I’m pulling my tie from my neck and standing before her panties ever hit the ground. “I’m going to tie you up, Emily,” I say, closing the small space between us to tower over her.
Her response is quick and unexpected. “On one condition,” she says.
“I’m listening,” I say, and suddenly, while waiting on her answer, I realize she might be without clothes, but I am naked in every other possible way. And I know then that I am fucked up tonight, both looking for her confession of fear and dreading it.
“When this is over, you will not question how or why it happened. This is my choice. You didn’t intimidate me into saying yes. You didn’t scare me. I chose to give you this control because I trust you. Because I am not afraid of you, and when you are like you are tonight, I still won’t be.” She offers me her hands.
Every nerve in my body is jumping. Every dark part of me is now on fire. Every emotion is a twisted knot that torments me with a demand that it be named. I won’t allow myself that kind of weakness, and the theme of this night returns: anger. Emily is the one pushing me to feel these things. She is the one pushing me to prove one thing: that I didn’t see what I saw in her eyes tonight.
I toss the tie away and drag her to me, tangling fingers in her hair again and cupping her backside. “Denial is destructive. You know that, right?”
“I do,” she says, her fingers on my chest. “I know, but do you?”
“Damn it, Emily,” I growl, my mouth coming down on hers, my tongue sliding past her lips, a band of tension wrapping around us, my need to bend her will, to force her to admit the truth, dominating, the way I want to dominate her. But she doesn’t let me dominate her.
Her kiss is as fierce as mine. Her tongue as demanding, while her soft little hand manages to slide under my shirt, which is somehow untucked, and scorch my skin. I deepen the kiss and squeeze her backside again, not sure who is pushing whom. Not finding the fear I’d sought or expected, and that drives me to want it, to want her, all the more. I raise my hand and give her a smack on the bottom just hard enough to get her attention.
She yelps and then pants into my mouth. “Was that supposed to scare me? Because it didn’t.” She pulls back and looks at me, no hesitation in her words or eyes. “In fact, it turns me on. Everything with you turns me on, Shane. Do it again.”
Possessiveness rises hard and fast, unfamiliar and intense. “Who spanked you before me?”
“Nothing matters before you,” she says, her fingers curling at my jawline. “Do it again. You want to. I feel it. I know it.”
“Holy fuck, woman. I was worried about scaring you.”
“You mean you were convinced I was already scared. I wasn’t and you can’t scare me, but you can piss me off like you did when Martina left. That wasn’t fear you saw in my eyes, Shane. That was anger. I was pissed. I still am.”
I don’t do us the injustice of pretending to be naive. “Because I didn’t want you to hear that meeting.”
“Yes,” she says. “And you know my past and all the secrets and lies. You know the lie I have to live to survive. Don’t give me more of the same.”
“I also know the reasons your family gave you to feel insecure. I don’t want you to feel that.”
“Secrets make me feel that.”
“It’s not about secrets. I was—”
“Don’t say ‘protecting me’ again. Don’t even say it. Even now you want to be the person you were in that elevator, and you won’t. Give me everything or nothing. I can’t do in-between. So you want to fuck me, you want to spank me? Stop holding back.” She grabs my shirt. “Stop holding things back from me. I want the good, bad, and ugly. I want—”
I kiss her again, and damn it, if she wants the bad and the ugly, I’ll give them to her. I lift her and carry her to the couch, sitting down, and before she even knows my intention, I have her over my lap, my hand on her backside. “I’m going to spank you now.”
“Do it,” she hisses. “Do it now.”
I blink back to the present, and while some might see this as an oddly timed memory, I do not. To me it’s about the many intimate things we’ve shared. About the many layers there are to this woman, layers I have only just begun to discover, when I want to know them all. It’s about how she challenges me and forbids me to hide from me. It’s about strength. Hers. Mine. Ours together. It’s about how fucking much I need her to wake up and challenge me again and again and again.
I grab the railing in front of me. “I need you, Emily,” I whisper, and still she doesn’t move. Still she is just lying there, barely living. My head lowers, my chin at my chest, and I swear I can’t even catch my breath right now.
CHAPTER FOUR
I don’t know how long I stand at the foot of Emily’s bed: five minutes. Thirty. A full hour. But my body is stiff, and my mind is a muddy black hole, where everything is lost but not found. I push off the bed, intending to check on my brother, but for several beats my gaze lingers on Emily, some part of me needing to watch that breathing machine lift her chest one more time. Inhale. Exhale. I force myself to turn away, and when I do, a new urgency forms inside me, my need to confirm my brother’s safety carrying me to the open door dividing this room from his.
Stepping under the archway, I find Derek as expected, still in a bed in the center of the room, still with tubes and machines connected to him. What I don’t expect is Teresa sitting beside him, talking to him in muffled words I cannot make out, though I suspect that Cody is another story. He sits behind her, in a leather chair in the corner, his complexion still pretty damn green, but his eyes are on me, his stare meeting mine, the silent message clear: he’s here. He’s aware. He has control despite the hell his body has been through tonight. He blames himself, as anyone in his role whould, even when that blame is misplaced, as his is.
My gaze shifts back to Teresa, who abruptly looks up, her attention rocketing to me, uncertainty in her eyes. The kind you want to keep in the eyes of a Martina. The kind I don’t want to have about my brother’s future, but there is nothing I can do right now that will change that fact. He’s still unconscious. He’s still not breathing on his own. And so I settle for what I can do, and that’s keeping Teresa on edge, where she belongs.
I turn away from her and leave the room, reentering Emily’s, and this time I go right to her. I need to be by her side and know that we are alone. My need for revenge, and the necessity that I ensure everyone who caused this pays a price, fades into the background. There is just Emily, and I pull a chair to the edge of her bed and sit down. With her hand in mine, I start talking to her about anything and everything. About the past, present, and future. About my parents. About her family. About the Brandon fashion brand she aspired to start and I want to watch her build. But most of all, I tell her how much I need her. I tell her how much I want her. I even talk about kids I didn’t think I wanted until I sit with her and realize how much this world needs more of her.
At some point, I fall asleep, because I wake with my head resting on Emily’s bed, and a nurse needing me to move so she can check Emily’s vitals. “My brother?” I ask, stepping out of her way.
“No change.”
And so it goes for the next few hours. I sit with Emily. I check on Derek. I pace. And eventually, for sanity reasons, my brain starts to work on my plans for the future. I hate Martina. I want to destroy him. I want to kill him, but his family is after our pharmaceutical brand, and our stockholder Mike Rogers wants my mother to stay in his bed while he claims our company. That isn’t going to happen. I have to finish my plan to shut them both down. Sell Mike the pharmaceutical brand and let Martina be his nightmare. A deal he has until Monday to take, and he will. With that deal sealed, I will move on to buy the sports complex where Mike’s team plays, with Adrian’s consortium as investors, to give Adrian control over Mike. It’s sweet revenge on Mike. And it’s a sweet deal for Adrian that gets him out of our company and our lives. Too sweet for that bastard, but I’ll deal with him later.
My mind works, my plans taking hold, and once the reasonable hour of five in the morning arrives, I send a text message to Jessica and arrange to have my work, along with my MacBook, brought to me. By the time Emily and Derek are out of the hospital, I will have purged our company of the poison that is Mike Rogers and Adrian Martina. But the purge won’t be complete, I think, and my mind goes to Teresa sitting next to my brother’s bed. Adrian will use her and my brother’s feelings for her to retain a connection to me and our company, if I let him, which I won’t. And if my brother survives this, I’ll be damned if I allow her to be the demise he’s avoided. She left once. She has to leave again.
* * *
But she doesn’t leave.
At least not over the next few days, and not by the time Wednesday morning arrives. She stays by Derek’s side, and Cody stays by hers. That is, until thirty minutes ago, when they kicked him and her out of Derek’s room to give Derek a sponge bath and medications. Cody joins me right about the time Emily is taken back for a new CT scan. “What’s taking so damn long?” I demand, pacing the room, when I was never a pacer before this room consumed my life and everyone I love.
“They just took her back,” Cody replies. He glances at his watch from where he leans on the kitchen counter, a bag of M&M’s in his hand. He sports the same thick stubble on his jaw that I do. “Fifteen minutes ago. They told us forty-five minutes to an hour.”
I glance at my watch to confirm. “Right.” My lips thin. “An hour.” Frustrated, my hands settle on my hips, my clean jeans and T-shirt compliments of Jessica, as I suspect are Cody’s, since he’s yet to leave the building. “Where did Teresa go when they ran you out of the room?”
“According to our team watching her,” he says, “the coffee shop on the first floor. And that’s the farthest from his side she’s been in days.”
“And yours,” I say, sitting on the arm of the living area couch facing him. “What’s your take on Teresa?”
“She’s guarded,” he says. “Which isn’t unexpected considering she was born into the Martina cartel, but it does tell me that she’s learned to navigate that role. That doesn’t mean she embraces it, but she’s not as sweet and pure as she tries to seem.”
“Is she using my brother for a Martina agenda?”
“I don’t know how her motivation started,” he says. “But no. That woman loves your brother. And before you ask how I know, I see it in her eyes. I hear it in her voice and in the many tears she’s shedding. The woman hasn’t left his side. She was reading him Hunger Games this morning.”
“Hunger Games,” I repeat. “Just what I need. My brother being read a book on war games while lying in a bed as a victim of what amounts to war games.”
“Yeah,” he says. “I didn’t miss that irony either, but despite that choice, she wanted him to hear her voice.”
My phone rings and I fish it from my pocket, eyeing the screen to find my caller is Mike Rogers, who’s right on time, considering his deadline to accept the deal to split the company. I ignore the call, having no intentions of talking to him until after I have Emily back in the room safe and secure, and I have the new details I need to seal the deal to buy the sports center, where Rogers’s basketball team plays. Which will be soon. Really damn soon.
The buzzer sounds to the door, and I’m on my feet in an instant, adrenaline rushing through me, followed by disappointment at the sight of Jessica, who looks a bit too funeral-ready in a black pantsuit. “Good grief,” she chides. “Don’t look so upset to see me. I brought the documents you wanted and, as a bonus”—she stops a few feet from me, indicating the tray in her hand—“coffee.”
“Documents and coffee are good,” I say. “Surprises right now are not.”
“Right.” She shoves her blonde hair behind her ear and gives a nervous glance toward the empty bedroom. “I really hate not seeing her there, but I knew she was having her CT scan this morning. I’m sorry. I should have warned you I was coming up.”
“Sorry?” I ask. “You, Jessica, said you’re sorry?”
“I’m not an asshole, Shane Brandon. You know, maybe this triple shot I got you is a bad idea. You’re wired in all the wrong ways.”
Cody pushes to his feet and takes the tray from her. “Never threaten a sleep-deprived man’s coffee. It’s dangerous.”
“Tired is the point,” she tells him. Then, refocusing on me, she adds, “You need sleep, not caffeine. I should have seen that. I’ll stay and sit with Derek and Emily while you rest and shave your hairy face.” She glances at Cody. “Both of you need to use a razor.” She doesn’t give us time to argue, turning to me again. “You will be worthless for Derek and Emily if they wake up.” She pales. “When. When they wake up.”
The “if” guts me. “When,” I bite out, accepting the coffee Cody hands me, hoping like hell that day is today for both of them. “And when they do, that’s when I’ll get some rest.”
“In other words, I can’t win this argument,” she says.
“No,” I say. “You cannot.”
“Do I dare ask about Derek?” she asks, accepting a cup of coffee from Cody, who claims the arm of the couch.
“He’s unchanged,” I say.
“Which means what?” she presses.
“Still unconscious,” Cody supplies.
She glances between him and me. “Is that expected, considering his injuries?”
“The standard reply to that question is ‘he’s stable,’” Cody replies.
“That isn’t an answer,” she says.
“Exactly,” I say with a bitter laugh I wash down with a swig of my coffee. “That’s what I keep saying, but stable is a hell of a lot better than not.”
“What about Emily?” she asks. “What are they saying about her progress?”
“She’s as expected while in an induced coma,” I say. “They can’t tell us more until after this test.”
“Which is why you’re a live wire,” she says. “Whatever they say after this test, you have to get some rest, Shane. I can stay the night and sit with Emily while you rest a few hours.”
“Nothing has changed,” I say. “I want you far away from this.”
She glances between me and Cody. “From the car accident,” she says.
“Yes,” Cody says, his eyes meeting hers. “From the car accident.”
“That wasn’t a car accident,” she challenges, and there is a vibe between these two, something that screams personal and potentially a problem I don’t need right now.
“I need that paperwork, Jessica,” I say, walking to the bar I’ve set up as a workstation and setting my coffee down.
“Right,” she says, joining me and allowing the oversized bag on her shoulder to settle on the counter. “Twelve documents,” she says, setting a folder on the desk.
I grab a pen, open the folder, and start inking my name. “Have them delivered by courier today for countersignatures and set the countdown clock. Each investor has seventy-two hours to fund their portion of the buyout of the complex, or they’re out.”
“Got it.” Her cell phone rings and she digs it out of her purse. “Mike Rogers. I don’t even know how he got my number, but he’s called me three times this morning.”
“Ignore him,” I say, finishing off the documents, and then I shut the folder.
“And if he comes to the office?”
“Tell him I’m negotiating a financial win for us all and I’ll be in touch soon.”
The door buzzes and I’m on my feet in an instant, watching as Emily is rolled back into the room. “Get those documents out,” I order Jessica, already moving forward to follow the nursing team of two as they reposition Emily’s bed.
“Where do we stand?” I ask, taking up a post at the foot of the bed.
“The doctor will be in to talk to you in just a moment,” one of the nurses informs me.
“Define a moment,” I say.
“Right now.” I turn to find the doctor approaching. “And right now I hav
e good news. The swelling in her brain is resolving nicely. We’re going to wake her up.”
The rush of relief I feel in that moment is impossible to explain, like a vise that releases my airways and allows me to draw in air. “How do we wake her up? What happens next?”
“We’ll gradually reduce the medication and the support from the breathing machine we’re giving her,” he says. “By this evening we should be able to take out the breathing tube.”
“When will she be aware of her surroundings?”
“This isn’t an event, but rather a process,” he says. “Even when she seems to be awake, she’ll likely be groggy and not fully aware of what is happening around her.”
“Are we sure she’s going to wake up?”
“I know you’re worried, son,” he says. “And with the brain, we can never be certain, but I’m expecting a positive outcome. You should too.” He eyes one of the nurses and gives her instructions to lower Emily’s medication and oxygen, before looking at me again. “I’m in the hospital all day. I’ll be looking out for her.” He pats my shoulder and heads for the door.
Cody, in turn, claims his spot, stepping to my side. “I got the all clear to head back into your brother’s room, and Teresa is already there. If you need me, I’m a shout away.” He doesn’t wait for the reply I wasn’t going to give, already moving away, while I myself am focused on Emily, waiting impatiently until the nurses give me room to claim the seat next to her.
The instant they are gone, I’m by her side, drawing her hand into mine. “Time to come back to me, sweetheart. I need you to come back now.” I lean over her and kiss her cheek, then repeat what I’ve been telling her for days: “I need you, Emily. I love you.”
The buzzer sounds, and I glance up to find Seth striding toward us, clearly in work mode, in a gray suit and matching tie, his jaw set hard. “We have a problem.”
“Save it,” I say. “Right now we’re waking up Emily.”
“Mike Rogers is in the lobby,” he announces, stopping at the end of the bed.