“Don’t cuss at me, Tyler Blackfoot,” she yelled at him.
He turned and sat with his legs folded in front of him. “Then look at me and tell me what’s wrong, goddammit. I come in here, pissed as hell to begin with, and find you sitting on a nasty-ass floor crying.”
She cried harder, and he did his best to call on the patience he always had for her, but it was difficult. Instead of saying anything, he sat there, allowing her to let it all out. Just when he was about to really lose it, she unfolded her arms and handed him what looked like a pregnancy test.
“What does this mean?” he asked, glancing at the stick in his hand.
“Still not pregnant,” she whispered, sobs rising up from her body.
“Mer,” he said softly, as he pulled her into his arms. “You know this doesn’t matter to me,” he told her, tightening his arms around her.
“I know.” And she did know, he’d told her numerous times that it didn’t matter to him, but it did to her. She couldn’t understand why it did, but it felt like life or death for her, and she couldn’t believe that she would be so damn defective.
“I don’t think you do know, but you’re going to have to believe me on this, Mer. I don’t give a shit if the two of us ever have children. I would be lucky to live the rest of my life with just you. It’s not that big of a deal for me, but I know it is for you.” He pulled her deeper into his arms, his big body swallowing hers. “It upsets me every time I see you cry over this. I can’t take it.”
“I try to keep it from you,” she breathed out, the gasps coming in short pants.
“Don’t,” his voice was loud, strong, and hard. A tone he never used with her. “Don’t you ever fucking keep this shit from me. If you’re upset, I want to know about it. It’s my job as your husband to make sure that you’re happy. If this is bothering you, I need to know about it.”
She felt small when he talked like that. As much as he loved her, he couldn’t fix everything. There would always be things that he wouldn’t be able to fix, but she was scared to even put voice to those thoughts. “I love you.” He kissed the side of her neck.
“I love you too.” She held on tightly to the arm that crossed in front of her chest. Her back pressed hard against his chest. She breathed deeply and smelled the familiar scent that was Tyler. “No matter what, I know that my life is significantly better here and with you in it.”
How could he leave her now? How could he go to Liam’s and explain to him that someone they had brought into their fold just might be someone that could potentially hurt them. Cursing under his breath, he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed with one hand.
“Steele? Yeah, I need you to go tell Liam what you told me.”
He sighed as the other man had a minor freak out on the phone with him.
“You know your shit—it’s time to step up, buddy. I have something else that requires my attention right now,” Tyler told him, glancing down at the top of Meredith’s head. When Steele made more sounds of protest, Tyler hardened his voice.
“Travis, you know your shit. I have complete faith in you. Go tell Liam what he needs to know and go tell him now. Otherwise, when I get sick of beating up Layne in the ring, you’re my next target.”
He hung up after those words, putting emphasis on them.
“You’re mean,” Meredith laughed softly.
“He’s got to learn to be more confident in the shit he knows.”
“Like you?” She looked back at him, leaning her head against his chest.
“All you do is fake it till you make it,” he chuckled, as he leaned down and placed a soft kiss on her lips. “C’mon, let’s get outta here.” He stood up and helped her off the floor.
She brushed the dirt off her back and thighs before grabbing the helmet he held out to her. She waited until he got on and then got on behind him, hugging him tightly around the waist. He took off and didn’t even tell her where they were going; at this point, she didn’t even care.
Steele ascended the porch of the Walker home as quietly as possible. He had only been here a handful of times, and it felt weird. He didn’t like paying a visit to his president at his familial home. Walking up to the front door, he knocked cautiously.
“Hey, Travis,” Drew said as he walked to the front door.
It had been a few weeks since Travis had seen Drew, being in his electronics cave and all, and it amazed him how much the boy looked more like a man every time he hit a tiny growth spurt. He was already almost as tall as Travis, and Travis realized that if he didn’t start hitting the gym—and soon—the kid was going to be in much better shape than him.
“Hey, is your dad around?”
“Yeah,” Drew moved back and let the man in. “He and mom just got up from a nap.”
He followed Drew through the foyer and into the living room where Liam sat stretching. He was the only one in the room, and Steele was grateful for that. “Hey, pres.”
Liam’s eyes came together, the question going unspoken. “You wanna go have a smoke? I just woke up, so I could use one.”
Steele nodded and followed him through the house to the back porch that he’d heard so much about. It still amazed him that his president really did enjoy the quiet life when he was at home with his family.
“So why are you here when Tyler isn’t?”
“I don’t know, I all but begged him to come. Something must have happened with Meredith, that’s the only reason he would send me,” Steele said as he lit his cigarette and blew the smoke out in a slow stream.
“What do you have to tell me?”
This was the hard part, telling the man in charge that they had possibly made a mistake, and the one guy on their team with a true hair trigger might be the person hurt the most. “I did a little digging on the guy that was mentioned to us, Jackson Wright.”
“Obviously what you found sucked balls, otherwise you wouldn’t be scared to lay it on down for me.”
That was the understatement of the year. “He’s Jessica’s ex-boyfriend. He’s got a ton of money issues at this point.”
“How does he fit in with the banker and the Vojnik?”
Steele pulled a piece of paper out of his back pocket. “The guy we found last night is named Thomas Stanton. He’s the loan officer at the main branch of Good Hope Bank and Trust downtown. When I ran his financials—he’s loaded. Originally I thought he was loaded because he helped the Vojnik and Money Bags with their bank robbery and money laundering scheme. I was confused though, how was he connected from California all the way to Kentucky?”
“You’re right, that’s a helluva far reach.”
“I dug deeper. I wanted to know how he is connected to Jessica, because obviously he is. I was able to find some sealed court documents from where she was emancipated. His signature is on them, along with her real name….Jessica Stanton. And if my sources are to be believed, this guy is her dad, but they are very estranged. Know what I’m saying? Add onto that, the fact that some of the contracts he signed before her emancipation were not voided and he’s going to lose a ton of money. There were some writings on there that she’s emailed to other people too. Looks like a beta reader of some sort. Erotic romance…if that comes out…I’m talkin’ morality clauses out the ass are going to be forfeited. Which means, he forfeits a good portion of his regular income. All the Vojnik money was for was backup, but he’s fuckin’ greedy.”
“Hold up,” Liam took his cigarette out of his mouth, and a small smile played on his face. “Erotic romances?”
“Dude, you do not want to know, this is all womanly shit. I want to forget I read it to be honest with you.”
“That badly written?”
“No,” Steele shook his head. “That damn good. Was up all night if you know what I mean, but I can’t think about her writing that. That’s Layne’s woman, so I wish I could scrub that shit from my eyes.”
“Hmm,” Liam grunted. “Anyway, continue.”
“Reading between
the lines of some of the correspondence I’ve found, I think Jackson Wright is in town visiting, and he’s sold the nudie pics to the highest bidder. The checks I found were made out to him. Thomas Stanton wants some of that money, since he’s going to lose out on his income now. I’m thinking there are more pictures. The two of them are going to sell to the highest bidder on those more provocative ones. I’m also thinking the Vojnik have gotten wind of this and want in on the plan, or they’re going to sell him out to whoever they can to get him gone. He is the only one who can put two and two together with the bank robberies, the Vojnik, and Money Bags.”
Liam interrupted him. “And if Jessica breaks the morality clause, let me guess, she has to buy herself out of her contract.”
“Bingo. It’s a win/win for him. He loses money, but he doesn’t have to pay it. She’s an adult now, that comes down to her.”
“Shit,” Liam breathed. “I hate when motherfuckers get greedy. Call a meeting for tonight, let’s see what we can get together.”
“Me? Call a meeting?” Steele asked, pointing at himself.
“That’s exactly what I said.”
Changes happened every day, and Steele just wasn’t sure he liked when he was part of those changes.
Chapter Thirty
“Where are we going?” Jessica asked Layne as the two of them sped along the road towards Bowling Green. She had become very familiar with this road, with its twists and turns and hills, but there was no one she felt safer to ride with on it than him.
“Someplace where we can be alone.”
That made her heart speed up. The only other place the two of them had always been alone had been a hotel room. Something inside of her knew that Bowling Green, Kentucky probably did not have hotel rooms that you could rent for the hour. Well, unless they were attached to Wet Wanda’s, so she hoped he meant somewhere a little nicer.
“You got quiet. Is that okay?” he asked, reaching over and taking her hand in his.
“It is,” she nodded, glancing back out at the scenery as it passed.
He was content to let her sit quietly beside him as he drove them through the back roads that would take them to Bowling Green. He wondered what she was thinking, but something told him that maybe he didn’t want to know.
She tensed as he pulled onto the road that led to Wet Wanda’s but let out a breath when they turned the opposite direction. There were two hotels on the other side, one considerably nicer than most in town. She sighed happily as he pulled into that parking lot and put the car out of gear.
“I know we don’t even have clothes, but I need some time with you, without everyone else around,” he told her, taking her hand in his.
“I think I like the sound of that,” she said, her tone careful, so as not to scare him or even herself.
He was quiet for a few moments, and then the side of his mouth tilted in a short grin. “C’mon.”
Jessica waited for him to get out and then followed behind him as they made their way into the lobby. It felt like an hour, but she knew it was only minutes as he held out his card for the woman at the registration desk. To keep herself standing there, she grabbed hold of his bicep with one hand and then tucked her other arm beside that one, moving her fingers down his forearm to grasp their fingers together. Once she held him, she felt better, like he wasn’t going to run from her and she wasn’t going to run from him. Transporting herself to a different time, she leaned her head against his shoulder…they had been in this exact situation before, and tears came to her eyes as he leaned into her and dropped a kiss on her head. The woman was speaking, but she had no idea what she was saying. Her fingers gripped his tighter and he leaned deeper into her, his lips brushing her ear.
“Soon,” he whispered.
They finally received the room key, and holding onto his hand was the only thing that made her walk down the hallway to their room. If Layne wasn’t being her anchor, she would have been there in five seconds flat.
He stopped in front of the door, glancing up at her before he put the key in the slot. “You sure about this?”
She turned to face him, tilting her head up to his. “I don’t care if this is just for today, Layne, or maybe it’ll last for a week, but my God, I need you. I need to feel you against me, and I need to know that you’re still in there.”
In that moment, Layne realized just how stiffly he had been holding himself for these years. It had started with his talk with Doc Jones, but he finally heard the words she was saying. His real self was being hidden to keep himself straight, to keep him from freaking out. He was still inside his body. It was the aspect of letting his guard down that was scary. As he put his hand on the handle to turn it, he told himself that for the hours they were here, he was going to be the person he used to be, the person she knew, and the person he wanted to get back to.
Turning that door handle was metaphoric. He breathed easier as soon as he did it, and it almost felt like he was opening the door to the next phase of his life.
Jessica followed him into the room, gasping when he shut the door and pushed her up against it.
“I need this just as much as you do,” he whispered in her ear before his lips moved down to her neck and claimed a section, sucking roughly.
Her hands grabbed him around the waist, pulling him tightly against her body, needing to feel every inch of him against every inch of her. Pushing the T-shirt he wore up over his stomach, she let her fingers rest there, digging her nails into the flesh when he used his teeth to nip at the soft skin of her neck.
Layne was scared to touch her after what had happened the week before, so he kept his hands pressed firmly against the wood of the door. They itched to move to her hips and hold her just as closely as she held him. Using his forehead, he moved around the side of her neck and finally let his lips capture hers. It was like coming home. Her scent, her taste, the texture of her mouth was still the same.
“Touch me,” she told him as she pulled her lips away from his.
“Scared to,” he admitted, breathing heavily against her. He let his head fall against the wood of the door, trying to get his racing thoughts and hormones under control.
Jessica pushed him away from her body and took a step forward so that her back was no longer against the door. Reaching down she slid her hands under the hem of her T-shirt, slipping it up and over her head. Throwing it down on the floor, she reached behind her and unhooked the bra, the whole time her eyes holding his. When he didn’t make a step towards her, she kicked off her shoes, barely missing his head.
“Hey, woman, watch it,” he laughed.
It was a real laugh from him, and she couldn’t help but giggle back. Feeling playful, she turned around so that her back was to him and unbuttoned her jeans, bending over slightly at the waist to shimmy them down her hips.
“You’re mean.” The laughter was still in his voice when she did the same with her underwear and threw them at him. He caught them one handed and stuffed them into his pocket.
“Are you going to give those back later?” she asked, placing a hand on her hip and sticking it out.
“We’ll see,” he answered cryptically.
She walked a few steps backwards and flattened herself against the door again, this time placing her own hands there. “Come and get me.”
It was the tone of her voice and the look in her eyes that got him. They told him everything he needed to know. She trusted him with every part of her; she wanted this just as much as he did. As he made his way back over to her, he shrugged out of his cut, throwing it on a couch that sat nearby, and then tore his shirt off. By the time he made it to where she stood, he was working on the buckle of his belt. “Fuck,” he mumbled as he had trouble getting the clasp off.
Jessica reached down and moved his hands out of the way, making quick work of it for him.
Before she could move on to the button of his jeans, he took her arms and looped them around his neck, clasping her hands where the edges of his hair ended. When h
e was sure they were clasped tightly, he put his hands at her hips and lifted strongly. She got the idea and wrapped her legs around his waist. Once he was sure she was secure, he turned and directed them towards the bed off to the side of the room. When they got close enough that his knees knocked the mattress, he lay her down, gazing at her for long moments before toeing off his boots and making quick work of the rest of his clothing. Finally just as naked as she, he got nervous. What if this didn’t go the way they remembered it? There must have been a look on his face, something that tipped her off that he was having a second thought, because she opened her arms to him and used her feet to pull him down so that every part of their bodies touched.
“I missed this.” She pushed her fingers through his hair and yanked to expose his neck to her mouth. Once she got hold of him, she decided she was never letting go.
In the moments that followed, she would never be able to tell another person just what happened or how it happened. All she would remember would be a flurry of lips, hands, tongues, and breathes that mingled into one cohesive unit. When he slid his knee up so that it made contact with the part of her body that wanted him more than anything, she cried out sharply against his shoulder, sinking her teeth there.
“I don’t want to wait, Layne,” she begged. “Don’t make me wait anymore.”
He clasped their fingers together as he rose over her, pressing their hands into the mattress. “You’re sure?”
“Don’t ask me again.” She turned her face away from his. “Neither one of us have has been perfect, but never think that I don’t want this between us.”
That was all he needed to hear. Entering her body for the first time in so long made him want to cry. In every memory he’d ever had of home when he was overseas, this had been it. Layne stopped for a few seconds and actually had to collect himself.
“You’re it,” she whispered when he breathed heavily against her cheek. “You’ve always been it, no matter what’s happened. Know that, no matter what happens, you’re it,” she repeated again. When he didn’t move against her, she planted her feet and pushed against his body.
Worth The Battle (Heaven Hill Series) Page 19