“When you left me, I was pregnant. Actually, funny story, the exact day that you left, I was going to tell you. I'd come home from shopping with a whole bag full of fun baby stuff. Was going to leave it on the bed for you to find. Only … I found a note there instead.” I try to keep the bitterness out of my voice, but some creeps in anyway. “And then at the hotel …” I trail off because he knows. Gill knows exactly what I'm talking about.
A door opens behind me, but I don't turn to look.
“Oh? Something happening out here?” Cliff asks cheerfully. He must know that that something is bad, based on his son's body language, but he comes up to stand next to me, planting a loving kiss on my cheek anyway. “You're white as a ghost.”
“You knew about all of this?” Gill asks his father, his voice dropping, the heat of anger creeping into his words. Cliff turns his attention back to Gilleon and raises a graying eyebrow. “My … you've been raising my daughter all this time and you didn't think to fucking tell me?”
“Whoa there, son,” Cliff says, raising his hands palms out. “You need to keep your voice down. Solène doesn't need to hear a bunch of foolish adults hash out their problems, especially when those problems have nothing to do with her.”
“Nothing to … are you fucking losing it, old man?” Gill snarls, his face a wild and unpredictable storm. Holy shit. His gaze flicks back to me, making me take a step back. The strength of feeling in him right now is a dreadfully beautiful sight to behold. I don't know whether I should be glad that he cares so much, or terrified about what he's going to do with this knowledge.
“Our choices weren't her choices,” I tell him, crossing my arms over my chest. “Can we go somewhere else and talk?”
Gill runs his hand over his face.
“I can't even fucking goddamn believe this shit,” he snarls, shaking his head like that'll clear some of the sharp, violent anger from his expression. Without answering me, he turns and starts down the stairs at a jog, taking two at a time in his rage.
“Don't let him intimidate you,” Cliff tells me, reaching down and taking my hand. “He has no right to judge, especially not given the decisions he's made in his life.”
I nod and take a deep breath, steeling myself for a conversation I've been waiting over a decade to have.
“I won't.”
“Do you want me to come with you?” he asks and I shake my head.
“He'll just yell at you if you do. He wants to take his anger out on someone, but for whatever reason, he seems unwilling to send any my way. I'll talk to him.” I give Cliff's hand a squeeze and head down the stairs, past a baffled Aveline and out the back door into the chilly afternoon air. The sun was out earlier, but it seems to have retreated behind some clouds.
Gilleon's on the deck, bent over at the waist, his hands on his knees as he struggles to find his breath.
I watch him cycle through the emotions and thank God that he's not being apathetic about this. If he'd shrugged, acted like it was no big deal, like he didn't give two shits about it, that would hurt. Hell, that might leave a wound that would never stop bleeding.
“Gill, I know I maybe should've had Cliff tell you one of the times you called him or hell, even when we first started talking about doing this job. But I … At first, I couldn't forgive you for leaving and then later, it just never seemed like the right time. I was such a mess that I couldn't give Solène the life she deserved. Cliff … he really stepped in and made things good for her.” I wait for a response from him, but he's still bent over, his dark hair fluttering in the breeze, orange and yellow and red leaves spinning around the deck at his feet. “It seemed so obvious to me. I felt like … all you had to do was look, Gill, just like you look at everything else in your life. I wanted you to figure it out, and you did.”
More silence.
I shift on my feet, the cold gusts of wind slicing through the thin material of my dress. I'm about to turn around, head back inside, when I hear him speak.
The words are not at all what I expected.
“I'm sorry, Regina,” Gill says, standing up, looking me straight in the face. “I am so fucking sorry.”
He moves across the deck towards me, booted feet loud against the wood, as I stumble back and bump into the wall.
Gill's face is a broken, shattered maze of glass, jagged pieces of his soul lying everywhere. The skin on his forehead is tense, his eyes wide, like he's fighting against the urge to drop to his knees and weep. I wouldn't believe it if I'd never seen it before, seen it that night on the hotel balcony. Gill is a man, and he's strong, and he's a motherfucking badass, but he knows when it's okay to cry.
He doesn't now, but he does reach out and rub his thumb along the line of my jaw.
“If you'd have known,” I start, but my throat catches on the words and they get stuck behind my tongue. I close my eyes and take a deep breath, wetting my lips and trying again. “Would you have come back?”
“No,” he whispers, but the answer doesn't make me feel worse—it makes me feel better. I didn't want Gill to come back out of a sense of obligation, didn't even want him to come back for our daughter. The only reason I ever wanted Gilleon to come back was for me. I know it sounds selfish, but I think it's okay to think like that. Yes, I love my daughter, but one day, she's going to grow up and fall in love with somebody, start her own family. A partner's supposed to stand there at your side and watch it all unfold, love you more than anything and anyone, give your kid a platform to stand on and a safety net to fall into. “But I would've … made an effort to see her.” His voice is soft, stuffed with secrets. I think he's getting ready to tell me them.
I'm almost scared to hear. What will they change? What will they do to me, as a person? To us. To us. If you could really even say there is an us.
“If I were a better man, I'd walk away right now, find my head, calm down. Then I'd come back and we'd have a rational, adult conversation.” Gill licks his lips. “But I'm not a good man, Regi. I'm a terrible man who's done terrible things. I'm also a man that's still in love with you.”
When Gill leans down and captures my lips with his, I could pull away. I could easily push him back, tell him not to touch me ever again, and be done with this whole thing. But I can't. I can't do anything but kiss him back, let his strong, warm arms encircle me and pull me against him.
I curl the fingers of my left hand in his dark hair while my right slides up the firm muscles of his chest, bumping into the shoulder holster and the gun that's tucked away inside it. It should turn me off, remind me of the issues at hand, the reality of the situation, but it doesn't. Instead, it turns me on.
There's no waffling on the issue, no panicked thoughts about what might happen after this is over. I don't know about Gilleon, but right now, I'm not in my right mind—my body's in complete control.
When he reaches down and starts unbuckling his belt, I don't stop him, nipping at his bottom lip and tightening my grip on his hair. This isn't about foreplay or fun or even pleasure, this is all about connection.
“Regina,” Gill growls against my mouth, the sound curling my spine as I slide my hips forward and grind against him, against the hard bulge in his jeans. He groans in response, shoving up the lacy fabric of my dress until it's bunched up around my hips, leaving the black satin panties underneath exposed to the chilly autumn air. Even that's not enough to wake me up inside, remind me that this is a really bad idea, that Gill has too much focus, too much passion, to be dissuaded once he's got something in mind. If that something is getting me back then … I shouldn't even put myself in the position to deal with that.
But I can't stop.
Gill finishes undoing his pants and lifts me up, slamming my back into the side of the house. With the strength in those arms, that back, his chest, he has absolutely zero problem holding me there while I wrap my legs around him and we tangle tongues, his hard cock pressed tight against the front of my suddenly wet panties.
I run my fingers over his tattoos, ov
er the swirls of black that stand out sharply in the gray gold air of morning. He tenses wherever I touch him, goose bumps rising on his skin, his nipples hard against the tightness of his T-shirt, physical proof of the effect I'm having on him, the same effect that he seems to be having on me.
I reach between us, push my panties aside and guide him to my opening. As soon as I do, Gill's thrusting forward, slamming me into the wall with a growl and a groan that I can't help but echo, biting down on his lower lip to keep my voice down. In the very back of my mind, I'm aware that my daughter, my dad—our dad, as creepy as that sounds—and Aveline are inside the house. Not to mention that pesky neighbor across the fence.
Fuck her, I think as Gill's body fills mine, both familiar and foreign all at once. I lock my ankles together behind his back, thanking the heavens above that I was blessed with long legs, and let my head fall back. Gilleon's lips find my throat, kissing and biting as he thrusts deep, his balls pressing tight against me as we grind together in a moment of senseless passion.
It shouldn't be happening, but it is.
I am so going to regret this later. My brain gets that one last jab in before I'm a mess of hormones, a sighing, sweating, tangled mess of heartstrings and sighs, of throaty moans and hitched breathing.
Gill … he's like an animal, his eyes dark and his body hard beneath my hands, hot and sweaty and wet where we slide together, our bodies joining in a wild frenzy that I haven't felt in years. I've had other lovers since Gilleon, yes, but they were nothing like this, droplets to his storm, a pond to his ocean. I feel like I've spent a decade being eternally thirsty and now I'm drowning, drowning in him and his smell and the way his mouth always tastes bright and fresh like citrus.
My body begins to pulse, my muscles holding tight to Gill, to the long, firm length of him, while his hands cup my ass in a bruising grip that's still only a fraction of his real strength. He holds me up as easily as if I weigh nothing and yet he's still holding back, keeping himself in check.
I can feel the pleasure curling in the base of my spine, crouching there with the same feline grace that I see in Gilleon's every move. It creeps up on me quick, drawing another gasp from my throat as Gill snarls and lifts one hand up, slamming his palm into the wall while he comes, his entire body stiffening even further as I do the exact opposite and relax, letting the pleasure hit me in waves.
The sensation's so intense that I feel dizzy, my vision blurring as I come down from the burst of adrenaline and hormones that are surging through my body, making it difficult to stand when Gill pulls out and sets me gently on the wet surface of the deck.
I fix my panties, pull my dress back into place, and smooth a hand over my hair while Gill turns away, panting and straightening out his own clothing.
When I head over to the back door and move inside, he doesn't follow.
I take a long, hot bath, my knees up to my chest, arms curled around them as I close my eyes and force my racing thoughts to a crawl. If I let them run wild like that, I'll never get myself together. What just happened between Gill and me, that was good. It was necessary. We were so caught up in all the hormonal bullshit brewing between us that we weren't thinking clearly. Maybe now that we've both gotten some of that weird hate/makeup sex crap out of the way, we can realize the truth of the situation: me and Gill back together, never going to happen. I can only hope that he understands that and stops saying and doing weird shit.
“Merde,” I curse, putting my forehead against my knees. Knowing that Gilleon knows about Solène is a weird sensation, one that I'm not even sure I can put a name to. I can't tell if I'm relieved or freaked out. I'd love to talk to someone about this, but I don't know if Aveline's a great option at the moment. The look she threw me when I walked into the kitchen was nothing short of lascivious. Let's just say, avoiding her company has now shot right up to the top of my priority list.
Then again, Gill did say I could call Leilani or Anika. But then he also said I should use caution, that there's a possibility—however small—that Karl might decide it's worth the effort to use them against me, against him, as leverage for the diamonds.
I decide that no matter how conflicted I am, I can't risk them.
“Fuck this,” I growl, the sound reminding me of Gill and the wild look on his face while he screwed me against the wall of his 1912 fucking Mount Baker goddamn Colonial. Ehh. The conversation we're going to have when I leave this room, it's not going to be fun, is it? And I can only imagine how Cliff will react when he finds out. Even if I don't intend to tell him, he'll know. He's just like that.
I stand up and grab a towel from the stand under the window, drying off with the plush pink perfection as I try to decide what to wear. Obviously this morning's dress is not an option. I don't know if I'll be able to wear that in front of him ever again, or at least not for a while. And that's assuming it's even clean—I know my panties have certainly seen better days.
I swipe the towel across the mirror and lean in, staring at myself, at the blurry dampness of my reflection, my skin flushed and pink, my lips swollen and my pupils dilated. I'm not even going to give half the credit for that to my bubble bath. Sex with Gill is … well, it's always been the best. Mathis, and the dozen or so men before him, none of them could hold a candle to my first love, to the stepbrother I never wanted and then grew to never want to live without.
But I learned to. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done, learning to adapt to the absence of his smile, to the coldness of my bed at night, to the quiet in the mornings.
Young love is so manipulative to the heart, promising that if you lose it, if that person leaves, that you will quite literally shrivel up and die. At least, that's what it told me, but I survived, and I'm a better person for it.
However, none of that will stop me from dressing up again, putting on that uniform for life and marching out there looking my best.
I wrap the towel around my body and move into the bedroom, slipping my mother's diamond pendant around my neck and then pausing in front of my closet. I decide to go with another jumpsuit—still sexy, but something with less … accessibility might be nice. If it takes more effort to get it off, then I'll have more time to talk myself out of it. Not that I'm going to need it, I tell myself as I pull the black V-neck off the hanger. In the few minutes it takes me to get dressed, dry my hair, and apply some minimal makeup, I really and truly believe that.
As soon as I step into the hallway, my Oxford blue peep-toe pumps hitting the floor with a clack, I see Gilleon and the entire argument goes completely out the window.
Oh shit, I think as I feel flames tickling my belly, my muscles tightening in anticipation of … of nothing because nothing else is going to happen between us.
“Regina,” he says, shirtless and beautiful, droplets of warm water clinging to his chest, just as fresh from the shower as I am. His tattoos end right at the shoulder in a swirl of darkness that begs for me to run my fingertips across the lines, trace each and every one to their source, to the raven, the fox, the sleek, svelte little feline that curls around his bicep. But there's nothing nice about this kitty cat, with its dark eyes and narrow pupils.
I force my gaze over to his left shoulder, to the angry red of the bullet wound—nothing sexy about that, right? Doesn't help. Damn it. I glance back at Gill's face.
“Gilleon,” I say, glad that my voice comes out the way I want it, strong and clear and lacking in any sort of emotion whatsoever. I refuse to play my cards first with this man.
“About earlier,” he says and my chest tightens, “when I said I wanted to go to dinner. I still do. Only … I think maybe you and I should go alone, so we can talk.”
“We do need to talk,” I say, my heartbeat picking up speed as I stand there and pretend that nothing is happening to me, nothing is changing inside. I'm afraid that everything is.
Gill smiles, his perfect mouth sliding to the side in an imitation of the wry grins he used to give me as a teen. His blue eyes are locked o
nto mine, searching me, trying to decide how I feel about all of this without a single word leaving my mouth.
I glance away as Solène opens her door and appears in the hallway, giving Gill's shirtless body a raised eyebrow before she looks over at me.
“I want to show you something, Regina. Quick, come look.” She retreats back into her room before I get a chance to respond, throwing a look Gill's way to judge his reaction. The sadness etched into his features makes my heart hurt. How different things would be if he'd never left. I remind myself that that was his choice to make.
I move down the hallway, past his door, hating the nearness of his half-naked body as my heels click across the wood.
“She's beautiful,” he whispers as I pass by, “just as beautiful as you.”
My skin ripples, his words brushing across them and drawing goose bumps, before I breeze past and slip into my daughter's room with a sigh. She glances back at me from her seat at the white writing desk in the corner, blue eyes wide and questioning.
“You certainly do fancy him, don't you?” she asks as I raise an eyebrow and come to stand next to her shoulder, surreptitiously leaning forward, pushing back the curtain, and glancing out the window to make sure she didn't have a clear view of Gill and me. I hate that I'm only thinking of this after the fact, but down there on that deck, I wasn't entirely in my right mind.
Thank God. The porch that wraps this side of the house blocks that portion of the deck. Solène would only have been able to see if she'd gone outside, and from the look of the locked French doors, the gray dreary weather out there, it's highly doubtful.
“Now why would you go and say that?” I ask as Solène shuffles some magazines around, pushing them away from the black drawing book that's sitting directly in front of her. I drop the curtain and shift back, tucking my hands in the front pockets of the jumpsuit and smiling innocently.
“Because you're always gazing at him,” she tells me matter-of-factly. “Oh, and sucking in deep breaths like this.” Solène gasps and then puts her hand to her chest, glancing at me and batting her eyelashes like I'm sure I never do. Unlike her and her dad, I don't have long curled lashes to bat. It'd take some serious mascara work—maybe even a fake set—to get mine to do that. “Just like all the women in the movies do when they're in love,” she continues, drawing a faint blush to my cheeks. I'm getting told by a nine year old. Isn't that great?
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