by Cari Quinn
We could flip a coin for the couch tonight if need be.
I took a quick shower and withdrew a pair of sleep pants from the drawer. I was tempted to sleep naked, though I didn’t make a practice of it as a rule. But might as well clearly assert my domain if she came back and found I’d disrupted her cozy nest.
If she came back.
I was already beginning to think she wouldn’t. She had Phil and other friends. Surely she’d be moving on soon.
Maybe she already had.
I fell into sleep without trouble. I’d developed the ability to sleep at a moment’s notice years ago, honed from many quickie naps taken at work during all-nighters. No matter how troubled my mind was, I could drop off and sleep like a damn baby.
Waking me up was just as easy.
The rustle of sheets was my first hint something was amiss. Then the slide of soft material against my skin, and warm, strong, calloused hands gliding up my thighs. A mouth at my throat. My ear. Her mouth. Dirty words whispered in the dark.
I turned to her as if it was a habit. Somehow it already was becoming one. Finding her in the night was just an unexpected bonus.
Everything blurred together, wrapped in the mystery of the evening. Filling my hands with her hair, twining my tongue around hers. Her heartbeat matching mine, beat for syrupy beat. That beat building, turning frantic and staccato as our hands began to grasp. Clothes disappeared. Her kisses on my neck moved lower and then lower still until she surrounded me, drawing me inside the heated bliss of her mouth. Her fingers tightened around me, working without cease. She lapped at the tip of my length and lifted her head enough so that I could see the gleam of her eyes in the faint light from the window.
Oh yes, her power would end me. How had I thought I could ever compete?
Her hands slid higher as she crawled up my body and found my mouth again. She tasted of me and that was the dirtiest, most delicious thing of all. Her hips rocked, encouraging me to race with her, and I couldn’t have resisted if I tried.
And I didn’t. Not even a little bit.
She fumbled with the nightstand drawer and then the latex was between us. It wasn’t enough to diminish the sensation of her sweet pussy gloving my cock, wrapping it tight in her silken slickness. She was close enough that she’d barely even started to ride me when she tripped over the first rise, and fell for what felt like forever. Spasms gripped her and traveled up my shaft, nearly turning pleasure to pain. Still, I drove up into her, my hips on autopilot. My hand in her hair, streaking down her spine to her ass. Hauling her against me harder as I bowed up to latch my teeth around one taut nipple. She cried out and the sound sliced through me, fueling my aggressive thrusts. And she only begged for more.
Always more.
I came hard, sinking my teeth into her shoulder to smother my shout. She wrapped her arms around my head and held on while I battered her through those last emptying strokes, her moans goading me on.
We dropped to the mattress together. Sweaty and finally satisfied, at least for the moment.
“I missed you tonight.” The words came out against her skin, in the delirium of kisses brushed against her lavender-scented skin. I could smell it everywhere on her. Every pulse point, every hidden spot.
She didn’t answer for a moment, then she placed a hand on my forehead. “Should I call the doctor?”
I laughed. Laughing was so easy with her. Too easy, because it would become addictive and then where would I be when it invariably ended?
Alone all over again, just as I had been all along. As it was meant.
“You live in my house. I guess it’s okay if I notice you’re around.”
“I don’t live here, Blake.”
Of course she was right. See, more of that delirious afterglow talk. Only a truly stupendous orgasm could addle my thoughts to the extent that I forgot for even a second.
Alone was what I wanted to be. When I was alone, no one could disappoint me. I also couldn’t disappoint anyone else.
Failed expectations, both my own and others, were worse than loneliness.
“I’ll be leaving soon, just as soon as someone gives me my job back. I need money for my own place. Not that that’s your responsibility—”
“What did you do with the money for the angel?” I already knew it was gone, I just didn’t know how.
She was almost as stubborn and prideful as I was. She couldn’t believe I would’ve bought the piece no matter who the artist was. It spoke to me that much. So much that I’d kept it wrapped up all week, because that living reminder of Grace in my space while she was already there filling up every nook and cranny would’ve been too much.
I would’ve begun to expect. Maybe I already was.
Again, she hesitated before answering.
“I started a scholarship fund in my grandmother’s name at the Beacon school, for two deserving students each year to go to art camp. It’s important, Blake, so don’t tell me I was wrong.” Her voice broke. “Don’t tell me you don’t want me here. Even if it’s true, don’t tell me that tonight while I’m still wrapped around you.”
I reached up to brush her hair out of her face. I was afraid if I spoke right then, my voice would’ve cracked like the glass shards embedded in the body of her angel. She humbled me in ways I didn’t have words for. That her desire to help—and yes, her pride—was more important than getting away from a man who’d only brought her pain made me press my face to her neck.
“I’m wrapped around you too.”
Proving it, I rolled her underneath me and began to love her all over again.
Sleep was an afterthought that night, and the others that came after. I didn’t exactly give her back her job, but when Violet pinged me and told me Grace was at the front desk requesting an access pass, I didn’t refuse her. I’d been on the verge of giving her the job back anyway. I was drowning without her capabilities. Her spreadsheets were a thing to behold.
So were her smiles.
Not that she granted me many. At work, we were strictly professional. She even seemed to mostly steer clear of Jack. As did I, since I was saving that confrontation for Saturday night.
No, at work Grace was all business, often skipping lunch periods so she could leave early. I wasn’t sure why. Perhaps she’d found studio space if nothing else. Philomena at the gallery was loaded and had contacts all over. Surely she could’ve set her up. Grace definitely wasn’t working on her glass work at the house. My house. The place where she was every night, finding me in the dark where we communicated without words and never lacked for something to say.
She even helped me get ready for my ill-conceived party. I didn’t ask for her assistance, she just offered it. Contacting caterers and making sure the place looked presentable. She was messier than I was by nature, tending to throw clothes where they landed, but she didn’t hesitate to pitch in around the house. It made preparing for an event I absolutely did not want to host much more bearable.
I’d just stepped out of the shower the day of the party when I got her text that she was getting supplies and having a quick lunch with a friend, but she’d be home soon to help with last minute adjustments.
I stared at those two words home soon for about ten minutes.
My response wasn’t exactly eloquent.
BC: Okay.
What was I supposed to say? All right, a thank you might’ve been in order, but I thought of that after the fact. I’d tell her that later. Better yet, I’d show her. We were getting pretty inventive at showing our gratitude for all sorts of things. Soon we’d be fucking to prove we enjoyed dinner.
Any excuse was good enough.
After showering, I dug into a few more hours of work. My happy place. By the time I looked up again, it was nearing dark. Still no Grace either. She must’ve run long on her lunch date.
I dressed quickly in the black suit I’d picked out for the event. Funeral black seemed appropriate, since that was the only reason I could imagine for having a party in my h
ouse. But I wanted to watch some of the people in my sphere without knowing they were being watched, and what better way than to offer them fancy finger food and enough libations to sink an entire football team?
I just didn’t expect Jack to show up first. Well, Jack, Violet and her brother Daniel and sister-in-law Marina. Marina, who was model-beautiful and clung to her husband’s arm as if they couldn’t bear to be apart for even a second.
Grace would never treat me like that. She was far too independent. Too used to making her own way, in whatever crazy manner she dreamed up from one day to the next.
We made small talk for a few minutes. I’d met Daniel and Marina before, a few times actually, but it had been a while. And Daniel seemed to be in especially good spirits, digging into the alcohol before we’d finished discussing the latest sports scores.
“Hennessey, Carson?” Daniel called, rolling up his sleeves to root around beneath the makeshift bar that had been set up by the catering staff. “Since your bartender hasn’t arrived yet…”
“Bartender? What bartender?” Fuck, I’d forgotten to request one of those.
“I can play bartender for a night,” Jack said, always helpful. Maybe too helpful.
“I know we have Hennessey,” I said, sidestepping my best friend—or possibly ex-best friend, depending on tonight’s outcome—to join Daniel at the bar. Together, we bent to study the selection. I was reaching for a bottle in back when my arm bumped his and he grimaced and pulled away. “Sorry, man.” Jesus, did he think I wanted to put the moves on him or something? He’d yanked his arm back as if I’d burned him.
Then I saw the bandage and I reared up fast enough that I slammed my head on the lip of the bar.
That whole seeing stars thing from violent cranial trauma? Turns out it really happens. The things you discover.
I swore and backed up, squinting through the constellations in my vision at Daniel’s arm. But he was already tugging down his sleeves and moving away, saying something about sticking to whiskey for the night.
Christ, was I imagining threats lurked everywhere, or was I really surrounded by Benedict Arnolds in Giorgio Armani?
I headed to the bathroom to root through the medicine cabinet to look for painkillers. Just what I needed tonight—a killer headache before the damn thing even officially started.
Jack appeared in the doorway before I’d even dry-swallowed the pills. “We need to talk.”
“No shit, Sherlock.” Pain was making me even testier than usual.
“Why have you been shutting me out all week? Is it because you’re shacking up with Grace?”
“What the hell does that have to do with anything?” I slammed the pill bottle down and realized belatedly that I’d picked an odd part of the argument to leap on.
Where was my indignation that he thought I was living with Grace?
Strangely, there wasn’t any. Because we were living together. It wasn’t permanent by any stretch, but for this moment…
“What is your game with her?”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. I want to know what your end game is regarding Grace. And don’t try to bullshit me or I’ll knock you in that dome of yours again.”
“I don’t have a game, and I don’t like what you’re insinuating. Besides, what business is it of yours?” I turned and a week’s worth of anger and questions and frustration poured out in a tangled rush. “Disappointed you didn’t get there first?”
His cocky smile was absolutely the last thing I wanted to see. “Who’s to say I didn’t?”
I hadn’t taken a swing at a man in close to a decade. I’d once made my way with my fists, but that was a long time ago and I was rusty. But apparently I wasn’t too rusty to lay out my best friend with one hard uppercut to the jaw.
He stumbled into the wall, cupping his chin with something akin to shock filling his gaze. “Holy shit, you just nailed me.”
“Bet your fucking ass.” I shook out my sore fist and decided I’d need to look for the iodine too. “I shot a man last week, Hollister, so believe me, a punch is nothing. Remember that if you decide to run your mouth again.”
“It isn’t true.” He rubbed his jaw, then slowly shook his head as if it to clear it. “I haven’t been with Grace, before, during or after. Do you think I’m insane? I saw how you looked at her from the minute you walked in the office. Why do you think I’ve been looking out for her? I knew you’d bungle it and not do your job, so someone had to.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It didn’t take a genius to figure out you were sleeping together. There were rumors in the office anyway, and someone saw you coming out of the bathroom at almost the same time, looking like, well…like you hadn’t been fighting over the last roll, we’ll say.”
I didn’t want to take apart everything he was saying. Not now. “What do you mean you’ve been looking after her?”
“Being a friend to her—which wasn’t a hardship, by the way, because she’s awesome—and you know, going out to the house to make sure everything was okay. I should’ve confronted her about doing something like that, but to be honest, I didn’t know how. I figured she’d come clean to you eventually and you’d work it out between you. In the meantime, I kept watch.” He let out a long breath. “I never would’ve guessed something like last weekend could happened. Since when does Marblehead have crime? And it wasn’t like she wasn’t set up okay. The power thing was a problem, but her studio was pretty cozy all in all. I did a walk-through and—”
My head was on the verge of exploding, between the information deluge and my headache. “Back up. You knew she was staying illegally at the house. How?”
“After I played a hunch and discovered the gallery wasn’t a home address at all, I found out her last known address was the Marblehead house. Her grandmother’s place. So it wasn’t a leap to think maybe she was having trouble letting go. I followed her there one day, then sneaked in the same way she had after she left so I could make sure she wasn’t in desperate straits or anything.”
I scrubbed a hand over the back of my neck. “Her set-up there seemed pretty desperate to me.”
“When you eat rationed freeze-dried food for months on end, then we’ll talk about desperation, okay?”
I had no answer for that, because suddenly everything was becoming clear. Where Grace had been going afternoons that I was still at the office, when I was occupied and couldn’t be as concerned with her whereabouts. Where she might be right now. She was probably just innocently working in her studio, but goddammit, there was no innocence in her being alone at that house. Not with those bastards still on the loose and the cops drawing a blank. They’d called us the other day with their idea of assurances, claiming they were gathering evidence to pin the crime on a kiddie crime ring in the neighborhood, but I believed that I’d shot a teenager about as much as I believed that Grace was out buying supplies.
“She was supposed to meet me for a late lunch today. She never showed.”
No, she was taking advantage of my being busy with the party to return to the house that was more than four walls and a roof to her. It was a home, and I’d been a fool to believe she would ever willingly leave it. No matter how dangerous it was for her.
Or for me, knowing she was there alone. Unprotected.
There’d been a delay in setting up the security system to my specifications. I hadn’t pressed it as much as I should have, since the cops had assured me they were doing extra patrols in the area.
Stupid. So stupid. I’d gotten soft in my years away from the streets. Worse, I’d been too busy worrying about Grace wanting to stay in my house. What her angle was for being there, and wanting to return to work. Because she couldn’t want to just be with me.
That wasn’t possible. There always had to be a set-up going on. A long con. That had been true in the past, hadn’t it?
But Grace was different. So different.
“Did you call her? I bet she’s at the hous
e.” Though why would she miss a lunch date? That wasn’t like her. Not in the slightest.
“I went by the house, and her car was there, but she wasn’t anywhere around. And I found this.” Jack pulled out a small leather bound book from his inside pocket. Journal sized. It even had a flimsy lock that any five-year-old could’ve picked with a bobby pin. “It was at the top of the stairs leading down to the beach. I didn’t see it there last time I came around, though I might’ve missed it.”
“You didn’t miss it,” I muttered, flipping the book open. I recognized Annabelle’s looping handwriting immediately.
Grace had found Annabelle’s journal, and evidently there was something in it worth her losing hours over.
But where the hell was Grace?
Knowing it would be a futile effort, I pulled out my phone and dialed her number. It went straight to voicemail. “Call me. We’re worried about you.”
I hung up and met Jack’s gaze. Now I had a reason his cuff link might be at the house. I had to believe he was on my side. That someone was, and that he could help me locate Grace.
I would make a deal with the devil himself if he would bring her home to me, safe and sound.
Gripping the journal, I stared at Jack. “We have to find her.”
Jack nodded and gestured into the hallway. “Let’s go.”
Will Blake find Grace in time…PREORDER NOW.
Coming Feb 12th.
Also by Cari & Taryn
Lost In Oblivion
the USA Today Bestselling Series
SEDUCED (intro)
ROCKED (book #1)
ROCK, RATTLE & ROLL (book #1.5)
TWISTED (book #2)
UNTWISTED (book #2.5)
DESTROYED (book #3)
CONSUMED (book #3.5)
SHATTERED (book #4)
Coming soon
FUSED (book #4.5)
And our NEW series
Hammered
a Rockstar Romantic Comedy Series