Crash for Me (The Blankenships Book 7)

This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places, events, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

Crash for Me copyright @ 2015 by Evelyn Glass. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Book 7 of
The Blankenships
series

CHAPTER ONE

As Zoey pushed her way through the cops blocking the door to Olivia’s apartment, part of her reflected on the odd symmetry that was playing out. It was just days since she’d been shaking on Cindy’s couch, terrified of doing or saying anything. When Helen called her, letting her know that she’d heard from “unconfirmed sources” that Olivia Blankenship was dead, and given everything that had happened around AEGIS these past few weeks, her son had “been asked” to stay at the scene and answer a few questions. “No one is saying he’s been detained,” Helen clarified carefully. As if that was enough to stop her heart slamming against her ribs like a baseball fired from a pitching machine.

She’d called Luke and told him she was coming and told him to make sure that no one got in her way. She didn’t really expect it to do anything, but the cops parted when she pushed through instead of trying to hold her back. Either they knew she was coming, or they were just shocked at her pushing so hard and fast through the thick of things.

She hated Olivia’s apartment the moment she walked through the door. The London apartment had been furnished in similar taste, all modern with clean lines and cold colors, but this was a place where she’d theoretically tried to raise children. There was nothing here that was warm or kind or loving, and the thought of Alex trying to figure out how to care for anyone here—how to be valued as a person and not just an asset for a company—turned her stomach.

Inside the door, an officer finally tried to stop her, or at least slow her down, but she dodged the woman easily. In what seemed like another lifetime, she would have already been shouting questions, demanding information, and trying to get whatever she could out of her prospective source before she was hustled back out the door. It had always shocked her that the technique worked. Everyone knew that you weren’t supposed to talk to the press, but everyone always thought that they’d be the one to keep their words in line, to say everything right, to make sure that nothing they said could be twisted or turned to tell the story the reporter wanted to sell.

The officer did try to box her in, moving like a basketball player who knew they weren’t allowed to foul, but Zoey dodged. “Where is he?” She shouted. “Alex Blankenship, where is he? I need to see him.”

The man who came around the corner and faced her wore Alex’s face, but it wasn’t the man she’d fallen in love with. “I’m right here,” he said, his voice disgustingly calm. “There’s no need to shout.”

In her mind, she’d had a whole plan. She was going to stand firm, give him what he needed, be supportive, and create a space of calm contemplation around him so that he could breathe. It was what he’d done for her, and it had been very much what she needed. She’d expected to see him a total wreck; after all, it was his mother who’d died. Helen hadn’t been able to find out any details on the how yet, and hadn’t wanted to wait any longer before letting Zoey in on what she did know.

But he wasn’t a wreck. He didn’t even look upset. He wasn’t wearing the same clothes he’d been in when he left the penthouse, and that was strange. She’d been around him enough that she was sure that the clothes he wore hadn’t been bought for him. The shirt was a little too tight in the shoulders, the pants too loose in the thighs.

“I—Helen called me. I was worried.” She sounded like a child, and she hated it so much that the words caught in her throat.

Luke was standing behind Alex, his face carefully neutral.

“David’s still downstairs with the car,” Alex said. “Why don’t you go ahead and wait there? I’m sure I’ll be down soon. Or you can have him drive you back to the penthouse, and I’ll call him when Luke and I are done talking.” His gaze drifted into middle distance for a moment, and he shook his head. “I’m going to have to schedule a damn press conference. Of all the weeks for me to fire my assistant…”

“What? Why did you fire her?”

“That’s exactly what we were just discussing,” Luke interjected, looking none too happy that Zoey was here at all. “Thanks for dropping by to check on your boytoy, Ms. Gardener, but the police have actual work to do.”

You can’t flip off the police commissioner,
she reminded herself firmly,
no matter how much he deserves it. You absolutely cannot.
But God, did he ever deserve it.

Alex gave Luke a superior look that was almost as effective. Well, it didn’t do anything, which is about what she figured flipping him off would do. “Grow up, Pyramus,” Alex said, his voice as condescending as she’d ever heard from him. “Let the big kids talk for a minute, okay?”

Luke’s complexion darkened with rage, but he stepped back into the living room. Alex came closer to Zoey, glaring at the police officer until she backed away. “What are you doing here?” He asked, his voice nothing close to kind or caring. “How did you even find out about this? The police haven’t made any statements to the press. Luke swore to me.”

His hand was on her arm, and it hurt. Not a lot, but enough. She shook it loose, mostly to make a point. “Then someone in the building called, and gave the gossip rags just enough to piece together a story that at least makes logical sense. I didn’t stop to ask where Helen had gotten her information.”

“I don’t need you here,” he said. “I can’t be worried about you right now. You’re a liability to me, Zoey.”

She rocked back on her heels, more shaken than if he’d slapped her. He saw it, and he softened for just a moment. Far back in his eyes, so far back that she wasn’t sure if he could even feel it, she could see the shattered little boy who was crying for his mother. The anger in her heart didn’t go away, but it was tempered. Just a little. “What do you need?”

His eyes shifted again, back to that blank CEO mask that she hated. “Do you really want to know?”

“Yes.”

He nodded. “Go back to the penthouse. I’m going to text you a number. Call it, say that I picked the blue one. When I get back home, wear what you’re sent.”

She stared at him, her heart smacking her ribs again. “Are you seriously planning on getting laid right now?”

“Someone has killed my mother,” he said, through gritted teeth, “and all the self-control I have is being directed towards not fucking shredding these lying bastards who keep insisting that she killed herself. Someone is shredding my family to bits, and the only thing I can think to do right now is to keep you safe. I need to come home and know that you’re going to be there, and that I can take you, and I will be alive to do it. And if that’s sick and twisted, I don’t much care right now. You asked. You
asked
. You don’t get to be mad at me if my shit is too dark for you.”

There weren’t any words, so she slipped up onto her toes and kissed him. She managed to keep the gesture soft and light for a moment, but the hunger was gnarling through him, twisting him into crumbled shards. She understood, then. He didn’t dare to feel anger or fear or sadness, but he could feel lust. God, could he ever. So he could transmute the emotions, and express them the only way he knew how, and he was asking for her help with that.

The man needed a goddamn shrink like nobody’s business, but in the meantime, if he wanted to play? Yeah, she could be okay with that. She nipped at his lower lip, and the sound he made—no one else was close enough to hear it—made her suddenly very aware of the soaked cotton of her panties and wondering if she could justify playing with herself in the back of the town car as David drove her back to the penthouse. “It’s not too dark,” she managed to whisper. “If that’s what you need, it’s yours. But I won’t promise not to play with myself. It could be hours before you get home.”

His lips bent in what would be called a smile, if there were any humor in it at all. “Please do,” he said. “I expect you to tell me all about it. As soon as I’m home.”

“If you need me—”

“I know,” he said. “Go, please. I want this over with.”

CHAPTER TWO

Alex watched Zoey go, and one tiny curl of fear released as another tightened up. She wasn’t safe here, she wouldn’t be safe in the penthouse, she wouldn’t be safe anywhere. Somehow, he had to convince these people that Olivia had killed herself in a wave of guilt. Hell, he wasn’t sure that the ice queen could have felt enough guilt to do herself in. But to the goddamn cops, it was open and shut. Depressed black woman leaves her wine out, offs herself in bathtub. Where’s the story?

He turned back to Luke Pyramus, his once-upon-a-time best friend, and readied himself for another bout.

Luke put up his hand, and Alex paused, trying to force himself to listen. “I understand where you’re coming from. After the month you’ve had, I completely understand why you’re seeing murder everywhere. But we’re the pros at this, Alex. We’re looking at the details, the financials, and I’m telling you, there’s no sign of foul play here. She was broken hearted over the death of her daughter, and she took her own life. It’s tragic, but it’s nothing we haven’t seen before.”

Luke’s pointed look was all too familiar. It brought back Alex’s senior year in prep school. He’d never quite managed to determine what it was that left him so dark, so tired, so lonely, that the razor blade had looked like his best friend that night. He had wondered, often, if he would have survived if Luke had found him instead of Leo. If Luke might have just watched as the water turned red.

“No,” Alex shook his head. His tone was too stubborn, and he knew that Luke wasn’t seeing anything but a big angry black man right now, and that he was being treated as a stereotype instead of a person, but he couldn’t stop it. Maybe he’d done the wrong thing, dressing in clean clothes. Maybe they would have taken him more seriously if he’d looked like a shattered, broken son.

No, they probably just would have arrested him.

“Go home, get some rest, and we’ll talk tomorrow,” Luke said. His voice was so quiet, so convincing. Alex hated him for it all the way down to his bones. “I’ll keep the press off your doorstep for the night, and you can get your press conference organized. I know how important it is for you Wall Street types to ‘control the message.’”

It was tempting to insist that Luke didn’t know anything, but it wasn’t going to get him anywhere. It wasn’t going to change anything. That was becoming painfully clear.

“Thanks for your help,” Alex said, as politely as he could, because he and Pyramus weren’t friends anymore. If they ever had been, they weren’t any more. “I’ll take your suggestion.” He shook Luke’s hand, squelching the urge to grind the bones of the other man’s hand into powder, and took a step away.

“Oh, Alex?”

Alex turned, but he didn’t say anything.

“The twins. The ones in Cindy Walden’s documents. I want you to know I contacted them. Their adoptive parents, more specifically.” Luke shook his head. “You need to leave them alone. I told them that if you contact them again, they’re to come directly to me. They have my personal cell phone number.”

“I’ve never contacted them—”

“You, your girlfriend, I don’t care who it was. Leave them alone. They’re so afraid of whatever you said to them that they’re refusing protective custody. If I could get them to go on record, I’d have you arrested for harassment. So leave them alone, before this has to get ugly. Understand?”

Alex said the thing he realized he probably ought to have said hours ago. “If you have any further questions about this matter, you’ll need to take it up with my attorney.” He flashed Pyramus a humorless grin. “I know you have their card.”

He swept out of the apartment as well as he could, but he was dialing Leo’s number before he even hit the elevator.

“Leo,” he said, as soon as his friend came on the line. “We need to talk. Now, if you have the time.”

***

Zoey jerked awake when the door to the penthouse shut. She scrubbed at her eyes for a moment and pushed herself up to sitting. She had to adjust the blue lace—she refused to call something this tiny a nightgown, as her left breast was dangerously close to escaping.

She’d called the number Alex gave when she got back to the penthouse; it was for his personal shopper, Christopher. When she’d said that Alex wanted the blue one, Christopher had made a sound of delicious pleasure that felt almost as filthy as anything Alex had ever done to her. He’d said he’d have it delivered right away, and sure enough, Sophia had turned up in the living room, where Zoey had settled with her laptop, after less than two hours. She’d carried a box with a ribbon and a knowing look. It did nothing to hide the shadows in her eyes. The woman looked old. Tired, and old.

Zoey’d taken the outfit back into the bedroom to try it on. She’d thought at first it would look awful—she was fit enough, but she was no model—but the scraps of silk and lace somehow created a little slip that made her feel naughty and delicious. It felt so sexy against her skin that she hadn’t wanted to take it off, so she’d sprawled across the bed with a book, and she must have fallen asleep. She glanced at her phone; it was well into early evening.

The bedroom door opened, and Alex stood there, dark and glowering as a storm cloud. “Hi,” Zoey said. She reached down next to her for the microfiber robe, ready to pull it around her shoulders. His voice cracked like a whip across her skin.

“No,” he said. “Stop.”

Her hand froze, and she watched him, waiting for more instruction. She was chilly, still a little groggy from her unintentional nap, and she was pretty sure she had impressive bedhead, but he was watching her like she was the only thing left that was keeping him sane. “I’m right here,” she whispered. “Did the cops keep you all this time?”

He shook his head slowly, his gaze staying focused on her. “I had to get in touch with Leo. We had to plan.”

“Plan for what, Alex?”

Another shake. “It doesn’t matter. It probably won’t matter. But if it does happen, if it goes down like I think it will—he’ll be the only one we can trust.” The mattress shifted under his weight as he sat down next to her. His fingers curved around her breast, cupping it almost idly as he continued to talk. “There’s a press conference scheduled for tomorrow morning, but it may be too late. The gossip rags are already talking, suggesting I’m the one responsible for everything.”

“What? No—let me call Helen—”

His fingers on her nipple were cruel, and the pain made her gasp. Her head cleared, suddenly, sweetly, and then clouded over with want. She’d been on top for so long with him, she’d forgotten what it felt like to be rolled under by his want. Her pussy clenched with want for him. “No,” he said. “It won’t make any difference. They’ve smelled a story. You know what they’re like.”

“Like sharks smelling blood,” she said, ignoring for the moment that she would have been one of them before. Hell, she still was one of them. It was part of the curse and blessing of being a writer, she’d figured. If they survived this insanity, the book contract she could get might be insane. Especially if the story hit the national media. It was cold, it was calculating, and in the space between one heartbeat and the next, she suddenly knew that part of the reason she loved Alex was that he would understand that part of her. He had it too, although he put his cold, calculating side towards running a multinational corporation. But he understood that part of your mind that never bothered engaging in emotions, the part that sat quietly, taking down names and notes and descriptions for later use. “What do you need me to do?”

“Right now?” he said. “Be mine. Tomorrow morning, we’ll have a set of goals, and we’ll work on them together. I trust you. You know that?”

She’d suspected it, but hearing the confirmation pushed a warm heat through her skin. She was surprised she didn’t become a source of light in the dim room. “Thank you.”

“I didn’t kill her.” That scared little boy surfaced for a moment, his eyes haggard and torn, having watched everything he loved go to pieces in such a short amount of time.

“I know,” Zoey said, gathering him close to her and kissing the top of his head. “I know, love, I never for a second thought you did.”

He didn’t start to cry, though. That surprised her, just a little, but he was still turning his emotions inside out, only feeling the ones he wanted to feel. His mouth came to her neck, hot and fierce, his tongue carving heated paths through her flesh until she couldn’t keep her hips still; she couldn’t keep her moans inside.

“I’m going to fuck you,” he murmured against her skin, his fingers twisting the silk over her nipple, a sensation that made her shiver and whimper. “I’m going to fuck you hard. I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to take your ass or your cunt. Do you have an opinion on the matter?” As he asked, his fingers circled the tight ring of her ass, and then pressed shallowly into her wet and aching pussy.

“Oh god,” she whispered, resisting the urge to fuck his hands; he’d take them away—she’d learned that—and she did not want him to do that. “I want what you want, Alex. Sir. I want you to do what you want to do. I can’t choose.”

He slowed down then, a quiet and contemplative look replacing the sheer angry lust in his eyes. “You raise a very interesting point,” he said. “Why should you choose? It’s not necessary at all.” He swirled his fingers down over her clit for a moment, and she lost control of her hips. They bucked into his hand, seeking more contact, more sensation, as spirals of electric heat burned through her. “I’ll be back,” he said. “Don’t move.”

She took him at his word and held herself still on the bed as he went through the passage in the closet. He was only gone a few moments, and she kept herself as quiet as she could while he fastened leather cuffs to the bed. This time, however, it was her wrists that were tied back. He propped her torso up with pillows so that she rested at a gentle recline.

There was a little curdle of fear in her stomach, watching him, bound as she was. She knew these cuffs were designed that she could pull free if she needed to, but the fear didn’t go away. Last time he’d tied her down, things had gotten too fierce far too fast.

He saw the fear in her eyes, she supposed, because he stilled as he pulled off the clothes that didn’t fit him. “Are you okay?” He asked, none of that lust or need in his voice now. Just careful watching, careful attention.

“Yes,” she said, even though the answer was probably much closer to a maybe.

He sat down next to her, his hand resting on her thigh in a way that somehow seemed friendly instead of needy. “Talk to me, Zoey. What’s in your head?”

“Last time—” It was all she needed to say.

He nodded, a darkness settling over him and then fleeing. “Last time, I wasn’t careful enough. I know.”

“I want to.”

“But you’re nervous.”

Her turn to nod.

“I understand.” He closed his eyes and then opened them. All that pain, all that rage, he’d choked it down, and she could see it strangling him, but still he smiled at her, still he gave her the choice. “Tell me what you want.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to play the good little sub, and say that she wanted what he wanted, bat her eyes, and pretend that the pain and fear were all part of the game, but that would have been lying, and she knew without question that he’d had more than enough of that in his life. “I don’t want any spanking or whipping again. I’m not ready for that yet. Not after everything else that’s happened. Beyond that, I’m open to whatever you suggest.”

She’d hoped to see him smile, maybe even see the heat curl up through his eyes again. She didn’t expect to see wetness glimmering on the lower lashes of his eyes. “I don’t deserve you,” he whispered.

“Deserve is such a dangerous word,” she replied. “Who’s to decide what we really deserve?”

He looked at her like she was some kind of sage, some brilliant worker of words, and it made her shimmy in the sexy lingerie he’d bought her. She pulled her leg back, then reached around and managed to hook her ankle around his waist. He let her draw him in for a kiss, a sweet kiss that stayed sweet for much longer than she’d expected. Their sex since the awful night of the shooting had been so cold, so angry, utterly about claiming each other as warm fires to keep them from freezing during the long nights when there weren’t enough people breathing in the penthouse. This was different. This was a kiss that said they’d journeyed through hell, and there was more hell coming, but they’d face it together. His fingers caressed her face, and hers tightened in impotent fists as she thought of raking them through his hair.