Burning Through Gravity

  “Carter?” I pull him in hard by the back of his neck.

  “Don’t.” There’s a sadness in his eyes because he knows where this is headed.

  “I know something very disturbing about my sister—something that’s going to make you so insane you’re going to want to drive over there right fucking now.”

  His eyes round out. His jaw clenches tight.

  “What?” He barks it out so loud my body vibrates.

  I swallow hard at the thought of serving up Aspen for my own selfish gain.

  “If you want to find out, you’ll have to kiss me first.” I crash my lips to his and engage in a long, riotously angry kiss. We keep our mouths sealed shut, but my head moves in a slow meandering rhythm as if I’m enjoying the hell out of it. A roar comes from behind and then a series of shouts and screams. The noise and chaos of bodies filtering toward the door almost makes me smile.

  “You bitch!” I hear Evilyn’s voice clear as crystal as a wave of negative energy swishes by with the breeze.

  Carter struggles to disengage, but I hold on tight as if my life depended on it. Kissing Carter is just another drop in the long stream of lies I’ve been propagating. In the end I’m no better than Evelyn with the exception that the baby in my uterus was real.

  Ford plucks Carter off in one aggressive swoop and shoves him to the exit.

  “Watch the door.” He growls as his brother seals us inside. It takes a moment for me to realize there’s no one left in the room but us.

  “Hey, Superman.” I roll my hips to the music, dizzy and out of my mind from the harsh reality my life has become. “Looks like it’s just you and me.” I glide my body up and down his. “Is that how you like it? I was taking notes.”

  Ford grips me by the arms, with a budding smile on his lips. He backs me toward the wall with his eyes on fire as he bears into me. Ford crashes his lips to mine, and we explode like a powder keg—combustible and dangerous. These are deep-throated kisses, aggressive assaults that assure me, far more than words, that he still wants this, that he still wants us. I jump up and hitch my legs around his hips. Ford unbuckles his jeans and grazes me with his blooming affection. I give his tongue a playful bite, and he pulls back, his eyes drugged and glazed over for me.

  “I’m going to punish you all night for that little stunt you pulled,” he whispers in my ear as hot as it is wet.

  “That’s fine by me. I’m used to lying on my back ‘til sunrise.”

  “Oh, sweetie”—he growls out a laugh—“you won’t be on your back—you’ll be on all fours.”

  “Will there be leashes involved?”

  “Only this one.” He twists his hand through the back of my hair and tugs my head just a notch.

  “Sounds like fun will be had by all.” I cinch a smile.

  “It will.” He gives my hair a stronger yank. “Mostly.” Ford releases my hair and tightens his grip around my waist. “How dare you kiss my brother.” There’s a hint of whiskey in his warm breath and I moan into him, inebriated by his simple touch.

  “How dare you have a baby with another woman.” I raise a brow because both statements are essentially a lie. That was no kiss I shared with Carter, it was simply a flare I shot through the ceiling to see if I could get the man I worship to notice me.

  His chest bounces with a quiet laugh as if he heard.

  “I love you, Stevie Eaton. I promise, you belong to me.” His eyes pour all of their heartache, all of their expectations into me, and I let a moment thump by without returning the favor. Instead, I cover his mouth with mine and drill my tongue over his like a corkscrew. I do want to say those words to Ford. I do want to tell him that he belongs to me and not that twisted scorpion he’s ensnared himself with. But I don’t want to give my I love you away until he knows exactly who I am. I want to say it the right way. I’ve done so many things backward. I’ve memorized every trail of misery this relationship could possibly have—and I’ve taken us down each of those thorny paths whether he knows it or not. I’m so over the lies.

  After all, his lie cost me a few sleepless nights.

  My lie will cost him everything.

  Ford pulls my dress up over my hips, moves my panties to the side, and thrusts himself into me. I sink over his body like a spear that I’ve longed to settle my existence on. I feel the burn, take in his roving snake like kisses that explore every corner of my mouth all at once and groan.

  My mother had it wrong. Not all men are liars. Sometimes it’s the woman in question who’s beset with deception. Come Monday, I’ll be free of all of the chains I’ve fettered myself with. And, for the first time in my life, I’m terrified because I just might be severing what’s left of Ford and me in the process. But when it comes down to it, I’m doing it for him—for us.

  Ford thrashes me over his body harder and faster. He bites down on my earlobe and whispers, “Come.”

  And every last part of me obeys.

  Ford

  The clouds roll out like tongues of fire against the backdrop of the black Pacific. A full moon illuminates the night as a strangled chill slaps over our bare skin. We stop twice before making it to the beach house—making love on the side of the highway like a couple of teenagers, all tongues and teeth, her sharp fingernails scratching the hell out of my back.

  The beach house is dark just the way I like it, secluded from the rest of the population, far away from Breakers and Jinx. We park in haste, and I carry Stevie over the threshold like a bride, shutting the door with my foot before pressing her hard against the wall until her legs fold around my waist. Her panties have long since disappeared, and she’s open wide, wet and ready for me like she’s been all night.

  “Am I hurting you?” I whisper as I graze my teeth over her ear.

  “Body or soul?” Her lips curve up in a coy smile. Things got rough on the side of the road earlier. “No to both.”

  “Well then, I’m not doing my job.” I plunge inside her, burying myself deep until the tip of my dick feels hot and numb just the way I like it. “I think I’m all done playing nice.” I pinch her bare bottom a little harder than I mean to. “I think it’s time I taught you a lesson.”

  “A lesson?” She belts out a perfect laugh that I can listen to all night.

  “You hurt me.” I bite her bottom lip and slowly pull out. “Try not to do that again.”

  “But my reward is so much fun.” She twirls her fingers through my hair and gives a mean tug. Stevie tucks her nose to mine. A fire races through her eyes. “You. Hurt. Me.”

  “I know.” The words expel from me with a sigh. “Since I’ve had you, Stevie, I haven’t been with anyone else. I swear on my father’s grave, I don’t want anyone else. These are the only lips I want.” I touch my mouth to hers. “This is the body I desire.” I rub my bare stomach over hers before thrusting deeper inside her. “This”—I knot my fingers in her hair and lower her lips to mine—“you, Lo.” I give a crooked grin. “You were made for me. And I know how that sounds.”

  “Arrogant?”

  “Assured,” I counter.

  “It’s arrogant, but I like it.” Stevie plunges her tongue into my mouth and spins it like a drill the way she did on that beach so long ago, and my balls ache because I want her so bad.

  “Hold on, little girl,” I pant in her ear. “I’m about to get arrogant on a whole new level.” I dig my fingers into her waist and thrash her over my body like I’m trying to inflict a punishment on myself but it’s nothing but pleasure. This, right here, is the moment I’ve craved—that I’ve died a little on the inside for because I wasn’t sure it would happen again.

  “Ford,” it grunts out of her, stiff, as the pictures along the wall rattle in time with my thrusts.

  “It’s Superman to you, sweetheart.” I run my tongue up her cheek.

  A laugh gurgles from her. “It’s Lo, to you.” She huffs it out, jagged, with a squeal between each word. God, I love that squeal.

  The walls thunder, the room erupts with the
sound of our grunting, her happy indiscernible noises. Her panting rivals mine. I reach down and rub my thumb over her just as I’m about to release.

  “Right now, Lo.” I breathe the words into her ear, and the beach house lights up with the echo of our moans.

  I hold her like that for an entire loop around infinity. There is no place I’d rather be. Stevie and I have fused our existence together, and, from this moment forward, we will never sever that cord.

  We stumble our way to the bathroom, then to the bed where I hold her as the moon cools the room with a flood of white light.

  “You tired?” I nip her ear with my lips.

  “A little.” She twists into me until we’re both on one elbow examining each other in this proximity for the first time in weeks. “Tell me a bedtime story.”

  “You want a happy ending?” My hand glides over her perfect ass because, God knows, I’d be honored to gift her another happy ending.

  “No.” Her finger falls to my lips. “I want a tragedy. I want the truth about you and Evilyn.”

  My chest expands as I blow out a breath over the top of her head.

  “If that’s what you want.” I run my fingers through her hair and trace a line down her shoulder to her hip. “We met sophomore year at Rigby.”

  She makes a face. “Never did like that place.”

  “She was determined to make me hers so much so that she ran off any other girls who dared to get near me. She was, in effect, my girlfriend by de facto.” I groan because I’m about to throw it all out there. “There was a time I thought I cared deeply about her, but that quickly changed. She wasn’t the person I thought she was. Her heart was cold as ice. I saw the way she treated people, the way she treated me and I wasn’t up for more. Her grandfather died senior year—a year before winter vacation, that’s when I wanted to break things off with her, but I couldn’t once she was already suffering. We droned on past graduation and then well through the summer.”

  “Is that when we met at Shipwrecks?”

  A smile bounces on my lips. “You were the following summer. By winter she was pleading for a ring. Most of her friends were engaged, and Evelyn didn’t want to miss out on the fun. She took me ring shopping, and, before I knew it, I was the proud owner of a rather large rock. I still hadn’t landed a steady job, and, in my incessant desire to get away from Evelyn, I immersed myself in coding. I spent hours, weeks, locked up with Carter and Jener. We hustled more than we thought we could, and, eventually, I had them both working for me. I built Jinx, the end.”

  She shakes her head. “I want a messy ending, one that details the rest of your rather tragic relationship with the barracuda.”

  “Barracuda.” My chest pumps with a laugh. The smile fades from my lips because I happen to be having a child with the predator in question.

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” Stevie lowers her lashes artfully, and my dick perks a little. “I’ll try to be more respectful to the mother of your unborn child.” There’s a thread of sarcasm in her voice, and I can’t blame her.

  “Don’t. I’d rather you be honest than polite.” I touch my finger to her brow. “This isn’t the first child I’ve had with Evelyn.” I can feel her take a breath and forget to release it. “We married—the baby didn’t make it, and neither did we. Losing the baby was the tragedy, that’s all. By Christmas of that year, she was relentless, and we were together again—expecting yet another child. She lost the second baby a few weeks later. She wanted the marriage to work—and God I tried but we argued nonstop. It was brutal and a relief when it was finally over. Evelyn and I were never meant to be.”

  “God, Ford, I’m so sorry. I’m very sorry about your baby—both of them.” She tries to pull back, but I hold on, tight as a vice. “But you kept sleeping with her?” The hurt is written all over her face, and it guts me.

  I can’t tell if she’s disappointed or questioning my motives, probably both.

  “I was stupid. And I slept with a lot of people. At some point she simply faded into the crowd. It was nothing but a sea of faces in my bed. I was looking for something—trying to fill a hole in my heart that I refused to believe existed. But I was empty, Stevie. All those nights that my bed was full, my heart was black and lonely.”

  “Now there’s a tragedy I can sink my teeth into.” She takes a liberal bite out of my neck, and I give a hard groan.

  “One more thing.” I slip my hand between her thighs and keep it there. “That summer at Shipwrecks, when I pulled you from the water—you kissed me.”

  “It was the least I could do.” She crushes her tits to my chest. “And here I am all these years later trying to thank you.” She reaches down and cradles my balls like holding blown glass.

  “Afterwards, after you named the horse—Tink”—I press a kiss over her forehead—“thank you by the way for sparing that poor animal of ever hearing the words London Fog. After that kiss you gave me, Evelyn and I had our requisite argument for the day.” I shake my head at the memory. “Oddly enough, I used you to prove my point. I told her a thirteen-year-old had more passion in her kiss than she did. Despite her actions, I never felt Evelyn was all that into me. I was just another thing she acquired like a new purse, or a pair of designer shoes. I was an accessory to keep on her arm. She only wanted me for one reason and that was to keep her in couture clothes and Louboutin shoes. But I knew I wanted something more, oddly enough I wanted something more for the both of us.”

  “She still seems very smitten with you.” Stevie turns just enough for the moon to light up her face in the shape of a teardrop.

  “She became very smitten with me once I made my money. I’m more of a lucrative investment at this point. I’m pretty sure this baby was a trap.”

  “It was.” She assures. “Ford?” She falls back on the pillow, and her hair spills around her like dark wings. “Do you believe me when I say that first night we were together, I had no idea who you were?”

  I give a dark laugh. “My ego refuted the idea for the first few hours. I thought maybe you were playing games, but, yes, I believe you didn’t know who I was, and when we met up in the boardroom two weeks later, it became clear as my favorite vodka.”

  “That day in the boardroom was rather shocking.” She pulls my hand over her stomach the way Evelyn does, and, for a moment, I pretend as if I’m feeling our child.

  “No more half-truths, no more deception. No more kissing my brother.” I sink my lips over hers, and she moans straight into my mouth. “Get on all fours.”

  “Are you going to punish me properly?”

  My lips twitch, but I won’t give the smile. “I am, but I won’t leave a mark.”

  “Some girls like a good marking. My sister can attest to this.” Stevie does as she’s told, and the moonlight licks down her back right down to her heart-shaped ass. Stevie has the perfect body, that explains why I salivate each time I see her walking down the hall.

  “I’d rather not think about anybody’s sister.” I give her a quick slap over the thigh. “Widen your stance.”

  Stevie stretches out over the bed, slow like a cat yawning to life. I reach down and cup her breast in my hand before feathering my fingers over her stomach, right down to that tender part of her, and she jumps in my hand.

  “Hang on tight, Lo—this is going to be a bumpy ride.”

  “Don’t be afraid to utilize your super strength.” She tosses her hair onto her back, and I wrap my hand in it like a leash. “Make it hurt, Superman,” she purrs it out just this side of a laugh.

  “It’s you and me, Stevie, remember that. You belong to me.”

  She looks back. Her amber eyes shine red like fire in a stream of moonlight.

  “Say it,” I plead because a sick part of me needs to hear it.

  “I belong to you, Ford.” Her eyes cut into mine. Her lips curl just enough for me to know I belong to her. Stevie is in control of this relationship, always has been. It’s me that’s been going along for the ride this whole time, and, as bumpy as
it’s been, I’m falling for her deeper with each passing minute.

  The next morning we raid the fridge, happy to find that someone—probably Carson—has actually replenished the supply, and most items are only mildly expired. We make eggs side-by-side with me in my boxers and Stevie in my dress shirt from last night, not one stitch else.

  “I like the irony of the two of us back here at the beach house,” I say as the bacon starts to sizzle.

  “Irony?” She sniffs the bacon and gives a happy moan. “I won’t eat that, by the way.”

  “The package said no nitrates.” I give her lips a gentle peck. “It also said it’s organic grain-fed beef.”

  “Beef bacon, huh? Sounds perfect. You should really consider a career in sales.” She takes in another lungful of the fat and salt mingling in the air. “I will so eat that.”

  “Good. And, yes, irony—we started out that first night with me not telling you who I was. It felt like a guillotine hanging over my head for the next two weeks. And, now you know everything about me including my past with Evilyn.” I wink. You have to love Stevie’s sensibility when it comes to people. She pegged Evelyn right. “And now I feel clean. No more secrets.” I ride my arms up and down her back. “Plus you’ve figured out my true identity as Superman. I only share that with those I’m closest to.”

  Her chest vibrates over mine with a quiet laugh. “Thank you. I like that you have no more secrets.” She lowers her forest of lashes. “What if I had secrets?” She runs her fingers through my hair and gives me a quick kiss. Her eyes moisten with tears as if this was all hitting too close to home. “Would you still love me?”

  “I couldn’t stop loving you if I tried, Stevie. And, believe me, when you gave me the finger at the club last night I tried.” I shake my head at the absurdity. “I didn’t. I can’t stay away.”

  “When did I give you the finger?” She laughs, open-mouthed. I love seeing Stevie happy—just knowing I put that smile on her face makes me feel lighter than air.