I walk to the podium, and despite every word I plan to say, I’m remembering what Emily said about honoring his sacrifice. I stand there, replaying so much of that night in the restaurant in my mind, and I start to speak.
“This isn’t going to be a long speech, because how I honor Derek is not here at this podium, but what I do when I walk away from it. I knew him better than most. I loved him more than most. I understood him like no one else did.
“Derek was ambitious and driven. That is a curse and a gift given to the Brandon children by their father. Derek took that to extremes, I understand. He wanted to live up to our father’s expectations, sometimes without even looking at his own. But no matter what his motivation at the time, Derek wanted to be the best at what he did and he was relentless when he went after his goals. He was a son who admired his father and aspired to run the Brandon empire, and I believe he would have done so and done it in a way that exceeded all expectations. But above all these things, to me, he was my brother, and this world will never be the same without him.”
It’s then that Teresa walks into the room. I watch as Seth leads her to a seat near the back of the room, and in my mind I see my brother in that ambulance, pleading for me to deliver to her his message.
“Here is what you do not know about my brother,” I say. “He was in love, and in the last conversation he had with me, he pleaded with me to tell the woman he loved that he loved her. So, Teresa: he loved you. And I thank you for making him feel loved.” Teresa sobs with such fierceness that people turn to find her in the crowd. My parents turn to find her, but I know she will be gone before they ever get the chance to speak to her.
My gaze shifts from the woman my brother loved to the woman I love, my eyes meeting Emily’s, and I replay her words in the airport in my mind: That act of saving me saved his soul. He was selfless.
“I believe Teresa knows Derek loved her. What she doesn’t know, and what few others know, is that my brother died a hero. The details aren’t important, but in a split-second decision, he took an action that saved the life of the woman I love.” I have to shut my eyes, to fight the burn in them and punch back the emotion balled in my throat. I inhale and lift my lashes to continue. “In the ambulance, he had no regrets over that decision. He wanted to know she was alive. He wanted to know she survived. So much so that I do not believe it’s a coincidence that at almost the very moment they brought Emily back from a coma, and when she started breathing on her own, he stopped breathing. I believe he waited for her to live before he allowed himself to say good-bye. So today I say good-bye, Brother. And thank you for the gift you have given me. I promise you, I will never take it for granted. Your selfless act and your kindness will never be forgotten.”
I step away from the podium, and the pain in the room is like a magnet, pulling me to it, and then crushing my chest. Suffocating me with their emotions, and igniting every feeling in me that I’ve tried to suppress. I did this, is all I can think. I didn’t save him. I could have saved him.
Almost instantly, Emily is in front of me, wrapping her arms around me, and as I hold on to her, I promise myself, Derek, and God himself that I will not repeat my mistakes. I will protect her from everyone and anything that tries to take her from me.
CHAPTER TEN
The short ceremony at the cemetery is a disaster, rain pounding down on us all until, finally, the guests disperse, but I’m simply not ready to leave. I need to say good-bye to Derek my way, on my time. My mother seems to feel the same. She isn’t ready to leave either, but between Cody and my father, they manage to get her to the car and on her way home. Emily tries to stay by my side, but as she shivers, I walk her to the car and lock her inside with Seth before returning to the burial plot.
And so here I am.
Alone.
In a cemetery.
And while, yes, Emily wanted to stay with me out of love, ultimately I’m the only one foolish enough to invite myself to stand in the center of the storm. It’s where I’ve always lived and where I belong. It was never where Derek belonged.
I inhale an icy breath, the evening cold, the raindrops splattering down onto the umbrella I’m holding and onto the shiny black casket before me. Every thump seeming to echo with Derek’s voice, which I will never really hear again. I stand there trying, though. I try to hear his voice in my head. I try to see his face in my mind. But already I cannot. Already he is lost to me, and I need to find him. I don’t know how long I stand there, trying and failing to do just that, and rain gathers on the sleeve of my black trench coat, dripping downward onto my fingers, but in my mind’s eye, there is blood, not water, dripping from my hands.
I inhale a heavy breath laden with emotion that I’ve tried to suppress, but I fail miserably. If Emily was still by my side, I have no doubt that she’d tell me not to suppress it at all. She wouldn’t understand that I don’t have the luxury of pain and grief. Not yet. Not until I fulfill my promises to Derek, and not until I fulfill my promise to myself to make everyone who should pay for this, pay. I inhale and feel a cool calm come over me. Grief and anger will get me nowhere. Focus and control wins. It’s time to take action.
Thunder rumbles overhead, and I turn away from the casket, expecting the black sedan waiting on me with Emily in the back, but that is not all I find. A familiar black Escalade idles several feet behind it at the curb. At the sight of Martina’s vehicle, my jaw sets hard and I start walking toward it, and him. The doors don’t open, making the expectation obvious that I should climb inside, and I try to decide which I like better: me dripping wet and muddy, or him, forced to join me in the middle of the storm if he really wants to talk. I decide I want him and his expensive suit standing in the rain. I stop walking and wait, but not for long.
An umbrella appears outside of the vehicle, popping open before Martina himself follows, his pin-striped blue suit as expensive as his arrogance, even if he doesn’t yet know that to be true. I don’t walk toward him. I hold my ground and force him to walk to me. And he’s smart enough not to create a standoff. He closes the space between us, his expensive Italian shoes sloshing through the muddy grass.
“Why are you here?” I demand when he stops in front of me, as tall as my six-foot-two inches, his dark eyes meeting mine, no doubt seeing the flecks of blue in my irises burning with that hellfire that is both my torment and my fury.
“To offer my condolences.”
“To poke the tiger who wants to rip your throat out,” I amend.
“I didn’t do this.”
“Maybe not directly,” I say. “But indirectly. You are to blame.”
“And you’re not?”
He’s right. I am, but I’ve received my punishment with the loss of my brother, whereas he remains unscathed.
Seeming to read my thoughts, he adds, “Everyone who ever said yes to Ramon is dead. I made sure of it.” He narrows his eyes on me. “I owe you that and more or I wouldn’t be here.”
“You’re right,” I say. “You do. And more. Remember that.”
“We have business to attend to.”
He means the sports center, of course, and I’ll get him his sports center because it serves my agenda, but he won’t like my end game. My lips curve with that idea, and I say, “I’ll be in touch,” before turning and starting to walk away. And I don’t look back. At least not now, but this isn’t over. I am not done with him. In fact, I haven’t even gotten started.
I reach the sedan and open the door, sliding inside and closing my umbrella before placing it on the floorboard. “What just happened?” Emily asks.
My gaze meets Seth’s in the rearview mirror, understanding between us. Martina wants everything. He’ll get nothing. “Take us to the apartment,” I tell him. “I’ll need to pick up my car from the funeral home later.”
“Well pick it up for you,” Seth says of his team, and when I nod, he starts the engine. I rotate to face Emily, finding her dark hair tousled and damp, her pale blue eyes filled with concern. “Marti
na offered condolences as an excuse to inquire about business.”
She narrows her eyes on me. “What really just happened, Shane?”
“That’s exactly what happened.”
“And yet there is more.”
I don’t lie to her and tell her she’s wrong, nor do I insult her by playing dumb. “Until he’s gone, there is always more. And that’s dangerous.”
She tilts her head, a flicker of awareness in her eyes, before, without a word, she faces forward, her body language telling me not to touch her and promising there’s another storm on its way before this night is over.
* * *
Emily and I step into the elevator of our tower at the Four Seasons and she faces forward. We aren’t touching, and in my lifetime, I never thought there would be another human being who I needed to touch the way I need to touch Emily right now, who I needed the way I need her. Every part of me wants to grab her and pull her to me and tear down the wall that has suddenly been erected between us, but I have this sense that the moment I touch her, that storm will erupt. And so we stand side by side in silence as floors tick by. And so we step off the car and onto our floor, and start the walk down toward our apartment, a mile apart when we are only inches from touching.
I unlock the door and hold it open. She is quick to enter the foyer and she doesn’t stop walking, charging toward the stairs. I lock the door and catch up with her before she takes the first stair, shackling her wrist and turning her toward me.
She whirls around to face me. “Until he’s gone?” she demands. “I’m no fool. I know what that means. You want to kill him.”
“I’m going to kill him.”
She grabs my tie. “Don’t do this, Shane.”
“He will never stop coming at us.”
“You’re going to end up dead and leaving me with another casket to bury, and I can’t do that. I won’t stay to watch that happen.”
I pull her to me, our bodies aligned, my fingers splayed on her lower back. “It’s necessary.”
Her hands grip my shoulders. “I don’t know the man who believes murder is necessary.”
My fingers tangle in her hair, tugging her gaze to mine. “What part of ‘he will never stop coming at us’ do you not understand?”
“What part of ‘you’re going to end up dead’ do you not understand?”
I rotate her and press her against the wall, a sudden, fierce need to have her naked and beneath me burning through me. “I don’t want to talk about death anymore. I just need to fuck you right now.”
“That will change nothing.”
“And yet I still need to fuck you right now.” My mouth closes down over hers, my tongue licking against hers, and I can taste her anger when I want to taste her pleasure. I deepen the kiss and she moans, a soft, sexy sound that promises I’m close to tearing down that wall between us.
I pull the skirt of her dress up her hips, bringing it to her waist, my hand finding her panties and ripping them away. “I don’t know why you ever bother wearing these,” I say in time with her gasp, tossing her panties aside and shrugging out of my jacket before my hands are at her breasts.
She grabs my tie. “This still—”
“Changes nothing,” I supply, my hands going to her backside and squeezing. “Maybe now is when I need to spank you again.”
“Spank me because I don’t agree with you? That won’t make me more agreeable.”
My cheek slides to hers, my lips near her ear. “Spank you because it’s sexy and we both like it. I would never spank you for any reason but pleasure, and you know it.”
“You mean you want something explosive to end our conversation,” she accuses. “It won’t work.”
Anger spikes in me, and I pull back to look at her, my hand tangling in her hair again. “I don’t need to end the conversation, Emily. I won’t run from it any more than I will from him. But do I want to spank you and make you forget everything but me right now? Yes, I do.”
“Damn it, Shane. We have to talk about this.”
She’s breathless with that demand, and I plan to keep her that way. “Make me,” I challenge. “Fuck me.” I give her backside a soft but firm smack.
She gasps, her lashes lowering and then lifting, her fingers curling around my shirt. “Damn you, Shane,” she murmurs, and I see the conflict in her eyes, the need to keep talking, the need to stop talking, before she caves to exactly what I hope for: the need to just fuck, and as if confirming that decision, she grabs my tie and pulls me to her. “This changes nothing. Do you understand?”
I lean in to kiss her and she pulls back. “Say you understand.”
“Me needing you won’t change,” I say. “So yes. I understand.”
“I need you too, but—”
I lean in, slanting my mouth over hers and licking into her mouth, and she is right there with me. In an instant we are crazy, wild kissing while she yanks my tie free, and I unzip the front of her dress to unhook her bra, my hands finding her high, her perfect breasts, her pebbled nipples. Every dark thought and emotion I’ve lived this day is now on her lips, and hers on mine. My anger. Her anger. My fear. Her fear. And that fear in both of us, the fear that is all about death and separation, is what shakes me to the core, but I plan to drive it away. Now. Later. Forever. Starting with no barriers between us, just naked truth.
I tear my mouth from hers and already her fingers are working the buttons of my shirt. Her soft little hands find my skin beneath it and it’s threatening my control, when I want this to be about her. About her fear. Her desire. Her escape and that is my escape. And damn, I need that escape.
I turn her to face the wall, dragging her dress and bra off her shoulders before I slowly drag them down every line and curve of her body, and I follow them to the floor. My arms wrap around her hips, and I discard her dress before sitting her down and removing my shirt and throwing it away. And then my hands are on her ankles, traveling a patient path upward until I’m at her hips and that lush, sexy ass of hers, which I fully intend to spank, but not yet. I want her to wonder. I want to her to anticipate. I want her to forget every fear she has and just be here in this moment. I stroke her cheeks, my teeth and lips at her hip, my body shifting to her side. My hand flattening on her belly.
She sways forward, her hands pressing to the wall, my fingers walking a path to her sex, my finger finding her nub and stroking. She moans, one of those soft, sexy sounds that I swear thickens my cock and soothes some dark part of me at the same time. Her pleasure, her very existence, is a sweetness, a light I find nowhere in this day and, right now, nowhere in my life. I place my back against the wall, my hand on her hip, my mouth on her clit, licking, teasing. She rewards me with soft moans, her fingers moving to my shoulders, her body melting into my touch.
I cup her backside and start stroking it, then patting it low, right over her clit, preparing to spank her. “When you come…” I begin.
“Do it,” she gasps, her head tilted downward, hair sweeping her face while her fingers tangle in my hair. “Do it, Shane.”
No hesitation. None of that fear. Just trust. I realize then that the spanking isn’t about a spanking at all. It’s about the trust she just gave me. About how much I needed to know that my honesty about Martina hadn’t allowed that bastard to strip her trust away.
“Shane,” she whispers, desperation in her plea.
I respond by squeezing her backside and licking her clit, swirling it with my tongue. I start patting her backside again, across her sex, and her fingers tug harder on my hair, her body stiffening, and I know how right there the moment is. I quicken my pats and then give her a forceful smack of the cheek, the kind that stings in all the right, erotic ways without causing pain, followed by another, and another. Her sex clenches, her body stiffening, and then I stop.
She gasps with the absence of my palm, trembling seconds before her knees buckle. I catch her hips and ease her down on top of me, her hips straddling mine. Our foreheads come together, our breaths
mingling, and her hand is on my face. I reach for it, covering it with mine. “I didn’t want to fall in love, now or ever,” I admit. “But I did, and you can’t possibly know what you mean to me now or you would understand that I have to protect you.”
“And that’s what you don’t understand, Shane,” she says, pulling back to look at me. “I have to protect you and that’s what I’m doing.” She leans in and brushes her lips over mine before she whispers, “Because I love you that much.”
“God, woman,” I breathe out, my hand at the back of her head. “What are you doing to me?” I kiss her then, and it’s this slow seduction, the caress of tongue against tongue, and then we are touching each other again, softly, gently. Making love. The V of her body presses against the thick ridge of my erection, tormenting me with every slight move we make. “I need to be inside you,” I demand, my cheek to her cheek, my lips to her ear.
“Please,” she whispers, and we shift our bodies, maneuvering my pants until I am free and pressing into the wet heat of her sex, stretching her, seducing me.
And as much as I want to move, to fuck, to make love, when finally she has all of me, I just hold her, feel her. We stare at each other, and when I look into this woman’s eyes, I don’t shield any part of me. I am me. I am just me, and with no one else in this world am I as exposed as I am with her. It’s a connection that terrifies me, because losing her would destroy me. My hand goes under her hair to her neck, and I drag her mouth to mine, drinking her in with a long, slow kiss, our bodies beginning to sway. We start slow, kissing, touching, but there is this burn that refuses to simmer. It’s fire that demands more fire, and we are suddenly wild all over again. Hungry. In a frenzied rush of swaying and grinding and kisses that needs to be answered. Has to be answered, and too soon, I think, she’s on the edge of oblivion and I’m right there with her. We tumble into that pleasure spot, our bodies trembling, quaking, easing into a sated, quiet place where we are holding each other, the wall behind me the only thing keeping us upright.