by Mary Calmes
“I feel that I’m being made fun of.”
“No, honey,” I said, chuckling, taking his face in my hands and kissing his nose. “Maybe let’s give it some more thought.”
“Fine.”
I kissed him then, long and slow and deep.
“Now.” He exhaled sharply, straddling my thighs. “Let me tell you about Calum and the flavor of the month club.”
“What?”
“It’s what my mother calls the different girls he brings to all our holiday gatherings. Last year, the one he brought to Thanksgiving wasn’t the same one he brought at Christmas! It’s nuts. I have no idea how he’s keeping track of them. And he keeps having them get in the pictures, so the photo album is getting kind of dicey, right? My mother is like, what was this one’s name?”
I had to laugh along with him because imagining Livia Lahm squinting over her readers and asking her husband, who would be sitting in a chair by the fire, to remember some girl that she didn’t want in her holiday album was damn funny. I had been touched when she insisted I get in the very first year Efrem and I were together and for the years after that.
“I can get back in the picture this year right?” I asked him.
“Oh yes,” he said before he kissed me breathless.
We were both panting when I broke the kiss.
“I want to hear more about your brother and about your sisters and your folks but first I want to tell you what I do now that can put my military record beyond your reach, and your boss’s, and wipe my civilian one like it never existed.”
He took a breath before he slipped off my lap and got comfortable beside me, his long legs curled under him.
“I’m the vault,” I announced with a little bit of flourish.
He waited, looking at me expectantly.
“Did you hear me?”
“I did.”
“Well?” I pressed because everyone I’d told had been amazed or horrified or, in Rahm’s case, maybe even a bit put out that it had been me instead of him.
“Well, what?”
“I just told you I was the vault.”
“Is that an office or something? Slang for something I should know? Are you the treasurer of some underground—”
“Are you kidding?”
“Don’t sound so annoyed. I’m sure whatever it is you do is very important.” He placated me like I was a child, smiling indulgently but lovingly at the same time.
“Now you’re patronizing me.”
“No.”
I growled at him, and the answering smile almost made me forget that I was trying to explain something. “Shit, listen to me. The vault is a job.”
“Oh?”
“Knock it off. It’s a real job and a very important one.”
“Who do you work for?”
“You should get comfortable.”
Two hours later, because he interrupted me many, many times, he had the idea of what it was I did and had even managed to confuse me a couple of times. It occurred to me as I’d been talking to him that he was very good for me in more ways than one. Beyond Sousanna, and Duncan Stiel, he was the only other person in my life who was not somehow or other, a criminal. Telling him about what I did and having him ask questions was refreshing and reminded me there was more to me than simply what I did.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him, concerned with his pained expression.
“I’m terrified of losing you,” he said solemnly, lacing his fingers into mine.
“Why would you lose me now?”
“You’re traveling all over the world to God knows where, and a lot of those places are dangerous and—”
“You just told me a few hours ago that I should never be afraid here because I have so many people protecting me.”
“Here, yes,” he stressed, scowling, clearly worried. “Not halfway around the world! Who’s protecting you out there?”
“Did you miss the part where I told you about Ceaton and his team? And you met Lee, so you know he’s annoying but terrifying.”
He looked scared, worried, and I had to fix that.
“No one wants me dead,” I assured him, “except Thiago Fanton.”
“And you’re not frightened of him at all?”
“Oh, no. There’s no one working now who’s stupid enough to take a shot at me.”
“Yes, but anyone can get off a lucky shot.”
“True, but whenever I leave Nahant now, Ceaton’s with me, and if you met him and his guys, you’d feel a lot better.”
He didn’t look convinced.
“I can see if Marko is still next door having tea with my neighbor.”
He squinted at me.
“What?”
“That right there does not inspire confidence.”
I cleared my throat. “You could come with me, if you wanted.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I mean, if you’re so worried, you could travel with me when I have to go somewhere that could possibly be dangerous.”
He climbed back into my lap then, long legs folded on either side of my thighs, hands on my shoulders as he stared into my eyes. “Did I hear you right? You’re offering to take a federal agent with you overseas to traffic in stolen goods?”
“Not always stolen, as you heard earlier with Lee. He’s going to kill someone so a father can protect his daughter.”
“I did hear that, yes.”
“So you know it’s not always glamorous jet-setting playboy time, and on the other hand, not everyone wants to blow my brains out,” I concluded, hands on his hips, shucking him forward, closer to me.
“How often do you travel?”
“So far in the six to seven months, I haven’t picked up anything myself,” I admitted. “It hasn’t been necessary.”
He was silent, tracing over my eyebrow with his thumb. “But what if you have to leave tomorrow?”
“Then I will.”
“Yes, but—”
“Do you think you’d want to be here when I get back?”
“Be here?”
“You know what I’m asking.”
“That’s fast,” he said, eyes on me, settled on my face,
“It’s not.”
“Your job and mine,” he began hesitantly, “how would that even work?”
“Well, I guess we’ll find out,” I said. I shrugged. “You’re not giving up your job—”
“But I might still be fired.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But either way, I can’t give up mine, and I’m not losing you again, so we’ll see what we see,” I said, sliding my hand around the back of his neck to bring him to me. “You could learn to paint or something.”
“I just got you back, and you want me to sabotage our relationship by becoming a kept man?”
“When did I say that? I never said that.”
“Darius, you—”
“I don’t want to keep you—”
“What?”
“No, I mean I don’t want to keep you like a sugar daddy or something, I want you to marry me.”
He stared at me like he’d seen a ghost, and I sat there waiting.
“That was my line,” he husked, hands back on my chest. “I asked you, remember?”
“I do. It’s like it happened yesterday, that’s how clear it is in my mind.”
His breath caught. “And so you want to marry me?”
“Very much.”
“I could be a crazy person you know.”
“We’re both insane. What has that got to do with anything?”
“I—”
“You want to marry me, you always have.”
“That’s awfully presumptuous of—”
“You have,” I insisted, holding on to his thighs when he tried to get up. “Since the first time you met me, you wanted to marry me.”
He wasn’t arguing.
“You had just come out to your parents, your sisters and brother, your grandmother, everyone, and you were blown away by not only being a
ccepted but by the fact that they all treated it like it was no big deal.”
“They all knew already.”
“And you were on cloud nine and doing what?”
“I can’t believe you remember all this.”
I chuckled. “You were happy, and you told me that you were starting your life and not looking for love, but you’d be open to it if it walked in your door.”
“Jesus, why did I say all that to you?”
“Because I walked into your office and gave you a raging boner!”
“Conceited much? Holy shit, are you like this with everyone?”
I grabbed his face, holding tight, staring into his eyes. “No. I’m not like this with anyone, ever, except you.”
His breath caught as he stared back at me, holding my gaze, unflinching.
“Do you get it? Do you get that I have one shot at being me for the rest of my life if you just fuckin’ stay here!”
“I—”
“We can fly out to Washington and pack up your house then go to Connecticut and talk to your parents. I’ll explain that there’s no prenup, and I’m worth millions now.”
He went still. “Is that true?”
I nodded.
“Millions?”
“Yep.”
“Are you serious right now?”
“I’m serious about all of it. The marriage proposal, what I’m worth, what—”
“I don’t give a shit about money, you know that.”
“I do know that, mister old money.”
“You—”
I growled. “Just fuckin’ marry me!”
“Oh, that’s romantic.”
“Have we not been separated for sixteen years? Do we not deserve to be together now?”
He scowled at me, and that was surprising. “Oh, I’m not ever leaving,” he said flatly. “I’m never leaving. I’m moving in next week. I’ll put my place on the market, like, tomorrow.”
“I—what?”
He gave me a slow grin that made his eyes sparkle and shine. “And yes, Mr. Hawthorne, I will marry you, and you will come to Essex with me and talk to my parents because they both fell in love with you too.”
He had a great family, and I couldn’t wait to reconnect with them after all these years. “Yes, well, I’m hard not to love.”
“It’s true.”
I took a breath, feeling my life starting to finally fall into place.
“Tell me something.”
“Anything.”
“Why didn’t you ever sleep with anyone else?”
“I told you already. I was holding out for you.”
“But why?”
“Because I love you.”
“But that’s also the reason you stayed away,” he whispered, his voice bottoming out fast.
“Yes.”
“Because I would have been in danger too.”
“You would have.”
“But you thought, any day I can go back, and he’ll want me.”
I nodded. “As I said before, I held onto that hope.”
“And along with that you thought, I better not fuck anyone else or Efrem’ll kill me.”
I smiled just a little because no, I wasn’t ever scared, it was that there was only one Efrem, and he was it for me. It was him or nothing, and so I’d gone without. But I had him now, and there was no getting away. He was mine, I was his, simple as that. It was ridiculous for us to ever be alone again.
“And mostly it was okay because you were busy, and people were trying to kill you, and your job was to kill them, and things were insane, but sometimes—”
“All the time,” I corrected. “I missed you all the time.”
He curled forward and kissed me, and my lips parted, just as they had the first time all those years ago behind the pool hall. Months later, I’d walked into his house behind him when we got back from training, and he’d kissed me, right after he explained he was being transferred to another unit.
We were basically living together even though we had to maintain separate residences, spending all our free time together, and I was confused and hurt as to why he wanted to leave me.
“Not you,” he said, chuckling, smiling as the flush stole up his throat, blotching in large patches and pinking his cheeks. It was so appealing and only I ever caused the reaction. “I never want to leave you.”
“Then why?” I asked sharply, not caring if the neighbors heard us or saw us, taking hold of his hips and stepping into his space, inhaling his scent as I licked my lips, wanting to taste him again even as I was angry and even hurt. “Why are you leaving when everything’s going so great?”
“I’m not leaving the base,” he soothed me, hands on my face. “Just your unit.”
“I don’t get it.”
“It’s because I want to kiss you,” he answered quickly, arms coiling around my neck as he pressed against me, shivering with the closeness. “I want us to be in two different units so we can take time off at the same time and no one will think twice about it, and I want all that more than I want to give you orders.”
I smirked. “You don’t wanna give me orders?”
He caught his breath. “I do, but I don’t want there to be any power imbalance between us. I want you to want to do what I ask, not to have to, not to ever think in the back of your mind that I could, or would, hurt you.”
And I never had until the mistake we both made at the same time in the interrogation room.
“It’s just like that day in my house when I told you I was leaving the unit,” Efrem said in the present. “We’re making a change so we can go forward, together.”
Yes, we were.
“Whatever happens from here on out, I want us to do it together.”
“It’s time,” I told him, wrapping my arms around him as he leaned into me.
“For what?”
“For our happily ever after.”
“Yes, it is,” he agreed, nestling in against me, melting into my arms, surrendering up his weight as he draped himself over me. “It most certainly is.”
Author’s Note
MEET CONRAD for the first time in Mine.
Read Trevan and Landry’s love story in Mine.
Meet Ceaton, Pravi, Marko, and the rest of the team in A Day Makes.
Get the story of Rahm’s meeting with the US marshal in All Kinds of Tied Down.
Follow the gun! Read Acrobat and Tied Up in Knots.
More from Mary Calmes
First From The Vault
Mob enforcer Ceaton Mercer has killed a lot of people in a lot of different ways—he stashed the last two bodies in a toolshed belonging to a sweetheart marine researcher in an idyllic island community—but he’s really not such a bad guy. Over time he’s found a home of sorts, and he even learns he’s found a place in the hearts of the people he works with… at least enough so that they won’t put a bullet in his head because he’s outlived his usefulness to the boss.
But he never thought he’d find one day could change his life, and he’s about to discover how wrong he is.
Because in a single day, he meets the man who looks to be the one, the love of his life. It’s an improbable idea—a man who deals in death finding love—but it’s like it’s meant to be. That single day gets weirder and troubles pile up, forcing Ceaton to take a hard look at his dreary life and accept that one day can change everything, especially himself. His future might be brighter than he expects—if he can stay alive long enough to find out.
Hagen Wylie has it all figured out. He’s going to live in his hometown, be everybody’s friend, explore new relationships, and rebuild his life after the horrors of war. No muss, no fuss is the plan. He’s well on his way—until he finds out his first love has come home too. Hagen says it’s no big deal, but a chance encounter with Mitch Thayer’s two cute sons puts him directly in the path of the only guy he’s never gotten out of his head.
Mitch returned for three reasons: to raise his sons where he grew up, to move his
furniture business and encourage it to thrive, and to win Hagen back. Years away made it perfectly clear the young man he loved in high school is the only one for him. The problem? He left town and they have not talked since.
If Hagen’s going to trust him again, Mitch needs to show him how he’s grown up and isn’t going to let go. They could have a new chance at love… but Hagen is insistent he’s not reviving a relationship with Mitch. Then again, you never know.
Timing: Book One
Stefan Joss just can’t win. Not only does he have to go to Texas in the middle of summer to be the man of honor in his best friend Charlotte’s wedding, but he’s expected to negotiate a million-dollar business deal at the same time. Worst of all, he’s thrown for a loop when he arrives to see the one man Charlotte promised wouldn’t be there: her brother, Rand Holloway.
Stefan and Rand have been mortal enemies since the day they met, so Stefan is shocked when a temporary cease-fire sees the usual hostility replaced by instant chemistry. Though leery of the unexpected feelings, Stefan is swayed by a sincere revelation from Rand, and he decides to give Rand a chance.
But their budding romance is threatened when Stefan’s business deal goes wrong: the owner of the last ranch he needs to secure for the company is murdered. Stefan’s in for the surprise of his life as he finds himself in danger as well.
Timing: Book Two
Two years after riding off into the sunset with ranch owner Rand Holloway, Stefan Joss has made a tentative peace with his new life, teaching at a community college. But the course of true love never does run smooth. Rand wants him home on the ranch; Stef wants an exit strategy in case Rand ever decides to throw him out. Finally, after recognizing how unfair he’s being, Stef makes a commitment, and Rand is over the moon.
When Stef gets the chance to prove his devotion, he doesn’t hesitate—despite the risk to his health—and Rand takes the opportunity to show everyone that sometimes life’s best surprises come after the sunset.
A Timing Story
Glenn Holloway’s predictable life ended the day he confessed his homosexuality to his family. As if that wasn’t enough, he then poured salt in the wound by walking away from the ranch he’d grown up on, to open the restaurant he’d always dreamed of. Without support from his father and brother, and too proud to accept assistance from anyone else, he had to start from scratch. Over time things worked out: Glenn successfully built a strong business, created a new home, and forged a life he could be proud of.