Liquid Lies

by Hanna Martine

  Scrunching up her face, she pretended to consider. “Depends on where this mysterious home is.”

  Another sip. “It’s east.”

  She pressed her hip into the wall. “East of what?”

  “East of here.”

  They laughed together. He really wasn’t going to tell her, the impossible, mysterious man.

  “I’ve been thinking about something,” he said in earnest.

  “Yeah? What about?”

  “How we met. Where we are now.” He leaned closer. Though they’d spent the better part of three days naked or kissing, his proximity still made her dizzy. “Can you think of a crazier situation in which two people have tried to start a relationship? Think about the shit we’ve been through. Our atmosphere could hardly be called normal.”

  “What are you saying exactly?”

  He leaned both elbows on the wall, kicked his long legs out. “I know we can survive anything, but I think we should test it out.”

  “Test what out?”

  “Normalcy. Us, inside normalcy.”

  She laughed. “So you want to take me back to Virginia? Meet the parents?”

  “No, not that. Not yet, at least. I want to take you back to my home, not theirs.”

  “So how do you want to work this test of yours?”

  The dimple flashed. “My mom once told me there are two ways to test a relationship, to see the other person’s true colors. One was to wallpaper a room together.”

  She snorted. “And the other?”

  “Road trip.”

  They left two days later.

  Reed rented a generic blue two-door for the drive he cryptically described as “long.” She’d sent him into her old apartment to get clothes and things while she’d stayed out in the hall and shouted directions. He didn’t mind at all. Even took along a few of her gigantic art books out of his own interest.

  Griffin was under orders to put the place on the market. When she came back for meetings and rituals and such, she’d stay at a hotel.

  The rental car idled in the street, Reed leaning casually against the driver’s side door. Gwen and Griffin stood facing each other in his open front door, warm September San Francisco sunshine on their faces.

  He reached up, grabbed the door frame with one hand. “You know, I think I’m a little scared.”

  “I don’t think I’ve heard you say that since the day we graduated high school.”

  He chuckled. “You know what I mean.”

  “I do,” she said seriously.

  “I wish you were staying. At least for a little longer.”

  She glanced at Reed, who was trying not to watch them but wasn’t doing a very good job. He’d firmly left the Retriever—and apparently all his cover abilities—behind. “I can’t.”

  Griffin mistook her meaning and glared at Reed. “If he’s making you…”

  She placed a calming hand in the center of Griffin’s chest. “He’s not. Not at all. We don’t feel the way we do about each other because we were thrown into the lion pit and clawed our way out. But we’d like the chance to prove it to ourselves. I think we deserve that. That’s why we’re leaving.”

  “That’s it. Throw the Ofarian world into upheaval and take off. Nice one, Carroway.”

  She laughed lightly. “That’s right, I’m a coward.” Then, soberly, “So. Conference call tomorrow with the new finance group? I’ll make sure I’m somewhere with good cell reception.”

  He nodded. “Your suggestion makes sense: dividing the Company assets among all innocent Ofarians. The audit committee will approve it, I’m sure.”

  “I hope so.”

  He laughed. “After your incredible address yesterday, they’ll do whatever you want.”

  That’s not what she’d hoped for at all. She hadn’t deposed one ruler to take over herself. The Ofarians needed to start from a clean slate.

  That was why, in yesterday’s video address securely sent to all Ofarians, she appointed Griffin as her interim spokesperson until they could establish a new government outside the Company. She agreed to sit on the restructuring task force—and embraced being able to help the people she loved—but they needed someone other than another Carroway at the head of the table.

  It had taken her an entire day to write that speech. Much of it she’d already told her father and everyone else after the caravan attack. Griffin had said the response was overwhelmingly positive.

  There, in the open doorway, Gwen looked at her dearest friend. “However we restructure, however we go forward, it will be on a better road than the one we traveled before. Besides”—she cupped his smooth cheek in her hand—“they’ll have a strong leader.”

  He shifted uncomfortably. “I would never say this to anyone else but you, but why would they want a failure to lead them?”

  She drew back. “Failure?”

  “I had a responsibility to keep you safe, Gwen. My only responsibility. And then I let a Primary go with knowledge of us.” He coughed. “I couldn’t even keep the girl.”

  “You know what I think? I think sometimes the most reluctant of leaders turns out to be the most fair and able.”

  “You don’t know if they’ll vote me in.”

  She smiled. “Yes, I do.”

  “Thank you. For your faith.”

  They embraced for a long time, rocking, then she backed out into the sun.

  “I want you to come back in January,” he said, “and lead the Ice Rites.”

  She let out a little gasp. “You don’t know if the people will choose me for such an honor.”

  His turn to smile. “Yes, I do.”

  She started to back down the walkway toward the street. “You know where to find me.”

  He raised a dark eyebrow. “I do? You don’t even know where he’s taking you.”

  She waggled the shiny new cell phone Reed had bought her when he’d gone out for the car. Only three people had its number. “I meant that I’m never far.”

  He put a hand to his heart. “No. You aren’t.”

  She had to turn then, to walk away.

  “So.” She plopped into the passenger seat of the sedan as Reed stuffed himself behind the wheel. “Where we headed?”

  Reed’s grin was borderline evil.

  FORTY-FOUR

  Six weeks of sitting on the edge of her seat. Of asking, every time they crossed a state line or entered a city’s limits, whether or not this was the place, if this was where he called home. Every time he’d throw her an impish smile, which meant no.

  Then, depending on where they were, they’d check into a hotel, shower, fuck until they were hungry, grab something to eat, hit some crazy-hilarious regional museum, or hang out in a local bar to chat with the townies.

  She saw parts of the United States she’d never even heard of before. One afternoon, just outside Jackson, Wyoming, she found herself looking up at an airplane with distaste. Why would anyone choose to travel with a view of only the seat in front of you? Why couldn’t everyone have Reed as a traveling companion?

  He cracked inappropriate jokes when she demanded he pull over and let her pee. Somewhere in Idaho he coaxed her out of her fear of horses, and she was hooked. She made him ride every day for the three they were in town. Across the barren stretches of South Dakota, he turned off the radio to listen as she told him all about her life. He didn’t pressure her when she really, truly didn’t want to eat venison at a roadside diner on the Wisconsin-Minnesota border. She even learned the Lakota language.

  She spent long stretches of empty highway e-mailing back every Ofarian who contacted her directly, most of whom she’d never met but was honored to know.

  It was the best six weeks of her life.

  One evening, as they pulled into a boutique hotel in Minneapolis, her phone rang. The screen showed a San Francisco area code. The third person who knew her number.

  “Gwen?”

  She wondered if he’d call. “Xavier. Hi.”

  “I…” Even over the
fuzzy cell phone line, she detected the shaking in his voice. “Gwen, I don’t know what to say.”

  “Then don’t say anything.” She looked at her lap as Reed glanced over questioningly. “Just take it. It’s yours, the way I see it.”

  “All your money?”

  “I don’t want it. I don’t need it. Most of all, I don’t deserve it.”

  “But it’s so much!”

  “And now it’s yours.” A few seconds passed in silence. “Do you know what you’re going to do?”

  Xavier exhaled. She pictured him running his hands through his tangled hair. “Adine’s helping me get settled. There’s so much to know…so much to think about…”

  “I’m glad Adine’s with you.”

  “She said she’ll stick around for a bit. She’s got plans of her own, though. I don’t know what they are.”

  In the background she heard waves crashing against land.

  “Thank you, Gwen. A thousand times, thank you.”

  “If you ever need anything…”

  The line went dead.

  She shut the phone and cradled it in her lap.

  “Xavier?” Reed asked softly.

  “I gave him my money.”

  He whistled in a high arc then nodded. “It was the right thing to do.” He reached over and took her hand. “You won’t need it anyway.”

  That brought a smile. “Plan to take care of me, do you?”

  “Hell no. I’m retired. Figured you’d be the one taking care of me. Get your ass back to work, missy. Someone always needs translators.”

  She loved the way he could make her laugh when she least expected it. Whenever he did, she flashed back to the moment they met, and how the man in that dark alley was so very, very opposite from the man sitting next to her now.

  He still didn’t make any move to get out of the car. “I was thinking,” he said to the steering wheel, “of going to school.”

  Pride swept through her in a warm glow. “To do what?”

  He shrugged. “Don’t know. Something else.”

  She crawled into his lap and pressed her lips to his, slowly tracing his mouth with her tongue, her body coming alive. “That,” she whispered, “is a wonderful idea.”

  She figured out where Reed lived before they ever entered the state. Their travel route had taken them up through northern California and Oregon, across Idaho and Wyoming and South Dakota. He’d been as excited as she to see those areas, but when they crossed into Minnesota, she noticed a change in him. A calm like he’d been there before, perhaps often. After a few days in upper and central Wisconsin, that calm transformed into excitement.

  They drove leisurely south through Wisconsin, enjoying the autumn color. Reed practically danced in the driver’s seat. They crossed the Illinois border and Reed groaned, “Oh, my God, yes.” He veered off the highway and pulled into a flashy diner-style eatery in the heart of bustling suburbia. “Come on. I’ve been dying for an Italian beef with hot peppers. You’ll love it. I promise.”

  “Yeah, that’s what you said about ostrich burgers.”

  But he was right this time, and she understood the reason behind his food-lust orgasm. The taste of the dripping sandwich made of thin-cut beef danced on her tongue. The mound of hot peppers made her lips sting and tingle. It felt like when he kissed her.

  He grinned at her over his second sandwich. “Now this…this is Chicago.”

  And that was where they ended up.

  Reed owned the penthouse apartment in a twenty-story building overlooking Lincoln Park. The park showed off for Gwen, wearing its autumn best. Thanks to the shedding trees, she could see down into the nearby zoo. A still, straight lagoon cut through the park, perpendicular to the expansive, cobalt blue Lake Michigan.

  All that water, so close.

  No matter the weather, there were always a few souls running or biking along the beachfront path. To the south rose downtown, a sparkling and stunning skyline. She spent a lot of time out on his terrace, memorizing the city that had captivated him. The city he called home.

  It was there he found her at sunset on Halloween.

  “What are you doing out here? It’s freezing.”

  She turned, smiling. “I can’t get over the view. It doesn’t have the same feeling from inside.”

  “Don’t expect me to open these doors come February.”

  She waved away the ominous words. He’d warned her about the winters here, that her Californian blood wouldn’t be able to handle it, but with him beside her, she could handle anything.

  She clapped her hands like a little girl and bounced on the balls of her feet. “So do I get my surprise now? You’ve been gone all day.”

  He rewarded her with a flash of dimple, and the sight of it pulled her inside like a tractor beam. He reached for her, crushed her against him. Their tongues stroked and she felt the familiar, delicious pulsing between her legs. On a groan, he pushed her away.

  “Please don’t stop now,” she begged.

  He raised a falsely innocent eyebrow while adjusting his jeans around his growing erection. “I thought you wanted your surprise.”

  “I do, but I’ve decided it can wait.”

  He peeled off his shirt, his fierce blue eyes holding hers the whole time. He tossed the shirt onto the stack of college brochures fanned out on the coffee table.

  “Mmm,” she purred, her gaze raking over his abs. “I like the delay already.”

  Then she saw the white gauze taped over his left shoulder and biceps, and her breath caught in her throat. “What’s that?”

  Reed inhaled, deep and long. “Come closer. Let me show you.”

  Almost eight weeks they’d been together. Eight weeks to memorize every inch of his massive tattoo. All the leaves, the hidden images, the tiny words. He’d told her most of their meanings. For some he remained tight-lipped, and she was all right with that.

  But that spot trailing down his shoulder to his elbow, now covered with gauze, had always been blank.

  She eyed him. “It’s not my name, is it? That’s so cheesy.”

  “No, I’m not that stupid.”

  She punched him in the opposite shoulder. Like a rock, he barely moved, but instead grabbed her around the waist and kissed her again. Heat blazed in his eyes as he leaned back and slowly began to peel off the gauze. She stared at the new black lines, speechless.

  A new vine roped down his shoulder and twined around his biceps. At first she thought it a simple branch, lined with the same leaves that decorated his torso, but there was never anything simple about Reed. She leaned closer. The vine was not a solid stalk, but many, many words packed tightly together.

  He pointed. “Start here.”

  She squinted. “Two million dollars? Is that what it says?”

  Reed never took his eyes from her face.

  “That what I’m worth?”

  “You’re worth more.” The huskiness in his voice reached deep inside, wrapped her heart, and pulled tight. “Keep going.”

  She did, reading aloud. “Two million dollars. San Francisco. Lake Tahoe. Oregon. Idaho. Wyoming. South Dakota. Minnesota. Wisconsin. Chicago…” Her voice trailed off to a whisper.

  Their story, on his flesh. Forever.

  “You like it?” He sounded a little scared.

  She kissed his arm, right below the name of the city in which they stood. “I love it.”

  He took her face in his hand, thumb brushing her lips, fingers digging deep into her hair in a gesture she’d come to know as both possessive and adoring. “There’s room for more.”

  She touched his warm chest. His nipples hardened and she trailed her nails down his stomach to the snap of his jeans.

  “You know,” she said, “someone once told me that you love me.”

  He didn’t go pale this time. Didn’t retreat. He bent closer. “Whoever that was is a damn smart bastard.”

  “So it’s true?” Absolutely nothing else existed in the world outside of that apartment.

/>   “I’m so in love with you,” he said, “I just may stamp your name across my scalp.”

  She reached up and ran a hand over his smooth head. At the same time, she snagged moisture droplets from the air and slammed them together to create thin rivulets. She used them to swirl glistening, tantalizing lines over his scalp and neck, down his pecs, and around his ribs. They were like extensions of her own nerves, these liquid teases. She could feel more of his skin at once and it was exquisite.

  A rumble rose up from deep within his chest. “Oh, God. You know I love that.”

  She dried him off, curled her fingers inside his jeans, and pulled open the fly. His breath hitched.

  “And I love you,” she said against his mouth.

  They were completely and utterly alone. No one to fear hearing them from the next room or the floor below. No more worrying about maids wanting to clean their room. No more burying their orgasms against their arms or in pillows.

  “Reed.” She smiled wickedly. “Make me scream.”

  Turn the page for a preview of

  Hanna Martine’s next Elementals book

  A TASTE OF ICE

  Coming soon from Berkley Sensation!

  The first morning of the Turnkorner Film Festival and already you could throw a rock and hit a celebrity. For two weeks each winter, that’s exactly what Xavier wanted to do.

  He hadn’t moved to White Clover Creek, Colorado five years ago for the swarms of film lovers and demanding Hollywood types, but for the other fifty weeks of the year when the insular world of the nineteenth-century mountain town helped him forget what needed to be forgotten.

  Today, strangers hogged the ice- and salt-covered sidewalks, jostling him from all sides. He ducked his head, hunched his shoulders, soldiered on. He hated the crowds but he loved the cold: that stinging cloud of air sucked deep into his lungs, the hurt of freezing toes. Anything to remind him he lived free.

  Just one more block up Waterleaf Avenue. Just fifty more yards and then he could hide himself in Shed’s restaurant kitchen. He’d tie back his hair, grip his knives with an intense sigh of relief, and then spend the next fourteen hours thinking only about the three-by-three-foot station in front of him.