by Peak, Renna
“It doesn’t matter, Jen. I can’t believe you’ve been hiding from me for all these months because of that. Because you thought that whole thing was your fault. Because it wasn’t.”
Even if she had pinged some GPS tracking software, I knew damned well that they would have found me eventually. I had just been hoping it wouldn’t be until spring—until things had died down a little.
“I’m so sorry, Brandon. I mean … I just…”
I shook my head and looked back over at her. I could see the tears starting to swim in her eyes and felt a pang in my gut. “Don’t cry, Jen. None of this had anything to do with you. This isn’t how I imagined this—how I imagined it would be when I found you. I wanted the fairy tale. I wanted you to see me and come running into my arms. I imagined lifting you into the air and kissing you so hard you would remember why we fell in love.”
She swung her legs over to the other side of the bed so that she could face me. “We can’t have a fairy tale, Brandon. That isn’t how our story plays out. We both know that.”
I shook my head again. “I imagined how I would kiss you, then I’d kiss that spot on your neck that makes you melt. I’d take you to bed and make love to you as many times as it took to make you remember. It is our story, Jen. It can be the way it plays out. It can be that way, if you let it.”
“You think the only reason I live here is because I’ve been hiding from you? You think I live here because I was afraid of how you’d react when you found out it was my fault that Ryan found you?”
“I don’t know what to think. You could have called. You could have texted. Hell, you could have sent an email or a letter. You should have. You should have told me you were alive.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “You think I didn’t want to? I know you, Brandon. I know you would have traced anything I sent and been here within about five seconds flat. I only came here for one reason—to keep you alive. I hid from you because I want you to live. I want you to be happy. I want you to have the joy and light and happiness in your life that you deserve—but you have to let me go to find it. You can’t keep chasing me—you have to let me … let us go. We can’t have both—happiness and life. We can have one or we can have the other. But we can’t have both. There are too many people out there who will make sure of that.”
I unbuttoned the top of my shirt and pulled it over my head as I stood up and walked over to her. She leaned back—as far away from me as she could without scooting back on the bed, her body weight resting on her elbows.
I stood in front of her and traced my finger across the large scar that ran almost the length of the right side of my belly. “Do you remember this? Do you remember how I got this?”
She nodded, trying to crawl backwards on her elbows. I had no idea why she was so afraid of me, but I needed her to hear what I had to tell her. I needed her to understand once and for all how I felt. It was the only reason I had been searching for her for so long. “I almost died because of this. Remember that, Jen?”
She set her jaw, nodding again. Her attempts to crawl away stopped, and she met my gaze with her blue eyes blazing.
“I only lived because of you. You were the person I thought of when I was sure I was going to die. You were the only thing I thought about through all of it. You. Not anyone else. Not anything else. Just you. You are the light in my life. You are my joy. You are the only thing that has ever brought me any measure of happiness. So don’t tell me that I deserve those things and then turn around and say I can only have them if I let you go. Because that is complete and total bullshit. If I don’t have you, I don’t have any of those things. And I’ll be goddamned if I let you or anyone else tell me I have to give up my life—give up you—in order to be happy. I’m done playing that game—I’m done playing all those games. I’m here—and you’re right, if you had so much as peeped in my direction, I would have been here months ago—and I am not going to let you go. It doesn’t matter what you say, or what you think, or what terrible things you think might happen if you let me have you. Do you understand that, Jen? Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”
“Brandon…”
I sunk down onto my knees and reached into the pocket of my jeans, kneeling in front of her. I pulled out the small, black velvet box I had been carrying with me for all these months. I held it out to her.
“Remember that day you left San Francisco for D.C.? You went back there to make your parents happy—to do what you needed to do? I bought this the day after—the day before I came to get you. Before I came to take you away from that … that life. Daniel, as big of a pain in my ass as he is, it was all his idea. That I come to get you—take you away from there. I think he’d had enough of his parents playing him, too. And when he told me that, I bought this. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure I should believe him after everything he put us through. But I did it. I bought it. And it wasn’t that I didn’t know before that day that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you.”
She shook her head. “Don’t. Brandon, don’t. Not now.”
I continued, trying to calm the butterflies that had suddenly taken flight in my gut. “I was going to wait until Christmas that year. I wanted to ask you every day we were in Montana, but it was never the right time. Now is the right time, Jen. Now, I’m going to ask you…”
* * *
This couldn’t be happening. My stomach was almost roiling—this could not be happening. He was on one knee with the damned velvet box in his hand, just like I had dreamed. Just like every little girl dreams, but this was no dream. His words were beautiful, as usual, but this was a nightmare. I was almost certain that he didn’t know who he was dealing with by even being here. Who had been hiding me all this time. Who was going to have a major freak out if they found out he was so much as in the same state, let alone kneeling in front of me, getting ready to ask me to marry him.
I grabbed his arm—the one that held the box. My heart fluttered at his words, but began pounding upon the realization of what would happen if I agreed to this. “Brandon, this isn’t the right time. Not here.” Not that anywhere else would have been any better, but I wasn’t quite ready to let go of my fantasy just yet. If he waited—if there was some way to make this right, it would have to wait.
“I want you to have it, Jen. I want you to see it every single day, even if you say no.”
“I won’t say no. I just don’t want you to ask me here. Not like this.” That was at least true. I didn’t want him to ask me here—or like this. I wanted it to be somewhere romantic, not in my little shack with my dyed-red hair where I felt like I was a lot more Becky than I was his Jen. And we might be able to run. We might be able to make it work if we could wait it out here until after dark.
My mind was racing, trying to figure out if there was some way—any way to make this work. I had dreamed about this moment—the moment he would find me, but it wasn’t like this. It wasn’t with a ring in his hand, and I wasn’t ready yet with a plan to get us away from here.
“I want you to look at it and know you’re already the light in my life, Jen. I want…”
I couldn’t take it anymore. The words. The words he was always able to come up with, always able to say, no matter what the situation. How he was always able to take my mind off anything that might be happening around us with his beautiful words. His words made it impossible for me to think—they just made me want him to take me. Claim me and make me his.
I grabbed him by the shoulders and tilted my head, silencing him with my kiss. He stood, pulling me into his arms without breaking the lock he had on my lips. He claimed me with a hunger I had never felt from him before. He pulled me into him, so close that I could feel he was already hard for me. I felt the familiar warmth of desire pooling in me, settling between my legs. I had never wanted him more.
I ran my hands through his silky, black curls, trailing my fingertips down to touch his shoulders. I traced the muscles of his chest—he had long accused me of allowing
that part of him to be my favorite, and it was true. I could feel his heart pounding under his sculpted muscles and I felt my knees begin to go weak.
I traced my fingers down the length of his abdomen before dropping to my knees in front of him. I unbuttoned his jeans and pulled his zipper down. I pulled the clothing out of the way, releasing his erection, and dipped my head to take his hard cock in my mouth.
His hands fisted in my hair. “Jen, don’t.”
My voice was barely a whisper. “God, Brandon, I have to…”
I dipped my head again, caressing his cock with my tongue, licking him from the base to the tip. I wrapped my hand around his thick base before taking his full length into my mouth.
He groaned and placed his hands against my cheeks, gently pushing me away. “Jen, it’s been nine months. I won’t last…”
I smiled. I couldn’t help it—that was what he was worried about? Not lasting? I whispered to him again. “I don’t care.”
He groaned again as my lips covered his cock once more. He pushed me away again, this time not quite as gently. “Please, Jen. Let me take care of you first.”
I stood up and pressed my lips against his again before turning our bodies around so that his back was facing the bed. I gave him a slight shove and he fell back onto the bed, staring up at me with a look that could only be described as amusement. I pulled my t-shirt over my head, tossing it to the floor before climbing on top of him. “In case you hadn’t noticed, Brandon, I don’t need you to take care of me.”
* * *
I folded the pillow under my head so that I could look down at her. She had fallen asleep in my arms, and I knew that I wasn’t going to let her go again. She hadn’t let me propose, but she had let me make love to her. There was no question in my mind that she would come with me. She wanted to wait until it was dark—who the hell knew why? I couldn’t see what difference it made whether it was dark or light or day or night. As long as we were together.
She was exactly the same. She smelled the same—even though I was sure she wasn’t using the overpriced shampoo that she had always used. Even though she wasn’t living the life of a privileged socialite anymore, she was still the same. The same woman I had fallen in love with. The same person I had known I would spend the rest of my life with since I had first seen her playing piano when she was only a teenager. This time was going to be different. This time, I wouldn’t let her out of my sight—not ever. I’d hold her in my arms until our time came. I knew she was scared—hell, so was I. She was afraid of something—and there was more to this story than she was telling me. I still wasn’t sure where she had been all these months—from what she had said, she had only been here for four or five of the nine months she had been missing. But we had the rest of our lives to get to the bottom of what was going on with her. And for right now, I was going to enjoy holding her in my arms the way I had fantasized about for so long.
I sank back into the pillow and watched her sleep, wondering what she was dreaming about. The smile on her lips made me hopeful that I was at least a part of whatever was making her happy—at least for that moment. I wanted to hold onto that moment—that pure, blissful moment for as long as I could. Because I knew once we started running, there weren’t going to be as many of these moments. But I knew I would give them to her as often as I could.
Her eyes fluttered open and she blinked a few times, almost as though she didn’t really believe that seeing me there next to her was real. It was like a dream, at least for me. It was exactly how I had pictured it in my mind—having her eyes flutter open like that. The way she looked up at me. The way her skin felt against mine.
She smiled at me after she realized I was really there. “Is it dark outside yet?”
I would have paid money to see her smile like that. I knew I would do something to make her look at me like this every single day for the rest of her life. I returned her smile—the first honest-to-Christ happy moment I’d had for so fucking long.
“No, sweetheart. Not yet. But I think we’re okay. Just get your things together and we’ll go whenever you’re ready.”
She sat up, holding the covers over her chest. My heart fluttered—it was so fucking adorable that she still did that. It reminded me of our first night together, and most of the times we had been together since then. Something about how she was still just a little shy around me made my heart melt every time…
She let out a sigh, her smile falling just a little. “We just can’t let anyone see you. It’ll be easier once it’s dark. We’ll go—we can drive all night if you want. I’ll explain everything as soon as we get in the car.”
“Anyone like who? That little prick saw me—I almost killed him just outside your door.”
The smile returned to her face, making my heart skip a few beats in the process. “He’s no one. And I love that you’re still jealous.”
“And that boss of yours thought I was here to steal his shitty motel out from under him. As if anyone would want to buy this hell hole.”
The smile fell instantly from her face and she turned to me, suddenly pale. “What did you say?”
My eyes widened at what looked like sheer terror on her face. “I said this place is a shit hole…”
“Before that. Before that. Jesus Christ, Brandon, you didn’t. You didn’t go in there. You didn’t talk to him.” Her eyes began darting around the room, almost panicked.
“I just asked about his place. About the shop. I told him you’d done a fantastic job with it. Which you have, by the way.”
She jumped out of bed and grabbed our clothes from the floor, tossing my jeans and shirt at me. She pulled her t-shirt over her head. “Fuck, Brandon, get dressed. How long has it been? How long? How long since he saw you?”
My heart began to pound, thrashing again in my ears. I wasn’t even sure what I was afraid of, but the way she was acting … the panic in her voice. I stood, pulling on my underwear. “I don’t know? Two hours? Maybe three or four?”
I saw the tears spring to her eyes and felt my own begin to sting at mine. I never cried. I didn’t cry and I didn’t know what in the fuck I had done or what in the hell was going on with her, but the way she was pulling on her clothes, running around the tiny room was scaring the shit out of me.
“No. No, no, no. No.” She turned back to me--her movement was almost jerky. Her breath was raspy.
“You have to go. Now.” She pulled on the rest of her clothing, tears beginning to spill down her cheeks.
I nodded, pulling on the rest of my clothes. I shoved the velvet box back into the pocket of my jeans—there would be time for a proper proposal later. “You’re coming with me.”
“No. You need to go. I’ll call you. I’ll text you—I promise. You have to go, though. Right. Now.”
I shook my head, shoving my feet into my shoes. I still had no idea what the rush was—what in the hell the big hurry was that made it necessary for me to leave right this second. Everything had been almost back to normal. Everything had been perfect only a second ago.
“You have to go. You have to go.” She stood at the door, her hand trembling against the knob.
“Are you going to tell me what the hell…?”
“No time. Go. I’ll try to contact you if they let me.”
“If who lets you?” None of this made sense. She wasn’t being held her against her will. She wasn’t a prisoner here…
She swung the door open and I saw the large, gray-haired man sitting on the top step, his back to the door.
He turned when he heard the door open and stood up, smoothing down his pants. He smiled at her, then turned his head to nod at me. “Hey, kiddo. Brandon. Long time, no see.”
My hands clenched into fists, remembering how this man had been at least partly responsible for her kidnapping so many months ago. My lip curled into a sneer before I spoke.
“Hello, Cade.”
7
“I’m sorry to spoil the reunion. Hopefully, you two got what you ne
eded out of it.” His cheeks turned a shade of crimson that I hadn’t ever seen before. He turned to me. “Brandon, I’m sure you don’t believe it, but it’s good to see you. I know you’re happy to see Jenna, here, but I doubt you’re that happy to see me.” He glanced down at my waist. “If you could empty your pockets for me. Slowly.”
I realized he was talking about the bulge in my jeans—Jen’s engagement ring. I turned out my pockets, handing him the black box and the keys to my rental car.
He took both items and turned for a moment to toss the keys to another large man standing a few feet away. I looked over and noticed an armada of them—large men in suits, their eyes covered by dark sunglasses. CIA, maybe. Maybe Secret Service. Cade had been on Jen’s detail for a long time, so his presence didn’t surprise me. But the rest of them…
He handed the box back to me. “Nice. You probably think otherwise, but I’ve always rooted for you two. I’m still rooting for you.” He motioned toward the doorway where Jen was standing. “She’s a good kid.”
“She is.” I wasn’t sure what the response to his statement should be—Jen wasn’t just a good kid. She was the love of my life. But with a dozen or more of these Cade-types standing around, I knew I was going to have one hell of a time proving that to her.
He ducked his head, leaning toward me. “I have to ask you this, so don’t be offended. Do you have any weapons on you?”
I shook my head. I had left the gun in the car. After I had known it was really her—that she was really here—I hadn’t wanted to scare her with it.