He woke with a start, hoping he didn’t disturb her. The continual even breathing said otherwise. Blackhawk heard the cockpit doors slide open, as the co-pilot entered the cabin to check on them. He motioned they would be landing in ten minutes, and to be prepared for landing.
They would be ready.
He used the last ten minutes to take care of any remaining details and to confirm their arrival. Blackhawk picked up his smart phone, checked his messages, and found that they would exhume tomorrow, Tuesday morning. Gabe couldn’t get the paper work cleared quickly enough; he replied back that they would swing by his house after six for dinner.
For now, he knew where they were going.
Elizabeth felt the smooth touchdown of the wheels and the slowing of the jet. They had arrived. She was used to the FBI jet, and there had been many naps in that same seat, just never curled against someone. She could hear the careful clicking of his smartphone, and knew he was awake and working on something. Her mind was a jumble, still trying to get hold of the emotions that came and went. The one sure thing she was aware of was that she was in love with this man.
The minute the pilot hit the door locks, she spoke, “I’m awake.” He was carefully trying to not jostle her. “Did you sleep at all?”
“Yeah, I did. I needed it.” There was no need to tell her about the dream. That would come soon enough.
“I’m assuming Gabe emailed you,” she knew he would, he was always big on making sure details were taken care of for his agents.
“He did, and he wants us to have dinner tonight with his family. Are you up for it?” He thought she might say no, but she rolled to her back smiling.
“Absolutely, Ethan. I miss the girls,” she sat up, shaking out her tousled hair.
“We have today free,” Blackhawk added, not wanting to say the word ‘exhumation’. He didn’t want to hurt her.
“Okay,” she replied.
“I thought we could swing by my place. I can swap out my things, and we could just relax while we wait until dinner.” Blackhawk really wanted to see her in his environment. Elizabeth fit in Salem, but he needed to see if she would fit into his life in Georgetown. Thinking back, he couldn’t remember a time when he was more nervous.
“I’m assuming what you aren’t saying, is that tomorrow is the day.”
“Gabe couldn’t get the papers cleared until then, but it’s handled,” he answered, grabbing their suitcases as they walked off the jet.
It wasn’t lost on him that she hugged the captain, and whispered something in his ear. This woman was easily liked everywhere she went. This must have been the same FBI jet she had used on assignments, and the same captain.
“I want to swing by a florist tomorrow. I need to get flowers for my mother’s grave, since we’ll be disturbing them,” she said, emotionlessly. It took everything to not burst into tears at the thought of what tomorrow would bring.
Inside the waiting car he motioned to the driver, and they were off. “There’s a florist a block from my home,” he answered, cautiously. He was unsure how she would feel about staying with him at his brownstone.
“Okay,” she answered, resting her head on his shoulder and holding his hand. She just wanted the constant connection anymore. Everything about it was so completely natural. Elizabeth could feel how tense he was and didn’t understand why. Something was bothering him again.
When they pulled up in front of his home in Georgetown, and the car stopped, Elizabeth began laughing.
It caught him by surprise.
“Is something wrong?” he asked, feeling sick to his stomach.
“I’m sorry Ethan,” she said touching his cheek and pointing down the block. “I lived not far from here. In fact, I ran by here every damn morning.”
He relaxed and smiled, relieved that she wasn’t disappointed with his home.
Ethan couldn’t help but wonder if he ever saw her run by him. Then he realized he couldn’t have, he would have remembered the tiny shorts and probably made chase.
“It’s ironic, that you had to go six hundred miles to run into me, when I used to walk past here to get coffee on my way to work every day,” she smiled, gently stroking his cheek.
If she only knew that wasn’t the only time their paths had crossed, but soon she’d know. He had to tell her the truth and hope she wouldn’t disappear like she always did in his dreams.
~Chapter Eleven~
Monday Early Afternoon
Blackhawk placed his key into the lock and opened the door. Immediately, he turned off the security system. He dropped their suitcases by the door and took her hand, leading her into his home.
Well, it was time to see her reaction to his carefully constructed sanctuary. Ethan couldn’t help but feel incredibly nervous, as he led her through the brownstone, offering a piece of him he rarely shared. Yeah, he had women there for sex, and gone the next morning, but this was completely different. Elizabeth wasn’t just any woman, she was different.
In a sense, he was bringing her home.
Elizabeth walked around his personal space, observing everything. She couldn’t help but feel the tension in him, as she ran her fingers across the glossy surface of the purely, masculine furniture. It was chrome and black, and felt nothing like him at all. It was more like something to hide behind, much like a shield. When she noticed him nervously go into the kitchen to turn on the coffee pot, she couldn’t help but analyze it all.
When she had worked for the FBI, her house was her refuge, but this felt like a show. It made the man before her even more an enigma. It wasn’t the Ethan Blackhawk she had grown to love and know intimately. This space didn’t fit what she knew to be true.
Everything here was a lie.
“Coffee?” he asked, handing her a black mug and joining her on the leather couch. The look on her face was worrying him; it was a cool look of calculation.
“Ethan, forgive me for saying this, but I can’t help but feel like this is a test, and you're waiting for me to respond to something,” she spoke honestly, sitting beside him. When he didn't speak, she crossed her legs and waited him out. Finally, the look gave him away.
Bingo.
Blackhawk flinched and then covered it quickly. This was indeed some sort of test, and now Elizabeth had to wonder why.
Blackhawk should have known better.
She was bright and she had been taught by the same man who trained him. “I don’t think I understand,” he lied, and hated that he had to do it. Suddenly, he realized maybe she wouldn’t be comfortable here, and that scared him.
Elizabeth could feel the worry and nervousness, and she tried to soothe him, “Ethan, I love your home. It’s beautiful and perfect,” she watched his face, “but, I have to be honest and please don’t get angry with me.”
“I won’t get mad at you,” he said, feeling sickness roll through him. This was all a mistake; they should have stayed anywhere else but here. She wasn’t ready for this, for him, and now he might lose her.
“It doesn’t feel like you.” Elizabeth looked around, the art was harsh, the colors monochromatic, and the edges were sharp with little give. No, this wasn’t him at all. Ethan Blackhawk was deep, sensual and easy going.
He stared at her. That was it?
“In the past few days I’ve gotten to know you, and you’re warm, caring, and so filled with life. Although absolutely gorgeous, this doesn’t feel like home. It feels like…” she paused looking for the words. “It looks like an FBI agent lives here.”
He wanted to laugh, because the statement said it all, and it was completely true.
“It feels like you made this place look like you on the outside when you're working, and all serious. You made it to look tough, with hard lines, and no easiness. Bad ass, if you will.”
“Is that all?” he asked, smiling and relaxing. She didn’t say she hated it, just that it didn’t match him, and it was true. This was the home of an FBI guy, not the man he was underneath. He knew then, she passed h
is test. This test was necessary before he let her see all of the real him.
Elizabeth LaRue was the real deal.
The women he brought here before her loved it, it was shiny, elegant and screamed FBI agent. It was about the job, about the prestige, not the real man, but she saw right through the façade.
She picked up two coasters and placed her coffee mug on one and his on the other, trying to reassure him. He looked lost, and she felt the need to anchor him back. When Elizabeth sat on his lap, he relaxed for her. Immediately, she set his hair free. “Again, that is so much better.”
Blackhawk kissed her on the lips, and wrapped his arms around her waist, allowing them to remain connected. “You know, you’re right.”
“About what now? There are so many things,” she teased him, as she stared into the depths of his eyes.
“This has never been a home. I assembled it to fit Special Agent Blackhawk, not Ethan.”
She touched the lines that formed by his lips, trying to ease the tension. She understood his angst. She had lived the life and had a comfortable place, but she always felt alone. “I happen to like both men, if that matters,” she whispered, resting her forehead against his.
Finally, he spoke, “We need to talk. I need to tell you the truth.”
“Oh boy.” She was getting sick to her stomach. Elizabeth moved away from him, putting some distance between them. “I’ve found that conversations that start with ‘I’m going to tell you the truth’, usually end up in a fight or tears. Do I need a tissue, or boxing gloves?”
He felt bereft the minute she left his lap. “Neither, I hope.”
Elizabeth picked up her coffee mug and finished drinking. She was suddenly scared shitless at what he was going to say to her. Part of her knew she couldn’t handle any more pain. “I think I’m ready.”
“I had a girlfriend,” he said, pausing in time to see her flinch, almost in what she thought would be betrayal. “Please, let me finish. I need you to understand and not judge me, not yet. This is hard enough for me.”
“Okay, Ethan. You have my attention.”
“She was a flight attendant.” He thought he saw her smile and hide it behind her mug. “We dated off and on. She would fly in, we’d hook up, and then she’d leave. I would be on assignment for weeks, and we wouldn’t see each other the entire time. It wasn’t serious, but more like a habit for when I was lonely, needed a companion, or a release from all the stress.”
“Okay,” she understood, taking his hand, and linking their fingers to offer him acceptance and strength. She knew the feeling well. That’s why she slept with Ray, just to feel alive after looking at death daily.
He looked at their joined hands and simply felt calmer. “Well we were okay together, the sex was decent, and we had somewhat of a good time.” He left out details on the torment and emotional anguish she caused him, and how he tolerated it, just to not feel alone.
Elizabeth’s heart squeezed, and she prayed he couldn’t tell by her face. As far as she was concerned he was hers now, and sharing him wasn’t something she ever planned on doing with anyone, especially the flight attendant.
“But she was in lust with the man that made this carefully created farce. She got off on me being an FBI agent- the allure of it and the sexiness of the job. The man I was beneath, he was an afterthought to her. She preferred telling her girlfriends and strangers I was an FBI agent, as if I was a status symbol for her. She never saw me, Elizabeth- the real me. I brought you here not only to stay here, but to see if you saw through all this. I needed to know if all you saw was this,” he waved his arm to include everything around them, “or this,” he touched his chest right over the tattoo.
“Ethan, I don’t find the FBI sexy. I’ve been there and done that. I don’t find your couch sexy, or your lamps sexy either. In fact, if you want the truth, I really hate that painting.” Elizabeth winked at him.
Blackhawk grinned. He hated it too.
“You're the allure for me,” she looked into his eyes. “What turns me on is when you're shirtless, naked, or in running clothes. You're what caught me, not the brownstone. I had one of my own in the same neighborhood, and this all means nothing to me. When I see you smile or your hair down, that’s going to get me each and every time. Not the FBI badge you wear on your hip. I'm not sleeping with the FBI. I’m sleeping with Ethan Blackhawk, and he’s incredibly sweet, kind and sexy as sin.”
He didn’t know what to say. His ability to speak was gone.
Elizabeth continued, “I watch your face, always worried that you’re not good enough. I have to tell you Ethan, you’re more than enough. You’re perfect. The tattoos you worry will give away your past, they make you interesting. The story behind each one gives you a history, and I can’t wait to hear about them all. I won’t judge you by your past; it’s just that, the past. I will judge you on how we are together, and how we fit. Anything before this means nothing to me. I want to be with you, not your history or things.”
“I’m ashamed of the tattoos.” Ethan was honest, because he believed she wouldn’t hurt him. Not another living soul knew how he felt about the tattoos covering his body. “I got them out of anger, spite, and to be bad ass. They don’t mean anything to me anymore. I look at them and have no connection with them, except as a reminder of my sins and the demons that chase me.”
Elizabeth stroked his cheek and looked into his eyes. “I have a connection with them. They’re on the body of a man I care deeply about, and to me they are beautiful, sexy and fascinating.”
He swallowed the lump in his throat.
“How many are there?”
Her words touched him, and he knew he brought the right woman home this time. He finally found the woman who saw him. In twenty years not one person thought to count them, or wanted to hear the story about them, only her. “I think there are twenty two.”
“At least you had the common sense to not get a woman’s name on your body,” she teased.
The comment made him laugh and helped him relax a little more. “Getting a name in ink makes you completely crazy, and out of control. I was wild, not crazy. There’s a big difference there, Ms. LaRue.”
“There’s your silver lining, Mr. Blackhawk.” She leaned forward and kissed him, and yet he still felt tense. “What else is bothering you, Ethan? What aren’t you telling me?”
Blackhawk pushed on, telling her the whole truth. “During the last year the dreams started and continued nightly.”
She immediately looked concerned. One of the first signs an agent was burning out was the dreams.
“There was this woman in them and she called to me. Every night she begged for my help. She would look lost, sad and sometimes hurt. I had every dream possible, from her being covered in blood, to her just standing there watching me,” he forged ahead, needing to get it out.
It broke her heart. The pain on his face was killing her. Ethan was doing battle with some invisible foe. What he was confessing was tearing him apart and she didn’t understand why. “I’m here, Ethan. Go on. Was she a stranger?”
“That’s the problem,” he said, his dark eyes meeting her light ones. “It was you.”
Elizabeth didn’t understand.
“I don’t know how, but you were the woman in the dreams. I didn’t know that until a few days ago, but the second I heard your voice I knew, and then I saw you. I don’t know how it happened, but I saw you before I met you. It’s terrifying and haunting me.”
She watched his face carefully, trying to read him and all she saw was pain and fear. “So you would dream about me?” She didn’t know what to say. “Every night?”
“Yes,” he waited for her to laugh at him and call him crazy.
Did she believe in cognitive ability? Absolutely, she worked for the FBI at one time and they had a unit that had agents who had these skills. Did she believe he dreamed? She had to, because it was tearing him up so badly it had to be truth, as he saw it. Ethan wasn’t one to live in the fantasy wo
rld.
Ethan Blackhawk was hardcore reality.
“I believe you.”
There was a tiny ray of hope. “As soon as the dreams started a year ago, I just couldn’t see the flight attendant anymore. She accused me of having another woman on the side, and in a way it was the truth. There was someone else. You were that woman, and I had to find you.”
Her ability to breathe stopped. He gave up dating because of her, because he believed she was out there. Those words wrapped themselves around her heart and rooted deep within her soul. It staggered her that he searched a full year for her, always believing.
He’d never given up.
“I don’t know how or why, but I believe that all things happen for a reason. I don’t accept that we’re a coincidence,” he looked into her eyes and felt so much love. “I don’t, for one moment, believe that Gabe sent me to Salem, and I just happened to find you. I was meant to, and now I just need to figure out how to make it all work.”
“Make it work?” She really couldn’t breathe. Elizabeth was sure the next step was her turning blue and passing out.
“I want to make us work, Lyzee.” He said with completely honesty. “You aren’t an assignment fling, or a multiple night stand. I don’t want you in my bed because I’m lonely. I want this to go on for a long time. I want to be with you,” he paused and weighed his options. “Because you matter to me.”
At the last minute he chickened out. Ethan just couldn’t get the words out.
Elizabeth didn’t know what to say, she hoped he would say the words, but when he didn’t, she understood. Ethan needed to admit it when he was ready, and until then she could wait him out.
“Then let’s make it work, Ethan,” she said softly, moving back into his body, Elizabeth brought her lips to his and kissed him. She offered herself to him, all of her, putting her heart into the kiss. Patiently, she waited for him to let go of the fear, and when he did life exploded around them. She moaned against his mouth, as his hands travelled across her body exploring her.
The Killing Times (An FBI Romance Thriller (book 1)) Page 25