Protector's Claim

by Airicka Phoenix

  “All right, darling?”

  Lips twisted in annoyance, Eric shot the coffee table a grudging glower over his shoulder. “I think the furniture has it out for me.”

  Marcella clicked her tongue and said something I couldn’t hear as the pair followed the others out.

  Then it was just me in the silence of the room. I dug my phone from my purse, stole one peek at the door to make sure no one had returned, and found Cain’s number.

  I hesitated texting him. I wasn’t entirely sure what it was I wanted to say to him, or how to say it. I didn’t want to just blurt out that I’d slept with Kieran, but I knew I should tell Cain.

  Shouldn’t I?

  I’d never been with two men before. I hadn’t even been with one before this. I had no idea what the protocol was, especially if both men knew about the other. Was I supposed to be honest with them about what I did with the other? It felt wrong to hide it. But then I hadn’t told Kieran that I’d slept with Cain the night before. Granted, I hadn’t been given the chance.

  Maybe I wasn’t supposed to tell them anything so long as it was clear that I ... that I was what? Seeing them both? Sleeping with them both? Was that what I was doing, keeping them both around for sex? Why on earth did I need two? What kind of woman needed two?

  A lucky one, said the voice in my head.

  But I didn’t feel lucky.

  I felt dirty and unfaithful. Despite my earlier fantasy, it wasn’t fair to either of them for me to play this game. It was clear that a decision needed to be made.

  One of them needed to be let go.

  Logic said Kieran.

  He was the biggest threat.

  But my heart said Cain.

  He was a stranger with no face.

  Losing him wouldn’t break me.

  Reality said both.

  I had eight months left in this life. I would be leaving both after that anyway. I couldn’t bring Kieran. I couldn’t bring Cain. Both would go on without me. So, why bother?

  “There you are.”

  Kieran materialized in the doorway, gorgeous in his dark suit and soft eyes. He offered me one of his lopsided grins that never failed to make my knees quiver.

  “I was just...”

  I showed him the phone in my hand with an indecisive little shrug.

  “The man you’re seeing,” he deduced.

  I nodded. “Well, I’m not seeing him. I haven’t seen him. It’s complicated.” I lowered my gaze, unable to meet his. “I was trying to decide how to tell him.”

  “About earlier?”

  I nodded again.

  He was right next to me now, his presence a warm blanket draping around my shoulders. “Does he need to know?”

  I peered up at him. “Would you want to know?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know.” His gaze dropped to my mouth and I felt them tingle. “I’d kill any man who touched you.”

  “I’m not like this,” I blurted, needing him to understand. “I don’t sleep around with random men. I’ve only ever been with one other person ... this person,” I held up my phone, indicating Cain. “I don’t know how to explain it without you hating me—”

  “That isn’t possible.”

  I wanted so badly to believe him. I wished I could just tell him about the auction and Cain. But no one would understand that. No one would ever accept that I wasn’t some whore.

  “I slept with him that night, after you left,” I forced out, my chest a tight restriction around each word. “I don’t know if I’m supposed to tell you, or not, but it wasn’t intentional. I was upset. I asked him over to—”

  “Gabby.” His palms were tender cradling my face. “Stop. I’m not angry.”

  “Why?” I demanded, frustrations getting the better of me. “You just said you’d kill any man who touched me and I’m telling you I slept with one—”

  “Because it was yesterday,” he cut in. “We weren’t together yesterday. Yesterday we were different people. Today is another story. Today, you’re mine.”

  Just like that.

  I opened my mouth, my head full of questions.

  But he silenced me with a gentle finger against my lips.

  “I don’t care about what you did before this moment. As of this moment, your slate and my slate are completely clean.”

  A clean slate.

  A new beginning where I was absolved of all my past sins.

  There were so many.

  “I’ve done things,” I whispered. “You need to know—”

  He shook his head. “No, I don’t. Not unless it’s something you really want to tell me.”

  Did I want to tell him?

  Did I want to mar his view of me by staining that clean sheet he was offering me?

  I could take it to my grave.

  Let it be my secret forever.

  No one ever had to know.

  “I’m scared,” I admitted.

  “Don’t be.” He swiped at the arches of my cheek. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  He kissed me, and his mouth, like everything else tasted so familiar, so perfect. I wanted to dissolve into it, into him and become one with his very soul.

  But the kiss was brief. I knew I should have been grateful for that. We were still in the parlor where anyone could walk in, and we’d already been gone too long.

  “Don’t tell David you want to marry me,” I murmured. “If you won’t marry Cordelia, then please don’t say anything at all.”

  Kieran frowned. “Why not? You’re his daughter, too. What difference does it make which one of you I marry?”

  “It makes a difference,” I whispered. “Please.”

  The creases between his eyebrows deepened. “What’s going on? There’s something you’re not telling me.”

  “It’s not important—”

  He cut me off with a vicious shake of his head. “It is important, because I am going to marry you, Gabby. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but that’s where this is headed. I need you for the rest of my life.”

  Every instinct in my body wanted to leap into his arms and never let him go. Caution kept me rooted to the carpet.

  “It might not be that simple,” I whispered, tongue oddly catching on the roof of my mouth.

  I couldn’t explain the contract even if I tried, not without having to tell him about the deposit that had come with it. I couldn’t tell him about my plans to leave. I couldn’t tell him about David or the auction. I couldn’t tell him anything, at least, nothing that wouldn’t make him want to forget he ever saw my face, but I had to tell him something.

  “What are you talking about?”

  His eyes were pits of warm concern swirling around a vortex of determination. He was prepared to fight for me, for us. He was ready to do whatever it took to fix the situation and keep me for himself. He just didn’t realize this was a fight no one had any hopes of winning.

  “Do you remember my sixteenth birthday?”

  My sidetracking question seemed to catch him off guard, because his head pulled back a notch and he blinked.

  “I was sitting on the front steps crying, because it was my sweet sixteen and no one had remembered. You came over to see Eric and you pulled up in this shiny, gray convertible with the hood down. Your hair was a mess, but I always liked it that way. You had on dark jeans and a white t-shirt under a navy blazer, and these sunglasses that you pulled off when you started towards me.” I bit my lip as the memory formed with crystal clear clarity. “You reminded me of a movie star.”

  Kieran grinned a little around the confusion that kept his eyebrows furrowed. “I remember.”

  “It was a big moment for me,” I murmured, my cheeks growing hot. “You stood over me and asked if you needed to find the bastard who made me cry. I laughed and told you it was my birthday. That was when you reached into the passenger side seat of your car and pulled out a present, already wrapped in blue and silver paper. You grinned at me and said—”

  “Bet you thought I fo
rgot,” he finished.

  I nodded. “It was a journal ... a present from your mom to you.”

  “How did you...?” Kieran winced. “The inscription.”

  “Your journey starts here. Love you always, Mother,” I recited.

  Kieran groaned. “God, Gabs, I’m so sorry...”

  “Don’t be. It didn’t bother me. The fact that you made an effort at all meant the world to me. You could have just as easily wished me a happy birthday and walked away, but you tried to cheer me up, and you did. I carried that thing around with me for months. I still have it. Never wrote in it.”

  “Why?”

  I drew in a breath. “Because it was the only present anyone has freely given me in my life. You asked for nothing, wanted nothing, except to make me feel better. No one’s ever done that either.”

  “How is that possible—?”

  “What is taking so long?”

  The crack of Cordelia’s heels was the only warning I was given to tear out of Kieran’s arms and put nearly an entire room between us before she rounded the corner.

  She skidded to a halt just on the threshold. Her gaze went from me to Kieran, then back. I fought not to waver, to not even blink as her scrutiny burned into me.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” Kieran replied before I could. “We were just talking.”

  “Yeah?” Daggers glinted in her smile. “What about?”

  Kieran narrowed his eyes. “This and that.”

  His vague response made my heart drop into my gut.

  “Anything interesting?” Cordelia pressed, taking a step closer.

  “Physics,” I blurted. “I’m not doing very well in my class and I was telling Kieran about finding a tutor.”

  Not all lies. That was the key when faced with a woman who could smell a lie from twenty paces. There was just enough truth that, if verified, would pass.

  “How fascinating.” She purred in a drawl that suggested it really wasn’t. But it reverted her attention away from me and my existence, and she focused on Kieran. “Come. Dinner’s on the table.”

  Kieran hesitated, and I knew why.

  “I’ll be right in,” I said to them both. “I just need to make a call.”

  Cordelia stared at me with an expression that stated very clearly that she didn’t give a shit. But I hadn’t been talking to her.

  “Come, Kieran.”

  She held out a hand as if he were a dawdling child. Even I took offense to the tone and in the way she beckoned him to her with a crook of her finger.

  Kieran didn’t move.

  He stared from her neatly manicured hand to the woman herself with a set frown that spoke volumes of his displeasure.

  “Did you just summon me?” The air hissed with the chill that swept through it. The brittle texture crystalized in the fine ridges of his anger. “Like a dog?”

  Cordelia seemed to realize her mistake as her hand quickly dropped to her side.

  “No, of course not. I wouldn’t—”

  “Is that what you think I am, Ms. Thornton? A dog to be summoned with a command?”

  It was fascinating watching the color bleed from Cordelia’s peaches and cream complexion. Even beneath the perfectly applied makeup, she appeared almost sickly standing before Kieran as he waited for his questions to be answered.

  “I would never—” she began again.

  “I will arrive when I arrive,” Kieran broke in viciously. “I do not need you to be my mother. I have one of those, and even she knows better than to think I will follow obediently like a sheep. Now,” his shoulders straightened, “if you don’t mind, Gabrielle and I were in the middle of a discussion.”

  I had no words to convey the utter shock that rippled through me. It tangled with my awe as Cordelia simply stared with open mouthed horror. She didn’t even glance at me when she spun on her heels and hurried from the room. The rapid cracks of her heels echoed like short bursts of lightning along the corridor until it faded.

  Only when it was gone did I move.

  I tore across the room and threw my arms around Kieran’s shoulders. My fingers cupped the back of his head and I dragged his mouth down to mine.

  I kissed him, hard, deep, with all the fire and passion radiating like an inferno inside me. I didn’t stop until I couldn’t breathe anymore.

  “Jesus,” he breathed, panting against my mouth.

  “That was stupid,” I rasped. “Talking to her like that, but...” I kissed him again. “I’ve never loved you so much in my life.”

  His answer was the fisting of my hair in his hands. He pulled me in close.

  “You’re coming home with me tonight,” he stated hotly. “I want you in my bed.”

  My head was bobbing even before I brushed my quiet murmur against his mouth, “Yes.”

  THE EVENING REFUSED to end fast enough. I’d always been anxious to leave, to escape, but my anticipation had nothing to do with freedom and everything to do with the man at the other end of the table.

  I wanted him.

  I had always wanted him. That wasn’t new.

  But I wanted him.

  I wanted him on me.

  I wanted him in me.

  I wanted him surrounding me, pinning me, driving into me.

  I wanted him to consume, destroy, and devour me.

  The throbbing insistence pulsated at my clit, a relentless thrumming that made it impossible to focus on a damn thing else. My breasts were heavy and pebbled peaks cupped by lace. They ached for him to palm them, to take them into his mouth and ease their pain.

  God, I felt savage, insane.

  At the one-hour mark, I slipped away from the table while the others waited for their dessert.

  Jameson was already waiting in the foyer, my coat nipped between his fingers. I thanked him as I threw it on. It earned me an inclination of his head and nothing more.

  Heart palpitating with maddening ferocity, I jogged down the steps into the night. My feet drummed across the gravel, a hurried scuffle disturbing the night.

  Along the path, I paused every few seconds to check behind me for his pursuit, for the splinter of his headlights breaking through the trees.

  But the path remained dark and quiet. Part of me wondered if Cordelia hadn’t convinced David to delay Kieran long enough to sort out the mess she’d created back in the parlor. David wouldn’t allow Kieran to leave upset, not when he was so close to his end game.

  Resigned, I accepted that I would be going home alone and continued on my way. Partway between the house and the road, I realized I didn’t even have Kieran’s number. I never had a reason to have it in the past and the idea of asking him for it had always mortified me. It wasn’t as if we ever really talked. Having his number just felt unnecessary. But considering how things were going, I made a mental note to ask him for it when I saw him again. It made sense to have it if we were going to do whatever it was we were doing.

  I rubbed at my forehead, forcibly trying to remove the furrow that had begun to form lines across my brow. The wind clawed at my bare skin, turning my calves numb. It blew up my skirt to freeze the rest of me, despite my coat. I made a mental note to start wearing leggings under the skirts. It would infuriate Marcella and amuse Cordelia, but they didn’t have to hike for forty minutes every Sunday. I also made a mental note to start bringing sneakers with me. Heels, even low, sensible heels, were a nightmare on unmade paths in the dark. It wouldn’t have surprised me if I shattered an ankle. But at least it wasn’t freezing like it had been the last time. More importantly, at least it wasn’t raining. All things to be thankful for, I thought.

  I was nearly at the end of the road when I heard the car. I hastily shifted off to the side as the harsh beams of light wove around the wind in the path and came up just behind me.

  It stopped and I stopped.

  The driver’s side door opened and Kieran poked his head out.

  “I’m sorry.” He started around the hood. “David wanted a quick drink
to ... discuss things before I left. He insisted.”

  I shook my head. “I thought as much.”

  He motioned me over and took my elbow when I went to him. His grip was firm, but gentle as he guided me to the passenger’s side.

  “I left as quickly as I could,” he assured me as I slipped into the seat.

  “It’s fine.”

  I rubbed at my legs as he made his way back to his seat. The skin beneath my fingers were cold, almost corpse-like.

  “I’ll warm you up when we get home,” he promised.

  I laughed. “Coffee?”

  I caught the sliver of his grin in the light from the dashboard. “Maybe after.”

  We turned onto the road and the light lanced off the bumper of my Honda. I started to get ready to climb out, but he never stopped.

  “My car...?”

  “I’ll have someone bring it to the house,” he said, never taking his eyes off the road.

  “But if Cordelia or David see it still there and I’m nowhere to be found—”

  “My guy’s already on his way,” he cut me off. “I called him from the house, and from the way those two were talking when I left, they’re going to be in that study for a while still.”

  I still didn’t like the idea, but I felt a little better about it.

  “I could have just followed you,” I said, seating back.

  He shook his head. “I’m not stopping this car for anything.”

  “Except traffic lights and stop signs, and cops, right?” I teased.

  He shrugged. “I’ll think about it.”

  We didn’t break any laws getting to his place. He didn’t run any red lights, or even go over the speed limit. He did, however, remove one hand off the wheel halfway there and reached over the console to take mine. Our fingers intertwined as seamlessly as if we’d done it a million times before.

  Each finger aligned.

  Palms kissed.

  His gold against my ivory.

  Both rested in my lap, comfortable.

  Excruciatingly intimate.