All I Need is You

by M. Malone

  “It’s time to move those feet. Let’s warm up.” The blond instructor started stretching right to left. The class mimicked her movements.

  Kay clutched her towel and energy drink in trepidation as she copied the movement. This was a lot more intimidating than she’d expected. She’d envisioned a few people in a room dancing. Not a huge crowd that looked like extras from a music video. At least she was in the back, so hopefully no one would notice her awkward moves.

  Absently Kay wondered if the blond woman was Janet. Eli had made a comment over Christmas that he was glad she didn’t look like Raina, so she assumed the girl on the left wasn’t his type. However, she’d caught him checking out her chest more than once, and the blond woman looked like she’d had some surgical enhancements in that area. Plus the blonde had that perfect, thin body with the gap between the thighs. She looked like she spent as much time in the gym as Eli obviously did.

  Exactly the kind of body that Eli would think was perfect.

  The tempo of the music picked up and Kay stumbled as the whole class executed a turn. She picked up her feet and tried to emulate the way the person in front of her was moving. Was it left, right, left? Or right, left, right?

  Just when she thought she had it, the whole class turned in the opposite direction and Kay stumbled into the person next to her.

  “Sorry!”

  The girl didn’t even seem to hear her because she was turning in the other direction. Her breath was coming faster now and not just due to embarrassment. Her lungs burned and her thighs ached. How was everyone else moving their feet so fast?

  Kay moved to the side to get a better view of the instructors. To her shock and surprise, the teacher on the right was moving and shaking better than the skinny instructors. Kay watched, mesmerized, as she executed each step with perfect grace. Her hips seemed to have a seductive sway to them. Kay looked down at her own body and swung her hips. Some of the steps were easier when she put her hips into it.

  Maybe she could enjoy this after all.

  ELI WAS IN the middle of a dead lift when the first call came in. After several rings, it went silent. He blew out a breath and squatted again. The phone beeped, indicating he had a new voice mail. He ignored the sound and tightened his abdominals as he stood back up.

  Eli gritted his teeth, relishing the burn and stretch of his muscles as he worked his back. He considered his body to be a machine, a tool in his arsenal just like his Beretta or his SUV. Honing it was part of his job and necessary so it would perform as needed. There were other “performance” benefits of a healthy body, as well. Not that they’d come in handy any time soon. Kay couldn’t handle seeing his kind of endurance.

  All the more reason he needed to work out his tension in the weight room.

  When the phone started ringing again, he set the bar back on the rack and rummaged in his gym bag. He pushed aside a towel, an extra weight-lifting belt, and a change of clothes before he found it. He’d missed the call again. When he saw the caller ID, he hit the button immediately to call Tank back. He’d asked the man to contact him with any news about Hope’s father. If he was calling now, it meant he must have found something.

  “What have you got for me?”

  “Hey, boss. I’ve been keeping tabs on Banner and something finally popped. It appears our guy thinks he has what it takes to be a senator.”

  Eli planted himself on an empty weight bench. “That’s quite a jump for a guy who owns a bunch of strip malls.”

  “Exactly. The guy has no background in politics and few connections. What’s a second-rate businessman doing running for congress?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m less worried about his chances in the polls and more concerned about what he’s willing to do to make himself look good. Maybe he’s worried about Kay running to the press with stories about him once he’s in the public eye?”

  “That seems likely. He hasn’t announced his bid officially. This is all based on communications between him and his assistant.”

  “As soon as it’s official let me know. He might step up his efforts to scare Kay into silence once he’s officially running. Maybe we’ll get really lucky and he’ll give us the evidence we need to hang him.”

  “Will do.”

  They hung up and Eli dropped his head into his hands. A quick glance at the time told him he only had about twenty minutes before the end of Kay’s class. Not enough time for him to do much other than some curls. He usually only worked one body part at a time, but since his workout schedule had been so disrupted lately, maybe he could fit in some leg work as well. He was hampered by his need to stay within sight of the dance studio. From this part of the gym, he could see everyone going in and out. There was no way he’d have allowed Kay to go otherwise.

  Now that he knew her ex had some pretty good reasons to want her out of the picture, he definitely wasn’t leaving her alone. It would be pretty risky for him to try to hurt Kay when he was about to be in the public eye, but he’d seen people do crazier things. Especially when they saw someone as an obstacle to getting what they wanted.

  Eli shook his head in disgust at the thought of a man trying to terrorize the mother of his child because she was inconvenient. His job had stripped away many of his illusions over the past decade, namely that anyone in politics had good intentions. He’d seen far too much of the ugly side of the political game.

  There was no way he’d allow even a fraction of that to touch Kay or her daughter.

  “Excuse me. Are you done with this?”

  Eli turned, startled, at the voice next to him. An older man pointed at the machine he’d just finished using. He’d been sitting on the weight bench next to it, staring into space.

  “Yes, sorry. Let me get these.”

  Eli lifted the heavy plates off the bar so the other man could get started, then moved to the next machine. He only had a short time until Kay’s class was over, so he’d better make the most of it.

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, all Kay could think was that Zumba was a tool of the devil. Huffing and puffing, she edged her way to the corner of the room and slid down the wall into a heap. The rest of the class continued turning and stepping while she sucked on her energy drink and tried to pull more oxygen into her lungs.

  It was tempting to just sneak out, but she didn’t want Eli to see her and feel compelled to cut his own workout short. He’d been looking forward to this. His routine had been destroyed by protecting her. The least she could do was stick it out for the entire class.

  Ten torturous minutes later, the class was over. Students milled around chatting. A few people smiled at Kay where she was still collapsed in a heap next to the wall.

  She looked up to see Eli in the doorway. He’d pulled on an oversize sweatshirt, but he still looked like he was all muscle. The teachers all greeted him, but the blond one especially looked like she wanted to gobble him whole. Eli smiled at her and she placed a hand on his arm and leaned forward. She couldn’t have gotten any closer unless she crawled inside his sweatshirt with him.

  Guess I was right.

  Eli motioned her over. Kay struggled to her feet, too tired to even care if they saw. She crossed the room, dodging the other students who milled in small groups, chatting and laughing.

  “Kay, I want you to meet someone.” Eli took her arm and pulled her against his side.

  She immediately tried to pull back, not wanting him to feel how sweaty and gross she was. The blond instructor was still hovering near his elbow, so Kay fixed a smile on her face and turned toward her, ready to do the whole hi-how-are-ya thing, but to her surprise, Eli steered her in the opposite direction.

  The brown-skinned girl with the seductive hips stepped forward and pulled Eli into a hug. “Where have you been, stranger?”

  Eli shrugged. “Around. I’ve had a couple of jobs in the southern part of the state. You know how it is.”

  “Unfortunately, I do.” The girl turned to Kaylee with a friendly smile. “This must be the friend you
were talking about. Hi, I’m Janet Reed.” She stuck out her hand and Kay took it automatically.

  “Um, hello,” Kay said finally, sure she sounded like an idiot. But the other woman wasn’t paying attention, already absorbed in a conversation with Eli about the recent changes he’d made to the gym’s security system.

  They tried to include her in the conversation, but Kay couldn’t do much more than smile and make appropriately vague noises of agreement. Her mind was in too much of an uproar for her to make conversation. She surveyed the other woman with open curiosity. This was Janet Reed? The girl with the big hips and the even bigger smile? She glanced up at Eli. He didn’t seem to notice her befuddlement because he was too busy chatting with Janet.

  Finally Janet hugged Eli again and waved good-bye to Kay before trotting over to one of the other students. Eli watched her go with a wistful smile before turning to Kay. “Are you ready to go?”

  She shrugged and took another pull of her energy drink, trying desperately to get her thoughts together. As they walked out of the gym toward the nursery to pick up Hope, she finally said, “So, that’s the Janet Reed, huh?”

  He winked and leaned down to whisper, “I told you she was perfect.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “SO, DID YOU enjoy the class? It’s pretty intense at first,” Eli asked as they drove away from the gym, Hope safely buckled into the backseat.

  Kay shot him an incredulous look. “Intense is walking up a few flights of stairs. That was taking my life in my hands. I could barely breathe, and I didn’t even do the whole class. It was still fun though.”

  They shared a chuckle at the thought. He’d noticed her slumped down in the corner when he’d first entered the studio but had chosen not to mention it. He’d assumed she hadn’t enjoyed the class due to her murderous look when he’d first seen her.

  “Janet’s been teaching dance classes for years. She always loved to dance, even in high school.”

  He could feel Kay’s eyes on him, but he didn’t dare turn to look at her. Just the heat of her gaze on his skin was dangerous enough.

  Eli knew he’d shocked Kay. Her face was so expressive. She’d been completely stunned when he introduced her to Janet. She’d also seemed a lot more relaxed and comfortable after meeting her. Janet had given him a sly look behind Kay’s back and a thumbs-up. She’d apparently figured out the real reason he’d wanted her to meet Kay. Not that he minded.

  “That’s your idea of perfect, huh?” she whispered.

  He knew what she was really asking. If that was his idea of perfect, then how did he feel about her? Was she perfect?

  “It is. Healthy, strong, curvy, and loving life. It doesn’t get any better than that.” His fingers tightened around the steering wheel, the truth making him feel uncharacteristically vulnerable. His answer was way too revealing, but Kay needed to hear it more than he needed to protect himself.

  Kay was quiet for a few minutes. They turned off the highway and onto the quiet residential streets leading to his house.

  “I need to understand why.”

  Her quiet plea got his attention. “What?”

  “The why of it. I need to know why we can’t be together. You can’t just keep telling me that you’re not good for me. Because as soon as you do that, you turn around and do things like this. Perfect things. Things that make me fall for you all over again.”

  Eli’s heart banged an extra rhythm in his chest. The ache in her voice was a killer. Second only to the tears sparkling in her eyes.

  “Kay—” Her name from his lips was a ragged plea. For her to stop, for her to keep going. Hell, he had no idea.

  “Do you know what Danny and I were talking about in the restaurant that night? Before everything happened?” she interrupted. She turned from the window to face him. Damn, she was magnificent, so strong and resolute as she faced off with him.

  He shook his head.

  “We were talking about how much it sucks to have your heart held hostage. To be stuck in a holding pattern, waiting to see if the person you care for will ever see you the same way. Will ever want you the same way.”

  “Wanting isn’t the problem, Kay. It never has been. You know I want you. More than my next breath.”

  “Do you honestly think that helps? Knowing that you want me as much as I want you, but I still can’t have you. It’s torture, Eli. Telling me to move on doesn’t make me forget. If you want me to have even a chance to move on, help me understand. Tell me what you’ve done that’s so horrible.” She looked at him and the tears in her eyes almost broke him. “It would be so much easier if I could hate you. Even just a little.”

  Eli realized then that he’d made a mistake keeping her in the dark. It had been nothing more than his own narcissism, his own egotistical desire to keep her love, to have her look at him like he was her hero, that had kept him silent. He had the means to help her get over him, and he’d just been too selfish to use it.

  The truth. All he had to do was tell her the truth. She’d never look at him the same way again.

  “You’re right. I’ve been keeping things from you and that ends tonight. I’ll tell you everything. Then you’ll understand.”

  And she’d finally be free.

  DINNER WAS MAINLY a silent affair. Kay shoveled in the chicken breast she’d sautéed, trying to hurry up and get to the part where he told her his story. They’d both showered and changed clothes as soon as they got home, and then Eli had disappeared while she made dinner. They hadn’t spoken the entire time. Hope seemed to sense the tension because she was cranky and cried off and on while Kay was trying to feed her.

  “Do you want some of mine?” Eli held out a small piece of chicken on his fork. To Kay’s surprise, Hope immediately leaned forward.

  “Careful,” Eli crooned. He allowed Hope to take the bite and then pulled back. “It’s just a small piece. That’s okay, right?”

  Kay nodded. “I’m just surprised she took it. I always have to trick her into eating when she’s cranky like this.”

  “I think it’s just the novelty of having me feed her. Here, let me try.” He held out his arms and Kay allowed Hope to crawl into his lap. He grinned down at the baby and fed her tiny pieces from his plate. Hope stared up at him the entire time, seemingly fascinated.

  “Whoa, what is she doing?” Eli struggled to keep a grip on the baby as she squirmed in his arms. Finally, she turned over and then stood up, her tiny feet balancing on his thighs. She slapped two hands on his bald head and squealed. Delighted with this new toy, she patted his head again and then tried to move his head backward and forward.

  Kay giggled along with her daughter. “I think she’s fascinated with your head.”

  “I never thought I’d hear that from a woman.” A rare smile crossed Eli’s face and his deep chuckle rumbled through the room, the sound causing a bubble of joy to escape her own mouth.

  How beautiful a sound to hear him laugh. It was the kind of thing dreams were made of, to have her daughter and the man she loved laughing and happy.

  And she did love him, she thought. No matter what he told her, it wouldn’t take away that obvious truth.

  She loved his gentle heart, his tender way with her daughter, his firm refusal to allow anyone to put her down including herself. In that moment, Kay knew for certain that nothing he could tell her would change that.

  They worked together, cleaning the table and the kitchen. By tacit unspoken agreement, neither brought up the conversation they knew was coming. It was like a last moment of calm before the storm. She just wanted to enjoy it. Because even though she knew it wouldn’t change her feelings, there was no denying that whatever he’d done might impact their future. It was impossible not to speculate on what it could be. What if he was a drug addict? What if he’d killed people?

  Kay bathed Hope in the hall bathroom and then rocked her until she fell asleep. She kissed the baby on her soft, fragrant cheek and then placed her carefully in the playpen. For a moment, she w
atched her sleep, her tiny features so peaceful. Peace was hard to come by lately.

  When she left the room and emerged into the living room, Eli had dimmed the lights and a fire crackled cheerfully in the hearth. The flames threw soft light and shadows across the room.

  Kay sat on the edge of the couch and waited. She heard Eli before she saw him. He entered the room from the kitchen and sat on the other end of the couch. It dipped under his weight, bouncing Kay slightly.

  “I had just finished college when I met him,” Eli said.

  Kay turned her head at his statement. She was afraid to move or breathe wrong for fear that he’d stop. So she said nothing and just waited.

  “I was only twenty-two. Only a little older than you are now. Thought I knew everything.” He chuckled but she could tell he wasn’t at all amused. There was a wealth of pain in the sound.

  “His name was Justice. Or at least that’s the name he went by then. There was nothing exceptional about him at first glance. He could have been anyone. He could blend into any crowd, fit in with any group. It wasn’t until later that I learned it was a skill he’d learned and developed over the years. A skill that I would learn and develop as well.”

  He was quiet for a time, gazing into the fire and twisting his hands in his lap. There was just the soft crackle of the flames and the creak of his knuckles as he clenched and released his fingers.

  “The first time I went with him on a mission, it was to break into a local gang’s hideout. They were into running just about anything you could think of. Drugs, booze, women. If they could make money from it, they were doing it. Our job was to get the girls out. To set them free. And we did. Or at least I thought we did.”