Darker the Release (6 page)

It was an easy answer. An obvious answer. Just tell him yes so they could go on the way they’d been—in a half-lie that had somehow become the half-truth.

She opened her mouth to answer. To speak one word. To do what she was here to do. Deceive and manipulate him.

Her throat closed around the sound. She couldn’t speak it.

Horrified, she looked away, tried to clear her throat—although she ended up gagging a little.

“Kelly?” Caleb prompted. He wasn’t like any other man would have been in this situation. He wasn’t sentimental or seductive or persuasive or reduced to awkward, mumbling incoherence. He was simply Caleb. Calm and controlled despite his earnestness, with a slight flicker of uncertainty she could still detect.

“I do,” she choked out, her whole body shaking again the way it had when she’d been on the phone with Jack and realized how desperately she wanted Caleb to be innocent. “I want to be with you.”

He lifted her chin so she had to meet his gaze, his eyes searching her expression almost desperately, as if looking for the truth of her words.

“For real,” she added. “I want to be with you for real.”

There. She had said it. And she knew it had been convincing.

Because she meant it. For the first time in her entire life. She wanted to be with a man for real. To truly open herself up to someone. To be with him in a genuine sharing of selves. Not just a body but a whole person.

A tiny, fluttering part of herself—a part she’d thought she had vanquished for good—wanted that. Wanted it so badly her chest began to ache.

But this was Caleb. And no matter what he was feeling now, and no matter how much he was genuinely trying to be something he’d never been before, he still might have killed her father.

So she had to hold enough back to protect herself if that was the truth that finally came to light.

Her reflections hadn’t lasted more than a few seconds, and in those seconds Caleb had raised one hand to her face. He brushed her cheek and then combed his fingers into her hair, curving them around the back of her head.

“There are things about you, Kelly,” he murmured, “that I still need to know. I don’t do well with unanswered questions. But I’m realizing the questions don’t matter as much as the answers I already have. And I’ve never once, in all my life, wanted to be this close to anyone. This is different for me, Kelly. You know that, don’t you?”

She nodded, not because he expected her to but because it was the truth. She did know it.

He looked down at the floor for a minute and then looked back to meet her eyes. “I’ve never been in love. I’m forty-four years old, and this is the first time in my life when I’ve even wondered if I might be. I’m not sure if I know what love feels like.”

Her breath caught in her throat, and she couldn’t look away from the tenderness, the hesitance, the growing warmth in his eyes. She was trembling visibly now. He would have to see it.

“But I think it has to feel like this. Like…like you matter more to me than…than even I do.”

She couldn’t breathe, could barely see. Her whole body was shaking helplessly. She reached out for him, and he took her hands. Held them in both of his.

“So I’m going to say it,” he murmured thickly. “Because I really think it’s true.”

“Caleb,” she choked. She freed her hands so she could clutch at him, and he wrapped his arms around her.

“I want to say it,” Caleb said in a rough murmur, nuzzling her hair and the crook of her neck. He was holding her so tightly it was almost painful. “I want to tell you, blossom. Is that okay?”

“Yes.” She was almost crying as the emotion spiraled up in consecutive waves of fear and pleasure and grief and joy. “Tell me.”

He made a guttural sound and pulled back so he was looking her in the eyes again. “I love you, Kelly.”

She shook with stifled sobs.

He might be innocent. He had to be innocent. This man could never have killed her father.

He released a little groan and pulled her back into his arms, murmuring against her hair. “I love you, baby. I really do. I’ve never said it before. It’s never been true before.”

She was crying for real now, helpless to stop it. She couldn’t seem to let him go. And she heard herself saying, sobbing, “I love you too. I love you too.”

It couldn’t be true. Not fully.

But the part of herself she was still holding back was so small that it barely even counted. Everything else seemed to be poured out to this man, who was somehow everything she’d ever needed and wanted, who had somehow turned her inside out, who was giving himself to her in a way she’d never experienced before.

She wanted to give herself to him too—for however long she was allowed.

She could feel the emotion shuddering through him, and he held her in a hard embrace until her crying and shaking finally stopped, until she could relax, feel safe, sheltered by his strength.

This was the way she wanted to be with him. The way she’d always wanted to be with a man but had never believed was possible.

It probably wasn’t possible now either, but at the moment it felt like it might be.

He was stroking her hair and back, soothing her tension until it had dissipated and her body had melted against his.

Then he pulled back and met her eyes again.

Caleb smiled—an intimate little smile that belonged to her alone. Then he leaned forward, pushing her back until she was reclining on the bed. Moving over her, he brushed her lips with his. “I’m glad,” he murmured. Then he sank into a deep kiss—one slower, softer, more generous, more tender than anything she’d ever experienced before.

It was beautiful. And terrifying. And the best thing she’d ever felt in her life.

She had to tear her mouth away when the panic started to close in on her, when she stopped being able to breathe.

Caleb looked like he might want to take it farther, but she suddenly knew if she let him make love to her right now, she would lose the last of her defenses.

And her father still mattered to her. The truth still mattered to her. She wasn’t going to sacrifice everything, not even for the way she was feeling right now.

“Our waffles are getting cold,” she managed to say with a teasing smile.

He blinked like he had come back from an intoxicated high. But he gave her a dry half-smile in response. “Right. Breakfast. How could I have forgotten?”

Kelly was exhausted all day after the long night and emotional upheaval that morning, so she ended up taking a nap after going to the park with Caleb and Ralph in the morning.

She woke up without a clear sense of time, pulling the throw blanket she was using up over her shoulders. She felt content, comfortable, and kind of fuzzy—like she used to when she’d woken up late on Saturday mornings in high school, with nothing but a lazy morning waiting for her.

She didn’t hear the news, however, which the Watsons had always blared on Saturday mornings, and the ceiling was totally wrong.

Kelly stretched out her arms and legs, feeling relaxed and satisfied and toasty.

Remembered the Watsons were dead.

Then remembered her father was dead.

Then she remembered Caleb. And everything that had happened last night and then this morning.

She still felt warm but not quite so content.

It was the bitterest kind of irony. That Caleb Marshall had fallen in love—with her, with the woman who had set out not so long ago to bring him down.

She reminded herself that Jack was thinking now that Caleb likely wasn’t even guilty. She just had to wait another week or two until Jack’s guys could get into the storage room in Vendella’s headquarters and get the final evidence they needed.

Then she could be done. Then she would know the truth.

Then she would have to leave Caleb for good.

The idea of it hurt so much she turned over on her side and curled into a ball. And it hurt almost as much to imagine how Caleb himself would feel when he found out the truth.

Maybe he wouldn’t have to know. Maybe, if she found out he wasn’t guilty, she could just slip away.

He would be hurt. A lot. But he wouldn’t have to feel so utterly betrayed. He wouldn’t have to know how deeply she’d misused him.

It would be better that way.

Wes had been right at the party, although not for the right reasons. She was exactly like Hamlet, trapped in a quagmire of her conflicting emotions and human weakness. Driven by hatred and vengeance but imprisoned by guilt and reluctance. She only hoped—at the end of all this—she’d be able to pull through more successfully than Hamlet did.

The sound of a door opening roused Kelly from her drowsy reflections. She picked up her head from the pillow and blinked in the direction of the door.

Caleb walked into the bedroom, dressed in a white T-shirt and jeans. He’d been working in his home office, but at least he hadn’t actually gone into the office.

He’d changed in more ways than one.

“Hi,” she mumbled, trying to clear her eyes of sleep.

Caleb smiled with a fondness that made her gut clench. “You’re awake,” he said huskily.

Kelly pushed her hair out of her face and tried to break the tender mood. “Are you laughing at me?” she demanded groggily, reacting to the warm amusement in his eyes.

Caleb’s smile broadened as he came over and sat on the edge of the bed. “Certainly not,” he murmured, reaching out to stroke the curve of her hip through the throw blanket. “It’s just that your hair is quite…adventurous at the moment.”

Sitting up in bed and putting her hands on her tousled hair, she tried to give him a cool glare. “I thought you liked it that way.”

“I do.” As he drawled the two words, he leaned over to smooth back some of the tangles.

“That’s what I thought.” She slid her leg away from his hand, which was trailing down to caress it. “And just so you know, laughing at my hair is not the best way to convince me to do what’s on your mind right now.”

Caleb chuckled. “How do you know what’s on my mind?”

“You’re pretty easy to read in that regard.” She rolled away from him when he reached out for her again, and then couldn’t help but laugh as they had a teasing scuffle.

Which ended when he was lying on top of her. “I wouldn’t dream of laughing at your hair, especially if it will affect my chances of getting lucky.” He made a move that appeared at first to be adjusting his position, but he ended up lifting her T-shirt to bare her belly.

With a frown, she pulled the shirt back into position. “Are you always this horny?”

“I think we can find a more appropriate word to describe the increase in my libido lately.”

She wanted to giggle at his condescending tone, but she managed to arch her brows haughtily. “You’re saying ‘horny’ is inappropriate?”

His eyes glinted with suppressed amusement. “Sadly, no,” he admitted. “But it sounds so undignified.”

She couldn’t stifle the giggle this time. “You never answered the question,” she prompted at last, straightening her T-shirt once more when Caleb’s hand started exploring again. “Are you always this horny?”

Pulling back his hands as she continued to thwart his attempts to disrobe her, he said blandly, “As it happens, no, I’m not. So you only have yourself to blame.”

Kelly shifted restlessly and tried not to like the idea so much. She’d figured he’d been more interested in sex lately than he typically was. They’d had sex at least twice a day this week. If Caleb were always this horny, he’d never get any work done.

He leaned down to kiss her, but it was slow and gentle and didn’t turn immediately into sex the way his kisses normally did. Then he adjusted their positions so she was tucked in the crook of his arm.

She smiled as he pulled the throw blanket over both of them.

“What is that smile for?” he asked, tilting his head down to look at her face.

“You came in here on the pretense of sex, but you really just wanted to take a nap with me.”

He chuckled and pressed a kiss into her hair. “I don’t take naps.”

“Well, you should. They’re very nice.” She stretched out against him and wrapped one arm around him, suddenly wishing desperately that they didn’t have this immovable obstacle between them.

It would be so nice. To be close to him like this. Just a simple Saturday afternoon.

No more lies or secrets.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, one hand running down the length of her loose hair.

“What do you mean?”

“You got tense.”

“Nothing. Not really. Just…” She didn’t want to lie to him. It felt wrong in a way she couldn’t articulate. She wanted to tell him the truth, so she managed to find the truest thing she could say. “It just feels complicated sometimes.”

“What does?”

“Us. Our relationship.”

He didn’t reply immediately, but she could tell he was thinking about what she’d said. He proved it by eventually murmuring, “I guess it is complicated. We’re not easy people—either one of us.”

“No,” she sighed. “I just sometimes wish…we were.”

“You mean be like other people? Everyone has some sort of complications.”

“I know. But I think we take complicated to a new level. With all our baggage, I mean.”

“Any time you’d like to unload any of that baggage,” he murmured, very softly, “I’m happy to hear what you have to say.”

She sighed, realizing it still bothered him that she was keeping secrets from him, even though he had no idea about the worst of her secrets.

He wanted to hear about the fictional Albanian gangster that she’d supposedly had a relationship with in the past and who had trouble taking no for an answer.

She couldn’t tell him about that, though, because it would be nothing but a lie.

She was so tired of lying. She didn’t want to do it anymore.

And she wanted to know the truth from him. She needed to know he was innocent.

“I saw my dad die,” she heard herself saying.

She felt his body tighten beside her. “What? When?”

“When I was a kid.” She cleared her throat, knowing she couldn’t give him too many details or he could possibly put them together into her identity. But she needed to share something with him, and this was the deepest thing in her life. And maybe she could tell from his expression whether anything in the story hit home with him—not proof of his innocence but at least some clue to give her direction. “It was a…a hunting accident. But I was with him. He was shot, and I saw him die.”