His heated gaze and determined voice spread heat straight to her core. Heath was right; the words had to be said. And Merrit didn’t care about the game anymore. She was convinced that the way forward for the both of them was to forget the past. They’d both been young and made mistakes all those years ago: Heath by succumbing to peer pressure and she by running away. She didn’t want to waste any more of their lives. Sliding her hands up his chest, she wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders. With a stretch up onto her toes, her lips had better access to the bare skin along his throat.
“Mmmm,” she sighed. “Okay.”
Heath cupped her face between his hands as the desperation shining in his eyes pierced into hers. “I’m serious, Merrit. You have to really mean it. I’m not saying this just to get you back into bed. It’s the truth. I need to know that you believe me.”
“I believe you,” she heard herself whisper as her mind gave its final surrender. Perhaps it was her greatest personality flaw to be sucked into trusting the wrong man, but she prayed that wouldn’t be the case again this time. Because this time, his betrayal would surely kill her.
“Thank God.” Heath’s murmured words were nearly lost within his heavy sigh before he took her mouth in a kiss. A heated frenzy overtook them both and their hands tangled in an effort to shed their clothes. The strap she’d been fighting with all night was yanked down her arm by Heath as he dragged her dress over her hips. She pulled at the zipper of his pants before he stepped away, shucking his shoes, pants, and underwear all in one athletic move. His shirt was next.
Merrit felt the breath catch in her lungs as their bodies finally met, skin to skin, with only the scrap of her lace panties between them. Heath’s fingers caressed her nape as he pulled her in for a deep, drugging kiss, while his other hand slipped beneath the fabric. She dug her nails into his biceps when he brushed his thumb along her wet seam. Their kiss became needier as he worked his finger inside her, causing her hips to circle rhythmically. Dazed, her fingers trailed down his sculpted torso to reach between their bodies where they wrapped around his hard length. Her insides squeezed around his finger as her own hands stroked him.
A strangled groan erupted from Heath as he broke the kiss. “Wrap your arms and legs around me,” he said, his fingers gripping her bottom as he lifted her like a limp rag doll. She nipped at his ear in frustration, raking her fingers through his hair. He carried her into the bedroom where he laid her gently on the bed. “Wait here,” he commanded. Merrit sucked in several quick breaths, her heated skin shivering in the cool air-conditioning, before he returned from the living room and tossed his wallet onto the nightstand. He had the foil wrapper undone and was beginning to roll the condom on before she realized what he was doing.
“Wait,” she gasped, reaching for him. “I wasn’t done with you yet.”
He captured both her wrists, pulling her arms over her head with one hand. Supporting himself with his other arm braced against the mattress, he slowly lowered his body on top of hers. “You’ll get your chance later. Right now, I’m in charge. I’m the superior one, remember?”
Merrit moaned with pleasure as his warm, hard body settled on to hers. She didn’t bother moving her hands, even after his fingers released them to skim over her flushed skin. Heath was unrelenting with his mouth and his fingers as he proceeded to show her just exactly who was in charge. Her hips writhed beneath his, and that feeling of being strung out invaded her nerve endings, making her breathing fracture.
“Heath,” she begged, but his mouth and his hands only moved lower on her body. Dragging his fingers along her skin, he shoved her panties over her hips and then he stilled. He brushed his lips over the scar where her tattoo had been removed. The move was so tender and reverent that unshed tears burned in the back of her eyes.
“I always thought we’d be connected by those stupid things,” his lips murmured against her skin.
Her chest ached painfully and the tears leaked out of her eyes. She was in the middle of an epiphany. As much as Merrit hated to admit it, there had been some truth in Grant’s ugly accusations. She hadn’t been able to give him all of herself because the man currently stroking her body held the most important piece of her: her heart. And he always would. She gulped back a sob. “Heath!” she pleaded, reaching her hands out to him.
He raised his head and his eyes met hers. The resolve she saw in their depths stole her breath.
“But that’s not what connects us,” he said as he slid up her body and positioned himself at her entrance. “This does.” He entered her with a single deep thrust, and Merrit shuddered with the ecstasy of it as her arms closed around his sculpted back.
“
This
is all that matters, Merrit,” he said, before tenderly kissing the tears lingering at the corner of her eyes. “Our connection is too powerful—too special—to let die.”
And then he began to move. Wrapping her legs around him, Merrit quickly matched his rhythm until they were moving as one. Just as they always had.
Afterward, her body felt so peaceful and sated that she was sure she would float to the ceiling had it not been for Heath’s heavy limbs anchoring her to the mattress. How had she lived without this man for the past decade? How had she almost married another man? Heath was right: their connection defied everything else. What they shared was special enough to allow her to throw all her doubts out the window. She’d never stopped loving him. And it was time to give herself permission to allow that love to grow.
Heath nuzzled her shoulder, his heart still beating a furious pace in his chest. “Promise me you won’t run from me again,” he murmured against her skin. Merrit’s own heart skipped a beat.
“On one condition,” she breathed.
He lifted his head so she was level with his coffee eyes, which were now filled with unease. “Name it,” he challenged.
“I get to be in charge this time,” she said, pushing him onto his back. The smile that took over his face and his eyes melted her heart.
“Do your best.” He laughed.
And she did.
“What do you mean you aren’t coming home? Your cousin Kate’s engagement party is Saturday night.” Claire Callahan’s annoyed voice carried over the cell phone and Merrit stood up to excuse herself from the conference room she and her team had commandeered at Blaze headquarters. Jay McManus gave her a bemused smile as she walked past. He’d been Blake’s best friend for nearly fifteen years now, and he’d heard more than his fair share of her mother’s rants.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” she said as she stepped into the small office in the owner’s suite that Jay was using until his godfather retired and the sale was final. “But the audit is running a little longer than we expected. I have lots of work to get done this weekend so we can finish before next week.”
It was a total lie, of course. She’d been eking out work on the audit for the past week in order to have an excuse to stay in Baltimore so she could be with Heath. Late June had slid into July and she and Heath had spent every spare moment they could together these past two weeks. It was almost as if the past ten years of their lives had slipped away and they were back in the small cocoon they’d created in college.
They hadn’t talked about their future together, but she knew in her heart they’d have one. All that was left was working out the logistics. Blaze training camp opened on Monday and this would be their last weekend together without the distraction of the season. While her family was celebrating her cousin’s upcoming marriage to another member of Chicago royalty, Merrit would be tucked away in an historic inn on St. Michaels Island with Heath curled around her. She smiled at the thought.
“This is ridiculous,” her mother said. “I’m going to call Jay right now and tell him this audit needs to be finished today so you can get home.”
“No, Mother, you won’t.” Merrit glanced across to the glass-enclosed conference room where Jay sat with the two other members of her audit team. While she and Heath had been circumspect in their relationship these past few weeks, she wouldn’t be surprised if her brother’s friend knew all about it. Jay McManus had a way of knowing things about people that made Merrit think his software company was actually a front for a spy ring. But if he did know about her and Heath, he hadn’t said a word to anyone. If he had, her brother Blake would have already made his way back to Baltimore. Their mother wasn’t the only one in the family who meddled.
“First of all, I don’t work for Jay. He retained my firm to conduct an
independent
audit, so he has no control over the process. Second of all, this is my career. Neither you nor any of the other Callahans can control it. I’ll call Kate later and make my apologies, but I doubt she’ll even notice I’m not there. Not with three hundred other guests in the room.”
Her mother gave a little sniff. One that was intended to make Merrit feel guilty. It didn’t.
“Sweetheart.” Her mother’s voice softened. “If you’re worried about seeing Grant there, Aunt Lila said she personally called him and told him he was no longer welcome.”
Merrit nearly laughed at the thought of her diminutive aunt calling Grant and giving him what for. The truth was, she hadn’t thought of Grant in weeks. Not since she’d set eyes on Heath again. And when she thought of him now, she was no longer overwhelmed with that sickening feeling of self-doubt her former fiancé had planted within her. She was with a man who believed in her now, a man who loved her for who and what she was, and she felt her body standing taller because of it.
“Mom,” she said as gently as she could. She had no doubt her mom loved her in her own way. “I’m over Grant. He can’t hurt me anymore. And everyone else in the family needs to let it go, too. At the very least, do it for me. Please?”
Her mother was quiet a moment. “It’s hard because he drove you away from home. From your family. We miss you.”
A knot formed in her chest. Merrit had kept the secret of her relationship with Heath from her family for too many years now. But she didn’t want to let on about him just yet. Not until everything was worked out.
“I’ll be home next week,” she promised. What she didn’t tell her mother was that her stay would likely only be temporary. She wasn’t sure how long she could stand to be separated from Heath. He’d gone to Miami the day before to settle on the sale of his house and Merrit missed having him in bed next to her.
“Daddy and I are looking forward to it,” her mother said. “See you next week.”
Merrit slipped her phone into the pocket of her suit jacket before heading back to the conference room. The once quiet room was now abuzz with activity as her coworkers and Jay’s assistant stood behind Jay, peering over his shoulder at his laptop.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
Konal, Jay’s assistant, looked up from the screen. “It’s a post from the Girlfriend’s Guide to the NFL blog.”
Confused, Merrit looked to Jay for more clarification, but his face was drawn and his eyes wouldn’t meet hers.
“She’s claiming,” Konal continued, “that Danny Sanduchio, one of the New Jersey players named in the bountygate scandal last month, is writing a tell-all book. He’s naming names. Not only that, he’s ratting out several of his teammates at Notre Dame for some game they instigated when they were in college. Supposedly, they had a point structure for various ways of compromising co-eds.”
Merrit couldn’t stop her knees from buckling beneath her and she slid into a chair one of the others had vacated.
Konal pointed to the screen. “This is the part I wanted you to see, boss. According to her source, Sanduchio names Notre Dame alums from a number of teams around the league who were in on that game—including one within the Blaze organization who he says claims he was the scorekeeper and is prepared to tell all in exchange for part of the book’s profits.”
“Like hell he will,” Jay said as he shot to his feet and stormed out of the conference room. But Merrit couldn’t hear anything besides the deafening roar in her ears.
“It was never a game to me,”
Heath had said. Except it had been a game to all of them. Was he the one selling out the information now? The ache in her chest that had dissipated over the past weeks was back now, stronger than ever. Merrit inwardly cringed at the thought of a group of football players awarding points based on her getting a tattoo. Or having sex. Or any of the other uninhibited things she did in the name of love.
Except it wasn’t love if it was one-sided
. Once again the humiliation burned her skin.
“Merrit, are you okay?” someone asked. She nodded.
“We’re essentially done here. The rest of the report can be completed in Chicago. Let’s meet in my office Monday morning.” The words sounded foreign coming out of her mouth, but her coworkers didn’t seem to notice. They began packing up their laptops and calling to change their plane reservations.
“Promise me you won’t run from me again,”
Heath had demanded.
But Merrit didn’t think she could keep that promise. Not if the past was going to keep coming back to haunt them. She didn’t have the strength to be embarrassed publicly again. It didn’t help that at the first hint of something messy, Merrit’s trust was wavering. Was she even capable of trusting Heath at all? She buried her face in her hands, gulping down a sob in the now empty conference room. A large hand squeezing her shoulder alerted her that she wasn’t alone.
“Hey,” Jay asked. “Is everything okay?”
It hurt to swallow and she didn’t bother looking up. Jay was a lot like her brother. He saw too much.
“Sure. I’m fine,” she lied, staring down at her hands working themselves into knots on her lap. “We’re going to finish up the last couple of things back in Chicago. My mom is being a beast about me not attending Kate’s engagement party so I need to put in an appearance. I can have the final audit booklet to you by Wednesday.”
“Bullshit.”
She jerked her head up, surprised at his tone. There was pity in his eyes and the sight of it made her angry. But her anger was directed inward, at herself, because she could never seem to succeed in a relationship.
Jay rested a hip against the table and crossed his arms authoritatively over his chest, his midnight blue eyes piercing through her. His demeanor was so much like her brother Blake’s that she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to hit him or jump in his arms for reassurance.
“Your mom has never made you do anything you didn’t want to,” he said.
Merrit’s mouth dropped open but Jay shot a hand up before she could speak.
“It’s true and you know it. You are the only one in that loud, overbearing family of yours who doesn’t get pushed around. Who does exactly what she wants.”
She pushed her chin up and closed her mouth. She’d known the man for over half her life, but clearly he didn’t know a thing about her.
“Take the blinders off, Merrit, and you’ll see that it’s true. You blazed your own path, swimming against the Callahan current the entire way. You made your own success in the career field you chose, without your family’s help. Do you have any idea how much I—a self-made businessman—respect you for that? How much your
family
respects you for it?”
Merrit sank back against the chair as she considered what Jay was saying. Her parents had manipulated her life.
Sort of.
When she really thought about it, though, her father had only demanded she go into business after she’d come home from Notre Dame and she’d been too despondent to fight him on it. Sure, they were constantly pestering her to join the agency, but could she have misinterpreted their intentions? Nothing was making sense anymore.
“It’s time you give yourself credit for being the strong woman that you are. You can handle the truth, Merrit. You’ve picked yourself up twice before and survived, and you can do it again if you have to.”
“Twice?”
she choked out.
Jay puffed out a heavy sigh. “A girl doesn’t leave her dream school suddenly in her freshman year without there being a reason. Blake was in Europe that spring so he asked me to go check things out.”
She grabbed the handles of the chair in a death grip as the room began to spin. Blake knew! Her family knew. It didn’t matter if they thought she was a competent career woman or not. The reason they treated her with kid gloves was because they all knew she was a complete disaster when it came to picking men. A wave of nausea washed over her. “Blake knows?” she asked.
“No.”
Merrit met his eyes, expecting to see pity reflected in them. But there was none.
He arched an eyebrow at her. “There’s nothing to tell.”
She opened her mouth before closing it again when her brain couldn’t seem to form any words.
One corner of his mouth lifted up as he stood up to his full height. “Heath’s plane is supposed to land any minute now, which means he’ll be here within the hour. The gutsy girl who I’d be proud to have as my little sister would stick around to hear him out.” He leaned down to kiss her on the top of the head. “All you have to do is decide to be that girl, Merrit,” he whispered. “You can handle the fallout.” He strode toward the door. “Oh, and don’t let him leave without talking to me first,” he called over his shoulder.
As Merrit sat in the empty conference room she contemplated her choices, unsure whether or not she agreed with Jay. Fallout was messy, and the thought of handling any of it terrified her.
• • •
Merrit wasn’t answering her phone. Heath tried to tell himself that her unresponsiveness didn’t mean anything. Maybe she was in meetings with the team’s future owner. But Jay McManus was texting him for an audience ASAP and Heath didn’t have a good feeling about that.
Damn Danny Sanduchio.
If he hadn’t been a bully and a cheat in the first place, none of this would have come out. And whoever the bimbo was who was blogging this crap needed to be stopped. But first, he needed to find Merrit. They’d come a long way in the past couple of weeks, but he still didn’t trust her not to turn tail and run. This time, though, he’d go after her, just as he should have done years ago had he not been a proud jerk. Hell, if he had to face down the entire Callahan family, he would. He’d make her listen to him.
The taxi dropped him off at the front of the training facility. Heath grabbed his bag out of the backseat as he scanned the parking lot for her car. It was nowhere to be seen.
That doesn’t mean anything,
he reassured himself. She could have parked around back.
His phone buzzed. Jay McManus.
Again
. Mumbling a few expletives under his breath, he took the stairs two at a time. McManus would have to wait. Heath’s first stop would be to find Merrit. He trotted through the reception area, making a beeline for the conference room in the back she and her fellow auditors had been using. The room was empty. Their work papers and laptops were all gone. And there was no sign of Merrit.
Leaning against the doorjamb, he raked a hand through his hair in anguished fury. She hadn’t trusted him enough to stay. Merrit didn’t believe in what they had.
Damn it
. He pulled out his phone and tried her number again, but it went straight to voice mail, the sound of her voice making his chest constrict. She may have given up, but he wouldn’t. First, he’d deal with McManus and then he’d head straight for Chicago.
Heath crossed the conference room to the small office McManus was using temporarily. Not bothering to knock, he pushed the door open. The sight awaiting him there nearly knocked him off his feet. Merrit stood in the center of the otherwise empty room, her arms wrapped around herself as if she were desperate to hold herself closed. Her computer bag was neatly packed, resting on the floor beside her feet. That elfin face he loved so much was wary, but her chin never wavered.
Relief surged through Heath’s veins and he had trouble containing the shit-eating grin threatening to burst out on his face. “You didn’t run,” he said softly.
She gave her head a slight shake, but remained silent.
“I’m glad, Merrit,” he said as he slowly made his way into the room and placed his bag on the floor next to hers. “It means we’re getting somewhere.”
Heath wanted to reach out to her, to gather her in his arms, but the brittle way she held herself warned him to take things slowly.