by Ella Brooke
The thought that I’d gone to prison for two and a half years, while the real thief might still be out there stealing—stealing from kids with cancer, no less—lit a fire under me. I picked up the phone, dialed a number in Kensington Media’s accounting department, and explained the situation to Dave Norton, an old acquaintance from college, asking him to look into it. Then I put down the phone and looked up at Char, feeling a strange mixture of sensations in my chest.
On the one hand, the thought that my father had thrown me to the wolves to protect Au hurt like hell. But if I was going to be totally honest with myself, I’d always known he’d favored Au, and maybe with some justification. God knew I’d gone out of my way to embarrass the family and piss on our good name all the way through my youth.
On the other hand, the idea that Au might be entirely innocent made hope swell in me. All this time, for three whole years, I’d carried around the awful weight of thinking my little brother was a thief. Instead, he might be perfectly innocent. He might have no knowledge at all of what our father had done, and sincerely believe me to be a criminal.
The thought made my heart lift until I thought I might float up to the ugly, water-stained ceiling.
I stood up, went around the desk, and wrapped my arms around Char. “Thank you,” I said into the copper depths of her hair.
“Don’t thank me yet. We might not be able to prove any of this.”
“Yeah, but you—“ I drew in a long breath, breathing her sweet fragrance into my lungs. “You believed in me, Char, even when you didn’t have any reason to. Thank you for that. Thank you for believing in me.”
“You’re welcome.” She pressed her nose into my woolen suit coat and chuckled. “You know, I’m not used to seeing you in a suit and tie. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I think I miss the leather jacket and jeans.”
“I’m trying to look like a responsible corporate citizen.”
“I know.” She looked up at me with a seductive smile. “I just think I like the bad boy better.”
Her words hit me right in the solar plexus, driving the breath from my body. “Char. We really shouldn’t—“
“Just a few minutes,” she said persuasively, running her hand down my chest. “A quickie on your desk. That wouldn’t be so bad, would it?”
In fact, it sounded like the best possible thing in the world. I was suddenly, acutely conscious that it had been three days, three whole days, since we’d made love. Which abruptly struck me as really, really dumb. Why hadn’t I just sent the limo over for her again the last three nights?
Well, because she’d put in long days working at the diner, and I’d been studying the circulation numbers and back editions of the Pinecone Gazette, that’s why. But I still felt like I’d been stupid.
You need to get your priorities in order, Kensington.
That wasn’t my father’s voice in my head but my own. And it was true. I was tired of living a meaningless, empty life of luxury or imprisonment, so work was important and I intended to dedicate myself to it fully. But that didn’t mean neglecting the woman I—
Well, the woman who meant so much to me.
I caught her hand just before it made its way over my belt buckle. Fuck, she was eager. “Let me at least put the blind down,” I said hoarsely.
I did so, then grabbed her and pulled her against me.
She was warm and soft, and my cock—which was already very much on board with this whole quickie idea—responded to her nearness, growing even harder. I groaned, pressing my face into her hair.
“What did you like best?” I mumbled into her hair. “Of everything we did the other night, what was your favorite?”
Her voice was very small against my shoulder. “The kissing.”
I drew back and looked at her, blinking. “The…kissing?”
She nodded, a blush beginning to spread over her fair skin. “I like kissing you, Hunter.”
Huh. I’d never been the kissing sort really, but I did remember sharing long, tender kisses with her as our bodies had become one. It had happened the first time we’d made love too. I’d hardly ever kissed a woman during intercourse, but something about Char just compelled me to seek out her mouth with my own.
“All right, then. Kissing it is.” I lowered my mouth and kissed her very gently.
She clung to me, and we shared soft, chaste kisses for long, uncounted moments. Eventually I couldn’t bear it any longer, and I swiped my tongue over her lips, asking for entrance. She granted it, and I slipped my tongue into her mouth, exploring, caressing. Hesitantly, she touched the tip of her tongue to mine, and heat exploded through me. My knees went weak, and I sat down heavily on top of the desk.
She seemed to like that because she promptly crawled into my lap. The two of us awkwardly tried to stretch out together on my desk, but it wasn’t easy because it wasn’t exactly a huge surface. Eventually I gave up in disgust and just sat on the edge with her in my lap straddling me.
She seemed to like the idea of being on top. Her kisses grew more heated, her caresses bolder, and her hips moved against mine.
“Shit.” I groaned. “You need to stop, right now, or I’m going to come in my pants. And this is a nice suit.”
“Okay. I’ll stop.” She drew back, and I immediately regretted telling her to stop. Who cared about a suit anyway? I was a billionaire, for fuck’s sake. I could buy all the suits I wanted.
But I regretted it a little less when she rose to her feet and began taking her clothes off like a stripper.
Well, not like a stripper, not exactly. There were no dance moves, no overly sultry looks. But unlike the other night, when she’d hesitated to let me see her, she seemed every bit as confident in her body and her own appeal as any dancer at a gentlemen’s club. She just peeled her t-shirt off, slowly and deliberately, while I watched. Then she shimmied out of her jeans, leaving her clad in two bits of silk. Today they were pale pink, barely darker than her fair skin. I swallowed hard.
“Want me to take off the rest?” Her voice was throaty, sensual, and I nodded, unable to tear my gaze away from her.
“Yes. Please.”
She slowly stripped them off, leaving her bare, clad in nothing but a cloud of sunset hair and a smile. I stared at her, aware that my mouth was hanging open but somehow unable to close it.
“You are beautiful,” I said at last, and she chuckled.
“So are you. Let’s get that suit off.”
“No.” I came out of my lust-induced coma and started unbuckling my belt. “I can’t wait that long.”
Seconds later, I had my slacks unzipped, my boxers shoved out of the way, and a condom rolled on. I pulled her back onto my lap, and she wrapped a hand around my cock and guided it into her silken sheath while I threw back my head and groaned.
“Don’t forget the kissing,” she reminded me.
One of my hands was engaged in keeping her steady on my lap, but I buried the other one in her hair, pulled her to me, and captured her mouth with mine. She got the hang of moving on me easily enough and began riding me while I kissed her, long, drugging kisses that made me weak. I hoped they did the same for her.
It felt wonderful, and somewhere faintly in the back of my mind, I wondered why I’d never liked kissing during sex before. It was incredible. It felt so intimate.
At that point I realized I’d answered my own question. Sex with other women had never been intimate. It had been fun, yes. Pleasurable, sure. But not intimate.
But with Char, sex wasn’t just sex. It wasn’t even just lovemaking. It was something so profound and, yes, intimate that I didn’t even have a name for it.
Even a noon quickie on my desk was a glimpse of Heaven.
In this position, I could feel her responses more clearly. I felt her inner muscles begin to flutter, felt her trembling, and I knew she was about to come. She moved harder on me, and I couldn’t hold back any longer. I came in a long, hot surge, and her body clenched on me as she climaxed too, our cries muffl
ed in each other’s mouths.
Afterward I held her for a long, long time. I knew I had to get back to work, but somehow I didn’t want to let go of her.
I never wanted to let go.
Chapter Twelve
Charlotte
The night air was cool, but not as chilly as it had been. February had slipped into March, and although spring was still some distance away…it was coming. I could feel it in the air.
I sat down on the front porch, my daughter in my lap, and drew in a long breath of fresh air. I’d only gotten home an hour ago, and before that I’d spent the day in the diner, breathing in the scents of greasy food. It was nice to just relax outdoors. Mom and Jacob were cleaning up in the kitchen, and I had this small moment alone with my daughter.
She was sleepy, and she cuddled up against me. I dropped my face against her hair, smelling baby shampoo and soap—because she’d had a bath just before dinner—and the sweet, indefinable scent of a small child. That fragrance filled me with a strange sense of melancholy. She’d already left babyhood behind, and before long she’d be leaving her preschool days behind too.
I thought about Hunter who hadn’t gotten the chance to see her as a baby, who hadn’t been able to share in the joys of her first smile and her first tooth and watching her learn to crawl. Not to mention the joys of spitting up and colic and being awakened all night long. Parenting a baby had its ups and downs, but I still felt a pang when I thought about him missing out on all those precious moments.
Over the past couple of weeks, I’d tried to make up for it by leafing through all our photo albums with him, even letting him see the so-so photos I hadn’t bothered to print that were saved on my computer. But in a way I imagined that hurt him even more, since it was a stark reminder that he hadn’t been there to see it all in person. I saw a wistful expression in his eyes whenever we looked at photos of Diana together, and it made my heart ache for him.
But the past was in the past, and we were trying to make something of the present and build it into a future. At least I was. I wasn’t sure what Hunter wanted. Ever since I’d given him the information about Rose Ambrose, I’d felt that he was holding himself back somehow. Oh, he still made love to me with enthusiasm whenever the opportunity presented itself, but I had the distinct impression he was waiting for something.
And I was pretty sure I knew what that something was.
The door opened, and Jacob came out into the night and sat down beside me. “She looks sleepy,” he said, looking at Diana with an affectionate smile.
“We’re both sleepy.” I yawned.
“Go on to bed. I can tuck her in.”
“Thanks, but I want to stay up a while longer.”
“In case your boyfriend calls?” His eyes glittered with annoyance. He’d put up with Hunter hanging around for my and Diana’s sakes, and hadn’t started a fight even once, but it was painfully clear he still hated Hunter’s guts.
“Don’t call him that. He’s not my boyfriend. I don’t know what he is really.”
“What he is,” Jacob said between his teeth, “is a felon.”
That wasn’t unreasonable, as I hadn’t told him of my suspicions about Rose Ambrose just in case nothing came of them. Even so, we’d been over this ground many weary times before, and I sighed.
“He’s trying really hard, Jacob.”
“Yeah, sure, he’s turned over a new leaf all right. Wonder how long it’ll be till he stomps all over it just like he did in high school?”
I was too tired to hold my tongue for once. The words just seemed to leap out of my mouth of their own accord. “What happened between you two back then anyway?”
Jacob looked briefly surprised, but then he shrugged a shoulder. “Nothing all that earthshaking, I guess. There was this girl.”
“A girl? You hate him so much, I’d always just assumed it was something really big.”
“Really big in a way, I guess.” His eyes went unfocused, like he was seeing the past. “She was the first girl I ever really cared for. Marjorie Dougherty, her name was. I had a huge thing for her, Char. I mean, I really loved her. I asked her out to the prom…and she said yes.”
“And then what?”
“The two of us were holding hands in the hall about a week later, and Hunter came along. And he said, ‘Hey, baby, you don’t have to settle for a dirty little rock when you can have a great big diamond. Come with me to the prom, and I’ll pick you up in a limo. You’ll have the night of your life.’”
His words hung in the air a long moment. At last I said, “And?”
He shrugged again. “She dumped me and went with Hunter to the prom. That was all. But it was enough.”
“I was an asshole.”
At the baritone voice beneath us, Jacob and I both jerked around. There, at the bottom of the stairs, was Hunter.
Apparently he’d foregone the Harley tonight and walked over because there was no way we could have missed the roar of his bike shattering the silence of the street. He came up the stairs and sat down in the unoccupied wicker chair.
“I’m sorry,” he said, looking straight at Jacob. “I was an arrogant, elitist jerk in high school—and in college. Pretty much till I got arrested, actually. I’m sorry I broke you and Marj up. I knew you loved her.”
Jacob’s lips drew back in a snarl. “So why the fuck did you do it?”
“Language,” I said reflexively, even though Diana had fallen asleep on my shoulder by now.
“It was stupid,” Hunter said with a sigh. “You were spending all this time with her, and it was—well, it was like you’d forgotten about me. I didn’t have a lot of friends, Jacob, and I had it kind of rough at home. You were pretty much all I had, you and your family. And when you started spending every afternoon with Marj, I guess I just…“
“Yeah.” Jacob nodded slowly, looking like a light was dawning in his brain, illuminating the past. “I guess I kind of ditched you, didn’t I?”
“Kind of. And you know, it just…made me mad. I admit that it didn’t take a lot to make me mad back then. Like I said, I was an—“ He looked at our sleeping daughter. “A jerk. The truth is that I didn’t care about Marjorie. I just wanted to hurt you. I’m sorry, Jacob.”
“Well, it’s about time you two boys got that out in the open.” The door opened again, and my mother came out bearing a laden plate. “Cookies, anyone?”
Hunter rose to his feet, offering her his chair, and then settled down at my feet with a chocolate chip cookie and a contented expression on his face. I had a grip on Diana with one hand, but I stroked his hair with the other. He leaned his head against my knee, practically purring. His long, dark eyelashes fluttered shut.
Mom sat down in the vacated chair, smiling beatifically. “Now that the ancient history is finally out of the way, perhaps you boys can be friends again.”
“Mom.” Jacob sounded irritated. “We’re not boys, and we’re not just going to become best friends again. Hunter’s a—well—“
“Actually,” Hunter said lazily without bothering to open his eyes, “I’m not.”
Jacob blinked at him. “Not what?”
“Not a felon.” Hunter opened his eyes and looked at him. “That is what you were about to say, right?”
My heart pounded so hard in my chest I worried it might wake Diana up. I didn’t say anything, just listened.
“What the f—heck are you talking about, Hunter? We all know what you did. Everyone knows.”
Hunter looked up at me, a faint smile curving his mouth.
I answered for him. “Hunter didn’t steal those funds, Jacob. He went to jail to protect his brother Au.”
Jacob stared blankly. “Are you telling me Austin was the one who stole the money? The Golden Boy of the Kensingtons is an embezzler? Do you really expect me to believe that?”
“Nope,” Hunter answered.
Jacob shook his head so hard that his overgrown, auburn hair fell into his eyes. “You’re confusing the hell out of me
, man.”
“I thought Au was the one who stole those funds,” Hunter said. “That’s what my father told me. He asked me to take the fall for Au, and because he was my little brother, I did. I gave up two and a half years of my life for that kid. But Char here did some digging—“ He smiled up at me, the corners of his eyes crinkling—“and began to suspect that the actual thief was my father’s girlfriend, Rose Ambrose. I asked a friend of mine in the accounting department of Kensington Media to check it out. He got back to me, and we got the evidence to the cops.”
“And?” I said breathlessly.
“And Rose has been arrested.”
I squealed and ruffled his hair. He grinned.
“I’m told I’ll be exonerated,” he said. “And given the circumstances, the cops are willing to overlook the little fact that I lied to them. So it’s all over. Thanks to you, Char. It’ll all be in the papers tomorrow.”
“Oh, my God.” Jacob stared at him, looking flabbergasted. “Hunter, I am so sorry.”
“You didn’t know.” Hunter extended a hand to my brother, who shook it firmly.
“What about Au?” I demanded. “Does he know?”
“Yes.” Hunter’s eyes softened. “He cried when he found out, Char. All this time he honestly believed I was the embezzler, and he was heartbroken to learn the truth. He even offered me the CEO position at Kensington Media.”
I drew in a sharp breath. “Are you going to take it?”
He shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. I honestly don’t think I have what it takes. Not right now, and maybe not ever. Au might be young, but he’s doing a really incredible job with the company. He’s got a head for business, and the educational background besides. After all—“ A note of poorly concealed pride crept into his voice. “—the kid did go to Harvard.”
“Okay, so what about you?” Jacob asked. “What are you going to do now?”
“Hmmmm.” Hunter leaned into my knee again. “Au suggested a VP position in Kensington Media, but you know what? I’m kind of enjoying my work at the Pinecone Gazette. It might sound silly, but I really think I want to try to turn it around, to make it something other than a laughing stock. I want to take it regional and develop it into a serious newspaper.” He looked up at me. “To do that, though, I’ll need to hire some good investigative reporters. Know anyone who might be interested?”