Close Match

by Jerald, Tracey

  “You’re afraid of needles.” His eyes are swirling with something profound.

  “What is it?” Even through my pain, I can tell something much more serious is happening. Monty squeezes my fingers harder. Char drops the phone, startled. Ev makes his way over to her. He lifts the phone, murmurs a few indistinct words, and presses the Off button.

  “Ev?” Monty calls out to my father without losing my eyes. “You have exactly ten minutes to tell her or I’m breaking my promise. I swear to fucking God, I’m not holding a thing back at this point.”

  “Get her fixed up and bring her into the library.” I turn my head and watch as Ev wearily pushes his hand through his hair. “Charlotte and I will meet you both in there.”

  “Ev?” I call out. My father’s eyes cut to mine. In them is sadness, despair, and so much love, I’m knocked back into Monty with the force of it.

  “In the library.” He slips an arm around his wife, and they make their way out of the kitchen.

  I’m almost nauseous by the time Monty stops the bleeding enough to bandage my hand before I race out of the kitchen. He catches up with me and grabs me by the shoulders. “Linnie…”

  “Tell me,” I demand.

  “I can’t. Just promise me you’ll meet me later to talk about everything you’re about to hear.” His hazel eyes bore into mine.

  “You want me to promise you something when you won’t give me anything in return?” I demand.

  He nods. “You’re right.” Trailing a finger from my temple down to my chin, he whispers, “When you first came here, I was afraid and not just for Ev. Now, I’m hopeful for exactly the same reasons.” His simple touch sends shivers coursing through my body. As he steps back, he whispers, “Come on. It’s time for you to know everything.”

  Side by side, we make our way into the library.

  * * *

  Thirty minutes later, I burst out of the library with tears streaking down my face.

  I only just found my father, and now I could lose him too.

  How in the hell is life fair?

  Racing through the house, I find the nearest exit and run hell-bent for leather toward the studio my father gave me as a welcome-home gift.

  Except this may not be home for long since he may be dying.

  Forty-Four

  Montague

  “Could that have gone any worse?” Ev asks, running a shaky hand through his hair. Mom lays her hand on his knee, offering what comfort she can.

  I have nothing to say right now because all I want is to run out the door behind Linnie. I need to find her and hold her, to let her know we’ll get through this together. Somehow in my heart, I knew she’d feel like this—wounded and in pain.

  I’ve reached the point where I’m tired of keeping so many secrets. It’s destroying the relationship I have with my soul, and this one might have just destroyed the one that was blooming with Linnie.

  “There’s one good thing,” Mom says softly.

  “There is?” I ask incredulously.

  “She didn’t leave.”

  “That you know of,” I spew bitterly. Standing, I look down at the two people who raised me. “You forget the only reason she’s been here has been to get to know us. What did we show her? That we’re all a bunch of lying…”

  “Montague!” Ev snaps. My mother’s hurt is stained on her cheeks.

  “I’m sorry, Ev, but I warned you this was going to happen.” I turn and stalk to the door.

  “Where are you going?” he calls out.

  “To try to find Linnie. To see if she’ll forgive one member of this family for their duplicity.” Hopefully, the one that’s developing feelings for her. As my fingers twist on the knob, I hear a soft laugh behind me. “I really can’t find anything about this funny,” I growl.

  “One day, I’ll tell you what I think is both sad and funny about this moment, Monty. Now, go find your girl,” Ev says with a break in his voice.

  Looking over my shoulder, I see my mother’s fingers being brushed back and forth across Ev’s lips as they have been so many time over the years. But his eyes are fixed on me. He nods, a crooked smile of sadness across his face. “Go, son. Find your woman to make sure she’s all right.”

  If it wasn’t for the handle holding me up, I might have fallen to the floor. “And don’t try to tell me otherwise, Monty. For us Parrishes, sometimes all it takes is one look.” Mom’s head drops to Ev’s shoulder.

  I gather my bearings before I say something I know I don’t say often enough. “I love you both. No matter what.” Before they can respond, I head out of the library in search of Linnie.

  * * *

  I check the studio first. She’s not there dancing out her anger and pain. Then I walk the perimeter of the farm along the fence line. I go through the stables; still no sign of her.

  I’m about to give up and call her when I happen to glance up at the house and see movement on my balcony when I know damn well I didn’t leave the doors open earlier. Taking a chance, I jog through the kitchen and up the back stairs. There’s a light sheen of sweat on my skin despite the cold November air.

  Sprinting down the hall to our side of the house, I fling open the door to my suite of rooms. The door crashes against the far wall, startling the woman curled up in the chair. She rises, and half a dozen tissues fall from her lap to the floor. The breeze picks them up. She bends quickly to grab them, her hair falling in front of her face. I can’t tell if she’s still crying or not.

  My heart rate starts to even out, and I turn and close the door, flipping the lock. About thirty feet lies between us, but it might as well be miles. “I wanted to tell you,” I choke out. “From the first moment you were in this house.”

  Her head tips back. “Ev didn’t?” I start to make my way closer, but she holds up her hand. “No, don’t come any closer.”

  “Linnie.” I can feel, literally feel my heart start to crack inside my chest. “I didn’t keep any secrets of my own from you.”

  “No, you just helped keep the fact my father might be dying from me,” she lashes out. “There’s no way a man can—”

  “Can what?” Ignoring what she said, I move closer. She twists the crumpled tissues in her hand.

  She flings out her arm and the tissues she had in her hand come flying at me. I bet she wishes they were rocks, I think grimly. Instead, they land on the floor between us like the barrier Ev’s words created. “There’s no way a man can start feeling things for you while lying to you with every breath he takes,” she hurls at me. “And to think after yesterday, I’d begun to think…”

  “Think what?” I demand. Because last night, for the first time in as long as I can remember, I slept through without a damn nightmare. Who knew if or when that would happen again.

  She wasn’t the only one who’d begun to think—to need.

  “I’d begun to think you cared about me. That’s impossible though, isn’t it.”

  “That’s true.” I edge closer to the tissues. Caring is such a politically correct, pansy-ass word for what I feel for her. I need her more than my next breath. And if Ev fucked this up by making me hold back from her, I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do.

  Her face pales before she squares her shoulders. “Then tell me what it is you want,” she demands. She’s practically dancing in place. She’s on the balls of her feet, rocking back and forth in her anger, her pain.

  Her passion.

  “There’s exactly one thing I want. It’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted since the minute I saw you.” Deliberately, I let my foot crush the fragile tissue barrier between us.

  She holds her ground. My nostrils flare.

  “And what’s that?” she hisses. God, she looks like a warrior ready to do battle, refusing to surrender. Only there will be no white flag.

  “This.” And I tug her hand to pull her close. Wrapping my arms around her, I lower my head.

  Dimly in the back of my mind, I’m a little in shock to realize the st
ars let their most precious one go so she could light up in my arms as her arms slide around my neck to return my kiss. Passion flares between us, switching despair and anger to hard-core yearning and need in the time it takes for my tongue to slip between the seam of her lips. I tilt her head back to make sure this is what she wants. Her lips curve in a sensual smile as my tongue dips out to capture our combined taste. To memorize it. To hold it deep in my soul.

  But I have the answer I need.

  My hands roughly slide into her thick hair as she slides her arms under my sweater and begins shoving it up as our lips collide. My eyes drop to half-mast when she rakes her nails over the lower edge of my spine over my pants.

  Dropping my head forward, I scatter kisses to her forehead, her cheeks, trailing them down her neck until she lets out a breathless moan in my ear. “Monty, don’t let go.” Then as she arches her throat, she murmurs something incomprehensible to everything but my heart. It’s a plea to hold on.

  In my own, I promise to kiss her every morning, every night, and every moment in between. While my hands skim under the tight-fitting running shirt, over her smooth skin, I swear to be a better man—a man worthy of skin kissed by the moon, hair drenched by the dark sky, and eyes shot through by magic.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I catch the sun gleaming off the leaded crystal, and I swear to myself before I drop to my knees to pull off her running shoes that I’m through with dulling my pain. I’ll find a way, I swear to the three souls in the room: Linnie, myself, and the specter of the alcohol that’s been tying me to the past. No more.

  After quickly removing one of her sneakers, then the other, I reach for the elastic waistband of her running pants. They fall prey to my shaking hands as I hear the seams rip in my haste. Leaning forward, I can inhale her pure, clean scent from this angle. I run my nose along the seam of her panties. She gasps, her hands, which had been braced on my shoulders, sinking deep against my scalp. “I didn’t like these pants much anyway,” she says, her voice husky.

  I can’t help but smile. Shoving to my feet, I grab the hem of her shirt, leaving her clad in nothing but a sports bra and panties. My hands carefully trace the alabaster beauty of her skin. I know I could sip a thousand kisses from it and become drunk from every one.

  “This is just the beginning,” I murmur. “All I need is you.”

  Contorting her arms through the straitjacket-like contraption women have to suffer through to exercise, she whips it off. “Then show me,” she dares.

  I’m not entirely sure if I’m talking about Linnie and me, her and Ev, or the conclusion of my drinking, but whatever combination, I mean what I say. In response, I pick her up and stalk over to my bed before tossing her lightly upon it. She bounces a few times before edging up on her elbows as I begin to strip off my clothes.

  I’ve never seen anything quite so beautiful.

  I’ll never taste anything quite so smooth.

  And I know as sure as I’m about to touch her, no moment will be as life-altering as this one.

  Not a single one.

  Forty-Five

  Evangeline

  He’s the most rugged-looking man I’ve ever seen, muscular yet graceful. His body is ropes of muscles woven together to form a twisted pattern that makes my hands itch to run my fingers up and down it. Long legs, slim hips leading to an almost overly trim stomach. He’s lean almost to the point of thin, but knowing how hard he works, I’m not surprised. Unclothed, there’s nothing holding back the power that everyone, including me, relies heavily upon. It’s much more apparent without the barrier of clothes to hide it.

  His jeans are riding low down on his hips so I can just see the band of his underwear. My lips part as he bends down to unlace one boot and then the other; I get a fantastic view of his traps and deltoids rippling. I don’t know if it’s his years of service, the shape he had to remain in for his job, or the work he’s done on the farm, but I could combust looking at his back. A dreamy sigh escapes my lips.

  When he stands, I know he’s heard it by the hungry look on his face. An answering growl leaves his throat. Quickly, he unsnaps and lowers the zipper on his jeans before moving toward the bed with the grace of a cat—quiet, stealthy, predatory.

  My heart speeds up in anticipation. Soon, that body will be next to mine, over it. I shiver, lying trapped by the fierceness in Monty’s face and yet protected by it. My legs begin to scissor back and forth, but even that small motion highlights the need aching between them. Nothing seems to take away my need for Montague Parrish. Short of him thrusting his hard cock inside of me, I know the ache will continue to grow until it consumes me.

  In the dimly lit room, his dark hair gleams as if the moon itself decided to rise early and cast its glow on this, us. My fingers clench on the duvet covers as I anticipate running them through the soft strands while I arch into his powerful thrusts. But he stops by the side of the bed, laying a hand over my quivering stomach to still me.

  “I never wished for anything until before you.” His hand trembles on my skin. “How do I do someone as perfect as you justice?” His hand begins to make little circles. My stomach hollows out in reaction.

  “Just want me.” Releasing the bedspread, I capture his hand and drag it up my body, over my ribs, between my breasts, until his hand is cupping my face.

  “I already do.” Lifting one leg, then the other, he wraps them around his hips as he comes down on top of me, his hips aligning with mine.

  “Yes,” I hiss, as I rock my hips up to meet his. His hand slides down the back of my panties and pull my hips tighter against his.

  “Think of how good this will feel when it’s just us,” he rasps against my ear. “Nothing but our skin connecting. Nothing but my hands, my lips, on your body. What do you think about that?” He sinks his teeth against the cord between my shoulder and my neck.

  I moan, knowing if I’d been standing, I’d have fallen. The feelings Monty causes to erupt inside of me are just that strong, just that powerful. Nothing, not even the stage, has ever made my body sing like this.

  He lowers himself on top of me, and every inch of him aligns perfectly to me. Bracing his weight on his elbows, he moves his hips slowly. I want him closer—every inch of his skin on every inch of mine.

  But he has other ideas.

  Removing his hands from me, he rolls us until I’m straddling him. Some moves, I think wildly, as Monty’s hands cup my sensitive breasts. My nipples elongate as he rolls each one gently but diabolically with his callused thumb and forefingers. “Ohh,” I moan out my pleasure. My hips move of their own accord in his lap.

  “The first time I watched you dance in the studio, I wondered if your body would move like that in bed.” My mouth opens on a gasp as he curls up to capture my lips in a searing kiss. “I’m so fucking excited to know I’m going to find out.”

  Looping my arms over his neck, I press my lips against the skin of his neck. It’s a feast to my senses: the satiny texture over the rippled muscle, the scent of his woodsy cologne mixed with sweat drying on his skin, the warmth of his body. I rake my teeth over his shoulder joint just before Monty tips me back to capture the tip of one of my nipples in his mouth and sucks it tightly against the roof of his mouth.

  “Oh my God.” The fingers of one hand score down his back while the other tunnels into his hair. “Don’t stop,” I plead.

  He immediately lets the nipple loose. I protest with a small mew only to be granted a boon from some merciful god as he quickly latches onto the other. His other hand resumes the tweaking it was doing earlier, bringing me right to the edge. “More. Harder,” I beg.

  Monty complies. Pushing my breasts together, he alternates between one and the other, leaving the nipples exposed to the cold November air floating in from the balcony doors I never closed. “Monty, I’m going to…” I mewl, just as small shivers contract my pussy. I slump in his arms slightly. He releases my breasts to wrap them tight around me. As our lips align when he raises his head, I practica
lly devour him. I want to consume him, absorb him into my skin.

  He’s an addiction I don’t mind having—definitely the first and quite possibly the last.

  “I want to be inside you the next time it happens,” he murmurs against my lips. I squirm against him, anxious to feel the power of his body against mine. “But first, I want to make you forget your name.”

  My heart stutters before regaining its normal rhythm. “It’s Evangeline,” I blurt out.

  A roguish look crosses his face as he lays me back on the bed. “I’ll be sure to ask you that again in a few minutes.” Gripping the sides of my panties, he drags them down my legs. I lift my legs to assist him.

  Once he’s tossed them aside, I go to wrap my legs behind his back, but he presses them gently to the side of the bed. Kissing me, he leaves me partially dazed as he begins a descent, trailing kisses over the peaks and valleys of each rib, my hips before coming to the smooth juncture between my legs.

  I arch my back, practically begging for his lips and tongue to taste me.

  And he does.

  “Perfect,” he mutters as he circles my clit with his tongue. I let out a harsh groan and call out his name.

  “Monty!”

  “Can you take more?” he wonders as he slips one, no, two fingers inside of me. I practically levitate off the bed.

  “No!” I cry out. I’m going to come again with what he’s doing, and I want to with him.

  I need to go again with him.

  With a wicked laugh, he moves his mouth to the side, leaving a gentle kiss on my inner thigh. After a moment, he slides his fingers out and promptly slides them inside his lips. Pushing to his knees, he shoves down the rest of his clothes and kicks them off the side of the bed. His hand drops down to his cock, touching the thing I want most in this world. And quite simply, I break.