Wrecked (The Blackened Window) (40 page)

“Yes, please. Thank you so much, Kelsey.”

“Of course, Mr. Stone.”

And just like that, plans were made. Bitsy was a board member of Ivory Industries, but I had always assumed that was a way to ensure votes for John. I hadn’t really ever thought she actually
did
anything. Certainly, nothing so taxing that she needed an assistant. But, I saw the benefit after that exchange.

I got the itinerary later that day and sent Leda’s mom a text with the details. She texted back a smiley-face emoticon.
This woman is already the cutest ever and I haven’t even met her yet.

I told my parents my plans via text, since they were both gone for the evening. Neither seemed particularly concerned or interested really. I called Jason to tell him what I was doing and he just told me he thought it was a good idea.
No one
seemed at all concerned about this—but me.

It would be good. I had to tell myself that a few more times before I believed it. I didn’t consider changing the plans. I missed her too much and wanted to see her. Then, time seemed to move so slowly.

Eventually, I was getting on the plane and the flight attendant was waiting, took my jacket, handing me a scotch. I got buckled in, sipping the drink. It was peaty, smoky. Laphroaig, I thought. I allowed myself to doze as we flew.

In Chicago, there was a Lexus waiting for me. I smiled as I got in. It was silly. I wasn’t that into spending money just to show off that you had it. That said, the car was already warm, the heated seat was on, the heated steering wheel was warm. It was lovely. The flower arrangement across the front seat was perfect. Not too big, a really nice bouquet, mostly whites and reds, with some holly and ivy thrown in. Very festive, without being hokey. Kelsey deserved a raise, whatever she was making.

Leda’s parents’ address was already programmed into the GPS. Kelsey deserved a big raise and a bonus, probably a vacation, too.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Leda

Angus and Julia Stone,
Big Jet Plane

The night before I was going to DC, everyone was acting weird. Angie wanted to do my hair for me, because, as she said, it was long I-don’t-have-kids hair. She created a beautiful up-do with tendrils of hair falling down around my face and I planned to try to recreate it for the fundraiser. My mom was weird too. She kept ducking out of rooms, smiling to herself. The unfortunate thought went through my head that maybe she’d had some great sex with dad last night.
Puke
.

Right before dinner, Angie decided she absolutely had to have some cantaloupe and chicken soup.
Pregnant people are weird
. So, she asked me to drive her to the store. When we came back, everyone seemed on edge, expectant. Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore.

“What is going on? Why are you all being so weird?” Most of them smirked. My dad and Luke scowled a bit. “Seriously, guys!” The doorbell rang and everyone’s eyes snapped to the front hall. “Who the hell is this now?”

I got up to get the door, but Mom was already in motion. I heard her greeting whoever was there, then heard Xander’s familiar voice. I had a moment of confusion and complete disconnect in my brain.
That voice doesn’t belong here.

“What the fuuu…” I held my tongue at my dad’s expression and ran to the front hall.

Xander stood, framed in the doorway. The door where every guy I had dated had stood to gain entry into my life. My family followed me to the door, but his eyes, beautiful, flashing all kinds of emotions, met mine, which were straight shocked and wide.

“Hi, sweetheart.” His voice was low and mellow. “Surprise.”

“Hi and what the hell?” I turned on my family. “Did you all know about this? That goes for all of you then too. What the hell?” I was smiling and laughing, but I was impressed. In a family our size, it’s hard to surprise anyone. There are too many mouths that might let something slip.

My mom answered and I saw that she was holding a bouquet of flowers that Xander must have brought her. “Xander called the other day to talk with you while you and Jules had taken the kids to the bouncy house place, and we got to talking.”

Everyone groaned and sighed. My mom could literally strike up a conversation with anyone at any time. It was one of her gifts. “Anyway,” she said over the susurrus, “he was calling to let you know your flight time and one thing led to another and we decided he should come up with the plane.”

“Oh…okay. Well, come in,” I said backing up a bit.

I turned to step back and Lukie and Angie, Jules and Evan, my dad, the kids were all piled up behind me. “Guys, come on!”

My mom, being who she is, intervened. “Xander, please come in. Let me introduce our family. This is Leda’s older brother Luke, his wife Angie. Those two small fries by them are Kevin and Liliana. This is Leda’s sister Julia and her husband Evan, their son Gussy.”

“Mom, his name is Gus,” Jules interrupted.

Mom carried on like she’d said nothing, “And my husband, Jim.”

Xander stepped in, first to my father, and extended his hand, “Sir.” It was the first time that I had seen the military bearing in him. It was interesting and odd to see him formal and slightly deferential.

Oh, God, this is all so weird.
My dominating, sadistic boyfriend, bringing my mom flowers, shaking my dad’s hand, and meeting my whole family, the
whole
family. I knew he would have met them eventually, but I had expected to be prepared.

After he’d shaken everyone’s hands and my mom had taken his coat, and the kids had all inspected him, everyone started to move back to the kitchen for dinner. He grabbed my hand and held me back.

“I hope this is okay. I just missed you so much and, well, it was kind of your mom’s idea.” He smiled a little sheepishly and it was honestly cute. He pulled me into a hug, resting his chin on top of my head. I pushed back a bit to look up at him.

“Yeah, of course it’s okay. I missed you too.” I stood to my tiptoes and kissed him.

From the other room, my mom yelled, “Anyone who wants to eat dinner, get to washing up.”

She had been saying that to announce dinner since I was a kid and I smiled at the sound of the kids running through the house. I grabbed Xander’s hand, pulled him into the kitchen, and noticed there was an extra place set. No wonder Angie had ‘needed’ melon and soup. They’d had to get me out of the house. I couldn’t have gotten the grin off my face if someone had paid me.

Mom was arranging the flowers in a vase and I went to the kitchen sink to wash up. Gus, who really was rapidly becoming known as Gussy, came up.

“Auntie Weedie, I need hewp.” Gus reached up to me. I picked him up and tried to hold him to the sink, but, he was getting too big for the one-handed pick up now. Xander was there, smiling warmly at Gus.

“Hi, Gus, can I help?”

Gus nodded, enjoying being addressed and treated like more of a big kid. Xander picked Gus up under the arms, and I helped him wash his hands.

“Thanks, Weedie, and…you.”

Xander and I giggled at that.

As Xander washed his hands, he glanced at me, “Auntie Weedie?” He scrubbed like a surgeon, even when he wasn’t really paying attention to it.

“Oh crap. So my nickname has always—”

“Leeds!” yelled Luke. “We’ve called her Leeds since she was little and the kids can’t really say the L’s, so she became Aunt Weeds, then Auntie Weedie.”

“Leeds, huh?” Xander smiled at me. “I kinda like it.”

To my family’s credit, they didn’t interrogate him too much, but I think they were all dying to ask questions. My sister avoided bringing up Senator Noe’s politics, but I knew she wanted to.

After dinner, the kids all had bath time and Xander and I slipped out under the guise of taking out the trash.

“I can’t believe you surprised me! You’re crafty.”

“Yep. It really was your mom’s idea though. I couldn’t say no.” He smiled and pulled me into a kiss. My mouth softened from my smile into his kiss as his tongue swept against my lips and tongue, soft, patient, not demanding anything. He moved his hands to my face. He pulled his lips back and rested his forehead on mine, “I missed you so much, Leda. I’ve never felt like this before. You terrify me.” The last was a whisper.

I kissed him again, a little choked up at that.
How could I terrify him?

“I got you a Christmas present.” He held out a small box.

I opened it and noted the name of a prominent jeweler in Texas on the box. It was too big to be a ring box, but I still got a flutter in my stomach. Opening it, I found a gorgeous long chain-link necklace with a heart-shaped padlock on it and a small square disc with the word
HIS
on one side and an
X
on the other. It was a darker silvery metal I didn’t recognize.

“Titanium and platinum, honey. It should be just long enough to hang in your cleavage…where I want to be all the time.” He smiled and kissed my forehead.

I looked up at him, smiling. “I love this, but it’s too much, Boss-man.”

He shook his head. “Little girlie, you don’t get to say anything I give you is too much.”

I smiled again at that and felt a familiar pull in my pelvis. I handed him the box as I turned around. “Here, you put it on me the first time.”

He put his hands on my shoulders and turned me back to him. “I don’t think you want to explain this to your family tonight. Let’s save it, love.”

Love?
I flushed a little and tried to suppress the grin that pulled at my cheeks.
Could he love me? I want him to love me.
It was a whole different kind of breathless. It was more than sex and kink and getting tied up and pushed hard.

I pressed myself against him, suddenly shy. He kissed my forehead again and ran his hands over my back. But I shifted to look up at him and heard the deep rumble of an I-want-you purr in his chest as he pulled my hair to fully tilt my face toward him. His mouth settled on mine.

But the garage was cold and we had to go back inside after a few minutes. Mom and Dad were sitting in the living room, Mom drinking tea, Dad drinking scotch.

“Xander, would you like some tea?” My mom asked.

“Or scotch?” My dad added.

He smiled at them, something polite and detached. “No, thank you. I still need to drive to my hotel and get checked in. And I’m not much of a tea drinker. Leda must have gotten her tea habit from you, Mrs. Collins.”

Jesus, he saw everything.
Both my parents looked pleased with his response, though I suspected for different reasons. We sat with them, chatting about the plan for tomorrow, while my sister and brother, and their spouses, tucked their kids into bed. After a while, the adults were all in the room.

“So, are we playing this game or not?” Julia asked, pointing at the Trivial Pursuit game that we had set up earlier.

“I don’t know. What about something more like Charades or Pictionary? Something with teams? It might be a good idea to ease Xander into this family’s competitiveness.” My mother was such an excellent hostess.

Xander glanced at me, eyebrows raised at that. Ultimately, we agreed on Pictionary and split boys against girls.

“It’s finally even! And it’s good to have one more person diluting the Collins intensity,” Angie laughed. “And I need some cookies. Honey?”

“Really, Ange? You’ve been eating all day.” Luke answered her. Julia and Mom groaned and threw pillows at him.

“I’ll get you some cookies, sweetie. Milk, too?” My mom stood and Angie nodded to that. “And Lukie, this is your third time through a pregnancy. Don’t you know to keep a lid on that kind of stuff? Anyone else?” Everyone wanted cookies and I went with to help my mom.

We loaded a tray with the ridiculous amount cookies she had made with the kids this week. Chocolate chip, peanut butter, cut outs with icing, oatmeal raisin, gingerbread and chocolate covered peanut butter balls called Buckeyes.

“He’s awfully good looking, Leda. And he’s clearly falling for you hard. He can’t keep his eyes off of you.” My mom prattled on as she filled a pitcher with milk and I got glasses down for everyone.

“He’s great, Mom. I think I’m falling in love with him.” I thought of how safe I felt with him, and how totally on edge, too. It was perfect, and I had to stop myself from gushing.

“As long as he isn’t a complete waste of time.” We turned together and both stopped short, at Xander just stepping into the room.

“I came to see if you needed an extra set of hands for carrying things?”

A flush of embarrassment ran through me, worried that he heard our conversation.

“Yes, thank you, Xander. Can you take this pitcher?” Mom handed him the pitcher and picked up the tray of cookies. I carried the glasses, a new little swarm of nerves in my tummy. He acted completely normal, as if he hadn’t heard anything, but I didn’t believe that for a second.

The game went well. The guys won, but only because they kept getting sports-related clues. Angie ate seven cookies and had two glasses of milk. But Xander wasn’t too far behind, four cookies and an extra large glass of milk. Admittedly, they were awesome cookies.

We were up late, talking and laughing. Everyone was trying to give us advice on specialties and how to study for boards, except Angie, who just ate. She was in her second trimester and finally past the morning sickness, so she was making up for how terrible she had felt for the last few months. She had even skipped Thanksgiving altogether.

It was almost midnight when Xander left, shaking everyone’s hands, thanking my mom and dad for their hospitality. Thanking my mom for suggesting that he come up and meet them. I walked him to his rental car and kissed him goodnight.

“Our flight is at two. I will be here at noon to get you. Be ready.”

“Of course, Boss. Anything else?” I felt vaguely secretarial saying that and a whole new set of fantasies began to take hold in the back of my mind.

“Yeah, I want you to get yourself off tonight, thinking about me getting myself off in my hotel room, thinking of you.”

I drew a sharp breath at the unexpected instructions, but then mentally chastised myself.
Why would that be unexpected?
It wouldn’t even be unexpected for him to tell me to get on my knees in the snow and suck him off.
Well, maybe not in my parent’s driveway
.