by Quinn, Cari
Blake jumped to the sandy part of the cove. The tide was out, so the sand was packed down tight. I scooted to the edge and let him lift me into his arms.
“Wash it off?”
He nodded and took the lump and crouched near the water’s edge. He came back with clean hands and a small conch shell.
Disappointment flooded my eyes with tears. “Mermaid,” I said as I brushed away a cracked piece of shell to find a jade lookalike stone. I dimly remembered tucking the sand around the leather cord and pretty drop pendant. The cord had long since disintegrated leaving a sea-ravaged jump-ring through the stone.
Instinctively, I tucked it into my jacket pocket, but it definitely wasn’t what I was searching for.
Blake slid an arm around my waist and gathered me in. “Let’s get you back.”
I nodded into the warmth of his jacket. “In a minute.” I let a few stupid tears drip down my face as I laid my cheek against his chest.
He pressed a kiss to the top of my head. “The tide is starting to come in. We can try again another day.”
“Yeah.” I sighed and burrowed deeper into his coat. He smelled of spice and brine. The scratchy material of his sweater made my fingertips tingle.
I’d really wanted to find something. I was so very tired of all the mysteries revolving around my grandmother. I’d known her all my life, and yet now I was beginning to wonder if the real Annabelle was just a bundle of lies wrapped in diary pages.
Blake trailed little circles along my lower spine. He didn’t say anything, didn’t rush me along, didn’t do anything but hold me. Just when I’d slotted him in one space, he spread out to another.
I raised my face to the triangle of skin at the top of his V-neck sweater. He wore a button-down shirt underneath it—typical Blake. Even when he wasn’t wearing a suit, he ended up wearing something a little stuffy beneath his casual clothes.
I pressed a kiss to his neck.
He groaned. “Ah, Grace. Let me take you home.”
“In a minute,” I said as I flicked my tongue over the swirl of hair around his Adam’s apple. His beard was about as unkempt as I’d ever seen him.
I wanted a little of that wild.
It was always there under the surface, but he locked it down so effortlessly most of the time.
I closed my lips around the stiffness, my body humming as it bobbed with a harsh groan. I loved when he made noise. It was fairly rare. A growl, a moan, and the occasional breathless gasp of my name.
That’s what I wanted now.
To feel alive.
To push away the memories of the high water ripping at me. I wanted it to be Blake holding me down. I wanted it to be Blake filling me with his heat. The flood of his release baptizing a new memory in the cove that had only held good memories up until that one night.
I sneaked my hand under his sweater. He hissed as my cold fingers met with hot, hard muscle, then lower along the arrow of hair.
He groaned as my knuckle traced the silky dome of his cock. I moved him over on the rocks until there was a small boulder that I could rest my knee on.
“Grace.”
I twisted my fingers around his shaft as I tugged his zipper down with my other hand. I looked up at him. “I want you here.”
“Not here,” he said with eyes a little strung out.
“Light me up. Warm me from the inside out.” I nipped at his neck, satisfied when I saw a red mark bloom under his skin.
He pushed himself harder into my hands. I knew he wanted me to use a firmer grasp. And I would.
When he said yes.
“It feels like forever since you’ve been inside me.”
He groaned. “Fucking days.”
I dragged my teeth over my lower lip. “Days.” Each hour felt like they’d multiplied exponentially. Every kiss at the hospital had been a breathless moment away from the breaking point.
It should be here.
I wanted to hear the ocean at our backs as he drove himself inside me. I wanted to be the rocks to his waves. I could take anything he gave me.
I twisted one hand into the collar of his sweater and dragged him down to my mouth. My other hand pumped his cock. His kiss wasn’t gentle. It was open-mouthed, salty, and cold.
But only for a moment.
Then it was nothing but heat. His hands raced under my layers of cotton and flannel. I hissed as his cold fingers found my breast. He cupped me and plucked at my puckered tip—one, then the other until I was straining to keep my own rhythm on his cock.
“Had to be when we were wearing a hundred layers,” he muttered against my mouth.
I pulled my hand out of his jeans and licked my palm before I returned to my stroking. “Just move the essentials. You’re a clever boy.”
“There’s no boy here.”
I smiled as he jerked my layer of lycra free of my jeans. He pushed up all four layers and latched his lips to my nipple. He jerked at the buttons of my corduroy pants. Cold fingers slid unerringly into my panties, then between my lips.
I cried out as he filled me with two, then three fingers and a busy thumb. “Come,” he said against my nipple.
I didn’t think I was quite that ready, but his thumb circled my clit with an accuracy that could have made him millions. But he was mine. Mine.
“Yours,” he muttered against my breast.
I must have said it aloud.
Right now, I didn’t care. All I could focus on was breathing as the waves behind us crashed and echoed in my head. The fuzz of gasps, the twinge of pain as I moved my ankle wrong, the instant recovery because my body only understood pleasure right now.
He sucked my nipple so hard, then let it pop free from his mouth as I strained and arched for him. His fingers were relentless. Thrusting, twisting, circling until I soaked his hand.
I arched back over the jagged stones at my back. Lifting my bad leg, he hooked my knee over his hip. He ground against my thigh with his cock as his fingers drove me crazy. Then his hand clamped lightly around my throat.
I squeezed him with my thigh because I had to slip my hand free from his cock to hold on to the rock above my head. There was nothing but heat now. The cold was drowned out by Blake.
As it should be.
The waves and greedy gulls above masked my screams. The gunmetal gray sky blurred and sparkled as I came for him. Always for him. A fever I never wanted to burn out. Before I could get my bearings, he hauled me off the incline and spun me around.
There was a moment of absolute cold as he stripped my pants down, and then it was the slap of his skin against my ass. His cock split me in two. He dragged my arms up to the rock wall above, jerked my jacket closed in front so I wouldn’t be scraped to hell, and then he let loose.
The blunt head of his cock scraped over every tissue, and his shaft filled me until there was nothing but the elements and Blake—who was a force of nature in his own right.
He was as gentle as he could be with my bad leg, but both of us were lost to the rending strokes. Our absolute fucking ended in a loving so fierce and life-affirming that I sobbed out his name because there was nothing else I could do.
Overwhelmed, I collapsed against the rock wall. A long stone became my handle as Blake pinned me, his breathing harsh in my ear as he flexed against me. The heat of his release was like a brand, even through the latex.
“Grace,” he said against my neck. Again and again, until there was nothing but the foaming lace of the tide curling around our ankles.
I tried to push myself up with the rock and it broke away. I stumbled, but he caught me around the waist.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” I sagged against the wall, propping myself up by my shoulder instead. “Stupid rock crumbled.”
“One too many slaps from the ocean.”
I grinned. “Or a very energetic man named Blake.”
He removed the condom and wrapped it in a handkerchief he produced from his pocket. Then he tucked himself away and zipped
his jeans. “Very funny.”
It took a little more wiggling for me to get my corduroys up over my cold skin.
He brushed away the sand and shale with a frown. “I think there’s something in here.”
I pulled down my shirts. “No.”
Blake nodded. He reached in and came out with a zipped plastic baggie.
I snatched it out of his hands, then shook off the sand and salt. “Is that…”
“A memory stick,” Blake finished for me. “Did any water get into the bag?”
“I can’t tell.”
He unzipped the upper pocket of my parka and tucked it inside, before re-zipping it. He pushed his wet hair back, then scooped me up. “Why don’t we go check?”
I hung on as his long strides ate up the beach.
Talk about zero to one-twenty.
“If you fall and break our necks now, I’m going to haunt your ass forever.”
He just kissed my forehead and kept on going.
Seven
It’s not going to dry out any faster if you shake it.
I stuck my tongue out at the vicinity of Blake’s office, then returned the little plastic dish to my desk. To be on the safe side, we’d put the memory stick in rice to make sure no moisture would destroy what was on it.
Did you finish that account yet? You’re too slow today.
It’s already in your folder. You like when I go slow.
My cheeks flamed. No way was I answering that message. When I looked up, Jack was staring at me.
“Are you dirty messaging the boss?”
“No.” I minimized the window.
“Uh-huh.” Jack leaned his hip on my desk. “Since we have that late meeting tonight, we figured on ordering dinner. Do you want Thai or a sandwich from Mancini’s?”
“That’s just mean. How am I supposed to choose?”
The message window at the bottom of my screen blinked.
What does he want?
Dinner.
Oh. Thai.
I shook my head at the screen. Always with the orders. “Blake wants Thai.”
“Vi, too. You’re the swing vote.”
I shrugged. “My usual for Thai, I guess.”
“Bah.” Jack made a face. “I want a turkey club.”
“We’ll get Mancini’s tomorrow.”
He shrugged. “What if I don’t want it tomorrow?”
“Does this face look like I care?”
He sneered at me. “Hanging out with Blake is making you mean.”
I laughed. “Maybe he is.”
He tapped the rice container. “Did you drop your phone in the toilet?”
“Shut up.”
“What? It’s a valid question.”
“No, Jack. Rice has other uses than saving a cell phone.”
He lifted it the dish and I grabbed it out of his hands. “No touch.”
His eyebrow shot up. “All right. Geeze.”
“Sorry. Just something that could be important.”
“Is that a memory stick? How the hell old is it? It looks like something I used ten years ago.”
I placed my hand over the top. “That’s why I’m being careful with it.”
“All right, all right.” He frowned. “If you need any help, let me know.”
“I will.”
“Okay, meet you down in the conference room at four.” Jack waved at Blake because we both knew he was watching.
Awful long time for an order.
Don’t you have work to do?
I’m caught up.
Well, I have work to do. I work for a slave driver.
I heard he’s a nice guy.
You heard wrong.
I’ll remember that during raise time.
I’m worth more than your glass warehouses combined, buddy. Don’t you forget it.
Truth.
I grinned at the screen. Every once in a while, he surprised me.
The next few hours were a series of volleys between myself and Blake. We worked well as a team, and since the cove, we’d had a tenuous break in the tension between us.
The information gleaned in the diary was sketchy at best. It mostly seemed filled with gossip and code. My grandmother had odd little names for people, and she had ebbed and flowed on the frequency of her updates.
Sometimes it was nearly daily, and other times there were months between entries.
I recognized a few of the code names from living with Annabelle, but some were downright maddening. I knew they were people from Marblehead, but I couldn’t decipher her more cutting remarks.
And to be honest, learning about this side of my grandmother made my stomach hurt. The problem with diaries is that they’re truly never meant to be read. Private thoughts are definitely not politically correct.
Especially hers.
Frank dissertations about sex, politics, and the spending habits of the moneyed elite of Marblehead were especially eye-opening.
The fact that I knew far more about my grandmother’s sex life as well was a bit harder to read. She’d been enamored with two different younger men.
They didn’t even get real names. A simple B and B2 were listed. B was well over fifteen years ago.
She also spoke of a boy who was fascinated with me. Summers had been spent at my hometown’s school until I’d been old enough to get into advanced art programs.
I was racking my brain to remember any boy who had taken a special interest in me, but my memory was just blank. When I got involved with glass, I became pretty well blind to all other things. Especially in the timespan that my grandmother documented.
On the cusp of my teen years. God.
There’d been nothing more important than my stained glass at the time. I vaguely remembered teaching a class, but so many kids came and went in the summer.
Some were just there on a week’s vacation with families, some were summer townies, and others were bussed in from surrounding towns as part of a program.
I’d stopped studying the faces and concentrated on my own work.
“Grace?”
“Hmm?” I looked up.
Blake stood in front of my desk. “I’ve been messaging you for twenty minutes.”
“What?” I looked down, and sure enough, there were half a dozen lines about the lunch meeting with Jack. “Sorry.”
“Are you ready?”
I pushed back my chair and opened my drawer. I took out my laptop and iPad, then transferred them to the Vera Bradley case I’d brought from home.
I had visions of me drop-kicking the tablet down the stairs every time I rushed behind Blake and Jack. Long-legged freaks always left me in the dust.
Case in point, right now.
Blake crossed the room and held open the door. Jack was already in the hall with him.
“Come on, short stuff,” Jack said through the open door.
I rolled my eyes and passed by Blake. He followed me, crowding me into the stairwell. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was trying to cop a cheap feel. Unfortunately, it was just that my boss was always in a rush.
The fact that his wool slacks brushed against my butt was incidental.
Mostly.
I swallowed a smile as we filed into the seventh floor. Vi was already in the conference room. As head of security, she was often called in to help out on the technical end. Between her and Jack, we were usually covered.
Blake was numbers and ideas, Jack made sure we could do them.
And me…I was the one who kept Blake in line and deflected his matter-of-fact speech into a less formal, more friendly lingo. Thankfully, they didn’t need me to do much more than take notes and organize orders on this particular call.
Once business was done, we relaxed. Bags of food had been delivered at the end of the meeting and left on the table outside. I wasn’t overly hungry.
Jack and Blake were trading barbs that were on the edge of hostile. Violet enjoyed a good dig herself, and she was more than happy to help Blake decima
te Jack in a round of sports smack-talk.
I picked at my food and eventually wandered out to the showroom. The gallery was set up for virtual and face-to-face tours, but this call hadn’t required that much hand-holding.
As usual, I was drawn to the huge clock. It was a cross between Back to the Future and Big Ben, but it was the individual copper lines of the face that interested me. Each slice of glass had been cut to create a design that used both the security portion—which was the opaque glass—and the flip side that could be seen through.
Striking and beautiful.
The hollow click of shoes made me turn. I didn’t really need to turn around. I knew Blake’s walk as well as my favorite song.
I lightly traced the secondhand marks along the roman numeral three. “When am I getting that box of broken glass from the warehouse?”
He crowded into my back. When I stiffened, he slipped his fingers under the back of my suit jacket. “They’re gone.”
“We still have cameras all over this damn building.”
“True. But the clock has always been a blind spot. The glass reflects too much light during the day. Created lens flares that drive Violet to drink. So she’s turned the camera to face the center of the room instead.”
“So, this is safe?”
He slipped around the front of my skirt and found the buttons of my blouse. “Depends on your version of safe,” he said and slipped two disks free.
I blew out a slow breath. “What kind of blind spot are we talking?”
He opened two more. My blouse gaped open, leaving me in only a camisole. My blouse was too sheer to wear a bra, so I’d gone with layers instead.
He cupped my breast with a groan. “You’ve been sitting across from me all day without a fucking bra on?”
“Maybe.”
He plucked at my nipple. “See how some of these pieces are pointing the wrong way?”