“Charlie?”
She sniffled, not willing to face him. “Do you think any of it was real?”
He was silent.
She walked out the door. He’d given her his answer.
Now she had to find her own.
Ian kept his hands steady on the wheel, his eyes on the road, but that wasn’t what he was seeing. He kept seeing those tears in her eyes as she pulled the robe around her, hiding her body. Somehow he’d expected her to throw him her middle finger and walk through the club naked. He hadn’t expected her to turn in on herself, to look so fucking fragile. Charlie wasn’t fragile. She didn’t take crap from anyone.
Except him.
“Take a right at the next stop sign.” Alex sat beside him in the big SUV. “You know I wouldn’t have to give you directions if you had just let me drive my own damn car.”
Ian turned at the proper time. He didn’t reply to Alex. It was one of those times when words were meaningless.
All three women were in the back. Charlotte didn’t seem to have a problem with high protocol now. She’d been perfectly silent, her eyes on the world outside the window. Those eyes hadn’t sought him out once since the moment she realized he was serious about the “just sex” thing.
Do you think any of it was real?
Her question was playing in his head. It had been real. Every fucking second had been real for him. He’d loved her. He just didn’t trust himself to try it again. He couldn’t put himself through losing her a second time. He couldn’t trust her at all.
Could he?
Revenge should be so much fucking sweeter. He should be sitting here in Alex’s dad car that barely did sixty-five on the freeway thinking about how much fun it was to show Charlie exactly how he felt. But revenge seemed hollow when all he wanted to do was hug the person he was avenging himself on until he could get her to smile again. It kind of made the whole fucking effort pointless when he felt like a shitbag because his revenge plans worked.
“Don’t miss the next turnoff. It can be hard to see in the dark. Again, a good reason for me to drive,” Alex said.
“Alex.” Eve had a way of making her husband’s name—or any name—a perfect admonition.
“I’ll have you playing with your curtains in no time at all.” His night vision was perfect. Alex had to be getting old if he thought he couldn’t see that turnoff.
“It’s not curtains. It’s countertops. The contractor wants to make sure they’re the right ones before they install them tomorrow,” Alex explained. “The invoice says it’s our soapstone, but the contractor thinks it’s the wrong color.”
Ian shook his head. There was no way to comprehend the changes that had come over his best friend since he’d remarried Eve. “What the fuck is soapstone? Why do you care about countertops? What is wrong with you, man? You’re dragging us around in the middle of the night over home décor. When did you become Martha Stewart?”
Alex let his head fall to the side window, bashing it a couple of times before he sat back up. “Well, we all need a hobby, asshole, and you took listening to Guns N’ Roses and drinking Scotch so I was left with fucking soapstone countertops, which are, according to our designer, the very latest in home design and which I can very likely manage to shove up your ass if you don’t stop being an arrogant prick.”
“Alex, I thought we were going to be patient with him,” Eve said in a very gratingly calm voice.
Alex turned to look at his wife. “He’s driving my goddamn car because he’s such a control freak he can’t let anyone else drive.”
Eve’s hand came around the headrest, resting on Alex’s shoulder, and he settled down.
It sucked because Alex seemed just about ready to start a fight and that would have been so much better than the silence that descended on the SUV again. It might do him some good to pull the car over and trade some punches. Ian glanced up at the rearview mirror. It was dark, but he could get a glimpse of her face. He wasn’t used to Charlie being so silent or so withdrawn. She was confident, bold, his match in most ways, but now she had gone someplace deep inside herself and he didn’t like it. She was in the car, but her head was somewhere he couldn’t touch her. It was perverse. He knew he’d been the one to send her to that place, but it bugged the shit out of him. He would rather she yelled at him and called him a bastard to this silent sorrow.
“It’s the last house on the left,” Alex explained. “Just pull in the driveway and Eve and I will run inside.”
And leave him out here with Charlie? Probably not a good idea. Sure, Chelsea was here too, but he’d already proven he didn’t have a lot of discretion when it came to Charlie.
What he wouldn’t tell her was he’d run to the bathroom like a scared five-year-old because his first instinct had been to lie in bed with her all night long. He’d forced her to do it doggie style because he didn’t trust himself not to kiss her. Because the minute he’d gotten her naked and alone, all he’d wanted to do was get inside her and stay there for hours and hours until he was tired and he could wrap himself around her and sleep with her in his arms.
He pulled the car into the driveway. Alex and Eve’s house was nice. Big. It looked like the perfect place to spit out a couple of rug rats and grow old. It was also covered with trees and shit and they were too close to the house. What was he thinking?
“Stay here.” He turned off the ignition and reached for his SIG.
“What’s wrong?” Alex asked, reaching for his own and checking the clip. “Eve, get your head down. All of you.”
“He’s worried about the trees,” Charlie said in a monotone. “He thinks assassins will be hiding in the trees and they’ll drop down on us, and he’s wondering why you picked a place where so many people could lay in wait to kill you. I think it’s pretty. I like the trees.”
“The trees help cut down on electricity bills,” Alex said, shaking his head. “We weren’t thinking that someone would hide an army in the live oaks.”
“Which just proves that you’re losing it, my friend. I bet you don’t even have perimeter sensors set up.” He carefully opened the door, checking the trees in front of him for any movement.
“I haven’t even moved in yet.” Alex proved he could still move quietly. Ian heard the quiet snick of the passenger door closing and then Alex was beside him, his eyes watching their six.
They moved together like the team they’d been for the last five years. Back to back, they checked the yard.
“I can’t exactly set up motion detectors and freaking laser rays. I would fry every poodle and stray cat in the neighborhood, not to mention the out-past-curfew teens.”
“It would teach ‘em to not be out past curfew.” He didn’t get what the problem was. A little laser never hurt anyone. Much.
“You’re demented. And what the fuck happened to Charlotte? I thought things were looking up when you carried her off to the privacy rooms.”
Ian turned, checking the ground for any signs of disturbance. Alex moved cleanly, never giving up his back.
“Charlotte is just realizing that I won’t be as easy to manipulate as last time.” He relaxed a little. There was nothing out in the yard. He didn’t like the neighborhood they’d driven through. There were too many people, too many cars parked along the street that might or might not belong to residents. How was he supposed to properly assess risk in an area like this? He had to hope Alex had at least remembered to triple bolt the doors and install a decent security system. “I think we’re clear.”
Alex stepped back, shaking his head. “Well, you’ll be fun at the housewarming party. Eve, come on. We’re not going to be murdered in the front yard. Let’s go see how much the contractors fucked up.”
Eve hopped out of the SUV, straightening her skirt.
“Come on, Charlie, Chelsea. Let’s go find out what the fuck soapstone looks like.” He wasn’t about to stand out here in the middle of the night with nothing but a SIG between him and however many Russians were trying to kill Charlie. God, he hoped Liam caught at least one of the fuckers. Maybe these assassins were like Alex and held teas to talk about each other’s love lives. Then all Ian had to do was squeeze the fucker’s balls until he gave up how many of them there were.
Charlie eased out of the seat, followed by her sister. She didn’t look around, simply followed him as Alex unlocked the door and led them inside.
“Seriously? You have one lock?”
“You know what, buddy, when I actually move in here, I’ll let you paranoid out the whole house.” Alex opened the door and let Eve in.
Ian watched as Charlie walked by him. Her head was up, but there was a vacantness to her eyes that he didn’t like. She was somewhere else and there was a wall between them. He couldn’t see it, but he could feel that it was there. It was stupid because a wall between them was exactly what he needed, and yet it rankled. It was getting under his skin. His instincts were to tear that fucking wall down the same way he’d wanted to rip off the robe she’d worn around her like a bit of body armor. After they’d had sex, she’d stood in the doorway of the privacy room looking torn apart and fragile and he’d wanted to take away her only bit of protection from him.
It wasn’t fair or reasonable, and logic seemed to have utterly fled his abilities, but then he’d never been able to think around her.
So why the hell was he carting her back to his place and where the hell did he think she was going to sleep? Was he going to shove her ass on the couch?
“I like the archways,” Chelsea said as she walked through the foyer.
Eve smiled. “They used to be square, but I think the arches really open the place up.”
“They left their tools out again, Eve. I swear, I’m going to fire these guys. Why is there a nail gun sitting in the middle of my kitchen? That’s a concrete nail gun. Do you know what that can do to a person?” Alex asked, his irritation plain even from a room away. “It’s lucky we stayed in town since the contractor looks like an idiot. We’re going to have a long talk tomorrow.”
Charlie glanced up, but nothing on her face changed. She just moved into the living room where Alex had turned on the lights. Eve disappeared from view, too. Chelsea didn’t. She waited until everyone had moved on and then turned on Ian.
“What did you do?”
It seemed to be the question everyone was asking today. “I believe that’s none of your business. If your sister wants to talk to you about her sex life, then that’s up to her, but I’m not feeling chatty right now.”
“You broke her, you motherfucking, son-of-a-bitch, turdwad asshole.” Baby sis had a potty mouth, and she didn’t mind getting in his face. Well, she would be in his face if she had another foot of height on her.
“I didn’t break her. I gave her exactly what she wanted.” Except she did seem a bit broken and sometimes, when she thought he wasn’t watching her, he saw how lost she looked.
“She has spent five years with one goal and one goal only. Getting back to you. I told her you weren’t worth it, but she wouldn’t listen to me. She’s in love with you. She’s never been in love with anyone. Do you think I haven’t thrown men at her for years trying to get her to see that you’re just like the rest of them?”
He’d treated her like shit, so he probably was like the rest of them. Her father’s home likely hadn’t been the best place to meet a nice guy. “Do you want me to go down on bended knee and beg her forgiveness? Because that ain’t going to happen.”
If he went down on one knee, he’d try to get lower. He hadn’t spent enough time on her pussy. God, he already wanted her again. He’d wanted her about three seconds after he’d come. Another reason he’d pulled away.
He hadn’t wanted to put on that fucking piece of latex. It had been there in his brain, a little whisper that told him if he just let nature take its course, he would have to keep her. If he kept her then she would have to toe the line. She would have to give up all the criminal shit and become the woman he was sure she could be. All he had to do was let a couple of swimmers loose and he would have Charlie bound to him forever.
Or he would at least have a piece of her when she left him again because there was no way he would ever be separated from his kid. Thirty-nine years of being sure he would die childless and the thought of a kiddo with her eyes and her smile had him acting like Papa Bear.
“I want you to let her go.” Chelsea kept her voice low.
“I’ve been trying to do that since the minute she walked back in,” Ian shot back. “She doesn’t seem keen on leaving.”
“You know what, I should hug you for being the ass I knew you had to be. Thank you, Ian Taggart, for not being able to see how lovable she is. And know this, if you hurt her again, I know how to crucify a man in three keystrokes. You think she was the one who got you on a no-fly list? That was me. I can do way worse, and I won’t hesitate. When this is over, she’ll leave with me. It’s my turn to take care of her and that means getting rid of you.”
Chelsea turned and shuffled off.
Ian thought about strangling her. He could probably do it with one hand. She was the reason Charlie had betrayed him in the first place.
Yep, he was so far gone, he was thinking about killing a girl who had probably seen more violence in her life than he had.
But something about her questioning his rights to Charlie really got his gut rolling.
The minute he’d seen her again, his possessive asshole had risen right back to the surface. He’d only ever felt that way about one woman. Hell, he’d been possessive of her when he’d thought she was dead. He’d kept her memory deep inside him, sharing only the smallest bits of her with his best friend and only to explain why once a year he went on a bender.
Ian followed Chelsea through the archway and into the great room. Charlie was looking at the floors saying something about the finish on them.
She was into this house shit? The way she moved, he would think she wouldn’t care.
Unless she dreamed about putting down roots, about being able to pick out finishes and countertops and fucking paint for the kitchen because she wanted a house that was a home.
He hadn’t picked out anything on his own except the security system. He’d just left it all the way the last owners had wanted it. He never really thought about it, but he actually didn’t like it all that much. The playroom. Yeah, he’d picked out the stuff for the private playroom. So, great, his “home” was personalized with hooks and suspension gear and a really well-made spanking bench.