by Jillian Neal
“We’ve met.Be careful, Lawson. The entire Realm knows where you are, and what you’re doing, thanks to the press. I’m going to try to put a stop to all of that, before you start working. I’m not having one of my guys photographed every time he takes a piss. It’s ridiculous!”
Rainer tried not to laugh. He’d finally met someone who understood what he’d been trying to say all these years.
“Hey, anything we can do to stop them sounds perfect to me.” He achieved a genuine chuckle out of his future boss.
“Yeah, well I’ll work on it. I can’t wait to get you and Logan started. I think you’re going to make a great addition.” This made Rainer smile involuntarily. Emily stood and whisked off to the bedroom; Rainer watched her go.
“Thanks.”
“No problem. Have fun at the beach, and please, Lawson...” Vindico’s voice sounded pleading for a moment. “Don’t let Emily out of your sight.”
“Uh, yeah, of course.” He stood and followed the path to the bedroom Emily had just made. She was changing clothes; he smiled and willed his heart back into rhythm.
“See you in a few weeks,” was Vindico’s parting line before the phone went dead.
“Who was that?” Emily quizzed.
“Vindico,” he informed her as moved to her to help her unzip the skirt she was wearing.
“Rainer,” she fussed. “Would it be alright if we didn’t...?” she gestured to the bed as she pulled on one of his t-shirts. The pained expression on her face had him reeling. “I just feel really weak. I’m still dizzy, and my stomach feels weird.”
“Emily, of course.” He couldn’t believe she thought she had to ask something like that. “Baby, I only ever want to do that if it’s what you want as well, ok? I would never force you to do anything you didn’t want to do.”
“I know that, Rainer,” she shook her head. “I just didn’t want you to be disappointed.”
“Hey.” He pulled her to him. “If I get to lay with you in that bed, hold you tight, and make you feel better, there’s nothing more I would ever want. You could never disappoint me, ever.”
She sighed contentedly, and moved to turn down the covers on the bed that she’d made earlier.
He pulled off his shirt and tie then shed his trousers. As he settled Emily beside him, he covered her in the sheet and quilts.
He could feel her rhythms soothing as he traced his hands over her body. He concentrated; they would spike suddenly whenever she recalled their dinner or the man grabbing her hand. He would try to hush her and calm her again. She finally relented and let him soothe her to sleep.
Memories
Rainer spent the next few days watching over Emily obsessively, though he wasn’t entirely certain why. Vindico’s warning words had him unnerved.
Emily had most definitely picked up on his apprehension, though she’d not felt anything unsavory from anyone they’d been around.
As they got ready for Fergus‘s non-beach, beach party Friday night, she spoke up.
“So I was thinking I might go to the bathroom alone, if that’s ok with you.”
“I’m sorry,” Rainer apologized for the hundredth time. “Vindico’s got me kind of crazy with the press and your ring. I’m just being a little overprotective. I’m sorry. I just love you,” he knew he was laying on the guilt fairly thick.
She melted. “I know, and I love that you’re that way, but maybe we could dial it down just a little. I mean nothing weird has happened since he arrested that guy on Logan’s birthday.”
Rainer nodded and forced a smile. “You sure you wanna go to this thing tonight?”
She grinned at him and wrapped her arms around his neck. He hadn’t put his shirt on yet, and he felt the calm wash over him as her rhythms melded with his own.
“No,” she shook her head. “But Fergus is our friend, and I’m terrified to think about what’s going to happen, if he really did just invite people he met around town. I mean, can you imagine? We need to go, and just make sure Fergus hasn’t gotten in over his head, and then we can come back here, and I’ll make you feel better,” she gave him a flirtatious grin.
“Or...” he leaned in and brushed a kiss across her lips. She parted them slightly making him weak. “We could just stay home, maybe go walk on the beach, and then I’ll bring you back here and take care of everything else,” He watched as her eyes darkened in their emerald depths, and the storm he loved began to swirl.
For a moment, he thought he had her, but she shut her eyes and drew a deep, steadying breath. When her eyes opened hesitantly, regret had replaced the burgeoning desire.
“Don’t do that to me. You make me hurt for you, and we have to go check on Fergus,” she poked out her lip in an adorable pout. “If he doesn’t quit trying to throw these epic parties, he could lose his job for next year.”
Rainer wasn’t giving up. He’d gladly take any challenge where the prize was getting to bed her.
“Baby,” he soothed as he began massaging his hands up her waist. “Fergus‘s mother is one of the Academy Governors. No one’s job is more secure than his.” He watched her reaction and tried to gauge what she actually wanted.
“I know,” she hemmed.
“And, Em, I mean, Fergus is Fergus and all.” He shook his head as she giggled. “But I’m really done with all of that. I want you. I want to get married and just be with you; I’m ready. I’m ready for the whole thing; job, house, kids, everything, but mostly just you.”
She glowed as a sweet grin formed on her beautiful face. She nodded, and her body gave a slight shiver of delight.
“I know, and that means everything to me.”
He kissed her forehead, but he knew he hadn’t convinced her to stay home with him. Nothing would stop her when she felt that one of her friends needed help.
“Let’s just go for a little while, ok? Please, I kind of have a bad feeling about this party. I think we need to go.”
Rainer flinched as panic rose quickly in his body.
“What do you mean a bad feeling?” A person could never have been in a relationship with Emily Haydenshire as long as Rainer had and not known that her feelings held a lot more weight than most people’s. She smiled at him thankfully.
“Not bad, like anything’s going to happen to us, but bad like Fergus is going to need us.”
“You’re sure?”
She nodded and pulled off the t-shirt and shorts she was wearing, before taking a sundress off of a hanger.
He stared at her; his mouth began to water. He still couldn’t believe she was his, any more than he could believe how stunningly gorgeous she was.
Emily smiled at him with a delighted giggle as he moaned. She moved towards him dressed in black lace boy-short panties that covered much more than her thongs, but they had him drooling over what he couldn’t quite see. The matching bra almost sent him right over the edge. He kissed her as soon as she made her way to him. As he reached his hand down the back of the panties, he began cupping her backside greedily.
“I promise I’ll make it worth your wait.”
“Em, I want you. I’m losing it here. I need you, baby.”
“Just a little while.” Her eyes were heavy with her own need. He nodded and attempted to draw on deep resolve, but came up woefully short. She popped the clasp on her bra to replace it with a strapless one. Rainer whimpered as his eyes locked on her breasts. He wanted her so badly, need pulsed in his rhythms constantly.
She tugged on the short, strapless, black sundress and a pair of black wedge sandals. As she grinned down at her ring, she bit her lip. “Ready?”
Rainer was still standing where she’d left him, wearing a pair of cut offs and nothing else; he clearly wasn’t ready.
“No,I don’t want to go,” he knew he was being selfish.
“But we are, because Fergus is our friend, and he would be devastated if we didn’t show.”
He rolled his eyes in his own defeat as he pulled a polo shirt from the closet. It was one o
f Emily’s favorites. He threw it on, before he dragged a brush through his hair haphazardly. He hadn’t shaved, as they’d been at the beach most of the day, and he debated, as he studied his reflection in the mirror.
“I think you look sexy all tan and stubbly,” Emily drawled sassily.
He laughed and couldn’t quite hide his smirk. “Do you?”
She nodded, and he waggled his eyebrows.
“Yeah, but I don’t want to chafe anything,” he rubbed his chin, and then shot a suggestive grin at her crotch.
“You are very naughty, Mr. Lawson,” she scolded, though she didn't seem to mind his teasing. He laughed and grabbed her backside again.
“Hey, I’ll be anything you want, if you’ll stay home with me,” he pled one last time.
“Rainer,” she huffed, and he knew he’d gone one step too far.
“All right, all right, I’m sorry. Let’s just go get this over with,” he grabbed his keys and wallet, before he stowed his cell phone in his pocket.
She grabbed a tube of lipstick and handed it to him. With a chuckled grin, he shoved it in his other pocket. This was their custom when she didn’t want to carry a purse.
They waited in the Mustang for Logan and Adeline. They looked as if they were marching to their end as Logan opened the door for Adeline and then climbed in.
“I gotta tell you, Fergus is great and all, but I’m over the whole college-party thing,” Logan spat.
Rainer revved the engine. He’d hoped to get a smile out of Emily. He got a half grin, which he decided he’d take after the way he’d been whining all afternoon.
“Yeah, who knew when we stopped that brat from sticking his head in the toilet in elementary school that we’d end up babysitting him for the rest of our lives?” Rainer steered the car out of the Haydenshires’ driveway and headed towards Fergus‘s parents’ beach house.
When peace had been restored, the Constitution re-written and ratified, Rainer’s father had been elected Crown, and Governors Haydenshire, Regis Carrington, Arthur Vindico, and Gavin Willow had taken seats on the board which settled the restlessness in the Realm, Gifted families had begun purchasing land on Virginia Beach. It was the closest and most idyllic beach to the Pentagon, where so many Gifted people worked.
Fergus‘s mother was a Governess for the Academy, but his father was a librarian at a public library near Arlington. To say they were tight would have been a serious understatement. They’d scoffed at the amount of money other Gifted families were spending on beachfront property, and had decided to show everyone by purchasing a home twenty miles inland for half the price.
Adeline smiled as Logan laced his fingers through hers. “You stopped someone from putting Fergus in a toilet?” she was trying not to giggle.
“I’ve told you this story, haven’t I?”
Shook her head, and Logan began the tale. “Well, you know, a lot of us went to school together, before the Academy.”
Adeline nodded again. Rainer knew that she was already aware of that, but Logan worried that she felt left out when they talked about growing up together.
Adeline’s mother had had no idea she was Gifted when she was born. Although she’d repeatedly told Adeline that if she could find her father, he could have her, she'd never made any attempt.
When Adeline was four years old, she’d eased away from her mother to admire a doll in a drug store. This irritated her mother, and she’d grabbed Adeline’s hand and jerked her back with entirely too much force. Her shoulder and elbow had been wrenched out of socket. Because Adeline immediately began to cry, and there were so many witnesses, Rainer assumed, is why she was taken to the hospital to be checked.
There were numerous hospitals throughout the United States that employed Gifted healers, or Medios. Johns Hopkins, the Mayo Clinic, Mt. Sinai, Vanderbilt, Duke, Emory, Cedars-Sinai, and Georgetown, the place where Adeline had accepted a job, just to name a few.
Since Adeline was so young, and several pharmacists witnessed what happened, she was sent to the National Medical Children’s Center in Washington D.C., one of the country's premiere hospitals for pediatrics. The doctor who tended to Adeline was Gifted, and picked up on her energy.
She performed a thermo-graphic scan. This was the only way, known to date, to prove the presence of the Gifted energies that separates the Gifted from the Non-Gifted. The Medio had shown Adeline’s mother the scans and instantly let the Governors and the Academy know about Adeline.
As Adeline hadn’t gone through puberty yet, she was unaware of her own energy. She certainly hadn’t learned to suppress it or use it in any way.
“So...” Logan drawled, and Rainer came back to the present. “Fergus‘s mother always made him wear the bow-ties and sweater-vest things. He was forever getting picked on, and this huge kid had him by the neck, headed to the toilet. Rainer tripped the kid, and then Connor and I sort of waylaid him while Rainer got Fergus out of the kid’s grasp. I guess the rest is history.”
Adeline smiled at him adoringly. “That’s so sweet.”
“Yeah, well, remind me later and I’ll tell you about the time when Em was four and decided she wanted to help Rainer use the bathroom,” he laughed hysterically as Rainer and Emily both glared.
“Logan!” they shouted at the same time.
“So, really,” Logan continued to taunt, “Emily saw Rainer naked a long time ago. Mom walked in right about the time she informed Rainer that she wanted to touch it.”
Logan guffawed as Emily glowed crimson, and Adeline tried hard not to double over laughing.
Rainer cocked his jaw to the side and narrowed his eyes; he was certain his face was as red as his car. He swerved the Mustang to the side of the road. “Get out!” he demanded. Logan roared with laughter. “I’m serious, get out!”
“Ok, ok, no more stories.” Logan promised. With a dramatic eye-roll, Rainer pulled back into traffic. A few minutes later they were all laughing hysterically over Emily’s childhood curiosity.
Consequences
They arrived at the Shermans’ an hour later. Friday evening traffic had been rough, and they were late. Rainer’s mouth dropped as he took in several news trucks and reporters. They were hovering around like jackals stalking their prey.
“What the hell?” Logan gasped. Rainer shook his head in disbelief. Fergus appeared as soon as he saw Rainer’s car pull up.
“Well, there’s the man now,” he drawled stupidly as Rainer flung his door open.
“Fergus, why the hell is all the press here?”
“Well, we aren’t all lucky enough to be the son of the greatest Crown Governor of all time. Some of us have to pay for our fame,” Fergus drawled, waggled his eyebrows showily, and then winked at one of the reporters.
Per Rainer’s orders, Emily had stayed in the car. Logan emerged behind Rainer.
“What does that mean?” Rainer demanded. “You invited the press here?”
Rainer stood well over a head taller than Fergus whose poor posture only made him appear even smaller. He had dirty blonde hair that he was already beginning to lose, and half of his face was his nose. He was currently wearing a Hawaiian-print, button-down shirt that would have been more appropriate on a man four times Fergus’s age, vacationing in Miami, than on a twenty-one- year-old college grad at Virginia Beach.
“Don’t worry, man,” Fergus nodded confidently. “They’re gonna stay out here, so as not to cramp your style. You and Emily can strengthen your relationship....” He pointed back into his parents’ house, which was dark and thrumming with loud music, “if you know what I mean...” He waggled his eyebrows. Then he turned his hands to the sides, formed them into cups, held about a foot apart. He brought them down in waves to indicate Emily’s curves. “Once you get inside.”
Rainer’s eyes goggled as he clenched his fists tightly.
Logan, however, cracked up. “Fergus, you are such an idiot!”
“By the way, man,” Fergus sauntered closer to Rainer; this was not a particularly w
ise move, considering everything he’d just said. Rainer glared at Fergus as he briefly contemplated the ramifications of choking Fergus Sherman.
Fergus waggled his eyebrows again, and Rainer ground his teeth.
“Saw the, uh, naughty nightwear Emily got for you; very, very nice!”
Rainer reached his hand out, grasped Fergus by the collar, and jerked him forward until he was inches from Rainer’s face. “What did you just say?”
Fergus seemed shocked. “Here, I saved the pictures.”
Rainer snatched the magazine article Fergus had pulled from his pocket, and unfolded it. All of the blood in his body drained quickly to his feet. There it was. He and Emily exiting the lingerie shop in LynnHaven mall, only it was much, much worse than Rainer had ever imagined.
The storeowner was Gifted and had recognized Emily. It seemed she’d decided that the soon-to-be Mrs. Rainer Lawson’s lingerie purchases would be great fodder for advertisement.
There was a two-page article discussing how long Rainer and Emily had been in the store, and there were pictures of the underwear and nighties that Emily had purchased. The advertising had apparently worked, because the article concluded with the fact that the lace nightie and black and purple silk G-strings were now sold out, but would be back in stock soon.
Emily was out of the car, and she jerked the article out of Rainer’s hand in a second flat. She gasped in horror as Adeline climbed out beside her, in a show of solidarity. The press had begun to swarm. They were still anxious for a picture of the ring.
Rainer tried to force himself to think logically, but the only thing that made sense to him in that endless moment of fury was to beat Fergus into oblivion.
“I knew the owner was Gifted. I just never thought she’d do this!” Emily lamented as furious tears formed in her eyes. This did nothing to quell Rainer’s temper.
Still clenching Fergus‘s collar in his fists, Rainer let his eyes close for the length of one heartbeat. Logan set his hand on Rainer’s shoulder.
“Let’s just go in the house. Then you can beat the shit out of him, but not out here.” He seemed to understand Rainer’s desperate need to sink his fists into something. “Come on,” Logan pushed Rainer forward, after he made certain that Emily and Adeline were with them. Rainer released Fergus to block Emily from the cameras. She kept her hands folded under her arms. She clearly felt that the press had gotten enough pictures of her personal things; they weren’t getting a shot of the ring, too.