Considering everything that was happening, all he had to worry about, Garrett still seething over the events of the day, over Marika’s actions, surprised even him. But he couldn’t let it go.
He had never been a walking rage machine. It wasn’t really in him. In fact, he’d often been called laid-back by many of his friends and colleagues. Easygoing. But the fury she’d ignited when she jumped in front of that spear—once it was all over, of course, and he’d gotten over the shock of almost losing her right then and there—kept eating at him.
He turned to her now, the anger he felt eating away at his insides springing forth. “Twice,” he said from between clenched teeth. “You did that shit twice!”
Marika lifted her chin a visible notch. “If I did, I had a good reason. I’m certain of it. What are you talking about?”
“You don’t know?” He advanced on her, and he could see by the tension coming to life in her slender body that she considered retreating. She didn’t. She held her ground like a quaking deer waiting to be run down, as though it had a death wish. “Is that it? Do you have a death wish? Is that why you risked your life not once but twice for me today? Even after I told you after the first time never to do it again?”
“Please.” She brushed at her shirt. “Like I listen to you.”
He took hold of her shoulders. “That’s the problem!”
The look of horror on her face shook him out of his momentary slip of sanity. He dropped his hands and stepped back. “I’m—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“Yes, you did.” It was her turn to be angry. Her eyes flashed in the low light of the moon. Her jaw set. She strode up to him for the sole purpose of jabbing a well-manicured finger into his chest. “You have blamed me for everything from the common cold to world hunger, all because I tricked you into giving me a baby. Well boo-hoo. I never asked you to be a part of our lives.”
She started to stomp away, toward the road no less, but then turned back to him, absolutely livid. “You act as though I’ve ruined your life, but it was your decision to intrude on ours. I was perfectly happy. I had my child, one that was prophesied when I was a child myself, and I wanted nothing more than to keep him safe. To raise him in a loving, nurturing environment. Not a broken one where the father is off throwing back brewskies with the boys while his son wonders why he isn’t good enough. What he did wrong to alienate his own father so completely.”
“Is that what you think?” Garrett asked.
“I’m not finished!” she said, apparently on a roll.
“You just can’t handle it. It’s too much. I’ve betrayed you to the very depths of your soul, and you just can’t get past it. So, you walk out of our lives for a second time. After all the proclamations of love and commitment, you’re suddenly gone. Fine. Hasta la vista, baby. But no.” She raised her arms in frustration. “Even though you hate me to hell and back, you just have to be a part of our son’s life if for no other reason than to make me pay on a bimonthly-and-every-other-holiday basis. Every time you pick him up, you make sure I know what a piece of shit I am. Well, let me tell you something, Mr. Asshat.” She stepped closer and looked up until they were nose-to-nose. “I am not a piece of shit. I never was.”
Chapter Eleven
The most beautiful stories
always start with wreckage.
—Jack London
She turned, and that time, she really did head for the road. The deserted road that would end up with her blood splattered across it before morning. It was simply too dark with too many turns and had absolutely no shoulder whatsoever. If a semi happened down it…
But it wasn’t her impending doom that spurred him into action. It was, of all things, his father. At least, the memory of his father. Of what he’d done. How he’d almost broken Garrett’s mother. But Garrett only had himself to blame for that.
He stalked after Marika, twirled her around, and planted his mouth on hers.
He could feel the wetness on her cheeks, and guilt burned a hole into his stomach. But he couldn’t stop kissing her. She tasted like peppermint. Smelled like vanilla and paradise. Felt like heaven.
After a moment, she eased against him. Let him molest her mouth and her jaw and her neck. He tilted his head and kissed her again, deepening it with each exploration of his tongue, until he felt her pull back. It was inevitable. She was a tad miffed.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked, her breath hitching. She couldn’t have hurt him more with a sledgehammer.
He pulled her against him, noticing that the guards had conveniently left to check the outbuildings. “I’m sorry,” he said, burying his face in her hair. “I’m so sorry. I don’t care what you’ve done. How many men you’ve been with.”
“I beg your pardon?” She stepped back. “How many men I’ve been with?”
“No, not in general.”
“Well, good, because that would make you one hell of a hypocrite. Oh, wait…”
He clenched his jaw. “I meant, you know, while we were together.”
She hauled back and socked him on the arm in frustration. “What in the name of Bondye are you talking about?”
“I saw you. I don’t care. Not anymore. If I’ve realized one thing over the last few days, it’s that nothing should get in the way when you really love someone.”
“Well, good for you.” She turned and started toward the road yet again.
He stood in shock for a solid minute and then jogged to catch up with her. “Wait. Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“But I professed my love.”
She snorted. “Yes. You’ve done that before if you’ll remember. About twelve hours before you walked out on us. Not me, Garrett. Us.”
“Damn it, Marika, I saw you.”
She whirled around, the rage on her face fairly difficult to miss. “You saw me what?”
He shoved his hands into his pockets and dropped his gaze. “I saw you with another man.”
The astonishment in her expression when he looked up would’ve been comical if the situation weren’t so dire. Seeing her in the arms of another man had cut him so deeply, he worried that he’d never recover.
“Tall? Slim? Shaved head? Ringing any bells?” When she thought back but didn’t answer, he continued. “I was coming over for dinner that night, or did you forget?”
“My cousin Jonas from Haiti? I hadn’t seen him in years. He surprised me. And, yes, I suppose I did jump into his arms, but—”
“You were hugging him and kissing on him.”
“Like I do Zaire? Like I do Elwyn? He’s my cousin. I was so excited to introduce you. I made a huge dinner, and we waited. And waited. Because someone wouldn’t take my calls. He was embarrassed for me, and there I sat, singing your praises. Telling him what a good father you were. And you just left?”
Garrett swallowed, remembering the pain the image evoked like it was yesterday. Because a similar one had haunted him his entire life. “I don’t know what to say. I thought—”
“I know what you thought.” She stepped closer, her voice cracking, when she added, “I know exactly what you think of me, Garrett. I’m done. From now on, you may only pick up and drop off Zaire at my mother’s. And if you really do love me, if you love him, you won’t even do that anymore. He doesn’t deserve the heartache.”
Marika started toward the road for the third time, and Garrett could feel the world swallow him whole. Or maybe he just wished it would.
He slammed his eyes shut. Listened to the sounds of the New Mexico desert around him. Hardly a day went by when he didn’t wonder what she was doing. How she was coping with everything. If she liked her job. If she ever wished her life had turned out differently. She was the only woman on the planet he’d ever wondered that about. She was the only woman he’d ever had in his life that he cared enough about to want to know.
Did that make him a selfish dick? Probably. One thing was for certain, he was getting a T-shirt that read Mr. Asshat printed i
mmediately. When the euphemism fit…
He didn’t want to push her. Well, any more than he already had. But he did have to win her back before she became roadkill. Or worse, Hayal-kill. There was still a freakishly large alien running about, after all.
Unfortunately, he had a sinking feeling that the only way to win Marika back was with the truth. He tended to steer clear of it—of that particular one, anyway—as often as possible. But it was now or never.
He caught up to her and walked beside her as non-threateningly as he could. “The road into Pojoaque has no shoulder.”
She ignored him.
“It’s very narrow, with lots of curves.”
She kept walking.
“You’ll end up a hood ornament before dawn.”
She stared straight ahead. Thankfully, it would take almost an hour to walk to the main road. The more dangerous one. That gave him an hour to change her mind.
Just as she was about to trip on a large rock on the side of the road, he grabbed her shoulders and steered her clear.
“How did you see that?” she asked. “Never mind.”
He drew in a deep breath and dove in headfirst. “I am my father’s son, as they say.”
A vehicle approached them from behind. It rolled slowly over the gravel road, the faint glow of parking lights illuminating the grasses around them. Apparently, one of his security guards, Sadowski most likely, was following to keep an eye on things. He’d have to give him a raise.
“As to the topic of malfeasance number one, my mother tricked my father into marriage.” He saw her shoulders tense, so he quickly explained. “I know that’s not what you did. Nowhere near what you did. But it’s what she did, and Dad never forgave her.”
Talking had never been Garrett’s strong suit. Talking about his parents…Well, he never talked about them. A concrete lump settled in his chest every time he did, but if anyone was worth that discomfort, it was the woman stalking away. Somehow, he knew if he didn’t make things right, his opportunity would be lost forever.
“My father grew to despise her and never missed an opportunity to let her know it.”
Garrett looked out over the moonlit landscape, purples and grays all around them. It was easier to focus on that than the topic at hand.
“He wasn’t wrong, really. I come from a long line of con artists. Conning was in Mom’s blood. Tricking a man into marriage, especially a well-off engineer, was old hat. But I think she really loved him. In her own way.”
Marika kept walking, although her gait was less hurried now. Less angry.
“She began drinking more and more until she ran her car off a bridge into a deep ravine in Diablo Canyon.” Garrett felt his throat close with the memory of that night. The cops knocking on the door. Their lights flashing red and blue through his bedroom window, reflecting off the walls around him. “They said it was an accident. It wasn’t.”
Marika slowed her steps but kept her gaze locked on the road ahead.
“But before my dad died, he turned his rage on me. I guess with my mother toasted most of the day, his words no longer affected her like they had. He needed a new target.”
She slowed even more, her jaw set firmly in place, refusing to wipe away the tears shimmering silver in the moonlight.
“He didn’t beat me or anything. Nothing as bad as that. Just made sure I knew what a burden I was. How he’d never wanted me. How my mother had used me to get him, meaning she’d never really wanted me either.”
Marika stopped though still avoided his gaze.
“But what you have to understand is that he was wrong about her. Partly, anyway. She may not have wanted me at first, but she loved me.”
Marika still didn’t look at him when she asked, “Did he hurt you?”
“Nah.” He twisted one of the skull rings on his finger. “He was just a dick. Called me every name in the book. Believe it or not, it’s a very long book. But I eventually learned something about him.”
She angled her face toward him but still refused to make eye contact. Instead, she watched him fidget with his ring. Suddenly self-conscious, he dropped his hands.
“I realized he became particularly belligerent after I accomplished something. Like when my little league team won first place and I brought home the trophy. Or when I won a race at school. Or when I scored the highest on a test. I was always trying to make him proud of me without realizing he couldn’t be. He could never be proud of me. He didn’t have it in him.” Garrett looked at her from over his shoulder. “It took me years to figure out that at the root of everything he did was jealousy. He was simply jealous. Who’s jealous of their own kid?”
She studied her palms in the low light. Rubbed at some invisible dirt there.
“Anyway, he died when I was ten, so none of it really matters. Which brings us to malfeasance number two. When I saw you in your cousin’s arms…” He swallowed hard, trying to reopen his airway. “Barely a month after my dad died, I caught my mother in the arms of another man. I’d come home early from school, still grieving the loss of a man who didn’t deserve it, and she had another man over. I saw them embracing through the window. I ran inside and called her all the names my father had called her all those years. Every hateful, belittling knife he’d cut her with came out of my mouth that day.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “She was dead six hours later.”
Marika lifted a hand to her mouth and turned her back to him.
He angled away from her as well, the pain threatening to swallow him whole. “She just needed to be loved. Everyone needs to be loved and accepted. Not that any of that matters now.”
She stepped in front of him and put a hand on his chest. “Of course, it does. But you just lied to me again.”
He sank into the pale depths of her irises. “I promise I didn’t.”
“You did. He most definitely hurt you. He may not have hit you, not physically, but emotional scars run just as deep.”
After a long moment where pain warred with desire, he asked, “Brewskies? Throwing back brewskies with the boys? That’s the best you’ve got?”
She pressed her lips together.
“Can you forgive me?” he asked.
“For being an asshat?”
One corner of his mouth rebelled against the establishment and lifted despite his attempts to subdue it. “That’s Mr. Asshat to you, love.”
He brushed the wetness from her cheek with a thumb and bent to claim her mouth. Her lips were as soft as the rest of her. And felt just as good. Like morning dew after a hot rain.
She slid her hands up his chest and around his neck, then pressed her succulent body against his. He growled into the kiss, wrapped his arms around her and walked her back toward the SUV that had been following them.
He needed an anchor because he was about to do something she would never forget. He didn’t know what yet, but it would come to him.
Sadowski got out of the SUV and stumbled over his words, saying something like, “Okay then, I’ll just, you know, be over there.”
The man had better be over there. Far, far over there. Garrett had shit to do.
He pressed her against the grill then leaned back. The lights cast a soft glow on her beautiful face. Her lashes were spiked with wetness. Her lips were already swollen from his efforts. And her chin, her adorable chin he’d nibbled on more than once during their rendezvous, quivered just a little.
Running his hands up the back of her shirt, he undid her bra and lifted both it and the shirt over her head. Goose bumps spread over her bare skin, and she clasped his head to her breast. He knelt in front of her, cupped her breasts in his hands, and circled one delicate nipple with his tongue until it hardened before seeing to the other.
He heard the blood rush through her veins. Saw the dilation of her pupils even under the cover of night. Smelled the pheromones waft off her silken skin like a potion. The combined efforts of her body’s response to him sent him spiraling and he had to fight for control over his own.
Something he hadn’t had to do since puberty.
When he grazed his teeth over her, Marika gasped and pulled him closer, but he seemed to have other ideas. He trailed kisses down her stomach, and for all of ten seconds, she wondered how her night had taken such a drastic turn. First, they were fighting. Yet again. Then Garrett was opening up to her. Opening up! It was the most monumental thing to ever happen to her, apart from Zaire’s birth. And both were just as painful.
But now. Now with his hands and his fingers and his mouth in all the right places, she was reeling. When he picked her up, carried her to the side of the SUV, opened the back door, and deposited her on the long seat, the leather startlingly cool against her bare back, molten lava pooled in her abdomen.
Barely able to see his face in the low light, she could just make out his strong jaw and full mouth. His straight nose and furrowed brow. His stern expression and intoxicating masculinity.
But the thing that took her breath away, that always took her breath away was the fact that his irises reflected the moonlight like it was made from it. Silvery and shimmering, they seemed to glow with drunken sensuality.
Moonlight did things to people, and his eyes did things to her.
He laid her back against the seat and peeled down her jeans, taking both them and her shoes completely off. They fell to the footwell with a soft thud, then he stopped. Seemed to bask in her image. Seemed to drink her in as though she were the whiskey he wanted to drown his sorrows in.
Her panties were next. They were really all she had left in the world. Her last line of defense. Once they were gone, she knew she’d be lost forever. Unfortunately, he was taking his sweet damned time about it.
His fingers slid under the elastic surrounding her legs. Tested it. Tugged at it. She wiggled her bottom, trying to get them off faster. He laughed softly, the sound deep and alluring as he took hold of her hips and forced her to still.
She may have growled.
Another deep laugh. Another slip of the fingers. Another tug. Then cool air washed over her lady bits. Her pulse pounded as he slid her panties down her thighs, over her knees, and past her calves, only to stop at her ankles. He twisted the tiny piece of material in his fist until her ankles were locked together. Then he raised them into the air with one hand and slid his long fingers inside her with the other, the coolness of his rings rubbing along her clit.
The Graveyard Shift: A Charley Davidson Novella Page 11