Chapter 14
Warm lips press to the back of my neck, and I stir, the cloudy remnants of sleep starting to lift. Stretching, I groan and roll toward the wall of heat, feeling him everywhere.
His strong arm wrapped around me. Our legs entwined. The ache between my legs that will linger as a reminder of last night and how fucking good it was.
That’sthe memory I want to hang onto, not the one of what happened on that path that brought us here.
Splayed out on his back, Weston’s chest rises and falls slowly, his eyes closed, and I settle with my face over his heart, listening to the steady beat that almost lulls me back to sleep.
He releases a little satisfied groan. His arm tightens around me, and he presses a kiss to the top of my head. “Good morning.”
His low, gravelly voice stirs something deep inside me that has nothing to do with what we did in this bed last night and everything to do with the words I said to him.
I may have revealed too much, gone too far, pushed the man beyond what he’s capable of. That makes me swallow thickly as I glance up at him. “Good morning.”
I stare at the far wall of the bedroom, the elegant mural that covers it. Covered with birds in flight and a vast, green meadow, mountains that look all too familiar, it’s almost as if someone came in and painted it after studying the view from the library.
Hell, they probably did.
The Barkers would have spared no expense building and decorating this place, but knowing what lies beneath the ground pictured there makes me shiver despite Weston’s hard, warm body cocooning mine.
He threads his fingers through my hair slowly. “What’s wrong?”
I chew on my bottom lip, thinking about what I found in the old books I’ve been devouring the last few days. Weston hasn’t offered me any answers, hasn’t revealed his secrets, save for the very dark nature of the land. But the more I read, the harder I search, the closer I feel to finding what I need.
Something that might save Dad and the man under me.
Reservations still linger as to whether I should reveal what I’ve been doing, given his insistence that I stay out of Barker business, but if there were ever a time to bring it up, it seems like it would be now. With Weston relaxed and satiated, almost peaceful, for the first time since I met him.
“I’ve been busy in the library…”
He nods, his fingers twisting through my hair. “I figured.”
Just rip off the Band-Aid.
Closing my eyes, I try to sound neutral and hide my rising panic as I reveal my secret to him. “I read some of your old family diaries.”
He stiffens under me, his entire body going rigid and his hands stalling.
A few seconds tick by before he finally resumes his ministrations.
“Did you now?”
His question sounds innocent, but the underlying tension in his voice makes my chest tighten as I glance up at him to gauge how angry he is.
Those usually hard gray eyes don’t hold any anger, though.
Just concern.
And I know why.
He said he didn’t read all of them, but he must know what some of them contain if he’s the one who keeps all the current records. There isn’t any way he could be ignorant of this part of his family’s history and still run the Barker organization.
I hold his gaze and swallow through my dry throat. “I know what Rosewood is.”
His jaw hardens, and he feathers his fingertips over my cheek. “Do you?”
I nod.
For days, I’ve been anticipating his reaction to this, preparing myself for The Beast’s return with an overly aggressive response to me prying into the very thing he warned me to stay out of. But his almost eerie calm is scarier than any possibility I had worked up in my head.
This man doesn’t do calm.
He’s always tense. Always coiled so tightly that he seems verging on explosion. No doubt how he earned his nickname.
What the hell changed?
If I broach the subject, something tells me this momentary bubble will burst and we’ll be right back to arguing and pushing at each other to get a rise.
Better to try to get what answers I can while he seems open to it.
“Rosewood is a family. They came over from England with yours originally all those years ago.”
When he doesn’t respond, I continue with what I’ve learned from the various volumes I’ve managed to consume the last few days.
“It seems from the diaries that your two families were pretty closely entwined.”
He looks away, staring up at the ceiling, but his hand resumes slowly tunneling through my locks, the soothing motion making me relax again even though his mood might swing the other direction. “Something like that.”
“But I don’t know them or recognize the name. Are they here in the mountains or in Helena? Are you still allied with them? Is that what my father did? Somehow crossed the Rosewoods and you’ve come to their defense?”
Weston dips his head to make eye contact with me again. “You’re asking a lot of questions, Beauty. Is that what this was all about?”
I freeze at his question, the implication of it, that he somehow thinks I seduced him to try to get answers he wouldn’t otherwise give me.
Shit.
It never occurred to me that he might leap to that conclusion, but now, seeing it from his perspective, I can see how he went there.
I shake my head. “No, of course not. I just…”
“You just thought that while you had me naked in bed with my hard cock pressed against your ass this morning that it would be a good time to try to drag some answers from me?”
He raises a silver brow.
Well, when he puts it that way, I guess that’s exactly what I did.
“I’m sorry. I just don’t know how long I can stay in the dark without going crazy, and now that I’ve read those diaries, my mind is spinning off in a thousand different directions.”
He releases a pent-up sigh, his massive chest rising and falling slowly underneath my cheek. “I can imagine you’d have quite a few.”
“I know you can’t tell me everything. But tell me what you can, please.”
Weston considers my request for a few moments, then buries his face in my hair for a second before he shifts so he’s sitting up against the headboard. He trails his fingers down my bare spine and sends a shiver through me. “What you read was all true. The Rosewoods and the Barkers came over from England together hundreds of years ago. They came west together, helped settle Montana. We were two of the very few families that actually made it through the journey here. We all stuck together. The original families tried to ensure all our survival…”
“That makes sense.” And it matches with the diary entries I’ve inhaled from his ancestors.
Stories of survival on a treacherous trek west to seek new land and opportunity. Friendships built on strong backs and shared losses along the way.
I watch his eyes darken as he thinks.
His gaze drops to mine. “How far did you get in the diaries?”
Thinking back to the ancient volumes, I try to visualize the dates on each entry. “Mid-1800s, I think.”
“So, you know both families were very prosperous.”
I nod. “Yes.”
“It was only because we worked together, did what needed to be done, even back then.”
A shiver rolls through me because I know exactly what he means by doing “what needed to be done.” Those were different times. Wild, lawless, and violent.
Not much seems to have changed around here.
The Barkers still silence their competition and enemies by any means necessary.
Those journals have given me a glimpse into the Rosewood mystery, but I haven’t found anything that might even remotely answer my main question or give me a direction to go to resolve the issue that has created a guillotine over Dad’s neck.
“What does any of this have to do with my father?”
His jaw hardens, and something flashes across his hooded eyes. “I can’t tell you that, Beauty.”
I scowl at him, so badly wanting to just scream at him to tell me and fuck the consequences. But he’s given me more today than he has in the almost three weeks I’ve been here, and ruining this moment would only set us back in a way we might not recover from.
“I’m worried about him, Weston.” I swallow thickly, debating whether or not to admit to what I overheard during his phone call. “I heard you talking to someone on the phone the other day…”
His frown deepens, his eyes going black. “You heard?”
“It sounded an awful lot like my father’s in more danger than you let on, like even if he does what you want, you are still going to kill him.”
His fingers stop trailing down my spine, and instead, he uses them to tighten around my arm, almost painfully. “I told you this world isn’t for you, Beauty. No one is safe. Nothing is sacred. The longer you’re part of it, the more tainted you’ll become, until you no longer know who or what you are, until you become nothing but a cog in this giant machine without any choice.”
“Is that what you are?”
He doesn’t answer, and his grip on me doesn’t relax.
As the head of the family, Weston Barker should be making all the decisions.
He shouldn’t be a cog.
He should be the machine.
“Shouldn’t people be doing whatever you say? Shouldn’t you be able to tell them to leave my father alone?”
His shoulders tense, and he releases my arm to tilt my chin up toward him. “I wish it were that simple, Beauty. But it isn’t.”
Tears pool in my eyes, a vise wrapping around my chest so tightly that I struggle to take a breath through the coming sob. “I want to see him. It’s been weeks. I need—” I fight back the complete meltdown about to strike. “I need to see him, hug him, make sure he’s okay. Please let him come up here.”
He growls. “Absolutely not.”
“Then let me go to him just for a day or two, then I’ll come back.”
His eyes shift from steely gray to black again.
There’s my answer.
Weston will never let me go.
He’ll never let me leave this house or his sight again.
Not after what happened in those woods and this bed.
He brings his thumb over my cheek. “I’ll consider it, Beauty.”
What?
It’s far more than I thought he’d give me.
Not an agreement, but not an automatic denial of my request, like I had anticipated the moment it left my mouth.
He doesn’t want Dad up here because there are far too many secrets buried on this mountain, and if he sees us together, he’ll realize there’s something going on between The Beast and me. That will send everything spiraling and erase any chance of this ever being resolved peacefully.
But maybe, just maybe, he’ll let me go to him.
Weston leans down and presses a gentle kiss to my lips, then drags me up into his lap to straddle him and his growing cock.
The reasons to argue for why he should allow me to go, all the things I wanted to discuss with him, all the questions I needed to ask, every single thought filling my head, all disappear in a cloud of lust and need.
I thought the first few days with Callista here were unbearable.
Her scent.
Her energy.
Her insistence on trying to get under my skin any way she could.
But the last few have been even worse—for both of us.
No amount of falling into bed together and mind-blowing sex can break the tension or remove the giant dark cloud hanging over us. Today, it seems as though things might come to a head after Callista has tried so hard not to say what it is she’s been holding in.
She picks at her dinner the same way she has for three days, not eating much, pushing it around on her plate, despite the fact that I asked her what she wanted and made it specifically for her.
A small kindness I can offer, while the larger one she’s requested is so much harder.
After twenty minutes of watching her apathy, I finally shift forward in my chair and lower my silverware to my almost empty plate. “Not to your liking? I could try a different recipe next time.”
Her head snaps up, and she forces a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. Even from the other end of the table, I can see the disquiet in her heart, sense her unease and the distance growing between us even though we’ve slept in the same bed and in each other’s arms since the night Gray confronted her.
And I know exactly why.
Because I haven’t answered her question.
I haven’t denied nor agreed to her request.
The longer she’s here, away from the man who’s been her entire support system, who’s loved her and cared for her every day of her life, knowing he is now in jeopardy, the more restless she becomes.
Even reading more of the journals hasn’t distracted her.
It’s a feeling I don’t understand and can’t empathize with, not when my own father was a monster and I never had anyone I needed that much. Only three people have ever mattered to me, and that weakness came back to cause the greatest pain in my life.
But she needs it.
And it isn’t something I can replace or a longing I can ease. No amount of bribery with pretty, frilly things, wonderful food, and access to the knowledge the library holds is going to be enough to keep Callista Fox happy.
It just isn’t.
I push my plate away and motion for her to come to me with two fingers.
After so many days of ensuring we’re only intimate in the library or the bedroom, where the cameras aren’t running, asking this of her makes her bristle. She freezes for a moment, her eyes narrowing on me, like she’s trying to figure out what I’m up to.
“Come, Callista.”
Tonight, I had the foresight to turn off the dining room camera when I decided to join her for the meal, anticipating there may be a moment like this when I might need the privacy to get my point across to the feisty blonde on the other end of the long table.
She releases a little resigned sigh, then slides from her chair and makes her way over to me in the pretty sundress I gifted her yesterday. The pale-blue sets off her buttermilk skin and blond hair flawlessly, and the green of her eyes seems to shimmer and pop as she advances.
My cock is half hard before she even reaches me.
I grunt and shift it away from the zipper of my jeans, then shift my chair back from the table to give her space.
She slides onto my lap, looping her arms around my neck. But even though we’re physically close, I can still feel that chasm opening wider between us. It makes me want to drag her onto this table and fuck her until she understands that she’s mine, and that includes protecting her when she asks for something that could hurt her.
It takes every ounce of restraint I possess not to do just that as she spears her fingers through my hair, playing with it absently, like she does when she’s thinking about something or lost in her own head.
I tighten my arms around her. “I know what’s bothering you, Beauty.”
Her eyes shift to meet mine. “You haven’t answered my question about going to see my father.”
Slowly, I trail my hand up her bare thigh. “I know I haven’t.”
Those perfect lips of hers twist into a frown. “Why not?”
I press a kiss to her temple. “Because I don’t know if it’s safe for you to go or not.”
And I’m terrified you won’t come back.
Equally worrying prospects. Yet it’s the second one, the one I don’t voice, that keeps me awake at nights when I should be sound asleep, reveling in the feel of her naked body pressed against my skin.
But it’s truly horrifying.
Worse than any nightmare brought on by my curse.
Ever since she asked to go see her father, all I can think about is watching her drive away down the mountain and never seeing her again, wondering how I could bear that, how I could live with this place being so empty.
Missing her scent, her laughter, the brightness she brings to a once-gloomy place, the peace she gives me every time I take her in my arms and lose myself in her body. I must be mad because I’d even miss the way she always challenges me and forces me to look at things in a different light, to wonder if there are ways to change the facts I always took as undeniable and unchangeable.
What if I let her go and lose all that?
I haul her up closer.
She snuggles in deep, tucking her head under my chin, that honey scent of hers invading my lungs. “Tell me what’s wrong, Weston. Explain why you won’t let me go.”
It seems wiser to repeat the accepted story than delve into my self-serving reasons. “I don’t know if it’s safe out there for you, Callista.”
Her fingers play in my beard, nails dragging through it and across the skin beneath. “How can it not be safe when I’m under your protection?”
I stiffen under her. “I wish it were that simple, Beauty, but the only place I can assure your safety is within these walls. Not even the woods are safe, as you’ve unfortunately discovered.”
She shudders against me. “I learned my lesson on that. I will not be going out into the trees without you in the future.”
I chuckle and tip her head back so I can kiss her deeply, savoring the rich, spicy flavor of the meal she barely touched on her tongue. My body responds instantly, my cock growing hard under her lush ass, my hands tightening in her hair and on her thigh.
Breathless, she pulls away and captures my cheek in her palm. “Stop trying to distract me and tell me what you’re really scared of.”
Hell…
It’s only been a few weeks, and this woman can already read me so well, can already see through so much of the fa?ade I’ve always had to keep so firmly in place. Telling her the truth would be as painful as letting her go, but she deserves at least that, since there are so many other things I can’t tell her.
“I’m worried you won’t come back.”
She pulls away from me slightly, her eyes wide. “Why wouldn’t I come back?”
“You and your father may run.”
Her light laughter fills the room. “Where would we go that you couldn’t find us?” One blond brow rises. “That’s what the Barkers do, right? You have people everywhere, connections you can utilize to get to people even if they flew halfway around the world…”
It isn’t really a question, more like an assumption on her part that happens to be true.
I nod. “That’s true.” Squeezing her ass, I tug her up against me, the heat of her pussy brushing my fingers at the crease of her thighs, making her wiggle in my hold. “But what if you decide to try it, anyway? What if your father keeps you there and doesn’t let you return?”
My words sound desperate and needy, even to my own ears.
Two things I haven’t been since long before this woman entered my life.
Her gaze softens, and she threads her fingers through the hair at my temples, holding me steady when the demons in my mind want me to fly off the handle. “I’ll be back. I promise.”
I hear the sincerity in her words, feel them deep in my chest, see it in the way she looks at me. Yet, a part of me knows it would probably be better if she did run.
She’s right that we would use our resources to try to find her, that I would. Because now that I’ve had her, I can’t let her go. Even if it might be what’s best for her, I’m a selfish prick who has become addicted to the beauty in my arms.
The longer I don’t react to her words, the more uneasy she starts to look, her humor fading, replaced with a question deep in her emerald eyes. “Am I still your captive?”
I stare at her and ponder the question I’ve been asking myself the last several days since I first took her in the library, since I crossed that line I never should have and then completely obliterated it by ending the fight altogether.
My answer will terrify her, but it’s the only true one I can give. “Not mine.”
She studies me as if she’s searching for the meaning behind my words, like it might lie somewhere in my gaze. But it’s just one of many things I can’t delve into with her. It would only make things more dangerous for her and us.
Finally, she bobs her head slightly. “That’s what I thought.”
An intense, soul-deep sadness fills her again, the same I’ve seen overtake her more and more often the last few days. It’s only going to get worse, until she slips into a full-blown depression that I won’t be able to pull her out of.
And I can’t bear to see her like that.
I’d rather face any consequences of this decision than witness Callista crumble and become a shell of herself.
I brush her blond locks back from her face and lean in to kiss her lips gently, taking both her cheeks in my palms. “Go see your father tomorrow. Stay for a day or two, no more, and then you’ll come back to me.”
She smiles against my lips and pulls back with tears in her eyes. “Thank you. I promise I’ll be back in a day or two.”
“A day or two.”
Short enough that I can claim electrical issues with the security system and shut the whole thing down so her absence won’t be noted.
I drag her over me, kissing her hard and deep with the promise of what will be waiting for her when she gets back, something I intend to remind her of tonight, too, before she leaves.
So she’ll feel me between her legs with every move of her body the entire time she’s gone, so she’ll dream of me inside her the same way I have practically lived there the last few nights, so she won’t forget.
She won’t be able to.