All In (The Blackstone Affair, Part 2) (5 page)

What I wouldn’t give for a cigarette right
now. The silence on the other end was painful to bear but after a
few interminable beats I heard the welcome sound of her saying
words I wanted to hear. Words I could work with. Something I
understood and could do something about. “That scares me.”

Relief washed over me hearing that. Not that
she was scared but that she sounded like she needed me. Like she
would let me back in. “I won’t let anyone or anything hurt you,
baby.”

“I got a weird message on my cell phone two
days ago. A man. From some newspaper. I didn’t know what to do—and
then when I got your letter today I—I read what you said about
calling you if anyone did something to bother me.”

The feeling of relief vanished instantly.
“Enough of this shit, Brynne! Where are you right now? I’m coming
to get you!” I would have crawled though the fucking mobile if the
laws of physics allowed it. I needed to get to her and that was
all, period. To hell with the bloody yammering, I had to have
Brynne next to me in the flesh where I could put my hands on
her.

“I’m at the south end of the Waterloo
Bridge.”

Of course you are
. I rolled my eyes.
Just hearing the word
Waterloo
annoyed me. “I’m leaving now.
Can you get over to Victoria Embankment and wait for me there? I
can find you quickly that way.”

“Okay. I’ll go to the sphinx.” She sounded
better to me. Less afraid and the feeling did wonders for my stress
level. I was going to get my girl. She might not know that yet, but
it was in fact the reality of what was about to happen.

“That’ll do. If someone approaches you just
keep to the open spaces where there are people about.” I kept her
on the line as she made her way to Cleopatra’s Needle on foot while
I drove like a fiend and avoided London’s Finest.

“I’m here,” she said.

“Are there others around you?”

“Yes. There’s a walking tour and some
couples and people with their dogs.”

“Good. I’m parking now. I’ll find you.” We
ended the call.

My heart pounded in my chest as I found a
place to park and started walking down to the embankment. How would
this go? Would she resist me? I didn’t want to pick at our wounds,
but fuck if I’d let this bloody mess go on for another day. It
ended now. Today. Whatever it took to fix this cock-up got figured
out right here, right now.

The sun was just starting to set when I
spotted her. Her track shorts hugged her body like a second skin.
She had her back to me as she leaned over the rail to look out at
the river, the wind blowing her ponytail to the side, one long leg
bent toward the railing with her hands resting gracefully on the
top.

I slowed down because I simply wanted to
soak in her image. I was finally looking at her after a week of
starvation. Right in front of me.
Brynne
.

I needed my hands on her. They itched to
hold her close and touch. But she looked different—slimmer. The
nearer I got, the more visible it became. Christ, had she stopped
eating in the past week? She must have dropped nearly half a stone.
I stopped and stared, anger mixing with concern, but more so
understanding that this shit with her past was way bigger than I’d
realized up to this point.
Lucky us, we can be fucked up
together.

She turned around and found me. Our eyes
connected and some powerful communication flowed through the breeze
between us. Brynne knew how I felt. She should know. I’d told her
plenty of times. She had never told me what I’d said to her though.
I was still waiting to hear those three words come from her.
I
love you
.

She said my name. I read her lips. I
couldn’t hear the sound through the wind, but I saw that she did
indeed speak my name. She looked about as relieved as I felt, to
see her in one piece and just a few steps from each other. And
utterly beautiful to me, as she always was and always had been.

But this was where I stopped. If Brynne
wanted me she needed to walk over here and show me how she felt. It
would kill me if she didn’t, but my dad’s advice was spot-on true.
Everyone had to follow their heart. I followed mine. Now Brynne
needed to do the same.

She stepped off the railing and parts inside
me thudded when she paused. Almost like she waited for me to make a
gesture or come and get her.
No, baby
. I didn’t smile and
neither did she but we certainly made contact.

She had on a turquoise sports top that
hugged her breasts and made me think about her naked and underneath
me, my hands and mouth taking her all in. I wanted her so badly I
ached. I guess that’s what falling in love will do to a person—make
you ache in a way for which there is only one cure. Brynne was my
cure. Images of her and me making love flashed through my head as I
waited for her; the scenes of my desires haunting relentlessly with
a craving that burned me from the inside out. I
burned
for
Brynne. Mr. Keats sure knew what he was talking about in his
poems.

I held out my hand and locked my eyes onto
hers but my feet stayed planted. And then I saw the change. A
flicker in her lovely eyes. She understood what I was asking of
her. She got it. And again, I was reminded of how good we were
together at the most fundamental level. Brynne got me, and that
alone made my hunger for her even stronger.

She kept coming until her arm lifted. Closer
still until our fingers touched, her smaller, finely formed hand
resting in my much bigger one. My fingers wrapped over her wrist
and palm in a firm grip and pulled her in the rest of the way.
Right up against my chest, body to body. I wrapped my arms around
her and buried my head in her hair. The scent I knew and craved was
up my nose and in my head again. I had her. I had Brynne again.

I pulled back and took her face in my hands.
I held her in that position so I could really look at her. She
never wavered with her eyes. My girl was brave. Life sucked at
times but she hung in and didn’t shirk away. I looked at her lips
and knew I was going to kiss her whether she wanted it or not. I
hoped she wanted it.

Her lovely lips were just as soft and sweet
as before. More so because I’d been without them for too long. It
felt like heaven having my mouth on hers. I sort of got lost in the
moment and forgot we were in public. Lost in my Brynne the instant
she responded to me.

She kissed me back and it felt so good to
feel her tongue tangling with mine I groaned against her mouth. I
knew what I wanted to do. And my requirements were few. Privacy.
Brynne naked. If only things were that simple. I remembered we were
standing amid a crowd of humanity on the Victoria Embankment and
unfortunately not anywhere near private.

I stopped kissing and brushed over her
bottom lip with my thumb. “You’ll come with me. Right now.”

She nodded into my hands and I kissed her
once more. A thank you kiss.

We didn’t talk as we walked to the Rover. We
held hands though. I wasn’t letting go until I had to in order to
put her in the car. Once she was in the passenger seat and the
doors locked I turned and really looked at her. She looked half
starved and it made me angry. I remembered the first night we met
and how I got her the Power Bar and the water.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“First? To get you some food.” It came out a
little harsher than I wanted it to.

She nodded at me and then looked away, out
the window.

“After you eat we’ll get a new cell and
mobile number for you. I need to have your old one so I can track
whoever tries to contact you. All right?”

She looked down at her lap and nodded again.
I almost pulled her into my arms and told her everything would be
fine, but I held off.

“Then I’m taking you home. My
place—
home
.”

“Ethan, that’s not a good idea,” she
whispered, still looking down at her lap.

“Fuck good ideas,” I exploded. “Would you at
least look at me?” She turned her eyes up to mine and smoldered in
the seat, a hint of red fire flickering, making them look very
brown. I wanted to drag her to me and shake her, force her to
understand that this bullshit break-up was a thing of the past. She
was coming home with me, period. I turned the key in the
ignition.

“What do you want from me, Ethan?”

“That’s easy.” I made a rude noise. “I want
to go back to ten days ago. I want to be back in my office, fucking
on my desk with you wrapped around me! I want your body underneath
mine looking up at me with some expression other than the one I saw
when you left me at the lifts!” I rested my forehead on the
steering wheel and took in air.

“Okay…Ethan.” Her voice sounded shaky and
more than a little defeated.

“Okay, Ethan?” I mocked. “What does that
mean? Okay I’m coming home with you? Okay to you and me? Okay, I’ll
let you secure me? What? I need more from you, Brynne.” I talked to
the windshield because I was scared to see her face right now. What
if I couldn’t make her understand—

She leaned toward me and put her hand on my
leg. “Ethan, I—I need—I need the truth from you. I have to know
what is happening around me—”

I immediately covered her hand with mine. “I
know, baby. I was wrong for keeping the information from you—”

She shook her head at me. “No, you don’t
know. Let me finish what I was saying.” She put her fingers to my
lips to shut me up. “You always interrupt me.”

“Shutting up now.” I grabbed at her fingers
with my other hand and held them to my lips. I kissed her fingers
and didn’t let go. Hell, I’d take any small opportunities I could
get.

“Your honesty and bluntness is one of the
things I love about you, Ethan. You always told me what you wanted,
what you intended to do, how you felt. You were true with me and it
made me feel safe.” She tilted her head and shook it. “You have no
idea how much I needed that from you. I didn’t fear the unknown
because you were so good at telling me exactly what you wanted to
happen with us. That really worked for me. But I trusted you
implicitly and you damaged that part between us by not being
honest, and by not telling me you were hired to protect me. The
fact I need protection at all is a mind fuck for me, but don’t you
think I’m entitled to fucking
know
about it?”

God she was sexy when she was all fired up
and said bad words. I gave her a moment of triumph because she was
completely in the right.

When she tugged her fingers away from my
lips, giving me permission to speak, I mouthed my words more than
said them. “I am so sorry.” And I was deeply sorry. I had done
wrong. Brynne needed the bare naked truth. She had her reasons; it
was a requirement for her and I’d blown it.
Wait. Did she just
say “one of the things I
love
about you”?

“But…since I’ve talked to my dad, and he’s
told me things I didn’t know before, I realize it’s not totally
your fault. Daddy put you in a position you didn’t ask for…and I’ve
been trying to see it from your perspective. Your letter helped me
understand.”

“So you forgive me and we can put this
bloody mess behind us?” I was hopeful but not completely sure. Just
tell me straight up so I can guess where to go from this point. I
could work with odds like that.

“Ethan, there’s so much you don’t know about
me. You don’t really know what happened to me, do you?”

Brynne gave me a look that belied her years
from the amount of anguish in it. I wanted to make the anguish go
away if I could. I wished I could tell her it didn’t matter for me
to know. If it was horrible and it hurt her to tell me then she
didn’t have to. But I knew this wasn’t the way for Brynne. She
needed to lay all her cards on the table in order to move
forward.

“I guess I don’t. I didn’t realize your past
had marked you so deeply until recently. I thought I was protecting
you from possible political surveillance and exposure for harm or
gain depending on who was targeting you. Once I saw that you had
demons I cared too much by that point to scare you, or have you
hurt by it. I only wanted to protect you and keep us together.” I
spoke to her face, so close to mine, soaking her molecules in with
every breath.

“I know, Ethan. I get that now.” She moved
back fully into her seat. “But you still don’t know everything.”
She looked away out the window again. “You won’t like hearing about
it. You may not…want…to be together after you know.”

“Don’t say that to me. I know precisely what
I want.” I reached for her chin and tugged her my way. “Let’s get
some food in you and you can tell me whatever you need to say.
Yeah?”

She nodded just slightly in that acquiescent
way she’d mastered—the look she was giving me made me utterly
insane for her to the point my possessiveness surprised even
me.

I knew she was hurting and afraid, but I
also knew she was tough and that she would fight her way through
whatever haunted her. It wouldn’t change how I felt though. In my
eyes, she was my beautiful American girl and she always would
be.

“I’m not going anywhere, Brynne. You’re
stuck with me and you better get used to it,” I said. I kissed her
on the lips and let go of her chin.

She smiled a half smile as I put the car in
reverse. “I missed you so much, Ethan.”

“You have no idea.” I reached out and
touched her face again. I couldn’t help it. Touching her meant she
was really here with me. Feeling her skin and body warmth told me I
wasn’t dreaming it. “Food first. You are going to eat something
substantial, and I’m going to watch and enjoy every second of your
beautiful mouth as you do. What do you fancy right now?”

“I don’t know. Pizza? I’m not exactly
dressed for dinner,” she smirked, gesturing to her clothes. “You
have on a suit.”