“It was my hope.” My father nods, and I die a little on the inside. Of course, he wanted this. I fell right into his trap. “Your mother, Stevie, wanted far more than I could ever give her. What better vengeance against her than to gift you to the son of the woman she loathed—the woman that I loved and hoped would be mine. With you two together, in a small way, Lana will be a part of my life forever.”
And that was that, we left as baffled as we came. Somehow I fit into my father’s puzzle of revenge. The person he truly wanted to punish was my mother for chasing away the only woman he ever cared for. And now he has a part of her through Ford and me, and our child.
Me with Ford, me stealing his company, I was the knife he sharpened for that very purpose. He wanted all the cash and prizes he could squeeze out of this endeavor. But in the end, my father gave Ford and me the best gift of all—each other.
Ford and I run Jinx side-by-side. I have the legal team restore his name as CEO but he insists we keep it joint. One night after being office-bound for way too long, Ford surprises me and takes me to my mother’s latest art exhibit, Theresa Eaton at the MOCA, all her greatest pieces are there—The Rose, Dinner For Two—The Rules of Love. I sit and stare at that life-size sculpture that my sister and I once called the dripping woman and wonder to myself if an X-Ray scanner is necessary. I try to swallow down my macabre theories but they keep bubbling up, burning the back of my throat like bile. I’m not sure what good it will do to bring them to light, so I try to let them go like a batch of wild birds into the night. After all, those were my mother’s dealings, her madness, her crimes. But the idea that my mother could do something so heinous lies over my spirit like a festering sore until I confess it all to Aspen. It’s Aspen who assures me this is impossible. She goes as far to point out the exaggerated waist, the neck you could ring a bracelet over, the head no bigger than an infant’s. She promised me a body could never be hidden in there. It couldn’t be, and I’m relieved. My mother never so much as swatted a housefly. What she most likely did was write a poem about Lana Rule and call it Black Heart, carved it out of a necrotic piece of granite and buried it in the sculpture. That’s how my mother prefers to slaughter her victims, through words. So I relaxed a bit at the MOCA. Just a bit.
Once we leave I confess it all to Ford, and he holds me tight under the awning as the rain washes clean my mother’s false transgression. He affirms everything Aspen said and assures me my mother isn’t a felon at heart.
My mother and Ford get along better than my mother and I could ever hope to. I’ll never get his strange fascination with her. He gets her dark side. They share the horror of abandonment that etched itself over their hearts like a branding iron, him with his parents and her with my father. She writes more poetry and gives it to Ford to read. Their bond is real. I guess my mother doesn’t have it in her to hate Lana’s son, instead she embraces him as her own. I’m hoping Lana would have liked that.
Shipwrecks is the place my life almost ended twice. It’s the place Ford and I scarred our love onto one another like fire over stone.
In January we take the horses for a ride along the shoreline. I ride Bell, Tinkerbell, the horse I had the privilege to name the day fate introduced us to one another for the very first time. The doctor says it’s fine for me to ride for another month at least.
The sun sets in a brilliant shade of poppy, kissing the sky with a fiery passion.
“Blood-red sky,” I say, cutting a mischievous look to Ford as we migrate down the beach.
“A wishing sky,” he counters. His black hair takes on a hint of pink under the command of the crimson sun, and his eyes glint out like pale blue stones. Crawford Cannon is all man, one hundred percent sexy-as-hell, and I still can’t believe he’s all mine.
“Dragon’s blood.” I smile. “Did you ever think what would have happened if we never met up at the party that night? Do you think you would have looked twice at me if I were just an intern that showed up in the boardroom two weeks later?”
“I would have noticed you.” He growls out a dark laugh. “Lo, I would have given you the company day one as long as I could’ve worshiped at your feet.” He reaches over and tweaks my knee. “You’re my Kryptonite. You know that. It was you for me from the beginning, and I think the universe helped do a little matchmaking.”
“I think you’re right. I wasn’t supposed to have my internship with you. It was supposed to be at Merlin. I guess it was just a fluke.” I know it was my father, but I’d like to think something—someone else had a hand in it, someone a hell of a lot purer than Hans Lionheart.
A shooting star jets across the ripe orange sky.
“Never seen that before.” He draws in close and picks up my hand.
“That was Claire.” I press my lips tight to keep the tears from falling even if they are happy tears. “The night Evelyn shot me”—I swallow down the softball lodging in my throat—“my sister finally came to me.” It’s true. We had our moment, and I had Evelyn of all people to thank for it. “We were in this strange water version of the sky. Everything was blurry with the exception of bright, beautiful Claire. I had a chance to touch her, to hold her. She said she’d always be with me. That she’s been looking after me all along. She”—I take in a lungful of air because these next few words feel as if I’m holding a building up—“she said she was supposed to die. That it was simply her time. She said it had to do with how it would mold me, the things I would do for people, for myself in order to leave a mark on the world. She used the word necessary.” I give a hard sniff as tears pour hot down my cheeks. “She also said she loves you, Ford, and that she loves the baby growing inside me. When that doctor came back and said what he did, I knew—I knew—my sister finally came to me. It was beautiful. She was beautiful, and she said she’ll always be a part of our lives, looking out for us”—I lower my gaze to the sand before meeting up with his again—“that she would be looking out for our children.”
“Stevie.” Ford leans in and kisses my hand, lovingly and sweet.
“Did you make your wish?” I ask as he looks at me.
“All of my wishes already came true.”
“You always know the right thing to say.” I wrap the reins over my wrists three times. “You see that pier over there, Cannon?”
“The one I’m going to beat you to?” He gives a devilish grin.
“Last one in has to stare at the ceiling.” I kick Tink, and she takes off like a gazelle in flight, smooth and straight as an arrow.
I can hear Ford galloping from behind as the sand ignites like a series of heartbeats—two hearts beating as one.
I close my eyes and soak it all in, let the rhythm thump through me, powerful as the sun. One heartbeat after another, our love drums through to the core of the earth, straight into the sky, shooting up, coming back down to earth, burning through gravity in a brilliant shower of sparks—the fire in our hearts impossible to extinguish.
Once we put the horses away, Ford carries me to the beach house, straight to the bedroom. He lands me gently on my feet and carefully peels the layers of clothes off my body, poignant as peeling away the past.
I strip him bare in less than five seconds, and the mad dance of our tongues ensues. Ford has always been the best kisser. He grips my hair from the nape of my neck and pulls me away from his mouth with force.
“It’s your turn to stare at the ceiling.” He says it lovingly almost like an apology. “I love that by the way,” he says slipping me over the mattress like an offering. Ford climbs on top with nothing more than that dirty grin blooming on his lips. “I love holding you down, feeling you move beneath me. I like feeling your breath on my neck, how it increases in measure and lets me know exactly what you’re feeling—what you need.”
“There’s not a breath in my body that can keep a secret from you—anymore.” I wrinkle my nose. “Everything about me is laid bare to you.” Almost.
“Everything about you is brilliant.”
“Ditto.”
My father, Evelyn, a majority of the beehive and their incessant protest of our union, they were nothing more than wild dogs barking. They could never hurt us, never get close. It was impossible to drag us away from each other.
Ford tracks his lips down the new curves of my body before planting a kiss square over my belly. I’m finally starting to show.
He glides back up and takes a bite out of my neck.
“I’m going to make love to you, Stevie.”
I pull back with a dull moan lodged in my throat.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”
“Another secret?” His dark brow arches, and I fight the urge to kiss it.
“Last one.” I tilt into him and surrender a quiet smile. “I swear on Stevie’s watery grave.”
“You mean Claire?” His eyes widen a notch before he squints in with the question.
“No. I mean Stevie. When we were little, my sister and I liked to switch places. Mostly we were each other, and, so, when Stevie was diagnosed, it was as Claire. I think our family and friends knew us more as each other than ourselves anyway.” I trace his lips with my finger. “When she was dying, I wanted to switch back—to end this. But she made me promise to live for her. She begged me to do it. She said she’d carry my death if I let her live through me.”
“Stevie,” he pushes it out with an aching sorrow and shakes his head. “Do you still want me to call you that?”
“Yes, God, yes. I’m not going back on the promise I made to my sister. She’s been ‘Claire’ for the last seven years.” I nestle into him. “It turns out my mother and grandmother have been onto me this entire time. But it’s just you three who know, and I want to keep it that way. Besides, it would sound strange if I were to be Claire again after all these years. I gave her my name, and she gave me hers. It was her final gift to me and mine to her. I’m Stevie, or Lo.” I give a quick wink. “Take your pick.”
The room fills with a heavy silence, too heavy to carry another moment so I have to ask.
“Are you angry with me?”
“Never.” He bows a kiss to my lips. “I think it’s beautiful what you’ve done for one another. I think you’re beautiful, inside and out.”
“Okay, enough with niceties. Fuck me already, would you?”
“Mouth like a sailor.” He forces a frown to come and go. “That’s how I like you, but I’m refusing you. No more fucking until after the baby is born—just making love, that’s all it’s going to be. I call the shots, remember?”
A giggle strums through me. “I remember. Love me hard, would you?”
“How about if I love you every which way. I’m going to love you all night, all morning and then straight into next week.”
“We’ll get fired.”
“We own the company. I officially declare this loving-my-future-wife week.”
“Is your future wife in the room?”
“I’m looking at her. I’m excitedly pressed against her thigh, so I guess that would be you.”
“Are you asking me to marry you?” My chest quivers with my next breath.
“Not the most romantic proposal was it?”
“It was the best.”
“Is that a yes?”
“It’s a hell yes.”
“Hell yes.” He arches his head back. “She said hell yes!” he shouts so loud the windows rattle. I feel his voice reverberate right through to my bones.
“Cool it, Superman, you’re going to wake the baby.”
“Come here, Lo.”
Ford lands his mouth over mine and blesses me with a tender kiss at first, then with a violent ferocity that feels as if we’re about to rocket through space—as if it was our last kiss on earth as we burned through the sky.
My father wanted to breed hatred through me, but I found love. My mother wanted me to embrace her anger, but through her own words, Ford and I were galvanized.
We’re lovers, dreamers, schemers, best friends, soon-to-be parents, but mostly we’re still just Stevie and Ford, two souls that spent their wishes under a blood-red sky.
Ford makes love to me like it’s an art—like he’s rescuing my body from its dormant state and startling it to life in the best way possible. Ford makes love to me with his words, with each breath, with the way he looks at me over eggs at breakfast.
We found home and family—and they both came in the flesh of one another.
We soared, burned through gravity, and landed safely on the descent.
Not even a force of nature could disintegrate our love. Ford and I are two horses in flight, galloping down the white-hot sand, our story laid out one heartbeat at a time.
Life is happening, for Claire and for me, and, together, we live every day to the fullest.
On a rainy Monday, Ford and I get to work early and find a box of glazed donuts on our shared desk. Two Slim Jims sit next to it.
“New craving?” Ford wraps his arms around me from behind and presses a gentle kiss into my neck, but I’m too stunned to move.
“Did you do this?” I ask soft as angel feathers.
“Nope. And I wouldn’t eat them at the same time if I were you. I don’t want to imagine what it might taste like.”
Claire.
“I bet it tastes like heaven.” I spin into him and graze my lips over his.
“I’m already in heaven.” Ford covers my mouth with a kiss, and his tongue mingles softly over mine.
A little piece of heaven is sitting on my desk. It’s right here in my mouth by way of Ford and his kisses. It’s in my belly as evidence of the love that Ford and I made that first time at the beach house.
Our heart’s thump over one another as if to say heaven is everywhere that love is.
And it is.
Thank you for reading BURNING THROUGH GRAVITY. Look for A THOUSAND STARRY NIGHTS (Burning Through Gravity 2), Aspen and Carter’s story coming soon!
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Acknowledgments
Thank you so much for taking the time to read Burning Through Gravity. I really hope you enjoyed Stevie and Ford’s wild ride. Stevie is one of the strongest women I have ever written about and perhaps, equally, so broken. I deeply felt her pain and triumphs and her universal desire to be loved. I look forward to bringing you more of Stevie and Ford in Aspen and Carter’s story, A Thousand Starry Nights (Burning Through Gravity 2).
Big thank you to my lovely readers! I really do think of you as family. Thank you for taking the time out of your busy lives to read (and hopefully enjoy) my books as well as review them when you can. I deeply appreciate your support, and I enjoy interacting with you through emails, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and I especially love to see you at book signings! My gratitude for all of your kind words and expressive devotion leaves me teary-eyed and without words (which is a rarity).
Thank you to my sweet betas and editors you truly are a dream team! Special thanks to Rachel Tsoumbakos, Christina Kendler, Kathryn Jacoby, and Rachel Dick. Rachel Tsoumbakos, you are made of pure Aussie gold! And I value your helpful eyes far more than any precious metal. Kathryn Jacoby, there is none like you. I swear it—none! Thank you for your eagle eyes! Rachel Dick, thank you so very much for your time and input. I really do appreciate it! Christina Kendler, I can’t thank you enough for your help especially when I know that you are busy up to your eyeballs! Big hugs, girl! Hugs to all!
An enormous shout out to my right hand girl, Sarah Freese, who buffs and polishes with the best of them. I heart you girl! Thank you for letting me bombard you with questions at all hours of the day and night, and an even bigger thank you for always responding right away. Do you ever sleep?
A ginormous thanks to Delphina Miyares for helping me untangle some indelicate knots. I love that you confirm what I’m thinking. Thank you for giving me the insight to make
this an overall better book. You are invaluable. I really do appreciate all of your help.
A special thanks to Amy Eye whom I love to the moon and back for all of her formatting help. I enjoy our friendship so much. You are truly one of the kindest souls on the planet!
Thank you to Jessica Estep at InkSlinger PR who has been a huge blessing! Thank you for putting up with my madness. You are a kind spirit whom I feel honored to know. I’m so glad you still speak to me after the onslaught of emails you get from me daily.
And last, but never least, thank you to Him who sits on the throne. Worthy is the Lamb. I owe you everything.
About the Author
Addison Moore is a New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author who writes contemporary and paranormal romance. Her work has been featured in Cosmopolitan Magazine. For nearly a decade, she worked as a therapist on a locked psychiatric unit. She resides on the West Coast with her husband, four wonderful children, and two dogs where she eats too much chocolate and stays up way too late. When she's not writing, she's reading.
Feel free to visit her blog at: http://addisonmoorewrites.blogspot.com
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