I’d already known never to give that man my back, but that look made me start to wonder if it was safe for me to be alone with him at all. He would try to take me down at some point, I knew it for certain now. But he wouldn’t try a fair fight. He’d go for weaknesses, exposed points. He’d fight ugly, dirty.
Abruptly aware that others were staring at me, I jerked a shoulder in a shrug, but didn’t look at any of them. “What?” I demanded. “If you want a step-by-step replay of the night, you’ll have to see if Carly will help you. I don’t kiss and tell.”
This time, neither Cameo or Dave attempted to hide their amusement. Ryan, however, was fed up.
“Everybody, get out.” He pointed a finger at me and Carly. “Stay. Just you two, stay.”
Carly crossed her legs, one leg swinging quick and flat. Her foot was bare, her toe nails painted lipstick red. Her eyes flashed as Dave moved past her toward the door. “Ryan, this is probably going to escape your notice, but I pay you, not the other way around.”
“This has got nothing to do with money, sweetheart.” He came around the desk and crossed his arms, staying quiet until the door shut behind Dave. “Carly...” His gaze slid from her to me, then back. “Look, sweetheart. You’re going through a really rough time right now...”
“Spare me.” Her voice was cold. So cold, I jerked my head to stare at her, but she only had eyes for Ryan.
He blinked, caught off guard. She’d gotten short with me before, of course, but she’d never spoken that way to Ryan.
“Yes, I’m going through a rough time. And it was worse than it had to be because somebody I wanted to lean on wasn’t there because of you and Jake.” She slid me a look and then jerked her head away. “I...shit. And now these letters. He was planning to quit. That’s why you were so pissed, wasn’t it? He found out about the letters I was getting. I told you we needed to sit down and talk this out, but you insisted you knew best.”
“That’s my nature, Carly.” Ryan didn’t look the least bit sorry, either. He slanted a look toward me, and the expression was flat, hard as stone. “Just like when things get hard, it’s Bobby’s nature to run.”
I bolted out of my chair and got into his face. He didn’t even try to move. “You think this shit is scaring me off?” I snarled. My hand curled into a fist.
Temper sparked in his eyes, but his voice was calm and easy. “Well, you’re the one who had your bags packed. What happened earlier? You decided you needed a quick fuck before you hit the road?”
Carly’s sound of outrage didn’t even penetrate.
Ryan took the first punch, but when I swung again, he caught my arm, trapped it and spun, slamming me face first against the desk. “You still let that temper of yours control you, kid,” Ryan said tonelessly. “Now I’m going to let you up and we’re going to talk.”
He let me go, and I would have gone after him again, except Carly caught my arm. “Bobby.”
I didn’t want to listen. I didn’t care that my shoulder joint was on fire from where he’d wrenched it, and I didn’t care that my face felt bruised from where he’d slammed me into the polished stone surface of his desk. I cared about the shit he’d been insinuating about how I’d treated Carly.
But she was tugging on my hand, so I let her pull me back. I didn’t want to look at her though. I couldn’t see on her face that she believed what he’d said. It would kill me.
No sooner had she gotten me away than she stepped between us, her cheeks flushed and her eyes snapping. “You are not going to nose around my private life, you ass!” she shouted. Ryan was on the receiving end of her sharp fingernail, and he took it without comment. “What I do and who I do it with is none of your fucking business! You and Jake acted like you always knew what was best for me, but I’m not some fucking princess in a tower! I’m going to have the life I want, whether you like it or not!”
After a moment of silence following her proclamation, he asked mildly, “Are you done?”
“No.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m tired and hungry and pissed, but I’m sure I’ll figure out something else to yell at you about in a few minutes.”
She glanced at me.
My heart squeezed in my chest as I moved to her, cupping her face in my hands. “It wasn’t...he’s wrong, Carly. It wasn’t like that, I swear.” I kissed her forehead. “I’m sorry,” I said softly. “Don’t stay mad at me, please baby.”
“You deserve to have me mad at you,” she said, a mulish note threading into her voice.
But she turned her face into my neck and I breathed a silent sigh of relief. I curled my arm around her shoulders and pulled her in closer. She snuggled against me, and I marveled for a moment at how perfectly her body fit against mine.
From the corner of my eye, I could see Ryan settle his hips against his desk. He reached up to touch his eye. A glorious bruise was already spreading, and it gave me more than a little pleasure to see it. I liked the guy, but what he’d said about me and Carly...he deserved a black eye. As soon as he was aware that I was looking, he lowered his hand.
Carly pulled away, studied Ryan for a minute, and then reached down, lifting my right hand. “You hit him pretty hard,” she said after a second. “Your knuckles are bruising.”
“My eye’s going to be swollen shut, and you’re worried about his hand?” Ryan asked. He almost sounded amused.
“You were being an asshole.” Carly gave him a dirty look, and then brushed her lips across my knuckles.
Suddenly, I didn’t feel any pain.
“And lover-boy wasn’t being an asshole, sleeping with you when he plans on quitting?”
“I’m not quitting,” I said before Carly could respond. “I already told her that. I changed my mind.” I sighed. “Hell, I probably couldn’t leave even if I tried.”
I stared at Ryan, daring him to say anything else.
But he smiled. A slow, cocky smile that made me want to punch him again. “It looks like you actually do have a functioning brainstem somewhere among all those hormones after all, Bobby.” He shoved off the desk and moved toward the door. “You two need to talk. Use my office.” His eyes narrowed. “But if you two have sex in here, I’m going to make you both clean the entire place. With bleach.”
Then he paused and looked back at us, watching as I stroked my hand down Carly’s cheek.
“We’re going to have to let it slip to the media.”
We both turned to look at him. I could feel Carly tensing and I reached for her again, sliding my arm around her waist.
He held up his hands. “Nothing to be done for it. You two couldn’t hide this if you tried.” He shrugged and reached for the doorknob. “To be honest, it’s a miracle nobody’s figured it out before now. Since the two of you hadn’t been seen in public much since that kiss in Kentucky, people have been speculating, a bit, but it’s gone way off track. Now...well, one look at the two of you and it will be clear to everyone that something’s going on.”
Before he could go, I had to know one thing. “What are we going to do about the letters, Ryan?”
“Same thing we’ve been doing.” He met my gaze, his grim. “Keep waiting for the shit-head to mess up so we can nail his ass.”
Then he was gone and it was just Carly and me, alone.
To be fair, we did talk. Or rather Carly talked, and I argued. Then I argued, and Carly talked. We talked about the letters, and about how I almost left.
We didn’t, however, talk about what I’d said to her, and the words hovered between us, unmentioned, like a ghost. I could almost pretend she hadn’t heard what I said, but I knew she had. But I didn’t push the subject. Instead, I let other matters take precedence.
“If I let fear control my life, Bobby, I would have locked myself behind a stone wall when I was eight. Hell, six. I never would have come out from behind that wall, and I never would have met Ryan. I never would have learned to ride a horse, had a dog or even taken a walk down the beach.” She threw a leg over my thighs and
straddled me so that our faces were level. “I don’t live a life where I can just be ignored. I wish I did, but it’s not going to happen.”
She was right. I knew she was. Didn’t mean I had to like it. I rested my head on her chest, breathing in the warm, soft scent of her.
“I can’t change who I am. You can’t change who you are, and I wouldn’t want you to,” she said quietly, her breath tickling my ear. There was a pause, and then she spoke again, her voice strangely vulnerable. “Do you want me to change?”
I answered immediately, “Not for anything.”
She laced her hands together behind my neck. “Then we make it work. Okay?”
“Okay,” I agreed.
She shivered a little and I could see her skin roughening as goosebumps broke out. She ran her fingers through my hair, tugging on it as whatever blood I’d had left in my head rushed south.
“I like your hair like this,” she murmured. “It’s longer than it was...before.”
“I was just thinking of getting it cut.”
“Oh.”
I met her eyes. “I’ll grow it out longer than Samson’s if that’s what you want.”
A smile bowed her lips. “Maybe not that long. So...we talked. Now what...?”
“We leave this room.”
“Why?”
I looked up at her as I slid my hands under the shirt she wore. My shirt. Mine. The possessiveness I felt took me by surprise. My fingers flexed against the small of her back. The depth of emotion I felt for this woman unnerved me, but I was through fighting it. The alternative was too bleak to even consider.
I leaned forward and kissed her chin. If I’d gone for her mouth, I wouldn’t have cared what Ryan said about having sex in his office. “I want you naked and I don’t really want to have to clean the office after.”
A laugh bubbled out of her. “Let’s go.”
She climbed off my lap and held out a hand. I took it and let her pull me after her. I didn’t know where we were going and I didn’t care. As long as she was with me, it didn’t matter.
After a minute, I recognized where I was. The one time I’d been in the section of the house that was hers and hers alone, I’d almost staggered in shock. Right then, I was too busy dealing with the ache in my balls to care.
I hadn’t seen the entire wing and I doubted I’d remember much of the route we took to get there, but the one thing I knew I would remember was her personal pool.
It wasn’t big by any standard. Probably ten by ten feet and square, inlaid with some sort of tile that made it look a surreal shade of blue. The lights danced off her body as she stripped and I vaguely wondered how they made me look.
Then she was in the water, her skin glistening, and I followed her in. I would go slow with her later, take the time to explore every inch of her, let her know that she was mine. Right now, I just needed to be inside her.
I caught her around the waist and pressed her back against the wall, my eyes locking with hers. Neither of us spoke as she wrapped her legs around my waist. I slid my hand between us, stroking her clit until she began to writhe, sweet little mewling sounds falling from her lips. Once I felt her start to come, I slid into her.
We both moaned as our bodies came together. I hadn’t stretched her and she was tight, even tighter still as the friction gave her that last little nudge she needed to fall over the edge. I didn’t wait for her to come down, instead taking deep, hard strokes that took me to the end of her. She clung to me, crying out my name even as her nails dug into my back and shoulders. I pressed my face against her neck as her body convulsed around me, drawing out her orgasm so that when I came only moments later, she was still with me.
We stayed together for several minutes, our bodies still joined. And when I finally slid from her, I knew I’d never walk away. I’d give my life for hers if that’s what I had to do to keep her safe, but I’d never leave her.
A few minutes later, we were wedged on the fat, padded lounge chair, wrapped in thick cotton robes. Although the chair was oversized, it hadn’t been designed for two, but that was fine. It meant we were snug up against each other. There was no other place I’d rather be.
Her fingers stroked over my lips. That light stroke made my spent dick twitch and I caught her wrist. “Stop it,” I said.
“Why?”
“It tickles.” It was the truth. Also, I was exhausted. If she kept touching me, I might try to work up the energy to do something about it, but I had a feeling if I tried, I’d collapse, like I was made of nothing but noodles and jelly.
I felt her smile against my arm and tightened my hold on her. We might not have talked about it yet, but there was no doubt in my mind I loved this woman.
“Do you ever wonder about...?” Her voice faded away.
I lifted my head to study her, or what I could see of her at least. That was the crown of her head, nothing else. “Wonder about what?”
She sat up, squirming. She shot me a look as she pushed her wet hair back from her face. “I was...” She sighed as she folded her hands in her lap.
I didn’t think I’d ever seen her look so uncomfortable, or so at a loss for words.
“What is it?” I asked her, shifting around until I could pull her in closer. She draped her thighs over mine and rested her head on my shoulder.
“You have a child.”
Those words knocked the breath right out of me and I closed my eyes. After a few seconds, I was able to squeeze an answer out of my tight throat.
“Yeah. Yeah, I do. Leah was seven months along when I went in. They, um, they did an ultrasound, but it wasn’t clear. They thought it might be a girl though. No one bothered to tell me for sure, and I didn’t ask when they had me sign the papers for her adoption.”
Carly lifted her head and stared at me. She was so close, I could see the dark striations of blue in her eyes.
“Do you think about her?”
“About the baby...or, well, she isn’t a baby any more, is she?” I almost lied, but I knew Carly deserved the truth. “Yeah. Yeah, I do. I think about her. Hope she’s happy. That she’s got parents who love her.”
“Don’t you...” She hesitated and then asked, “Don’t you want more, though? I mean, you’re out now. You could take care of her and–”
“No.” Carefully, I eased Carly off my lap and stood up. I paced to the edge of the small pool and stared down into the water. “It wouldn’t be right. Before I got arrested, I would’ve made it work, but after...Leah told me she couldn’t do it by herself, and I think she wanted a new start after everything that happened. I don’t blame her. In fact, I’m glad. Our kid deserved to be raised by good people, not me and Leah.”
“You’re good people–”
“No, I’m not!” I snapped, spinning around to glare at her. “I’m trying to be better, but I’ve got no business taking a little girl away from the people who’ve raised her all her life.”
Carly looked away. Her eyes closed. After a silence that seemed to last forever, she spoke, her voice soft, “Sometimes the people who raise you aren’t the good people they should be, though.”
I’d thought about that more than once. Hollister – he’d been a detective then, but he was a lieutenant now – he’d been the one who’d gone to bat for me and helped make the deal after I’d killed Dale. Part of it hadn’t had anything to do with my prison time. Hollister had made me a promise. A father himself, he’d understood. I’d seen it in his eyes. He’d promised. He’d made sure both the baby and Leah had been taken care of. That had been the day I told myself to start putting faith in something. I couldn’t go back on that now, and I had to believe my little girl was being raised by somebody more – somebody better – than an ex-con, a convicted killer.
“No, Carly,” I said, shaking my head. “It wouldn’t be right.”
Seconds ticked by into minutes, and then I heard her feet padding across the tile floor moments before she wrapped her arms around me. “Are you mad at me?”
&n
bsp; I covered her hands with mine. “No.” Slowly, I turned back to her and stared down at her, watching as the light flickering off the water danced along her face. We didn’t kiss or do anything else. We just held each other, and bit by bit, I felt the sadness easing from her, and as hers faded, the tension fell away from me.
She smoothed her finger up along my jaw, down my cheekbone, up my nose. I felt like she was trying to learn my face, line by line.
I liked it. Of course, I’d spent the past six months memorizing everything I could about her, from the lines of her face to the freckles scattered across her nose – there were three right across the tip with two more higher up – to the blow-my-mind sexy fullness of her mouth, all the way down the powerhouse curves of her body. But it wasn’t just physical. I’d learned the kind of music she liked, even though it’d have been easier to list what she didn’t like, and so far, the only thing I’d figured out was bluegrass. She was hit or miss on a lot of alternative stuff and pop, but her phone was crammed full of everything from Christian rap to hard rock to heavy metal to Beethoven. I knew she liked to cook, but hated to bake. She could get lost in a parking lot, but put her in a mall, and it was like she had a GPS hard-wired inside her skull, even if she’d never been there before.
She drove me crazy in the best kind of way, and even if she didn’t know it, she had to power to break me.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked, her voice oddly hushed.
“You.” I twisted my hands in her hair. “It’s always you.”
She curled her arms around my neck and sniffled. “You talk like that and you’re going to make me cry, Bobby.”
“Can’t have that.” I tugged on her hair until she was looking up at me, and then I made her forget all about her tears.
Chapter 16
The ‘leak’ about the change in the relationship between us happened right outside Carly’s front gates.
It was carefully orchestrated, I had to give Ryan credit for how much thought he put into it. But it did make me wonder about how many ‘relationships’ in the gossip rags between big-time Hollywood couples were real. And I wondered how many people would think that Carly and I were staging everything, not just the reveal.