“Her parents’ house has never flooded before. Never. This isn’t a regular storm, Hayes. And even if it had been, I don’t think assigning blame to anyone right now is helpful,” I snap at him.
“Give me an address; let me make some calls,” he says.
“It’s nine-zero-nine-nine Indigo, off Chimney Rock on the eastbound side,” I tell him.
“How the hell do you know which side is the eastbound side?” he asks.
“I’ve heard her say that before, Hayes. Can you ask me these questions later? Please make that call.” I’m practically yelling.
“Hey, it’s going to be okay,” he says softly, soothingly into the phone.
“Don’t try to calm me down, Hayes. I’m not going to calm down. Cass sounded scared. I know you don’t understand how urgent this is because you’ve never been forced to try and stay afloat in water you have no choice but to swim through. But every second counts. Please. Make that call,” I say through gritted teeth and then hang up.
I start to throw my jeans on but realize there’s no point in getting dressed. I don’t know anyone in this house, and I have no clue where Hayes is in it.
I sit back down on my bed and stare at my hands. A minute later, my phone rings. “King” flashes on my screen, and I pick it up before it has a chance to ring again.
“Tesoro, I spoke to my contact at the mayor’s office. They’re going to add her to the emergency list, but they may only be able to take the people who absolutely need to leave,” he says in a rush.
“Okay.” My answer comes out in a stuttered sigh as I try to think about what I can do. I know Cass and her dad will go crazy if her mom is taken and they can’t go with her.
“Listen to me. If they can’t take your friend, I’ll go get them myself when I’m done. My brother Beau’s truck is parked at the house while he’s away. It’s one of those monster trucks and it’s lifted more than six feet off the ground, and it’ll get through that water. It only seats five; we’ll only be able to take three other people.”
“I can stay home to make room for one more,” I say immediately. “If the rain doesn’t stop and they’re not rescued, they’ll end up spending the night on their roof and I can’t even imagine that for Cass,” I say.
“Okay.” He blows out a breath and says, “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. That truck is a nightmare to drive on a dry, clear day, but if the city doesn’t come through, I will.”
* * *
FOUR HOURS LATER
“Oh my God, TB, thank you so much,” Cass cries and throws herself into my arms as soon as she and her parents trudge into the foyer. They’re soaked, but safe. I look over her shoulder and take in the six other people Hayes brought with him. I only recognize Mr. and Mrs. Gold, Cass’s parents. The other three are a small, pretty woman and two children, a boy and girl, who, judging by their appearance, are between the ages of ten and twelve. The girl is as long and skinny as a beanpole, and her big eyes scan the room in amazement. Her mother puts a hand on her shoulder and says, “Stop staring,” and then smiles apologetically at me. I smile back and turn my attention back to Cass.
“Where’s Hayes?” I ask her.
“Parking the truck. He dropped us off first. You should have seen him, TB,” she says, wide-eyed. “The police put a blockade up on the street to stop any more rescue attempts. He drove straight through it. He backed up right to the front door and even though he only had enough seat belts for—”
“What is happening here?” A woman’s voice, as cold and clear as a bell calls from behind us. I jump, and right before I turn around, I see the little girl’s eyes nearly bug out of her head with fear before she ducks behind her mother’s legs. The little boy’s eyes narrow, and he steps in front of his mother and his sister.
“Uh, hi,” I say and wave at the redheaded, Jessica Rabbit look alike, down to the red dress wrapped around her impossibly exaggerated curves and bright red lipstick. She stares down at me with hostile eyes and frowns.
“Who are you?” she asks through her pinched lips.
“I’m Confidence Ryan,” I say and try not to sound like I want to piss in my pants.
“I don’t care what your name is, girl. I want to know what you and this ragtag mob of interlopers is doing standing in my foyer?” she shouts and the little girl starts to cry.
I let go of Cass completely and walk toward her. “I don’t know who you are, and I’m sorry that you’re walking into an unexpected scene, but we are all guests of Hayes—" I start.
“Hayes?” she asks like she has no clue who that is.
“Yes, Hayes.” I cross my arms over my chest and eye her suspiciously. “Who are you?” I snap at her.
“I am Mrs. Eliza Rivers and this, you little guttersnipe, is my house,” she responds haughtily. Then, she pulls a small pearl handled revolver out of her purse and points it squarely at my chest in a grip that tells me she knows how to hold a gun, but no idea how to aim it. I don’t move, but my heart is sprinting like a hare running from a hunter. I stare at her, beyond shocked.
Behind me, pandemonium breaks out. I can’t hear anyone clearly, but they’re all shouting. The children are both screaming. Cass grabs my elbow and tugs me backward.
“TB, let’s go,” she says, her voice a desperate whine.
“Go where?” I shake her loose. I take a step closer to the woman pointing her gun at me and look her square in the face. “This is not your house, and it hasn’t been for a long time. I am Hayes’s guest. So are these people, including the children you’re pointing a weapon at.”
Her expression falters briefly and then she tightens her grip on the butt of her gun. “How do I know what you’re saying is true? Where is Hayes?” she asks, her voice slightly fretful. I want to turn around and assure the people behind me that everything will be okay. That she’s about as harmless as a fly. But I don’t dare take my eyes off her. Because she is actually very dangerous. Especially with her clear lack of practice.
“He’s parking. He’ll be right in. Please, put the gun down; you’re scaring the children,” I say in a voice that I hope is deferential and conciliatory.
“Well, that’s what they get for scaring me,” she says and I recoil at her callousness.
“You are a monster,” I gasp before I can think better of it.
“You bet your ass, I am,” she says jauntily.
“Eliza, what’s going on?” Poppy’s voice sounds from over my shoulder, and I still don’t dare turn around but sigh in relief that someone who can vouch for me has finally arrived.
“I’ve told you to address me properly in front of guests, Poppy,” she snaps. “This girl says she’s Hayes’s guest along with all of those people. I know nothing of it, so I’m exercising my right to stand my ground,” Eliza explains as if it makes perfect sense.
“Do you pull guns on every unexpected guest in your home, Mrs. Rivers?” This comes from Cass’s father who hasn’t said a word since they arrived.
“No. Only the ones who very clearly don’t belong,” she returns.
“El—Mrs. Rivers,” Poppy interjects and rushes past me to stand in front of her on the stairs. “You knew Ms. Ryan was visiting. I informed you that Mr. Rivers was bringing back guests to stay for the night because of the flooding,” she says. She stands right in front of the gun and puts a hand on it.
“Poppy, be careful,” I call to her.
“It isn’t loaded,” she calls back to me without turning around.
“What? Are you kidding me?” I yell and start for the stairs, too.
“Why did you tell her that? You idiot!” Eliza shouts. Poppy’s yelp of pain is a beat behind the crack of Eliza’s palm against her cheek. The room’s incredible acoustics meld the two sounds together in a sickening rhythm.
I skid to a stop right at the foot of the stairs.
What the actual hell is going on here? Did she just slap another grown woman?
“We’re leaving,” Mr. Gold says and I finally turn around
to look at the poor people who have escaped one nightmare only to find themselves in the middle of another. And I’m sure they’re thinking they’d rather take their chances with mother nature than deal with this insane woman.
He’s standing guard in front of everyone else. I catch a glimpse of Cass’s face and she looks green. I can’t believe this is happening. “I’m sorry. Your rooms are ready. Please, let’s just get you dry—”
“We’ll get a room at the Ivy for the night. Confidence, you’re welcome to come with us,” he says gravely, his dark gray eyebrows drawn in extreme concern as he surveys the scene unfolding in front of him. “In fact, I would like to insist that you do,” he says. I’ve only met him once before at our law school graduation, and I was struck by how gentle and quiet he had been. He’s a small man—so much like my father, I’d thought. But without the sadistic spirit that inhabited him. What must he think of me right now? And of Hayes?
Hayes. I’d forgotten all about him.
“Where in the world is Hayes?” I ask when all other words fail me. I pat my pocket and curse my decision to leave my phone upstairs when I rushed downstairs.
“Confidence, we’re leaving. I just ordered an Uber and he’s only two minutes away,” Mr. Gold says again, and this time, his voice is firm and commanding. “Tell Mr. Rivers thank you for rescuing us. We owe him a huge debt, but we don’t want to impose, and clearly, it’s not a good time.” He nods pointedly at the insane woman standing on the stairs watching the chaos she just created with a pleased, smug smile on her face. Poppy has disappeared in the five seconds since I looked away.
“An Uber?” I exclaim. “Bu-But, I have your rooms ready. I didn’t even give you the towels,” I say, completely dejected and helpless to stop the situation from spiraling. I point to a stack of towels and a thermos of coffee that Hayes’s housekeeper, Matilda, gave me to bring down with me.
“Hey, what’s going on?” Hayes asks, and I look over to see him standing in a doorway that I hadn’t noticed beneath the stairs. The rain has had its way with him. But unlike the rest of the soaking wet people in the room, he looks more like a sea god than he does a drowned rat. His hair clings to his forehead in dark wet waves and water runs down from one of them, through his dark gray T-shirt, and it’s plastered to his body like a second skin. His jeans, the same. His eyes sweep the room, moving from each one of us to the next when he doesn’t see whatever he’s looking for on our faces.
“Mr. Rivers, I was just saying that we’re so grateful for your kindness. You were heroic today. But we’ve decided to head into Rivers Wilde for the night,” Mr. Gold, clearly the group’s designated speaker, says. “We have Carly’s insulin, and little Micah has his inhaler. So all we need is a dry, warm place to lay our heads,” he says.
“And I told you, you could do that here,” Hayes says quietly and walks over to me. “What happened?” he asks.
No one says a word.
“Eliza, what happened?” He squares his gaze on her, and even though I’m not looking at her, I see the moment he gets to the gun. His face turns white and then blood suffuses his cheeks and looks like the top of his head might pop off.
“Did you point your fucking gun at my woman?” he asks, and his voice ricochets off the walls of the house’s cavernous space in a terrifying echo. The little girl starts to cry again, and my stomach cramps into a knot. This is beyond disastrous. I can’t imagine how Hayes lives with people like this.
Eliza’s face never loses its smugness, but she starts backing up the stairs.
“I don’t have to explain myself to you, Hayes Rivers. You’re lucky I didn’t shoot her,” she says, and then like the rat she is, she turns and runs up the stairs.
“I’m so sorry. Perhaps it would be best for you to stay somewhere else tonight. But I have a suite of rooms at the St. Regis. The road between here and there is clear, and I’ll have our driver take you over,” he says to the crowd, but he doesn’t look at me. “I’ll go make arrangements.” And then without another word, he turns and leaves the room.
Chapter Twelve
Need
Hayes
“I’m sorry about last night,” I say as soon as I walk into my bedroom. Confidence is halfway out of bed and stills mid-motion. She wraps the sheet around her bare body and sits back down, her profile to me as she stares ahead for a beat and then turns to face me.
Her eyes are flat and cold, and I could kick my own ass for the way I behaved.
“For what? For not warning me that your stepmother had no clue I was coming? Or for not warning me that she’s a lunatic who’s fucking packing heat?”
I groan silently, guilt gnawing at my gut. “Tesoro—”
“Or,” she cuts in, her voice hard as nails, “is it because after she pulled a gun on me, my best friend, her family, and small children, you promptly disappeared and haven’t been heard from since?” she asks.
“I’m sorry. I needed to clear my head. I went for a drive. Yesterday was intense, and I meant to come back, but I passed out in my car and just woke up,” I tell her. I don’t tell her that I drank half a bottle of Jack Daniels and then threw it all up before I passed out. She looks like she’s ready to murder me.
“This is not what I expected when I came to visit, Hayes,” she says, and my stomach sinks. That goddamn Eliza and her crazy ass antics yesterday.
“I know. The storm threw everything off. Going out to get your friends …” She drops her head into her hands and falls back onto the pillows. Her sheet falls, revealing her perfect, spilling-out-of-my-hands, marshmallow-soft, pink-nippled breasts. And like an addict whose poison is being served up to him on a silver platter, I start walking.
“Thank you for that,” she groans. “Good Lord. What the hell? This trip …” She sighs just as I get to her side of the bed.
I stare down at the goddess in my bed. This nymph who has me under her control. She’s like nothing else I’ve ever known. Brave, kind, honest, funny, sexy, and so fucking brilliant. She’s the catch of the century, and she’s mine.
For now.
I close my eyes at the stab of pain in my chest that accompanies that thought.
There’s something that happens when I see things through Confidence’s eyes. She reveals my blind spots, and while I’m glad to know the places where I was failing in the basic human decency department, what will that mirror reveal when she holds it up to my family. So far, it’s revealed dysfunction and division. I’m afraid that when she leaves here in a couple of days, she’ll think less of me, and I’ll think less of me, too. I want to sanitize everything. To hide the ugly. But I’m going to be asking a lot of her. She needs to see exactly what she’s getting into. I just have to hope that when it’s over, she’ll still want me and all of the baggage I come with. And if she does, I hope it’s not because she thinks my money will make up for it.
I feel guilty for having that last thought. She’s nothing like that, and I know if I end up sleeping under the 610 Freeway, she’d be sleeping with me. I love her. She loves me. I want to show her that I can take care of her more than just financially.
“King,” she calls softly. Her hand comes up to grab mine, and I finally look at her face. She’s the most radiant woman. She’s got this peace about her that’s there even when she loses her cool.
“Yes?” I ask and trace one of her pretty nipples with the pad of my thumb. She sighs and smiles. Her eyes fall to half-mast as her nipple stiffens under my touch.
“Yesterday was crazy. Everyone was on edge because of the weather. But, I wish we could press the reset button on all of this.” She sighs. I push aside the thought that the weather had nothing to do with Eliza’s behavior.
“Come on, I need a shower; I need to eat you. I need to fuck you. Let’s do all three right now,” I say.
She smiles and lets me pull her up to sitting. Then she unbuckles my jeans, unzips them, and pulls them down at the same time as my boxers. My dick is hard and her mouth is hot when she wraps her lips around
it and sucks the head at the same time her tongue flicks the slit. I pull my shirt over my head and fist my hands in her hair while she works her magic with her talented tongue. When I can’t wait for her anymore, I let go of her head and slide out of her mouth.
“Get up here,” I gesture for her to wrap her legs around my waist and she laughs her deep, throaty laugh before she does what I say. I put my hands on the curve of her waist where it flairs into her hips and lower her down onto my hard-as-a-rock dick. I walk us like that into the bathroom, and I step into the shower, press her against the wall and start to fuck her. Her hands fly up above her head and use the wall at her back and my dick to hold her up. I turn on the water and hiss when the cold spray hits my back and starts beating down on us. “Hayes.” She moans my name and I fuck her harder.
“I’m going to make you come,” I say and throw my head back into the spray of water before I lift her off my dick and put her on her feet.
I drop down on my haunches, spread her cheeks and flick my tongue over her tight puckered asshole. I keep it there, push in a little and trap the now warm shower water on my tongue and then slide down to her pussy and put her clit in my mouth with the water around it and bite it.
Her knees buckle, but the shower muffles her scream. I find that I don’t like that at all. I reach up, turn the water off and press my hand into her back to bend her in half. She braces on the wall and I slip my cock between the warm, wet lips of her pussy and drag it back and forth.
I slide up and into her in one smooth, easy stroke. She gasps and slaps a hand on the wall. I grip her hips, slide one hand to her clit and rub.
I dive into her.
Pull out.
Thrust up.
Drill hard.
Fuck her fast.
Then, I slow down and make love to my woman until she comes.
Beach Reads Box Set Page 29