Maybe he was right. Dying in Afghanistan would have been easier for him. Just like it would have been easier for Greer to take that mortar round in the chest instead of Dustin.
It should have been me.
“Zak.” His voice came out strangled. “Do you…think about ending it?”
A pause. “All the time.”
Greer swallowed hard, his throat so tight he was barely able to form words. “Yeah. Why don’t you?”
Zak exhaled a soft half laugh. “Same reason you don’t.”
“Yeah,” he said again, even though he was struggling to remember what that reason was. The more he thought about it, the more the pros outweighed the cons.
“Listen,” Zak said. “I’m gonna go. I’m not nearly drunk enough to sleep yet.”
The line went dead, and Greer slowly lowered the phone, setting it down on the wide concrete railing of the balcony. He flattened his hands on either side of the device and stared at it. Except he wasn’t seeing a phone. In his mind’s eye, he saw himself vault over the railing and free fall to the pavement below. The fall was only two stories, and it probably wouldn’t kill him. But it was such a vivid image, and brought on such a rush of relief, he had to force himself to uncurl his hands from the railing before he tried it.
“Greer?”
Natalie. He closed his eyes and cursed softly. If he didn’t respond, maybe she’d go away.
Ha. Right. This was Natalie, after all. As stubborn as she was beautiful.
She called his name again. He grabbed his phone and took a step back from the ledge, both physically and mentally, before facing her.
She stood just outside her balcony door, arms wrapped around herself, the light breeze rustling the fringe of her shawl around her bare legs. She was in a sleep shirt with little frogs on it, and her hair was damp, spiky from a recent shower. The berry scent of her shampoo carried across the ten feet separating their balconies and teased his senses.
“What are you doing out here?” she asked, and there was no mistaking the concern in her voice.
The stirring when he’d thought of her earlier suddenly became an all-out need. He wanted her. But more than that, he wanted to shut his mind down. He wanted the peace being with her gave him.
He drew a breath, let it out slowly. When he spoke, his voice was still hoarse with emotions he didn’t want to feel. “Can I come over?”
Her brows drew together. “Of course.” She backtracked to the door. “C’mon, I’ll let you in—”
Greer didn’t think. Or he did, but his only thought was he had to get to her now, because if he stayed by himself a second longer, he might lose his mind. He climbed up on the railing and heard her sharp intake of breath as he jumped across the space between their balconies. Being in the air, it was freeing, much like he imagined it would be, and he suddenly very much wished he’d jumped down instead of across.
He landed hard, jarring his battered body, and the pain shocked some sense into his head. He was spiraling down a very dark hole, but he had a mission to complete before he reached the bottom. He couldn’t forget that.
“Oh my God!” She rushed to his side, her berry scent enveloping him as she knelt to help him up. “Greer! Have you lost your mind?”
Yes. Yes, he was very much afraid he had.
He needed something—someone—to ground him. To remind him why he was alive, or else he might forget. And if he forgot, he would take a flying leap off the balcony just to make all the noise in his head stop.
He grabbed her, pulled her to him, and sucked her lower lip into his mouth. She drew in a quick breath, and he swept his tongue into her sweet mouth. For a split-second, she melted against him, but then she flattened her palms on his chest and pushed.
“Greer. Wait. Stop. Talk to me.”
Groaning, he lifted his head and stared down into her worried eyes. “Please. Talk later. Right now…” His voice rasped against the emotion lodged in his throat. “I need this.”
Her gaze dropped to his lips. “What do you need?”
“You.” He backed her against the side of the building and lifted her until her legs wrapped around his waist. Pain sizzled through his side, but it only added to his need for her. He’d lived with pain for so long, and the reminder of it increased the pleasure he knew he’d find in her soft, sweet body.
“Let me in, Natalie.” He traced his lips down her neck, pulled her nightshirt off her shoulder, and flicked his tongue across the tendon. “I need to be inside you.”
“Oh, yes.” She arched back and rubbed her sex against his straining erection. “Let’s go inside. I have condoms.”
He fumbled for the slider and walked inside with her still wrapped around him. “Where?”
She squirmed. “Let me.”
Setting her down, losing the little bit of intimate connection they had, was torture. She disappeared into another room and came back with a string of condoms. He took it from her, unwrapped the first in the line, shoved down his boxers, and rolled it on.
Still holding his cock in one hand, he gazed up at her. “Undress.”
She shivered visibly and peeled her nightshirt off over her head. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and her small breasts stood at rosy peaks. She was wearing panties—a little lacy scrap of nothing that showed the bare folds of her sex.
He caught his breath, tightened his hand around his cock. “Touch yourself.”
A flush filled her chest with color, but she dropped her hand to her stomach, slid it slowly down past her navel, and under the edge of her panties. He watched her fingers dip in and her head dropped back.
“Are you wet?”
“Oh, yes.”
His control snapped. He crossed to her in two strides, picked her up, pushed aside the scrap of fabric between them, and slammed her down on his cock.
“Greer!” She threw her head back, and her body clenched around his like a fist, milking him with each roll of her hips.
It wasn’t enough. He needed more. Deeper. Harder. Still pumping into her, he walked over to the couch and laid her across the back. The height was perfect. He looped her legs over his shoulders, and drove into her with the desperation of a starving man at a feast. Her breasts bounced with each thrust, and the skin on her chest and neck flushed bright pink. The little gasps and moans she made incited something raw and possessive in him. He needed this woman in his bed, in his life.
Desperately. Always.
Natalie clawed at the side of the couch, leaving finger marks on the plush microfiber. Her eyes closed and her body tightened, and she lost herself in orgasm.
It was a beautiful thing to watch, he decided. The color seeping into her cheeks, her mouth parting in a gasp that morphed into a low moan sounding a lot like his name.
Oh, how he loved when she said his name like this.
He scooped her up again and moved around the edge of the couch to sit down. She straddled him, her eyes unfocused, her hands on his shoulders, keeping her steady. Her eyes cleared, and she finally realized he’d switched their position. She gasped and trembled as he rolled his hips and filled her all the way. “Oh, God.”
“Take control.” He urged her to move with his hands on her ass. She quaked all over. It gave him a savage satisfaction to have pleasured her already, because they weren’t even close to done yet. “Ride me, Natalie.”
…
By the third time, they ended up in her bed, and he continued to blow her mind with orgasm after orgasm after orgasm. Didn’t take her psychology degree to realize he was deflecting, using sex to put off talking about whatever had him out on his balcony this morning looking pale as death. And, well, she wasn’t going to complain about his distraction techniques when he’d given her the most satisfying sexual experience of her life. She figured he’d eventually run out of steam, and then they could talk. But until he did, she’d enjoy the ride.
It was early afternoon before Greer finally collapsed. She’d lost count of the number of times and ways they’d made
love, but she was pretty sure she’d be in pain while teaching her next dance class.
So worth it.
She smoothed a hand down Greer’s chest. He had to be hurting, too. His injuries were just barely starting to heal, and he’d performed the kind of sexy acrobatic feats found only in the Kama Sutra. “Are you okay?”
He grunted. Typical Greer.
“Will you talk to me now?”
Another grunt.
She propped herself up on her elbow and scowled down at him. “Either you talk to me, or you don’t get to touch me again.”
His hand tightened possessively, almost painfully on her hip for a second. Pushing out a long breath, he released her and opened his eyes. “What do you want to talk about?”
Oh, where to start?
“Let me help you find Andy. He’ll be more receptive if I’m there. He’ll talk if I’m asking the questions.”
He closed his eyes again. “He’ll talk either way.”
That’s what I’m afraid of. She hid her wince against his shoulder. “You said you wouldn’t hurt him.”
He was silent for a moment. “There are plenty of ways to make a guy talk without resorting to pain. I need to find Mendenhall, and Andy’s my only link.”
God, he had a one-track mind. Which made for a great lover, but the focus he had on revenge was terrifying. “What makes you so sure this Mendenhall guy killed your parents? What proof do you have?”
He said nothing for a handful of heartbeats. “My mom kept journals. She was always writing everything down. Last fall, I found one of them while looking for a family heirloom necklace to give my sister-in-law Libby for her and Jude’s wedding. Mom mentioned Mendenhall in her last few entries. He was practically stalking her in the days before she was murdered.”
“That’s not proof.”
“It’s good enough.”
“No, it’s not.”
“It is for me. I know in my gut it was him. The police never looked his way. They never knew to.”
“So take what you know to the police. Ask them to investigate. Do it the right way. The legal way.”
He grunted.
She propped herself up on her elbow again and studied his carefully blank expression. She knew a mask when she saw one. She also knew under that mask was a whole lot of fury, and she couldn’t remember a damn thing from her psych classes about how to help someone through that kind of anger. “Is there another reason you’re so intent on killing this man instead of going to the police?”
Greer looked away and her heart surged upward, blocking her throat. She gripped his face in her hands and made him look at her. “Why?”
Jaw set in stone, he held her gaze. “The legal way will take too long, and I can’t die without knowing he’s been punished for hurting my family.”
“What do you mean you can’t—” Die. The word sunk in, and she sat upright, stared down at him in disbelief. Had he recently received a terminal diagnosis? Was that why he’d disappeared on his brothers? And why he was taking reckless chances like the balcony jump? She pressed a hand to her chest to keep her heart from leaping out. “Are you sick?”
But, no, that didn’t make sense. Save for his injuries, he appeared completely healthy. He was strong and fit.
He rolled away from her and sat up on the edge of her bed. Sunlight pooled around him, warm and bright from a beautiful spring afternoon. He seemed not to notice. “I’m not sick.”
“Then why—” A possibility worse than terminal illness slithered through her mind, leaving a chill in its wake. She caught her breath. “Are you saying you want to die?”
He breathed raggedly and stared hard at his hands fisted on his knees. “I…can’t live. Not with…everything I’ve done.”
“Everything you’ve done?”
“Natalie—” His voice cracked. “I’m basically a loaded gun. The government aims me and—” He stopped.
“And you fire,” she finished softly.
He closed his eyes. Nodded. “For years, I told myself I was working for the Greater Good. That I wasn’t a bad man because I took out other men who were way worse. But what happened in Syria—” He stopped again, cleared his throat. “I don’t know if I’m working for the Greater Good anymore.”
She sat up and wrapped her arms around him from behind. She kissed his shoulder. “What happened in Syria?”
“Carnage,” he whispered. “We did the job we were there to do, but someone sold us out while we were waiting for extraction and a good man died. I tried to save him. All I found was his arm. I held it in my hands…” He opened his hands. Stared at them like he’d never seen them before. Slowly closed his fingers into fists. “I don’t want to live with that image in my head for the rest of my life. That, and so many others like it. Do you know what it’s like to meet someone new and already know what they’ll look like dead?”
Goose bumps prickled across her skin. “No. No, I don’t.” She’d never even been close to a dead body before—her grandparents were still alive and her family had never experienced any tragic deaths. She held him tighter. “And I have no doubt it’s a horrible thing to live with, but killing yourself is not the answer.”
He shoved to his feet, leaving her arms cold. He paced, all of his hard muscles flexing in the sunlight with each restless step. “My mind’s made up, and you’re not changing it. I didn’t tell you so you could shrink-wrap me.”
She pulled the blanket up and tucked it around her body. Although he seemed not to notice his own nudity, she’d rather not have this conversation with her breasts hanging out. “I’m not a shrink.”
“You have the degree, don’t you?” he snapped.
Patience, she reminded herself. She drew a breath to dispel her rising temper. Normally, she didn’t have a problem keeping herself calm, but Greer had a knack for getting under her skin like nobody else. “I do, but I’m not talking as a psychologist. I’m talking as a friend. As your lover.” She paused and drew another breath because now nerves danced in her belly. “And as someone who has been where you are.”
He stopped pacing and turned slowly toward her, his face shrouded in shadow. “What?”
She wrapped her arms around her middle, hunched her shoulders. Rehashing this part of her past always brought back ugly memories. Sometimes the darkness still snuck up in her weaker moments. Part of her feared talking about it aloud was like flinging open her internal doors and inviting the demons back.
Stupid, she knew. Talking about it was a big reason she’d been able to heal and move on.
And still. It never got easier.
She drew a breath, let it out slowly, and lifted her gaze to his. “When I found out my dance career was over, I took an entire bottle of Oxy. I thought if I couldn’t dance, there was no point to living. I was wrong, and lucky enough to have a friend find me before it was too late. That’s why I majored in psychology. That’s why I volunteer at the suicide hotline. I lived and saw firsthand how my actions affected the people closest to me. Suicide doesn’t take away your pain. It just transfers it to your loved ones. You don’t want to do that to your brothers, Greer.”
He shook his head. The stubborn man. “They’re better off—”
“Without you?” Textbook suicidal thinking. Her stomach twisted. “Have you asked them about that? Because I bet they’ll tell you just how fucking wrong you are.”
He was still shaking his head, so she added, “What about me? Will I be better off without you?”
“Yes,” he said without a shred of doubt in his voice. “Look at all the trouble I’ve brought to your doorstep. You can’t tell me you were better off when you didn’t know me.”
“You’re wrong,” she said softly. She was surprised at just how wrong. “I care about you, Greer. More than I probably should, but the feelings are there and real. I want to help you—not only because of Andy, but because I can see how much you need to find the man responsible.”
He said nothing and didn’t move for a long time. �
�You’re not going to stop me from doing what needs to be done.”
We’ll see about that.
She held out her arms. After a beat, he came to her, wrapping his arms around her middle and resting his head on her chest. She kissed the top of his head and cradled him, needing the contact as much as she suspected he did.
They lay there together in silence as the sun streamed through her lace curtains, casting pretty patterns of light and shadow on the floor. His breathing evened out, and his body relaxed. Good. He needed all the sleep he could get. She suspected while left to his own devices, he wasn’t getting enough.
She stroked a hand up and down his back, enjoying the feel of him in her arms. She couldn’t let him kill anyone. It would do him nothing but harm, shove him over the edge he was already teetering on. She had to stop him.
Even if it meant breaking this fragile bond forming between them.
She buried her face in his hair and squeezed her eyes shut against the burn of tears. God, losing him was going to break her heart, but having him hate her was better than him ending up in prison. Or worse.
But how did she stop him?
Whatever she did, it would have to be soon. And she’d have to fit it in around her work schedule…
She froze.
Work. Duh. She had thousands of listeners every night. There had to be a way to use her audience to her advantage. If enough people tuned in…
Yes. She could stop him, or at least make him think twice before he acted, without going to the police.
A plan began to form.
Chapter Fourteen
Greer was alone in the bed when he woke late in the evening, and the surge of disappointment at finding Natalie gone took him by surprise. He’d slept all day, and so deeply that he hadn’t noticed her leaving, which was also a shock. Lately, sleep was hard to come by for him—except, it seemed, when he was with her. Why was that? Why did she calm the storm inside him? What was it about her that brought him peace?
Something to think about. But not before coffee.
In the kitchen, he found the maker ready to brew and a note from Natalie saying she’d gone to work and she’d be on air at 7:30 p.m. if he wanted to tune in. He checked the time. It was already 7:45. He hit the button on the coffeemaker to start the pot, then spotted the radio on her counter and switched it on. It was already tuned to her station, and he smiled a little as she soothingly talked a caller through divorce woes.
Too Wilde to Tame (Wilde Security) Page 12