The Darkest Joy (23 page)

I put a finger under her chin and tilt her face up and our eyes meet.

“I can’t,” she whispers.

I press a soft kiss against her mouth. “You can . . . you will,” I say.

She squirms and I loosen my hold on her but don’t let go. “Tucker told me you’re a player . . . that you’d rather be married to your job than be with someone.”

I don’t lie. “That’s true.”

Her face tightens, and a sob that’s part gasp bursts from her, then she covers her mouth with her hand. “I can’t do this. I can’t be used and played. You’ve
got
to know that.”

“I do.”

I cradle Brooke’s face with my hands, bringing it to me, and she doesn’t resist. I kiss each eyelid, tasting the salt of her tears, and close my eyes.

When I open them I make my first promise to a woman. One I want to keep.

“It’s all true.” My eyes grind into hers, never leaving, holding steady with the weight of my words. “I was sleeping through my life. Fishing, playing . . . going through the motions.” I suddenly hug her to me then pull back, a smile I can’t help breaking out over my face. She’s startled and gives a tentative smile back.

“Then I hired you. And suddenly, I didn’t want anything more than I wanted you. I was just existing before, Brooke.”

Brooke looks at me, so solemn, so ancient in her eyes. “And what about now?” she asks quietly as I wipe the tears from her face, kissing her lips. Once, twice . . . then she kisses me back,
the silk of them moving against mine, and we’re where we always are with each other—entangled.

I lift my mouth from her lips and plunge my fingers through her hair, pulling her head toward me again, so close my mouth hovers over hers, answering her earlier question, my breath warm on her face. “Now I’m living, Brooke.”

I’m not ready to be loved, but I’m ready to be with Chance. Those I love have been stolen from my life, numbing me. Yet . . . I feel like I’ve been ready to let this man into my life since we met. And now I can no longer think of a reason to resist that feeling. I move into his arms like it’s my home and Chance wraps me against him. I feel his heartbeat through the thin tee he wears. His leather jacket bunches inside my fist as he moves his mouth over mine and I know I’m lost the instant he touches me.

I feel reality take a nosedive before our need for each other. I forget about the killer, the FBI . . . my sudden lack of employment. I just feel.

Be
.

Chance moves his hands to the small of my back, gripping me as he spreads his fingers over my heated skin. My body yearns for him, my nipples getting hard through my lightweight shirt.

“Please, Brooke . . . be with me,” he begs with his words, with his mouth, and I know I’ll cave. I want to be with him as much as he wants me to. Even if he knows the truth.

Chance saved me in that water just over three weeks ago.

He’s saving me now. All I have to do is let him. Let Chance rescue me. Again.

“Yes.” I say the word, but he’s already picking me up, his hands on my butt, my legs wrapping his waist as he moves us to the cabin’s front door. He bumps it with his hip and it scrapes open, the bottom catching on the wood floor. He kicks it closed behind him and moves toward my tiny bedroom, my arms wound around his neck and breathing in the scent of the sea that clings to his skin.

“The bed’s fine . . .” I murmur, wanting him . . . wanting this. Now.

He lays me on top of the old quilt and steps back to stare at me. I see it in his expression: his eyes hold heat and intent, his willingness is like unspoken foreplay.

Chance takes off his sea-green tee, the color matching his eyes. Those deep orbs never waver from mine, so serious, so intense. He rips his shirt off at the collar, swinging it over his head and into the corner of my room. I see his body for the first time in the unadulterated sunlight that streams through my window. The tattoo on his left shoulder shows two salmon fighting each other, a yin and yang of fish. Tribal symbols work their way down one muscular arm, joining in a band that encircles his wrist in a thick bracelet of ink.

He sees me looking. “I’m Native American,” he says, gesturing to the symbols.

I didn’t know . . . but as I study his face, the high cheekbones, the black hair like spilled ink, and eyes that have a slightly exotic shape, it’s obvious.

To me he is so handsome it’s like beautiful visual pain. I gesture with my finger, crooking it, and he smiles. Taking off his button-fly Levi’s with a single tearing pull, the metal buttons pop open like a reverse accordion and the bareness and length of him stands at attention.

Commando.

It makes me catch my breath as I drink in the sight of him, all sense of caution is lost in the shattering chemistry between us.

Chance reads my mind and he kicks off his jeans, which slide to a heap on the floor as he crawls across the bed. I watch him move, his penis a swinging pendulum above me, and my eyes roam, not landing anywhere but feasting on the wealth of his flesh above me.

“I want you so bad I can’t think,” Chance whispers as he bends down to kiss me again. I reach out, grabbing the smooth hardness of him, and he groans at my touch, wrapping his hand around mine. “You’re going to make me . . .”

I kiss his nose, then his lips, and squeeze him once, hard—and his hand tightens on mine. “No . . . not yet.” He begins to pull away and I let my fingers trail down the length of him as he shudders at my touch. I put my hands under his balls, rolling them in a tender juggle, and he laughs and pulls away. “Tickles.”

His face turns serious when I sit up on my knees and we face each other. He grabs my belt and releases it from the loops that hold it. It makes a soft sound as it moves through the loops and my hand strays back to him.

Chance pulls his hips away. “I want to undress you, Brooke.”

He puts a hand at my nape, then pulls us so close I can’t get at him anymore, though I feel him hard and ready between us.
Chance kisses me, stroking his lips on mine, lifting his mouth long enough to take my shirt over my head. It flies into a corner and his arms go around me like steel bands as he unhooks my bra and I lean back, my breasts falling out of their lace pockets. Chance bends to suck my nipple into his mouth and pulls me closer with a hand on my back. I spear his hair with my fingers, clenching the blackness in my hand as he laves the sensitive tip. My head’s thrown back, my hand buried in his hair as his left hand wiggles the denim from my hips and he pushes me backward. I fall, my breasts bouncing gently as my body settles beneath him.

I lie there in nothing but my panties, a strip of lace running up my ass and a peekaboo front letting him know I’m completely bare.

“I want to kiss you . . . here,” Chance says as he presses his fingertip to the sheer panel that covers the front of me and I jerk in response, the pressure of that one touch wet where it makes contact.

I can only nod. It’s more intimate than sex for me as I watch his face lower to where I want to feel him inside me.

Still, his deep eyes beg permission as he looks up the line of my body, one hand on my breast, one finger underneath the sheerness of my panties and I whisper, our gazes locking, “Yes.”

He smiles but I don’t see his mouth, his eyes crinkle at the corners before the color is lost as he closes them and his tongue pushes past the lace that his fingers move aside and the flat of his tongue presses against my clit.

Chance drags his tongue up the center of my sensitive slick nub of flesh and my hips rise off the bed. He plants his forearm
over my hips and holds me still while he licks and presses a finger inside me. I begin to lose focus, the delicious rhythm is hard and fast, smooth and perfect, and I get so caught up in what he’s doing, moving against him, the first orgasm crashes into me like a wave, leaving me gasping and panting.

“Breathe, Brooke,” Chance says from between my thighs and blows warm breath against my entrance, and a strangled cry leaves my lips, torn out against my will, a release of everything, no more thoughts, only sensation crests and falls over me.

“I want you,” I say between harsh breaths and Chance takes my ankles and pulls me down to kiss me on my lips. I taste me on him and he keeps pushing his finger inside me as he lets me taste my pleasure on his mouth. I let my legs fall open. I’m still throbbing . . . in pleasure, in anticipation.

I can’t breathe for wanting him inside me.

He sinks the hand that was just inside me into my hair and turns my head so my face is in profile, letting his penis find my wet heat where I wait to be filled with him.

I feel the tip of him at my entrance, and his knees split my legs farther apart from behind even as he enters me slowly, each hot inch sinking deeper, and I let out a hoarse cry, pressing myself back against him. My hips rise and he puts a staying hand on the back of my head and the other at the small of my back, pinning me in place, and I whimper in surrender

How does Chance know I need to be controlled right now? That finally I have chosen something and it’s happening with my permission when so much has happened without it? It’s a release that’s more than sexual.

My body lies still as he buries himself to the throbbing end of me. I feel the pulse of his penis as my sex grabs onto him in response. Chance lifts his hands off me and puts one on each side of my body in a push-up. Then he rolls his hips forward and my body moves with him, the front of me rubbing back and forth against the rough quilt as he shoves into me and I grunt with the pleasure of the deep penetration.

“Brooke,” Chance says and softly lowers his solid weight on me, his front presses against my ass and his hard chest flattens my breasts against the bed. I’m trapped and it’s an exquisite mix of fear and pleasure. I can’t get away and I don’t want to. We’re joined as he kisses my temple then he moves inside me again and I gasp, thinking he can’t go deeper.

Then he does and I groan as he touches me deep inside, an itch that’s getting scratched to perfection.

“Come for me,” Chance says, rolling his hips in and out, and a delicious heat begins to build. He does it again and again and that fire inside flares, bursting out of my core. It spreads and as I begin to pulse around him in crashing waves, I feel him grow harder inside me, his release coming at the peak of my own as we shudder together.

We’re suspended in the synchronicity of the moment. It feels too short but like forever in that bubble of time. Finally, Chance gently pulls out of me and rolls me over onto my back, boneless and spent. All my earlier worries retreat to the back of my mind. I gaze at Chance and only the deep flush underneath his perpetually tan skin lets me know how much our coming together undid him. Undid me.

Chance lays on his side, feet dangling off the bed, solemn
and quiet. I watch him look at my body, his hand moving, the constant motion of his fingers tracing my curves and lulling me into a comfortable silence.

We lay like that for several minutes, quietly enjoying being together . . . his hands seeking every crevice of me, finding what he needs. Chance fills the gaps of who I am, the wells of loneliness and walls of defense crumble before his tender exploration. I’ve found something new with him that’s all mine. Separate from what’s happened to me that I couldn’t control. I’m the master of my feelings, my motivation, my life. I can choose how I feel. I’m not a bottle in the ocean any longer, going wherever the current takes me. I have a path now.

Chance.

His navigation of me is complete and I whisper the bravest thing I’ve done since my family’s murder. My future shimmers before me like a lone star. I grab on to it as my feelings of happiness and rightness swell.

“I love you.”

Chance rolls me into his body, kissing my forehead. “I held out in hope,” he admits, a smile touching his lips.

I watch him look at me with his heart in his eyes as silent tears slip down my face, crawling through my hair and soaking my pillow.

He wipes each one away with a care that can’t be possible.

Now I realize anything is.

I
wake, hearing a soft melody, and run my hand over the empty spot beside me, finding it bare and warm.

Brooke’s gone.

Her notes tease me from below and I slip out of the bed, naked. I grab my jeans from the floor and pull them on, making my way to the bathroom. I hit the toilet and sink, brushing my teeth with Brooke’s toothbrush, and walk to the kitchen. I rummage around as I listen to her play from the open basement door. I figure out how to use the ancient coffeepot and set it to brew.

Looking down from the top of the basement stairs, I notice the chipped gunmetal paint revealing slivers of amber spruce that bleed through on the solid treads that lead down to where we’d first been together. I walk down the flight of steps, ducking so I don’t hit my head on the ceiling above.

I reach the bottom and watch Brooke play . . . listen. My
hand grips a floor joist above as one foot dangles above that last step I don’t take.

The final note swells in the strange subterranean room, the low windows flooded with bright light as the sun slants through them, coating everything in a tangerine glow.