His Secret

  “I’m going to–”

  I sucked harder, turning his statement into a curse, and a moment later, he came. I swallowed, then used my tongue to clean him up before raising my head and sitting back on my heels.

  He leaned forward and cupped my cheek, his thumb brushing over my bottom lip. “Thank you.”

  I licked the tip of his thumb, arousal tightening inside me at the heated look on Blake’s face. I stood and moved between his legs, so I was only inches from him. He wrapped his arms around me, his head resting on my stomach. I ran my fingers through his hair, massaging his scalp, appreciating the soft strands of hair as they moved between my fingers.

  “Better?” I asked after several minutes of silence.

  “Better.” His hands slid down my back to my ass.

  “But you want more.” I made it a statement rather than a question.

  “I know you’re probably sore from last night,” he said. “I wasn’t exactly gentle.”

  I smiled. “I think I gave almost as good as I got. How scratched up are you?”

  He laughed. Not the big, full laugh that I loved, but it was still a laugh. I counted it as a win.

  I took a step back, and he let me go. When he raised his head to look at me, I untied the belt to my robe and let the silk fall naturally, framing my body. I held out the hand with the belt and waited for him to decide if this was what he wanted.

  He toed off his shoes, then pulled his shirt over his head. After he removed the rest of his clothing, he stood. He took the belt and looked around the room, finally walking over to my closet and looking inside.

  “How sturdy is that bar?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “No clue. I’ve barely used it the past couple weeks. Why?”

  “Let’s try it out.”

  Less than ten minutes later, my robe was on the floor, and my hands were tied to the bar in the closet. Blake stood behind me, and I could see his reflection in the closet door’s mirror to my left. He was holding his belt. Unlike my silk one, his was leather, and when he snapped it, the sound made my mouth go dry.

  “Give me a word you’ll say if you need me to stop.”

  “Um.” It wasn’t easy thinking in this position. “Butterfly?”

  He chuckled. “Seriously?”

  “It’s the first word that came to mind,” I said. “Now, are you going to stand there all night, or are you going to do someth–fuck!!”

  I’d barely processed his reflection moving before the leather came down on my ass with a loud crack. The pain spider-webbed across my skin like fractures in glass. I cursed again, pulling against my restraints. The silk dug into my skin, a new element of discomfort to work into everything my body was feeling. A second blow with the belt drove away the hurt in my wrists.

  “Dammit, Blake!” I shouted. I looked over my shoulder to see him moving his hand over his half-erect cock. “You’re enjoying this a little too much.”

  “Do you want me to stop?”

  He’d do it, I knew, stop if I asked him to. But this wasn’t about me. This was about him and what he needed. And he needed this.

  “No,” I said. “I trust you to make me feel good.”

  “Then close your eyes and let yourself feel it.”

  I faced front again and let my head fall forward. I closed my eyes and waited. The anticipation was almost worse than the belt.

  A third strike, this time along the bottom of my ass.

  Almost.

  I focused on breathing, on feeling it all.

  In. Out. In. Out. Crack. In. Out. Crack. In. Out. In. Out…

  I lost count. I lost everything that wasn’t the near-agony of the belt and the throbbing need that had settled between my legs. I vaguely heard the cries I made and had only enough reasoning to hope that no one could hear us. I couldn’t hold on to the steady breathing I’d done, and now air rasped in and out of my lungs.

  I jerked when Blake’s hand touched me, but I didn’t pull away. I whimpered as he lightly traced the marks he’d made, new pinpricks of pain shooting across my already frazzled nerves. Then his fingers were between my legs, slipping between my lips, inside me, back out, up, circling my clit, giving me just enough pressure to ache for more, but not enough to satisfy me.

  “You’re so fucking wet,” he said. “Did you get this wet from going down on me, or from the belt?”

  “Both,” I answered without embarrassment or shame. What we were doing was pure and good, no matter what other people might think. We were two consenting adults, satisfying the needs of someone we loved. It didn’t get any purer than that.

  “Damn.” He kissed my shoulder. “I don’t think I can go slow.”

  “Don’t then.”

  A moment later, he was buried inside me, and my knees threatened to give out. He didn’t take his time, slamming into me while all the pain and pleasure twisted and knotted together until I couldn’t tell one from the other. My legs were weak, but he held me up, his fingers bruising my hips as he raced toward the finish.

  Words mixed with primal grunts, neither of them forming anything coherent alone, but together telling me exactly how he felt about me.

  “Good…fucking hot…shit…Brea…love…love…need…want…need you…never stop…”

  He came with my name on his lips, his thrusts becoming short and jerky. Still, he had the presence of mind to reach down and find my clit. It didn’t take much to send me over the edge, and a part of me thought that if he’d kept talking, I would’ve come even without his touch.

  Damn, I loved him.

  Thirty-One

  Blake

  “Mom! Aimee poking me!”

  Little sisters were ‘noying.

  “Am not!”

  “Kids, if you keep this up, there’ll be no dessert tonight.” Mom gave us her scary look.

  “Yes, Mom,” Aimee and I said it together.

  I wanted apple pie for dessert. Dad let me put i’scream on it.

  The car turned, and I got dizzy. Mom screamed, and we slid like we were on ice. Dad said some bad words, but Mom didn’t yell at him. The car flipped, and I hit my head. My stomach went upside-down, and I felt like throwing up. My head hurt lots, and I started crying.

  Everything went black.

  Everything shifted.

  I was back at the car, but I wasn’t in it. And I wasn’t a kid. I was an adult, and I was looking at the crash that had killed my parents and sister. The crash that had almost killed me.

  I knew I was dreaming, just like I knew I hadn’t actually seen the wreck from this perspective, but it was still too real. I didn’t want to be here. But I needed to be here. I couldn’t remember why, only that I had to be here because there was something I needed to know.

  And to do that, I needed to face my fears.

  I crouched down next to the back window and looked inside.

  It was me. I was so little, but I could see the man I’d become in the boy pressed up against the window. I was unconscious, but I thought I’d be coming out of it soon.

  On the other side of me was Aimee.

  It’d been so long since I’d seen her, so long since I’d even thought of her. It hurt to think about her. About all the things she hadn’t gotten to do. The woman she hadn’t gotten to be.

  She was facing away from me, and I was glad. Her head was at an awkward angle, her neck broken, but at least I didn’t have to see her face. I could remember her the way she had been. Looking like the happy little girl she’d been.

  I couldn’t see Mom either. Only her hair. It was dark like Slade’s. I didn’t know how Mom died, but I must’ve seen Aimee this way. Or my brain was just making it up, but I didn’t think that was the case. Something in my gut said that part was real.

  Dad was awake.

  No one had told me that. And my instincts told me it had to be a memory.

  “Abigail? Abby? Sweetheart?” Dad’s voice broke. “Aimee? Blake? Kids?”

  I wanted to wake up. I didn’t want to hear him when he
realized everyone but me was dead. It would be awful, and I didn’t think I’d be able to handle it. But something told me to stay a little longer.

  Then I heard it. Another car. I never knew who’d found us, but the guy walking toward me wasn’t who I’d pictured, mostly because the guy didn’t really have a face. He wasn’t like creepy faceless, but rather just blurry features that I couldn’t really distinguish.

  As he came over to the car, I realized he wasn’t freaking out, and he wasn’t calling anyone.

  Everything shifted again, and I was in the car now. A kid. But I wasn’t thinking like a kid. Not really that important. What was important was that I could see the guy’s boots outside the window. Nice boots. Expensive boots.

  “Stay away from my family!” Dad yelled.

  What? Why was Dad yelling at someone who could save us?

  Dad was cursing now, and the guy still wasn’t leaving.

  He reached inside, and Dad yelled again, and my head was hurting, and the guy was shaking him, and I heard crying, and it was me and…

  I jerked awake, my heart pounding, my skin drenched with sweat. For a moment, I didn’t know where I was, then I smelled something familiar. Lavender.

  Brea.

  I was with Brea. At the retreat. With my brothers. Well, not exactly with them right now.

  “Hey.” Brea blinked up at me. “What time is it?”

  I looked over at the clock on the bedside table. “A little after midnight.”

  She pushed herself up, pulling the sheet up around herself. “Are you okay?” She put her hand on my shoulder, and I caught another whiff of lavender mixed with the scent of her.

  I started to say that I was fine, but I wasn’t fine, and I didn’t want to lie to Brea about it. “I remembered.”

  She put her arms around me, and I leaned into her, grateful for the comfort she offered. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

  “I need to,” I admitted. “I’ve never talked about it before. I’ve never remembered it before.”

  I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her onto my lap. We were both naked, but right now, all I needed was the feel of her skin against mine and the warmth of her body.

  “I was in the car, fighting with Aimee – with my sister. Mom yelled at us. Something happened, and the car flipped. I must’ve blacked out. Then I was outside of the car, and I saw…Aimee. I couldn’t see my mom, but I knew she was gone. Dad was alive though. And awake.”

  “Oh, Blake.” She kissed my shoulder.

  “That wasn’t all.” I forced myself to keep going. As I spoke, I remembered more, things that I knew were true and not part of the dream. “Someone came to the car. I couldn’t see his face, but I could see out the window. I didn’t say anything because Dad was yelling again, telling the man with the boots to leave us alone.”

  “The man with the boots?”

  I nodded. “There was a man outside the car. I could see his boots. And then he bent over and reached into the car. He and Dad struggled, like he was trying to take something, and Dad didn’t want to let him.”

  “You saw this in a dream?”

  “Sort of.” I brushed back a curl. “It started as a dream, but I remember now. Real memories.”

  She ran her fingers across my collarbone, and if I hadn’t been certain this memory was important, I would have had her under me and panting by now. I caught her hand and brought it to my mouth, kissing her knuckles as another part of my memory came forward.

  “He took something from my dad. One of those old computer disks.” I frowned. “There was a picture on it. Three interlocking rings with something at the center.”

  “What something?” Brea’s question had a strange note to it. I looked down at her. “Was it a…plant of some kind?”

  The picture solidified in my head.

  “A four-leaf clover.”

  “Shit.”

  Okay, not the reaction I was expecting.

  “Brea?”

  She sat up, all traces of comfort and warmth gone. She was all business now, but I didn’t know what had caused the transformation.

  “We need to talk to Kevin.” She climbed out of bed.

  “Now?”

  “Now,” she said, her face a tight mask. “I know that logo.”

  Thirty-Two

  Brea

  I’d thought about meeting Blake’s brothers, but this was not how I’d thought I’d be doing it.

  “Okay, we’re all down here at the asscrack of dawn,” Slade grumbled. “Someone want to finally tell me why?”

  “Slade,” Cai chided, “language.”

  Slade scowled at his older brother. “She’s dating Blake. Bad language can’t bother her.”

  “I brought coffee.” Kevin came in pushing a drinks tray. “I didn’t know what everyone liked, so I figured black coffee with lots of options.”

  “Please tell me that’s not decaf.” Jax reached for the pot.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” Kevin said with a smile.

  I knew he didn’t like thinking about the life he’d left behind, but he hadn’t even blinked when I’d told him what we needed. Blake and I had already heard what he had to say, but now the other brothers needed to hear it.

  “All right,” Jax said as he sat down. “What’s going on? All Blake said was that we needed to talk.”

  I reached over and took Blake’s hand. This would be the third time he told his story, and I knew it wasn’t getting any easier with repetition. Still, he didn’t hesitate.

  “Everything we talked about must’ve knocked something loose in my head,” he began. “Because I had a dream that turned into a memory.”

  I squeezed his hand, offering him the strength to get through this again. It felt a little intrusive to be here while Blake told his brothers what he remembered, but he’d insisted that my dad and I stay. By the time he was done, his brothers all wore the same shell-shocked look I’d seen on Blake’s face when I’d come out of the shower last night.

  “Wow.” Slade broke the moment. “I don’t even – I mean, wow.”

  “This is what your PI was hoping for,” Blake said. “That I’d remember something that could help us figure out what really happened.”

  “And you’re sure it was more than a dream?” Jax asked.

  Blake stiffened, and I put a hand on his arm. He relaxed as he answered, “I am.”

  “Okay then,” Cai said. “What do we do with it? I doubt the cops are going to reopen a twenty-four-year-old closed case because of a memory from someone who was four years old at the time.”

  “It’s not all we have,” Blake said. He looked at me. “The logo on that disk is real.”

  “What do you mean real?” Jax asked.

  “Three intersecting circles with a four-leaf clover was the original logo for Greene Leaf Pharmaceuticals.” I entered the conversation. “It was changed almost twenty-four years ago.”

  “How do you know that?” Jax asked. His gaze was searching, but I didn’t sense any hostility.

  “Because of me.” Kevin smiled as all eyes turned to him, but it was a polite smile, without any real light to it. “In another life, I lived in New York City, part of a fairly prominent family. After years of doing what everyone expected of me, I quit it all.” He waved a hand. “But that’s not really important beyond how it relates to GLP. My family has known the Greene family for generations. Andre Greene is a couple years older than me and was determined that GLP would finally get his family the spotlight he’d always wanted.”

  I’d met Andre once, basically by accident. He’d been vacationing near where we’d been staying in Maine and had run into us at a store. I’d only been eight or nine, but I’d been able to tell that Kevin didn’t like him. Now, I understood why.

  “There were rumors, even back then, that he cut corners, but it’s never easy to know what’s real and what’s just gossip. I left before your family was killed, but I still knew enough people in the business to know who
your dad was. And that he’d been working on a story about corruptions in the pharmaceutical industry. Specifically, at GLP.”

  I watched as the realization sank into each of the brothers. I’d seen Blake get it too, and it hurt watching the others almost as much as it had hurt watching him. It had to be difficult, going from a possibility to something that was much more certain.

  “Do you think there would’ve been anything for our dad to find?” Jax asked.

  “I do,” Kevin said, his expression grim. “I never saw Andre do anything illegal, but there was one instance before he’d taken his father’s place. He’d had a little too much to drink. He started talking about how he was going to do things differently when he was the CEO, including what safety measures he wanted to cut. When I brought up the legal angle, he just laughed and said that’s why he’d spend some extra on a great lawyer.”

  “There’s a big difference between cutting corners and murder,” Slade said.

  “Not if you think of cutting corners in terms of money,” Cai said. “How many times do you see people killed for money, for encroaching on territory?”

  “Good point,” Slade said.

  Jax turned our way. “Blake, are you willing to come back to Boston and talk to the police? We could do it by phone if you want, but I think it’d go over better if you were there in person.”

  “I’ll go,” Blake said. “I owe them that much. Mom. Dad. Aimee.”

  I leaned against him, wishing I could take away the pain I heard in his voice. I’d go with him if he wanted me to, or I’d stay here and let him do it with his brothers. Whatever he needed, I’d do. He wasn’t going to go through this alone.

  “Do you really think it’s going to make a difference?” Slade asked. “Isn’t this what they call circumstantial evidence?”

  “I might be able to help with that,” Kevin said. “I don’t keep in touch with many people from my old life but let me make a couple calls. If Andre did do this, he believes that he’s gotten away with it for all these years, and that means he hasn’t stopped. There might be some evidence now that can help prove what he did back then.”