20. Harvey
Chapter 20
Harvey
I sit on the edge of my couch, Aspen pacing nervously back and forth as she chews the corner of her thumbnail, the meeting with Connor leaving her visibly shaken.
“He said he’s in love with me, that this was just a test.” She pauses pacing to look at me, her eyes wide in disbelief. “He mentioned marriage and running off together and babies, Harvey. Babies .”
“Did he seem to suspect you at all or did he believe you when you played along?”
“I think he believed me.” She begins to pace again. “I can’t believe he made me take off my clothes.” She shudders and I stand to approach her, reaching out to pull her back into my arms.
We’ve been at this for the last two hours. Her pacing, explaining every last detail about her conversations with Connor and Lyra, but then questioning everything once she says things aloud and talks through them.
“I’m sorry, baby.” I close my eyes, the rage that has been slowly bubbling inside me against Connor Blake beginning to develop into a full-blown boil. I want to tell her that had I known he demanded she remove her clothes, I would have been through that door with a gun to his head faster than you could blink, but I know that isn’t going to help in this situation. “Do you want take a shower? I can wash his touch away.”
She shakes her head. “I need to think through everything again, make sure I’m not missing something.”
“Hey.” I tip her chin upward, turning her focus back on me. “You did what you needed to do today. You’re running on adrenaline right now and when it wears off, you’re going to crash. So, why don’t we eat something and then rest, okay?”
“You should see the evidence I found on his computers.” She steps away from my grasp. “The financial fraud is nothing compared to the litany of illegal NDAs he had only women sign, the non-competes that are so wildly controlling that it would decimate someone’s career if they signed it. Not to mention the decades of tax evasion and the miles-long trail that led directly to his embezzlement of over one hundred million dollars from Outside Media. The only reason he hasn’t been caught is because he’s a master at manipulating people, making them think that he’s just your average nice guy next door with a charming smile and that ambitious glint in his eyes.”
“That’s how people like him get away with it for so long, money, power and the fucked-up ability to have zero conscience.” I run my hand down her back. “So what happens now that you’ve sent everything to the authorities and Lyra? Have you considered reaching out to Jaxson? Just sending him the information to see what else he can do with it?”
She doesn’t answer, her arms just tighten around me as she buries her face in my chest. I close my eyes and savor it, the feeling that for once in my life this is my happily ever after. “I love you.” I whisper the words and that’s when I hear it, a sniff. I pull her back, my shirt wet with her tears that are running down her cheeks.
“He’s going to try and kill you,” she says through broken tears.
“What?” I step back, my hands falling to her upper arms.
“I thought I knew what the plan was, I thought I was enough steps ahead of him that I could see this through, but all this work and I feel like I’ve failed you. I’ve failed us.”
“Baby.” I walk us to the couch to sit down. “You need to walk me through what the hell is going on here.” She wipes her tears, regaining her composure.
“I thought that once I had all this evidence it would be over. He’s meeting with Lyra later this week which means their divorce settlement is right around the corner. I thought everything would come out and we could just walk away, letting it all implode but—he wants you dead and he’s going to set Lyra up for the fall.”
My head spins as she explains Connor’s plan to have me killed—at least as best she knows it. I can’t say I’m surprised. It’s not the first time I’ve had a target like this on my back, but in the past, that’s all it was, just me. Now, with Aspen to think about, this isn’t going to be a walk away and let the chips fall where they may kind of resolution.
“So that’s why he kept us around,” I think out loud. “Let me guess, the threats are fake?” She nods. “I’m not surprised. Jimmy and I had our doubts from the beginning. Hell, Alex and Luka thought it felt like a setup too but…”
“But what?” She looks up at me with her big brown eyes, wide and filled with fear.
“We couldn’t figure it out.” I laugh, feeling like an idiot but then again, how would we have put all these pieces together on our own? “You figured it out, baby.” I kiss her nose. “You played along with him in that meeting; you managed to get that fucker to trust you and spill his guts to you just like that.”
I can’t keep the fucking smile off my face. I pick her up and spin her around.
“I don’t understand how this is a good thing?” she says, confused. “It just complicated everything by like a million times and I didn’t tell Lyra; she doesn’t know.” Panic seizes her voice.
“Hey, you did the right thing.” I grab her face, forcing her to look at me. “Listen to me, Aspen. You did your part. This… this is my part, my expertise. I don’t want Lyra to know about this threat. I don’t want anyone but you and me to know… Do you understand me?”
Her eyes search mine frantically. “I can’t lose you.”
“You won’t. I promise you that Connor Blake will never take you from me… Nobody will ever take you from me. You’re mine, Aspen. Do you trust me?”
She nods her head slowly. “Yes. Yes, I trust you.”
“Good. Now I’m going to ask one other thing of you and when I say I need you to trust me and listen, I mean it. Don’t speak another word of this ever to anyone… I mean it. Take it to the grave, the same way that you and Jaxson are taking what happened to your father to the grave.”
I watch her eyes as she slowly comprehends what I’m saying and accepts it. The fear and panic that was just flooding her emotions slips away right in front of me.
“I promise.”
“What are you thinking about?”
Aspen’s warm body stirs beside me on the couch. The few slices of pizza we didn’t finish still sitting in the box on the coffee table, the TV still playing reruns of Friends. Sometime in the last few hours, we managed to fall asleep in each other’s arms, wrecked from the emotions of the day.
“Mmmm,” I groan, rolling her body so that she’s lying on top of me. My arms stretch across her back, my nose buried in her neck.
I don’t tell her what’s really been running through my mind the last few hours during short bursts of lucidity between naps—how to handle Connor. I could tell Lyra. I do know that she has a few contacts and handlers that she’s associated with. I found that out when Jimmy and I were doing recon on this assignment. Connor wasn’t lying about that fact. But the risk of involving others isn’t something I want to take on, but the real reason, the selfish fucked-up one… I want to deliver on that promise I made to him on day one.
“What I want to do with you.” I let my hands slide down her back to her ass, grabbing a double handful.
“I do have one teeny tiny little confession.” She holds up her fingers so they’re almost touching.
“Oh yeah?” I smack her ass playfully. “Anything that will get you in trouble?”
“Maybe,” she says coyly. “I might have located Connor’s secret crypto currency wallet.”
“Oh?”
“And I might have been able to siphon some away to clean out all of my mom’s medical bills.”
“Holy shit.” I laugh. “Did you tell Lyra?”
“No.” She chews her bottom lip. “I actually feel really bad about that but she’s about to get all of Connor’s money once they figure that mess out and she’s already a multimillionaire several times over with her family money. I only took enough to cover the bills. Nothing more.”
“You should have taken all of it.” I laugh. “Damn, you surprise me more and more, you know that?” My hands find her hips and I pull her down so she grinds against me. “My girl’s bad,” I say, sitting up to flick her earlobe with my tongue before sucking on it.
“So bad,” she says, her fingers curling against me as I drag my tongue over her neck.
I feel her body tense against me, her hips coming down harder against me as she starts to grind them.
“So naughty.” I nip her jaw, a move I know combined with dragging my lips over her neck will have her trembling in seconds. “In fact,” I say, swinging my legs off the couch so I can stand and pick her up in the process, “I think you need to be punished… thoroughly.”
“More,” she pants, her naked body writhing beneath me on the bed.
“Oh, you’re going to get more, baby.” I sit back and flip her over, pulling her up by her hips so she’s on all fours. “A lot fucking more.” I slap her ass, a resounding thwack combined with her moan echoing around us. “Is that what you need, baby? A good hard fuck to remind you who you belong to?” I smack her again, her hips jutting backward toward me.
“Yes, please.”
“Look at you.” I press my hand against the space between her shoulder blades until her chest is flat against the bed. “With your red ass in the air.” I grip her cheeks, spreading them apart so I have a clear view of all of her. “Pussy spread, begging for my cock.”
My resolve is hanging by a thread, my cock bouncing at her entrance that’s ready for me. I slide two fingers inside her, then pull them back out so I can taste her.
“Yeah, you’re ready,” I say, licking the last remnants of her from my fingers. I grab two pillows, shoving them beneath her belly so her hips stay elevated for me. “You can scream into a pillow or you can break that headboard, baby, but I hope you’re ready because I’m about to fuck you into next week.”
I don’t give her time to adjust when I slide in. I take her mercilessly.
“This is what you need, baby. Trust me,” I grunt, the sound of my hips slapping against the backside of her ass. “Rough and deep.”
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” Her volume grows with every thrust that slides in an inch deeper than before.
My balls tighten, my chest burns, and my fingernails dig into the tender flesh of her hips. I’m already seconds away from blowing and I know I won’t be able to contain it.
“Fuuuuuck meeee.” It’s a plea, a long, low guttural plea that sends me over the edge. Her walls clench and pulse, her pussy spasming around my cock as she milks every last drop from me.
When I pull myself from her, I collapse down onto the bed, both of us panting and sweaty.
“Goddamn,” I gasp, my hand resting on her still pink ass. “You’re going to fucking destroy me.”
She lets out a soft giggle, turning to look at me. Her hair is wild, her mascara smeared. “I think you rearranged my organs.”
“I think you’ve rewired my brain.”
We both stare at each other, basking in the postcoital glow.
“You’ve rewired mine.”
“Yeah?” She nods. “How so?”
“You’ve helped me believe in myself again, something I didn’t think I’d ever be able to do after what my dad and now Connor did to me.”
“Confidence looks good on you.” I smooth away her messy hair. “You deserve that. You deserve to be happy and loved for who you are. Don’t ever make yourself small or less than for someone.”
Aspen curls her body into mine, her eyes slowly drifting closed. “Hold me, please.”
“Forever, baby.” I wrap my body around hers. “You’ll always be safe in my arms.” Just before she falls asleep, she opens her eyes one more time to look at me.
“Karma always finds a way, right?” I hold her closer, kissing the top of her head as we settle against each other.
“Yes, baby. Karma always finds a way.”