by Amber Bardan
My eyes wanted to roll. If the preference was hostage in India, then perhaps my insisting on going to work daily was being difficult. “I could be a lot less cooperative.”
His frown intensified.
“A whole heap less. For instance, Waldolf security has allowed you to wait around in the car park because I’ve said you work for me.” I smiled, saying no more.
Rohan’s jaw creaked. “You may go in, but I will remain in shouting distance.”
“Agreed.” I started toward the house.
“I can get through locked doors...”
I glanced back, and laughed. “Yeah, so can Avner, as I discovered.”
Rohan folded his arms.
I went up the stairs and rang the bell, then rubbed my arms.
The door opened.
“Em,” Dad said.
He wore a fluorescent yellow safety shirt. The kind that meant he had a job—at least for now.
I took a breath. “Hey, Dad.”
“You ring the bell on your own house?” He moved to let me in.
I walked inside. “I don’t live here anymore.”
“It’s still your house.”
A savory scent hit me, jerking at my heartstrings. “You’re making lasagna?”
“Yeah, it’ll be ready in fifteen.”
I stared at the archway into the kitchen. The table was a foreign display to what I was used to seeing—clear and clean and uncluttered.
How long had it been since I’d had Dad’s cooking?
When I was younger, before things got out of hand, when I’d gone to bed early and missed the ugly drunken hours, he’d cooked often. Mum had been sick for so long he’d had to. He’d taught me how to make sauces and stocks, and which cuts of meat stew the best.
This smell—tomato and bay leaves, browning cheese sauce—struck me in the part of my heart that would always be home.
“You staying for dinner?” he asked, his voice low and cautious, when I had always known it as demanding.
There were good memories here. I’d wanted to forget them. Pain has a way of whitewashing memories—of painting everything all one color. Dad was a mean drunk.
When Mum was alive, he’d mostly been a normal father.
I walked into the lounge room, away from the kitchen’s lure. “I won’t stay long.”
“I really am sorry, Em.”
I turned around to him, and hugged my arms close to my chest. “I believe you.”
“I’ve accepted I have no control over my addiction—”
“Dad, I can’t accept apologies that blame addiction for everything you did. That would be ignoring every morning that you woke up hungover, looked at me, realized what you’d done—” I tried to clear my throat. It wouldn’t clear. “And begged me not to tell anyone.”
His gaze sank to the ground.
“I never did because I was looking out for you, when you weren’t looking out for me.” I squeezed my biceps. “So, if you really want to make amends, here’s what you can do—stay sober.”
He looked up.
“Stay sober for all the times I needed you to be and you weren’t.” I held his gaze. “Stay sober and accept I can’t be around you.” I sniffled but salt trickled over my lips. “Be the one to do right by me this time.”
He shook his head in denial.
I swiped my eyes with the back of my wrist, then pulled an envelope from my back pocket and handed it to him.
Dad took it. “What’s this?”
“I’m signing my share of the house over to you.”
His eyes were dry when he looked back up at me, but rimmed red. “Em, your Mum left her share to you. She wouldn’t have wanted this.”
I took his hand for the last time I ever would. “Ah, Dad. There’s a fucking lot Mum wouldn’t have wanted.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Emma
“I’m assuming you’re allowed to let me in here alone?” I stared at the massive concrete house at the end of the driveway. We stopped at the gates of Avner’s place.
Rohan shot me a weary look.
No? I frowned but tapped the backpack on the floor. “This is for you. I’ll leave it right here. I made you sandwiches, and there’s even some of that drip-filter coffee you drink in a flask.” I shuddered. Seriously, he was lucky I didn’t hold his beverage choices against him.
He blinked, as though he’d forgotten his English. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Really, he shouldn’t thank me so soon. If things went my way he’d be spending a long time out in my car.
We sat. “Maybe he doesn’t know we’re here. Press the button.”
Rohan leaned out the window and pressed the buzzer.
He settled back into the driver’s seat. His hand jerked to the wheel, and the other to the stick shift. “He’s not home.”
I halted his hand on the shift, leaned forward and stared at the building. The sky shone orange with the setting sun. A faint glow surrounded a front window.
“Oh, he’s there.” I unclasped the seatbelt and shoved it aside, then scrambled over the top of Rohan, leaned out the window and shoved my thumb against the button. “You open these gates right now, Avner Malfacini.”
Rohan stiffened next to me. “Return yourself to your seat immediately, Miss Emma.”
I glanced at him. Yes, I’d climbed all over him, but he didn’t call me Miss Emma anymore, and his voice certainly wasn’t usually this high pitched.
I glanced at the camera staring down from the gates, then back at Rohan. “I’m going in there, Rohan.”
His head tilted slightly and his gaze flickered. “We will try Mr. Malfacini another time.”
My gaze narrowed. No way. Of all the sneaky things...
He grasped my shoulder, attempting to urge me off him. I shoved my forearm against his neck, pressing him against the seat, and used the advantage to snap my fingers to the tiny clear earpiece hidden in his right ear.
I stuffed the earpiece into my own ear, and eased my arm off his throat. “Can he hear us too?”
Rohan’s chin dropped to his chest.
I twisted around and pointed at the camera. “Open these gates, Avner, or I swear on Rohan’s life, I will climb them.”
“Return to your seat, Emma.” The deep growled command shivered through the earpiece. Even expecting it, the sound shocked me back into my spot.
The gates opened.
He’d been secretly talking to Rohan this whole time?
My pulse skipped. Well that sure as crap wasn’t the actions of a man who was done with a woman.
So why couldn’t he forgive me for messing up one little time? Why not return any of my messages, or answer a damn call?
The gates opened, and we drove through.
Emotion swamped, but I clung to the hot ball of fury that he’d tried to send me away, because I couldn’t get through this otherwise.
We reached the house, and I was out the door before the handbrake pulled up. I stormed the steps.
The door flew open. He stood in the gap. My gaze devoured him whole. A flush rolled from my head to my feet. He hadn’t shaved since I’d last seen him, that much was clear.
A short, dense beard covered his face—thick, black and gorgeous to look at. That beard softened the sharpness of his jaw, making him dangerously huggable like a grizzly bear.
“Why haven’t you returned my messages?”
He opened the door a little wider without letting me in. Then his gaze was the one raking over me—eating me alive. “There’s nothing I have to say that you’d care to hear.”
“Right now I’d care to hear anything.”
He stared at me, his lips forming a line. “And yet I still have noth
ing to say to you.”
Something seemed to pop at the back of my eyes.
“Are you freaking kidding me?” I shoved him.
He stepped back into the house.
“I mess up and what, you’re just done?” I panted. “What about ‘Oh, but we’re friends’?”
He ran a palm over his mouth, gaze heating, though he kept in whatever was going through that mind of his.
“What about—” I held up my hands and deepened my voice “—‘You’re mine, Emma. Mine.’”
He looked away from me.
I shoved him again, right in the middle of the chest.
His gaze snapped back to mine.
Pain slammed through me.
My voice caught. “What about, ‘You’re my deepest fucking desire’?”
Silence pounded between us.
His gaze flicked across my face again and again, as though there were three of me, then stopped. “Sometimes a man will say something when he’s impassioned.”
Confusion whipped through me.
He stepped closer. “Sometimes he’ll be overcome when he’s buried somewhere hot and wet.”
An icy knot of dread clamped me—I wanted to slam my hands over his mouth and stop him from saying another terrible word.
This time when his gaze slipped over me it sent me completely cold. “And you know, don’t you, Emma, that you’re a very nice fuck?”
My ribs seemed to spear my middle. I grabbed the open door.
Then I couldn’t move. Like my ligaments turned on me, everything seizing in one excruciating moment.
I was an excellent fuck, or so I’d been told. This time I’d been convinced it wasn’t all I was. He’d convinced me this was something special. He’d made me feel precious.
He glared at me, sucking in air—in fact, he panted. His forehead shined. He was sweating. His shirt was untucked.
Somewhere in the middle of those feelings, I found a breath of calm. “Were you working out just now?”
He shook his head. “What?”
I frowned, looking past him.
He’d kept me at the entrance instead of inviting me in.
I darted past him into the house, running into the kitchen.
“What are you doing?”
I spun around at the big concrete table where he’d fucked me for the first time. My private area pooled with the lust-drenched memory not even hurt could hold at bay. “Is someone here?”
“Who would be here?” He stepped closer, his footsteps clunking. “You sound jealous, Emma.”
“Yes, because you’re out of breath, mussed up and, quite frankly, acting super strange.”
He swayed closer, his arms still at his sides. “Strange?”
“Yeah.”
“How should I be acting?” His voice betrayed him. He did have feelings. Furious feelings.
“Honestly,” I shouted. “You should be acting honestly.”
That damn beard, it gave nothing away. He stared at me—deadpan. As though he’d never possessed a single feeling at all.
“You can try to keep things secret, but don’t lie to me.” I approached him. “If you don’t care, why’d you send me the address?”
“A moment of weakness.” He stiffened. “Since it was apparently so important to you, I wanted you to know. It doesn’t change anything.”
“Weakness, when you weren’t buried somewhere wet?” I inched closer, ready to kick myself for almost falling for whatever this was. “What would you care what a nice fuck thinks?”
“I never said we weren’t really friends.” He eased back. “I never said I didn’t care. I’m still protecting you, aren’t I?”
“Yes.” I stilled. “Yes, you are.”
He froze.
“So why don’t you just tell me what’s really going on here, because it’s too late—you asked me to trust you, and now I do.” I could breathe again, and I sucked air in deep, and closed the distance between us. “So at this point there’s nothing you can say to convince me that anything that’s happened between us wasn’t real.”
He stared at me and his eyes softened, like he’d been holding on a face that wasn’t his.
“We shouldn’t do this.” But he grabbed me, contradicting his words. “You should stay away.”
“Why?” I gripped his shirt.
He hauled me closer, his breathing harsh again. “Because I know who’s been after you.”
Avner
I led her to my office and set the file on the wooden top and tugged out a photograph. “Recognize this man?”
“Yes.” Her throat moved. “This is the guy who followed me.”
“He works for a very sophisticated criminal network, and a man named Narek Vanlian.” I set another photograph in front of her. “This man.”
Her gaze narrowed on the image and she drew it closer. “I’ve never seen him before.”
“Good. You never want to see him.” I approached her. “But if you ever do, Emma, get yourself the fuck away.”
Her forehead scrunched. “Okay, I will.”
“I mean it. You see him, you tell Rohan, you tell me.” I grabbed her hand, and raised it. “And, you press this right here, and hold for three seconds.”
Her gaze flew to her watch, then to me. She shook her head slowly, though not in the outrage I’d have expected. “This is how you’ve known exactly where I am.”
“Show me you know how to do it.”
She put her thumb on the tiny button and pressed it in. My cell phone went off.
“Good girl.” I released her, removed it from my pocket and turned off the alarm.
“I still don’t understand how this has anything to do with our relationship?” She stared at the watch, then at me. “If he’s after my research, what does it matter if we’re together, why’d you try to push me away?”
“Because, baby.” I took her hand. “I’m known to Narek, and should he connect the dots between us, should he look too closely and discover more about me that he doesn’t already know, he’d want far worse from you than your research—he’d want you to get to me.”
She studied me closely. “Are you going to tell me what any of that more is?”
“I’m not going to tell you a single thing that could make you a bigger target than you already are.”
Her face fell. She looked at the buttons on my shirt. Fuck. She wanted more answers? I’d given everything I could.
There was no telling her what I’d been doing when she arrived—interrogating a man in the basement, where Emilio and Marcus still were now.
Or that we were hours away from rescuing Rebecca.
My sister she didn’t know existed.
“Then what do we do?” Her hand moved to my side. “Because my research just started and I’m not going into hiding again. And now I have you back, I’m sure as shit not giving you up.”
I laughed and pulled her in to hug her. So that’s what upset her. No, we wouldn’t spend another day apart.
“You have me, you have Rohan, you have your watch, and I know you have an excellent choke hold.” I squeezed her tight, wanting to crush the breath out of her. “So we be careful.” I eased her back and took her shoulders. “You’re either here, your apartment or your lab. Otherwise you’re with Rohan or you’re with me. Got it?”
“Got it, boss man.” She winked at me, then her smile slipped. “Thank you for sending me to see your mother. It meant a lot to me.”
A weight moved down my guts.
“I promise, Emma, I will give you all I can.”
She nodded. “I know.”
I touched her cheek. What else was wrong?
“I want everything you said.” Her eyes went so heavy. “I want to give you everythi
ng and I don’t want anything between us.”
I slid my hand deep into her hair. “What is it?”
“There’s more I should’ve told you.” Her lips rubbed together. “Most importantly, I should’ve told you that I’m in love with you, Avner. Deeply in love with you.”
Relief coursed through me.
I tugged her head back, and didn’t give her a chance to say another word. Just savored those ones.
“I’m in love with you.”
My heart boomed with the sound of those words. I kissed her hard, driving deep into her mouth. I wanted to tear her apart. Turn her inside out. My chest thumped.
Her hands went to my hair, and she returned the pull. I growled. Bossy, impatient minx. I wound my fist in the mass of her pale hair and yanked her back.
She looked at me, panting and gasping. Her rosy lips were swollen. She had that look in her eye—and I remembered the first time she kissed me—where with all her sass, I’d had to make her kiss me.
But tonight she’d given everything over to me and I intended to accept it. I buried my face in her neck and inhaled. I hadn’t taken a breath that didn’t burn since she’d been gone. Her honest feminine scent filled me and had my cock ready to bust free of my pants. The tight wad of pain gripping my guts eased.
“I love you too.” I bit her throat.
She made a high-pitched sound that sent my blood molten hot. I used my teeth on her, enough to sting—never to hurt.
I pushed her down on the desk, and relieved her of her clothes. Her shriek filled my ears, and rang through my blood.
Yes, I tore her jeans on purpose.
Yes, I snapped her bra because I wanted to.
I broke everything she’d worn here. If I could keep her naked forever, I would. I’d settle for just tonight. Then her body was free, writhing on my desk.
I held her down with a hand on her ribs, and with the other squeezed her perfect handful of a tit, and pinched that hard peachy nipple.
She shook.
I let her quiver run through me, and laughed. Oh, how I’d waited to have her like this again. My gaze ate up her long, lean body. Her limbs I’d always remember as wrapping around me extra tight.
Today she’d left a patch of hair on her pussy. Not quite as fair as her head. Dirty blond for a dirty girl. I touched it with a shaking finger. Her lips were soaked and puffy.