CHAPTER 77
Finn
Two days and one night of bliss.
I love Jasmine with all my heart, but I have to admit that a little privacy with Emma has been paradise. It’s been just what we both needed.
I brew us coffee in the French press and make a breakfast platter with the croissants and fresh fruit I had delivered. All the windows of the house are open, letting in a sea breeze and the scent of salt.
Bringing the tray into the bedroom, I stop in the doorway to find Emma lying seductively on her side, her back to me, gazing out at the ocean.
She’s doing this on purpose.
When I walked out of here a few moments ago, she was naked, half covered in the sheet. And now she’s back in the negligee.
“You’re playing a dangerous game, girl.”
She looks over her shoulder at me and smiles.
Fuck me.
That perfect ass is cupped in the poorest excuse for a pair of thong panties I’ve ever seen. Only recently did I learn that the less fabric a negligee requires, the more it costs.
It’s a good thing I’ve got money.
She rolls onto her other side, bends her top knee, and produces a satisfied half-smile. I am looking at one sexed-up, relaxed woman. The woman I love and the one who loves me in return.
My Emma.
I have to place the tray on the bedside table, because I worry I’m about to drop it.
Emma is displaying herself to me. The delicate strips of hand-crafted lace part along her front, revealing the perfect rounded globes of her breasts. The firm surface of her belly. And the barest whisper of her sweet pussy, unable to hide behind a tiny triangle of transparent fabric.
I want to make love to her again. I will make love to her again. But the poor girl needs some fortification first. We’ve been at it for hours.
We’re always at it for hours.
I sit on the edge of the bed and lean in on my elbows. I let my finger slip beneath the silk ribbon tied below her breasts, then let the back of my hand graze the satiny swell of a breast. Her skin is slightly tanned from our time on the boat, our time on the deck, our time on the beach.
I reach behind me to snag her coffee cup, and I hand it to her. She takes a sip of her coffee, lifting her dark eyes to me over the rim of the cup. Her thick black lashes close and open.
“If you look at me like that, I’ll have to take you again. No coffee for you.”
“What about the croissants?”
“Those too. You may never eat again.”
I see those shiny lips on the cup and the hint of her pink tongue. Of course I think back to how she took all of me in her mouth last night, made me cum harder than I’ve ever cum in my fucking life, and swallowed every drop.
She holds her hand out for a croissant, and I place one in her palm. She takes a big bite and licks her lips, making me moan and squirm.
“Dangerous, dangerous game,” I tell her.
She quirks her lips.
“We have to meet Declan in three hours, so we better set sail soon. That leaves us just enough time to take a shower.”
“We could save time and shower together.” She takes another bite and wiggles her brows.
“Sounds wise. Cuts time and cuts water use. Very eco-conscious.”
Emma hands me her cup and half-eaten croissant, and scoots over to sit on my lap. She nuzzles my ear and traces my neck with long, languid kisses. Slipping my arms under her, I stand, lifting her up.
She continues to kiss me while I carry her to the bathroom and into the shower.
“We probably shouldn’t get the negligee wet,” she whispers.
“Right, because that sucker’s going home with us.”
We’re thirty minutes late to meet Declan at the airport in Long Beach. We would have liked to be a few hours late, but both Emma and I have a nagging habit of being responsible.
“I hate to leave here,” Emma said, as I locked up the house in Catalina.
“We can come here for the weekend once a month if you want.”
She looked up at me with the sweetest expression that made me want to give her the world, not just a monthly trip to Catalina.
“We could do that? Every month?”
I love the idea of making plans with Emma months in advance. I love that we’ll be together months from now. I read the same emotion in her eyes. The connection.
The love.
And now we’re here at the airport, walking on the tarmac toward the StellaR Tech jet. Declan is leaning back against the airstairs, his arms crossed in front of him, his face downturned and upset.
“You’re lucky I didn’t fly without you,” he calls out.
“Thirty minutes,” I point out. “A measly thirty minutes.”
“Would you say that to United Airlines? NASA?”
“It’s my fault,” Emma calls. “I took too long doing my hair.”
I look over at her and nod in enthusiastic support. Declan won’t believe that’s why we’re late. No one would. Emma is a suntanned and windblown woman with fresh-out-of-bed, hot-sex, hot-mess hair.
And the most perfect thing I’ve ever seen.
“And it was well worth it, because you look fabulous!” Declan gives me an appreciative smile when he says this, and I can’t help but smile back. I’ve never been a locker room talk kind of guy, but I’m ready to hire the Pacific Fleet Marching Band to announce that that I managed to snag Emma Clark.
“Did you pick it up?” I whisper this to Declan as I pass him to climb onto the plane after Emma.
“Yep.” He slides the small package into my hand, and I shove it in my front pocket. “Insurance documents are being overnighted. Only for you, my dude. You know how much I fucking hate Beverly Hills.”
I pat him on the shoulder. “Appreciate it.”
I board, with Declan right behind me. He motions for the ground crew to wheel away the stairs and closes the door. “Off we go, everyone.” He heads to the cockpit.
We’re not alone in the plane. Declan has that other passenger he’d mentioned, though I was so focused on Emma I don’t remember anything he said about them.
But I recognize him. He’s a feed broker we do business with.
In truth, I’ve never been in close quarters with the guy before—I’ve only encountered him at the ranch and at a distance.
Special K calls him “Scarface.”
The man is wearing a cheap suit and unpolished shoes. He stands and extends his hand. I shake it.
“J.R. Perkins,” he says. He glances behind me at Emma, but she’s got her head turned away, like the airport tarmac is the most interesting thing she’s ever seen.
“Finn MacLaine.”
We both take our seats as the plane is already rolling toward the runway.
I do my best to hide my shock.
Up close like this, I get the full effect of the broker’s disfigurement.
His face is hideous. That jagged scar is one of the nastiest I’ve ever seen, including hard-core combat wounds.
His eyelid has been sliced clean in half, along with the eyeball itself.
The jagged cut continues in a diagonal direction across the bridge of his nose, where it did a bang-up job of removing the edge of a nostril and the corner of his mouth.
That had to sting.
I know a lot about the damage knives can do to the human body, and this isn’t a scar from a lethally sharp weapon wielded in hand-to-hand combat.
This is the kind of fucked-up wound a man gets when he’s sliced by whatever happens to be lying around in the heat of the moment. A broken beer bottle. A pickax. A drywall screw.
I’m beginning to think the poor bastard chose the wrong night to wander down a dark alley.
I reach for Emma’s hand, but she isn’t giving it to me. I touch her shoulder, and she shrugs me off. I see her breathing heavily.
She’s turned all the way toward the window, as if she doesn’t want to see the inside of the plane. She’s reacting to the broker. It is a gnarly scar, so I can’t exactly blame her for turning away. But something’s telling me that’s not the only thing that she finds disturbing about the man.
I glance across the aisle to see J.R. Perkins trying to look around me at Emma. I instinctively cover her with my body. He tries to say something, but I turn away.
I have absolutely no idea what’s going on here, but it goes way beyond her discomfort with flying.
She obviously wants to be left alone. I’ll apologize later, because that isn’t happening. I lean in and place my lips to her ear. “Emma, it’s okay. Whatever it is, I’ve got you. You have nothing to be concerned about.”
She shakes her head.
We take off and climb into the sky, gaining altitude. This jet is a beast in the air, nothing like a commercial carrier. We’re at our cruising altitude fairly quickly. “Can I get you something, Emma?”
Finally, she reaches around blindly to grab my hand. It doesn’t feel like her touch. Her hand is clammy and her grip is weak.
Perkins stands and points right at Emma. He’s beaming, smiling ear to ear. “Emily! I thought you looked familiar.”
I’m on my feet. I spin and tower over him.
He smiles at me and takes a step back. Nice and easy. Not a threat at all. Polite.
Still…
“It’s me, Emily. And look at you, all grown up!”
He makes the mistake of reaching his arm in her direction. He’s lucky I didn’t just add to his collection of hideous scars.
“Mr. Perkins, take a seat back there.”
I gesture for him to move to a different armchair, one at the back of the plane. He does as he’s told. I sit across from Emma in facing chairs, my eyes on Perkins.
The man shrugs. “She’s always been emotional. Believe me, even as a child she was emotional. I tried to nurture that, let her be. My wife, on the other hand, couldn’t abide the snippiness. Like she’s doing now. The girls are always so emotional.”
Emma straightens. She’s not staring out the window anymore. She’s focused straight ahead, like she’s in a trance. Her face and neck have turned a splotchy red.
“Child?” I ask. “Your wife? What are you talking about? How do you know her?”
He laughs. “I was a father to her.”