FRACTURE: Hearts of Stone Book Six

by Woodward, Kaya

  How they got a hold of our annulment papers, I haven’t a clue. Maybe it’s public record or something?

  Merc isn’t mentioned by name, anyway. I am sure MI6 is happy that he’s in the tabloids, I think sarcastically. I hope he doesn’t catch any shit over it.

  I sip the wine, reading all the speculation about us.

  He’s not my lover, that much is true. Merc is a mystery. He’s not the same man that I knew before. Before he ‘died’ and then returned.

  Just as I turn the page, I hear the front door open and Ethan’s baby babbling.

  Oh god!

  “Leigha?” Evan calls immediately.

  I say nothing. But all the lights are on now, and it’s dark out. Merc’s car is in the garage.

  Of course, he knows I’m here.

  Oh, well.

  Fuck it.

  “Kitchen!” I call back to Evan.

  He walks into the kitchen just as I say it.

  “I didn’t expect to find you here,” he says.

  Evan’s eyes are wide with worry.

  “Relax. I’m leaving,” I say.

  I drain my wine and hop off the counter as Evan sets Ethan’s carrier down on the island.

  “No! Stay? Please?” Evan asks.

  “Why?” I reply.

  I don’t want to be anywhere near Evan right now, because if I say any more than two words, I’m going to tell him everything.

  “I need to know that you’re not moving on with Merc. Leigha, I can’t be with Vic. I don’t love her. Maybe I did, once. It’s nothing even close to the way I still feel about you, even if you are my ex-wife,” Evan says, just blurting everything out before I can beg him to stop talking.

  “I’m not moving on with Merc,” is all I can come up with.

  “I thought we had this talk already, Evan?” I say, impatiently.

  “You’re not?” Evan asks, confused.

  It’s like he didn’t even listen to me.

  “Well, we’re not together, so I wouldn’t suspect that’s moving on with him,” I say in disbelief.

  He swallows hard. His eyes fall on the tabloids. I’m trying to understand what he’s saying, but it doesn’t make sense in my head. The longer Evan talks, the more I convince myself not to say anything about the discovery Merc, and I made.

  “You and Merc went away together, though,” Evan interjects, pointing at the gossip rags.

  “Evan, it wasn’t like that,” I say, unable to keep the pain out of my voice.

  “Then, what was it?” Evan asks.

  “What is it, Leigha? What’s between you and Merc? His cock?” he growls.

  I don’t answer.

  “Leigha, tell me! I need to know for my own sanity! Please!” Evan pleads for an answer.

  “You loved me,” he says.

  “At some point, you loved me! You helped me, and you would’ve done anything for me. You married me, Leigha! You loved me enough to let me go! So, I’m asking you now, to please tell me what the hell is going on,” he begs.

  Evan’s statement is filled with regret. I want to lie; I want to tell him I don’t love him anymore. But it hurts too much.

  “Evan, I didn’t stop loving you, don’t talk like that please,” I whisper.

  It’s a distraction from the question for a moment.

  “Then what were you doing with Merc?” he asks.

  I steel myself for what I’m about to do. Merc is going to kill me. Maybe literally. I pause, considering my actions, my choices here. In the end, there isn’t any choice.

  I do what I must for the man I still love. Phone in hand, I cross the distance to Evan and pull up the video.

  “What is this?” he asks.

  “Just watch,” I tell him.

  We watch as the footage of the cell comes into view, the timestamp a mere two days before Merc and I arrived. We were too late, but maybe this is enough to claim a small bit of redemption.

  “What? What am I looking at, Leigha? Is this a joke you and Merc…” Evan starts.

  Then, he sees Noah. Evan tenses up, and his lips compress into a thin white line. His eyes scan the small picture.

  “Replay this, please,” he says, his face pale.

  I restart the video, and Evan says nothing as Noah walks around the cell, sits down on the bed, and gives the camera the finger.

  “He’s alive Evan. Your father is alive,” I tell him, my voice shaking.

  Evan’s eyes are wide, his handsome jaw dropped, and his mouth open, but no words come out for several minutes.

  “Where did you find this?” he finally asks.

  His hand reaches out to grasp the counter, as though he’s about to lose his balance.

  “I can’t tell you that, any more than I should’ve shown you this,” I admit.

  “This was what you were doing with Merc,” Evan says.

  It’s not a question. I see the guilt run across his features, his eyes shining, and I wonder what kind of scenarios ran through his head, what he thought was going on. It probably hurts him as much, to picture me with Merc, as it pains me to imagine Evan with Vic.

  “Yes,” I say with a nod.

  Ethan starts to fuss in his carrier and Evan rocks it gently, without even glancing at his son, until he falls back asleep.

  “Tell me where he was Leigha, please tell me where he was,” Evan pleads with me.

  Out of a sense of loyalty to Merc, I shake my head.

  “Leigha,” Evan says seriously.

  He takes hold of my shoulders.

  “You have to tell me! I have to find him!” he cries out.

  Evan is desperate.

  “This is what Merc feared would happen,” I sigh.

  I try to shake out of Evan’s grasp, but his grip is too firm, his eyes searching mine for clues. I look away from him, at the high ceilings, at the floor, at anything but Evan. Then, I feel his hand underneath my chin as he tilts my face upwards and forces me to look at him.

  “Tell me, Leigha,” he says.

  I take a step backward, out of his grasp, and move away from Evan, around the kitchen island, but he follows me.

  “Leigha, please! You owe me this!” he says, frantically.

  But Evan’s begging does not affect me, now.

  “Evan, I already gave you what I owed you,” I retort.

  “Did you tell me because you think you owe me something?” Evan asks.

  His eyes widen in shock.

  “Not anymore,” I say sharply.

  Evan moves to take a step towards me and stops short a few inches suddenly.

  “You don’t owe me anything,” he says.

  “No, I don’t,” I agree.

  “Okay,” he says.

  “Okay,” I repeat.

  I press my lips together, run a hand through my messy hair, and try to think of something else to say, other than making him promise to keep this a secret. That isn’t likely to happen. I’m sure he’s going to go right to Aidan and Lucius and blab that I had a video. Then Lucius and Aidan will come crying to me.

  “Merc will never forgive me,” I sigh to myself, unaware that my words are audible.

  “Us. He’ll never forgive us, Leigha,” Evan replies.

  Now my eyes meet his. I look up at the man that I still love, and it’s written all over his face: gratitude. It’s such a relief to see something different than agony on Evan’s face that I close my eyes trying to memorize the way he looks at me now.

  That’s when I feel his arms wrap around me.

  “You’re the only one I’d want to hear this from,” Evan whispers.

  “Don’t say that,” I tell him.

  My eyes are still closed as I let myself feel the relief of Evan’s embrace.

  “Why?” he asks.

  “You know why,” I argue.

  “Tell me,” he insists.

  “No,” I refuse.

  “You still love me,” Evan answers for me.

  “I don’t,” I squirm as I try to resist him.


  “You still love me,” he repeats.

  His voice has a shocked tone to it, as though he didn’t believe it before. That suddenly pisses me off.

  “What did you think, that I would just stop l-” I’m cut off.

  By Evan’s lips.

  On mine…

  The first eager touch of his lips makes me hungry for more; a tremble runs through my whole body, and it’s like a shock to my system. My instinct is to push Evan away, but it only serves to make me press my hands against his chest, and I wind up pinned against the kitchen counter with Evan’s arms wrapped tightly around me.

  “Evan,” I try to protest.

  Instead, I open my mouth to him. We’re both starved for each other; starved - and weak. Too weak to resist the first real moment alone where we should be doing anything but this. Our lips meet over and over again in frenzied succession, Evan’s hands all over me: in my hair, on my waist, up to the back of my sweater against my skin. The imprint of his palms on my back burns, makes me physically ache for more, and I slide my hands into his hair to pull him closer if that’s even possible.

  The kitchen is silent, except for the sounds of our intense kissing.

  Then, Ethan begins to wail.

  And again, all at once I’m reminded of the reason I must let him go.

  13

  Evan

  January 19, 2019

  I’m disoriented when Ethan begins to cry.

  “Your son, Evan,” Leigha tries to jog me out of our haze.

  It takes a moment to disentangle myself from Leigha. Not the physical act of letting her go, but forcing myself to pull my hands away from her and get Ethan out of his carrier.

  “He just needs to be fed,” I tell Leigha.

  “I should go,” she tries.

  “Stay,” I tell her.

  Leigha presses her swollen lips together and tugs her sweater down from where I’ve lifted it. I didn’t even realize I’d done that, my hands just moved on their own, possessed by the need to touch her, feel her against me, pull her in and make her want me.

  “Can you hold him for a second?” I ask.

  I’m no expert at this. I can’t manage Ethan and the stupidly huge baby bag at the same time. Leigha hesitates for a second, then takes him, cradling him in her arms for a moment. I rummage through the baby bag, find the bottle I stashed away thinking we wouldn’t even need it and warm it up. Ethan stops wailing in Leigha’s arms before the warmer beeps.

  “You’re a natural,” I tell her.

  Leigha looks at me as though she doesn’t know what to say, and I know what she’s thinking.

  This should’ve been us.

  As soon as I’ve got Ethan in my arms, Leigha grabs her coat. I knew she was going to try to make a getaway as soon as I couldn’t stop her.

  “Leigha, don’t go, please?” I ask.

  “Evan, it’s a bad idea for me to stay,” Leigha explains to me.

  “Do I look like I care?” I respond.

  “No,” she readily admits.

  Frustrated, she runs her hands through her hair and makes a strangled sound.

  “We can’t do this,” she says.

  “Who says we can’t?” I ask.

  “You’re holding the reason we can’t,” she says.

  Her reply knocks the wind out of me.

  “Please just stay for a bit,” I ask again.

  Leigha sighs and puts her coat down, then picks it back up and slides it on.

  “I’m going, Evan. I need to,” she lies.

  I open my mouth to say something, but I’m interrupted by the clip of her heels against the floor, and then the sound of the door to the garage opening. The house feels empty without Leigha around, and I realize I’m going to have to sell it. Not one part of me wants to live here without her.

  Leigha is everywhere; we’re everywhere.

  Ethan passes out as soon as he’s burped, and I put him in the playpen to sleep, then go to the garage to grab my phone out of the car. Leigha is sitting in the driver’s side of a slick looking black Lotus Elise that I know must belong to Merc. I knock on the window. Leigha rolls it down.

  “What?” she mutters.

  “Are you coming back inside, or what?” I ask.

  Leigha’s eyes are wide. She looks from me to the keys in the ignition that haven’t even been turned. Hell, they’re not even fully pushed in all the way!

  “I guess I’m coming back inside,” she says, her voice shaky.

  I open the door and pull her out of the sports car, pull her back into the house by the hands.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing,” Leigha tells me.

  “Me, neither,” it’s not an easy admission.

  There’s what I should and shouldn’t be doing, and under the category of things I shouldn’t be doing is easing Leigha’s coat off her shoulders.

  “I really should go,” Leigha’s watered down protest is weak.

  “Then, why didn’t you?” I tease.

  Her coat falls to the floor.

  “It’s like a haze,” Leigha tells me earnestly.

  “You kissed me, and now I’m in this haze that I can’t quite get rid of, Evan, and I know I should’ve put the bloody keys in the ignition, and started the car, and reversed out of the garage and left, but you’re here. You’re here, and you make me want to be here, and after all that, I just couldn’t put the keys in the goddamn ignition…” she trails off.

  I pull her in towards me, my lips pressed against the side of her mouth.

  “Fuck the keys,” I whisper.

  She turns her mouth ever so slightly, and her lips are blazing against mine. Leigha sucks me in with her lips, and I know what she’s talking about - the haze. It’s like a cloud, where I can’t use my judgment, and I zealously absorb every greedy, selfish kiss that I can.

  That’s what we are: greedy, selfish and amazing and good, all at the same time.

  But if I’m going to be a terrible person, I’m going to be thorough. I take Leigha’s face in my hands as she clings to me, fistfuls of my sweater in her both her hands as I suck up every second of her swollen lips fiercely meeting mine. Every kiss feels like it’s rolling over my body; easing away the tension and chiseling away the ice that’s formed around my heart.

  “Are we doing this?” Leigha gasps in disbelief, between every ragged desperate kiss.

  All I do is nod as I pull her sweater over her head, burying my face in her cleavage.

  “God it feels so good to be with you,” I mutter.

  “Evan,” Leigha whines.

  It sounds like she means to say more, but all she does is take in a deep breath and sigh as I kiss her skin, backing her towards our bedroom.

  “We need to stop this,” she protests.

  “I know,” I reply in earnest.

  Neither of us moves to stop. Instead, I tear my sweater over my head. The trail to our bedroom becomes littered with clothes. Leigha’s shoes; my belt; her bra; her skirt.

  I’ve got my hand in her panties, fingers inside her, thumb rubbing against her clit as Leigha strokes my throbbing cock.

  “It’s just sex,” she tells me, breathless.

  “Just sex,” I repeat gruffly.

  “Just…sexxxx…,” she moans as my fingers curl inside her.

  Leigha pushes my pants down further until they slide down to my ankles. Her hand closes around my cock as she moans again.

  “Ev…,” she gasps.

  “You want more?” I urge her onwards.

  “Evan… we… need… to… stop…” she tries to get the words out.

  But those words are useless against the feel of my hands on her gorgeously thick body.

  “Just fuck me!” Leigha begs, her voice torn with emotion.

  I throw her down against the corner of the bed, pull her thong off, and give her exactly what she wants. I fill her to the hilt on the first thrust, and she cries out in pleasure.

  “Oh my god! Yes!” Leigha gasps.

  “Fuck you f
eel so good,” I groan.

  I really do try to force myself to be ruthless, but the first few thrusts are so dragged out I feel every millimeter of Leigha wrapped so tightly around me that I can’t bring myself to fuck her. The air is too thick with emotion, and I push Leigha further onto the bed, covering her body with mine. Somehow one of my hands finds hers, then our lips meet again, and my hand sizzles as I caress her thigh. Leigha spreads her legs further, and I sink deeper into her with a low growl.

  Desperately, I try to gain my bearings, but the world twists around me. The only thing that grounds me is finding her other hand in mine, pinning her against the bed as our lovemaking has her whimpering and moaning my name.

  “Leigha,” I roar.

  “Evan!” she gasps.

  I let go of her hands, and they fly to my face, pulling me in for more exquisite kisses that only add fuel to our passion, as she mutters my name over and over again between them. Every time I pull out of her, it’s like she sucks me right back.

  I can’t stop. I don’t want to stop. I plow into her body, pushing our flesh together, melting into her.

  We make love slowly, our lust for each other constrained by nothing.

  “Evan! You’re going to make me cum!” Leigha gasps.

  Then, she squeals and screams as her hips buck against mine, pistoning over and over, her eyes rolling until I see the whites, and she’s making insensate noises of pleasure, and I’m on the edge of letting go. I know I should pull out, but I fill her full of my seed. She cries out, in her anguish and need.

  I want to make her mine again. I want to feel that sweet release inside her.

  “Evan, don’t,” she gasps.

  “Don’t…stop!” Leigha continues.

  “I’m going to cum inside you again!” I groan.

  “Please! Do it! Fill me! Cum in me, Evan!” she screams.

  Leigha becomes undone in my arms, her body shuddering underneath me as she cries out my name in a deliciously satisfying moan that throws me into the moment. My release shatters the part of me intent on letting Leigha go, and I pump every single drop of what I’ve got inside her roughly as she spasms on my cock. Every muscle in my body is thoroughly relaxed as we collapse into each other’s arms, kissing and giggling like a couple of teenaged lovers, with all the time in the world.