For all this woman knew, I’d been hired to end her life. Yet she opened to me, drew me into her and begged me to touch her, to fill her with all I had to offer. It hurt me to see the marks on her thigh, to feel the stitches under my fingers. I hated to know that I was the cause of that pain. I hated to know that I could inflict so much more harm on her, that I was planning so much pain for her.
What kind of a man was I? How could I touch her like this when I knew what lay in her immediate future?
But I couldn’t quite make myself pull away.
We kissed for a long time, our hands wandering to places that ached to be touched. Then I reached for another of those condoms. Who’d have thought that forgetting I’d shoved some condoms the guys in my unit had given me as a joke upon my discharge in my iPad case would come in handy. I just hoped the fact that they were frozen when I found them wouldn’t cause too much trouble.
So far, so good.
We lay together for a long time, Cadence and me. She fell asleep late in the afternoon and I found myself watching her, wondering what she would think if I told her the truth. I wondered if she would look at me differently if she knew my father was arrested, tried, and jailed for embezzling from his own company? I wonder if she would think me a coward if she knew that by joining the Marines when I did, I left my mom alone not only to face the fallout of my father’s actions, but to deal with my brother’s fight against cancer? And I wondered if she would know what a cold son of a bitch I was that I didn’t come home when my mother couldn’t take it anymore, when she made a decision that could never be reversed. That I no longer had a family, just a couple of graves and a father serving a twenty-year sentence in the federal pen?
Or that, for a long time, I blamed Blake Zimmerman for taking a large role in the demise of my once-promising future.
I slipped my finger over that heart tattoo again, trying to imagine the day she had this done, the man who’d put it there. I wondered how hard that was for her, to sit there and let a stranger touch her so close to the most intimate part of her body.
Cadence was a brave woman. I wasn’t brave.
She deserved someone so much better than me.
Chapter 12
Megan
It was late. I was putting away the last of the day’s work, thinking I might enjoy a long, hot bath and a good night’s sleep. That had been something that was elusive these days, since my baby brother started planning his wedding in earnest and his fiancée asked me to be her maid of honor. Who’d have thought that standing next to someone during a simple ceremony could involve so much work? Like I didn’t have enough going on, running a successful security firm, but I found myself making time in my day to pick out flowers and have a dress altered to my tall frame and all these other things that made Amber smile and Cole tell me over and over again what a great sister I was.
The things we do for family.
Sam wasn’t at her desk as I finally pulled my office door closed and locked it.
“Any messages?” I asked one of the girls on the monitoring desks in the bullpen. We hired girls around the clock to field calls from our security clients, the ones who bought our systems because of our willingness to answer their calls whenever necessary. The girl looked up and shook her head.
“Nothing from grosbeak?”
“No, ma’am.”
I was getting a little worried. The storm had passed this morning. Marcus should have been able to at least attempt a call. I was beginning to wonder if something had happened that I needed to know about.
“Sam go home?”
“She’s in the break room.”
I rounded the corner in front of Sam’s desk, wandering down the side of the building that we mostly used for storage at the moment. We’d probably have to expand soon, what with the dozen or so new security clients we got almost daily. But for now most of the rooms were filled with system components waiting to be installed in some home or business. And then there was the small kitchen in the back that we used as a break room.
I heard their voices before I approached the door. Hayden and Sam were whispering about something that I couldn’t quite catch.
Were they engaging in an office romance they didn’t want anyone to know about? Like the entire office didn’t realize the two of them were so head over heels for each other that it was a miracle they could manage to keep their hands to themselves.
“Ready or not, I’m coming in!” I called as I walked around the corner of the door.
Sam blushed, turning her head away. Hayden, standing a good distance from her, had little expression on his face as he watched me come into the room.
“What are you guys doing?”
Sam picked up a coffee cup and went over to the coffee maker. “Just getting more coffee.”
There was something odd going on in here. Hayden mumbled an excuse and left the room.
“Sam, are you okay?”
She glanced over her shoulder at me. “Of course. Why?”
“What were you and Hayden up to?”
“Just talking.”
“About what? You’re usually arguing about the way he teases you. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the two of you have a calm conversation.”
“There’s a first time for everything.”
Sam started out of the room with her coffee and stumbled just as she was about to pass me. I grabbed her arm, keeping her from falling, but not keeping the coffee from spilling over her hands. She hissed, leaning into me briefly.
“Sam—”
She pulled away and went to the sink, rinsing the heat from her hands. I grabbed a towel and held it out to her.
“What’s going on with you? Are you sick?”
She glanced at me. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not, Sam. You’ve had these fainting spells and you’re so tired all the time. And pale.”
“I’m working long hours.”
“If it’s taking a toll on you—”
“I’m fine, Megan. Really.”
“You don’t look fine.”
“Gee, thanks.”
She stole a look at me, amusement hidden behind her glasses.
“You know what I mean.”
She touched my hand. “You know me. You know I wouldn’t lie to you.”
“I know, I just…”
“I’m fine, Megan.”
She picked her coffee up again and started for the door, pausing right at the threshold. “We still haven’t heard from Marcus.”
“I know.”
She nodded. “I figured you did.”
“Go home, Sammie,” I called after her. “You need to get some sleep.”
She just waved her arm, going off down the hall. I knew where she was going. Back to her desk and the corrupted files she knew I desperately needed salvaged. Files I needed desperately enough that I didn’t continue to insist she go home.
I should have.
I went home, fielding phone calls from my parents and Cole, reminding me that the family was getting together this weekend for a pre-wedding family night. Starting a week from today, family would be flying in from all over the country, eager to participate in the wedding festivities.
When I walked through my own door, it was to the sight of Dante putting the finishing touches on a candlelit dinner. The smells of garlic and butter infused the house, a beautiful steak and mound of mash potatoes waiting on each plate.
“You’re right on time,” Dante said, brining me a long stem rose.
“What are you doing?”
“Making you dinner. You need to eat, right?”
“But I thought we agreed that this was just sex.”
“You need to eat to have the energy for sex, don’t you?”
I groaned, but I let him tug me toward the table. I kicked off my shoes as I sat, tucking my feet up under my thighs. Dante sat across from me, this big man folding himself into a tiny chair, daintily unfolding his napkin and setting it on his lap.
“You m
ade all this?”
“I did.”
“How did you know that this is one of my favorite meals of all time?”
“Because you live in Texas.”
I laughed. “Touché.”
I dug into the meal, my thoughts scattered between Sam, the wedding, and Marcus. Sam was a strong person. I’d never seen weakness in her, so these dizzy spells were beginning to frighten me. One or two could be exhaustion, but there’d been more than that. And the pale skin, the dark circles under her eyes? Was I working her too hard?
The wedding was…I hated myself for thinking this, but it brought back too many memories of my own wedding. It was one thing helping Dominic and Amy have a decent wedding, but it was another watching my little brother get married. It was just too close to home, too full of the same things Luke and I had done in preparation of our wedding. We’d done everything—the flowers and the caterers and the baker and the dress and the tux—including the family flying in and the rehearsal dinner. That was the last time I saw him. He looked me in the eye and told me he would see me in the morning. Those were not the words of a man who knew he was in over his head and needed to step back to avoid the clenches of commitment.
Especially not from a man who’d been with me since high school.
It was all just bringing up way too many memories.
“A penny for your thoughts.”
My head jerked up a little too fast. Sometimes Dante’s voice was a little too much like Luke’s. They had this same chocolate smooth baritone that vibrated deep in my bones. I remembered distinctly when Luke’s voice matured, when it was obvious that it was going to be that deep. It was shortly before we began dating my junior year of high school. He was studying Dante’s Inferno in his English class and he came to me for help. I would have been perfectly content to sit at my family’s kitchen table and listen to him read those lines over and over again for the rest of my life.
“You don’t want to know what I’m thinking.”
“It’s okay for you to talk about him in front of me, Megan.”
“No, it’s not. It’s strange. Disloyal, somehow.”
“He’s gone.”
“Physically. But not necessarily emotionally.”
Dante inclined his head. “He left you. He doesn’t deserve your loyalty.”
There was heat behind his words. It made the wall around my heart melt a little. I really didn’t want to fall for this guy, but he was making it so hard for me to keep the emotional distance I’d been struggling with for so long.
“I need you to go to New Mexico in the morning, see if you can locate Marcus and his target.”
He inclined his head, disappointment barely hidden by the movement.
“In the morning,” I repeated, getting up and climbing into his lap. “Tonight, I have a few other things I’d like you to attend to.”
“Yeah?”
I pressed my fingers into his hair, pushing it back from his face. He looked up at me, his eyes partially hooded with desire. I kissed him, wondering if all men knew that little twirl he did with his tongue that Luke once did, that little move that touched things that you wouldn’t think would be a major turn on, but were. And the taste of him, not the garlic and butter in our meal, but the taste beneath all that, the taste that was just him…that was so familiar, too.
Maybe I was just looking for things that I wanted to find. Maybe I was still so deeply attached to Luke that I still found him, felt him, in everything else I did. Even this.
He picked me up and carried me to the bedroom, his hands everywhere all at once. I couldn’t catch my breath, I wanted him so badly. My last thought as he laid me on the bed, as he untucked my blouse and ran his hand underneath was that I needed to move on with my life. I had this perfectly kind, perfectly gentle man here in my bed, yet I was still pining after the one who’d abandoned me. Maybe it was time to stop pining, to accept that my forever had already come and gone. But this temporary life…it had its perks.
Chapter 13
Marcus
I woke to the sound of a snowmobile engine working hard somewhere outside. There was no telling how far away it was since sound tended to travel quite easily in this kind of snowy landscape. But it was a promising sound. We might be able to get someone to give us a ride into town so that we could check in with our people back in Houston.
I shook Cadence’s shoulder.
“Wake up, babe.”
She peeked at me from under her lashes. “It’s too early.”
“Not so early. And there’re snowmobiles. We might have a way out of here.”
She rolled over, tugging a blanket up over her shoulder. “I’m not in a hurry to go.”
I chuckled as I moved up close behind her. “Me, either. But there are people down in Houston who might come looking for us if we don’t check in soon.”
She groaned. “Don’t speak logic to me right now.”
I buried another chuckle in a kiss against her shoulder. “How about I make us some breakfast first?”
“Slowly.”
She nestled down against the pillows, her breathing deepening again before I even got myself off the bed. I dressed quickly, the cold boring deep into my bones before I was out of the cocoon of the blankets for more than a minute. I threw another log on the fire and then set about frying some eggs on the stove. I was in the middle of food prep when the lights suddenly flickered and came on.
“Hey! We have electricity.”
Cadence mumbled something, then rolled off and was still again.
It was a good thing she was a nurse and not a teacher. She’d never make it to work on time.
The cabin was nearly toasty by the time I was done. I carried a tray over to the bed, presenting Cadence breakfast in bed. She sat up, a wrinkle in the shape of the edge of her pillow across her face.
“Any time.”
We ate in silence, only the sound of the radiator popping to fill the silence. That and the tinkle of the cutlery on the plates. When she was full, Cadence got up and padded naked into the kitchen, taking her time rinsing her plate and cup before setting them in the depths of the sink.
“For a woman who has very little experience with sexuality, you sure aren’t shy,” I said, following with my own plates.
“What makes you think I don’t have much experience with my sexuality?”
“The fact that a tattoo on your lower belly is the wildest thing you’ve ever done.”
She tilted her head slightly. “Yes, but I’ve seen my share of naked bodies. And I don’t really have a problem with it, or showing off my body.”
“You’re proud of yourself.”
“No. I just think that nudity is a natural thing, not a source of embarrassment.”
“How many men have you seen naked?”
She shrugged. “Countless. I’m a nurse, remember?”
“How many men have you seen naked outside of your profession?”
She shrugged. “How many women have you seen naked?”
“Quite a few.” I watched the spark of jealousy flash in her eyes and bit back a smile. “How many men have seen you this way?”
“Are you asking how many men I’ve taken into my bed?”
She moved close to me, her naked body pressed against my chest. I suddenly found myself wishing I hadn’t been in such a hurry to get dressed. Who cared about warmth and health when there was the touch of a naked woman against bare skin?
“I am,” I said softly, brushing hair from her face so I could see her expressive eyes. “How many men have you been with?”
“Does making out in the band room count?”
“Only actual nudity.”
She shrugged a little. “There was the time I blew my English professor in the lecture hall.”
My eyebrows rose. “You didn’t!”
“No. But he asked.”
“He better hope I never meet him.”
She laughed. “Would you beat him up to save my honor?”
“I would.”
“Thank you.”
I ran my hand slowly up the length of her bare back. “I lost my virginity when I was seventeen. In the backseat of my father’s car—as cliché as that sounds.”
“Who was she?”
“The head of the cheerleading squad. We were sort of a thing at the time, but we broke up like a week later.”
“Why?”
“The quarterback broke up with his girlfriend, and she decided he was a better catch in the long run.”
“Smart girl.”
I groaned, smacking her lightly on her bare ass. “Now your turn.”
“Oh, is this a quid pro quo?”
“Something like that.”
“When did you meet the one who broke your heart?”
I tilted my head back, a groan slipping from between my lips.
“Come on,” she said, sliding her lips over my throat. “I want to know.”
“Freshman year of college.”
“Were there any girls in between the two?”
“No. Kelly was my second. We were together three years.”
“And then she cheated with Blake?”
I ran my hand slowly over her ass, taking a handful and pulling her tight against me. She groaned softly, rubbing the corner of her hip against my quickly stiffening cock. But then she twisted away, climbing onto the edge of the counter to put some distance between us. The only problem was, even with her legs crossed, she made a perfect picture of an erotic fantasy perched there like that, her body exposed and ready for a little attention.
“Who came after Kelly?”
“Does it matter?” I went to her, bracing myself with my hands on either side of her petite body. “You’re making it fucking hard to concentrate.”
“I want to know. Isn’t this what responsible lovers do? Don’t they exchange this sort of information before deciding if it’s safe to continue moving forward with the relationship?”
“If it’s disease you’re worried about, the Marines declared me perfectly healthy and STD free just six months ago. And I haven’t been with anyone but you since.”
“No one?”
“Not a soul.”
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