Never Enough (26 page)
She undid him.
Even as she spiraled apart and began to come in a hot rush against his hand, it was he who was reeling.
After a long, sensual stretch, she opened her eyes and looked up at him. His sleepy green eyes were obscured by his hair, just a little. Just enough to make him look sort of mysterious. He’d let his beard go a little scruffy. He looked disreputable and utterly delicious, small gold hoops in each ear.
When he smiled, he teased a little, catching his lip between this teeth.
“You’re a rogue. A cad and a bounder, a dog and a cheat.”
He burst out laughing. “You’re a The Bird and the Bee fan?”
“I love them.”
She watched as he pulled his hand from her pants and traced across her nipple with his fingers still wet from her. Time pulled taut as he bent to lick across it and then drop a kiss on her lips.
“Every new thing I find out about you only makes you more irresistible,” he said right before licking across her bottom lip.
“Oh yes, you seemed right pleased with me earlier.”
He looked a little sad, but she still had her own emotions about it so he’d just have to work it out.
The kettle whistled and she bustled in to take care of the tea. She took a tray into the living room and settled back on the couch, intending to keep some space between them but he pulled her close.
“You asked earlier? About Themis on my back?”
She nodded, leaning her head back on his shoulder.
“I spoke to you about Erin’s daughter, Adele? I got Themis when she was killed. Going through the arrest and sanity hearings and then the trial and sentencing stuff was a nightmare. It really shook my belief in the good in people.”
“I can see that.” She thought of her father and wondered how to tell Adrian. How did one tell their lover that one’s father went down for killing his teenage girlfriend?
“Anyway, it was Brody who suggested it. To do Themis and make her sword bigger. Because justice isn’t always bloodless, you know?”
She entwined her fingers with his.
“I don’t know, it just—it helped me to get it all straight. I don’t believe, not anymore, that justice always happens. But I still believe in people and I still believe in doing the right thing. And doing the right thing is protecting the people I love.”
He turned his head and focused his gaze—which had been focused on something long ago—on her. She felt the echo of the connection down to her toes.
“I just wanted to feel like justice was real.”
She kissed him because if she didn’t she’d have ended up crying, or worse, blurting out the story about her father and this wasn’t the time.
“I don’t know how you do it, but you make everything better, Gillian. You and Miles are the best things to ever happen to me.”
She wanted, desperately to believe it so she let herself, just a little. Struggling with her words, she poured him a cuppa and handed it his way before settling in with her own cup.
“So yes, I was mad earlier. No, not mad really, just frustrated that you didn’t share with me and let me help. But that doesn’t erode the way you make me feel, the way I feel about you. I don’t want to make you cry.”
She laughed then. “I am working on sharing myself with you. But my financial issues and the way I do my job isn’t up for debate. I don’t need to clear seeing a client with you any more than you need to clear meeting with your agent or your manager or what have you. Lastly.” She brushed a fingertip over his brows. “If you can’t make someone cry, they don’t care much about you.”
“Is that your way of telling me you care about me?”
She sighed. “Is there any doubt? Really?” She licked her lips, which still tasted of him. “I don’t do this, you know.”
“Do what? Have tea with bare breasts? I vote you do it far more often, but only with me.” He took her fingers to his mouth, kissed them.
“It’s only you, Adrian.”
“Oh, English, how you undo me.” He leaned back, keeping an arm around her waist to hold her close. “Tell me something about yourself. Why is it just me? And yes, I’m fishing.”
Incorrigible.
“I don’t go out on a lot of dates. I don’t have a lot of love affairs and I don’t fuck people on my couch in the middle of the day.” She closed her eyes. He’d given her insight into his heart, into his head and she owed him that sort of intimacy in return. “It’s a very personal thing, what I like. What makes me hot and melty.” She smiled as he made a humming sound deep in his gut. “I like sex. I like it—raw, hot, hard, dirty. It’s not easy to trust someone else enough to let go and be that.”
Needing a little time, she leaned forward to grab her mug. It was cold in the house so she reached for her blouse and instead, he handed her his T-shirt.
When she smiled her thanks, she caught his gaze. He watched her, she saw, understanding what she’d just said.
“So when I say it’s just you, I mean that. I can be who I am with you. That’s—well, it’s hard to put into words what it means.”
“You don’t have to because I get it. Every single day when I leave my house, or leave the places I feel safe in, I have to deal with people thinking they know me and they don’t.
“There are very few people I can truly be who I am with. You and Miles are two of them.” He blushed, adding quickly, “For different reasons obviously.”
She laughed. “I figured that.”
“I’d like to talk with you about Miles staying with me on some weekends here and there. Obviously you too. As the holidays approach there’ll be a lot of family events and we want him to take part.”
She knew to expect this, but it was still hard to let go. “As long as his schedule is accommodating, I’m fine if he is. I don’t know if he’s ready for solo time yet. He might be. I can talk with him about it.”
“I want you to be there too.” He put his tea down and faced her fully, which only distracted her because his upper body was still naked and he looked yummy. “I like being with you. You’re Miles’s mom and my . . . god . . . my girlfriend. Adult words for this stuff are weird.”
She was? Stunned and wildly flattered, she sought words. “Just give me the dates and we can work it out.”
“And I want to give him some money.”
He put his hands up defensively when she glared at him.
“Like an allowance. Or a bank account. I’d—I’d like to set up a bank account for him so he has walking-around money. He needs new strings, for instance.”
“I bought him new strings yesterday.”
“You have no idea what it feels like to grow up with nothing.”
“Okay, first of all, are you insinuating that Miles has
nothing
? And that I have no idea? Fuck off!” She pushed from the couch, pissed off all over again. “Can you possibly imagine I don’t know what it means to be poor?”
nothing
? And that I have no idea? Fuck off!” She pushed from the couch, pissed off all over again. “Can you possibly imagine I don’t know what it means to be poor?”
“No. Damn it, Gillian, stop trying to pick a fight. The words came out wrong. Okay? Obviously you’ve provided him with a great life. But if a guy can’t get new strings, what possible harm can it do to be able to go to the ATM and grab some cash? Or if he wants to order something online? And as far as what I imagine, that’s pretty much what I have to do since today is the first time you’ve really told me anything about yourself that had nothing to do with Miles.”
Even in his T-shirt, she looked murderous as she glared his way. He exhaled hard, not meaning to have said things that way. “I appreciate that you shared with me. It means something to me that you did. I’m altogether new at this relationship thing. I don’t do them, really. But this isn’t just a romantic relationship. We’re parents too, and I’m new at that and you’re not, and I just want to do something and you keep stopping me. I missed thirteen years of his life.”
“I am not angry at you for doing for Miles.” She paused a moment, thinking better of it. “All right, so I was angry about the bike for a little while. Silly and petty, I know. I’d been saving to give him a bike myself. But I don’t think you did it deliberately to mess with my Christmas plans. It’s a nicer bike than he’d have gotten from me anyway. You wanted to make him feel at home in your house. To have the things his cousins have. I appreciate that.”
“I always get all prepared to be mad and stay on my high horse and then you go and disarm me with your honesty. We can do this, you know.”
“Adrian, you and I are going to fight. You know that, right? Oh, I made a rhyme.” She snorted and he couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m not staff. I’m not a fan. I’m a real person in your life because of the man, not because of the star.”
Nothing else she could have said would have disarmed him the same way. “C’mere.”
She eyed him warily. “Why?”
“I want to grope you and it’s much easier to do here on the couch than with you across the room scowling at me.”
She sighed theatrically and moved back to him, allowing him to pull her into his lap.
“That’s better.”
“You can set up an account for him. I give him twenty dollars a week for his chores and keeping his grades up. I’d ask you not to go wild. I use that to be sure he doesn’t muck about and gets his work turned in.”
He nuzzled her neck, where he liked it best, and by the way she hummed softly, she liked it too.
“You’re pretty fierce when you’re protecting our son. That makes me hot.”
“Everything makes you hot.”
He laughed, nipping her shoulder. “When it comes to you. How about I add thirty dollars a week to your twenty?”
“You want to give a thirteen-year-old boy fifty dollars a week?”
Christ, she was not going to give him an inch.
“He wants a new bass. Now, I could give him one. God knows I have plenty of connections to give him something really amazing. Or, he could save for it with that extra thirty bucks and buy one himself.”
“And Erin will give him one for Christmas anyway.”
He sighed. “Well, probably. They share that. It makes her happy. Anyway, a kid his age has expenses. Dances, school trips, guitar strings, pizza for his friends.”
“Adrian, precious, I want you to think back to the beginning of this discussion about the strings. Now, he makes eighty dollars a month already for his allowance. Does this not indicate to you the boy has some instant-gratification issues rather than a lack of money to spend?”
He was quiet because she brought up a good point.
“I think it’s lovely that you want to believe Miles is so perfect.” She laughed and then stopped herself. “I do. And he’s a good kid, no doubt about that. He does spend his allowance on things like feed for the birds, the big softie he is. But he also fritters his money away on crap and wonders where it’s all gone. Making him wait for new strings because he’d burned through all twenty dollars in less than a day and a half is supposed to teach him a lesson. Don’t know if it will, but it makes me feel better.”
“How about I match you? Forty dollars a week.”
She tsked and then sighed. He was as hard to say no to as their son was, damn it.
“You have to give him chores for it. He has to do chores here, give him some at your house.”
“Oh.” He nodded. “That would be awesome. So you think it’d be all right?”
“At some point, you’re going to have to be upset with him, you know. You’ll have to hold him to a standard and he won’t make it either from sheer laziness or he’ll have a reason you’ll find flimsy. If you give him an allowance, you have to make him earn it and you’re going to have to steel yourself to be the bad guy sometimes.”
He frowned and he looked so adorable she kissed the furrow between his brows. “It comes with the territory. But for now, you know, have him take the garbage out. Let him do laundry. Make him learn something for it. It’ll create a new bond between you both.”
“You’re a lot of help, you know. Just being able to pick up the phone and ask you a question or get your advice is so big.”
“Hm.”
He grinned. “All right, I’ll come up with chores. Which means he, and
you
too, need to be at my house more often. Like this coming weekend? We do a Halloween party at Brody’s place for the kids. Miles should be there.”
you
too, need to be at my house more often. Like this coming weekend? We do a Halloween party at Brody’s place for the kids. Miles should be there.”
“He’s got a party on Friday night. But after that he’s free.”
Adrian nodded. “All right. And for Thanksgiving, will you and Miles be with me? And my family of course. This year it’s at my house because we’re such a big group now. It’s also Alexander’s first birthday so there’ll be cake. We moved the annual grudge match football game from October to Thanksgiving Day this year. Maybe Miles would like to play.”
She got up to make some tea and he followed her into the kitchen. “Normally we do Thanksgiving with Mary at her house.”
“Holidays are going to be tough sometimes, I suppose.”
“I want him to build traditions with your family but not at the expense of what he has now.” Though the last bit about Alexander had been a very powerful lure. That little boy was very dear to her and he followed Miles around calling him Boo, for Blue, which Erin had started much to Miles’s shy delight.
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