by Lyrica Creed
The shake, shake, shake of the bed―Rascal scratching―woke me, but I didn’t immediately open my eyes. Memories of the night before paraded through my mind. Moments after stars had lit the backs of my eyelids and my legs had jellied, I’d watched fascinated as he’d finished himself off before I’d even recovered enough to offer my services.
Wait, that wasn’t completely true. I could have taken over, but the sheer primal beauty in his sure and fluid movements had held me obsessive. Up, down, up, down, twist, Up, down, up, down, twist. His eyes had locked with mine, and he had been his own driver to paradise city.
After crossing our thin dotted line in the shower, we’d both pulled on clothing from his closet, and had fallen almost directly asleep in his huge bed where Rascal had eventually crawled between us.
Stretching my legs, I blinked the sleep from my eyes as I opened them to find Gage’s face inches from mine, his eyes on me.
My neck and face heated as I got my thoughts in check.
What was he thinking on so seriously?
I’d fallen asleep to his adoring gaze, and now had woken to something different. Something oddly akin to guilt was swimming in his assessing stare.
“What?” My inquiry came out a whispered breath.
The corners of his mouth quirked but never quite made it to a smile. One of his fingers lifted to trace my cheek, but the gentleness of the action was accompanied by a sad glimmer in his eyes instead of a sweet one.
Equal parts of panic and empathy warred inside me. If he had brought me aboard this ride only to regret it, I wasn’t going to recover easily at this point. By the same token, I understood if it was confusion he was feeling, because I had enough of that emotion bubbling inside my own caldron of emotions.
“Don’t think. Just take it a minute at a time. Remember?” I reminded.
“Maybe that was stupid of me to say.” His finger had dropped, and he remained still, the only movement being his lips forming those scary words, and the slight flex of his scruffy chin and jaw.
I couldn’t meet his gaze anymore, and I couldn’t speak past the achy lump building in my throat. Pushing up, I sat, staring down at the large Fire Flight tee shirt covering my frame. Beneath it, I could feel the pair of his boxers I’d stolen from his drawer rather than stumbling to my own room for clothing.
“Why? Why would you say that?” I inquired over my shoulder, willing my voice not to waver. A low hum had begun in my ears, and was slowly increasing to drown out the rustle of Rascal as he bounded from the bed, crossed the room, and nudged the door open.
Gage was quiet for several breaths and then he said, “I’m starting to rethink it all…” The hum grew louder. “That this thing between us probably won’t work out and…” The hum became a vibration I could physically feel. “That maybe I had my own agenda in mind and not…” His thought faded and he looked up, as if he too were hearing the drone of distortion in my head. “Dammit! Is it already ten?”
Twisting, he fumbled around on the nightstand and cursed again, oblivious to the shredding of my heart. Swinging out of bed, he spanned the room and I eyed his movements as he snatched up and pilfered the pockets of his wet jeans from the bathroom floor. The humming had become a palpitation. I lifted my eyes to the ceiling, finally understanding. A helicopter approach.
“I guess my phone is still down by the pool.” He zipped on clean jeans. “Can you be ready in fifteen minutes?”
“For Arrowhead?”
“Yeah. Throw together what you need. We’re flying straight there, so you don’t really have to dress like we’re going anywhere.” He spoke while sprinting out of the room, barefoot and shirtless, presumably to retrieve his phone.
Instinctively, I jumped from the bed. It wasn’t until I found myself in my room with a pile of clothing in my carry-on bag and was pulling my swimsuit from where it had last hung to dry on the side of my tub that I halted my motions.
“…this thing between us probably won’t work out…”
Gage had flashed by my bedroom doorway en route back to his room. The decibel of the chopper honing in was too loud to hear him stirring around as he did his own packing. I was startled from my reflective trance when he suddenly appeared in the middle of my room with Rascal on his heels.
“Ready?” He grabbed the bag from my bed.
I shook my head. “I’m not going.”
“What?”
“I’m. Not. Going.”
“What the hell? We talked about it all week. We talked about it last… night…” He finally seemed to understand. “Scar, last night… God, this is fucked… Just c’mon. We’ll finish talking there in a few minutes.” He undoubtedly spoke of his cabin.
“No.” I had been bravely meeting his gaze, but soon dropped my eyes to Rascal’s sagging ears and watchful expression. The handle of a retractable leash dangled from his collar like a giant pendant. When I heard an exasperated hiss blew through Gage’s lips, I returned his stare and exploded. “I’m not taking a road trip with the two of us rethinking things all the way there!”
“It’s thirty minutes!”
“Why would I go anywhere with someone who is rethinking things?”
“Would you stop saying that?” His head fell dramatically back and he focused on the ceiling. “So, if nothing else, you’re going to stop being my sister too?”
That was a low blow. I knew I had decided to take this trip while still in sister-mode. It was to be my escape from civilization as well as a continuance of his personal rehab. But he had to know after the last few days we couldn’t go back to a sister and brother relationship. Or maybe he could. Maybe what he’d been after all along had been a friends-with-benefits relationship.
“I never was your sister. Whatever last night was—it pretty much proved that.” Images assaulted me in waves and my nerves came alive, stimulated by the feelings not so long passed. “Just… I just want to go…” Home. But home was where? It sure didn’t feel like Belize any longer. In fact, here had felt like home until roughly a quarter of an hour ago.
Chapter 37
The conflict eddied in her pained gaze and ripped at his guts. It wasn’t possible to be a bigger douche than he had been. How could a morning begun with the utter bliss of opening his eyes to her sleeping face have degraded to a calamity of this proportion? How could he have been so fucking stupid?
A tone emitted from his back pocket, and he continued to hold her eyes as he slid his cell from it. His finger tapped over the ‘view’ icon and the camera at the gate streamed onto the screen. Observing the visitor requesting access into the property was like taking another gut punch.
“Like things aren’t fucked up enough,” he muttered and let his hand drop, gripping the phone in a tight clench. “Your mother’s at the gate.” To his surprise, her expression lightened some, and she hastened for the hallway. In auto mode, his arm shot out, blocking her from passing him. Curling her into the crook of his elbow, he leaned forward, picking up her bag and purse. “Is this all?”
“Let go.” Her hands landed flat against his chest and she shoved. “I need to talk to her.”
Incredulous, he remained unyielding. “No, you don’t. Not face to face anyway.” Her purse settled on his wrist, and he shouldered her luggage.
“I do. I should apologize.”
So they were back to this. Last night he had deflected it ‘until she was sober.’ She was now sober. Regardless, he ushered her into the hallway. Instead of the main stairway, he progressed them toward the back stairs, which led to the roof. “That’s bullshit. You have nothing to apologize for.” When she realized they were going in the wrong direction and resisted, he dug in, forcing her into the stairwell. “Everything you said yesterday… All that shit that happened—and I’m betting that’s not the half of it! What the hell do you have to say to her?”
“It’s none of your business! Just let me!” She was not only balking now; she was fighting in earnest. “Let go!” A kick landed on his shin, and he sucked in a startled breath
. “You can’t just make me!”
Her purse slid further up his arm when it took two hands to pull and push her with him as he ascended each stair. She was a step higher than him as he prodded her along. A swing of her elbow landed on his windpipe, and he choked, “Dammit! Will you stop?” Blockading the narrow passage with his body, he dropped a few stairs back to the doorway and whistled for Rascal. When his pet lumbered past, he pulled the door closed and took a moment to grab and extend Rascal’s leash. Scar stood like an angry statue, and he pondered a collar and leash around her beautiful neck. Problem solved. Yeah, that image was more sexy than sensible. He tipped his head, locked eyes with her, and swung his chin in a ‘go forth’ gesture. No? Okay. Looping the leash onto his wrist, he used the freed hand to pull her up the next couple of stairs. When reaching the top, he paused before flinging the door to the roof open.
The whir of the helicopter pounded, and he yelled over the racket. “Is it true? Did that all happen to you?” It was something he hadn’t considered until now. Had she exaggerated while in the shock and rage of the moment? However, the second she registered the question, he perceived the set of her jaw and the gulp in her throat. Everything she had said was the truth with absolutely no exaggeration. In fact, if he remembered correctly and believed the tabloid stories of Henni Smythe before she had married his father, his fear of many more such stories was justified. It sounded as if his former stepmother had lapsed back into slumming with the worst of the bad boy rockers she loved.
Scar pushed at him again, and he wedged her into a corner, using his body to block her escape. The scent of her had his heart slamming against the ribs that had taken a bruising. Infusing his senses was his own spicy soap and shampoo brand that had run in suds from her head to toes last night mingling with the heady cinnamon and vanilla combination naturally hers.
“I’m sorry about this morning. But can we not do this now? I’m not going to let you go out to that gate and do something you’re going to regret. Because one way or another, it’s going to come back and bite you in your sexy ass.” Right on cue, his phone toned again. “And I’m not going to let that woman guilt you into feeling like you did something or that you need to do something.”
He’d hoped his words would get through, but she was still furious and tried to dart down the stairs. This culminated into a push and pull match as they spilled from the house, and had their pilot, who was waiting on the helipad, raising his brows.
Visibly nervous when one of his passengers forced the other into the craft, he frowned. “Is everything all right, sir?” The shout was choppy sounding.
“Fine. An argument with the missus.” Gage let her bags drop and took up the slack in the leash. It was then he realized he didn’t have his luggage or Rascal’s travel crate. Screw it. There was no way he would chance leaving her here and returning inside the house for it. “We woke up late. She didn’t have her coffee,” he added, ignoring Scar’s withering glare. “We’ll be fine. Sorry to keep you waiting.” He tried to crack a casual ‘you know how it is’ grin, but he knew it must have come out as a grimace when the pilot continued to wear a doubtful look while stowing the bags.
Gage climbed into the rear seat next to Scarlette, leaving the second front seat open. He called Rascal in and situated him on the floor between the two of them before giving the leash a few extra loops around his arm. The pilot actually produced a strap, threading it through the ring on the canine’s collar and clipping it to a bracket behind one of the front seats. Gage nodded in thanks. In response, the man saluted and then eyeballed Scarlette again, before strapping into his own seat. Possibly the stony fury in her expression or the fact that she’d willingly buckled up when asked to convinced him she wasn’t a kidnap victim, because he took great care when passing her purse to her and then maneuvered the levers, lifting the craft up.
Peering out his side, Gage looked to where the hedges followed the fence line along the road. Henni Smythe was Barbie doll sized and growing smaller, but her face was clearly upturned to the whirly bird drifting away from her. He sent a sideways look to Scar and found her also watching her mother. When the woman was only a speck that disappeared, Scarlette’s chest rose in one long breath, and he hoped it was a sigh of relief. He might not have been there for her in the past when she needed him, but he intended to begin protecting her now.
Chapter 38
So this was it. The lake cabin as Gage had been referring to it. The flight over had taken less than an hour. I wandered from room to room while he alternately voice texted and pecked on his phone locked in some sort of chat conversation with possibly a label executive involving an upcoming meeting with a producer or some type of session artist.
The entire house could fit with room to spare in a corner of his home in Los Angeles. Although it was cozy, it had every modern amenity one could want from a giant screen television over the fireplace to the Jacuzzi in the bathroom. The décor, unlike the stark ultra-chic look of his other home was decorated in woodsy wildflower colors. A hardwood floor that appeared authentically scuffed flowed through most of the rooms and cozy throw rugs dotted its expanse.
There were no interior doors except for the bathroom, and I found this odd until I noted the style of the house seemed very old, possibly pre air-conditioning years. With numerous screened windows, I supposed it had been built with catching the breeze from outside in mind. I took stock of the one bedroom and wondered what Gage would do when I insisted on taking the couch.
Ending up on one of the ginormous decks, I leaned against the rail and watched a sailboat drift on the water. Gage had neighbors on either side of his cabin, but both homes seemed empty for now. The boats at the end of the piers were covered and the deck furniture was lined up against the outer walls of the houses. I pulled one of the chairs away from Gage’s house and dragged it to the edge of the deck.
Excited squeals and peals of laughter echoed over the water and drifted from a huge stone and glass home a few lots down. It was a hive of activity, and the lake around it was churning with swimmers and floats.
Tuning it out, I settled back into my morose mood. Gage and I hadn’t spoken yet other than the necessary dialogue of debarking the helicopter, transferring to a waiting car, and being dropped off here at his house. He’d been fielding calls and texts throughout. If I hadn’t actually heard some of the voice messages, I might have thought he was avoiding me.
Speak of the devil.
I registered the door swinging open behind me. Rascal’s paws clipped noisily as he bounded from the house, crossed the deck, and disappeared down the steps to the ground level. Gage crossed the deck and leaned a hip against the rail as I had a few minutes ago, while absorbing the view. My view was his backside and I didn’t mind it one bit. Sweet heaven, the man filled a pair of jeans in the most mouthwatering way. What I did mind was him ignoring my presence. The seconds became minutes in which he periodically whistled for Rascal if the dog wandered too far.
Finally, he turned, facing me. I became annoyed with myself when my breath caught and my pulse pounded. The front of his jeans rivaled the back. Jerking my eyes from his fly didn’t slow my pulse much. His shades still sat atop his head, and his dark hair waved about his face. The sunlight brought out a ruddy glow in his features.
An eager gleam lit his dark gaze as it glided hopefully over my face. “Let’s take the boat out.”
Really?
“C’mon, Scar.” He dragged my name out in that wheedling way he’d had since we were kids when he wanted to cajole me into some shenanigans. “Let’s forget the shit this morning and have some fun.”
“Forget that you kidnapped me?” is what I said, but my heart was screaming in a monstrous rage the words I wouldn’t say aloud. Forget you’re rethinking things?
“I didn’t kidnap you.”
“Our pilot thought so.”
He scoffed with an annoying hiss of breath, ending in a contemptuous click of his vocal cords.
“He asked me in p
rivate if I was okay. And if I needed help to nod!”
“And did you nod?” When I remained quiet and folded my arms across my chest, he quirked one of those smiles he seemed to use of late, the ones that never quite manifested. “There! That’s what I thought. Not kidnapped.”
“Maybe I did. Maybe I’m out here waiting for the ‘po po’ to show.”
“Then we better get going before they show.” He seemed amused I’d lapsed into urban slang when speaking of the local law authority, but his next words were firm. “I’m not interested in being locked up before I have to be.” I felt my brows furrow at that, but he reached for my wrist and gave it a tug. “C’mon. Pleeease… I swear to you; the way you heard things is not the way I meant to say them. Can we start this day over?”
Leaning into him, I allowed myself to be pulled up. But my feet felt like sandbags as I followed him across the deck, down the steps, and into a carport.
A jeep occupied the single car space. He busied himself removing the soft top. I stood around, feeling inefficient. Stepping back when he crossed in front of me, I tried to fight the turn-on of the erotic sounds of zippers grating stridently down and the amplified pop of snaps. When he asked if I could unlatch a clip on my side of the windshield, I jumped to oblige. After he’d folded the disassembled canvas and frame back, tucking it away, he transferred a gas container from a storage closet to the back of the jeep.
If I had worried about any awkwardness in being alone with him after our argument, I needn’t have. The Jeep had a stereo system befitting a musician, and Gage cranked it up while backing out of the drive. Between the music and the wind, there was no occasion to speak during the next several minutes of curvy miles. Every once in a while, he looked over, testing my reaction to a song selection. It didn’t take me long to relax into the carefree atmosphere he’d created and feel as happy as Rascal looked in the back seat, tongue lolling out, nose up catching the wind.
By the time we had returned from the store with gas, beer, water, a bag of ice, a bottle of wine, barbecue sandwiches, a bag of dry dog food, and a sack full of snacks, our companionable repartee of the last few weeks had returned. We gorged on our sandwiches while stocking the cooler with ice and drinks. I carried the cooler and he carried the gas down the property declination to the pier. Rascal, of course, was part of the procession.