Fool’s Paradise: Cartwright Brothers, Book 5

by Anderson, Lilliana

  “I remember.” He sees. He notices. He remembers my words.

  “Wouldn’t you like to stop fighting, Blair? Just for this next two weeks with me. Be you. Be raw. Be angry if you want. But don’t be someone else when this may be all we have.”

  “I’m a mess inside, Toby. You don’t want me raw.”

  “But I do. That first night when I walked you home from the tavern, I’d been out with Rogue so he could do his business before he settled in for the night. I saw you walk past, right down a deserted walkway in the dark. And I thought, ‘Wow, that girl either has giant balls or a death wish.’”

  “So you followed me?” I couldn’t help but smile. If I hadn’t known who he was, finding a man as huge as Toby following me in the dark would have been a little concerning.

  “Kind of. I figured there was only one place you’d be going that time of night, so I put Rogue back in the cabin and headed to the tavern to make sure you got there OK, and of course, to walk you home.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Because I wouldn’t have been able to rest if I didn’t make sure you were OK.”

  “Do you do that for all the girls?”

  “No,” he whispered, those soothing fingers of his still moving against my back. “Just the ones who get under my skin.”

  Closing my eyes for a moment, I swallowed down the emotions he was dragging out of me. He was so lovely, so honest, so amazingly perfect. I couldn’t help wonder what my life would have been like if I’d met him, or someone like him, when I was younger and more capable of being saved. Before Adelaide…

  I inhaled a shaky breath. “Do you blame me for your dog and your boat?”

  “No. I blame Grey and his men.”

  “I’m sorry. I feel responsible. If I hadn’t come looking for you…”

  “Like you said, you were just doing your job. My mother will have to answer for it when we get to her. She should have known better than to send someone. I left for a reason. I didn’t exactly hide what I’d done beforehand.”

  “What did you do? I mean, I know you killed some of Grey’s men. But what happened? Why did you kill them?”

  He went quiet for a moment, his fingers paused their movement on my back, and I worried he was about to clam up again—another strange moment for me.

  “Unapologetically,” I reminded him.

  “You know that drug transport Grey was accused of attacking?”

  “Yes.”

  “It wasn’t him, well, not at first. My brothers and I hit it as a favour we owed to the Grim Order. It was the job that would set us all free—we’d hoped. My brother, Nate, he’s the next one down from me, he was growing poppies for our not-so-friendly resident drug lords. When he met his wife, he decided he wanted out of the drug business and burnt the field down. The people he worked for didn’t appreciate losing their crop and came to collect, and the only way we could pay them was by pulling massive, risky jobs on a regular schedule.”

  “Holy shit. That would have put you on the cop’s radar.”

  “They’d been looking for us for years, but they’d never found us. They hauled Jasmine in for questioning a couple of times after my father got busted, but that was all unrelated stuff they were looking for a scapegoat on. We’d been so careful over the years it was thought that we were legitimate small business owners, slowly building our wealth through real estate holdings and clever investments.”

  “Except you’ve been stealing and laundering profits this entire time?” I put in, knowing how the criminal world worked. Even though I worked for a legitimate business and got paid through Big Jim’s accountant, I knew Big Jim’s books weren’t exactly copasetic. We worked for a lot of criminals who paid a premium for our services. Most of those jobs couldn’t go on the books and needed to be separated into smaller, more believable and legal jobs before the cash was legit.

  “Exactly. But pulling these big jobs meant they’d created a task force whose entire reason for going to work every day was to figure out who we were and bring us to justice.”

  “Fuck me. So, what did you do? Go to the Grim Order for help?” The idea seemed insane, but I’d never been a thief with a task force after my arse.

  “Kind of. It’s complicated: my youngest brother, Kris met a girl who’s like a daughter to one of the MC’s top ranking guys. That guy—he goes by Breaker—became involved with my mother. She told him about the task force—which I wanted to throttle her for because only she and I knew about it—then he took it upon himself to get the club involved. They struck a deal with the cartel involving distribution and drug running that meant we were free of our debt.”

  “Oh, no.” Bikers didn’t do anything out of the kindness of their own hearts. I held my breath waiting for the next part, knowing in my gut exactly what tied this together and set us on this specific path.

  “Yeah,” he said. “There was a catch. In return for getting the cartel off our backs, we owed the Grim Order a favour. One they would choose and call for whenever it pleased them. We weren’t allowed to refuse.”

  “And that favour was the drug transport,” I stated, my stomach aching as his story got worse.

  He nodded. “One last huge job and we wouldn’t owe a thing to anybody. We would be free.”

  “How did Grey get involved?”

  “That’s the big twist in this story,” he said, rolling onto his back and raking his fingers through his hair with a sigh. “My sister-in-law, the one with the ties to the Grim Order, also had past ties with Grey. Well, not Grey, some guy who’d gone to work for him. She’d floated the idea of hitting the transport to this guy, thinking Grey might solve our drug problem for us.”

  “This was before the bikers got involved?”

  “Yeah. Once Breaker stepped in, we called the whole thing off with Grey’s man, paid him to keep his mouth shut, and that was supposed to be that. Ronnie—my sister-in-law—had a soft spot for this guy and his wife, swore they were trustworthy—”

  “But they weren’t.” I couldn’t seem to stop myself from jumping into his story. “They told Grey, then his men figured out your rendezvous point and hit you there. Oh, my god.”

  “That’s exactly what happened. The actual hit went off without a hitch, but once we started unloading the truck, Grey’s men turned up and all hell broke loose. It was an absolute blood bath, Blair. Men going down left right and centre. I thought we were all done for. But when they hit my brother”—his voice faltered—“something inside me clicked and, I don’t know how, I killed them all, one after another, methodically. I killed them because they would’ve killed us if I didn’t. I had to. And I was so pissed about it, incensed we’d been betrayed. The moment we were safe and the bikers had the drugs, I went back and took out that bastard and his wife in retaliation.” He barely forced out that last word as he wiped a hand across this face and released a shaky breath. “That was my lowest point. I have nightmares where I click and shoot up shopping centres, schools.” Blowing out his breath, he knitted his brow before he turned his head and focused on me. “You know, I never really wanted to be a thief, but I especially didn’t want to be a killer.”

  “Oh, Toby,” I whispered, running my hand back and forth over his chest. He caught my hand in his and held it against his thumping heart. Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

  “That’s what I did, why Grey wants me dead, and also why I left. I wasn’t running away, I just needed it to stop. I’d become exactly what I never wanted to be. A person who snapped necks and put people down, the Cartwright garbage disposal unit. Each time I had to do it, it felt like I was killing off a piece of my soul, and I didn’t want that. You know?” He blew out his air, lips tight as he forced his expression to stay steady. “Once I knew my brother would survive, I left with what shred of a soul I had left. Now I’m going to throw that away on Grey. But at least everyone else will be safe.” He shrugged, trying to act like it was no big deal. But it was a huge deal. The more I learned about him, the more I learned w
hat a selfless man he was. He deserves freedom.

  I leaned over and kissed him before I cried. Lacking the word power, and possibly the emotional maturity, to tell him exactly how his words had stirred me. I showed him instead, climbing on top of him and using my body to convey what I hoped he understood as empathy, understanding, sorrow and so many other things that it felt like a flood coming out of me. I wasn’t frantic in my movement, not like I’d been earlier that night, I was more… loving; I suppose was the word. I was coming to care for Toby, far more than I’d ever cared for another human besides myself.

  “Blair?” he whispered, as I sat back and took him inside me, his hands sliding up my sides before palming my breasts.

  Moving over him, I moaned at the sensation, my entire body buzzed, live wires beneath my skin. I didn’t think I could ever grow tired of feeling him inside me. “Yes?”

  “I want my soul back.”

  There was such utter desolation in his expression that it took every morsel of strength within me not to cry. This man bleeds goodness. Alongside his misery. But a woman a shattered soul was incapable of locating his. I couldn’t restore something I didn’t remember ever having. He deserves more than me.

  I leaned over his face and touched my lips to his forehead, wishing it was enough, knowing I never would be. “I would give you my soul, but all I have are broken pieces.” I pulled back and looked into his tortured eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  “Kiss me,” he instructed, curling his palm around the back of my head. “I want your moans in my mouth when you come. We can be broken together.”

  Broken together. I remembered thinking something similar when we started.

  Doing as he asked, I placed my elbows on his pillow, either side of his head, my fingers spearing into his hair as my mouth connected with his; tiny nips, long stroking licks, biting sucks and anguished sounds. It felt a lot like need which hurt as it pressed against my chest from the inside. It was exactly what I didn’t want in this world, not need, not comfort, not companionship, not… love.

  Love.

  I wasn’t there yet. And I didn’t think I ever would be—not in the short time we had. But it was the first time in my life I thought such a thing was a possibility. And it hurt what was left of my soul to know I’d probably never find out.

  As I rocked above him, grinding at his base, moaning in his mouth, I knew it wouldn’t be long before my orgasm wracked my body and my mind cleared, leaving me to feel foolish. And I wasn’t ready to feel foolish, I wanted to feel complete, feel hope, just a moment longer.

  I held off as long as I could.

  “Toby,” I gasped, muffled against his mouth. He groaned and gripped my hips tight as he clamped us together, grinding his cock inside me as deep as was possible, pulsing into my depths with a shudder, his kiss softening against my lips.

  Moving his hands to hold either side of my head, he continued to kiss me, stealing my breath and cracking my heart. When he finally released me, he held me still, panting as our foreheads touched. “We skipped the condom.”

  Shit.

  “What does it matter, Toby? We’ll be dead soon anyway,” I said, sliding off him and heading straight for the camper van’s bathroom.

  I locked the door and flipped on the water before covering my face with my hands and letting go of the flood. What the hell is happening to me?

  Chapter Sixteen

  Pull Over

  “Is it what you expected?” I asked Toby as we stood on the bank of Pink Lake. Salt crunched under our feet and fragranced the air as the bubblegum pink water lapped gently, kissing our toes.

  Reaching out to lace his fingers with mine, he sucked in a deep breath as he nodded. “It’s better,” he said, flashing those pearly whites of his as he smiled wide. Something he’d been doing a lot of lately.

  We’d spent the last few days travelling along the coast, visiting tourist attractions and enjoying each other’s company. We saw a stunning cave filled with helecites that glittered like gemstones. We floated in salt-heavy water while a pod of dolphins swam around us. We went paddle boarding on glass-like water then relaxed the afternoon away on soft sand, allowing ourselves to believe this was our life. Happy, calm, carefree.

  In between our tourist adventures, we ate, drank and even danced a little. I hadn’t been on a holiday in forever, sight-seeing occasionally if a job allowed it. I’d been a self-confessed workaholic until now, never having reason to stop and smell the roses. But now, well, things were different, and I was forgetting to act like a badass all the time and shock, horror: I was smiling too. Toby was rubbing off on me.

  I probably didn’t need to mention it, but the sex was great too. Mind blowing, in fact. Somehow, the intensity in our connection grew with time instead of waning. He was becoming a need, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

  Even though I’d had somewhat of a breakdown that first night we were on the road, I had regained the vast majority of my composure, putting it down to the fact we were literally travelling towards our doom. It was intensifying my emotions. Even the toughest person in existence would have a small panic-filled moment when faced with similar odds. It was normal. I’d washed my face, glugged a little vodka and brushed my teeth so everything was better. I could face the world again.

  “You know…” He stared back out at the water and sighed. “I’ve never used this word for anything, but this is fucking marvellous. Naturally occurring pink water. I didn’t think it’d be this vivid.”

  “I kind of expected to see flamingos hanging out around here,” I said, noticing there weren’t any sea birds hanging around the water at all. “But maybe the water is too salty for anything except micro-organisms.”

  “That emu over there seems to think this is a good place to hang out,” Toby said, pointing to the surrounding scrub to where an emu was standing perfectly still, its bluish face and beady eyes staring right at us.

  “Or maybe he’s going to run over here and headbutt us. Aren’t those things dangerous?”

  Toby chuckled. "That's a cassowary."

  "No. That's an emu."

  He laughed even harder, the lines beside his eyes crinkling in mirth. "I know that's an emu. I'm saying that the ones you're thinking about are cassowaries. They have that hard horn on their head and they're pretty aggressive. They're the ones you need to worry about."

  I moved a little closer to him, never having seen an emu this close in the wild before. Normally they were always in the distance or in an enclosure so I couldn't see their fierce little eyes. "Either way, he looks like he wants to peck me in the face."

  When his arm wrapped around my waist, I realised I was pulling at his shirt. "So this is your weakness, huh? Giant land birds."

  Flattening my hand, I slapped against his chest. "Har-fucking-har."

  "Come on, sunshine. Let's get you away from the big bad bird." He said, glancing out at the pink water one last time before guiding me towards the walking track.

  "Sunshine?" I baulked a little at being given a pet name. I didn't let many people get close enough for such things. Big Jim being the exception.

  "Yep."

  “Care to explain?”

  He glanced my way, that full mouth of his pulling up at the corners. “I think you can figure it out.”

  I’m his sunshine.

  Suddenly, all I could think about was how much I wanted to kiss him. I wasn't one to do public displays of affection—especially in front of the wildlife—but I couldn't help myself. Turning in his grip, I wrapped my arms around his neck, stopping him in his tracks just before I lifted on my toes and planted my mouth against his, kissing him as insects chirped in the background, serenading us.

  "I like you too," he said, hands on my hips before winding his fingers with mine and heading back to the parked camper. I liked that I didn't have to explain things to him. He had this uncanny ability to read my actions and know what they meant. It made it so much easier for me when the last thing I felt capable of was givi
ng voice to the confusing tension that tightened my chest and swirled in my brain. Like he'd said the other night, I was trying to be unapologetically me. There was no point in wasting energy on keeping my walls reinforced when our time was so short. Besides, almost blowing up on a boat seemed to alter one's outlook on life. We were both trying to experience as much as possible in this strange limbo we were existing in together. It was like the eye of a massive storm, calm and quiet and almost hopeful in its peace. But once the eye passed, we'd be hit full force by the storm raging on the other side. Would we make it through?

  Did I care?

  "How long do you reckon it'll take to drive from here to Madura?" I asked as we climbed back into the camper van. We'd already stocked up on fuel and food because the roads from here were quite remote. We were about to cross the longest stretch of highway in the entire country, taking us across the Nullarbor with few signs of civilisation in between. So far, Toby had done the driving, but since I'd driven this stretch on my own before, I knew how monotonous it was. It had taken me six hours in a car, but with wind resistance considered, the camper van would take longer.

  "About eight hours. Give or take."

  "How about I drive first and we swap a few times?"

  His response was clipping the seatbelt across his waist and starting the engine.

  "Why can't I drive?" I argued.

  Setting his jaw, I pulled out of our parking spot then headed for the road. "Because I don't know how sober you are."

  "Excuse me?" Fuck.

  "You heard me. Every time you visit that bathroom you drink from a bottle of vodka you have stashed in there, then you cover the fact you've been drinking with mouthwash." He glanced at me. "No one uses mouthwash that often, Blair."

  "They do if they have halitosis."

  "Which you don't. I've smelled your morning breath and besides stale grog, it's just fine. You do, however, have a drinking problem." What. The. Actual. Fuck? I was struggling to keep my cool.

  "You don't know what you're talking about." I set my jaw.