“How would you know what I want?” she asked, but it was more flirtatious than an actual taunt.
I pinched her chin to keep her still as our eyes locked together. “Because I’m your husband. I remember what my wife craved after a day like today—to be pinned down on our bed and ridden hard. To come on my cock until you can’t take it anymore.”
She released a sigh that pierced my chest. “Yes,” she whispered, hands flying to my belt. “Please.”
A car door slammed. Falco’s door. I still didn’t stop kissing her, drinking in her need, stroking my tongue against hers as she started working my belt open. We were putting it all on the line—her safety, my job. But we just needed ten minutes. If we only had ten fucking minutes—
Knuckles wrapped against the door.
“Goddammit,” I swore against her mouth. I pulled back reluctantly and knew we wore matching expressions of dazed lust—flushed cheeks, eyes wide, lips swollen.
Another knock at the door.
“Ms. Swift? Cope?” Falco said with a hint of alarm in his voice this time.
Serena slid off the island and began putting her clothing and snarled hair in order. I scrubbed a hand down my face, as horny and irritated as I’d ever been.
“I’ll go upstairs, pretend I was doing one last check of the windows,” I whispered. “Okay?”
She nodded. “Got it.”
We were hurtling back into the reality I desperately wanted a break from: heartbroken husband and wife forced together as bodyguard and client suddenly amid a dangerous scandal.
So before she could turn away from me, I held the back of her hair and pressed a long kiss to her forehead, lingering for seconds we didn’t have.
I tore myself away before I sacrificed everything for one more minute of Serena back in my arms. Walking to the staircase, I was grateful she’d closed all the curtains, hiding us from view, before I’d gone ahead and obliterated every protocol in the damn book. I took the stairs two at a time and heard Serena at the front door.
I waited on the landing with shaking muscles. We’d been interrupted before we could finish arguing or fucking, and the incompletion had me wired and antsy.
“Falco?” Serena said like she was surprised. “I’m so sorry. I had my headphones in while doing the dishes and didn’t hear you.”
“It’s no problem, ma’am,” he said. “I was just worried.”
I glanced in the mirror by the bedroom—rehooked the buttons of my shirt and made sure my erection wasn’t immediately obvious. Then I strolled back down the steps.
“Hey,” I said. “I was upstairs doing a quick check of the windows before my shift ended.”
If Falco noticed the kitchen’s slight disarray or Serena’s wrinkled shirt, he didn’t mention it. “Everything’s okay?”
“Can we check in outside?” I asked. I gave Serena a nod and said, “Have a good evening, Ms. Swift.”
I turned on my heel before she could reply, too worried we’d betray what happened between us. Falco joined me on the porch, closing the door behind him. I still felt the need to protect him from the possibility of Aerial’s dangerous reach, so I wanted him on high-alert even if he didn’t know the full story yet.
“I made a note in my reports today for you,” I said softly. “But at the competition, I got a real bad vibe from a few of the fans. Creepy vibes.”
His brow furrowed. “Did they speak to Serena?”
I shook my head. “No, but they stared at her in a way that made me really concerned. Were hanging around the parking lot when we left too. I didn’t catch a tail but didn’t want you unprepared for something weird happening tonight. Stay sharp, okay? Call if you need backup or feel like something’s off.”
“Will do,” he said.
I clapped him on the arm before I left. I didn’t turn around. I didn’t try and catch one more glimpse of Serena, didn’t risk one more opportunity to run back into a home once filled with our love and now only filled with tense complications.
The moment I slid into my car, I pressed my hand over the left side of my chest, curling around the ache there.
I’d been lying to myself since day one.
There was no way I could take this job and protect my heart at the same time.
23
Serena
At 7:31 the next morning, I pulled open my front door and wasn’t surprised at all to find my ex-husband leaning against a tree in his running clothes. His expression was part-smirk, part-annoyed.
I knew the feeling. I’d woken up with an anger as powerful as my sexual frustration, and the man in front of me was almost entirely responsible.
“Good morning, Ms. Swift,” he said, voice still gravelly. It was as rough as the words he’d growled at me last night: I remember what my wife craved after a day like today—to be pinned down on our bed and ridden hard.
I’d been tortured by erotic dreams all night—dreams where we hadn’t been interrupted, where Cope had fucked me on that counter with his palm pressed to my mouth as I came over and over. What made it worse was that it wasn’t just a fantasy.
He had fucked me like that before.
“Good morning, Mr. McDaniels,” I said petulantly.
I didn’t miss his hungry eyes scanning my body. I only wore a pink sports bra and tiny bike shorts, and maybe that had been to aggravate my very aggravating bodyguard.
“Let me guess,” he said. “We’re not even going to try and maintain the truce we set yesterday about arguing while I’m on the job, correct?”
I shut the front door behind me. Yesterday’s argument—we were three-for-three, now—had stirred up more hurtful memories than I wanted to admit. And since the activities I usually did to burn off this spiky sensation weren’t available—sex with Cope or surfing—I opted for a hard, sweaty run instead.
“I’m pissed about a lot of things right now, and yeah you’re one of them,” I said, taking off at practically a dead sprint. I didn’t worry that he’d catch up with me immediately. He did and pulled his shirt off at the same time, tossing it back towards the front porch.
“What are you doing?” I asked, trying not to stare.
He shrugged and said, “I heard it’s gonna be a hot one.”
I managed to barely tear my attention away from his broad, muscular chest before I tripped over something. Last night’s romantic intimacy—before we fought and angrily made out—had lured me back to a past before we’d crashed against differences too complex to mend. I’d made one tiny attempt, had tried to broach our awful breakup and its many unanswered questions, and it still spiraled into snarky bickering.
I ignored his comment and turned down the road toward the nearby cul-de-sac. We were already panting, arms swinging and feet pounding on the sidewalk.
“I can guess,” he started to say. “Why you’re pissed at me. But who else is on your shit list this morning?”
“Aerial,” I said harshly. “Besides the fact that having them stop me from talking about gender inequality in the middle of a TV interview was infuriating, I’m actually more concerned about what’s on that drive Catalina gave us and if she’s safe.”
I caught the clench in his jaw. We’d been too busy flirting to process our interactions with the Lattimore brothers yesterday—or my very real fears about Catalina’s security.
“Quentin is speaking with his law enforcement contact today, and he’s entrusting him with trying to find Catalina. That’s the priority. He also did some digging into those badge numbers. Turns out they’re quality control inspectors that look into factories like the ones Aerial uses to produce their clothing and gear.” Cope ran a hand through his hair and huffed out a breath. “His first suspicion is that something bad is being concealed by the inspectors.”
I turned to him. “Like they’re not safe or something?”
“Yes. Unfortunately.”
Fury raced up my spine. “So maybe this company that espouses all of these we’re changing the world ideas is actually a giant f
raud?”
“We don’t know the full picture yet,” he said. “But they’re lying about something, and whatever it is that Catalina gave us is enough of a bombshell they’re starting to threaten people to get it back.”
My throat tightened. “I hate feeling like I was tricked about more than just their ethics. Maybe Quentin was right. Maybe Aerial isn’t ethical behind closed doors. And maybe they only want women to be bikini models rather than athletes after all. They promised advocacy on gender inequality; they promised taking a stand. So far, it’s been a lot of words without direct action backing them up.”
We were quiet for a moment before I said, “I wanted them to be better.”
“Me too.”
“They should be better.”
“Yes, they should,” Cope said. “And if they can’t be better, then we need to do what we can to hold them accountable. Quentin said he can come over tonight after he’s talked to his sources to fill us in on what he’s learned. I just need to sneak around Falco so he doesn’t see us meeting. But Quent is hopeful that, between the authorities and his editor, concrete action will be taken soon.”
My anger toward Aerial didn’t abate—there was too much to be angry about even with a partial understanding. The thought that this feeling could be directed toward an action, however, changed my perception of it.
Just like Dora had said.
The question always is: Will you let the anger eat you alive? Or will you use it to accomplish something useful?
We hit the end of the cul-de-sac and rounded the turn to head back to the house, both of us breathing hard now. It was hot, and I could see the sun glinting off the light sheen of sweat on Cope’s shoulders. Everything that happened between us last night came screaming back into my head, from the heartbreak scrawled across Cope’s face to the desperate way we’d kissed each other.
Every interaction between us—blistering remark or tender caress—only illuminated the complex intersection of fear and risk, of love and loss, our relationship was trapped in. It was a familiar—and fucking frustrating—pattern.
“If shit actually goes down with Aerial, you might not even be my bodyguard for much longer,” I finally said in a voice as shaky as my legs.
His jaw clamped tight again. “Regardless of what happens with the whistleblower case, I was only going to be with you until the event at Huntington Beach. If the waves are firing so great that they’re calling The Wedge for tomorrow, I could be out of your hair sooner than you think.”
“Wonderful,” I said, already steeling myself. “I need less distractions in my life anyway. You swore that, if we were civil to each other, everything would be fine, and none of that has happened.”
Cope made an exasperated sound in the back of his throat. “I’m sorry. Am I a distraction to you now?”
I tossed him a glare then kept running.
His chuckle was humorless. “I wasn’t aware anything distracting had happened between us.”
“You know last night was a distraction for a hundred different reasons, the least of which was kissing each other,” I panted. “Again.”
“Didn’t you invite me in for dinner and reminiscing about our wedding?” he shot back.
“I was being nice,” I said through gritted teeth.
“What we did on that island wasn’t nice,” he said on a low growl. An intense desire for him coiled low in my belly. “And I’ll remind you that you’re not the only one with a job and a career on the line here. One word of this to my boss, and I’d be fired immediately.”
We were at the top of the driveway. Everything burned, every muscle and nerve ending.
“Then why…” I panted, annoyed. “Did you take this assignment? One word to your boss, and she would have given you a pass on having to work with your distracting ex-wife every day.”
“Oh, yeah?” he said. “You could have reported it to my boss too. Would have gotten a pass on having to work with your distracting husband every day.”
“Ex-husband.”
We hit the porch at the same time, and Cope was hot on my heels, slamming the door behind us as we walked into the kitchen. I had my hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath. Drops of sweat ran down Cope’s stomach, and his chest was heaving.
Neither one of us had a smart-ass response to the glaring truth of our current situation. My ulterior motive was as sneaky as Cope’s had been when he’d suggested we have a spontaneous Vegas weekend. I believed him when he said he didn’t realize it until we were stumbling to the chapel.
Because I didn’t realize how happy, how relieved, I would feel when I discovered Cope was my new bodyguard. Wasn’t there a part of me that had wished it would be him?
Now he stood in front of me with his hands on his head and blue eyes pinned to mine. “Jesus, Serena, before our fight I thought we were getting somewhere for once.”
The longing in his voice stopped me in my tracks. All of the frenetic anger was transforming into a different kind of anguish, of wanting each other but not having, of running from our complexities instead of confronting them.
“If we want to get somewhere,” I said. “Then we can’t just talk about our happiest memories and sidestep the real reasons that broke us up. And I don’t mean pointless bickering either.” I gathered the kind of courage I usually relied on to tip over the lip of a wave. “I thought we needed a break because you were taken hostage at your job a month after our wedding, and everything changed for us after that.”
His eyes immediately shot to the ground.
“Cope, please.”
After a few excruciating seconds, he looked up at me reluctantly.
“You wouldn’t let me worry about you. You wouldn’t let me talk about it. You wouldn’t talk about it. You shut me out, like you always do when you don’t want to confront anything hard or sad. You don’t get to be the only one that worries in a relationship. You can’t express your fears about my safety all the time and then not let me do the same. That’s why I thought, when I signed up for that tour in Australia, we could use it for a break. To clear our heads. I just needed a little space to think.”
He propped his hands on his hips. “It was one incident,” he said. “One time. And yeah, it was fucked up and dangerous, but you actively seek out a sport that kills people, and you’re never going to quit. And I hate asking you to quit.” He cleared his throat, cheeks pink. “You can’t be the only one that gets to work a dangerous job. You can’t make me worry all the time while you rest easy at night.”
Tears filled my eyes, which rarely happened. “That’s why you left me then?”
Pain rippled across his face. “And is that why you left?”
“I thought I was doing the right thing for our marriage,” I said, my voice a rough scrape of emotion. “I thought I was saving it, not ending it.”
Cope never told me that he hated asking me to stop surfing—but what started as something he’d bring up infrequently became a persistent request, especially after the incident. But, then again, I was so terrified after he’d been taken hostage, I kept turning that same request right back around on him.
Still—that small reveal felt purposeful enough to shove me toward something truly scary.
“Well,” I said. “If this is the last time we get to talk about us, then you should know that marrying you was the best day of my life.” Holding his gaze right now was terrifying, but risking it all felt necessary. “And… and I miss you every day.”
Cope went utterly still. “What did you say?”
I closed my eyes, feeling stripped bare. “I miss you every day. I dream about you and fantasize about you. I think about you constantly, and I’ve never been able to stop. Do you… do you ever miss me too?”
His response was to walk towards me until I was backed against the wall. His hands landed on either side of my head, and he was breathing hard like we were running again. I understood this exertion—the energy it took to deny what you crave, to resist the very thing that tempts y
ou.
Cope’s fingers slid tenderly into my hair, and then he kissed me with four long years’ worth of missing one another. This kiss was ache and anguish, regret and reverence. His mouth slanted over mine with a precise passion that sent me pressing onto my toes and seeking more.
I opened for him, tongues stroking together, my arms wrapping around his neck. His bare chest was warm against my skin. And he tasted like all the best things of our past—like hot coffee and sunrises, lazy weekends in bed, strawberry margaritas minutes before saying I do.
“Miss you?” he whispered against my lips. “Miss you? I ache for you, Serena. Every hour of the day. I’ve tried to convince myself I moved on, but it’s never, ever been true. Not in the least.”
Cope grabbed my hand and pressed it over his own heart. “I’m pining for you, sunshine.”
24
Serena
I’m pining for you, sunshine.
My world exploded, filling with vibrant sparks of color and a dizzying hope. I held Cope’s hand over my own heart and pressed our foreheads together.
“I’m glad I’m not the only one,” I whispered back. We stayed like that, acknowledging the full weight of our admissions. His knuckles stroked up my throat, catching under my chin and lifting it so our eyes met.
“Not much has changed since last night, except that having sex with each other is now an even worse idea.”
He was right. Last night’s kiss felt like two ex-lovers seeking sexual comfort. The consequences were easier to untangle after a slip-up like that.
Now we were kissing after creeping closer to forgiveness and understanding, which had far greater consequences. There would be no easy untangling, only more heartbreak.
“I’m willing to risk it if you are,” I said. I trailed my fingers down his chest, nails scratching along ridged, flexing muscles.
“You have always been my most beautiful risk,” he said. He captured my mouth again, taking what he wanted, devouring me as desire flooded my body. He lifted me against the wall, and I wrapped my legs around his waist. Cope kissed along my neck while I ran my hands through his hair.
Out of the Blue Page 17