Dane - Book 3: A Foster Family Saga

by Phillips, Avery

  “Just so you know, no offense was intended,” Clementine said. He held out a hand to shake mine, and I eyed it, unmoving. I didn’t have anything against the men doing their job, but I wasn’t in the mood to make nice. It was time for me to leave.

  “Anything else, gentlemen?” Kent asked in a voice that left no room for further questions.

  Clementine smiled tightly, his creased face rigid as a board. “No, I think that’s everything.”

  “Good,” Kent said curtly. “Please direct anything else you need to ask to my office.” He slid a business card across the table and ensured we were free to leave, grabbing his briefcase and nodding to me to follow him out the door.

  “Pleasure meeting you, gentlemen.” I was anxious to get as far away from Texas as possible. There was still the matter of Sissy to take care of, and Darien holed up in a hospital, but my primary concern was to deliver Hanna and myself back to New York to pick up with our lives where we had left off. There were things at Excelsis that needed my immediate attention, as well.

  Outside the intimidating FBI building, I looked up at the windows fronting the building like a thousand eyes, feeling sure that I had told the most whole and complete version of events they were likely to get. Somewhere inside, Sissy was being held, and in a hospital across town officers stood at an ICU room door, guarding Darien. I had hired my mother an attorney, but whatever would happen to them was no longer in my hands.

  Kent slapped my hand in a handshake and smiled. “It isn’t quite over. You know that, right?”

  I looked down at the sidewalk with a sigh. “It is for me. Let’s go pick up Hanna so I can get the fuck out of here.”

  CHAPTER 3

  “I have it on good authority that someone’s planning us a welcome-home party,” I said with a smile. “It was supposed to be a surprise.”

  An uneventful flight had delivered us to salvation, New York City, and my driver was waiting at the airport to pick us up. To be in the back seat of my own car, en route to my penthouse… I groaned in pleasure, laying my head back on the seat and inhaling the citrusy aroma of oiled leather contently.

  “Dane, Aunt Ettie is waiting for me,” Hanna murmured.

  I looked over at her sitting beside me, and I wondered about her blue mood. “C’mon… Your aunt can wait to see you for a few hours more,” I said gently. It was like the minute we had touched down in New York, everything had changed between us, immediate and extremely noticeable. There was a gap of empty black space separating our bodies in the back seat, and she stared out the window at the glittering city with a wistful expression, her face cast in lights and shadows as the car moved through the inky night.

  She had barely said two words to me since touching down. At my request she join me at the party, she snorted softly and turned to look at me with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “You should’ve told me sooner. I already called her and told her I was on my way home.”

  I cocked my head to the side and gave her a pleading look. A half-smile curled at my lips. She waved away the look and shook her head, turning back to the window. “That’s the problem with you, Dane. You make all these decisions for the people in your life without any input from them, and then you expect people to thank you for it. I don’t know why I even… Never mind.”

  “What? Why you even what?” I asked. I reached across the gap between us and grabbed her fingers. She pulled her hand away and folded it in her lap. I frowned. “Look,” I said with a sigh. “I know I haven’t—I mean, I know that before everything happened, we were on bad terms.”

  “Oh, bad terms? Is that what you’d call it?” she said. “I would call it something else. Probably something closer to I was heartbroken at finding out you were a douchebag who had strung me along for nearly a year in a relationship that was about as authentic as a knockoff Coach bag. But. You say tomato, I say tomahto.” She shrugged.

  I winced. “I know. I just—”

  She flashed angry eyes at me. “You what, Dane? You came to your senses? Forgive me if I don’t feel a near-death experience on the high seas is a good enough reason to ignore all the rest of the bullshit you put me through. I’m not some empty-headed romantic, some naïve girl who will eat up anything you throw my way. You don’t get it, do you? I’m all grown up, Dane. You don’t wow me anymore. I figured it out. You put on a good show, but the curtain’s up!”

  I hit the button on the partition and stared straight ahead at the black shield coming up between the front of the SUV and the back. I took the brunt of her anger. Her voice got louder as she made it clear exactly what I had done to her. I didn’t agree with everything she was saying, but I understood where she was coming from.

  “You played me like a pawn in your big game of chess, and at first I came down hard on myself for being so gullible. But while you were out there wrapping up your press releases with your PR people or whatever the hell you were doing after breaking up with me, I had some time to think about what happened between us, and I realized truly, truly! It’s not me. It’s you.”

  I grabbed her hand and jerked her into my lap. Hands to her face, I pulled her mouth to mine and dove my tongue past her lips. She sobbed into my mouth, pulling away from me, only to turn back and kiss me harder.

  “God damn you!” she shouted in my face, pounding my chest.

  “I’m sorry.” I kissed her face, her eyelids, back to her mouth. “I’m sorry, Hanna.” My thumb curved under her jaw and pushed her face up, and my lips slid down her neck. Eyes closed, I inhaled sharply. She moaned brokenly, tears splashing down her cheeks to land in my hair as she grabbed the back of my head and pulled me closer. I held her by fistfuls of her shirt and brought her body down snugly against my pelvis as I scooted forward and caressed the space between her legs with my growing erection.

  I licked her jugular and kissed a wet trail up to her ear to whisper, “I’m so sorry, my love.” She shook her head, red hair swishing against my face. I grabbed her chin and made her look at me. She couldn’t fight her passion. That was there whether she wanted to admit it or not, and I didn’t need any admissions anyway, no more confessions. I just needed her to understand what I was trying to say. “I was wrong, and there’s nothing I can do to take that back. I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but…”

  I sucked her tongue into my mouth and moaned when her lower body shifted against me in an involuntary lap dance as she squirmed and writhed in arousal. Her breasts pressed against my chest, heaving. My chin rubbed the pale hilltops. I dropped my face to her cleavage and bit the inner curve of her left breast, tugging open the silk blouse she was wearing to expose her black bra. I reached under the sheer shirt and raced my fingers to the back of her bra to set her luscious breasts free.

  She threw her head back and cried out. I reached between us, unbuckling my pants. She assisted. She pushed me back against the seat and raked her nails down my chest, tearing open my shirt. Her hazel eyes glistened and her lips were parted with soft pants and moans, cries of affirmation as she got my cock free of my clothes and closed her nimble fingers around the engorged shaft. I grunted and bit my lower lip, looking up at her. She leaned forward and kissed me again.

  “You shouldn’t have,” she said against my mouth. “I was a really, really good woman for you.”

  Her thighs pressed against my outer thighs, and her hands went to the hem of her pencil skirt, drawing it higher up her hips until her white thong was exposed. She seductively reached down and tucked aside the narrow strip of fabric that was barring entrance. I groaned as she guided me into her hot, silky embrace, remembering very well the perfection of her passage. A high-pitched exclamation of appreciation flew from her lips as she pounded the seat behind my head in excitement at the pleasure. She gritted her teeth and accepted every inch of me.

  Her sinuous torso undulated as she brought her pelvis forward and rolled it back. My hands dropped to the curve of her ass to pull her closer, pushing deeper. With mind directly focused on pleasing her, I stroked
her inner walls with powerful upstrokes. She was right. I shouldn’t have hurt her. I wanted to show her how I had realized the error of my ways. My fingers moved up her back and around to her ribcage to caress her as her shirt dropped from her shoulders, exposing milky curves and planes. The sight of her was amazing. Hair the color of sunsets, lustrous and thick, floated around her shoulders as she moved up and down. Her hands rested on her thighs as she maneuvered. Her knees dug into the seat. Her high heels dangled over the edge. Her back arched, bringing her voluptuous globes to my mouth, and I closed my lips around a peak, making her moan as I sucked the nipple.

  I leveraged my wingtip shoes against the floor of the car and lifted my hips with each thrust, the intensity of the moment growing. There was something in the way she moved. I was chasing her with my passion. I felt her running faster and faster to the climax, and I didn’t want it to end. The way her wet river poured over my shaft, the way she gripped and released me, the way she brought her hands up to my shoulders and fucked me harder.

  “Don’t stop,” I growled. Grabbing her around the back with my arm, I held her closer and met her downward dance with upthrusts that threatened to pound her G-spot into submission. The car shook with the force. Her cries were loud enough they could probably be heard beyond the tinted glass, but I didn’t even care. Fuck the world. I wanted her. I only wanted her. She needed to know.

  “Hanna, I love—” I gritted my teeth and moaned helplessly as passion overtook me and I strained to hold the orgasm back.

  She didn’t stop. She pushed down harder, shaking and trembling with lust, crying out my name in a way that made me know myself. My fingertips dug into her back and she screamed and cooed her release, her pussy pulsating around my swollen cock as I exploded inside of her. I pressed my face into her neck. I didn’t want to let her go. I watched mutely as she pushed up from my lap and hurriedly pulled down her skirt. Sniffling and unable to stop crying, she pulled together her blouse and wiped her mouth, finger-combing her hair as she avoided my gaze.

  “Hanna,” I said in a desperate voice I hated to hear come from my own lips. “Hanna, don’t.”

  She tapped on the partition. I quickly adjusted my clothes, growling in frustration. The driver spoke over the intercom. “Yes, sir?”

  Hanna spoke up before I could stop her. “You can let me out here, please.”

  “Mr. Foster?”

  I felt the car decelerating. “No—Hanna, don’t do this.”

  “Let me out of this fucking car,” she said. There was force behind her words, spoken as if she expected to be obeyed.

  “Let her out,” I said to Boris. I felt the SUV slow to a halt, and I peered out the window at our location. “You know, we’re nearly to the penthouse, Hanna. Just let me get you there, and we can talk. If you still want to leave, I’ll have someone else take you home.”

  She grabbed her purse and pulled the strap over her shoulder, climbing over me to get out on the right side near the sidewalk. Her breasts swung in my face, free of the bra that she had pulled off and tucked into her purse. She opened the door and clambered out of the car. I stared at her in disbelief. She was really doing it.

  “I think I’ve mentioned to you before, Dane. I can find my own way home. I have to do this for myself.”

  “I love you.”

  “A day late and a dollar short.”

  “Hanna, I love you.”

  She looked down at her heeled foot and shook her head slightly. “Goodbye, Dane.”

  I hopped out of the vehicle and pursued her as she took off. It was the middle of the night, and it struck me as crazy, but I knew there wasn’t anything I could say to her to change her mind. I kept my mouth shut and watched her face. Her eyes were rimmed red from crying, but she still looked amazing. Strands of her hair floated around her stricken face, lips trembling. Her chest heaved in the red silk blouse. The black pencil skirt fell to just below her knees, and her shapely calves flowed to arched feet in black pumps.

  She tried to hail a taxi, and I threw up an arm and flagged one down for her. I opened the door and paid the cabby up front. “Are you going home?” I asked. She didn’t answer. She didn’t deign to look at me as she slammed the door shut in my face and let me watch her ride away.

  I ambled back to the SUV with shoulders dropped, feeling dejected, but I had to put on a happy face. Dane Foster didn’t have a choice but to be the guy who could walk out of the furnace unsinged. I could still smell the smoke, however…still feel the burns that no one else could see.

  #

  “Welcome home!”

  I knew there was a party, but not even a heads-up from Gervais, who knew I didn’t like surprises, could’ve prepared me for the mass of people filling my penthouse. I walked inside, laughing with arms outstretched. My little sister tossed up a handful of confetti over my head and rushed into my arms with a squeal of delight. “What are you doing here?” I said gleefully.

  Gervais beamed. “She flew in around the same time I did yesterday. We worked our asses off to get this shindig together.”

  “Oh my God, Dane! I thought I was never going to see you again!”

  I hugged her tightly and groaned happily. “Ah! You didn’t think they could take me out the game that easily, did you? Who are all these people? Look at how you’ve grown up!” I smiled as I held her back from me to look at the youngest Foster seedling. Blond hair fell shoulder length around her girlish face. She looked fantastic in a stylish black dress.

  Hard to believe she was the same girl who had aided Lynn in joining my brother Simon and talked me out of despair after the loss of the first woman I had thought I loved. It seemed we had both evolved. Selene looked a proper young lady, and I was truly in love now. I smiled sadly at the thought but pushed it from my mind.

  “Most of them are employees from Excelsis,” Gervais said. “And, sir, you really should make more friends. I had to pull a handful from the few old friends you had from your wilder days.”

  Selene grabbed my hand and led me around the room to meet the people Gervais had helped her assemble.

  I greeted a buddy of mine named Kevin I had run with prior to meeting Hanna. We had lost contact after that, but he had been with me the crazy night a couple girls had gotten my name tattooed on them, and he pumped my hand excitedly when I came around to him. “Haven’t seen you in forever, you asshole!” Kev said. He looked exactly as I remembered, right down to the terrible suit. I pointed at him and gave him a fist bump.

  “Argh! Man, I was out on a yacht! It took getting kidnapped for me to take a real vacation!” I joked.

  “Hey, days off are days off,” he said with a laugh. “Check me out. I brought along a few plus-ones. Hope you don’t mind.” He smiled wolfishly and gestured to four incredibly sexy women, all of whom could’ve walked right out of a Victoria’s Secret ad—hourglass figures, haute fashion, perfect hair. He beckoned for them, and they curled around his arms and neck, staring at me with provocative allure. I shook my head.

  “They look good on you! Have fun with them, Kevin.” I had to turn down his invitation to party together. There were others there I was obligated to see and speak with, and my newly bruised heart couldn’t handle being with other women. I missed Hanna.

  “Where’s Hanna?” Gervais asked, pulling me aside.

  I shrugged. “I don’t think she… I think it’s really over between us.”

  “Oh, sir.” Gervais dropped a supportive hand on my shoulder. “Sorry to hear that. I wish I hadn’t—well, I added her name to the welcome-home cake.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Anyway, thanks for getting with my sister and pulling this stuff together. I’m not one for parties and grand gestures like this, but I appreciate it.” I wanted to escape the melee. There were too many people. I needed to be alone.

  “The party is more for us than you. Sir, we’re celebrating. For a while there, it really didn’t look like you’d make it.” Gervais gestured to the rest of the party guests as he spoke, a cosm
opolitan in hand. He was in a rare laidback mood. Quite a different character from the on-the-clock executive assistant. I chuckled at the admission that he’d been worried about me.

  “I know,” I said. The chill fingers of death had tickled at my back, but I had gotten away. I was lucky to be alive. I surveyed the room again, wondering if I could escape the party like I had escaped my grisly fate. It didn’t look possible. I sighed.

  Gervais hung back, as Selene whisked me away again, chattering on about how much I had missed. Simon and Lynn had gotten married. Caroline and Cornelius were thinking about buying a summer house in France. I smiled and nodded, played the part of the involved special guest, but my mind was far away. Why hadn’t she given me a chance to show her I was ready to put forth an effort to love her fully, truly? I could count the amount of times I had told a woman I loved her on one hand.

  Tom Wakefield clapped me on my back, and I turned around with a ready smile, which slipped when I saw who it was. “Tommy!”

  He shook my hand. “Glad to have you back.”

  “Glad to be back. You can take your eyes off my office suites at Excelsis now. Daddy’s home.” I smiled with my head canted to the side, studying him. He nodded, loosening his tie. After I had been rescued, Gervais had taken the time to fill me in on Tom’s sneaky behavior since I had left.

  Selene sidled up to me with a drink, dragging me away before I could address some of the things that needed desperately to be handled between me and my supposed right-hand man at Excelsis.