by Naima Simone
“Better.” She cleared her throat. “Much better. How long have I been asleep?”
He sat up and stretched, yawning loudly and widely. Underneath all that golden skin, his muscles did a sexy slow dance. She dragged her too-fascinated eyes away.
“I’m not sure. An hour maybe? After that last orgasm, you kind of crashed.”
Her gaze whipped back to him as her jaw dropped. “What?” she gasped.
“You don’t remember?” He pressed a hand to his chest, his eyebrows arrowed down over his wounded gaze. “I’m crushed.”
“You’re—you’re—” she sputtered.
“A wishful thinker,” he supplied, a corner of his mouth quirked in a smirk. “Don’t worry, princess, I didn’t storm the battlements while you were sleeping.” His voice lowered as he leaned forward until their foreheads almost brushed, and the tip of his nose bumped hers. “I’m guilty of a lot of things, but molesting unconscious women isn’t one of them.”
“Why do you throw out verbal bombs like that?” she murmured. “Like the zip code crack and now I’m calling you a rapist?”
“Just keeping us honest.”
“I’ve never given you any indication that I cared about what side of town you come from. Or that I believe you’re anything but honorable. I wouldn’t be in your home if I didn’t.”
He didn’t reply, and the silence seemed to expand until it filled the room almost beyond capacity. Even in the shadowed room his eyes burned into hers. She wanted to glance away from the intensity in the scrutiny that was at complete odds with his closed expression. Just as she was ready to…what? Retract what she said? Explain it? God, she didn’t know. But as she parted her lips, he bounded from the bed and left the room with a “Be right back” tossed over his shoulder. Another flash of those sexy tattoos, wide back, slim hips bared by the low-riding sweats, and tight ass, and then he was gone.
She exhaled a deep breath—one she hadn’t been aware she’d been holding. God, the man didn’t only endanger her heart but her lungs, too…
Whoa. Wait. Endanger her heart. Where the hell had that thought come from? No, her heart wasn’t in jeopardy. Not at all. After this was over, she would walk away—she and her baby—and Raphael wouldn’t so much as stretch out one of those wide, long-fingered hands to stop her. She’d interrupted his life with her announcement of an unplanned pregnancy and crazy stalker. Yes, they’d had sex—the hottest, wildest sex of her life—but he didn’t want her. Not where it counted.
In spite of the stern lecture she’d administered herself, her belly executed a slow, sinuous somersault.
“Here.”
She started, blinked before focusing on the mug of steaming liquid in front of her face. Hell, she hadn’t even heard him reenter the room. She accepted the cup with a subdued “thanks,” unwilling to meet his all-seeing-all-knowing gaze in case he detected the thoughts tumbling around in her skull.
“You didn’t mention feeling sick, so I figured we’d head it off.” Raphael reclaimed his spot on her bed and wedged his shoulders up against the headboard. He nodded toward the drink. “More ginger tea.”
She’d swallowed her first sip of the tea she was fast becoming addicted to when he crossed his arms and leveled one of his cut-the-bullshit stares on her.
“What did you mean the headache was because of the murder?”
Did I say that? She rewound the time before she’d fallen asleep in her head but couldn’t pinpoint the memory of her revealing that bit of information.
“I have no memory of what happened the night Gavin was killed. The last thing I remember is you dropping me off.”
He dipped his chin in acknowledgment. “I know. We covered that.”
“Lately I’ve been having nightmares. I can never remember them clearly but…” She shivered, clutched the mug tighter. “In them I’m scared. Terrified. And the headaches usually follow. The doctors said my memory might come back in trickles or all of a sudden or even not at all. I think the dreams are my memories returning.”
Raphael swore softly. “Did a dream trigger the migraine that landed you in the hospital the other night?”
“Yes.”
He frowned, his eyes narrowed as he rubbed a knuckle over his unpierced eyebrow. “Who knows about this?”
“The dreams and possible return of my memory?” He nodded. “Just Ethan and Noah. And now you. Why?”
“Nothing. Just thinking,” he replied, but his frown remained in place, and he continued stroking his eyebrow.
“Why do you do that?”
He glanced at her, pausing mid-stroke. “Do what?”
“This.” She mimicked the gesture. “I noticed you tend to do it when you’re thinking.” Heat surged up her chest and flooded her face. She wouldn’t be surprised if her cheeks resembled a tomato. Awesome. Now he knows I pay waaaay too much attention to his habits. She lifted the tea and sipped long and deep, hoping the large mug hid her face.
She waited, expecting a mocking smirk or raised eyebrow right before a heavy, telling silence. He did none of them. Instead he studied her, the scrutiny hooded, long, and intense. She fought not to squirm, not to dodge the weight of it. Even when he lowered his arm and cupped her chin. Go figure. Her chin had never been an erogenous zone. But that was BR: Before Raphael.
“Habit. It’s a scar. A souvenir from dodging a beer bottle my father threw at my head when he was drunk.” He swept the pad of his thumb over the small sickle-shaped scar on her chin. “How’d you get this?”
Shock slammed into her. He uttered the nonchalant confession as if conveying the time of day. Oh my God. Without conscious permission, her arm lifted, and her fingers brushed the dark arch over his eye. They detected the small, hard ridge bisecting his brow. She firmed her lips into a straight line. Either that or surrender to the impulse to kiss the old wound that had to be a reminder of a painful, terrifying moment in his life—no matter how dispassionate he seemed about it now.
“Princess?” He grazed another caress across her chin. “What about this?”
“Old playground injury,” she whispered, then grasped his hand, slowly tugged it away from her face. “What about these?” she asked, brushing her thumb over the faded, thin pale lines marring his knuckles.
A ghost of a smile played with his lips. “Let’s just say I wasn’t always the upstanding citizen you see before you now.” When she snorted, he shrugged. “I had my fair share of fights in high school. What happened here?” He didn’t remove his hand from her hold, but raised the other and pressed it to her collarbone over a scar she’d long forgotten about.
“Scratch from the one and only dog I was allowed to have. A cute midnight-black poodle I named Georgey.” She huffed out a humorless chuckle. “Georgey didn’t last long in the Addison house though. Too loud and messy.”
God, she hadn’t thought of the puppy in a long time. The three months she’d owned him had been some of the happiest in her childhood. Energetic, enthusiastic, and cheerful, he’d always been glad to see her when she came home from school. Until the day she’d arrived and silence had welcomed her. Without telling her, her mother had given the dog away; his incessant yaps had worn on her nerves. And besides, Celeste had added with a dismissive wave of her hand, at thirteen, Greer was too old for a dog. She’d never asked for one—or anything else—from her parents again.
She shook her head as if she could toss the somber recollection out of her head.
“What happened here?” She pointed to a two-inch thin line right above his abdomen.
“Knife wound.”
“Are you kid—” Worry rushed through her. Jesus, what kind of life had he led? The pain… She rubbed the flat, shiny patch of skin, almost as if she could soothe away the hurt it must’ve once caused.
“Actually it was a tragic accident involving my sister’s Barbie, my Matchbox car, and a small fire.” He shrugged. “But the knife wound sounded way cooler.”
She gaped at him, trapped somewhere between laughing an
d kicking him off the bed. Hard.
“I know, I know”—he patted her thigh—“I’m an asshole. Where’d this one come from?” He skimmed a finger over the flat, nearly imperceptible mark above her knee. The injury was a very old one, but she remembered it as if it’d happened seventeen minutes ago instead of years. She stroked the scar. “Hey.” He covered her hand with his, stilling her movement. “Give.”
If he’d tried to cajole her, or offer pretty words of assurance, she would’ve resisted and kept the truth locked up inside. She didn’t want pity or sympathy; she wasn’t broken or damaged. But the simple, low demand to “give” contained a promise of safety for whatever she revealed. No judgment, no condemnation. Just acceptance.
“When I was nine, I ran away from home. I didn’t make it far, just to the end of the block before the housekeeper—the housekeeper”—she emitted a brittle laugh—“came after me. But by the time she found me, I had tripped and cut my knee on a piece of glass. I had to go to the emergency room for stitches, and she was fired.”
“Why were you running away?”
She paused, removed her hand from under his, and clasped her fingers together in her lap. “Because that afternoon my mother had come from a meeting with my fourth-grade teacher who’d told her I was dyslexic. I was afraid of my father’s reaction, so I decided to run away rather than face it.”
Silence echoed in the room. Out of habit, she stiffened as if waiting for the rejection, the confidence-bruising comments. The sharp sting of pity.
“I didn’t know you had dyslexia,” he murmured, his thumb absently rubbing back and forth over the inside of her knee.
She waved away his words with a flick of her wrist, hurrying to cut off the condolences as if she had a disease. Not from him. She couldn’t bear to hear that “Bless your heart” tone from him.
“I’m not ashamed of it…now. But when I was a girl—a painfully shy little girl from a wealthy family and attending one of the most prestigious private schools in Boston—it was…” Horrible. Devastating. Terrifying. “As far back as I remember, I was different. I tried to hide it with little tricks like memorizing, asking questions, bluffing. Math, reading, spelling—they were the stuff of nightmares to me then. The letters, the numbers, they didn’t appear the same to me as they did to the other kids.”
“But art wasn’t,” he interrupted. “Pictures, drawing, painting. You excelled in those.”
She smiled, nodded. “Art was my…savior. I wasn’t different in art class; I was better. Not that being able to draw meant much to the kids I went to school with or my father. In my world, ‘different’ meant ‘bad.’ It meant relentless teasing, being ostracized. And to a girl of seven, eight, and nine, those kids’ acceptance was nearly as important as pleasing a critical, domineering, impossible-to-satisfy father.”
“Father” seemed to echo over and over as if bouncing off the walls of the bedroom. She almost cringed as her words replayed in her head like a sound bite. God, she hadn’t meant to admit so much. To reveal so much.
Even now she could hear her father’s caustic criticisms like a blade slicing into her brain.
I don’t give a damn about drawing. A monkey can draw with its feet.
It’s ABCs, Greer. ABCs. Maybe we need to send you back to kindergarten with the other babies to learn how to read.
You’re an Addison. We don’t have idiots in our family.
Her dyslexia was moderate, but to her father it’d meant damaged. Dysfunctional. Stupid. Though she was a woman of twenty-six now, those words from the man who was supposed to believe she was perfect even when she wasn’t…call her beautiful even though she’d been more duckling than swan…love and accept her even when the world didn’t…those words from her father had burrowed deep in her heart, her soul. Forever changed how she saw herself and other people.
The nine-year-old eventually grew to adulthood and came to recognize who and what the man and woman who’d raised her were. But there were still moments—such as now, when she was splaying herself open without a safety net—the old doubts resurrected like ghosts refusing to go into the light. If her own father couldn’t love her, how could others? If her own father couldn’t find something in her worthy of his loyalty, how could she expect others to? Like Gavin. Like Aubrey. Like her mother.
Like Raphael.
“I met your father once,” Raphael murmured. “About five years ago. We were hired to test the strength of the security and information system at his bank’s headquarters and fix the weaknesses. He was one of our first big clients.” He paused, rubbed his thumb over the mark. “He was also an arrogant shit. And I was thirty at the time. I can imagine how terrifying a nine-year-old would’ve found him.”
She stared at him. Snickered. Then burst into laughter. An arrogant shit. Yeah, that about summed up Ethan Addison to the—
Warm, firm lips pressed to her knee. Directly over the scar.
Her breath snagged in her throat, held prisoner by the heart that had soared there to join it. On pure reflex, she tangled her fingers in his tousled hair—whether to pull him away or hold him there, she couldn’t decide.
Pleasure zinged from her joint, up her thigh, and powered straight to her sex. Deep inside, she pulsed with impatient need. Her feminine muscles clenched as if in urgent demand to be taken, to be filled as only he could do it. Her inner thighs tensed in anticipation of finally wrapping themselves around his narrow hips as his cock nudged, then penetrated, the empty sheath that hadn’t forgotten the delicious stretching his width caused.
All this from a kiss to her knee.
Jesus, what would happen if those beautiful lips traveled higher? Would she spread her legs wider and welcome him? Would she lift her ass, silently beg him to taste, to touch, to fuck? Would she come unglued for him as he sipped from her sex, curled his tongue around her clitoris, slid his fingers deep in her spasming core, easing and agitating the terrible, exciting ache?
She squeezed her eyes closed, flexed her fingers in his dark strands, and swallowed a groan.
Yes. Oh, God, yes. She would do each of those things. And more.
Those amazing lips lifted, and before she could draw another breath, swept over the mark on her collarbone. Even though only his lips touched her, she was overwhelmed by him: his nearness, his scent, his heat. His long hair tickled her chin and jaw, and she had to force herself to remain still or she’d do something incredibly insane like nuzzle the thick strands.
His mouth swept over her chin.
“Raphael,” she whispered. That’s it; all she said was his name, because she didn’t know what to say after that.
Stop. Don’t stop.
Enough. I can’t get enough.
No more. More.
His lashes lifted, and his eyes ambushed her, ensnared her with the desire and compassion darkening his navy eyes to nearly black. He brushed his mouth over the old injury again, and a curious melting unfurled in a closed-off section of her heart.
The meaning behind the caresses wasn’t lost on her.
She’d never had a mother’s kiss take away her pain; her hurts and childhood spills had been left to various housekeepers and nannies. The old saying about kissing boo-boos had always seemed like sentimental drivel. But now…now she believed. No, the sweet stroke of his mouth over the marks couldn’t erase the past or the memories. But after tonight, when she looked at the scars, it would be this moment she remembered. The delicate press of firm lips. The soft huff of his breath against her skin. The storm of hunger softened by the gentle rain of affection.
He’d gifted her pleasure for pain.
And she longed to offer him the same.
She loosened her grip on his hair and eased away from him, at the same time palming his shoulders and nudging him back.
Disappointment flared in his eyes before they blanked, became unreadable. She didn’t waste time explaining that she wasn’t rejecting him. Instead, she scooted down the bed and showed him.
His sharp inhal
ation delighted her ears like the most beautiful aria. So she parted her lips and dragged the tip of her tongue up the Barbie versus Matchbox injury. He fisted the sheets next to his hips, and she couldn’t squelch the surge of pride and satisfaction that swirled in her chest. Next, she moved to those fists—the scarred knuckles. She trailed a kiss over the very thin pale lines. Back and forth. Back and forth. Until those long, elegant fingers capable of breaking into the most convoluted security system and drawing forth the most devastating pleasure slowly straightened, then turned over to cradle her cheek.
She skimmed up his body until they were nose to nose, eye to eye. Eyes that were no longer inscrutable but hot, fierce with hunger. Trembling, she cupped his head, tilted it forward, and pressed her mouth to the most tragic wound of them all. The one that had to cut the deepest. Even if he would never admit it.
His hands slid over her scalp, twisted in her hair, and dragged her down until their breath mingled, mated. The moist blast of air from his parted lips caressed hers seconds before his mouth did. He took her. There wasn’t any other way to describe it. With a low, rumbling moan he took her. Consumed her. Dragged her under. Helpless to respond, she opened her mouth to his invasion, and his tongue swept inside, ravaging, tasting, devouring. He slanted his head, demanding she give him even more.
Executing a quick flip, he covered her as soon as her back hit the mattress. She widened her legs, cradled him in the vee of her thighs even as she wound her arms around his neck and pulled him closer. Oh, God. She shuddered, savoring the heavy weight of him. This was a first. She closed her eyes, memorizing how his hard, sculpted frame countered her smaller, more slender body. The width and length of his truck’s backseat had prevented them from experiencing this old-fashioned but perfect position.
Stop! Are you nuts? a small—very small—voice of sanity scolded. This is crazy. It’s—
He sank his strong teeth into her bottom lip. Tugged. Licked.
To hell with crazy.
Gripping the nape of his neck, she arched toward him, became the aggressor. She didn’t wait for him to dip into her mouth, but followed him, challenging him to surrender to her this time. Tiny bites stung her scalp as his fingers tightened in her hair, breathing the flame burning inside her into a conflagration.