I Belong to You (13 page)

I crinkle my nose. “Plain is just so . . . plain.”

He laughs. “Yes, it is.” He holds it out. “Can you hand it to him?”

“Of course.” I accept the cup, but hesitate as I note the dark circles under his eyes. “How are you?”

“Tired. But I bet Dana that I’d beat you at tic-tac-toe this morning, so hand off that cup and let’s get to it.”

I laugh at what has become a six-month war between us. “You’re on.” Turning, I plan to hand Mark his coffee, and find him squatted down by Dana’s chair, his head dipped low, her hand on his face as she whispers something to him. He lifts his head and looks at her, nodding and then squeezing her hand. “I love you,” he says, and my heart squeezes at the rawness of the emotion in his eyes and roughing up his voice.

“I love you, too, son,” Dana whispers.

Mark’s gaze lifts abruptly, meeting mine, and he does nothing to mask the heartache in his eyes.

I lift the cup. “A plain latte?”

“Yes,” he says, pushing to his feet and stepping toward me.

I hand him his cup, the brush of our fingers sending a shiver down my spine. And judging from the glint of arrogance in Mark’s eyes, my reaction doesn’t go unnoticed. Determined to put him back in his place, I say, “Plain and strong. I guess that’s what a macho man like yourself needs to feel extra macho.”

“Oh, how you have him figured out,” Dana chimes in, her laughter filling the room.

Mark’s expression flickers with a moment of pure joy at her reaction, but he doesn’t miss a beat in his reply. “I prefer my coffee like I do my women—without the sugarcoating.”

If I had any doubt that comment was meant with naughty intentions, the totally inappropriate way he’s looking at me, like he wants to lick the proverbial sugar off me, douses it. And I have an equally inappropriate response of being warm and tingly all over.

“I’ll tell you what’s
not
sugarcoated,” his father inserts, and aware that Dana can see my reaction to her son, I whirl around and say, “Your wife when she talks baseball with you.”

He snorts. “Isn’t that the truth. But not what I had in mind.” He sets a pad of paper and two pencils on the table next to my coffee. “Game on.”

“Tell me he’s not trying to get you to play tic-tac-toe,” Mark says.

“You just hate when I’m right, Steven,” Dana says in reply to the previous exchange, while I nod my confirmation at Mark.

“I just let you think you’re right,” he counters, eyeing me and tapping the table. “Come here, Crystal Smith. Today is the day I kick your butt.”

“Remember our bet,” Dana says in a singsongy voice I haven’t heard her taunt him with in months. “If she wins—”

“I remember,” Steven says quickly.

Dana looks at Mark. “Crystal always kicks his butt.”

Mark arches a brow at me and I shrug, moving closer to his father, lowering my voice. “What’s on the line? Should I throw the game?”

“No,” he says indignantly. “And if I think you do, I won’t respect you in the morning.”

“But you’d win the bet.”

“Hey,” Dana says, sounding remarkably energetic. “Whose side are you on?”

“I’m going to win,” Steven insists. “I figured out how you beat me. My new pitcher showed me your trick.”

Mark settles onto the arm of his mother’s chair. “I assume you know he does this to all prospective pitchers.”

“I’ve heard,” I say.

“They need brains,” his father counters, “and not the kind that recites Shakespeare. They need to be able to process and problem-solve under pressure.”

“This isn’t much pressure,” I say, placing my X on the grid he’s drawn.

“You’re here by choice,” Mark points out. “My father tells them if they lose, then their dreams end with the tic-tac-toe of his pencil.”

“That’s kind of cruel,” I say, watching as Steven makes a poor choice for his move.

Mark laughs. “No wonder you like her, Mother. She’s just like you. She holds nothing back.”

“I find it real and honest,” Dana says, and my pencil stills as Mark’s words play in my head:
the only honest thing in my life.
Somehow I manage a laugh. “My brothers just call it bitchy.” I glance at Steven and feel a little sorry for him as I draw a line and say, “Tic-tac-toe.”

“Impossible,” he grumbles, as Mark and Dana burst into laughter. Steven draws another game grid. “Again.”

I sigh and we play again, with the same outcome.

He scrubs his head and then motions to Mark. “Come play, son.”

Mark stands up and shakes his head. “You’re just looking for an ego boost.”

I claim his spot on the arm of Dana’s chair and ask her, “Ego boost?”

“Mark hardly ever beats his father. It’s like he has some sort of mental block. I bet they played fifty games last Christmas, and Mark only won seven or eight.”

“Nine,” Mark calls over his shoulder, sounding casual and accepting of his losses.

The square isn’t fitting in the circle here. Something isn’t right, an observation I feel tenfold when I watch Mark lose two games in a row.

“Are we ready?” Reba calls as she rolls a wheelchair into the room, and my chest tightens when I see her red scrubs.

“Ready to get it over with,” Dana says. “I want to trade in my wheels for high heels.”

As Mark and Steven join us, I remind her, “At least you’re done for the weekend.”

She nods, but her eyes are on Mark. “Remember what I said.”

“I remember, Mother,” he says as his father helps her into the wheelchair.

They disappear out of the room and Mark turns to look at me. When I just study him for a long moment, he arches a brow. “What do you want to know?”

What his mother said to him—but he’ll tell me if he wants, when he’s ready. Instead, I walk to the table and pick up a pencil, quickly drawing a game grid on the pad. I place my X. “Your move.”

He narrows his eyes on me, several moments passing, and I’m sure he will refuse. Then he closes the distance between us and reaches for the other pencil. In a matter of a minute, he’s beaten me.

“Why?” I ask.

“Why what?”

“Being coy doesn’t suit you, Mark Compton. Why do you let him beat you?”

“Because he’s my father.”

“That’s a nonanswer.”

“You’re right.”

He’d vowed honesty.
I’ll avoid a topic, but I won’t lie.

He changes the subject. “My mother wants us to go on to work and take care of business. She says the two of us will probably outrun her by miles.”

I hesitate, not sure if I want to push, after he’s just shut me down over a game of tic-tac-toe.

“She said she trusts me,” he says, as if I’d asked what’s on my mind. “She said she felt defeated last night and overwhelmed, and she knows it will all be okay now that I’m here.” His voice softens. “And with us both by her side. You and me.”

There’s a stupid burning sensation in my eyes that I really don’t want to become tears. Afraid to speak, for fear it might push me over the edge, I give him a jerky nod.

“So now we have to make sure it really is okay.”

He’s saying “we,” and I don’t think a man who doesn’t allow people to touch him uses those words lightly. I smile. “It will be.”

His eyes meet mine, and there’s something so damn intense about being the focal point of his attention that always steals my breath. He takes a step toward me and I do the same. We’re only inches apart, and I don’t know what will come next—and his cell phone rings.

He hesitates, but reaches into his jacket pocket and glances at the caller ID. “Luke,” he says. A pause. “Tell me something I want to hear, for once.” He walks to the window, giving me his back, tension curling along the line of his shoulders. “No idea?” Pause. “Why?” A longer pause before he says, “Fine. Let me know the minute there’s a change.” He ends the call but doesn’t immediately turn around.

After several seconds pass, I can almost feel my blood pressure rising. “Mark. Please. What’s going on?”

He faces me, his face filled with the same tension in his shoulders. “The police won’t let Luke talk to Corey. And even if they would, the kid had a seizure and is now in a coma.”

“Oh God. Is he okay?”

“Stable for now, but he’s had a lot of head trauma, from what I understand.”

Whatever he
hasn’t
said is hanging between us like a concrete block, about to slam to the ground and rattle us to the bones. “What else?” I whisper.

“I’m officially a person of interest in his attack.”

Thirteen

Crystal . . .

My heart races and my palms begin to sweat. “Why? How? Did Corey accuse you?”

“Hey there, kids,” Steven says.

The greeting has me ready to scream at his knack for
really
horrible timing. Appearing by Mark’s side, he slaps his son on the shoulder and gives me a wink. “Can you give us men a few minutes?”

“Of course,” I say, somehow summoning a voice that sounds as casual as Mark now looks. Gone is the tension in his spine, the stress in his face. The Master has flipped a switch I used to possess, but today my legs are frozen, heavy and unmoving.

I force myself into action, but as I start to pass Mark, the magnetic pull between us nearly compels me to stop. I want to touch him, and I am certain he wants to touch me. It’s a sensation I’ve never felt with any other human being but my mother.

The thought quickens my pace as I fight the memory of hiding in a closet and peeking out of the door to meet her eyes. Wanting to help her, and being incapable of doing anything about the torment she was enduring except to cry.
Helpless.
And I can’t bear the idea of being that way now.

Exiting into the hallway, I head for the waiting room with determined strides to find Kara, to find out just how bad this situation with the police is for Mark.

Sitting in a corner that gives her a clear view of my approach and the elevator to my left, she stands the instant she spots me and meets me in the middle of the empty room. “Is something wrong?”

“That’s a loaded question,” I say. “Bullets are flying at me from every direction, and I’m trying to catch them before they hurt someone. I need help.”

Her expression softens. “You want to sit and talk?”

“Yes. Please.”

She motions to the seats with the bird’s-eye view of the elevator, but Mark will see us the instant he comes looking for me. “Can we sit in the corner over there instead?”

Understanding fills her brown eyes and she nods. “Of course.”

Once seated, I get right to the point. “Mark says he’s an official suspect in Corey’s beating. Why?”

She flattens her hands on her knees. “Here’s the thing. I’m under a confidentiality agreement, and no matter how much I want to, I can’t discuss details about Mark with you without his consent.” She hesitates. “And it’s killing me. I want to.”

“That answer
really
makes me feel like there’s something I need to know.”

She inhales and lets it out, shoving a long lock of brown hair behind her ear. “Okay, look. I’m walking a fine line here and talking about personal impressions, of which I have very few since I’ve barely met Mark. Blake, however, has met with him many times. He says Mark is like he was right after his fiancée was murdered: ‘guilty, driven, and willing to go over the line.’ ”

“That sounds like the Mark I’ve come to know.”

“But he’s not stupid or vicious. Blake doesn’t believe Mark would hurt someone innocent, or someone he sees as a victim.”

“You’re telling me you don’t believe he is responsible for what happened to Corey.”

“Do you think he is?”

“No, I don’t. But I’m not so sure about Ava, and there’s also a man named Ryan.”

“Yes. We know him well. If he’s guilty, he’s covered his tracks well. If we catch Ava, she’ll likely give him up. That’s how it works.”

“So could he have helped her escape for that reason?”

“Yes, but Corey was going to turn in evidence. It seems strange they’d let him go; something doesn’t add up.”

“And he accused Mark?”

“I can’t—”

“If he did, he could have been threatened.”

“We know. Believe me, we’re trying to protect Mark, and not just because he pays us. Blake feels a special connection to Mark. I feel one to you. A person driven for vengeance walks a slippery slope. Blake left the ATF because he knew he was going to kill the man who murdered his fiancée. He would have, if I hadn’t been there—and even then, it was my sister that held him back.”

“Your sister?”

“Yes. She disappeared, and I knew the same man was responsible. If he was killed, I knew I’d never find her. So in the split second where Blake could have killed him, knowing he was breaking the law, he chose not to.”

“Where’s your sister now?”

“She’s been missing for nine months.”

“Oh God. I’m sorry.”

“I haven’t given up; we’re looking for her and the man who took her. But here’s why Blake gets Mark so well. Even with me trying to help Blake heal, with our love, and his fiancée being gone for years now, he still fully intends to kill that man. It’s in his blood like a poison. So please believe me when I say this. You have to pull Mark back before he does something he’ll regret.”

“If you can’t pull Blake back, how can I possibly help Mark? I can help him cope, yes, but we’re not you and Blake. We—I don’t know what we are.”

“I see how that man looks at you. And I don’t need Blake’s opinion to know your influence over him. And he’s protective and possessive, to the umpteenth degree.”

“Protective and possessive are bone deep in that man, and he looks at me like he wants to get me naked, because that’s what he does to silence the demons screaming in his head right now.”

“I told myself the same thing with Blake. And I get it, Crystal. The thought of being a replacement for someone who’s been lost is a strange bird to hear sing. You aren’t sure if the words match the emotions they connect to. I’m sure he’s fighting anything he feels for you, out of guilt, and I don’t envy you this part of your relationship. It’s a painful, guilt-driven path full of jagged edges that will cut you many times over—but it has to be traveled to find out what’s real and what isn’t. No matter what you decide in the end,
you
are the one sharing this journey with him. You are the one who can stop him from doing what he’s doing.”

“Which is what? What’s he doing?” Mark asks.

My heart jumps to my throat as I discover Mark standing several feet away. He doesn’t look happy. He motions us to the elevator, and we rise to our feet. As we walk toward him, Kara quickly murmurs, “He hired someone to track Ava. He believes she’s alive, and we’re fairly confident he doesn’t want her to stay that way. We’re desperately trying to find her before he does.”

My mind instantly goes to his extra phone, and how he wanted me out of his parents’ office to take a call.

Mark punches the call button for the elevator as we join him. “We’re going to Riptide,” he informs us, his expression as hard as his tone. He doesn’t look at me, and I can almost feel the anger radiating off him.

The elevator dings and we all step into the car. Mark still won’t look at me, and my urge to hug and talk to him is extreme, but it would clearly be unwelcome. When we exit the elevator we rejoin Jacob, and by the time we’re seated in the Escalade, the silence is thick and uncomfortable. Mark has withdrawn physically and emotionally, and the way that it’s tearing me up inside proves Kara’s words. This path he and I are traveling
is
full of jagged edges, and I either have to accept that or get out. And I’m too invested in him, and his family, to choose the latter.

When we reach Riptide, the absence of the press is a relief. A member of Walker Security claims the Escalade while Jacob and Kara walk us to the entrance. Once we’re all past the double doors, Mark and I continue forward. When we reach the centerpiece of the lobby, an abstract rug of grays and reds framed by four low gray chairs, I ask Mark, “Why aren’t you talking to me?”

He doesn’t look at me. “You did enough talking for both of us with Kara, I’m certain.”

We reach the reception desk. As Beverly, a forty-something brunette who’s been here for a number of years, starts to greet us, Mark cuts through. “Do I have packages waiting for me?”

“Yes, sir,” she says, sliding a large envelope toward him, and then pointing at a box on the end of the horseshoe-shaped glass counter.

“I’ll be using my mother’s office as my office while I’m here, and my stay will be of an indefinite length,” he states. “Are there any urgent matters for myself or Ms. Smith to address?”

“Not at the moment.”

“Excellent. Buzz me if that changes.” He flicks me a look. “My office, Ms. Smith. We can talk there.”

“Yes, Mr. Compton.” The boiling tension is ready to become an explosion.

We go to the left of the desk to reach his office, instead of right to reach mine. As we enter the hallway to the east wing, Mark stops and motions for me to continue in front of him.

I shake my head, refusing to play his power game. “Together,” I say softly, then add,“Mr. Compton.”

“Don’t push me any further than you already have, Ms. Smith.”

“Ditto.”

“Ditto?”

My chin lifts. “That’s right.”

He glances down at the packages. “If my hands were free—”

“But they aren’t.”

“They will be in just a few moments.”

He starts walking and my breath hitches at the glint of warning I saw in his eyes. I fall into step with him, one part dread, one part erotic thrill. “Your threats don’t scare me,” I say softly.

He stops at his office door and gives me one of those steely gray stares. “Then you’re not as smart as I thought you were.”

Knowing his remark is a manipulation tool, my anger is instant. I walk inside the office, taking a battle position in the center of the rectangular room. Anticipation thrums through me in a way that I’ve only experienced with Mark. I’m furious, but I’m also ridiculously nervous. And aroused. How can I be this aroused when I’m this angry?

Mark shuts the door and a shiver races down my spine. The click of the lock that follows is like the erotic drag of an invisible finger along my nerve endings.

I try to focus on the room, to calm my reaction into a manageable proportion. With supreme effort I focus on something other than the man driving me insane, and force myself to picture the boldly colored red sofa and chairs behind me that I know are framed by black display shelves and past exhibit photos.

But it doesn’t work. My attention is riveted by the graceful way Mark crosses the room and positions himself behind the massive L-shaped glass desk in front of me. And while I’ve always found this office to be pure feminine power, he’s already erased that, claiming it as his. And as I meet his stare, I see all too clearly that he intends to make good on his vow to own me as well.

My spine straightens and I don’t blink. My anger will not be thwarted. My need for answers is not forgotten, and my good reasons for talking to Kara are not diminished.

Mark presses his fingers to the desktop, and we just stare at each other. Neither of us speaks, and every little sound seems magnified. My breathing, in and out. The clock on the wall behind him.

His emotion twines around and around me; I’d never be able to explain to someone what I see and feel with this man. He can look at me as he is now, showing no emotion, and I still understand him. I know he’s hurting. I know he’s worried. I know he feels like I betrayed him with Kara, and that he doesn’t see shutting me out of his hunt for Ava as the same sort of betrayal.

Part of me wants to shout at him and make him tell me everything. Another part wants to rush around the desk and kiss him, and promise him that everything will be okay.

But I do nothing. I wait.

He moves first, breaking the spell as he opens a drawer and pulls out a letter opener. Unsealing the box he’d picked up from the front desk, he pulls something out, and then rounds the desk to lean against the side near me.

He holds up a small velvet bag. “Come closer. I don’t bite.” Then his sensual, often brutally erotic mouth quirks. “Okay, I do bite. But since you’re not afraid of me that shouldn’t be a problem.”

“What’s in the bag?” I ask, certain that whatever he’s holding is about how today’s events fed his need for control. This is one of those moments where he’s going to test me; one of those times I need to overcome my own past, to preserve in the present.

He sets the bag on the desk and my eyes follow, trying to conjure an idea of what might be in it. “Come here,
Ms. Smith,
” he commands.

His voice is deeper now, more forceful, and his “Ms. Smith” sends tingling sensations through my body, delivering the erotic heat that he’d promised it would last night.

I don’t deny his demand, but I want answers I intend to claim. Closing the distance between us, I reach for his jacket, but don’t manage to obtain my target.

Before I can blink, he’s grabbed my waist, walked me backward, and set me in one of the red visitor chairs. His hands rest on the leather arms on either side of me, his big body caging mine as he leans forward. “If you have something to ask me,” he says, his voice low, tight, “you ask me. Not someone else.”

“I was worried sick about you, after what you told me about Corey and the police. I still am. I needed to know you were okay.”

“You only had to wait ten minutes to get those answers from me. There’s nothing more to tell, and she’s bound by a confidentiality agreement anyway. She damn sure better not be running her mouth to anyone.”

“She didn’t. She told me she couldn’t.”

“But you tried to get her to.”

“I just asked for more details on Corey, and what the police were saying about him and you.”

“And since there’s nothing more to tell, and she’s supposedly abiding by her contract, you got fed the ‘I’m like Blake’ bullshit I’m sick of hearing.” He doesn’t give me time to deny or confirm his accusations, adding, “Don’t go around me again. I told you this morning. I’ve trusted you in ways I trust no one, but trust goes two ways.”

“You’re right, it does. But if you think selective honesty is true honesty, you’re mistaken. I’ve seen the extra phone, Mark. Are you trying to find Ava on your own?”

His eyes are hard, unreadable before he straightens. “What would you do if the person who killed someone you cared about was on the run, and was still a risk to others?”

It’s not his obvious admission that he’s playing vigilante that bothers me. It’s his choice of wording that sends me to my feet to face off with him. “Someone you
cared
about? Don’t you mean the woman you love?”