Hard to Come By (22 page)

“I’m okay,” Derek said. “Really.”

“Just give it a minute,” Beckett said. “You don’t always have to be too strong to accept help. No one here thinks you’re weak.”

Derek’s eyes went wide as he gazed at his friend. How could anyone think Derek weak? The guy had saved her twice in two days and used his own body as a human shield for hers. He’d been hit with a bat and still had enough presence of mind to try to take out her brother’s fleeing truck.

Not one thing about any of that read as weak.

God, it was quite possible that Derek was the strongest man she’d ever known. Her gaze ran over the T-shirt that did nothing to hide the muscles of his shoulders and arms, then downward to how those blue jeans hung on his lean hips. He was definitely the sexiest man she’d ever known.

And she wanted him.

Thunder rumbled in the distance. Then a little closer. When had it gotten cloudy? It was quite possible that hours had passed since she’d ushered her mother to her car and sent her away.

“Shit, Shane. You’re bleeding,” Easy said.

Emilie twisted her head. Sure enough, the dark green shirt over Shane’s shoulder was reddish black, the stain getting a little bigger, and then a little more, as she watched.

“Let’s go inside,” Emilie said as fat raindrops began to fall. “Clean Shane up.”

Derek wasn’t able to hide the marked limp he had as they crossed the yard, and she hated to see him hurting. And hated even worse the knowledge that her own brother was to blame.

“Lean on me, wouldya?” Beckett said. “Don’t want you hurt any further.” Derek accepted Beckett’s help up the porch steps, their arms clasped around each other’s shoulders.

Emilie looked at her broken door, but she simply couldn’t worry about it right now. Inside, they made their way to the kitchen, and she flipped on the lights.
God, what a mess
. “Have a seat,” she said. “I’ll get the first aid kit and some supplies.” She dashed to the bathroom, grabbed the kit from under the sink, wet some washcloths, and collected a few towels.

She returned to the kitchen and settled everything on the table. Thunder boomed directly above them, making her jump. The
pitter-patter
of rain sounded out against the windows.

A hand fell on hers. Derek. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to you in time to stop all this. By the time we realized Manny was the driver of the Suburban, he’d booked it inside.”

“Don’t worry about it, Derek. Really.” She opened the first aid kit for Easy.

“Shirt off, McCallan,” Easy said against a boom of thunder. The rain came down harder, gusts of wind off the water buffeting the back of the house.

“Don’t get that offer every day,” Shane said, wincing as he worked the cotton up and over his head. “Just grazed. Again.” Emilie looked to see the extent of his wound. He had a bloody streak where his arm met his shoulder. Not too deep, but it was ragged and messy.

“You know, you two are dating sisters. You really didn’t need to get matching GSWs, too,” Derek said. The guys chuckled. And there went Derek, lightening the mood again.

Soon, Shane was all patched up, and he pulled out his phone. “I’m gonna brief Nick.” Emilie lowered herself into the chair next to Derek. “Hey,” Shane said after a moment. “Got a minute?” Shane recounted everything from the time Manny arrived—his assault on her, his discovery of the fake stuff in her basement, attacking her and Derek, and the gunfight. “He got away,” Shane said, regret and exhaustion plain in his voice. “He’s totally off the deep end.”

Beckett leaned his hands on the back of Derek’s chair. “Hey, ask him how the changes to Hard Ink went. And how many Ravens he got on board to help us.”

Shane passed on the questions and nodded after a minute or two. “Okay, man. Catch ya later.” He dropped the phone to the table.

“What’s the word?” Beckett asked.

Emilie looked at Shane, eager to hear how the things the team had brainstormed yesterday were turning out. The more time she spent with them—and especially with Derek—the more she rooted for them,
worried for them, and felt like their problems were also her own.

“Nick said the changes to the building look totally convincing. They moved the shop’s door and all its signage around to the other side of the L, installed two exterior lights on that side, and Jeremy even spray painted a big piece of graffiti over the boarded-up opening to the real door. They also got the lighting set up on the interior of the decoy side and covered the windows of the residences with sheets of black plastic.”

“That must’ve been a pain in the ass,” Derek said, kneading at his thigh.

“No doubt,” Shane said.

The lengths to which they were going to implement these precautions really drove home just how much danger they were all in.

“What about the Ravens?” Beckett asked again.

Thunder cracked so loud, the windows vibrated, and then lightning flashed bright enough to further illuminate the kitchen. Shane leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. “Ike apparently brought three guys with him this morning and seven more are supposed to come tonight.”

“It’s a shit night for a bike ride,” Easy said, leaning against the counter.

Derek nodded. “No lie. If they’re coming from their main club, that’s like forty-five minutes outside the city.”

“What happened to those two women?” Emilie asked. “Did they end up going with Ike?”

“Yeah,” Shane said. “One of Ike’s guys took them out to the club this afternoon.”

“That’s good, I guess. Right?” Emilie asked. “I hope they’ll be okay.”

“Me too,” Shane said. He blew out a long, troubled breath. “After Sara and Jenna—and then you yesterday morning—I’ve had my lifetime fill of that fucking gang abusing and abducting women.”

“A-fucking-men,” Easy said.

What had happened to Sara and Jenna?
Emilie had met the two red-headed sisters at Hard Ink, but she hadn’t had much time to talk to them. Or any of the women, really. Emilie looked at Derek and frowned.

Derek mouthed that he’d tell her later.

She nodded, rested her head on her hand, and surveyed the kitchen. “I’m just going to throw all that stuff away,” she said, her exhausted gaze scanning over the mountains of dishes. A little while ago, cleaning up from the party hadn’t seemed like a big deal at all. Now, tackling all that seemed insurmountable.

“Well, with five of us, it wouldn’t take so long,” Beckett said in a quiet voice, echoing her teasing words from the night before, when she’d asked to go shopping.

Underneath all that scary gruffness, there was one helluva nice guy. Not that Beckett seemed to want anyone to know. “Yeah?” she asked.

He nodded.

And he was right. Emilie rinsed the dirties and directed them where to put the clean things away. Shane loaded the dishwasher, using his uninjured arm. Derek sat in a chair at her side and dried platters, pots, and pans that wouldn’t fit in the dishwasher, and Beckett and Easy put all of those things away in between sweeping the broken dishes from the floor. It took about fifteen minutes to clean it all up. Lifesavers, once again.

The storm whipped up while they worked, turning the world outside the kitchen window pitch-black. The thunder was loud enough to shake her house.

Fingers stroked the bare skin of her leg, and she looked down to find Derek gazing up at her, his expression regretful and sympathetic. “We can’t stay here. And you can’t, either.”

Emilie sagged against the counter, fatigue making her limbs heavy. “I figured. So, then, where do I go?”

“Come home,” Derek said, taking her hand. “With me.”

M
arz’s next breath hung on what Emilie would say. He’d heard loud and clear what she’d said outside, but that was also in the heat of the moment. Just minutes after bullets had literally been whizzing over their heads.

He ran his gaze over her. Long wavy strands had come free from her braid. She had small smears of mascara under the corners of her eyes. And red marks that looked like they might bruise marred the smooth skin of her neck—Marz’s blood boiled about that. Manny Garza wouldn’t get a second chance to hurt his sister. Ever.

And despite how the crisis had disheveled her appearance, she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever known. But it wasn’t just the physical that drew Marz to Emilie.

She had an inner strength he admired. The way she’d gotten her mother to safety, despite having just been assaulted. The way she’d come up with a plausible story about the basement stash on the fly, unknowingly giving Shane time to come up behind Garza. The way she’d worried over Marz when the crisis was all over.

Lightning flashed outside the window, and a long, rumbling thunder followed. Emilie’s house groaned against the onslaught of the wind.

Finally, she squeezed his hand and nodded. “I don’t want to be anywhere else but with you.”

The words were like a salve to his soul, binding up wounds he’d carried since he’d been a child. He knew what she’d said didn’t mean forever, nor did she offer him a long-term commitment. But she wanted him. The way he wanted her. And right now, that was efuckingnough.

He rose to his feet and folded her in his arms. “I’m sorry for lying to you,” he whispered in her ear.

She nodded against his throat. “I’m sorry for not understanding sooner.”

He shook his head. “Don’t you even worry about that, Em,” he said hugging her tighter.

Someone cleared their throat.

Right. They had an audience.

Pulling back, Marz gently rested his hands on her shoulders. “We should go. Pack a bag. Whatever you think you might need for at least a week. More if you want.”

“We’re going back where we were yesterday? To the Hard Ink building?” she asked.

Marz nodded. “That okay?”

“Yes, of course. But I was thinking. If I’m going to
be gone that long, all this food I have will go bad. Why don’t we take it?”

“A soldier will never say no to free food,” Shane said. “We’ll handle that. You two go get Emilie packed.”

“There are grocery bags in the pantry,” she said, pointing to the closet in the corner behind Shane.

“I’ll go retrieve the truck while you’re working on that,” Beckett said. They’d hidden it on the same abandoned farm road as the other day, so Manny wouldn’t see it and wonder who was at his sister’s house.

“In this?” Emilie asked. As if emphasizing her point, thunder cracked and the lights flickered. “You’ll get soaked.”

Beckett shrugged. “I’ll dry. No biggie.”

“What about an umbrella?”

His friend’s eyebrow arched. “I don’t do umbrellas. But, uh, thanks. Be back in a bit,” he said, heading out.

Emilie watched after him, then turned to Marz. “Coming?”

“Lead the way,” he said, satisfaction rolling through his blood.

Keeping ahold of her hand, he followed her through the house and upstairs to her bedroom. Lightning flashed across the space just before Emilie hit the light switch. The room managed to be both cozy and airy, with big windows opening up the walls on three sides. The view must’ve been spectacular during the day. The white wooden furniture was all clean lines and simple touches, and stood out against the honey-colored hardwoods and pale blue walls. “Okay,” she said, gesturing to the neatly made dark blue bedding. “Feel free to have a seat. I’ll be quick.”

Derek eased his hip onto the mattress, fucking reveling in the fact that she’d invited him into her most
private space. The room smelled of her, fruity and sweet. And as he ran his hand over the blanket, he couldn’t believe the way the past twenty-four hours had turned around for them—from untold lies to broken trust to reconciliation. They’d lived a week in the past two days. At least, that’s the way it felt.

From the closet, Emilie grabbed a small suitcase and loaded it with jeans, shorts, shirts, and other necessities. He didn’t miss her hesitation as she gathered her things from her lingerie drawer, nor the fact that she didn’t try to hide the silky panties and lacy bras as she tucked them into her case. Seeing her handle her underthings shouldn’t turn him on as much as it did, but maybe his growing need for her was more about reaffirming that they’d both survived this day than about the tiny pair of black silk panties folded so innocently atop the pile of clothing.

A need that was intensified by the fact that he was sitting on her bed, the linens still tinged with her scent, as if they’d just rolled out from under the covers. Marz’s heart beat faster at the imagining. He fisted his hands in his lap to keep from reaching out for her.

Thunder blasted the nighttime world, sending Emilie jumping.

Marz hated to see her so on edge, but he could hardly blame her. “Okay?”

“Yeah. Just think I’ve had enough of things going
boom
for today,” she said with a small, brave smile.
So damn pretty
.

“Amen to that.” Especially since the tally had been too damn high. Three of his teammates had been shot, several of them had nicks and cuts from falling debris after the explosion at the storage center, and Marz had encountered the business end of a bat. That was more
than enough. Hell, that was more than enough from now ’til the end of time. For fuck’s sake.

“Be right back,” Emilie said, slipping into an adjoining room and turning on the light. The sounds of drawers opening and closing, and items being gathered, made their way out to him. And then it got silent for a little while. Except . . . was she talking to herself? It was hard to tell over the relentless rain. The sound of cardboard ripping, then a crinkling, and then she was shutting out the light and returning to him, a flowery bag and some brushes in her hands. She dropped those on top of everything else. “Okay, I think that about does it.” She looked around the room as if she wasn’t really convinced.

“Come here,” he said, holding out a hand. Her feet bare, she rounded the bed, that snug, little skirt no less sexy than it had been the first time he’d laid eyes on it. He grasped her hand and pulled her to stand between his thighs. His groin tightened at the proximity, but really, he just wanted to offer her comfort. Resting his hands on her hips, he tugged her in a step so he could look into her eyes. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” she said, tracing her fingers over his face. Down his cheek. Over his brow. Across his bottom lip. She might as well have rubbed the bulge in his jeans for how much the light, dragging touch set him off. “I want you to know something.”

“Okay.” His thumbs rubbed softly over her hipbones, the thin stretchy cotton of the skirt all that separated his skin from hers.

She took a deep breath, like she was bolstering her courage, and then she met his gaze. “I was married. It ended a couple years ago, although the divorce wasn’t finalized until just after last Thanksgiving. He cheated
on me.” She shook her head, and Marz’s gut started a slow descent to the floor. “No, it was worse than that. He had a whole other family. He lied and schemed and chose them over me in the end. Not that I would’ve taken him back at that point, but even though I didn’t want him anymore, it was a blow to realize he didn’t want me, either. Hadn’t for a long time. And here I’d spent years fretting over why he didn’t want to start a family with me. He didn’t need to. Already had one.”

“Oh, hell, Emilie. I’m so sorry,” Marz said, immediately understanding how what he’d done probably hadn’t looked so much different in her eyes. Hell, he was lucky she was giving him a shot at all. “And what I did brought all that back up for you, didn’t it?”
Damnit
.

“It did, but that’s not why I wanted you to know.” Her hands smoothed down his neck to his shoulders, and she leaned in closer. “I’m a work in progress where trust is concerned, so I’d always rather you be brutally honest than lie to me. Even a little white lie. Okay?”

Marz ran his hands up her back, drawing her closer yet. “I don’t want to keep anything from you, Em. Not ever again.”

“That’s all I ask,” she said with a nod, her face so close to his that the fallen tendrils of hair from her braid created a thin curtain around them.

And inside that bubble, the air suddenly sparked red hot.

Marz held back, not wanting to take anything she wasn’t ready to give.

But then she whispered, “Kiss me.”

He didn’t need to be told twice.

The kiss was blistering in its intensity. They clutched at one another tightly, lips crashing and sucking and pulling, swallowing each other’s gasps and moans.
Marz was rock hard in an instant, and nearly out of his mind with desire. Every masculine urge within him demanded that he bury himself deep inside her and never let go.

“God, Emilie,” he rasped, pulling away from her lips to taste her neck, her collarbone, the skin along the vee of her shirt. His hands dragged down her back, landing on her ass. “Do you know how fucking crazy this skirt has made me all day?”

She shook her head and pressed herself closer. “No,” she said, rubbing her thighs together.

His fingers bunched the soft material higher and higher, until his hands landed on totally bare skin. “Oh, fuck. Tell me you’re wearing panties.”

Her nails lightly scratched down his back, and even over the T-shirt, it set every one of his nerve endings alive. “Thong.”

“Yeah,” he said, his fingers finding and tracing the thin silky line downward, to where her cheeks met.

Emilie moaned. “Derek,” she said, her hips jerking toward him.

“What, baby?” He massaged and lifted the round globes of her ass, allowing his fingers to inch closer and closer to her heat with each teasing squeeze. He licked up her neck. “What?”

“I know we don’t have time,” she whispered as she pressed herself backward toward his exploring fingers.

“Time for what?” he asked, kissing up over her jaw and claiming her mouth again. The pads of his fingertips caressed her opening.

“Oh,” she moaned, her face a mask of pleasured torment. “Time for you to get inside me.”

Fuck. That
.

In a few quick moves, he pushed her from between his
legs, crossed to shut the door, and plastered her front against the window looking out over a vast black nothingness.

“Oh, God, oh, God. Hurry,” she whined, helping him tug up her skirt and push down her thong.

Marz tore open the front of his jeans and shoved down his boxers, and his cock spilled out in his hand, long, hard, and inked with the heavy black lines of two Chinese characters. “Fuck.” He pulled back and his muscles ached at the retreat. “Do you have a condom?”

Emilie pointed behind them. “In the floral bag in the suitcase.”

He tore open the zipper, and a whole lot of condoms spilled out. He’d have to ask about that later. Right now, he was all about tearing the wrapper open and rolling the rubber up his length. And then he was back against her heat again, his weight pushing her up against the glass. “Are you sure, Emilie?”

“Never been more sure in my life,” she said, peering over her shoulder.

On a groan, Marz penetrated her opening, gliding all the way home on one long, slow thrust. She was so wet it was a fucking dream, and the tight heat of her made him tune out everything else. He didn’t hear the rain battering the window. He didn’t feel the weight of the ticking clock. He didn’t know anything except his cock inside the tight welcome of her body.

“Oh, Derek. Yes, yes, yes.”

His balls already ached with heaviness, and he bit down on the tendon that sloped upward to her neck. Her cry made him harder, and he reached around to the front of her dress and tugged at the neckline until he freed her breasts to the glass. “I’m not going to be able to go slow, Emilie. I’m strung too tight for wanting you.”

“Do it,” she rasped. “Take me however you want.”

“Oh, baby. Hands on the fucking glass.”

The speed with which she moved to comply untied the last string of his sanity. He gripped her tightly, one arm around her shoulder, the other around her belly, and let himself loose.

He took her in a series of hard and fast strokes, just bottoming out inside her before he withdrew to the tip. His hips slammed against her ass, creating a delicious sound like a well-placed spank. Over and over and over.

“Aw, God, Emilie. Take my cock. Take all of me.”

In time with his frenzied thrusts, a constant stream of moans ripped from her throat. Half-formed whispers spilled from her lips. “Yes, yes. God, yes.”

Need clawed down Marz’s spine. “I.” Thrust. “Can’t.” Thrust. “Get.” Thrust. “Deep.” Thrust. “Enough.” He yanked her hips out from the glass.

Emilie’s fingers raked at the smooth surface, and her breath fogged the window. She chanted his name like it was the air she breathed, and it shoved him closer and closer to the edge.

“Tell me you want me,” he rasped, biting down on her neck again. And God did he love the way she writhed and whimpered at the bite. “Tell me you need me. Tell me you love having me buried inside you.”

A fast nod, and pleading eyes peered over her shoulder. “Want you,” she said on a rough exhale. “Need you. Love your cock inside me.”

The words sent a rush of pressure to his balls. God, he wasn’t going to last much longer.

“Right hand. Rub yourself. Make yourself come while I fuck you.” His hips flew against her, the hard, fast rhythm starting to tire his right thigh, but it was so fucking worth it.

She moved immediately, her right hand dropping between her legs. “I’ll do anything for you,” she said. “God, I’m so wet.”

“Jesus, Emilie. Stroke yourself. Just the way you like it. And know you’re gonna make me come so fucking hard.” His orgasm barreled down on him like a semi and nailed him in the back, sharpening his thrusts and burying him deeper inside her. “Ah, fuck, coming.”

“Don’t stop. Don’t stop. Just like that. Hard,” she said, her words almost a babble. And then they cut off, she held her breath, and her core fisted around his cock.