Seared

by Suleikha Snyder

  His mouth stilled at the corner of my lips. I felt his sharp intake of breath. It echoed in the room like a shot. Yes. I’d said it. I love you, I love you, I love you.

  “You’ve said it.” The words were a soft ripple on my skin. A caress. “No taking it back now.”

  “Do you want me to take it back?” I wondered. I didn’t dare move. Not an inch. I didn’t dare hope. Not a moment.

  “You better fucking not,” he growled, before tilting my chin and devastating me with a kiss.

  I clung to him. I took that kiss. I took everything. Handfuls of it. Lungfuls of it. And when he said, “I love you, too, Naya,” I locked it tight within me. We’d been liberated, but those words and this precious moment—and this ridiculous, gorgeous, man—were prisoners. My prisoners. Never to be set free.

  We made love over and over again, sealing those vows, reveling in our victory...but in the back of my head, the doubt rose again. It’s not done. It can’t be that easy. Gloating on the phone was a temporary win. Everybody knows that the villain makes a comeback late in the third act—several comebacks if you’re talking soaps. As much as the man with his arm slung around my waist and his head tucked snugly against my throat wanted to reassure me and stress that we were free, he couldn’t Dom me into delusion.

  Sure, Kyle Attwood was no Stefano DiMera or James Stenbeck—he was definitely more henchman than supervillain—but neither were we Days of our Lives or As the World Turns. Or even Ich Liebe, Du Liebst. This was real life, and I knew in my bones that there was at least one more scene to play out.

  When I awoke to find myself alone in bed, I wasn’t at all surprised.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  When Lachlan rose in the wee hours of the morning and tore himself away from Naya's sweet warmth, he could only chalk it up to a sudden burst of masochism. Something that had never been one of his kinks. Because why else would he leave such a gorgeous bounty? What possible reason could there be to leave? He showered, he dressed quietly and quickly, and after scribbling a brief note and pressing a kiss to her forehead he let himself out of the brownstone.

  “I love you. How could I not love you?”

  The confession, so fucking beautiful, was still echoing in his mind hours later. Like her touch and her scent and her soul. Good God, she even inspired him to poetry—and he didn't care. For several miles, all he could see was the future, the possibilities...and the road ahead. By the time he entered Westchester County, he'd written out years of story. Lots of love scenes. A few children. As if he were the screenwriter instead of her. But there were key pieces missing...a few things left to play out.

  “You'll never be happy, Lachlan. A woman can only bring you ruin.”

  “And yet you brought a woman into this house. Your messages are bullshit, Ran.”

  “Be that as it may, you'll remember them, won't you?”

  “No. I'm going to forget them. And you. As soon as humanly possible.”

  He needed his fucking head examined. He knew what things had driven him back home—unfinished business and a Ferrari he kept in storage just off the West Side Highway—but Lachlan wasn’t sure that any of it was worth walking out of one of the most profound moments of his life and heading north, to where all his dreams had nearly been laid to ruin.

  Was this closure? An exorcism? After all, more than just a strange compulsion had brought him back to Greenhaven—the appallingly upscale part of Rye where he’d spent his teen years. Modern technology was to blame. One last fucking text message. One last voicemail. He’d hoped that the meeting on Stone Street would be the end of it, but of course it wasn’t. They had to return to the scene of the initial crimes...to the home of his nightmares.

  And when he stared up at the mansion itself, the malevolence surrounded him like a cloak. It looked beautiful—well-tended, pristine, majestic with its dark stone and long drive—but he felt no admiration. No sense of belonging. Yes, he could unequivocally say, he still hated this house and everything it stood for. Power. Ambition. Greed. All at the expense of passion and affection. And yet he walked across the threshold. Dropped his bags in the master. Marked his goddamn territory in the master’s bathroom.

  After the initial reintroduction was over and done with, he came downstairs and built a fire in the hearth of his father’s old study. The room still felt like a meat locker an hour later. At least the good scotch, stashed in the cabinets beneath the sideboard until the movers came to pack everything up, was of the proper temperature. So he sat in the leather desk chair behind Ranulf Christie’s desk and toasted the dearly departed buzzard with a host of epithets unfit for sensitive ears.

  Somewhere around his third toast, it occurred to him that there were better ways to banish a specter. Like making love to Naya in every room.

  “We are going to make this work, Naya. I will never push you away from me again.”

  “Be realistic. You might. Because you're you. But I'll push back. And I'll come after you. Because I'm me.”

  So he waited for her. He knew it wouldn’t be long. They were magnets, the two of them. Destined to be pulled to one another. A natural force. The opposite of this man-made, brick-and-mortar Hell that had trapped their hearts for years. She’d eventually come for him, because she’d promised him that—but he wasn’t foolish enough to believe she’d arrive before his other guest.

  Lachlan knew the heavy footfalls outside the study didn’t belong to her. Nor the hand on the knob that nearly pushed the door off its hinges. “Who are you, Kyle Attwood, Esquire?” he wondered aloud, even though he had all of the answers spread out in front him courtesy of Wil’s clever little hobby. “I know you’re not one of my father’s bastards.”

  Not only was there no Christie family resemblance, but given Ran’s mercenary attitude toward women, he couldn’t imagine his father being careless enough to spawn an illegitimate son. “Did he have something on you, too?”

  Attwood’s piggy eyes glittered with anger. And something else. Contempt. As if he was so far above being blackmailed...and yet not so high that he wouldn’t stoop to it himself. Fucker. “You think you’ve won,” he sneered. “That’s stupid and naive.”

  Lock had never been either. He’d come into the world screaming and cynical. He glanced down at Wil’s newest batch of intel. At the neat columns and rows of bank account numbers. Monthly transactions going back nearly two decades. “You’ve been on his payroll a very, very long time, Attwood. What were you? Fresh out of reading law when he reeled you in? Did you cheat on the bar exam?”

  “I don’t cheat.” His erstwhile nemesis curled his hands into fists.

  “But you do have particular tastes. Things that, were they to go public, would destroy your career.” Things that Lachlan had no intention of saying aloud. Because if it was all legal and consensual, he was not in the business of shaming people for what got them off. He leaned back, sighed. God, this exhausted him. This game that never ended.

  “My father discovered your kink, didn't he? And he exploited it. Used it. Poisoned your well until you had no choice but to believe that you owed him service. ‘I’ll bury it deep,’ he promised you. But he didn’t bury it deep enough. It never goes away. And neither does your complicity.” He looked at the file again. More to allow Attwood a moment or two to regroup than out of any need to refresh his memory. “It's what Ranulf does, you know. And what you've helped him do to others.”

  “I do know.” The lawyer—the creature he'd dismissed as florid, piggy and any number of other uncharitable descriptors—looked simply human then. Tired. Wrinkled. Deflated.

  He couldn’t shoot this man and bury him in the garden. That was not how wars with Ranulf Christie were won. “How do we settle this?” It was a charitable question, considering he held all the cards at the moment. “Because I’ve no desire to ever hear from you or see your face again.”

  “The feeling is mutual.” Attwood grimaced, scrubbing at his face with the back of one hand.

  His father had triumphe
d in rooms like this one. By saying the right things and using the proper leverage. Lachlan, far more comfortable in a kitchen than behind a desk, had employed similar tactics to quash this dirty business once and for all. And he felt all the more soiled for doing so.

  Attwood shifted from foot to foot, no longer at even keel now that Lock had acknowledged his own sordid predicament. No doubt there was a part of him that wanted to keep turning the screws any way he could and a part that wanted to say “Fuck it, let's forget the whole thing!” But what would he choose?

  For Lachlan, the answer was simple. He did not want to hold Kyle Attwood, Esquire's life in his hands. There was only one person in addition to himself he was responsible for: Naya. Her happiness. Her well-being. Her future was what mattered.

  Time slowed to a crawl as Attwood considered his question. Lachlan could hear the rush of blood against his eardrums and was oddly conscious of the tick of the watch on his wrist. Then, finally, the bedeviled blackmailer cleared his throat. Cut his gaze to the side.

  “Would your friends who got into my cloud be willing to do a little more weather work?” he asked.

  Lock let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. A Windsor knot in his chest unraveled.

  “I think we can make it rain,” he assured, knowing Wil Karlsen would be up for the challenge. The fellow probably got his rocks off every time he brought down a firewall.

  Attwood nodded tightly, but some of the biliousness had drained from his face. “I’ll be in touch in a few days,” he said. “And then our business together is finished.”

  Lachlan had to accept it as truth. The alternative was unbearable. And he was done suffering because of his father’s twisted schemes. He needed to breathe. He needed to move forward. He needed to be with the woman who meant everything to him. They’d already lost too much time to these machinations. As the door clicked shut behind Ranulf’s puppet, Lock imagined another one opening. Into a bright new world where no ghosts were allowed. He poured himself another drink and waited for Naya to join him there.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  The black car let me out on the winding driveway that led up to the house that had once featured prominently in my revenge fantasies. As I stepped out onto the gray pavement, the mansion loomed skyward like a gothic monstrosity. Turrets capped the dark stone manor, the windows in each like malevolent eyes peering down at me. “How dare you come back here?” I could imagine it saying—and the voice sounded distinctly like Ran Christie’s.

  I wasn’t surprised to see a realtor’s sign already posted on the perfectly manicured lawn. In fact, part of me could picture Lachlan hammering it into the ground himself—his sleeves pushed up, a fierce grimace on his face as he smacked the post again and again.

  “I hate this fucking place.”

  “Didn’t you grow up here?”

  “Would I sound like this if I grew up here?”

  “What? Pompous?”

  “Very funny, brat.”

  “I like to think so! So, what’s the deal? Why do you hate this house?”

  “Can’t you feel it, Naya? It’s evil.”

  The first week he was back from school—that first week we met—I had no idea what he meant. Sure, my stepfather was cold and distant, and the house was massive and less than welcoming, but Mom and I had settled in and I was so busy with my studies and making friends that I didn’t really notice. It wasn’t until Lock and I connected that it became clear. The place was evil, and so was the man who held its keys.

  Now here I was, back at the scene of crime—if you could call falling in love with your stepbrother a crime, and I know some people certainly did. But I also knew why Lachlan had come here. Why I was here, too. Because we couldn’t really move forward before we shut the door on the past once and for all.

  And I couldn’t shut that door until I opened the one to the house. So, I didn’t linger outside. I hurried to the wide porch and unearthed a seldom-used key from the depths of my purse. It still fit the lock. The security code probably hadn’t changed either, and when I punched in Ran’s birthdate on the keypad just inside the foyer, my guess was proven correct.

  I shivered even though it wasn’t cold. Maybe it was in anticipation. After all, Lachlan was somewhere inside these walls. My skin would always tingle for his touch, and that pain-loving goddess inside me would always crave his punishment—almost as much as the rebellious side of me craved pushing him back and driving him to the edge of his control. I would always be both his darling and his brat.

  I wandered through the huge foyer, bypassing the staircase that cut up the middle. There was one of two places I figured Lock would be: the library, or Ranulf’s study. The kitchen had been our refuge, but I didn’t think he’d come here to hide. He could do that just as easily in Brooklyn, in bed with me. When the library turned up empty, except for all the books and knickknacks gathering dust, I forced my suddenly leaden feet toward option two.

  I’d never had to spend much time in Ran’s domain. As far as he was concerned, aside from social occasions where I made for a diverse photo op, I was to be seen and not heard. Over the years, the study had taken on a sort of mythic quality. Like a haunted house, or a closet that held the bogeyman. “Nonsense,” my mother always said. “It’s just a room. It can’t hurt anyone.” But she’d said that about her husband, too: “He’s just a man. He can’t hurt anyone.” And look how that had turned out.

  Lock’s in there. Just go in. The nagging voice in the back of my head shoved me forward, made my hand twist the knob. He’s waiting. Maybe he’s waiting naked. Although, given he had no idea precisely when I would arrive, I seriously doubted he would be sitting around on his dad’s leather furniture bare-assed. He was a gloriously twisted motherfucker, but not in the Oedipal way.

  I was only marginally disappointed to find Lachlan sprawled, fully dressed, on the couch in front of the fireplace. One hand nearly trailed the carpeted floor, weighted down by a tumbler of amber liquid. He wasn’t asleep, or drunk. The eyes that met mine were clear and, as always, startlingly blue.

  “Hello, love,” he said, a smile ticking up the corners of his mouth.

  Love. A new nickname. Because that’s what I was, wasn’t I? The realization still knocked me for a loop. I’m his love. We love each other. That’s what this is.

  “Hello, Chef.” I crossed the room, dropping my purse as I went. Once, what seemed like forever ago, I’d greeted him in a similar way with butterflies in my stomach—uncertain of the reception. Now, I knew exactly the outcome. I knew he would laugh. I knew he would put down his glass and take my hand. I knew he would pull me down to the sofa with him and kiss me soundly.

  So much knowledge. So much understanding. So much trust. I tasted it on his whiskeyed mouth as he murmured, “Chased me down again, did you?”

  “I told you I would.” I shrugged, curling into his arms. “No matter where you go.”

  Lachlan looked down at me, and there were furrows between his brows even though he was smiling. “Well, that’s something to look forward to,” he said, softly.

  “We have everything to look forward to,” I assured, tilting my head back so I could meet his gaze properly. I was wrong. There were clouds in that blue. “What is it? What made you come back here today, of all days?”

  He worried his lower lip with his teeth. I kissed him to make him stop...and then stopped kissing him so he could speak. “I don't know, really.” I could easily take that at face value, but he wasn't quite done with the thought. “I suppose I thought...I thought I'd find him here, you know? Like I could shake my fist and say, ‘We did it, you bastard. We beat you after all.’”

  “You could’ve done that at his grave. We did miss the funeral. You didn’t get that closure.” Funerals were a big deal on soap operas. Usually because someone came back from the dead during them. But I wasn't worried about Ranulf coming back. I just didn’t want him to haunt Lachlan any longer. Not when we had so many other wonderful, and kinky, things we cou
ld think about.

  “There are things you can’t say or do at a grave,” he pointed out.

  My mind immediately went to the obvious activity, accompanied by a visual in vivid and really inappropriate Technicolor. “What? Like having sex with me on it?”

  “Don’t think the thought hasn't crossed my mind,” he chuckled, hand coming around to squeeze my ass. “But even I’m not that vulgar.”

  I waggled my eyebrows. “So...are you going to fuck me here?”

  His chuckle became a full-blown laugh, and the rise in his jeans became a full-blown erection, swelling underneath my own questing fingers.

  “I’ll fuck you anywhere,” he promised. “I’ll make love to you, too. But I’ll only beat you at home. Wherever we decide that will be.”

  I could live with that. What’s more, I knew we would.

  This wasn’t forbidden. This wasn’t taboo. This was us. Whether it took hours or days or years, I knew we would banish every phantom, break every rule, and only fall deeper in love. A decade of denial was a drop in the bucket compared to what I had planned for Lachlan Christie, and I couldn’t wait to discover all the things he had planned for me.

  “Is the kitchen packed up?” I wondered.

  Lock’s eyebrows quirked. “We might have the makings of samosas. And a few six-packs of ginger beer.”

  Perfect. I slipped from his arms and extended a hand. We could begin again where we first started—and this time we’d cook up a meal that would satisfy us for a lifetime.

  * * *

  Lachlan took her hand and let her tug him toward the kitchen, his feet just the slightest bit unsteady from the scotch. He’d beaten the villain and kept the girl. He’d won the bloody lottery, hadn’t he? “Not the Shirley Jackson one,” Naya assured when he said this aloud. “No rocks for you.” He pretended he understood the reference but really just focused on her lush mouth curved in a warm smile. And then he gave in to the urge to kiss it, pressing her into a nook in the hall.