Secret Maneuvers (10 page)

Riley shrugged. “We’re not up to anything. You look too tense. Throw back some shots and chill the fuck out. None of us are on call, it’s ten o’clock at night, and you might as well enjoy yourself.”

After a short lived staring contest with Riley, which I lost—dammit—I cracked that bottle open, filled up my shot glass, and threw it back like a seasoned drinking pro. I even managed not to gasp from the burn of the fiery liquid going down my throat; although, it felt like it was lava and not alcohol. I was playing it off brilliantly like I drank shots all the time instead of the once in a blue moon that I actually did. Riley grabbed the bottle and poured out four more shots, one for each of us, and I knew then and there that I was doomed. This had all the ingredients of a recipe for disaster—alcohol, temperamental female emotions and drool worthy muscles.

Well, they always said the road to hell was paved in good intentions. That must mean, with all of my bad intentions, my trip would be bone jarringly bumpy, traveling at the kind of speeds one saw on the Autobahn with a predestined crash at the end and not a seat belt in sight.

Bobby

Men don’t wax poetic on how they feel about other men. It was in the unwritten man rules somewhere that we were allowed to burp, fart and scratch our balls around each other, but there would be no wordy displays of affection. Anyone who violated that rule would have to turn our man card in. Even if the other guy was my best friend and had covered my ass on more missions than I could count. At this moment in time, though, I was willing to make a serious exception to the man rules since Declan had talked Belle into staying for a game of poker and beer.

Now I was on the verge of telling Riley that Belle and I would name our first child after him because he was loading her up with booze. It was a low-down dirty play, but she wasn’t giving me another in. If I could get her drunk, then get her talking, it could be the breakthrough I’d been looking for. In essence, maneuvering her into a drunken corner in order to keep her in one spot long enough for me to talk to her because, God knew, that woman wouldn’t give me the time of day otherwise.

The game continued, and it was easy to see that Belle was quickly slipping into a drunken stupor since she’d been squinting at her cards for the last four hands, trying to figure out in her head what she was holding. As if that wasn’t cute enough, now she had the tip of her tongue peeking out of the side of her mouth like the crap hand of cards she was holding was a three thousand year old treasure map, and she was trying to figure it out to get the treasure. When I looked over to see the amused grins on Declan and Riley’s faces aimed at Belle because she was once again holding up the game, it caused me to shake my head in feigned disgust. It was easy to see that, after all these years, my girl still had no idea that she was a natural at being cute.

Looking back to her, I muttered, “Baby, you going to play that hand or keep staring at it?”

Her head flew up and, for a moment, I braced myself for what was probably going to be a seriously pissed off woman’s rant about how I had no right to call her baby anymore. Instead, she threw her hands up in the air in disgust, and then plopped them down on the table with not a care in the world that she was flashing her cards to everyone. Huffing in annoyance, she exclaimed, “Gimme a second here, Ace! I’m tryin’ to concentrate on what I’m doin’!”

My breath caught in my chest. You could never pay me enough to admit this aloud, hell, I’d never let anyone torture this fact out of me, but hearing her say the name ‘Ace’ for the first time in fifteen years was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard. Hearing that one, little name again made my chest constrict painfully for a few seconds before slowly turning everything inside me into something warm and good. It was the closest thing I’d felt to being whole in a long damn time.

Not that Belle gave me any time to enjoy that nice warm feeling. Upon realization of what she’d said, all the color drained out of her face, and she was halfway out of the Sullivan’s room before I could blink. Not that I was letting her get away from me this time. Throwing my cards on the table, I hauled ass after her, leaving the smirking Sullivan brothers in my dust. Luckily, the alcohol had slowed her down, so she hadn’t made it very far down the breezeway when I caught sight of her again. By the time I was in arm’s reach of her, she was unknowingly just four steps short of my hotel room’s door. Opportunity wasn’t knocking, he was telling me to haul my girl, kicking and screaming, into my room and kick the damn door down to get there, if I had to.

Grabbing Belle’s arm to stop her escape, I swung her body around until she was standing sideways in front of me, somewhat hysterical and confused. Before she could try to get away from me again, I scooped her legs out from underneath her, cradling her body in my arms like the precious package that it was. As I opened the door to my room, she started struggling to get away. It was too late for her, though. In my room—with the door closed, locked, and my body standing in front of it—there was no escape for her. Gently setting her feet on the floor, her body wobbled unsteadily from her inebriated state as she tried to slap my hands away from her.

“Gawd, Bobby! What in the hell are you doing? Get out of the way so I can go home!”

“No.”

She froze in front of me at my answer. “No?”

“No.”

“Why no?”

“Because, if I let you out that door, then you’ll go back to this little game you’ve been playing at avoiding me and, baby, I’m tired of the fucking game.”

Belle’s mouth dropped open as she stared back at me in shock, mixed with resentment. A moment of silence passed between us before she angrily hissed, “You think I’m playing a game with you?”

My heart was thundering in my chest. This was it. Finally! Finally, we were going to have this come-to-Jesus talk that was so overdue between us that if that talk itself had been a library book, the late fee would resemble the national debt.

Planting my hands on my hips, I growled, “You trying to tell me that you haven’t been playing some kind of game? You disappear for fifteen years without so much as a clue to where you’re headed, then waltz back into my life and try to pretend I don’t exist? You don’t have the kind of love we had, Belle. Hell, you don’t have a man like me—who’s had his mouth on you, his cock in you—and then pretend like he doesn’t exist. Now, I’m telling you, I’m tired of this game and I’m tired of fucking waiting for you to give me a second of your time so that we can talk about this shit.”

Throwing her hands up in the air, she stumbled backwards a few steps and then screeched, “There’s nothing to talk about, Bobby! Besides, I didn't have the man's mouth and cock. I had the boy's. There's a difference. A man, a real man that is, keeps his promises. Like the ones he made to come back. A boy hasn't grown up enough to realize how important promises are to keep.”

My whole body jerked as if she’d slapped me in the face. It might have been words spoken instead of physical actions, but her accusation, sure as shit, had hit me hard enough to feel physical. Ignoring the way my airway suddenly felt closed off, I rasped, “I fucked up. I get that. I tried to make it right. Hell, I’m still trying to make it right. But. You. Won’t. Let. Me.”

The next thing I knew, she had her hand in my face, like she could stop the words coming out of my mouth as long as that hand was there to block them, which was a joke because, at the moment, she was so drunk that she couldn’t stop a fly from landing on her. The momentum of throwing her hand in my face had caused her to start a slow lean to the right and she didn’t look like that lean was going to stop until she was face first in the carpet. If she didn’t stop flailing around like this, she was going to fall and hurt herself. “Stay still and calm down.”

Ignoring me, she continued waving her arms around. “Don’t you get it? We’ve been over for fifteen years!”

Her body tipped dangerously the other way and, for a second, I thought for sure she was going to go head first into the wall now, instead of the carpet. The thought of her accidentally hurting herself was driving me crazy. I ground out between my teeth, “Calm down and give me your attention, dammit.”

Instead of doing as I asked, she screeched, “What in the world do you think we need to talk about?”

I grabbed her by the hips to keep her from falling on her ass. The gesture clearly wasn’t appreciated since she started trying to pry my hands off her. Ignoring her attempts to remove me, I pulled her closer until we were only an inch apart and she had no choice except to look me in the face.

The pupils were dilated in those big, beautiful, green eyes of hers. She was panting and clearly more nervous than outraged. Most of all, she was vulnerable and doing her best to hide it. What she didn’t understand, yet, was that I had no intentions of hurting that vulnerable side of her. I wanted to do the exact opposite. I wanted to protect it and her, so that nothing could ever hurt her again the way I had.

“Do I have your attention now?”

Eyes wide, she nodded.

“Good, now listen closely because this is important and I want to make sure that it penetrates somewhere through that thick skull of yours. We were never over, Belle, not as far as I’m concerned. Maybe on hold until I found you again, but never really over. I’ve been looking for you since the day you left Sylvania so I could tell you that I fucked up. I should have never sent you that letter.”

Belle’s breathing was ragged now. Eyes watery, threatening tears at any given second. Still, she didn’t say a word.

“Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you, baby? I’m trying to say I’m sorry. I was so fucking stupid and I will go to my grave regretting how badly I hurt you, but I didn’t just hurt you, I hurt us both. I’ve been walking around all these years in pain with what feels like these chunks of my soul missing. Moving through life with a heart that felt as if it wasn’t actually beating and how could it? It wasn’t possible because everything that was ever good about me was missing and it was missing because I didn’t have you.”

Tears were streaming down her face now. She face planted into my chest as sobs racked her body uncontrollably. I’d started worrying that I’d messed this all up more than fixed it because she was seriously drunk and crying so goddamn hard that it wasn’t possible for her to breathe. If I hadn’t been holding her up, she would be a heap on the floor.

Raising my hands to frame her face, I tipped it gently back, wiped the tears away, and then made sure she was looking in my eyes again before I continued, “What I’m trying to say, Belle, is that I still lov-“

Just like that and she was on me. Practically climbing up my body with her own, causing me to stumble backwards until I landed against the door. Her lips slammed into mine as she forcefully thrust her tongue into my mouth; it was desperate and wild. She was holding onto me with her hands as if she was terrified to let me go and let me finish my sentence. That bothered me, too, but she felt so good against me that I couldn’t bring myself to push her away and ask her why she didn’t want to hear me say the words. Her soft tongue tangled with mine and the taste of whisky, beer and her own sweet essence was a heady combination that sent my senses whirling. One of her hands slid up into my hair just like she used to do when we were younger and, in that moment, I thought I’d died and gone to Heaven.

Moving on autopilot, my hands slid down her back, over her behind and didn’t stop until they hit the tops of her thighs which allowed me to pick her up so that she was pressed tight against me. She wrapped those sexy legs of hers around my waist and I held onto her by her lush bottom, an ass cheek in each hand, while I walked us quickly forward until my knees hit the edge of the bed. Holding her tightly, never stopping the hungry kisses, I moved us gently down onto the bed until she lay underneath me and I was settled between her thighs. Her kisses were starting to become a bit sloppier, but that didn’t stop me from appreciating the feel of her lips on my own.

I thought that when she’d used my nickname earlier that life couldn’t get any sweeter. I was wrong. So very wrong. Holding her like this, kissing her like it was the most important thing I would ever do, I knew this would never be enough. I would always want more. Want to feel the soft glide of her bare skin against my own. Want to use my hands to pet and stroke her body until she was burning up from the inside-out for me. Need to kiss her all over so there wasn’t a spot on her left untouched by my mouth. Feel her surrounding me in every sense of the word for the rest of my life. I wouldn’t do any of those things, though. Not now while she was so drunk that she could try and use this night to keep me at arm’s length again tomorrow.

I let more of my body weight settle on top of her so that I became too heavy for her to grind against me anymore; effectively trapping her beneath me. Then I started to slow our kisses down so that, eventually—after a few aggravated growls on her part—we were now enjoying each other’s touches with long, lingering effects instead of racing towards something else. Her body started to relax into the bed, the movement of her hands moving up and down my back becoming sluggish, and I knew she was moments from passing out from the alcohol.

Pulling away from her lips, she gave a soft mewl of disappointment, and then quieted when I rolled to my side, taking her with me. My right arm became a pillow for her head and my left arm clamped tightly around her waist, pressing her soft curves into my front. I should have loosened my grip, giving her a little breathing room, but I didn’t want to take the chance that she’d try to get away from me again, so I didn’t. Belle buried her face against my chest as I felt both of her hands fist the fabric of my shirt. Kissing the top of her head, I patiently waited while her body’s weight slowly turned into dead weight against me and she started slipping into sleep.