34. Arlo
“Enough.” I pluck the phone out of Hailey’s hands, ignoring the picture she’s shown me no less than ten times in the past two hours.
“Hey!” She lunges for her phone. “No, I want to see it.” Her whine is hilariously out of character and pretty damn cute.
“You’ve seen.” I shove the phone down the island top, away from her grabby mitts. “I’ve seen.” Pincers go to my armpit and neck, goosing me.
“I want to see more.” She moans.
My hand encircles her wrists, and I tug her out of her chair and into my lap. She comes willingly, pressing her ass against my front. “You will.” I brush a kiss over her cheek, and she nuzzles close. “Tomorrow, when you go into the office,” I add.
Her stunning green gaze turns to slits. The red pout of her lips forms a line. I turn her chin toward me and kiss them. “I’m glad you like them.”
Hailey has already hung the paintings in her office. As she has explained several times tonight, it’s because she spends the most time there, will get to see them the most, and will get to share them with others.
“Love them,” she amends, then lunges over my shoulder toward the phone.
Since she’s mostly there, I toss her the rest of the way over my shoulder and stand.
Her shriek echoes in the kitchen. It’s enough to stir Plink from his new cat cave by the vent in the far corner of the breakfast nook. He follows me, us, through the back hallway to the service elevator and inside.
“Where are you taking me?” Hailey wiggles but doesn’t put up a real fight.
“Not to bed.”
“Ugh! Why not?”
My hand connects with the perfection of her ass, through her skirt. Her moan and the contact make me hard. With her, it doesn’t take much. I ignore it. “Because you’ve been keeping secrets.”
“What?” She pushes up, using my ass as a brace for her hands, trying her best to look me in the eyes.
I jiggle her back in place and smack her butt again.
“I didn’t touch Hotaru. I put my hand on his collar to comfort him, but I was careful not to touch his skin. I?—”
“Hailey?” My chest warms at her babbling.
“Yes?”
“If you did touch him, I wouldn’t care.” I smack her bottom once more.
“What? I don’t…” She wiggles and tries to turn around again. It doesn’t work, especially since the elevator opened, and I stride out. “What are you talking about then?”
I hurry over to Plinko’s favorite chair on the rooftop, lift the blanket, and he curls up underneath.
“Spoiled brat,” Hailey grouses under her breath.
“Are you talking about yourself?” I set her onto the large sofa, plush with cushions and a massive throw, and press a kiss to her lips, cutting off her retort.
When I’m sure she won’t fret, I turn and adjust the temperature on the electric heater that I programmed to come on half an hour ago to warm the seating area. Several buildings rise up above the numerous trees and shrubs I had planted. For the most part, the city falls away, lending serenity to the space. Sure, nothing will block out the noise of the bustle, but I’ve lived here long enough it fades into the background.
Hailey has draped herself over the whole of the sofa, snuggled under the cover. I go to her and stare down at the beauty and heart I don’t deserve.
My insides quiver.
I could lose her tonight.
I’ll do just about anything to make sure that doesn’t happen, but this, this I cannot change, and I can’t keep it hidden from her any longer. I mean, technically, I could.
Only three people know about it.
Including me.
One wouldn’t betray my trust for anything in the world.
The other one is dead.
“Head up.” I motion for her to lean forward. She does, and I sit propped in the corner of the sofa. I pull Hailey into my arms.
My siren tucks the blanket around my legs and curls into my chest, nuzzling her face against my neck.
I hold her tight and drag in a deep breath, filling my lungs with her scent.
“You spoil me.”
“For as long as you’ll let me.” I kiss her forehead.
“What if that’s a long time?”
“Suits me perfectly.” My fingers brush back the hair from her face and study her features. Features that, for so long, were a mirage to me, an abstract idea that gave me a goal, that morphed into hope.
“What if it’s a long, long time?”
“Even better.” I trace her face with my fingertips.
“You know all my dirty secrets, now. All my bloody skeletons.” Her brow hikes. “So what’s this supposed secret I’m keeping?”
“You’ve been letting me fuck you too hard and too often.”
Her jaw falls, creating the perfect O for my cock. It twitches in my pants, but I ignore it.
“Have not.”
It’s my turn to hike a brow.
“Nat.” She scolds. “That double agent.”
“Siren, why didn’t you tell me?”
She wraps her arms around me and pulls me close, almost frantically so. Her fingers grip my shirt and skin as though I’m trying to get away. I’m not. I never will.
I’m quiet while I let her collect her thoughts. Eventually, she eases back.
“I love being close to you. As close as I can get.” She shrugs. “And that’s you inside me.” Her lips do a little dance. “That’s most all of it. I didn’t want to stop that, even if it was getting to be slightly uncomfortable.”
My lips map a line across her cheeks. “You are as close to me as anyone can get. Even when you’re not with me, you’re in me, and I’m in you. There’s no need to make ourselves raw.”
“I’m not used to frequent sex.” She grimaces.
“Me either, Hailey. I’ve been putting special ointment on my cock every morning after you leave to keep the soreness at bay.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
Her grin is wide. Then her cheeks turn the most precious shade of pink. “Maybe we should build up to sex every day, multiple times a day?”
“We should build up to whatever we’re comfortable with. Whatever that is. Just because I enjoy touching you doesn’t mean you have to give me everything all at once. Just being in the same room as you is enough to make my best days a year ago seem downright pathetic in comparison.”
She tugs me in for a hug and drags her lips over my neck.
“You said that was most of it. What’s the rest?”
Her lips still. She becomes lead weight in my arms.
“No playing possum when the conversation gets touchy, Doctor.”
“Ugh! Fine.” She groans and leans back. “I was worried, if I didn’t, if we didn’t…”
“Fuck?” I offer.
“Yeah, I guess.” She picks at a nonexistent thread on my tailored shirt. “I thought if we weren’t intimate, that you might backslide and not want my touch later.”
I inhale and open my mouth to speak. Hailey’s fingers are cold on my lips.
“What you just said was perfect. I know you don’t want me just because I’m the only one you’ve been able to touch in a long time. I know you like me for more than my body and what it can do for you.” She grins, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “I have this propensity for seeking out the negative, for inventing trouble, even where there isn’t any.”
She cups my face and presses a kiss to my lips, placing her fingers between.
“I’m working through it in therapy. It might take a while to rewire that way of thinking.”
“The easiest way we can work through our issues is communication.”
“I know.” Her groan is robust. “I, more than most—relationship therapist here—know that.”
“Then you also know it’s not an easy thing. Especially for people with trauma in their pasts, who’ve never been in a relationship before.”
“We’re in a relationship?” She gives me wide, panicked eyes and a huge smile.
“Bet your pretty ass we are.”
“Are you my boyfriend?”
“Lover. Boyfriend. Partner. Whatever you like, I’m yours.”
“I like that.” Her fingers run over the hint of stubble on my jaw.
“I know all your dirty secrets. You know most of mine.” I steel my spine. “The worst, in my mind. But maybe not to someone else’s way of thinking. Either way…”
I hesitate, knowing that this could change everything for her, especially with what happened to her parents and what she went through.
She brackets my face with her hands and lifts my gaze to her. What I see in her eyes humbles me like nothing else. Not the cliffs of Moher or the vastness of the Sahara.
“I know who you are in here.” One of her hands leaves my face and presses hot and hard against my chest. “There is nothing you could say to make me think differently of you.”
God, please let it be the truth.
I beg this, knowing I don’t have the right. I beg this, knowing she believes it.
“You never asked me what happened to my uncle.”
She nods, and her hair falls over her cheek just a little. “On purpose.”
My brow quirks.
“If he’s still alive, I’d want to go kill him and make it look like an accident.” She says this without a hint of humor. “There are some meds I can get that would do the trick. But then, I’d want it to hurt, and those would make it too easy for him.” Her gaze slides left, and then back to me. “If he’s already dead, I’d want to dig up his bones, spit on them, and burn them.”
I love you.
I damn near blurt the declaration. I don’t because I know she’s not ready.
Hailey straightens, straddles my lap, and then pulls the covers over us.
“The just of it is, it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t matter. Only you do.”
I hug her middle. “I want to tell you, but it might change things for you.”
Her head shakes. As if she has any idea what I’m about to say.
“I want to hear it, Arlo.”
“I want to tell you, but…”
“Don’t worry about me. I’ve heard a lot. I can handle a lot. From you, I can handle just about anything.”
“Officially…” I swallow so thickly, I feel like I’m choking. She waits patiently for me to gather my nerve. “Officially, he’s missing. Has been for seventeen years.”
She nods, encouraging me. Her eyes are intent on mine.
“Unofficially, I know exactly where he is.”
“Dead and buried, please? Because if you tell me he’s hiding out in some city in South America, we’re going on a road trip, and I’m bringing my old shotgun.”
“I’d never let you do that.”
“And I’d never ask your permission,” she rasps.
I hug her to me, pressing her head under my chin and holding her so close there’s no air between us. I take a heavy breath and let it out.
“Very dead. Very buried.”
“Good.” She nods against my chest. “Did you…?”
It’s my turn to nod.
She squeezes me so tight I might not be able to breathe, and I’m okay with that.
“I’m sorry you had to.”
“Me too.” I enjoy her touch for a moment more before pulling her back to look into her eyes. “But it wasn’t cut-and-dry like yours.” I chew my bottom lip for a second. “Yours was self-defense. Mine was long, thought-out, planned, and precisely, violently executed. Also known as premeditated murder.”
I think about the look of total shock on his face and have to trap my smile inside.
“Had he stopped abusing you?”
My skin goes itchy and cold. “No.”
“Did you stop him?”
Tears fill my eyes. “Yes.”
“Self-defense to me.”
It most certainly was, and most certainly wasn’t at the same time.
“Thank you for telling me.”
I nod absentmindedly. The past crowds over my shoulder. It breathes heavy and makes me want to scrub my skin in boiling water.
“Where are you?”
I blink at her.
She asks again. “Where are you?”
“On the roof of my spruced-up family home.”
“And who are you with?” Her green gaze sparkles with the reflection of strung-up lights.
“My siren and my Plink.”
“What are you doing?”
I stand, holding her around me, and head for the stairs. She tosses the blanket down and wraps her arms around my neck.
“Bringing you both to bed, to snuggle close and sleep.” Plink snakes his way off the chair and follows.
“I guess that’ll do.” She kisses me so hard, I have to stop on the single flight to my bedroom to keep from falling over.
“Keep that up, and I’ll make you give me three no impact, no penetration orgasms.”
“Oh, the hardship.” She laughs, and I know everything will be okay. Better than okay. Fucking wonderful.