“Scratch that!”
Cleo’s sons were looking at him, their faces puzzled. “‘Scratch that’?” Eli asked.
Great. Now he was talking out loud, like a raving lunatic. “I meant to say, uh, how are you filling your days?”
“I’m reading about Isaac Newton,” Obie said.
“You’ve been eating Fig Newtons,” Eli scoffed. “Stop trying to be Mr. Know Everything.”
“I know how to swim!” Obie shot his brother a look. “Almost better than you.”
“Great, great,” Reed said, interceding. “You’ve been in the pool?”
They nodded.
“And what else?”
Eli shrugged a shoulder. “Just walking around. There’s a lot to see.”
“Mommy told us you used to live here when you were a boy like us,” Obie said,
“Yeah, in that big glass house.”
They both swiveled their heads to inspect it. “I like the castle better,” Obie decided.
“There’s armor from real medieval knights in there. I’ll take you to see them sometime.” Hearing himself, he wanted to cut out his tongue. He shouldn’t be making them promises about seeing them again or anything else.
“Cool,” Eli said. “Did you go to school here too? Mom says there were nine kids living here at the same time.”
“Yeah, nine. Some of us pretty close in age.”
“Was it fun? Always somebody to play with.” Eli’s expression was wistful.
“We weren’t all that close then,” Reed said. Maybe because of the general chaos, maybe because the Lemons didn’t particularly foster closeness—even between themselves and their own children.
“Is there a school at the pound?” Obie asked. “I’ve looked around but didn’t see one.”
Eli slid him a look. “Compound.”
“No,” Reed said. “We went to a school not too far from here, but outside of the compound. A school with other kids too.”
“I bet no bullies bothered you,” Obie pursed his lips. “Not when there were nine of you.”
“Reed would stand up to the bullies,” Eli said. “Just by himself. He’s strong and mean.”
Not strong enough. Not mean enough. Not…enough.
“Maybe there weren’t bullies at Reed’s school.” Obie looked up at Reed, all big blues and a splash of golden freckles.
“I think there’s probably bullies just about everywhere you go.”
“At your school?” Obie insisted. “The one near the pound—compound?”
“At the school nearby, it wasn’t bad that I remember. But for a year I went to a school a couple of hours away. I slept there, ate there, lived in a dormitory.”
“Like college?” Eli asked.
“Yes, like that. I was a bit older than you.” As always, when thinking of Oceanview anger burned in his gut. Anger at his grandfather for placing him there, anger at the ugly culture of the place. A little pain, a little humiliation never hurt anybody. “There were lots of bullies there.”
“I still think about those boys with the fruit,” Obie confessed. “Remembering gives me bad dreams.”
“Me, too,” Reed said, without thinking. “I still have nightmares all the time.”
“Obie? Eli?”
Cleo’s low voice made the hairs on the back of Reed’s neck jump to attention. He swung around to find her right behind him. She must move like a ghost.
Her gaze was on her sons. “There’s cupcakes.” As they took off in the direction of the food, she called to their backs, “Be sure to say please and thank you.”
Then her eyes shifted to Reed. “Hi,” she said, her voice soft.
“I guess I shouldn’t have said that—about nightmares to your boys.” For damn sure he wished she hadn’t heard.
“I try to be truthful with them as much as I can. They know adults can have bad dreams too.”
She probably thought his were of the naked test-taking variety. He certainly wasn’t going to disabuse her of the notion.
Instead, he studied her face, looking for signs of anxiety. “How have you been?”
“Fine.”
The automatic answer made him suspect she wouldn’t be completely forthcoming about her state of mind, at least not now, after he’d left her alone for days. God, he’d dropped her like a stone in the canyon and then walked away. What a guy. What a fucking not-nice guy.
His back prickled and he glanced over his shoulder to see Payne and Walsh standing together. Sunglasses covered their eyes, but he could tell they were focused on him and Cleo by the stupid half-smiles on their faces.
Behind her back, he shot them the finger.
To, Cleo, he said, “You want to go for a walk?” It would take a few minutes to regain her trust and it would be best to do so away from the others. Then he’d ask if she was okay here alone. An honest “yes” and all would be good. “There’s a path that winds behind the tennis courts and the pool house.”
He saw her swallow. “Okay.” She glanced at her sons.
“They’ll be fine.” He signaled to get Bing’s attention, indicated a walkabout with a circled finger, then pointed at Eli and Obie.
He got a thumb’s-up, followed by a hubba-hubba eyebrow dance.
“Bastard,” Reed muttered, turning his back on the man and starting to walk. This tribe thing was getting entirely too chummy. Just a few months back, he was blissfully alone, working vampire hours and happy in his own creepy headspace. Now he was forced to be social and…and fucking smile too much of the time.
“That’s quite the ferocious expression you’re wearing,” Cleo said. “Were Eli and Obie bothering you?”
“No.” Such a charmer you are, Hopkins, he admonished himself. “I called them over. And Cleo, you’ve got to know, they’re great.”
“Thanks. I think so.”
She shoved her hands in the back pockets of her jeans, and hell, just like that he went hard. He wanted his hands on her ass, her naked ass. He wanted to be all over her, inside her, have her taste on his tongue, her mouth on his cock.
He wanted to tell her raunchy stories that made her tremble and then make all her wicked, secret wishes come true.
Glancing at her face, he took in the sweet, clean lines of her profile. The feathery edges of her lashes. Those delectable lips. As he watched, she bit the bottom one and her gaze cut sideways.
Oh, hell. She was nervous. Being alone here hadn’t soothed her in the slightest.
He shot out his hand and turned her to him. If he put it to her as a question, he suspected she’d balk. Accustomed to taking care of herself and her sons, she wouldn’t want to appear weak in his eyes.
Which she sure as hell wasn’t. So had to come up with an alternative.
“Here’s the thing,” he said.
Her face was tilted toward him, and he couldn’t stop himself from brushing that bright blonde hair from her forehead. Her brown eyes were on him, sweet and soft. His belly jittered, his heart, that fucked-up organ that had been so unpredictable lately, thumped against his ribs.
“I’m not going to be able to sleep unless I’m here at the compound with you,” he said, and suddenly realized it was true. His restlessness, his inability to focus, had been worry that he’d tried to smother and failed.
Her eyes had gone wide. “At your, um, family home?”
He shook his head. “Here’s the other thing. This place is legend. We’ve had rabid fans intrude on more than one occasion.” No lie. And it had been in the back of his mind, nagging him. Then he realized what she might be thinking…presuming. “On the couch, darlin’. I’ll be sleeping on the couch.”
And when he considered that, being under the same roof and yet still not able to touch her, he realized zero shut-eye was the least of his problems.
Chapter Eleven
Cleo attributed her edginess to the unfamiliarity of sharing four walls and a roof with another adult. A man. It wasn’t Reed, in particular, who was getting to her.
S
he was determined to handle his presence though, because she couldn’t get Cilla’s words out of her head, that Reed might need something from her. He’d implied staying here, with her and the boys, would give him peace of mind. Surely that was small payback for his many kindnesses to them.
“The dinner was great,” he said, coming up behind her at the kitchen sink.
If her bones nearly jolted out of her skin at his sudden nearness, she thought she recovered quickly. “Thanks.”
He slid the plates on the countertop. “You should let me do the dishes.”
“You should let the boys clear the table. It’s their job.”
“They’re on another important mission. I’m to be treated to a dinosaur exhibit in the living room in ten minutes.”
Grimacing, Cleo rinsed a cup and placed it in the dishwasher. “Don’t let them bother you. You’ve done enough for us already.”
“You and your prodigy,” he said mildly, “are hard to resist.”
She glanced over at him, caught the curve of his lips. “I saw what you did there. Prodigy, progeny.”
“I’m impressed.” His smile warmed and everything inside her jumped again. “That eggcorn’s not one of my better examples.”
Looking away, she cleared her throat. “I’ve been thinking…”
When she paused, he prompted. “You’ve been thinking…?”
About you all the time! What’s with that? It had to be the sex, she told herself. He’d awakened her drive and now her whole body hummed when around him. But it didn’t go any further than skin-deep. His effect on her was merely physical.
Relieved by that assertion, she cleared her throat. “I’ve been thinking that I’ll move into the room the boys are sharing.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Well, there’s just the two bedrooms. I’ll be with the boys and you can have the other as your space. As your office and your place, to, um sleep.” Thinking of him stretched on a mattress a wall away was going to be torture.
“The couch will be fine for me.”
“No. It’s not…” She glanced over at him, her gaze taking him in from tousled hair to wide shoulders, to lean hips and long legs. “You won’t fit.” Then she shivered, because she hadn’t thought he’d fit inside her. She’d seen that long, thick organ between his legs, and experienced a twinge of purely feminine fear. But his intrusion had been deliciously slow and God, so satisfying.
The memory triggered a flash of heat and she adjusted the water streaming from the faucet to cold, letting it splash on her wrists. How was she going to survive this fever?
“Hey.” Reed touched her shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“This isn’t going to be forever, you know,” she mumbled to herself more than to him.
“What?”
“I’m going to ask around our neighborhood. If nobody has seen a strange man lurking, then we’ll move back in next week.” What else could she possibly do? “If there’s no sign of Pete, either he’s moved on or Eli was mistaken. Either way, we’ll go back to living our life.”
“I did that. Asked around.”
She shut off the water, turned to face him. “You did?”
“Yeah. I talked to the workmen at the big house you’re watching over too. Not a sign of anyone hanging about who shouldn’t be there.”
“Why?”
He tilted his head, his expression puzzled. “Why…what?”
“You must have better things to do than look out for us.”
“I’m not doing anything special, Cleo,” he said, his expression saying he was irritated by the thought. “Get that out of your head.”
“It’s not that I don’t appreciate your efforts.” This was going wrong, she knew, but trying to figure out his motivations had her stomach twisting. “I just don’t like the idea of you thinking we need to be rescued.”
Reed ran his hand through his hair, the movement jerky. His whole body appeared tense. “Well, that’s a good goddamn thing, because I’m nobody’s white knight.”
“I’ve got to know.” She wet her dry lips, her gaze searching his face. “Reed, did you touch me because you pitied me?”
“What?”
“Because I was a sexless single mom who hadn’t gotten herself some in seven years.”
He stared. “Cleo, I don’t know where to start.” His hand reached for her, dropped to his side. “For fuck’s sake, woman, you’ve got to know I don’t find you anything close to sexless.”
Then he glanced away, glanced back. “As for seven years…well, I didn’t know about that then and I sure as hell wish I didn’t know now.”
“Sorry.”
His eyes narrowed. “You’re taking it the wrong way. I don’t want an apology. It’s just that now I know the…depth of your hunger, well, I won’t be able to think of anything other than how badly I want to assuage it.”
“Assuage,” Cleo said, her voice faint.
“I know.” Reed relaxed, smiling, and this time when he reached out, his palm cupped her cheek. “Gotta love that word. It just sounds like sex.”
Her skin felt tight on her bones and hot, so hot. “Oh, God.”
His thumb stroked her face. “Cleo, I think we can agree this is not the time—”
“Reed!” Obie bellowed from the living room. “Come see our dinosaurs.”
“—or place,” Reed finished, grimacing. “I should go.”
She nodded. “And I should cool off.”
His grin flashed across his face as he started out. “Not too cool. I’ll be plotting ways to put us in more…private circumstances.”
That promise didn’t do a thing to bring her temperature down but it did reassure her of what this…thing between them was all about. Skin-deep, she’d decided before, and she’d been right. If the man could say a simple word—assuage—and have her core clenching, then her fascination with him was purely grounded in the physical.
With that in mind, she made sure she remained out of his range for the rest of the evening. With the tacit agreement that while they might desire sex there wouldn’t be sex when the boys were around, it seemed best not to tempt either one of them further by offering opportunities to brush hands or even trade glances. After the boys were in bed, he still refused to take her room, so she retreated to the one she was using after locating a pillow and blanket that she tossed to him from the living room doorway.
Even when they shared polite good nights, she managed not to look at him…though she was somehow supremely aware that as he arranged the bedding on the couch he’d already stripped off his shirt. Okay, since he was turned away, she did allow herself a small ogle at the wide expanse of his naked shoulders and the smooth skin of his back, golden in the lamplight. Muscles played across the surface as he smoothed the pillow and she thought about crossing the distance between them and rubbing her cheek over that flesh like a cat.
But then she shook herself, knowing that could lead to all those things that they’d agreed required a more private setting.
In her bedroom, the sheets felt cool against her heated skin. Less sleepy than she wished, she listened to the night sounds. It was a different sort of quiet in the compound than she was used to. In other places where she’d lived, there had always been car and truck noises in the air. Here, there was just the breeze stirring leaves. Crickets singing their night songs.
She tried to imagine how it had been when Reed was growing up and she finally drifted off to the imagined accompaniment of a Hollywood-style party: music, laughter, voices.
It was a real voice that awakened her from sleep some hours later.
Her eyes popped open, then she sat up, her maternal instincts already urging her to rise. But within another few seconds she knew it wasn’t Eli or Obie calling out, but instead, Reed’s voice, low and deep.
Was he on the phone? Had someone come by for a late night visit?
But there was an urgency to his tone that made her slide off the mattress and grab up her robe. On her way to
the living room, she glanced in at the boys. They were lost in slumber and she tiptoed out, shutting the door behind her.
Reed’s sleep was not so tranquil.
Moonlight shone through the window over the couch where he was stretched out. He lay on his stomach, the blanket pushed down to his waist, his arms beneath the pillow. “Ben,” he murmured, his voice agonized. “No. Ben, why?”
The tortured tone drew her to him. Unsure what to do, she knelt on the rug beside the cushions, her hand hovering over him. Should she awaken him?
He turned his head toward her as one arm crept from beneath the pillow and he crushed its softness in his fist. “Ben.” He groaned it. “Ben. Nooo.”
The despair in the words tore at her. Cleo placed her hand on his warm shoulder. “Reed. Wake up, Reed. It’s just a dream.”
Still lost in his nightmare, he moaned. She stroked the heavy blade of bone. “Reed,” she whispered again.
Her touch seemed to settle him, so she continued brushing her palm along his back. After a few minutes, she slid it away and prepared to leave him be.
Then he thrashed, as if unseen hands were holding him down. “Let me go,” he muttered darkly. “Let me go.”
“Shh.” Cleo stroked the back of his head, then lightly drew her fingers through his hair, massaging his scalp from crown to nape. There, the long layers parted and she saw marks on his skin.
A tattoo, just below his hairline.
A predatory bird of some sort—hawk?—in flight. Beneath it was lettered BEN – RIP and below that, a date some sixteen years before.
It seemed too intimate to examine when Reed was asleep, especially since it was usually hidden—was that his intention? She was rearranging his hair to cover it again, when a big hand suddenly clamped over hers.
Cleo squeaked. Her gaze shot to Reed’s face and she saw he was now awake, his eyes open and trained on her.
His fingers tightened. “What are you doing?” he asked, his voice raspy.
Swallowing, she tugged out of his hold. “You were dreaming.”
On a groan, he sat up, then rubbed his hands over his face. “Shit. Sorry. Go back to bed.”
“Can I warm you some milk?” she asked, thinking of that night of Obie’s nightmare.
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