by Ella James
“Are you?” he asks.again.
I nod. “I didn’t really get hurt,” I mumble.
His mouth twists, and I know he’s waiting for me to ask.
“Why did you do it?” My voice is barely audible. I’m not sure I really want to know.
“Merri.” He groans my name, and I smell vodka. His eyes are heavy—sad. “I came for you because I knew.”
“What do you mean?”
“I found out about you—about what happened to you—almost a year ago.” I watch his Adam’s apple bob as I try to process what he’s saying. “I could have told someone…but I didn’t.”
“That’s it? Are you serious?” I’m pretty sure my jaw is hanging open. Of all the things I expected him to say, this just isn’t one of them. I’m not sure how I feel. Relieved that it’s not something worse? Upset that he knew but didn’t tell anyonwe?
He looks down at the grass, like he can’t stand to look at me. I watch him roll his shoulder, but I’m not really seeing him. I’m holding my breath.
“I tried to forget about it. I…didn’t think that I could help.” He shuts his eyes. “My father told Priscilla Heat and Jim Gunn that I knew, and I started being followed. I was… It was easier to forget.” He swallows again, and when he speaks, his voice sounds hoarse. “I didn’t want to know the details of his philandering. He’s always done it. I just…hate it. I guess I didn’t want to think that he could do that—what he did to you. That he was such a bad person.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to process all this. When I open them, I’m looking into Cross Carlson’s face, and I can see Drake there—in the cheekbones; in the chin. “Was he a good father?” It’s a weird question, but suddenly it’s one I feel like I need answered.
Cross hangs his head. I watch a dry breeze ruffle his hair as he slowly shakes it. After a long moment, he looks back up at me, and I can tell he’s not going to go into any more detail.
“I paid for my silence, in a way. Last November, Hunter West, the pro poker player, had a party at his vineyard out in Napa. That night, I got upset about something.” His eyes come up to mine, then fall away. “I had a thing for my friend, West’s fiancé. She wasn’t then, but I did see her with West and I got really wasted.”
Again, there’s a silence, in which I lean forward.
“I was a dickhead to her, and then I left. I got on my bike, and some guy stopped me to ask about it. After he left I sped away, but I couldn’t steer it. It didn’t drive right.”
I nod, because now what his friend told me in the hospital, about him having enemies, makes sense.
“I had the wreck, and I was in a coma for a while. And when I woke up, I remembered the guy who asked about my bike…and where I knew him from. It was Jim Gunn, my father’s old body guard.”
I can’t breathe, much less respond, but it doesn’t matter; Cross keeps talking. “My neck was all fucked up and I couldn’t use my hand.” He swallows and when he speaks again, his voice is thick. “I found out my parents moved me, while I was out. From this rehab place in Napa, where I’m from…to this other one, in L.A. Bad place,” he exhales. “Bad track record for getting people out of comas. There was this therapy at the first place…the good place. And they didn’t have it at this other.”
He’s quiet for a minute, and I watch him flex his jaw. The whole thing… It makes my throat feel tight. I want to hug him. I want to say something comforting, or reassuring, but the easiness between us down in Mexico is nowhere to be found.
Minutes pass. He’s staring at the grass. I want to run, to scream, but instead I touch his hand and keep this painful conversation rolling. “Was it—the therapy the new place didn’t have— was it therapy that could have brought you out of the coma?”
He nods once, briefly lifting his heavy-lashed eyes to mine. “It did…right before I got shipped off. It brought me kind of out.” He rubs his lips together and seems to sink down between his broad shoulders. “I had the stroke on the transport over. I think I had a pain attack. Now, looking back on the weird memories I have…” He shakes his head. “They did a surgery there because my brain was swelling for no reason. Then I got an infection.”
I’m about to ask about the infection when he shifts a little, leaning over like he might prop his right elbow on his knee—but he stops short and rolls his shoulder again. He makes a pained face. “My parents… didn’t want to pay for the other place.”
I can see how much this hurts him. “So they sent you to a place that wasn’t good for what was wrong with you?”
His jaw pops, and again he’s looking at the grass. The fingers of his right hand play in the blades as his eyes peek up at mine. And then…just nothing. He won’t even look back up at me—and I start to see why.
“I don’t understand. Are you saying that he wanted you to…not wake up? Or that he didn’t care?”
His blue eyes latch onto mine as he shrugs. “They never visited. Ever. My father called me only one time, right after I woke up, to tell me I was back in the good rehab because my best friend, Lizzy, sold herself, right here at Love Inc. That’s how she got the money to have me moved back to a place where I would have a shot at getting better.”
His eyes glitter as he tells me this, and I want desperately to take his hand.
“Were they always this way? Your parents?”
He shrugs, looking vacant. Bleak. “Maybe. When I was a kid, I just did what I should. It went well enough. I wasn’t good in school,” he murmurs. “I wasn’t really…excellent at anything.” He takes a deep breath, reaching up to rub his hair although the movement clearly hurts his shoulder; it makes him wince. He lowers the hand back to his lap and looks at me bitterly. “My mother is a famous interior designer. My father...well.” He squeezes his eyes shut. “I tried to be…likable when I was younger. As I got older, I guess the burden was too much.”
“The burden of what?”
“The burden of trying to be their son,” he tells me bitterly. “One who couldn’t finish college. One who wanted to work on motorcycles rather than go to school for business or law.” I have a flash of memory of Cross working on the bike outside the house where we took shelter that first day on the run. “Then when I found out… When I got on my dad’s computer one day and saw the e-mails about…” he swallows, “Missy King.” He shakes his head, and I understand what he’s implying.
“Your finding out just made everything with your family worse.”
“It had nothing to do with you, Merri. My father…we just never bonded. I don’t bond with people,” he whispers.
“Yes you do.”
Moving quickly, before I startle him away, I scoot close to him and wrap my arm around his back, lying my cheek against his unhurt left shoulder. I shut my eyes for a second, relishing the steady rhythm of his heartbeat.
I’ve really missed you. Those are the words that get hung up in my throat. What I actually say aloud is: “Why did you decide to come get me?”
Under my arm, his back stiffens. I pull away to give him space, lean back in the grass so I can see his face as he says, “In January, Priscilla kidnapped Lizzy and me and tried to sell us…to Guapo. Because of what we knew.” He rubs his eyes, like just the memory is exhausting. “Hunter West came and saved the day, and that’s how Priscilla and Jim Gunn got arrested. We were lucky, and I know we were. I couldn’t stand to think you had gone through that and…not been found.”
I’m reeling from the news that Priscilla and Jim Gunn actually did get busted, when another thought occurs to me—one that makes my stomach flip. “Do you still have the e-mails? The ones you found?”
He nods, and I wonder what they say about me. I try to picture his face when he first read them. What he was thinking, to do what he did. Was it guilt? I guess it was. He said he knew, but he didn’t do anything. So he felt guilty. That’s why he came.
Guilt. That’s why he hauled me across the border.
Not because he loves you. Not because he likes you.
I cover
my face with my hands and Cross is there, pulling me against his chest with his right arm.
“I’m so sorry, Merri.”
I start to cry, and my thoughts are so jumbled, I’m not even sure what has set me off. Why can’t he just be Evan? I loved Evan. I was able to love him. I think about giving Drake blow jobs, about being down on my knees in the brothel. I think about what happened with Jesus, at the end. I pull away from Cross’s embrace to look at him, and I know he knows this about me. I sucked his dad’s dick. I was desperate enough to be a whore, and in my lowest hour, I was.
Cross’s lip is white from where he’s biting it.
“You didn’t care that you were rescuing a whore? Your father’s mistress?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugs, looking uncomfortable. “I just thought that no one deserved what you got. And then I met you and I knew you didn’t.” He sighs. “Jesus, Merri. What are you thinking about all this? How do you feel?”
“I don’t know what to think. I don’t know how to feel. I care about you, Cross…but this is really hard.” A tear spills down my cheek—just one hot, lone tear. My last shred of dignity. “I just…I don’t think I can talk about this anymore with you.”
I turn to go, hoping he’ll let me.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
It’s because I’ve been drinking that I follow her. Even as I tromp along the pebble trail that leads to the pond, I know how wrong it is. Merri ran away from me. Going after her is like telling her I don’t give a shit how she feels. But I just can’t help myself.
I give her a minute or two lead and as I walk, I try to get my head on straight. I shouldn’t have had so fucking much to drink. It’s hard to figure out what to do, what to say, when I’m this wasted.
I’m being optimistic—foolishly so. I focus on how she said she cared about me, not the fact that she ran. If I remember right, she was pretty damn quiet about what I knew and what I didn’t do about it. I know it has to bother her. It has to bother her that I’m my father’s son. But maybe I can get her to overlook that.
I follow her toward the shiny circle of the pond, feeling like I want to throw myself at her feet and beg for forgiveness. I’m taking long strides, but Merri is running. I’m halfway around the pond before I start to close the gap between us. I focus on her bouncing, flowing hair and don’t allow myself to think.
Out in front of us, on the right, behind a row of big oak trees, are a bunch of little cottages. She turns toward them. She cuts close to the first, but doesn’t stop till the second, which is nestled a little farther back, and is surrounded by trees.
I follow around it, and find her sitting on her butt, her knees drawn up, her back against a quaint wooden door. She’s not crying. She’s just breathing hard.
When she sees me, she goes absolutely still.
I look up at his face and feel a vice around my heart. He’s Drake Carlson’s son. There’s no way he can ever really care for me. Men aren’t like that. They’re territorial. He knows what I did with his father. Drake cheated on his wife, Derinda, and for at least a little while, I was the ‘other woman’.
Tears fill my eyes, so he and the trees behind him are smeared, but I still can’t look away. I feel my mouth tremble. I’m too upset to even be embarrassed.
Cross is watching me like he’s watching his life pass before his eyes. Having him right here in front of me, looking at me that way, is too much at this moment. It’s like I’m on one island and he’s on another. I don’t think the water that runs between us could ever dry up. Not unless one of us becomes someone else.
I wish I could. I wish we’d met some other way. I wish he didn’t know about my past.
I wipe my face with fingers that feel numb, and when I speak, the words sound thick and muffled. “What are you doing here?”
The expression on his face remains the same. Blank. Almost stoic. His eyes roll over me and then he looks away. “Can you tell that I’ve been drinking?” he asks softly.
I nod. I could smell it earlier.
“I’ve always been a rash drunk. Doing things I shouldn’t.” He sinks to the ground in front of me, making a face as he uses his right hand to balance. I lean forward, wishing I’d thought to help him.
He reaches out his right hand and takes my left one, threading my clammy fingers warmly through his stronger ones. He looks down at our hands.
“It makes me angry that he had you. It makes me angry because he didn’t deserve you. No one does.” He looks into my face. “Especially not me. I lied to you.”
“That’s true.”
“I’m an asshole, Merri. I…didn’t think I was, but now I know I always have been. I’m not brave like you are. When people started following me, I was afraid.”
“Of course you were,” I whisper. I bring our joined hands to my mouth so I can press a kiss on the back of his knuckles, because the least I can do is assuage his guilt. “Cross, you rode into Mexico, into cartel territory, alone, with only this.” I squeeze the fingers of his right hand gently and look into his eyes. “Please don’t ever think that you’re not brave. I don’t know of many people who would do something like that. Something so…selfless.”
He shakes his head. “I wouldn’t call it selfless. I couldn’t live with the guilt anymore.”
“It was still selfless,” I say. “I’ve made bad choices, too, so I can’t judge. And even if it did take you a year, I’m never going to feel anything but grateful toward you, promise. So we can go our own separate ways and as long as your dad never tracks me down or tries to hurt me, I’ll be fine.”
“I don’t want to go separate ways.”
His words feel like a stone thrown into the waters of my heart. I just sit there for a moment, unable to move or think. Cross’s handsome face is blurry from my tears, but his voice is quiet and strong. “Meredith…” His hand around mine tightens. “I didn’t expect to feel this way. I didn’t want to. But I do. I know it’s fu— it’s weird, okay? It’s crazy weird…because of my father mostly. But I want to be with you. I want to get to know you more.”
I shake my head, pull my fingers from his and scoot away. I press myself against the door and whisper, “You should want to leave.”
“There are reasons why I can’t.” He scoots toward me, thumbing my cheek. “And they are here—” he leans in close to kiss my temple— “and here—” his perfect lips find my mouth and taste it gently— “and here—” he says, kissing me just above my breasts.
He leans in close enough to steal the air out of my lungs and presses a kiss against my forehead. “And that’s why I can’t walk away, even though I know I should. My father might have found you first, but you were always mine.”
He is all around me. I can smell him, feel the warmth that radiates off him. I can feel his arm thread through my hair and then his mouth takes mine. The kisses start out soft and slow, excruciating. I’m shivering. But pretty soon they turn hungry. I’m pressed against the door and Cross is gently over me, smelling of vodka, breathing my name. The skin of his back is so soft and so warm. My hands are under his t-shirt, crawling up his hard, lean sides, blinded by lust until I feel the gauze.
I tug my mouth away from his and run my fingers through his hair. “I wish I had been there for you. I hate to think of you alone.”
“I’m not alone right now.”
His lips and tongue find mine, and we are lost again; the sum of us is skin and teeth and tongues. My greedy fingers find the button of his jeans and he is in my shirt, tearing the blouse, moving my bra, taking my breasts into his mouth.
I’m breathing so hard I’m nearly screaming when he moves off me, grabbing something from the ground beside us and rising up over my head. I see a flicker of blue eyes between his arms and he says, “Move, Merri.”
I scramble up and hear the sound of breaking glass. Holy shit. He broke one of the glass panes on the door. He starts to stick his right arm through, and I yelp, “No!”
With a quick glance around me—there ar
e only trees—I pull my shirt off and he wraps it around his arm before he reaches through the broken pane. He leans up a little and I watch his ass tighten through the sagging jeans as he works with the lock. The door swings open, and Cross grins.
“Come on, woman.”
We’re tangled up again the moment we crawl up on a bed. Cross’s mouth is magic, making the little cottage bedroom spin, tracing down my belly. I’m pulling on his hair, stroking his neck. I’m breathing hard and tugging down his jeans.
“Fuck, Merri.”
Cross is lying on his side; we pull his jeans off together: one of his hands, both of mine, and I am stunned to see he’s naked underneath. Mother Mary, he’s so big and beautiful; just the sight of him makes me ache between my legs.
I push him gently back against the pillows and climb on top of him. I kiss his neck and stroke his thighs, and he groans, “Damn. Oh…damn.”
He finds my lips with his and tugs at the top of my leggings.
“I’ll help you.”
But he’s managed to get the leggings to my knees, and now he’s stroking his fingers gently along the borders of my thong. I’m so wet I can barely straddle him without grinding my hips against his dick.
“I’ll get these pants off.” I draw away from him and pull them off, grateful for a chance to catch my breath. I’m too caught up in this. I feel like a teenager. For a second, as I pull the cottony leggings over my ankles, I think about being on my knees those other times, but then Cross leans up and strips off my thong.
He lays me on the pillows and crawls on top of me. He splays his right hand on my thigh, then walks it inward. When his fingers touch me there, I gasp. He smiles the sweetest little smile down on me. “You’re beautiful,” he says. He strokes me one more time. “Is this okay?”
I nod, and his head is lowering over me. I feel one finger glide inside and then his lips touch me. Oh God, his tongue. I’m warm and slick down there and he is stroking me. Stroking inside, lapping outside. It isn’t long before I’m shaking violently, pressing my knees around his head and gasping his name.