by Sarra Cannon
Below, his hands run like rivers down the valley between my legs. He slips his fingers inside of me. I moan and beg as he teases and kisses and moves above me, igniting a need so raw and deep that I ache for him.
His mouth weaves a trail of wet kisses downward and he places himself between my thighs, spreading me open. He lifts me up and my breath hitches in my chest as his mouth descends on me, his tongue teasing each fold and peak. I move against his mouth, my hands clutching the sheets as he brings me higher, then pulls away, and then goes back for more.
I bury one hand in his hair as he closes his mouth over me, dragging me to the edge of desire. I cry out as pleasure floods through me. My body bucks and trembles against him. He pulls away and kisses the inside of my thigh, his fingertips dragging across the skin on my legs. I lay there, breathless, my chest rising and falling and my heart pounding against my ribs.
When my breath has slowed and my body has melted into a pool of tingling warmth, he rises up and takes off his shirt. I come up on my knees and help him, one button at a time. He surrenders the job to me and I push the shirt from his shoulders and toss it to the floor. I lift his white undershirt up and over his head, then run my hands down along each ridge of his abs.
I slide my fingers around the edge of his waistband and look up into his eyes, wanting him to see just how much I want him. His lips are parted and I can feel his heart beating in time with my own.
I unbutton his jeans and push them down, then lay him back so I can pull them from his body. I crawl on top of him, leaving his boxers on so I can tease him the way he teased me. I straddle him, my heat centered above the length of him. He tries to lift his head and touch me, but a smile plays at my lips as I push his back flat against the bed.
I lower more of my weight onto him and he makes a low sounds deep in his throat and throws his head back against the pillow. I take my time, running my fingertips along every inch of his arms and neck and chest. I use the lightest, feather-soft touch I can and his body trembles beneath me.
When my hands reach the waist of his boxers, his eyes fly open and he grabs my hips, lifting himself up so I can feel his hard length grinding against me.
I lick my lips and move to the side, slowly pulling that final barrier away from him so that we are fully naked together.
I run my hand up and down his legs, across his waist, making a circle around him. His breath is coming faster now and I know I’ve teased him long enough.
I watch his face as I finally close my hand around him, moving up and down slowly.
He closes his eyes and lets his mouth open as he draws in each tortured breath. His hips move against the bed as I caress him and his body shakes as I lower my mouth onto him.
There’s a great release of his breath as I take him in, inch-by-inch. I taste him with my tongue, teasing the tip and moving my hand up and down, applying more and more pressure.
He moans and reaches his hand toward my back, running his palm against my spine, then tensing with need.
Before I can do more, he lifts up, taking control. There’s fire in his eyes. Passion.
He moves on top of me and my legs part and lift around him. He hovers just at the opening, his hand on my face and in my hair. His eyes never leave mine.
“I love you,” he says.
“I love you, too,” I whisper.
Mason enters me, then. A slow, controlled movement at first as our bodies are joined together. I slide my arms around his neck and lift my hips to meet him. His rhythm grows faster. He moves deeper inside of me, filling me, completing me. We make love, and tonight I feel more than just our bodies connected. I feel his heart.
I feel his love.
The passion between us grows to a beautifully tense moment, then he releases into me.
I wrap my legs around him, holding him there as he shudders with one final thrust, never wanting this connection to falter.
Never wanting this moment to end.
Chapter Fifty-Four
In the morning, we wake up and make love again.
I am so used to seeing him open for only brief moments of time before he shuts himself off to me again. But this morning, he’s still here and he’s still in love with me. It wasn’t a dream, and for the first time since we left Fairhope, I know he won’t be walking away from me at the end of this.
As I lay here, I daydream about what it would be like to get our own place together. Or maybe even move away from Fairhope. We could build a house near Little Lake and raise our child there by the sea in Alabama.
I’m on the verge of falling asleep again, my body entwined happily with his, when someone knocks on the door of our room.
I lift up, yawning. “Did you order room service?”
Mason sits up slowly, his face tense and his jaw clenched. “No,” he says. “Maybe they have the wrong room.”
When they knock again, Mason gets out of bed and quickly pulls his jeans on. There’s fear written across his face, but what does he have to be afraid of? My parents? Even if they’ve come looking for me, there’s nothing they can do to us now. We don’t need their money and we’re free to make our own choices.
But I see his hand tremble as he reaches for the doorknob.
The second the door cracks open, Bernard Hunter, my father’s bodyguard, pushes through.
I gasp and pull the sheets up to cover my naked body.
“Get the hell out,” Mason yells, pushing Bernard backward. “You have no right to charge in here like this. Have some fucking decency.”
Bernard rears back and punches Mason so hard, his head jerks to the side. I scream and draw up on my knees.
“Stop it,” I shout. “Leave him alone.”
Bernard ignores me and pushes past Mason. He leans down and snatches my dress off the floor. “Get dressed,” he says, tossing it toward me on the bed. He never looks directly at me, but instead turns and stands between Mason and me, his legs parted and his arms clasped behind him. As if I somehow need protection from Mason.
Anger bolts through me.
How dare this guy push his way into our private hotel room. I’m not a child. I don’t belong to anyone but myself.
“You have no legal right to be in this room,” I say. I yank the dress over my head and reach back to try to zip it on my own. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“As far as your parents are concerned, you’re a missing person,” he says. “They’ve been looking for you for weeks.”
“I wasn’t missing.” I stand and come around the bed. I go to the door and open it. “I left on my own and told them not to follow me. I’m an adult, I have every right to go where I want to go without my parents’ permission. I swear, if you don’t leave now, I’ll call the police.”
Mason stands beside me. He rubs his jaw and eyes Bernard with pure hatred. When Bernard doesn’t make a move to leave, Mason steps toward him, but I put my arm out, stopping him.
The last thing we need is for him to punch Bernard and end up going to jail for assault or something stupid. My parents are very good at making legal matters turn in their favor.
“Your parents want you back in Fairhope tonight,” Bernard says. “The jet is at the airport waiting for you.”
I lift my chin. “I’m not going back.”
“That’s not something I’m being paid to debate with you,” he says. “And I’m not leaving without you. I don’t care if I have to drag you to the airport kicking and screaming.”
Mason steps past me and gets in Bernard’s face. “You lay a hand on her, and I swear to god I’ll make you regret it.”
“Tripp Wright has been searching for his daughter since the day she left. My job was to track her down and bring her home, and that’s exactly what I plan to do. I’m not about to let some punk like you stand in my way.”
Mason’s hand closes into a tight fist, but I rush up and wrap my hands around it. “Don’t,” I say. “It’ll only make things worse. They’ll make it out like you assaulted him. You don�
��t want to give them any more power than they already have.”
He slowly releases his fist, but his eyes are still boring into Bernard. “She doesn’t have to go with you,” he says. “And you can’t make her leave.”
“I think Penny has a right to decide for herself,” Bernard says.
“I’ve already made my decision,” I say.
Bernard casually steps toward the window and opens the curtain a little, letting the light inside. “You don’t have all the facts yet,” he says. “Once you find out what’s really been going on in Fairhope since you left, you might change your mind.”
Fear bubbles up inside me. “What do you mean? Is everyone okay?”
Beside me, Mason’s shoulders tense and he turns away.
Bernard stares at Mason, and I take a deep breath. What’s going on here?
“About a week after you left, your father started to suspect that a close business associate of your father’s had been stealing money from the company for years,” he says. “Two days ago, he got proof and arrested that man.”
But he’s not looking at me when he says it. At first, I can’t figure it out. Why is he looking at Mason when he says this?
I look to Mason to see if he has any idea what’s going on, but instead of confusion, Mason’s staring down at the floor, his shoulders hunched.
“Mason?” I suddenly feel sick to my stomach. “What the hell is he talking about?”
Mason runs his hand through his hair and when he looks up to meet my eyes, I understand with sudden clarity.
“Your father,” I say.
My muscles nearly give way and it’s hard to stand. This is the secret he’s been keeping from me all this time.
“You knew about this all along?” I ask.
I want him to say no. That he’s just as shocked to hear this news as I am. But I already know that’s not true.
Mason takes a deep breath. “I knew,” he says.
The words rip into my heart, and I can’t speak. I move to sit on the edge of the bed, my vision blurring.
“Mr. Trent embezzled over five million dollars from your father’s real estate and corporate deals over the course of the last ten years,” he says. “Your father has suspected it for some time now, but it wasn’t until recently that he was finally able to prove it. After your little accident with Mason’s car, in fact. The title on that car led to some pretty conclusive evidence that was enough to get an indictment against Mr. Trent.”
I have a death grip on the white sheet draped across the bed. I’m scared to move or react.
“How long have you known?” I ask Mason.
He doesn’t answer at first. He paces the floor at my feet.
“How long?” I look up and his eyes flicker to mine, then away again.
“I figured it out over the course of a few years,” he says. “I overheard a few conversations I shouldn’t have here and there. I saw a few papers lying around the house. It all started to add up.”
“Dammit, how long, Mason?” I ask.
I’m scared to hear what he has to say. But I have to know. It’s important.
“About six years.”
His answer stuns me. Knocks me back. I stand up, anger and shock turning to rage. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I shout. “Six years? Mason, how could you let it go on? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what?” he asks. “Hey, by the way, my father is stealing from your father and I want him arrested and put in jail, my family humiliated for the rest of our lives? How could I do that? Who could possibly make that kind of choice?”
I don’t want to believe this could be true.
A wave of dizziness crashes over me. I collapse onto the edge of the bed, then slide down all the way to the floor. How could he have known about this for six years and never once mentioned it? How could he have continued to come to our house and eat with us and act like everything was okay?
“And that’s really why you left town, isn’t it? Because you knew after I wrecked the car that it was only a matter of time before they found out.”
He looks down at me, his eyes haunted. His face pale.
“I was going to tell you,” he says. “But I could never bring myself to do it. I was too scared you’d leave me, and once we got on the road, I knew I couldn’t live without you.”
I let my head fall into my hands. “Your car. Your money. That whole rich-boy act of paying for everyone’s drinks and leaving outrageous tips,” I say, thinking back to the way things were before we left. “That wasn’t even your money to spend, and you knew it.”
He falls to his knees in front of me. “Penny, I’m so sorry,” he says. “Can’t you see that this is why I always kept you at arm’s length? Why I wanted you to think I was bad for you? Because I am. The whole time you’ve known me, I’ve been a complete fraud who didn’t deserve you. I still don’t deserve you.”
“You lied to me,” I say, tears welling up in my eyes. “I don’t care about the money. Regardless of what your father did, you lied to me about why you were even leaving. You weren’t interested in getting back to basics and reconnecting with your past. I can’t even believe I bought that fucking bullshit. You just wanted to get the hell out of town before everything came crumbling down on your family. You left because you were too chicken to stand and face it when everyone realized what your dad was doing.”
He presses his lips together and they tremble slightly. “How can you say that to me after all we’ve been through? You know this trip has meant more to me than that,” he says. “And you were the one who showed up begging me to bring you along,” he says, standing. “It’s not like I invited you to come with me.”
“No, you were just going to walk away without an explanation. You were going to let Preston and me find out the hard way while you skipped town on us. Why did you even agree to let me come if you knew it was going to end like this?”
“I tried to tell you no, but the truth is, I wanted you,” he says. “God, Pen, I have wanted to be with you for so long. I mean, really be with you. Yes, I knew eventually someone was going to find out about my dad and you would probably hate me. After you totaled my car, I knew this whole thing was a ticking time bomb. I thought it would be best for everyone if I just disappeared. If I got out of your life once and for all so I couldn’t hurt you any more than I already had. Then you showed up with your bags and your shiny eyes, looking at me with such hope and love. How was I supposed to resist you? How was I supposed to just walk away? And yet you were the one who said you’d let me walk if we could just have these few weeks together. If we weren’t in love by the end of the this, we could walk away. Well, I’m still here. And I love you.”
I pull my legs tight against my chest, a terrible headache throbbing at my temples. Tears seem to come all the way from my throat, traveling some invisible line of tension and anger and sorrow from my neck to my eyes. They spill down my face like a waterfall.
“I never expected to fall this hard,” he says. He kneels down in front of me again and puts his hands on mine. “I never expected to love you so much that the thought of losing you would tear my insides out. I know it was wrong to keep this from you for all this time, but I was going to tell you, I swear. This is what I was talking about last night when I said there was something I still needed to tell you. Was I stupid to believe that you could love me enough to forgive me?”
Sobs shake my body and I can’t catch my breath. I don’t know what to say to him, and I don’t think I could speak right now if I tried.
He waits for me to calm down, but before either of us speak, Bernard steps forward.
“There is already a warrant out for Mason’s arrest,” he says. “He’s been named as an accessory to his father’s embezzling scheme.”
I lift my head and Mason stands, his face pale and scared.
“What are you talking about? I had nothing to do with that.”
“You were a willing participant. You drove a car you knew was
purchased with stolen funds,” he says. “You spent money from an account after you knew the money was stolen. You might not have been the mastermind behind the scheme, but according to the law, you were an accessory to your father’s crimes and Mr. Wright intends to prosecute your entire family to the full extent of the law.”
Mason closes his eyes, his jaw tight.
I am teetering on the edge, unable to process all of this at once.
And that’s when Bernard drives the stake into my heart.
“Penny, your father is waiting for my call.” He makes a show of looking at his watch. “If he hasn’t heard from me in the next fifteen minutes, he’s also pressing charges against Mason for kidnapping.”
“Kidnapping?” I stand up. “That’s ridiculous.”
“If the two of you try to run, he’ll also issue formal charges against you, Penny,” he says.
“Me? For what?”
Bernard raises one eyebrow. “A certain stolen diamond bracelet that turned up in a pawn shop in Savannah.”
The room spins and my knees give out.
Mason runs to my side. “What’s wrong?”
I bite down on my lips until my vision stops blurring. My head is spinning and nausea rolls through me.
“I know you wouldn’t want Penny to be in jail in her condition,” Bernard says.
Mason’s head jerks up. “What condition?”
“Don’t you know?” Bernard asks.
I suck in a breath as I look up at him.
No. Don’t.
I say the words in my head, but can’t do anything to stop him before he opens his mouth again and my entire world tilts sideways.
“Penny is pregnant.”
Chapter Fifty-Five
Mason looks at me, confusion and wonder in his stormy green eyes.
He lets go of his hold on me and stands, backing away. His mouth is open and he clutches his chest.
“I was going to tell you,” I say, my breath shallow and rough.
“How…” He shakes his head. “When?”
“I found out after the accident,” I say. “When they took me to the hospital, they do routine blood tests to check. The doctor told me early that morning.”