Digging a Hole

  I see every muscle in his arms and neck tense up. “You’re the best thing to happen to me since Kate died.”

  I release an exasperated breath. “You’re impossible,” I mutter. Impossible not to love or want. Impossible to walk away from.

  Slowly his gaze meets mine, and then something snaps.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  This is happening. Really happening. Sam and I are tearing off each other’s clothes, our mouths locked in a fiery kiss, our hands grabbing and touching, my body aching to get closer. If that kiss at the fundraiser was mind-blowing, this is a thousand times better.

  He cups my jaw with his rough hand, angling my head to deepen our kiss. Meanwhile, his other hand is undoing his button flies, and I’m stripping off my jeans and panties.

  I break for a moment to jerk my red tank top over my head, leaving me completely naked. My hands waste no time, tearing off the buttons on his light blue shirt, exposing his hard pecs and abs. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I hear a whisper of doubt—Don’t do this, Georgie. He’ll only hurt you—but my body has spoken, and it wants him.

  I fall back onto the bed, consumed by his touches and the heat of his skin. All I can think of is him.

  I lie back, our mouths locked in a smoldering kiss, his one hand on my breast and the other between my legs, brushing and kneading my c-spot. I rock my pelvis into his palm, aching to relieve the tension, but knowing only one thing will do.

  My hands brush over his broad shoulders, down the sides of his strong arms, and find their way to his hard ass. He groans deeply and grinds his stiff shaft between my legs as I pull him toward me, an invitation to enter.

  In this moment, I’m not thinking about the fact he’ll be my first, or that it might hurt. I’m just thinking about how badly I want him inside me and that if he doesn’t fuck me, I might lose my mind.

  Our bodies writhe and grind together with shameless abandon, and he slides his hands to mine, pressing my arms over my head but never breaking his punishing kiss. I feel the head of his cock prodding my entrance, and I rock against it, urging him in.

  “Are you sure?” he whispers between searing hot kisses.

  If he’s asking whether or not this is a good idea, then no. I’m not sure. But I am sure about wanting him. Even if it’s just once, I want to have him, to know what it feels like to be his, to belong to him and him to me.

  “Yes. And I’m on the pill,” I whisper back. It was originally for non-sex reasons, but I couldn’t be happier that it’s about to change.

  His demanding kisses begin again, and it feels like nothing exists beyond this exact second of time, where his body covers mine and I’m willing to give him everything.

  The heat of his mouth and tongue feel hotter with every movement of his silky lips, and the aching need between my legs is unbearable. I grip his ass and pull him into me. Sam obliges with a smooth, powerful thrust that steals my breath. I gasp, breaking the kiss, and tilt my head back.

  I feel his body go rigid, though he’s deep inside me. “Jesus, Georgie. Really?”

  I didn’t warn him that this is my first time, but this isn’t that kind of sex. It’s not well thought out. It’s just an act of primal need.

  “If you value your life, you won’t stop,” I say with my eyes shut, doing my absolute best to ignore the sting. The fact is, having Sam, all of him, is better than anything I’ve ever felt despite the pain.

  “I won’t stop if you don’t want me to,” he says tenderly.

  We lock eyes, and it feels like he’s staring into my soul. Suddenly, I feel like crying. I don’t ever want to lose him. Yet this connection only adds fuel to my sinful fire. Is it possible to want a man this much? Because I do.

  “Don’t stop,” I say.

  A moment passes before he’s back to my lips, slowly pumping his cock into me at first. But as our bodies take over, our pace quickens and he fucks me hard, his back and ass unrelenting as he drives deeper and pushes me closer.

  I know I should wait and savor this moment, but the wave crawls through me, radiating from my core, and it’s unstoppable.

  “Oh God.” The orgasm crashes into me like ten thousand tons of pure soul-shattering euphoria. I dig my fingernails into his shoulders, too blinded by the ecstasy to think or speak or want anything but him filling me with every hard inch. I just want him.

  “Fuck, Georgie. I can’t stop. You feel so good.” I feel his body go rigid, and his pelvis slams into me, pushing his cock to the mouth of my womb as he comes. His groan is deep and animalistic, triggering another mind-blowing contraction. There’s just something about the sound of his voice that’s so sexual and raw—I can’t get enough. I’m addicted to it. To him.

  I finish with him, every muscle inside my core throbbing and wanting to draw in every drop.

  After several long moments, he presses his lips against the crook of my neck, leaving his shaft inside as it twitches out every last euphoric spasm.

  I say nothing about how good it feels, about how good he feels, because somewhere deep inside I know this feels right. I say nothing because the bliss of this moment is fading fast and I’m afraid. This meant everything to me. But what did it mean to him?

  Panting, he doesn’t separate our bodies, and I can’t say I want him to. I don’t want it to end.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” he whispers against my neck.

  He’s talking about the fact I was a virgin. “Would it have stopped you?”

  “No.”

  I inhale and release. “Good.”

  “Georgie?” I hear a soft voice say from a few feet away. I lift my head to find Elle standing with wide eyes. “What the hell are you doing?”

  Henry’s towering frame appears right behind her, and the look on his face is pure shock. In that moment, I think Sam realizes, as do I, that we have in fact just been fucking in their bed.

  Sam gets to his feet and grabs his jeans, holding them to his groin.

  I dash for my clothes, too, muttering something incoherent.

  “I’m going to fucking kill you,” Henry snarls.

  I turn my head and follow the hateful beam shooting from Henry’s eyes toward his white comforter.

  A bright red spot. Oh, God. Now that’s embarrassing.

  “You fucked my baby sister! You fucking took her virginity in my bed!” Henry roars.

  Ooohhh…I wince. It sounds so much worse spoken aloud. By my brother.

  “Henry!” Elle jumps in front of Henry to halt what will surely be a horrific murder. Because as big as Sam and his muscles are, Henry is at least fifty pounds heavier and built like an armored tank.

  “Go!” I tell Sam, sweeping the comforter to the floor and wrapping the sheet around my body.

  There’s a hesitation in Sam’s eyes, and I can tell leaving me is not what he wants. Or maybe he’s simply conflicted because he feels something for me, like I do for him, but he’s not ready to let go of what was done to his wife. Either way, he’s about to have his body broken into many pieces if he doesn’t leave.

  “I’ll call you later.” I nod, urging him to go.

  He looks at Henry and then at me before cupping my jaw. The kiss is quick, but it means the world to me. I’ve finally broken through that cold heart. And I know that this thing between us isn’t nothing, though I’m unsure how this could possibly work out. He’s a single dad with a broken heart. And I’m a young woman figuring out how to find my place in this world. The one thing we have in common is that we’re both trying to be happy. I think.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “Explain it again, Georgie,” my brother growls from the armchair across from me, “because I’m somehow missing the point where working with the FBI, to have me and my wife convicted, makes one fuck of sense!”

  Now dressed and sitting on Henry’s couch, I look up at Elle, who shoves a cup of tea at me. A splash of warm liquid dribbles down the front of my red tank top.

  Oh boy. She’s pissed. I have to make them underst
and.

  “He said,” I explain once again, “that he doesn’t believe you’re involved, so he offered me a choice: Help him gather evidence that might prove your innocence, or don’t help him and you both get arrested.”

  Henry stands and starts pacing. “You should’ve come to me, Georgie. You should’ve told me.”

  “So you could do what?” I ask.

  Elle chimes in, “That’s not the point.”

  “Then what is?” I ask. “Because it was the only way to protect you guys.”

  Henry shakes his finger at me. “We would have figured it out. Together. As a family, Georgie. Instead, you trusted that…” He throws his arms into the air. “That sexual predator.”

  “Whoa. Hold on,” I say. “If there was any predating—or predatorying—or whatever!—it was all me. And I’ll remind you that I’m a grown woman.”

  “He’s using you to get to us!” Henry yells.

  Okay. They’ve already made up their minds about Sam. And though I can’t blame them, I know they’re wrong.

  I inhale slowly. “I know what this looks like, but—”

  “No buts, Georgie!” Henry bellows. “He manipulated you to get into my safe. He used you.”

  I look up at Henry. “But you have nothing to hide, right?”

  “There’s nothing in the safe except a few watches and my passport.” Henry’s voice is suspiciously edgy.

  Hold on. “That wasn’t my question. You don’t have anything to hide, right?”

  He looks away and hisses out a breath.

  “Henry?” The fear in Elle’s voice is pronounced.

  “I knew.” Henry shakes his head. “I knew what they were doing at PVP.”

  My blood suddenly feels ice cold. “What?”

  “Please tell me you’re joking, Henry.” Elle covers her mouth.

  “I found out a few weeks after my family was presumed dead and you and I took over the companies.” Henry’s eyes turn glossy.

  “Then why didn’t you do anything?” Elle, too, is on the brink of tears. “My mother has cancer. How the fuck could you deprive anyone of a chance to live, when you know what I’ve been going through?”

  “My father is a greedy asshole,” Henry says with a resentful quake in his voice. “And when I took over, when we thought he died, I knew I couldn’t change what he’d done. I could only try to save the ten thousand jobs and families dependent on Walton Holdings.”

  “That’s no excuse, Henry.” Elle balls her fists. “People’s lives depend on those drugs.”

  “I know.” He bobs his head. “But I had to choose my battles, and if I fired everyone running PVP, then everything would’ve ground to a halt. The manufacturing processes are all proprietary and on lockdown. Not even the production teams know the full formulas. It’s all handled in complete secrecy by a handful of people all approved by Dad. He decided who got access to what so they could control the market. They’re like the fucking cancer-drug mafia.”

  Oh. I finally understand. Henry had to choose between saving a few or saving no one.

  He continues, “I hoped over time Craigson would trust me and we’d get what we needed to remove the stranglehold. But until then, I had to let them continue their fucking bullshit or risk losing the drugs.”

  I don’t know much about pharmaceuticals, but if PVP has all of their trade secrets locked up, Henry’s right. We could lose those lifesaving medicines forever.

  Henry looks at Elle; his torment is obvious. “I just couldn’t do that to you, honey. Your mom needs her medicines.”

  Elle’s eyes tear. “I’m so sorry, Henry. But you should’ve told me.”

  “What could you possibly do?” he asks her.

  Elle sighs. “I don’t have a fucking clue, but we would have figured it out together.”

  “So.” I stand from the couch. “Seems we all decided to play the lone-hero idiots when we should’ve been trying to figure this out together.” And sadly, this is the kind of impossible situation we all feared. If word gets out, it will be the ammo our enemies need to break up Walton Holdings. At this point, however, I’m not sure I care. We’re fighting to keep my dad’s empire alive, and if we succeed, we’ll only be faced with challenge after challenge. Someone will always be lurking in the shadows, hoping to take us out. It’s the way of the world. Only now, we have the fuckers at PVP who hold the key to thousands of lives. They can burn it all to the ground if we misstep.

  Elle shakes her head. “I’ve solved thousands of problems of every sort imaginable, and I don’t have a solution.”

  Henry grabs her hand. “You’re still the smartest woman on the planet—the smartest human, I mean.”

  “Glad you added that part.” She takes his hand and kisses his palm.

  I can’t help wanting that sort of undying love for myself. It’s unconditional and touching. Yet, oddly, I feel sorry for them. They’ll never be free to live normal happy lives if we stay on this path.

  “I have an idea,” I say. “We put everything up for sale.”

  Elle and Henry look at me like I’m mad.

  “The whole enchilada,” I explain. “Every single company so the PVP guys don’t suspect anything. And we make part of the deal a generous buyout of the PVP executives contingent upon a successful transfer of all intellectual property,” I add.

  “Who are you, and what have you done with my quiet, timid little sister?” Henry smiles proudly.

  Elle blinks. “The only problem is that we need a credible buyer.”

  “What if we make one up?” I say. “A private shell company. We’ll pull out of it once we, the owners, have what we need to run PVP on our own.”

  Henry smiles. “I actually think it’s a good idea, Georgie.”

  “FBI! Down on the ground!” Deep voices boom through Henry’s penthouse. It only takes a moment to realize that Sam betrayed me. He needed revenge more than he needed my love.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “You okay?” says Mr. Palmer, a lawyer from the new firm we hired to handle the battle with my father. I never met the man before today, but he looks like the type of well-seasoned person who knows how to play hardball—deep frown lines, white hair, and an expensive suit. He got me out on bail and miraculously arranged to have me escorted out the back, escaping the eyes of the media.

  “Am I okay?” I ask, debating if now would be a good time for a stress cry. “Hmmm…I was arrested, handcuffed, and had to share a cell with a woman named Mitsy, who had an X-rated Hello Kitty tattoo on her forehead. So I’m fanfuckingtastic.”

  “Just be thankful you have the resources to help you fight.”

  He’s right. But I still can’t believe everything that’s happened, and I’m unsure which part is harder to swallow—that I actually have a record now, that from this day forward everyone will know who I am, or that Sam did this to me only hours after taking my virginity. Okay. Yes, I gave it to him, but it’s too awful for words.

  I slide into the back of a waiting sedan. It’s eight in the morning, and I know Palmer is still working to get Elle and Henry out, too. My mother is with Claire and Michelle, who were not arrested since none of them ever ran the holdings company or were directly involved with PVP, but it’s a moot point. The FBI arrested Craigson and everyone else in charge at PVP, too. My guess is that Sam had no clue that doing so would immediately stop all production.

  Goddammit, Sam. Why in the world would he do this to me? I’m beyond devastated, but there’s no time to sulk or sob or think of myself. I have to focus on people like Elle’s mother and get those drugs back in production.

  “Take me to see my dad,” I say to Palmer once he’s in the car, sitting beside me.

  “I don’t advise having contact with him. People could get the impression you’re up to something, which might undermine our defense.”

  “Thanks for the warning, but seeing him is more important.” Though my thoughts are with Palmer, not wanting to have anything to do with my father.

  An
hour later I’m sitting in a Plexiglas booth at the state prison just outside Houston. It’s quite possibly the saddest place I’ve ever been with its barbed-wire fences and gray cement stucco. The registration room is windowless, cold, and smells of depression. When I’m finally called, they take me through a steel bar gate into another room where correctional officers stand on both sides of the glass. I hate what my father did to us. Truly I do. But there’s a part of my heart that hurts for him. This is an awful place. Definitely not good for naked yoga either.

  Wearing an orange jumpsuit, my dad sits and picks up the white phone. He’s a large man like Henry, but with a blond crew cut and a perma-snarl.

  “I wasn’t expecting to see you here,” he says.

  I’m about to get straight to the point, but I freeze up. My brain is overwhelmed with so many emotions, starting with the hurt I feel over him belittling me my entire life; almost killing me, my mother, and sisters; and every other selfish, cruel act that shows how little he cares about us and the human race in general. I want to tell him how I’m unsure I’ll ever be completely okay because of it. But mostly, I want to tell him how sorry I feel for him because he has an amazing family who would’ve made him happy had he bothered to love us as much as his money. Sadly, I can’t say these things. I can only stare with revulsion.

  “You always were a disappointing conversationalist,” he says.

  “We-well,” I eek out, “things have cha-changed.”

  “Really now?” He shakes his head.

  “Ye-yes.”

  “Then why do you look like the same old timid little Georgie who pisses herself when anyone looks her in the eyes?”

  “You’re a monster,” I whisper into the phone.

  He chuckles and leans in. “I’m also a goddamned genius. One who always gets what he wants.”

  Is that how he sees himself? Pathetic.