by Elise Faber
“Take me, please,” she moaned into his mouth. “Now.”
CHAPTER TEN
“Were you really that hot for me?” Brock teased and kissed the back of her shoulder. Keely lay curled back against him, her skin slick and cool with more than their sweat. Her nails trailed up and down his arm with the sensation of a spider dancing over the sprinkle of dark hairs. She turned in his arms only enough to snuggle against him more and see his face. Her smile lay soft and satisfied on her kiss-bruised lips.
“More turned on than I’d ever been in my life.”
“Whole life?” he said and leaned his chin on her shoulder. “For real?”
Keely nodded with feathery brown eyebrows raised high on her forehead. “I’d never been that bold before. I’d been with men who could work my body, or touch my mind, and all that. But never both and not to that level. That was the first of some of the most amazing nights of my life.” She reached back to cup his face, and he pressed a kiss to her palm. There was a heaviness in her now that hadn’t been there a few moments before.
“Cher,” he said and laid his hand over hers on his face. “What’s making you sad?”
“I never finished telling you the rest of how, after you were gone.” She swallowed and closed her eyes to suck in a breath. “I almost ended this night for us before it ever started.”
Her hand trembled on his cheek, and he wrapped his arms around her. “You don’t have to.”
“No, I do,” she said and sat up to hover over him. “I need you to know everything that happened before the sun catches up to us.”
Brock didn’t want to hear how he’d broken her heart by dying. More than anything else, he wanted to shush her lips with a kiss and keep on kissing her until death took him again. “If it’s what you need, then I’m all ears.”
December nine years ago
“I appreciate the offer, Mr. Higgins,” Keely said and wiped her nose with the tear-and-sweat-soaked tissue she’d held crumpled in her fist for the last hour. “Really I do, but I haven’t even been able to tolerate visiting a restaurant we loved yet. I’m not sure the place we spent our first night as man and wife is going to be something I can handle right now.”
“I understand, Mrs. Stephens,” Higgins said. “I promise you my staff and I will do everything in our power to give you an evening fitting to the memory of your husband. We won’t make things worse for you if you’ll let us try.”
She could only breathe into the receiver through the pain radiating from every shattered piece of her heart. There were no words to ease her. She hoped only the end would bring her the peace Brock had taken with him when he’d died.
“Maybe,” Higgins started then paused. “Mrs. Stephens, if you’ll forgive me for being presumptuous just this once, but maybe you’re in need of a moment in a place where you were your happiest together to remember him.”
Keely choked on a sob and pressed a hand to her mouth.
“Please, my dear,” Higgins said softly. “Come let us take care of you for a little while.”
The traffic finally cleared some as Keely stopped at the last light before the causeway. She’d have to reach the top before she’d be able to see her way across. The bridge rose stark against the dark sky, the other side invisible still, as if it were made of sun-bleached bones.
“Okay, Higgins.” She sniffed and then blew her nose as the car started the steep climb over the bridge, casting its long shadow on that small piece of Lake Pontchartrain. “I’ll see you soon.”
“I hung up without saying goodbye,” Keely whispered. “Even though I’d said yes, I still wasn’t sure. The urge to jump off that bridge—” Her eye flicked toward him then quickly away as her neck flushed. “—to be done with it all, was still with me.”
Brock’s chest tensed under her cheek. “But you didn’t.” He leaned forward and kissed her hair. “I’m glad you changed your mind.”
She raised up on one elbow and looked at his face. “I didn’t change my mind, Brock.”
He frowned and touched the corner of her mouth where it had curled into a sad smile. “Every moment we are apart, I want to die and be with you again.”
“But every year, you come back,” he said. “We’ve been together and hap—”
Keely stilled his lips with the press of hers, the kiss damp with leftover tears. Her eyes squeezed tight before letting go again. “Every year, Brock. Every single one I’d drive over that bridge and consider the fall. The desire never left me.”
Brock seemed to struggle to swallow and started to move away, pain and guilt turning the green in his eyes dark and stormy. “Why are you telling me this now?” He sat up and ran both hands through his hair.
“Brock, you said it was okay if I needed to tell you about this.”
“I know what I said.” He covered his mouth with his hands and blew out a breath before standing. “But saying I’ll listen to how my wife wants to kill herself because of me and actually enduring hearing the details of it are very different things.” The words had come out much harsher than he’d intended. When he turned to face Keely again, the wound he’d inflicted seemed to bleed the rush of color from her skin.
She’d curled on her side away from him, the sheet tucked under her chin. The creamy expanse of her bare back, framed by the white sheet, now shadowed by the dark room.
The night outside their wall of windows had turned gray since he’d last spared a glance away from her face to look. All Brock wanted was the memory of her to get him through this next leg of his eternity, so he hadn’t bothered. He had to face their reality now. Morning’s arrival had begun in the faint outline of clouds, and he’d never leave her to traverse 364 more days hurt by his words. Shapes of black and gray chasing each other over the Gulf reminded him too much of his own demons, and he turned away from denial, turned back to his heart. Slipping under the covers behind her, he curled his body against her back.
“I’m an asshole,” he whispered on her neck.
“You are,” she agreed just as softly, and after so many breaths, he worried she’d closed her heart around the damage he’d done. “A big one.” But he caught how her cheek moved into another smile, one not so sad.
They lay still, wrapped around each other, legs braided, her toes stroking his ankle, bodies nestled in the last way you can before truly joining them.
“What would you have done if I’d just popped into the hotel, like you?” Her fingers ghosted over the back of his arm, a tickling sensation he could barely think around. Yet her question stirred emotions he wasn’t ready to process.
“Honestly?”
Keely turned in his arms, nose to nose, and nodded. No hiding his expression of terror this close, so he didn’t bother to try. She softened the longer he lay silent, fighting the urge to shake her and scream and cry.
“I could spend the rest of my life looking at this face and never see all the things I want to know about you. Since the night we met, your heart has always shown here first.” She squinted. Her gaze jumped back and forth from his eyes to his mouth. “Everything is marching across your face all at once,” she whispered. “And it’s all the same things I’ve felt for the last ten years.” Her fingertip brushed over the twitch in his right eyebrow. “Anger.”
“This looks like fear,” she said, and her voice trembled as she smoothed the tense lines at the corner of his eye with her thumb. She kissed the tight line of his lips as they quivered. “And despair.”
Agony flashed in her eyes. “Regret,” she whispered as she touched the pinched frown between his brows.
“No,” he said too loud, and she flinched when he gripped her wrist. “No, Keely,” he said gentler. “Never regret. Not ever.”
“So you’d be okay if I’d decided to jump? You’d want me with you forever?”
He wanted to hunch over his shattered heart as the sob he’d needed to let out for hours croaked painfully in his throat.
“From the moment we met, I’ve never stopped wanting you.�
�� He tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear and gathered her close, cradled in his arms. She tucked her hands around his ribs and squeezed him so tight he almost felt whole again. “But I’d never wish death for you, not even if it would let us be together. That would be the most selfish wish I can imagine.”
He shook his head when she opened her mouth to protest more. “I get what you are saying, I do. But I will never ask you to come be with me. I won’t. Damn, don’t you think I’ve been tempted though?”
Her face crumpled a little as she nodded.
“Don’t do it, Keely,” he whispered. “I’ll always want you, never doubt that. But don’t give up on life, not even for me.”
She buried her face on his neck and shook with crying. The gray light growing brighter silvered her hair some, and he imagined her older, maybe remarried, and a mother to the children he’d wanted them to have together. His heart lay in horrible, jagged pieces, still and silent. Each shard forever tattooed with her name.
She sniffed and finally wiped her face on the sheet. “That’s why I had to tell you, Brock. The reason I kept coming here on our one night together is because it was the only thing that gave me a reason to not jump off that damn bridge. I couldn’t be sure that in death we would be together the way we are now. So I chose to live on to see you every year. Even if it was for only a night, that was okay. It’s one less night I am an empty vessel without you.”
He buried his face in her hair and inhaled, needing to make a new memory to hold on to for when they’d be apart.
“In some strange way,” she whispered on his skin between kisses, “coming back is all that kept me alive.”
He huffed a silent chuckle. “It’s not funny in the least.”
Keely’s smile was real when he released her enough to see her face again. “It’s really not,” she said then stifled a snort. “But then it almost is. Only we could get into a mess like this one.”
“This is true.”
She kissed his chin and rolled on top of him. “I know it was a hard thing to hear, but I’m glad I got the chance to tell you. It’s been a burden keeping that in each year and not knowing how you’d react. I didn’t want to hurt you.”
His chest tightened to the point of pain. “Cher, I’m so sorry. I should’ve paid more attention.”
“Did I hurt you, Brock?” Her eyes were the wide earnestness of a child, and he melted inside.
He shook his head. “We’ve always tried to only enjoy our nights and avoid talking about the hard stuff. I went along with it because that’s what I wanted too.”
She pressed a kiss over his heart. “I never wanted our time to be anything but togetherness. This was on me. I shouldn’t have kept what was really going on with me from you.”
A soft tap on the door startled them both out of the moment.
“What’s Higgins want now?” Brock grumbled and flopped over as Keely rose to pull on her robe. She paused to toss the sheet over his kibble and bits with a sly smile before sauntering across the room.
“Just for this,” Brock said as Higgins strolled in pushing his room-service cart again, “I’m hitting on every hot guest who shows up.”
“Hot?” Keely turned to give him raised eyebrows.
Brock waved a hand. “You know, the ones sensitive to the woo-woo that scare easy.”
“Oh.” She giggled then sobered when Higgins gave her a look of pursed lips and flared nostrils.
Higgins glared at them both in turn as he placed the silver dishes on the table and cleared away their dinner stuff. “Need I remind you that I’ll sic Glenda on you, Mr. Stephens?”
Keely covered her laugh with a hand. “Behave, Brock. I think he brought your favorites.”
“I most certainly did, ungrateful wretch that he is,” Higgins said and snapped out the napkins before turning to go.
“How are you, my dear?” he asked and held her hand in a very fatherly way that warmed Brock’s busted-up soul.
“I told him,” Keely said softly, and Higgins turned to give Brock another more hateful glare.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Brock said. “I behaved. Even though I owe you one for keeping such an important secret from me all this time.”
Higgins looked to Keely for confirmation.
“He behaved, for the most part.”
Higgins snorted and opened the door to leave but paused to take Keely’s hand and bring it to his lips. “Until next year, Mrs. Stephens. I wish you all the happiness in this world and the next.”
“I will see you then,” she said with a new conviction in her voice Brock hadn’t heard before. She hugged Higgins tight enough he made an umph noise. “Thank you for everything,”
He smiled broadly and patted her back as she let go. “It was my supreme pleasure. Enjoy your dessert.” Higgins pointed two fingers at his eyes then whipped them around toward Brock. “And you, I’ll be watching.”
Brock burst out laughing as Keely closed the door, then his mouth snapped shut as her robe landed on the floor.
“Dessert is served, Mr. Stephens.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Watching Keely lick icing off spoons was exactly the way Brock wanted to spend what little time they had left before sunrise. Or maybe one of the ways, in addition to watching her lick other things.
“Brock?”
He blinked. “Uh, yeah.”
Keely chuckled and moved around the table to sit on his lap. “Higgins really outdid himself tonight. Pecan pie, bread pudding, lemon ice, crème brûlée, bananas foster, Doberge cake, and even two pralines.”
“He did,” Brock said and took the spoonful of bread pudding she held up to his lips. “Especially since I know the kitchen closes at eleven. He must’ve had them do all this before they left for the night.” Brock heaved a put-upon sigh. “Guess that means I can’t pick on them for at least a week.” He reached out to swipe a finger in the chocolate and caramel sauce on the bananas-foster plate, and she thumped his arm.
“Cut that out. I have plans for that one, mister.”
He laughed and pointed at the dish next to it and then to his open mouth. “Crème brûlée, get in my belly.”
Keely swirled a spoon in the custard and added some of the crunchy stuff on top before popping it into his mouth. He groaned with pleasure. Minus the powder sugar fleur de lis, it was a close second to the Commander’s Palace version. “So, you didn’t tell me if you re-enlisted this year,” he said as he chewed. The crystalized sugar got stuck in his teeth for a second, and he sucked it out noisily. “Or if you know where you’ll be this year?”
The color drained out of Keely’s face as she stabbed her fork into the slice of Doberge cake. “I decided before I left last December not to re-enlist, so this year was my final tour.”
His eyebrows rose. “Really?”
She nodded. “I’ll be here now.”
That constant sense of anxiety Brock carried for her slowly dissipated. He’d almost forgotten what it felt like not to be obsessively worried for her safety while she worked on foreign soil.
“Oh,” he said but couldn’t tell if he’d suddenly become lightheaded from the sugar rush or the relief. “I’m glad.”
She turned with a smile and kissed him with pillowed lips covered in frosting. He licked every drop away with a sound of appreciation. As she scooped up another bite, he swiped a finger in the icing and smeared it between her breasts. “Oops.”
“Well, that won’t do.” She laughed. “It’d be a complete sin to let something that good go to waste.” She leaned closer, and he swiped his tongue over the spot, taking his sweet time to lick her skin clean.
“I agree,” he said and smacked his lips then yelped when she dribbled lemon ice down his stomach.
“Let me help you with that.” She slid to her knees between his thighs and sucked a drop of creamy goodness off his stomach, dipping her tongue into his navel for a sneaky drop that was trying to escape.
Brock’s head lolled as she licked an
d sucked all the way down. “Mercy, or I won’t last,” he gasped, raising her mouth off his body. “On the bed, woman.” He hauled her to her feet and lightly spanked her ass as he picked up the plate with the rest of the cake. “I’m having my dessert off you instead of Higgins’ fancy dishes.”
She squeaked at the smack and sauntered over to the bed, making a sultry production of stretching out. Those amazingly long legs rubbed together as she wiggled into the position she wanted. The soft swish of skin on skin the only sound besides Brock’s panting breaths.
“Promises, promises,” she teased in a sexy purr, seeing him standing open-mouthed and staring. “What are you waiting for?”
A huge smile showed her all his teeth as he crawled onto the bed. “Bossy.”
“Well, I am a nurse. Comes with the territory.”
He laughed, but it slowly faded away as he broke one of the pralines into tiny pieces and balanced them in a line down her belly and up between her breasts. She gasped when each nipple got a dollop of crème brûlée.
“Muaw oo are ober ooing it,” she mumbled around his fingers smearing frosting on her lips.
“I have only just begun, cher,” he said with a laugh. “I like my table set exactly so.”
He shook the icy water off the half-empty bottle of champagne.
“You wouldn’t dare,” she threatened, but the glow of anticipation made her a liar.
“Oh, I would,” he said and crawled up to straddle her knees but with his own legs set wide. “And you’ll love it.”
Brock knew how to get exactly what he wanted from her body. One chilled hand slipped up the inner thigh, teasing her legs as wide as possible for him. She shivered and gasped as he placed the cold bottle between them, label-less side nestled against the junction. He squeezed his thighs around hers, and she moaned as her legs molded around the cool glass. Squirming, she reached for him, but he shook his head.