But I did it anyway.
Hemi
I got home a little after eight-thirty. Not much later than my normal schedule, and if I’d wanted to leave earlier—well, that was weakness, and I needed to get over it.
Partly, it was Hope. And partly, it was Anika. The call I’d had from Walter the day before while Hope had slept, to be exact, telling me that Anika’s lawyer had filed the paperwork, and it was official.
“She’s gone for it. Half,” Walter had said, and every one of my muscles had tightened. It had taken me long seconds of breathing to let them loosen, to set the emotion aside and focus again, stepping out of the red mist that was rage, evil and uncontrolled. It wanted to cloud my vision, but I wasn’t going to let it. That was how Anika won.
The black cloud, though—that was fear. Fear of losing…things that mattered. That one, I shut down fast. That one would break me.
“Explain,” I finally said.
“Her attorney’s filed discovery motions,” he said, “to see what ‘half of your assets’ amounts to. And he’s got three affidavits from what are supposed to be mutual friends, swearing that she was living with you in your apartment before you officially moved in together. Which makes it just over three years.”
“Not possible,” I managed to say after another few moments of visualization. I breathed the hot red lava out of my head and body with every exhalation, breathed in cool blue liquid with every inhalation. It didn’t make the anger go away, but it allowed me to function despite it. “I had flatmates,” I went on. “I had a roommate. That’s why Anika and I got a place together, because we couldn’t have sex at my flat. That was the whole point. Anybody who’s filing an affidavit is going to remember that. We weren’t what you’d call discreet.”
“Which is why we need to counter that with our own affidavits,” Walter said. “But one of those affidavits did come from one of your flatmates.”
“Which one?”
A pause, then Walter said, “Beauden McAllister.”
“Who she’d have been sleeping with as soon as I left for the States.” More of the red cloud at that, more rage to breathe through.
He’d been a mate. And the minute I’d been gone…I’d never let myself think about it, but suddenly, I was sure it was true. “She could have gone for him again now, for that matter,” I realized. “To get him to sign that. He’d do it, too.” Fifteen years or not. People didn’t change. “Put a detective on her. Him as well. And then you’re going to go over there and do your own questioning. I want him on tape. He was always a weak bugger. Put him under the pump, and he’ll admit it. We have our own affidavits, and we’ll have whatever that detective finds. There’ll be something. Count on it.”
Violet had come through with an affidavit, of course, and she’d rounded up a couple more of our fellow students who’d spent time in my flat. That was three on our side as well. Pity my onetime roommate, Rog Harris, was proving elusive. He’d had a drink problem—another reason I’d wanted to move, because I hadn’t needed to live with that again. And another reason I hadn’t kept in touch.
“I’ll be there in an advisory capacity only,” Walter said. “I’m not licensed to practice law in New Zealand.”
“Don’t need you to practice law, do I,” I said. “I need you to intimidate them.”
Walter cleared his throat. “I’d be remiss if I didn’t advise you again that this could get very messy, and I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that ‘messy’ means ‘costly.’ Are you sure you wouldn’t rather I fly over there and negotiate a settlement instead? We slap a deadline on it, use it or lose it, all this could all be over in a week or two, and you could be planning your wedding. The further into it your wife gets with her attorney, the more she’ll feel she has a chance, and the more she’ll have invested in all senses of the word.”
“Or the more out of control she’ll feel,” I said. The problem with that was—the sort of thing that would scare a normal woman, that would tie her stomach in knots, would thrill Anika. The risk. The power struggle. The stakes in the game, and the consequences if she lost.
I could play games too, though, and I had a high tolerance for risk myself, so I’d said, “Keep pushing back. Whatever you have to do,” then had hung up and put it out of my mind. I’d focused instead, last night, this morning, and on through the long day, on the fallout from spending three weeks away from the office. I’d had one meeting after the other until six, and endless decisions to make in the final precious hours of quiet, during which I’d wanted to go home to Hope and had known it was impossible.
When I walked through the front door of the apartment at last, the first thing I saw was a pair of sandals kicked off in the foyer. I opened the closet, put them inside, straightened the untidy row of shoes while I was at it, and tried not to mind. It was a change, that was all. And it was Karen.
I went on into the living room, wondering why Hope hadn’t heard me come in, and realized why. Because she wasn’t there. Instead, Karen looked up from the couch, where she was sitting cross-legged, tapping on her phone. The coffee table held an open magazine, two books, three remotes, and a mug of something, Karen had a dish of ice cream in her lap, and some sort of fantasy show, all elaborate costumes, dark music, and grimness, was playing on the wide-screen TV.
The panel hiding the screen was almost never slid aside, normally. I preferred to work, work out, or, occasionally, read in the evening. I preferred quiet, always. It wasn’t happening tonight.
“Hi,” Karen said. When she turned, the dish of ice cream threatened to tip out of her lap, and I grabbed for it and set it on the coffee table. “Wait a sec,” she said, looking back at the screen even as her phone chirped with a text. “This is a good part.”
“Pause it,” I suggested.
“Oh.” She blinked at me. “Huh.”
I picked up the appropriate remote and did it. “This one. Good day?”
“Awesome. You should see what Inez and I made for dinner. Chicken mole. You have to toast the spices and stir the sauce for ages. I found out why Hope never made good food. It takes forever. It’s in the fridge.”
“Where’s Hope?” I asked.
“Went to bed,” Karen said, her eyes straying back to her show. “She was tired from her first day and everything, even though she came home way early.”
I was hungry, but I didn’t go into the kitchen. I went down the hall instead and opened the double doors to the bedroom.
The bedside light was on, and Hope was sitting up against the pillows, her e-reader in her lap. Fast asleep.
I went over to the bed, pulled the reader out from under her hand, and she jerked awake. “Oh,” she said, starting to sit up, then apparently realizing she already was. “Hemi.” She blinked those enormous eyes at me. “Sorry. What time is it?”
“Never mind.” I gave in to temptation, sat down beside her, and kissed her forehead. “Go back to sleep. I’ll get some dinner, eh.”
“Just…tired.” She shifted, an expression I couldn’t quite identify crossing her face.
“What?” I asked. “Still sore?”
“Yeah,” she said with a sigh. “Plus my period started, and I feel achy. Welcome to your romantic new life.”
I had to smile at that, and I had to run a hand over her hair again, too. “Nah.” I kissed her mouth this time. Softly, because she looked so fragile. “I like my new life. Go to sleep.”
When I slid carefully into bed beside her a couple hours later, though, she woke again, turned toward me, sighed, and murmured, “Good.”
I tucked her against me, and she rested her head on her favorite spot on my chest, accepted my hand stroking over her back, tracing the edges of her cotton camisole, and said sleepily, “It’s easier when you’re here.”
“Yeh,” I said.
And then she asked me, there in the dark, “Could you kiss me a little, do you think? I missed you. I’m too used to having you with me, I guess. How did that happen?”
I
smiled, because it was dark, and there was no need to pretend anything anymore, not here with her. “Mm. Reckon I could.” I rolled her gently over, braced myself on my elbows, and gave her the kiss she wanted. Long and slow and sweet, sucking on her lower lip, drawing her tongue into my mouth. Her hand was in my hair, she was pulling me into her, and I was falling.
“Too tired?” I murmured in her ear, after kissing my way there, inhaling her floral scent, and feeling her shiver at the touch of my lips on her neck.
“Ah…no,” she said. “Not anymore. I could wake up some, and it would feel…um…it would help, you know? If you wanted to, I mean.”
I could all but see her blushing. She could still be so shy at times, and had been so shocked that I wanted her no matter what time of the month it was, that I wasn’t more squeamish. Even though she’d told me that orgasms made the cramps better, and even though she should know by now that giving her orgasms was just about my favorite thing in the world.
“I want to,” I told her. I ran my fingers slowly down between the tiny double spaghetti straps of that camisole, needing to take it off her, to drown my worries in her softness, to bury myself in her sweetness. “Why don’t you lie back and let me make you feel better, then? Nice and slow.”
“Oh,” she said, a little catch in her breath. “Um…good. I’ll just…” She slid out of bed and headed to the bathroom.
I watched her go, her body shining pale in the darkness, and thought, You’re a lucky man, mate. Luckier than you deserve. It didn’t matter that Karen had left dishes in the sink, that my day had been too long, or even that the threat of Anika still lurked in the shadows. I rolled over, pulled matches from a drawer of the bedside table, lit a single candle, and waited for Hope to come back.
It was going to be nothing but softness tonight. Soft light, gentle words, sweet kisses, and a slow hand. Tonight, it was going to be all about Hope.
Hemi
She came back a minute later, and because I’d lit the candle, I could see her properly at last. Pale-blue camisole, matching high-cut undies. Nothing but pretty. Nothing but mine.
She climbed into bed, shivering in the air conditioning, and I settled the duvet over her, then propped myself on an elbow, traced a hand over her hair and down her jaw, and asked, “What’s hurting?”
She hesitated, then admitted, “Everything. But I’m OK, really. Achy, that’s all. No big deal. Just got all…” She blinked, her eyes shining in the candlelight. “All weepy,” she confessed, the catch in her voice giving her away. “Silly.”
“Nah. Long day. For me, too.” My hand drifted over the bottom edge of her camisole and tugged it up a fraction, so I could trace over her skin, there low on her belly, where the satin trim of the bikinis met the silk of her flesh. I kissed her neck, heard the faint whisper of her sigh, and felt her hand sliding over my shoulder as if she needed me as much as I needed her. As if that could be possible.
“Roll over onto your belly,” I told her. “Let me make it better.”
“Hemi, I can’t do…I can’t…”
I kissed her mouth, then, taking her softness into myself, hit hard by her, as always. “I know you can’t. Roll over, sweetheart. I promise, it’ll be good.”
And when she did it, trusting me, I may have had to breathe a couple times.
When I straddled her hips and eased the camisole over her head, she tensed all the same. But after a moment, when I didn’t do anything else, I could feel her relaxing again. And when I opened the bottle of almond oil, poured some into my hands, rubbed them together to warm them, and began to massage her upper back, she sighed.
“Oh,” she said, shifting under me. “That hurts so good.”
I smiled to myself and kept on. Not going too deep, because she was so tender, but feeling the knots of muscle beginning to loosen under my palms, my probing fingers.
No hurry, not tonight. All the time in the world. I slid my hands down either side of her spine, my thumbs easing gently into the muscle, and she moaned, and that was better.
Over her shoulders, then, fingers and thumbs on biceps and triceps, easing the ache, soothing the soreness. And then, when she was loosening up, relaxing into the mattress, softening under my hands, I finally slid down her body, taking her bikinis with me and dropping them over the side of the bed, then beginning to massage the gentle curves of her bottom, digging in a bit harder here, where I knew she had to be hurting.
More moans, pleasure and pain mixed together in the very best way, a sound of the purest relief. And before I even got to her thighs, I was hard.
How could I have helped it, though? She was boneless with pleasure, and she was so beautiful, so vulnerable there in the candlelight. I may have got off track a bit, too, have had to stop and kiss the back of her neck, to let my hands slide down the arms she’d stretched overhead, have had to circle her wrists with my fingers just to hear her hum out her satisfaction.
But there was time for that, so after I’d tasted it, touched it, and promised myself it was all coming, I sat up again and said, “Roll over, sweetheart.”
“I’m not sure I can. Oh, Hemi. That felt so good.”
“I’m going to make you feel even better. You’ll see.”
She did roll over, and I was picking up the bottle of oil again, dribbling more into my palms and rubbing them together, getting it warm for her.
Her hair was a soft, pale cloud around her head, her body so much more relaxed than it had been earlier, because I’d made it happen. She smiled, sweet and slow, and told me, “I’m going to smell like a cookie.”
“Going to taste like one, too,” I said. “Can’t wait. But I’ve got a few more things to do first.” I drew my hands up her arms, pulling them high overhead, working the sore muscles there again, then taking a wrist in my hand and pulling on each finger in turn.
Her eyes were closed again, and she was humming. “You won’t want to do that,” she had to protest all the same, even though every bit of her resistance was weakening, I could feel it. “Taste me, I mean. I’m…”
“Yeh,” I said. “I will.” My hands were moving down again, all the way to her upper chest, finding the tight pectorals, digging my thumbs in, forcing another moan of pained pleasure from her. And when my palms finally slicked over her breasts, she drew in a hard breath, then let it go in a long, low moan as my fingers found her nipples and began to caress them.
“I’m not…sore there,” she said.
“Shh.” I stayed there, massaging, playing, teasing, as the oil shone on her body and the scent of sweet almond filled the air, until her lips parted and she began to breathe harder. I watched her lying beneath me, her eyes closed, the candlelight casting shadows over her ivory skin. A butterfly, resting its wings.
“You’re so pretty,” I told her. “So pretty, baby.”
She smiled without opening her eyes, finally trusting, finally waiting for whatever would happen next, and I was moving down to her thighs, working the quadriceps, stroking all the way to her calves, the oil slick on my fingers as I painted her, stroked her, made her melt.
When I was at her feet, I took her ankle in my hand and worked my other thumb gently over the instep, more firmly over the ball of her foot, then, finally, pulled on one toe at a time, stretching it, releasing the tension. First one foot, then the other, and her hips were shifting now, as if her toes were wired straight to her core, telling me that the silver stream of pleasure was running through her entire body now, even though we’d barely started.
So much promise, so much beautiful sensuality, and it was all mine, because I was her man. And there was no hurry, none at all. We were alone, we were together, and this bed and this night were all there was.
“Feels so good,” she murmured, her eyes still closed. “How can my toes feel that good? How?”
I did it some more. How could I do anything else? “Because it’s all connected,” I told her. “Nerves, and muscle, and blood, and sensation. Because you were born to feel pleasure, and to
give it.”
Her eyes had opened. “Hemi,” she said. “I want you so much.”
“Shh. Wait, baby. Just wait.” My hands were stroking, whisper-light now, up the silky, softened skin of her thighs, nudging them gently apart, my thumbs tracing over that most sensitive spot, the inner thigh that was one of the sweetest places on a woman’s body. Up and down, until her thighs were parting more, because she couldn’t help it, until her sighs had turned to low moans, until she was nothing but wanting, nothing but needing. Craving everything I had to give her.
And then, when I’d stopped her hurting, had softened her skin and her muscles and the knots inside, too…then, I loved her. Slowly, and thoroughly, and with everything I had. Taking her into my mouth, running my tongue over her, painting her there, too, while my fingers probed and played and she forgot to be self-conscious, forgot that she was anything but a willing, eager body, that she was anything but mine. And when she was going hard, I used my teeth on her, on those sensitive inner thighs, and heard her gasp again. I bit her, gently at first, then not quite so gently, while my fingers moved inside her, until her hips were rising, her cries were broken, and she needed it too much for me to deny her anymore.
She did taste like a cookie. She tasted delicious, so I ate her up. And she didn’t even manage to put her hands in my hair. She just lay there, splayed on the bed, her arms flung up beside her head, and let me do it all. She let me love her with everything I had, let me drive her slowly up into a sweet, long, slow, rolling orgasm, and then another and another, because Hope could ride that rollercoaster like no woman I’d ever known.
Fractured (Not Quite a Billionaire #2) Page 20