Chapter 33
I pushed him back a step. “No, you idiot. Not every single move was so calculated. I went there to convince you sell the house back to me, but when I met you, I knew that wasn’t going to happen. I had to figure out another way to get my house back.”
“And I’m the idiot who hired you.” He shoved his hands into his hair. “Wow.”
“No. Not exactly.”
He laughed. It was a horrible sound. I so rarely heard him laugh, but the absolute desolation in it made my heart ache.
Hearing that pain had my hackles raising, but I forced myself to keep going. “I know people, Blake. It’s my gift.”
“No, your gift is glass and metal.”
“Glass and metal are my passion. They’ve been my center since I was a girl, but I’ve always been good with people. From school, to living in Marblehead, to the gallery—I understand people.”
He looked away from me for a moment, then he took a breath and faced me once more. “Then why are you still here? Don’t you have someone you can stay with?”
“Just because I know people doesn’t mean I’m good at keeping them in my life.”
His eyes shuttered. “Evidently, we’re alike in that regard.”
“You push people away. I’m assuming a lot of it is because of your money. People want things from you all the time.”
His chin lifted.
I sighed. “Yeah, I thought so.”
“Well, if you can read me so well, what is it you thought you were going to accomplish?”
“The minute I walked into your office, I knew nothing was going to go the way I thought. At first, I thought I could get to know you. That maybe I could figure out a way to make you understand my situation.”
He frowned.
“I didn’t say it was a good plan. But then I started to love what I was doing. Digging into your world, I saw your passion. I even understood it. There is so much more you can do with your glass.”
“So, you were going for what? Insider trading?”
“Oh, my God, Blake.” I moved into him, but he folded his arms and angled away from me. I grabbed his arms.
Was that really how he lived his life? The first thought was who was going to screw him over?
I looked up at him, my eyes narrowing at the obstinacy and the hurt there under the cool stare. I lifted my hands to his face. He tried to shake me off, but I wouldn’t be denied. Not now. “No, Blake. I just wanted to be part of your world. Then the vestibule happened and everything got so twisted.”
If I wanted him in my life, and I was pretty sure I did. More than I thought was even possible just a day ago. He made me insane, but he also made see exactly what I’d been missing.
Life.
I’d never lived as much as I had in the last month with him.
“Then I just wanted you, but I didn’t know how to tell you.” My throat tightened. “I didn’t even know how to tell myself.”
His shoulders heaved as he took deep breaths. I didn’t know what he was going to do. I closed my eyes, unwilling to sway him with tears. I only had words to convince him. “Please don’t leave.”
Please don’t leave me .
He dropped his arms to his sides. I swallowed the sob that wanted out so bad. I’d let him walk away. If he didn’t understand that everything I’d said was heartfelt, then that was his loss.
He lifted me up and crushed me to him. I opened my eyes and encircled his shoulders. “Blake?—”
“No more talking,” he said against my mouth.
Then there was nothing but his kiss, and him surrounding me. He walked through my workshop area, past my table to the corner of the room. He set me down next to the twin bed.
He looked down at it. “Really?”
“I’m tiny.”
“Truth,” he muttered. He shrugged out of his suit jacket and tossed it onto the chair at the end of my bed. He pulled me in front of him and coasted his fingertips over my shoulders. “I can’t even describe how bad I am at relationships.”
“That’s an understatement.”
“I don’t know why you want to be with me—” He held up a hand. “I’m not fishing for compliments, and I don’t even want to know why right now. I’m just thankful.” He cupped my face. “So goddamn thankful, because wanting you is the only thing I understand.”
I tipped my head into his hand. “I hope one day it’s more than just wanting me.”
“It already is.” He unbuttoned his cuffs, then his shirt, and tossed it aside as well.
I drew in a breath. I’d never seen all of Blake’s upper torso before. He was so incredibly broad and smooth. He dropped his pants and reached for my zipper a moment later. Our clothes became piles at our feet, then he sat down on the edge of my little bed.
“I want you, too.” He pulled me forward until I straddled him.
He stretched out under me and let me touch him. Every part of him. I learned his shoulders and chest with my fingers and lips. I could measure his sighs and his gasps from a single twist of my wrist.
His taste became part of me as I crawled lower to take him in my mouth.
Nothing was off-limits tonight. There was no rush, no timetable. There were only the sweet sounds of his groans of my name and the silky glide of our bodies. When he grew impatient with me using him as my personal playground, he rolled me under him and showed me what it was like to make love to Blake Carson.
Because neither one of us could call that night anything but lovemaking.
Even when we landed in a sweaty heap on the second round, and the night melted around us, I drifted to sleep with a smile.
Of course, sleeping on a twin bed had been a lot more fun back in college. Blake took up a lot of space, and his body was more muscular than soft. The books got that wrong too.
Especially when you had to lay on top of a man from chest to hip.
I tried to get comfortable and gave up with a sigh.
“I don’t know what would be worse. If you snored, or if you’re this restless every night.”
I pinched his shoulder. “A twin bed was not made for your particular body weight.”
“My BMI is eight percent.”
I giggled at his tone. Oh, so very affronted. “That’s the problem. There’s not a cuddly bit of fat on you, Mr. Carson.” I sighed at his silence. “There’s a king-sized bed in the blue room upstairs. Of course, that would mean finding a set of sheets.”
“You could come home with me.”
I folded my arms on his chest and wiggled until I slid down along the wall. “It’s cold outside.”
“Remote car starter.”
I laughed. “There’s a thought.”
A crash from the other room made us both jump. Blake sat up and eased me off him. “Are the other doors locked in the house?”
“Yes.” I reached for the light above our heads and clicked it on.
Another bang, this time from the front.
“No, turn that off.” He slipped out of bed and smoothly hiked up his pants. The moon was low, highlighting his shoulders and back as he stood.
“Blake, wait.”
“Stay here.”
“It’s probably just kids,” I whispered. “We used to break into empty houses to party when I was a kid.”
Light from his phone cut through the darkness. “At four in the morning?”
Well, no.
Crap.
The sound of glass breaking had me following him across the room. I stubbed my toe on the chair near the door. I hopped in a circle. “Ow. Dammit.”
Where the hell was my purse? I tried to feel my way in the dark, but another crash made me gasp.
“Blake?” I tried to keep my voice to a whisper, but I was pretty sure fear made it more like a squeak. “Get back here. We need to call the cops.”
“They’re vandalizing my house.”
“My house, dammit,” I whispered mostly to myself.
I followed him out to the hallway and the foyer. Flashlights bounced around the room.
“I’m running out of glass.” A voice hissed in the darkness.
I frowned. What the hell did that mean?
“Try the one on the left.” The beam of light went to the corner of the room where my stained-glass window hung over the trifold door.
Blake opened and slammed the closet door in the front of the house. All the flashlights went out. Footfalls headed toward the back door, but it was locked, and a long metal rod had been inserted into the track for just this reason.
So, no one could get in. Or out, if they panicked and didn’t pay attention.
There was a crash of glass, and two raised voices sounded in the night.
“Call the police.”
I jumped at Blake’s sudden presence beside me. He pressed the phone into my hand. With shaking fingers, I flipped over his cell. Thank God, he’d unlocked it for me.
“No. Don’t go in there. Stay here,” I said to Blake as he moved away, blending seamlessly into the darkness. Impatiently, I raised the cell to my cheek as the 911 operator spoke through the speaker.
The gunshot startled me so bad that I dropped the phone.
Then it was pure chaos. Voices shouting, Blake’s voice one of them.
“Stop. Just leave. We won’t press charges, just go.”
“I can’t go without it.” The male voice in the dark sounded frightened.
“Can’t go without what?” Blake asked.
“Come on, man! We gotta split.”
“We can’t fail,” said the first voice.
I crawled past the stairs. There were three bodies in the dark, one with his arm outstretched.
No.
God, no.
Another shot cracked the dark. All I could see was with a quick flash and it was dark again.
“Blake?”
He didn’t answer, and all I could think was, God, not again .
Oh, please, no.