects.
And gawk, and eat whatever free food was provided.
The kitchen was already bustling with activity, although I suspected most of the food would be catered.
It would be a circus. Another one. And O and I had just escaped the last one.
She glanced at me as she picked up the coffee cup, sipping at what little remained before looking back at me. Her eyes didn’t rest on my face any longer than a minute.
“Have you eaten?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I’m not hungry.”
I put the tray of food down in front of her. “You need to eat.”
She sighed and leaned back in her chair. “I’m not–”
“It doesn’t matter.” I cut her off. “I don’t care if you’re hungry. You need to eat.”
She stared at me. Her eyes were cool, her face implacable. If I’d been one of her subordinates, I would have folded, no doubt about it. But I simply met her eyes and stared back.
“Just go away, Reaper,” she said, sounding weary. “I’ve got too much stuff to get done, and I don’t have time for this. I’ll grab a protein bar or something later.”
“A protein bar. Wasn’t that what you had for dinner last night? Lunch yesterday? I’m sure you’ll be a lot of good to James when you drop from exhaustion in the next few days. That’s going to make him feel really good.”
She whipped her head around, skewering me with her gaze. She opened her mouth, then snapped it shut. “You can be a jerk,” she muttered, looking away.
Ignoring that, I held up one of the small, triangular sandwiches somebody from the kitchen had asked me to bring up. Aware she was glaring at me, I moved up to her side and put the plate down on her desk. “So, shoot me. I don’t want to see the woman I love collapsing.”
I hadn’t planned on saying that.
But now that the words hung there between us, I realized I was glad it was said. Secrets never sat well with me.
“You…” She blinked rapidly, looking around the room like a monster hid somewhere within. “What?”
I rested my hip on the desk and shrugged.
“You heard me well enough.” I reached out. She froze but didn’t pull away. Brushing a dark strand of hair away from her face, I told myself to leave it at that. What I wanted was to get her naked again. Maybe keep her that way for a few hours. There was nothing like some skin on skin to make the confusion go away.
For a while at least.
“Right now,” I said softly, letting my hand fall. “You’re hurting. Your life has been flipped upside down. Trust me, I know how you’re feeling. I’m not asking for anything from you. You don’t have to do or say anything in return, and I’m not asking for any kind of response.”
I bent then and kissed her.
“I love you,” I said again. “Now…eat something so you don’t fall over. The next few days are going to suck.”
Chapter Seven
Olivia
The next few days are going to suck.
Man, did he have a gift for understatement.
I love you.
Why in the hell had he told me that?
I sat across from him in the limo as we made the drive to the cemetery. James sat next to me, holding my hand. None of us talked.
I wasn’t sure what there was to say.
The memorial service had been so crazed, I hadn’t had time to think. Last night, I’d busied myself with other small details and the same for this morning, but I knew that wouldn’t last for much longer.
What was I going to do once we’d buried Elise, and I ha
d no more reason to ignore him or hide away?
Coward.
“Elise?”
Jerking my head up, I met James’s eyes and realized he’d asked me something. He’d probably said it several times, and I hadn’t even noticed.
“I’m sorry. My mind is on a temporary break.” I offered a weak smile and hoped he wouldn’t push.
Of course, he didn’t. James was too much of a gentleman to do that. “Understandable. I was saying that I planned on going to the townhouse in Cincinnati for a few days after the service.” He gave me a tired smile. “It’s…well, there will be ghosts at the house no matter when I go back, but I’d just as soon not face them right away. Besides, if I’m at the townhouse, it won’t be so exhausting for me to come in and help Adam out a bit more than I have been.”
“You don’t need to be worrying about that.” I frowned at him. His face was thinner than ever, more gaunt, and I saw new lines carved by grief. And he wanted to worry about work?
“It’s not worrying,” he said gently. “It’s called distraction.”
“But–”
He reached up and brushed my hair back. “There’s no point in arguing. You know I don’t have much time left. I love my company. My people. Let me spend my time where I’m happiest. There’s nobody left at home now that Elise is gone.”
Throat tight, I nodded. But I couldn’t stop myself from asking, “Why do you have to be such a stubborn son of a bitch?”
“Nobody else would have been able to take you on, young lady.” He pinched my chin and then settled back more comfortably in his seat, closing his eyes.
He might have drifted off to sleep.
The drive to the cemetery took almost thirty minutes on a normal day. Today, with the funeral procession, it was almost double.
Feeling Reaper’s eyes on me, I shifted awkwardly and looked out the window to avoid his gaze.
“Have you slept much?” he asked softly.
“Enough.” I shrugged, still staring determinedly outside.
