by Naima Simone
She remembered the strength in those arms and chest. Remembered how he could so effortlessly hold her up as he plunged inside her, stroking, taking her to a place where nothing existed but devastating pleasure and beautiful freedom. Remembered the wide, comforting plane of his chest as he held her close. Remembered how he whispered soothing words of assurance and comfort even as she splintered apart in so many pieces she feared never being whole again.
The quiver in her belly had nothing to do with morning sickness and everything to do with the man who’d introduced her to a side of herself she hadn’t known existed. A side that kicked propriety’s ass out the door and enjoyed sweaty skin twisting against skin, raunchy erotic murmurs, and straining, grasping, fighting for the rapture found in a man’s arms. No, not just any man. Him. Raphael.
And staring after his naked wide shoulders and back also inked in dark tribal swirls, his slim hips, and tight ass, that sleeping side of her stretched, awakening from the hibernation it’d fallen into four months earlier. The last time Raphael had touched her.
Shit. She dropped her head against the back of the couch and stared unblinking up at the ceiling. I’m in so much trouble. For the next few days, she would be cooped up in this house with him, hearing his deep rumble of a voice, inhaling his special sun-and-sand scent, ogling his made-for-sin body. Torture. Pure, unadulterated torture considering she couldn’t—wouldn’t—do a damn thing about it.
He was like an ice cream binge. Enjoy for one night, but not a smart move to indulge in on a daily basis. Not because of their different backgrounds, social circles, or appearance. She didn’t give a damn about those. His background was probably more honest, trustworthy, and loving than hers, and after Gavin’s death and her almost-arrest, he might have more social clout than her. And as far as appearance… Well, the way she couldn’t keep her eyes off his ass pretty much said it all.
None of those sanctioned him as off-limits. It was her—her uninhibited, primal response to him. He was…too much. Too gorgeous, too intense, too passionate, too overwhelming. She’d never lost her head with Gavin. In the months since his death, she’d done some serious soul-searching, and she knew that before his betrayal, her ex-fiancé had claimed her loyalty, affection, and respect. But not her heart. And that had been his main appeal. Nothing he could’ve done or said would’ve ever persuaded her to have sex in the backseat of a truck on a public street. She’d never be emotionally out of control with him.
But Raphael…
The passion, the hunger he stirred in her, was a slippery slope to reckless, rash behavior. To emotional devastation. Hell, she was already pregnant. And if the pain of his initial rejection and disbelief hurt her now, how much worse would it be if she allowed herself to fall in love with him?
An image of her mother flashed in front of her mind’s eye.
No. She cringed. As soon as this whole mess was over with, she would leave, start over living the life she wanted, and raise her baby. Once Raphael accepted that the child was his, they could co-parent, but her focus was a new career in illustration and her son or daughter. And staying alive.
“Here.” A mug with vapor curling from the top appeared in front of her face. “This should help with the nausea.”
She accepted the steaming drink from Raphael and cautiously sipped. The tangy and slightly sweet flavor that flowed over her tongue possessed no resemblance at all to the bland, tasteless tea she’d been drinking. She waited. Usually after a bout of sickness she didn’t eat or drink anything, afraid it would quickly make the return trip back up. But the spicy tea swept a warm path down her throat until peacefully settling in her stomach. Humming in pleasure, she savored another taste of the tea.
He sank onto the chair next to the couch, his long legs sprawled out in front of him and his long-fingered hands intertwined over his flat belly. Dragging her hungry gaze off the expanse of smooth skin and toned muscle, she peered down into the cup.
“What kind of tea is this?”
“Ginger.” He yawned, wide and hard. “It’s supposed to help with morning sickness.”
She froze in the middle of lifting the mug to her lips. “How did you know I suffered from it?”
“I didn’t,” he said. “And I didn’t get a chance to ask before you fell asleep. But just in case, I had Chay drop off some things for me on his way home from work.”
“Oh.” Wow. His thoughtfulness was…nice. And at total odds with the Ice Man routine she’d nearly gotten hypothermia from. “Have you been through this before?”
He didn’t immediately reply, and she glanced over at him.
He appeared the same—hair a dark tangle around his face and shoulders, slouched in the chair, legs stretched out in a loose, wide vee. The same except for the cooling of his eyes, the firming of his mouth, the slight stiffening of his shoulders, and fingers that clenched so tight the knuckles paled. That quickly, the Ice Man had returned.
“I have two older sisters who’ve been pregnant two times each and a mother who believes in natural remedies. I picked up on a couple of tricks.”
She nodded and stared down into the cup, because it meant she wasn’t looking at him. “You seem to be making a habit of running to my rescue,” she murmured. Her heart beat a steady, loud tattoo as she lifted her head. “About what happened in the police station—”
“Forget it.” He dipped his chin in her direction. “That happen often?”
She swallowed, the abrupt dismissal of her apology stinging. Parting her lips, she almost surrendered to the urge to push the subject. Make him listen. But the cold, hard expression warned her to leave it alone. Instead, she went with the obvious change of subject.
“The morning sickness?” she asked. When he gave a grunt of assent, she rubbed a hand over her midsection. “Yes. Usually first thing in the morning when I wake up and at night around the time I go to bed. I guess because I fell asleep so early, it was just waiting on me to roll over to make an appearance.”
“Is it usually as bad as tonight?”
“Pretty much.” She scrunched her face. “Plus throw in the fact that I hate throwing up—always have since I was little. The doctor said it should pass after the first trimester, but as of Friday I’m officially in my second, and it shows no sign of letting up.”
A beat of silence passed. Then he spoke again, almost grudgingly.
“My older sister was sick the entire time.”
She groaned, holding a hand up to him, palm out. “Please don’t tell me that,” she pleaded.
The corner of his mouth lifted in a faint half smile. “Anything you crave or can’t stand the smell of yet? My other sister couldn’t stand the smell of chicken. Fried, baked, boiled—it sent her running to the bathroom. It was hell, because for the duration of her pregnancy our family dinners were confined to pork chops, pot roast, or meat loaf. Which is cool at first, but after six months of the same thing week after week, it gets old real quick. The week after she had my nephew, we all celebrated with a mountain of fried chicken.”
She chuckled softly, entertained and charmed by this unexpected glimpse into his life, especially his family life. His sounded close. She couldn’t imagine her father sacrificing anything, even something as small as a favorite food, for her. Ethan Granger II demanded and received what he wanted, when he wanted, and everyone else—his wife, daughter, son, employees—served him. Not the other way around.
With a subdued sigh, she sipped her tea. What would it be like to have a boisterous family dinner filled with laughter, teasing, and…love? She’d never had it, had never known it. But maybe her baby would. She would make sure she—or he—would.
“I haven’t had an increase in appetite or craving yet. It’s only been two weeks since I realized the drowsiness and queasiness might be something more than the stress of the past few months. I think you could call me oblivious.” Between Gavin’s death, being questioned, accused, and ultimately cleared by the police, and the letters, she’d relegated the lethargy and n
ausea to stress. Her period had never been regular, so a couple of months had flown by before she realized something might not be right. Two weeks ago, the regular, relentless occurrence of the weariness and vomiting had planted suspicions in her head. And a week later she’d confirmed it—fifteen weeks pregnant. Now seventeen.
“Two weeks?” He straightened, then leaned forward, bracing his arms on his thighs. He studied her for several silent moments. His steady gaze gave away nothing of his thoughts. “Why didn’t you call me or come by the office then? Why wait?”
She inhaled. Held the breath. How to explain that she was afraid? Afraid he wouldn’t want to see her again. Afraid he would reject her. Afraid he would take one look at her in the bright light of day and wonder what the hell he’d been thinking to be with her. Especially since she was bringing news of an unexpected pregnancy along with her.
Well, part of her fear had come to fruition. He hadn’t kicked her to the curb or told her to get the hell out of his office—on the contrary, he’d insisted on protecting her. But he had rejected their child. And though logically, she couldn’t blame him for having doubts, emotionally his disbelief was like a knife slicing thin cuts into her heart every time it came up.
“It took me a week before I came out of denial and visited the doctor. I’d always planned on telling you; I just had to deal with it myself. The car vandalism and the doll just pushed the timetable forward.”
He didn’t say anything, just studied her with an inscrutable regard that she evaded by sipping from the cup of tea. By the time she finished, her stomach muscles were relaxed.
“When is your next doctor’s appointment?”
She glanced at him, and almost as if he waited for her to look at him again, she became ensnared by the navy blue of his gaze. Like tumbling into a dark pool headfirst, but instead of swimming toward the surface, she wanted to sink, to drown. The intensity of the need forced her to jerk her eyes away.
“I was supposed to have one this morning, but I have to call tomorrow and reschedule it,” she murmured.
“Good.” He stood, stretched, and she snapped her attention to the coffee table, the dormant fireplace, the dark wall of glass—anything, anywhere but him. With the wild vibrancy of the tattoos stretching up from his wrists, over his tautly muscled arms and shoulders, he should’ve seemed garish, over-the-top, crude. Instead he was…beautiful. Like a walking, breathing piece of art. Her fingers itched to draw the swirls and geometric shapes, to re-create them on her sketch pad. God, she could stare at him for hours.
So she kept her gaze trained on the wood grain of the table in front of her.
“Let me know the date and time you set the appointment for. If the morning sickness is still bad, we can ask the doctor if he can prescribe something for it since you’re in the second trimester.” He lifted her cup.
She stared at him. “We?” she asked. Her heart thumped in her chest. “You want to go to the doctor’s office with me even though you’re not…”
He slowly straightened. His face could’ve been carved from the granite that paved his sidewalk. “I meant what I said about protecting you and the baby. That includes escorting you to the doctor’s or wherever you need to go until we catch this bastard.”
“Of course,” she murmured. Stupid. Stupid to hope. Loneliness yawned wide and empty under her feet, and she plummeted into the black chasm. For a few brief moments in the bathroom, he’d beaten the darkness back. But she should’ve known better than to cling to the momentary display of gentleness and affection. He’d made it clear he didn’t believe her—didn’t want her or the baby. He was a protector; defending people was his business, and she was a client. Better she keep that reminder and the image of his inscrutable, distant expression uppermost in her mind.
Then when the time arrived for her to walk away, she wouldn’t leave shards of her heart behind.
Chapter Ten
Raphael stared at the computer monitor, not seeing the report regarding the deficiencies in a client’s security system that needed to be emailed to Chay in a few hours in time for a meeting. Instead, he kept envisioning Greer’s hurt, shut-down expression from the evening before. Kept hearing her subdued “of course.” He drummed his fingers on top of his desk.
“Shit,” he grumbled and wheeled his office chair around. Even the sight of the small woods that surrounded his house couldn’t alleviate the dark mood plaguing him and making work an impossibility. Maybe bringing her home and installing her so close hadn’t been such a bright idea. He’d like to blame his dick—all this trouble could be traced back to it anyway. But it hadn’t been his johnson insisting on guarding her 24-7. If the deal had included fucking, then yeah. But this purely platonic setup? Nope, the decision had been him and the damn side of him he’d believed permanently eradicated by a lying bitch seven years earlier.
He’d been twenty-seven, high off the success of his and Chay’s first-year earnings with their new business, and totally unprepared for the fist in the gut that was Yolanda Tinsdale. One evening, he, Chay, and Gabe had attended Mal’s mother’s birthday party, celebrating as well as providing a buffer between Mal and his asshole-ish father, Christopher. Even the baleful glares Christopher Jerrod shot in their direction couldn’t taint Rafe’s good mood. Then Mal’s mom, Pam, had introduced them to Yolanda, the daughter of one of Christopher’s business associates. The beautiful, petite brunette had stolen his voice and his sense—a first. He’d fallen. Hard. And when she’d discreetly passed him her number later in the night, he could’ve beat Superman’s ass in leaping tall buildings.
They’d begun to see each other on the DL; he’d understood her precaution. She was moneyed Back Bay, he was lower middle-class North End. Her family’s reputation was beyond reproach, while in some less than savory circles, the last name Marcel was associated with bookmaking in the Patriarca crime family. Along with being a mean, alcoholic son of a bitch, his father had been a criminal who’d spent more years behind bars than with his family—including the last sixteen after he was handed a thirty-year sentence for racketeering and bookmaking. She was twenty-four and had never been out on her own, pampered by her protective parents. He was a seasoned twenty-seven-year-old who had experienced things she saw on crime shows, been living on his own since eighteen, and been raised by a hardworking mother and absentee father. Another thing that Gabe, Mal, Chay, and he had in common—fucked-up or absent men as fathers.
None of that—his poor background, notorious father, lack of social connections—had seemed to matter to her, though, and it damn sure hadn’t to him. Though he’d been in relationships before—albeit short-lived—for the first time, he’d lowered his guard, had permitted her in the real estate of his heart only previously leased by family and his three best friends.
When she’d announced she was pregnant, he’d been overjoyed. And a year later had been crushed when a paternity test had revealed the truth: he wasn’t the father of the boy he’d believed his. She’d lied to him, especially when she’d told him she loved him. The entire time she had been with him, she’d also been sleeping with an “acceptable” man her parents approved of. Rafe had been “fun” but not good enough to marry or raise a child with. No way could her son wear the last name Marcel.
Greer and Yolanda were so similar: wealthy background, genteel manner…surprise pregnancy. When Greer had entered his office with her announcement, she’d torn open the veil to the past. All the pain, grief, and rage had returned as if he’d stared into Yolanda’s pale face yesterday as she admitted her deceit instead of years ago.
If he were honest with himself—and he made a point to always be—at some point between yesterday and this morning, he’d accepted that Greer wasn’t lying to him. That six-month period of abstinence story was outlandish enough to probably be true. Maybe it’d been her strength in the face of weariness. Maybe it’d been the open love, affection, and protectiveness Ethan and Noah had displayed toward her. Maybe it’d been the vulnerability he’d witnessed
last night. One or all of them had convinced him of her honesty. Greer believed he was the father of her child.
Not that it mattered.
Once this stalker was caught and she no longer needed him, she would hit the bricks. She would bail, cut him out of her and the baby’s life. The truth of the matter was, all that had occurred in the past months—being accused of Gavin’s death, the media coverage, the notoriety—was just a blip in her life. Hell, yeah, a big-ass blip, but it would eventually pass. The furor was already on its way to dying down, and soon she would resume her Back Bay lifestyle. Complete with the expensive brownstone, society friends, and obscene wealth. Which meant no room for the working-class, tattooed baby daddy from the North End.
Remembering what lay in store for him months from now would keep him grounded in reality. Keep him from being foolish enough to make the same stupid, humiliating—heart-wrenching—mistake.
Twice.
He’d fallen once. Never again.
Though Greer was stashed in his house, he would keep his distance from her and the baby. That path only led to destruction. And last time he checked, he wasn’t a masochist.
Rafe rose from his chair and stalked toward the floor-to-ceiling window that encompassed one wall of his home office. He braced a hand against the glass, studying the peaceful scenery outside as if it could somehow still the turmoil roiling inside him. In the past, the silent woods that boasted gold and red leaves in autumn, stark, nude branches in winter, and bold, bright-green foliage in the spring eased something in him. It’d been why he’d bought the house in the first place. His friends had been stunned at his purchase of the five-bedroom, three-level home with its ornate balconies and turret-style roof. But growing up in Boston’s “Little Italy” in his family’s crowded, boisterous apartment had created a yearning for his own sanctuary where he could just shut out the noise. And that’s what his home was to him—a haven. A haven that had been infiltrated by the disturbing presence of Greer Addison at his request. Or order.