Chapter 42
The monitors, the notes, the search running silently in the background, all of it blurred to the edges.
There was only Remington.
She dipped her head, letting sunlight spread across her face.
Her fingers played with the straps of her tank top.
They slipped off her shoulders, landing one beat after another, in time with the hammering of Everett’s pulse.
Giggling, she caught the cotton before he could get the slightest glimpse of her breasts.
“You’re such a tease,” Everett said through gritted teeth. He shifted toward the end of the chair and leaned back to enjoy the view.
“You used to like it when I’d do this,” she said, with a hint of hesitation.
“Yeah, I did,” he said, then licked his lips slowly. “Now, I love it.”
That gorgeous smile spread wide across her face.
Then she went to work, pausing at the curve beneath her breasts.
The fabric bunched in her fists. Her mouth quirked as she arched her back and pulled the tank up, slow and steady.
As the fabric rose higher, the scars mapping her belly to her hips like fissures and gouges came into view, bathed in the sun's rays. She was deliberate about it, a control that seemed so much like the old Remi and absolutely not like the Remi she’d become after Jamaica.
She made no attempt to hide it. Not anymore.
The shame and discomfort about her body and the scars had been shed like old skin, left in the dust to wither and disappear.
“You are so damn beautiful.” His gaze feasted on every part of her as he almost forgot how to breathe. He let himself be greedy about it, traveling down her body and committing every part of her to muscle memory.
His words cratered her inhibition. Remington gripped the edge of the shirt and yanked it over her head.
She flung it at him, landing that soft, worn-out tank top square over his face.
He pulled her scent from deep in the cotton, coconut, sweat, and a whiff of lime from the ceviche she’d made for lunch.
“And you are so fucking sexy.”
His cock pressed hard against the inside of his shorts as he pushed the shirt away.
The sun caught her fully then. The soft weight of her breasts, the deep brown of her nipples already tightened against the open air, the scattered topography of her scars running down toward the waistband of her shorts, all of her unhidden.
All of her belonged to him.
“Get over here.” Everett laced his fingers behind his head, leaning back further in the chair. The evidence of what she was doing to him in full view. “Now.”
Remington unbuttoned her shorts, then circled the desk.
Her hips moved in a slow sway that shifted her shorts lower until the edge of her thong peeked from beneath.
The bright white cotton glowed against her sugary brown skin.
By the time she reached him, the shorts pooled around her ankles.
She stepped out of the heap, then gripped the armrests of the chair.
Hair falling around his face, making a tent around them, Remington put her mouth on his ear, bit softly, then harder, and tugged the lobe between her teeth.
The pain sent a fissure of pleasure straight to his cock.
Her kisses grew more demanding, trailing along his jaw to his lips.
Her mouth went wild, tongue slipping deep into his mouth as she devoured all the years they spent apart.
She climbed onto his lap, straddling him in the unforgiving space of the chair, moaning when she settled against the hard line straining his shorts.
Her hands dug into his shoulders as she ground down.
Everett’s brain splintered into a thousand hungry little fragments. He yanked her closer, hands splayed over her back.
Her hands snaked below the waistband of his shorts, working the drawstring. She wriggled her hips, cursing when she couldn’t get the knot undone. Everett smirked. “Problems?”
“Shut up,” she said. Frustration gave her cheeks a dangerous flush.
The color raged across her neck as she got the string loose.
He thrust his hips off the seat, giving her free rein to shove his shorts halfway down his thighs.
His cock sprang free, already slick at the tip from the last five minutes of exquisite torture.
“There. Much better.”
“You’re not done yet …”
She was rough, shoving his shirt up and snatching it over his head. She twirled it around in her hand before tossing it to the floor next to her discarded clothes.
He matched her, hooking his thumbs in the skinny strings tied in a bow, holding her thong in place.
He said a silent prayer of thanks for the ease of ripping them apart.
The tiny fabric fell away, and he swore he was in heaven.
No matter how many times he and Remington were together, it was never enough.
Every brush of her skin against his made him half-mad with the need to taste every inch.
She was already so wet he could feel the heat of her against him.
He gripped her, trying to grab the moment and ride it, but she was too fast. She grabbed his cock in her palm, circling the tip with her thumb, then slicked her palm down to the base, and back up, staring at him like she knew the kind of shameful noises threatened in his throat.
She guided him to her, holding him upright with her fist. Wet heat soaked his cock before he’d lined himself up, and he nearly lost it feeling the press of her against him.
She angled her hips and took him in. A frictionless, melting slide.
The first blazing touch felt so good. She was tight, so damn tight.
She made a noise of satisfaction, and the sound alone nearly undid him.
He meant to let her set the rhythm but lost control, thrusting up, craving more of her, all of her, now.
The chair creaked as she rode him, each movement pounding him against the leather.
He moaned, and she caught the sound, kissing it out of his mouth.
“God, I missed this,” Everett murmured, voice hoarse. But it wasn’t just the sex. It was the return to each other with the past and present tangled together. Every wound and every want pulling them closer as the ache of what they had lost met the shock of what they still had.
Remi arched back, balancing herself with a hand on his chest. Her nipples, small and dark, grew tight as he grazed them with his knuckles.
She pressed down with her hips, grinding harder. There was no gentleness in her, not today. She wanted it raw.
Her thighs tensed against his, and she rocked forward, absorbing his thrusting as the pressure built. She was relentless, squeezing him so tight that he saw stars.
He gripped her hips hard, pulled her down, needing all of her wrapped around him and inside him, every heat-smudged inch.
She tossed her hair back, grinding until her thighs quivered against his.
Each clench and slide of her body strung him out, and she chased the friction with fists tight on his shoulders, nails digging crescent moons into his skin.
The whole room shrank down to the ragged breath between them and the sharp, wet sound of her moving on him.
All the while, her hazel eyes never left his.
Everett was undone by it. She knew he was at the edge, unable to hold back much longer.
She rode him faster, the pleasure twisting into something desperate and wild.
Sweat beaded between her breasts, sliding over her skin and disappearing between the rifts of the scar tissue.
He dragged his palms up her scars as he came, fingers catching on each ridge.
He crushed her to him, shuddering so hard the chair rattled and groaned under them both, his teeth finding the curve of her neck, her name breaking apart in his throat. “Remington …”
A moan tore out of her, raw and unguarded, her head dropping back so her hair swept his thighs.
She clenched around him in slow, deep pulses, each one wringing a sharp breath from him.
Her hips rolled through the last of it, stuttering, losing their rhythm, until she went soft and heavy against his chest.
He wrapped his arms around her, pressing her tight against him.
“I don’t think I can walk after that,” she said through her laughter.
“You don’t need to.” He lifted her off him, then scooped her up in his arms. She didn’t have the strength to hold on, arms dangling, as he walked across the living room and eased them onto the couch.
Grabbing the blanket from the edge, he wrapped it around them and settled into the cushions with her tucked neatly against his body.
Remington traced a lazy pattern across his chest.
After her orgasm, he expected her to be boneless against him, but tension had crept back into her body.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked, stroking her hair as she lay on his chest.
She propped her head on her hands and stared at him. “Something I saw in the police files that I didn’t tell you about.”
“You keeping secrets from me?” He squeezed her waist, then held her tighter. Whatever she’d seen couldn’t be good for their investigation. It was clearly bothering her. “What is it?”
“It’s about Bobby.”
Everett’s hand made a slow path along her back. He didn’t respond, leaving a void of silence for her to fill.
She sucked in a deep breath, then said, “Since my arrest, the police have agreed to Greta’s request to have his remains released.”
Everett looked down at her. “When?”
“A week from now.” Remington shifted until she was lying partly against him, her cheek near his heart. “She’ll have a memorial for him. I keep thinking I should maybe be there.”
“You want to go to his funeral?”
“It makes no sense. That night, I wanted him dead. I wanted it more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.
” Her fingers curled lightly against his chest. “I hated him for what he did to you. I still hate him for it. He blew your cover and set off everything that cost us our baby, our life, three years of being apart.” Her voice lowered.
“But now that I know I didn’t kill him, it’s like the memories of Bobby, who was my old childhood friend, have resurfaced.
The sweet guy who was my friend for years.
I can mourn that part of him while I despise the other. ”
“Like how he despised me,” Everett said, unable to stop his contempt from spilling out.
Everett stared toward the dark monitor beyond the couch. “I never understood the depth of Bobby’s hatred for me until I ran into Greta after he was killed.”
“Where? You never told me about that.”
“I met up with Seb at the Hullabaloo coffee farm, and she was there taking a walk, getting fresh air after being holed up in the Stingray compound for days,” Everett said.
“It’s sickening how he shared all of his warped views of me with her, poisoning her against me.
Not that I care one way or another what she thinks of me. ”
“What did Greta say to you?” she asked.
“That you never appreciated Bobby. He could never live up to me, and now I could swoop in and take one more thing from him.” He paused, jaw tightening.
“It was the same kind of thing Bobby used to imply. I had everything he should have had. That you chose me over him proved some great cosmic injustice had been done to him. He wasted half his life hating me because of that.”
“That’s not why he hated you.” Remington sat up slowly, pulling the throw with her. She climbed off him and crossed the room, grabbing her discarded clothes. He watched as she put them on slowly.
A sinking feeling settled in his gut.
Greta’s voice came back to him, brittle with old bitterness.
You got everything he should have had.
“If it wasn’t you, then why the hell did he hate me?”
“We don’t need to get into this now,” Remington said. “I’m starving. I’m sure you are, too. I’ll go whip us up some roasted goat sandwiches.”
“Remington.”
She paused but didn’t turn to look at him.
“If Bobby hated me enough to blow my DEA cover, if Greta hated me enough to talk like I robbed her son of his life, and it wasn’t because Bobby and I both loved you.” He kept his voice steady as his pulse changed. “Then, I need to know why.”
She turned back toward him. Her mouth trembled before she pressed her lips together. “I don’t want this to hurt you.”
Everett slipped on his boxers, then walked to her. Taking her hands in his, he said, “Tell me.”
She stared at their joined fingers, unable or unwilling to look at him.
“Bobby hated you because Eric Gilliam was his father, too.”