Make Me

by BETH KERY

  He shrugged off her praise. An awkward silence descended. Harper was wondering if she should take her leave, but he spoke first.

  “Won’t you consider asking Ellie about the film?”

  She exhaled on a bark of laughter. “Why are you so dead set on doing it?” she asked incredulously.

  “I told you on the beach. I’ve admired of your work in the past, but I was particularly drawn to that story. I’d like to see it reach a wider audience.”

  She threw up her hands helplessly. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to ask Ellie about it. She’s kind of a Hollywood fanatic. She might be thrilled at the idea. I’ll call her.

  “Good,” he said, stepping toward her. The dogs had scattered, several of them returning to their beds and a few ducking out the flapped opening to the backyard.

  “Cyril will offer you and Ellie payment for rights to the story, of course, so there are details to work out there. I think he might ask you to help him write the screenplay, as well.”

  “Really?”

  “I take it from your reaction you’ve never written a screenplay before?” he asked, a small—very distracting—smile molding his lips.

  “No, never.”

  “Would you be interested?”

  “Maybe,” she replied dubiously. It actually sounded pretty exciting . . . like the exact kind of opportunity she needed to shake up her life even more than her recent move and job change had.

  Precisely the kind of thing that would help me avoid that black hole of grief.

  “You’re a good writer. You’d get the hang of it, if it’s something you decide to do. But most importantly . . . if Ellie agrees, you won’t stand in the way?”

  “I don’t see why I would, as long as it’s agreed upon that the story is told in a tasteful, compassionate way.”

  “Cyril wouldn’t consider handling a story like this with anything but the respect it deserves. As his producer, I’d demand it.”

  “You’re his money man, then?”

  “He’s a good investment. Usually,” he added with a half smile.

  Harper nodded. “I’m sure my father would want me to have a lawyer look over everything if the project ever progresses that far . . . I mean . . . He would have wanted it—”

  She broke off abruptly, stunned at her stupidity.

  “Harper?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, stepping closer.

  “Nothing.”

  He reached out and grasped her upper arm. “Did something happen? To your father?”

  She gave a brittle smile. “He passed last year. It just happens sometimes, that I find myself talking like he’s still alive. It happened so suddenly, it’s like part of me can’t get used to the fact, like my heart hasn’t caught up to my brain. Like it doesn’t want to.” She swallowed through a suddenly tight throat, fighting off a rush of emotion. When would it stop—damn it—the grief crashing into her unexpectedly? On this occasion, it hadn’t seemed random, however. She suspected it had something to do with Jacob Latimer’s gaze. It seemed disconcertingly all-seeing, at times. It acted like a mirror to her confused inner world. She shook her head.

  “Sorry. We were very close,” she said, shrugging.

  “You miss him a lot,” he said slowly, studying her face. His thumb moved, caressing the bare skin of her arm. It was a simple gesture. It should have felt casual, too. It didn’t. Pleasure rippled through her, and she felt his stroking thumb somewhere deep inside her being. “Were you two alike?” he asked quietly.

  “My father? In some ways. Everyone says I was more like my mother, though,” she said, avoiding his stare. “She started out in journalism, like me, and eventually went on to write over a dozen books on international relations, national politics, and a few biographies.”

  “Jane McFadden?”

  She nodded, still unable to meet his stare, almost every ounce of her awareness focused on maintaining her self-control . . . and on his firm, warm hold and the pad of his thumb sliding against her skin.

  “I read her essays on Afghanistan and her biography of Winston Churchill. It’s no wonder you’re such a good writer, with her as your teacher. She had the ability to humanize even the most complicated of people and situations. You got that from her. Your compassion. Was your father a writer, too?”

  She fought back the knot in her throat. “He was, after a fashion. He was a psychiatrist, but he regularly published case studies in academic journals—”

  Emotion pressed on her chest from the inside out. It was humiliating. She felt very exposed.

  “I really should be going,” she said, drawing in a ragged breath and starting to move past him. “I have a press conference first thing in the morning,”

  “Wait.” He grasped both of her shoulders, stilling her. “I didn’t mean to upset you.” She was caught in his stare. “Is this what you wanted to forget, in coming to Tahoe Shores?” She could smell him, as close as he was standing: sandalwood and spice and clean skin. The ache in her throat expanded to her chest.

  “Maybe. Yes,” she said, almost defiantly. She was irritated at him for pressing the topic. Although in truth, she could have just further sidestepped the issue. That’s what she usually did when people probed her about her loss. She hadn’t been able to lightly gloss over the issue with Latimer, though. “Not to forget them. Just to forget . . . you know? The pain.”

  “Them?”

  “My mother, too. It was an accident. You heard about that train derailment in Spain last year?”

  He nodded.

  “They were on it. It’d been my mom’s fantasy to do a European rail vacation. She was so excited.” She shook her head irritably. “So pointless. All of it.”

  “Jesus. I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

  “Why would you?”

  “I try to keep apprised of the news. I told you, I read some of your mom’s stuff. She’s a well-known author. I never heard their names connected with that train derailment, though.”

  She just nodded, her throat too tight to speak for a few seconds. Finally, she inhaled with a hitching breath, and forced a smile.

  “It probably sounds stupid, that I’m still grieving them so much, a thirty-two-year-old woman. It’s just . . . I was an only child. And we were close, even though we lived on opposite coasts.” She swallowed thickly. Why was she telling him all this? It was inappropriate. Her thoughts couldn’t stop her from continuing. “I could have been with them, at the end.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I had a ticket,” she said hoarsely. “That was part of Mom’s dream, for it to be a family vacation. But another reporter had to go in for surgery, and I had to take over his beat. I was forced to cancel the trip.”

  “Thank God.”

  “You don’t understand. I mean . . . I wouldn’t have chosen to die with them. It’s not that. I just regret . . .”

  “That you couldn’t have spent those last days and hours with them. No one can put a price on that.”

  Her gaze jumped to his. He had understood. He stood so close. She found herself sinking into his eyes.

  “Even though I lived so far away from them, I never realized until after they were gone—”

  “What?” he asked when she broke off.

  “That I’d never felt alone before, even though I’d lived on my own since I finished college. They were always there, somehow, with me in some intangible way that I’d never bothered to consider before.”

  He leaned forward, his lips brushing against her temple. “Until they weren’t anymore,” she finished shakily, her head tilting back.

  Suddenly, he was kissing her.

  A shock of pleasure went through her at the contact. His mouth was as firm as it looked, but surprisingly warm and gentle. He plucked at her lower lip seductively, sandwiching her fle
sh to his, until a shaky moan vibrated her throat. The kiss was a little cautious at first, as though he was testing the waters . . .

  No, more like he was coaxing her to be with him, asking her to connect with him.

  But as the spark ignited in her—in both of them, apparently—his kiss turned dark and demanding. He gripped her upper arms tighter, bringing her closer to him, and penetrated her mouth with his tongue.

  It was as if he drugged her. A haze of lust overcame her brain. His scent and taste pervaded her. He felt big and hard, so solid next to her. So fantastically male. His tongue pierced and stroked her mouth, discovering her with patient yet total possession. She could feel the contours of his body, the sensation of his hardening cock deepening her trance of harsh, unexpected need.

  His hands swept over the bare skin of her back. Her nerves leapt at his touch. She pressed her breasts tighter against his torso, instinctively using his hardness to ease the ache at the crests. She felt his cock swell higher against her. His fingers raked into her hair. He gently fisted a bunch of it and tugged. Her neck stretched back, and suddenly his mouth was on her pulse, hot and greedy. He inhaled and gave a low growl, the feral sound thrilling her. She whimpered as he kissed her neck and shivers of pleasure rippled through her. He found her mouth again unerringly.

  She felt herself go wet . . . ready for him so quickly. So completely.

  He lifted his mouth from hers. Her eyes drifted closed at the heady sensation of his warm, firm lips caressing the corner of her mouth. The realization that he avidly kissed the small scar there jolted through her. She flinched. Her eyes sprang open. She’d caught herself, just as she was about to spin out of control. It was akin to not realizing how strong an alcoholic drink was until you tried to stand, and couldn’t.

  She stepped back, breaking his hold. She clamped her teeth hard at the abrupt deprivation, but forced herself to put three feet between them. He didn’t move. He appeared strained, as if he’d been chained into place. His eyes seemed to burn in an otherwise frozen face. Was that anger that tightened his features? Was he pissed off that she’d stopped him?

  “I’m going,” she said simply.

  She thought he remained in place. She couldn’t know for certain, though, because she didn’t look back as she rushed out the door.

  • • •

  The valet was just returning with a couple’s car when she reached the front entrance. Harper waited impatiently as he alighted, glancing back toward the path through the woods. But Latimer hadn’t followed her. Perhaps he’d taken another path back toward the main house. He probably wouldn’t think twice about her, once she’d refused him.

  Don’t be such a bitch, she scolded herself. For the most part, he was nothing but kind toward you all night.

  Although, why he was so attentive remains a mystery.

  I acted like a sixteen-year-old, running away just because he kissed me.

  At the same time, something told her that her hasty decision to avoid Latimer came from the wisdom of a full-grown woman, one with enough experience to know when she was swimming in choppy waters way over her head.

  She’d dated quite a bit in San Francisco. She’d put plenty of hard stops on sexual overtures before, and she’d let a few of them unfold naturally when she was interested. It wasn’t because Jacob Latimer had dared to kiss her that she felt the need to run. It was how that kiss had affected her, how it had left her spinning.

  That, and the fact that his kiss was so hot and drugging it felt like she’d just participated in something excitingly illicit. When it came to Latimer, she had a feeling that was just the tip of the iceberg.

  She mumbled a cursory thanks to the valet when he arrived with her car. It wasn’t until after she’d left the locked-down Lattice compound and was driving down Lakeview Boulevard toward her townhome that she realized she hadn’t tipped the valet.

  A jolt of unease went through her and she glanced over at the passenger seat. She couldn’t have tipped him, even if she’d wanted to. She’d left her purse on Latimer’s terrace.

  four

  A few hours later, Latimer stood alone on the pier, watching the moonlight shimmer in the black water.

  Harper McFadden was in Tahoe Shores. She’d just been in his home. Her lips had just been beneath his own, her body molded against him.

  Harper.

  Here.

  Or she had been, anyway. Until he’d given in to an urge that had first germinated and swelled in him as a scrawny, malnourished thirteen-year-old boy. Who knew that an eighty-three-pound kid could have felt so much lust? So much longing? So much need?

  Just so much. Period.

  He hadn’t known much of anything when it came to feelings twenty years ago. He’d known hunger and fear. And perhaps worry: a chronic, painful anxiety for the other helpless creatures that were forced to depend on a very undependable, violent man. If it weren’t for a few of the dogs and Grandma Rose, he would have run away from his Uncle Emmitt in an instant. They were the only things that kept him tethered to that grimy, threadbare existence. In the case of Grandma Rose, Emmitt would surely have let his mother die from neglect if it weren’t for Jake’s reminders and cautious, subtle urging for visits, food, and money for medical care.

  But he had left them all behind that summer of his thirteenth year. He’d abandoned the animals, a few of which had been his only friends. He’d forsaken Grandma Rose. He’d offered his life.

  All of it, he’d risked for her.

  It’d all come to nothing. She hadn’t kept one of her promises. She hadn’t written, even when he’d written dozens of letters and left various forwarding addresses. Of course, her solemn pledge to convince her parents to allow him to visit her in DC, her insistence that she’d find a way for them to be together again, had never played out. He hadn’t been surprised about the visits. He’d been a hell of a lot more familiar with the cruel realities of life as a kid than Harper had ever been. The suspiciousness and fear he’d witnessed in her parents’ eyes when they’d looked at him as Harper and he clung together on that cot in the tiny Barterton police station had driven that harsh truth home.

  Those stupid, humiliating letters. A good majority of them he’d gotten back marked return to sender. Why hadn’t he burned the damn things a long time ago?

  So she didn’t even remember him. Well, thank God for that.

  But what if she did? What if her lack of recognition had been a performance?

  Not a chance, he discounted abruptly. He doubted anyone could fake that blank expression in her eyes when she’d first looked up at him on the beach.

  Of course that handful of days and nights hadn’t meant to her what it had to him. She had been a cherished, prized child, adored and protected by her parents. Their time in the West Virginia wilderness together, their desperate flight for their lives, had faded into a dim, distant nightmare once she’d been returned to the haven of her parents’ arms.

  He’d faded from her life. Why did that fact hurt, when he wanted so much for it to be true? When he was so relieved that it was true.

  He’d last seen her in the courthouse on the day of Emmitt’s sentencing. She’d walked away within the anxious circle of her parents’ arms, Harper looking over her shoulder while her parents urged her forward. Away from the nightmare . . .

  She’d walked away tonight, too, despite the dazed fascination in her eyes, the yielding he’d felt in her body, the heat in her kiss. It was for the best.

  It definitely was for the best. Why did he have to keep repeating that fact to himself?

  He knew why.

  Because damn, she’d grown up beautiful. Stunning. It didn’t surprise him. She’d been beautiful, even at twelve years old. Her fresh luminosity had undoubtedly been what had first snagged Emmitt Tharp’s dangerous attention. Even though she’d been a year younger than Jacob when they’d first met, she’d begun t
o develop. She’d looked older than him. To skinny little Jake Tharp, she’d been the ideal of perfection. Of cleanliness. Of a beauty so rare, it must by its very nature elude his grimy grasp.

  He’d been ridiculously naïve. It was laughable in retrospect.

  Still . . . Jacob didn’t even smile as he stared out at the shimmering water. Somehow, seeing Harper McFadden was one of the most sobering things that had happened to him in a long, long time.

  Her hair was a shade darker now, but the copper color was just as singular as it had been back then. He recalled how he’d stared at it with slack-jawed wonder when he first saw it as a boy. On the beach yesterday, when he’d had his first jolting encounter with her after two decades, she’d worn it in a high ponytail. Tonight, her hair had fallen in loose, sexy waves down her bare back. As he’d passed a window in his office, he’d caught a glimpse of it out on the terrace. The vision of her from the back had stopped him in his tracks. For a few seconds, everything had gone still and silent as he stared out the window, and his past and present had collided.

  She wore a stunning aquamarine silk cocktail dress, the color echoing the alpine lake. He didn’t need to see her up close to know it also matched her eyes. She was fair, like most redheads. The palette of her copper hair, flawless skin, and the sumptuous fabric of her dress created a feast for the eyes. Even from that distance, he’d had a graphic, potent fantasy of burying his nose in her hair, sliding his lips against her flawless, soft skin . . . gently biting the flesh of her fragrant shoulder.

  When he’d noticed the thin, inch-long scar at the corner of her pretty mouth the other day on the beach, something had sunk like lead inside him. The small imperfection only highlighted the overall harmony and beauty of her face. Someone who carried that scar shouldn’t have such an open, expressive countenance. They should be guarded and wary. It was a wonder to him that Harper wasn’t.

  He’d seen more beautiful women. He’d had them. Many of them. But he’d never seen a woman more desirable than Harper McFadden.

  Still.

  He’d thought himself completely severed from Jake Tharp. He resented Harper, for making it so clear that boy was still alive inside him, still making him do things he’d regret . . . like suggesting to Cyril that he make a movie based on her story and offering to finance it. Like invite her here tonight, because he’d proved too weak to resist.