Chapter Forty-Three
In which duty and destiny can sometimes be the same thing.
Scarlett…
The next day…
Trying to keep Wallace in bed is impossible, mainly because he wants me in there with him.
“I swear to god I’ll sleep on the couch if you don’t take your hand out of my undies.”
He’s kissing down my neck while his fingers stroke through my center, circling around my clitoris. I’m wet. It’s like everything below my waist is choosing to forget that my husband was seriously injured.
“No, ye won’t.” He pushes two fingers inside me and I bite back a moan.
“Are you remembering that you just got out of the hospital after a very near fatal- a- you could have died!” Bursting into tears, I wrap my arms and legs around him, clinging, squeezing him.
“Way to kill the mood, huh?” I sob.
“Sweet wife, are ye forgetting everything ye went through?” His big, warm hands are in my hair, stroking me soothingly like I’m Murder Mittens.
“I’m fine.” My face is buried in his chest, so my lie is muffled.
“I dinnae believe ye.” He cups my cheek, forcing me to look at him. “I know what goes on in rooms like those, with evil fecks like him. Dinnae pretend it’s nothing. Ye canna act like killing a man was nothing for ye.”
“Oh, that?” I’m shocked how little I care.
I should, shouldn’t I? I killed someone.
“Aye, that.” Wallace says, eyeing me keenly.
“Do you want the truth? I haven’t thought of it. Not since we all talked about it at The Clinic. That probably makes me a sociopath or something but I’m glad he’s gone.”
He’s still got that little frown between his brows, worried for me as he wipes away my tears.
“Looking over the balcony and seeing you caught up in the chandelier? That was…” I shake my head.
“Morgan had a tile set she used for divination. Hand painted ones, they were beautiful, even though they were made of bone. She drew a tile for you, The Fallen. A Guardian Angel, plummeting to earth with his wings on fire, the tips black. The angel’s back is bent in a horribly impossible way, almost an inverted U, like it’s broken. You looked…”
“My Little Cinder,” he croons, sitting up with a wince and bringing me with him. “I’m still here. I will always be here.”
“Promise me.”
“I canna, and ye know it.” He’s solemn. “Not in our world. But life is no more certain for the average businessman, or shopkeeper, or… opera singer. We’ll live it together. In this world, and the next, I will always be here.”
This man. This beautiful, infuriating, complex, incomprehensible husband of mine.
I slide my hands across his back, fingers spread wide to feel as much of his skin as I can, and he does the same for me.
It’s quiet, just the soft sound of our breath in this cold, stylish bedroom.
But I can feel the heat cycling slowly through me, making my legs spread wider, my center feels swollen, plumper.
And when his calloused thumb runs up the seam of my pussy, swirling a sheen of slick against my clitoris, I shudder.
Slowly, deliberately, Wallace lies back against the pillows, one arm behind his head, lounging like a king. “I’m injured, wife. Ye need to be on top. Ye wouldn’t want me to injure my ribs further, aye?”
“I hate you,” I breathe. I don’t. Not at all and he knows it, his insolent grin getting wider.
His thick fingers pull aside the seam of my undies and stroke me.
The wet sound of his fingers driving inside me is so lewd, so wildly erotic that my knees press tight against him, forgetting about his broken ribs and bruised side until he winces.
“Sorry!” I gasp, “I’m sorry!”
“Make it up to me, then,” he groans. “Put me inside ye.” There's a tearing sound as he rips off yet another pair of my underwear.
The feel of his cock, it’s so good. Thick and hot, I squeeze him experimentally until he growls at me. Rising up, I tilt my pelvis, smiling wickedly at his expression as I slowly sink down on his shaft.
This is always my favorite moment.
When I’m so wet and he’s sliding inside me and there’s a moment when he feels like too much…
too much, so thick inside me but I want more.
The sleek feel of him throbbing inside me, his hands, squeezing my ass or cupping my breasts and when he’s finally all the way inside me, the crisp hair at the base of his cock tickling against my clitoris…
It consumes me.
I’m bouncing on him, trying and failing to keep my hands away from his sore chest until he gathers them behind my back, holding my wrists together.
“Lean over,” he orders hoarsely, “put that perfect, pink nipple in my mouth.”
It’s hard, arching my back against his hand gripping my wrists together at the base of my spine. His hot mouth sucks in most of my breast in a greedy mouthful and my orgasm tears through me, like a lightning strike on a power line, sparks flying everywhere.
My thighs are wet, his are too, and my husband swells impossibly wide, stretching me to a burn that’s just on this side of too much, and he floods me, groaning. “So fecking snug, crammed up inside ye. So good, wife.”
Slumping on top of him, I sigh as he pushes my sweaty hair off my face. When he circles his hips, I realize he’s still hard inside me.
“Don’t men need a recovery period?” I ask. “You’re almost thirty and everything.”
His hips slow down as he thinks about it.
“That’s enough,” he says, rolling me over and pulling my legs up to his shoulders as I laugh.
When I wake up the next morning, legs like jelly and definitely feeling where Wallace was last night, I see him already in a suit, looping his tie in the mirror.
“Oh, you are not doing this!” I snap, crawling out of bed. “No! No suits!”
“My father just got out of the hospital.” He straightens the tie into a tidy Windsor knot and pulls on his jacket, wincing slightly. “There’s still a clutter of whiney clients to reassure.”
His British accent is back.
“Alastair can make some phone calls!” Grabbing his jacket, I make him look at me. “Don’t, please. I can’t stand to watch the light go out in your eyes again. This isn’t you.”
Gently taking my hands, he kisses them. “I am a Taylor as well as a MacTavish,” he says. “And I am the only one.”
“What- what about Isobel? We talked a lot when I was visiting your dad. She’s majoring in finance, right?”
“Isobel is only twenty-two. I’m twenty-eight.
This…” His head drops. “This is for my father. I owe him for all the years I stayed away. He never complained, but I will be here for as long as he needs me.” He frowns, brushing my hair away from the healing scar on my forehead. “Can you be happy here?”
I kiss his beautiful lips, his cheeks, and his chin. “I will be happy wherever I’m with you. But you won’t be. Not here.”
His phone lights up on the dresser next to his watch. “That’s Dad’s ringtone.” He lets go of me to answer it. “Dad? Are you all right? Yes, I will stop asking you that. I’ll probably be the only one. People can’t help themselves.”
Wallace looks at me, frowning. “Aye- yes, she’s right here. Of course. We’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
He eyes my wrinkled pajama bottoms. “How quickly can you change? Dad wants to see us both.”
“On it,” I fake a smile that drops the minute he leaves the bedroom.
Please don’t ask your son to stay here. Please.
The car ride over is silent. I’m suitably attired in a green cashmere dress and my hair in a French twist, looking, I think bleakly, like a CEO’s wife.
This is my first time at Sorcha and Alastair’s home, and it is awe-inspiring.
It stretches grandly down the block and I suspect a couple of other homes were knocked down to enlarge it.
It’s a Tudor with stately beams and a turret on each end of the house.
A butler who could possibly be James’ twin answers the door.
“Good morning, Mr. and Mrs. Taylor. Your parents are in the study.”
Mactavish-Taylor! I want to snap, instead, I give a polite smile, just like Wallace.
He steps aside and Wallace takes my hand, leading me down the hallway with a myriad of portraits of Taylor ancestors, looking down at us disapprovingly.
The study, thank god, has no ancestors on the walls. Instead, there’s stacks of books, vases of flowers and a comfortable set of furniture covered in a dark tweed material by the fireplace.
Which is lit.
“Welcome,” Sorcha gives me a kiss on the cheek. “Come sit down quickly, or Alastair will insist on standing up with his proper British manners.”
“I’m capable of getting up, darling,” Alastair says patiently. “There are no bullets left in me. My heart is fine.”
“So, you’ve had just as much luck getting him to slow down as I have with your son, huh?” Sorcha and I exchange smiles. Nothing like critically wounded husbands to really make you bond with your mother-in-law.
“That’s a given,” she sighs.
Wallace sits next to me, closest to the fireplace, of course. Alastair had been sitting like a king in the huge armchair, but he rises gracefully to sit next to Sorcha. It’s a weird sort of standoff, us on one couch, and them facing us on the other.
No one’s talking.
I know Wallace won’t talk first because he considers it a token of respect, waiting for his father to begin a conversation. The uncomfortable silence stretches out for another agonizing minute until Alastair leans forward abruptly.
“What life do you want, son?”
Wallace frowns, “I don’t understand.”
Alastair chuckles slightly. “They say that when you nearly meet death, there should be some sort of profound revelation, something that transforms you.” He eyes us both with amusement.
“I didn’t get that. What I did have, lying there in that rather uncomfortable hospital bed, was a long look back through my life. I looked at what I’d accomplished. The empire I’d grown. Our family. And I was proud. Happy with the life I’ve built with your mother.”
He kisses Sorcha’s hand.
“When you’re my age and looking back, Wallace, I want you to feel the same way.”
There’s a cautious hope swirling behind my heart.
“So,” Alastair repeats patiently, "I'll ask you again. What life do you want?”
“Sir,” Wallace shakes his head and I remember Mala’s comments about the infuriating devotion to duty these MacTavish men have. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“For heaven’s sake,” Sorcha interrupts. “Your father was shot and almost died. Now, he has a second chance at life. So we’re not going to take yours. This is your chance to be honest. Tell us, what life do you want?”
Wallace, my husband who always seems to know exactly what to say or do, just sits there, mouth slightly open.
Nudging him, I whisper, “Tell them.”
“Alec and I are merging our companies,” Alastair says.
“Over eighty percent of our operations are already legitimate, though…” He gives us a swashbuckling sort of grin that I’ve seen on Wallace’s face many times.
“Though we aren’t willing to completely withdraw from the left-hand path. Life would be too boring.”
Sorcha rolls her eyes, hiding a smile.
“If that’s what’s keeping you from telling me what life you want to lead, set it aside. The Taylor-Davies Corporation is a behemoth. No one man could run it, anyway.” Alastair braces his elbows on his thighs. I can tell it hurts him but he’s not backing down.
Putting my hand on Wallace’s thick thigh, I can feel his leg shift and the muscles flex as I squeeze it.
“The stone house in Tweed Valley,” Wallace says, almost too low to hear. “My wife. I dinnae want to wear a suit. I want the path we were on, Scarlett and I.”
“Then do it,” Alastair says, clapping his hands together once.
The sound is sharp in the quiet room and I jump a little.
“Just don’t run away from us again. You can never disappoint me if you’re doing what you’re good at.
Rather brilliant, actually. Your role in the MacTavish and the Taylor families will always be vital. ”
Wallace’s tan skin is pale; he looks genuinely shocked.
“We know why ye kept away for so long,” Sorcha says. “Not wanting to disappoint us, but not wanting to be chained to a CEO’s office. Still feeling, though, that you owed it to us.”
“I’ll always come, if you need me,” Wallace says, the same cautious hope I’m feeling is beginning to show on his face.
“We know,” Alastair says gently. “I’m rather looking forward to sending you out on a job every now and then. You have a certain skill set I do enjoy seeing in action.”
“Just come to London more,” Sorcha says, “knowing that you can always go home with a clear conscience.”
Wallace pulls me to him, half on his lap and kisses me fiercely. “Do ye want to go home, lass?”
“Yeah,” I whisper, “but we should probably wait to celebrate until we’re out of your parent’s drawing room.”
The Left Hand Path - The path not often taken, the Scottish and Irish term for the crime world.