Читать книгу The Wedding Party And Holiday Escapes Ultimate Collection - Кейт Хьюит, Aimee Carson - Страница 20

NINE

The meal Lena ordered for them turned out to be a feast. Saul’s Caravan set a lavish table, and not just in terms of the food. Lena discovered that fine china did not have to match when each piece was exquisite. She discovered that solid silver water pitchers and solid silver serving trays were mighty heavy, and that meze dishes were only the precursor to the main meal and that maybe she shouldn’t have tried a little bit of everything, because when the spicy lamb dish arrived, Lena had barely any room left in her stomach.

‘How much did you order?’ Trig had partaken heartily of the meze too.

‘I ordered the traditional feast for two, and Aylin mentioned something about five courses.’ They’d started with dips and bread and then moved on to the meze. ‘I’m thinking we’re up to course three and I’m pretty sure the last course involves coffee.’

Lena served a small portion of the lamb onto her heavily patterned blue and white plate and avoided the rice altogether. She indicated that she would serve Trig too, and he held out his plate while she spooned lamb onto it. ‘Enough?’

‘Thanks.’

He’d been on his best gentlemanly behaviour all evening. Keeping her wine glass topped up, saying he liked the dress and ignoring the fact that she wasn’t wearing any shoes and that her hair was still half damp from her swim and the shower she’d taken afterwards.

She’d made some effort—she had make-up and perfume on. Trig had made an effort too, for he’d dug a white collared shirt out of his bag and had it ironed before putting it on over jeans.

He’d never blended into the background easily, Trig Sinclair. His size had always made people look twice and the reckless glint in his eyes had usually kept their attention. Put him and Jared together, turn them loose on a party or a bar and chaos ensued. Women wanted to bed them, men wanted to challenge them and Lena often wanted to knock their heads together and tell them to grow up.

Looking at Trig tonight, his face smiling but his eyes guarded, Lena thought that maybe he had grown up. And that Lena had somehow missed it.

‘Five things you never wanted to be,’ she said. It was an old game, this one. A way of filling in conversation and acquiring information that you might not already know.

‘Conflicted,’ he said.

‘About what?’

‘You. Your past and my part in it. I always assumed that by letting you tag along with us whenever we went windsurfing or hang-gliding or whatever fool adrenaline rush we were on that week, that Jared and I were giving you options. It never occurred to me that we were limiting them. You followed us into covert operations without even thinking about the consequences. None of us did, but you’re the one who got busted up. That weighs on me a lot.’

‘Where’s this coming from?’

‘I spoke to Damon earlier. We talked about you. About your limitations.’

‘Thanks for nothing.’

‘Ruby’s pregnant.’

‘Oh.’ She refused to feel envy. She refused to feel longing. Those emotions had no place in the presence of Ruby’s good news. ‘That’s good, isn’t it? I get to be an auntie. Ruby gets to buy headbands for a baby. You can’t tell me you’re not looking forward to that.’

Trig’s eyes warmed ever so slightly. ‘Maybe. And it’s babies. Plural. She’s having twins.’

‘Seriously?’ Lena laughed. ‘That is awesome. You think they’d let us borrow them?’

‘I want children, Lena.’

Lena’s laughter stuck in her throat. They hadn’t talked about this; she knew it instinctively. Why hadn’t they ever talked about this?

‘No can do. I do know my limitations in that regard. You’ll get no biological children from me.’

‘We could adopt,’ her husband said gruffly.

‘We could.’ That was one option. ‘Or you could have a biological child with someone else. We could explore surrogacy.’

‘You’d consider that?’

‘You might have to get me a good shrink, but, yes. I could get on board with that. Could you?’

‘I’d probably have to share your shrink for a while.’

‘I could probably be your shrink for a while. These past couple of years I’ve become intimately acquainted with helplessness, hopelessness, anger, envy and old-fashioned irrational behaviour. I can show you round.’

Trig smiled at that and she reached forward and covered his hand with her own. ‘Don’t give up on me.’

‘Never.’

This was why she’d married this man.

‘I feel as if I’m in a place where I don’t have to run to keep up any more,’ she confessed. ‘I can’t run any more. Best I can do is hold my ground and stumble along, and you know what? You’re still there for me, and my family is still there, because it was never about me keeping up. It was about me believing that I belonged and I do believe that now. I’m happy now. I married you, which I have to say is probably the smartest thing I’ve ever done.’

‘About that...’ His gaze flickered to the bed.

‘Yes, about that. No pressure.’

‘Right,’ said Trig faintly and Lena smiled and cut him a break.

‘How’s your food?’

‘Good.’ Trig loaded up his fork and looked at it as if he couldn’t quite remember where it should go.

Lena smiled and took a quick bite of the fragrant lamb stew. Tasty.

‘Forget the bed,’ she said, although she hadn’t. ‘We still have several more courses to get through, and dancing still to go. I have my dancing frock on and everything.’

‘But no shoes.’

‘I don’t need shoes. You’re not wearing any either,’ she felt obliged to point out.

‘There’s no music.’

‘I found some pianola rolls. I put one in. Want to see if it plays?’

‘You love this room,’ he said with a crooked smile as she rose from the table, caught hold of his hand and tugged him towards the pianola.

‘I really do. It’s a little bit beautiful, a whole lot fascinating, and kind of cracked when you look up close. I’m hoping it might be the way you see me. Because, newfound sense of belonging or not, I’m still trying to figure out what you see in me.’

She fiddled with the pianola settings and the machine began to play a bright and jazzy tune that put her in mind of Gershwin and New York.

‘I should have packed the red lampshade dress.’

‘Or you could sit this one out.’

‘Good idea.’ She reached for another of the scrolls crammed into the shelving beside the pianola. ‘Hey, I remember this one from my mother’s jewellery box! Open the lid and music played and the little ballerina went round and round and round.’

‘I don’t want to go round and round,’ said Trig.

She pulled out another roll. ‘ABBA?’

‘Don’t make me shoot you.’

‘You do realise you’re not going to be able to threaten our children or our nephews and nieces with a shotgun every time they don’t share your taste?’

‘I’ll figure something out.’

‘What about this one?’ she said, holding up a pianola roll for his inspection. ‘I think it’s French.’ It was also something she could sway to—her dancing skills hadn’t exactly improved with age. ‘Bear with me,’ she said as she went to swap the rolls, only now Trig had decided to figure out how pianolas worked too. ‘Focus.’

‘I am focused.’

‘On me.’

He poked his head back out of the old machine’s innards. ‘But I can focus on you any time.’

He looked sincere. He sounded sincere. He set the pianola roll to rolling and the first few notes of gentle piano music flowed into the room.

‘Seems a little slow,’ he murmured.

‘It’s perfect. Which carpet would you like to dance on?’

He smiled at that. ‘The blue one by the end of the bed.’

‘That’s your favourite? Because I’m thinking of buying one just like it for the farmhouse on the banks of the lazy river.’

‘I do like the idea of a farmhouse on the banks of a lazy river,’ he admitted. Moments later he surrendered a wry smile and held out his hand for hers. When they reached the blue carpet he swung her gently around and into his arms and she put her hand to his chest, deeply satisfied when he drew a swift breath. His nipples had tightened and wasn’t that a pretty sight against the cotton of his shirt? She swiped her thumb across one well-defined little bump and he bit back a whimper. ‘You like that?’

He nodded.

She pressed a gentle kiss to his jaw next. ‘And that?’

‘Not complaining.’

‘Not encouraging me either.’

‘About that—’

She kissed his throat next and slid her hands beneath his shirt as he stood there and trembled beneath her touch. Heady business, seducing this husband of hers.

‘We should dance,’ he muttered.

‘To do that I’m pretty sure someone has to move.’

So he stepped in closer, wrapped his hands around her waist and began to move. He’d always been athletic. Occasionally, in the midst of one of his teenage growth spurts, he’d get a little clumsy until he figured out the workings of his bigger, broader body.

He wasn’t clumsy now.

Lena let her body follow where he led, and revelled in the brush of her chest against his, of her hips against his. Trig’s eyes darkened as he pushed her hair back off her face with his fingertips.

‘You do that a lot,’ she murmured.

‘Been wanting to do it for years.’

‘What stopped you?’

‘I wasn’t sure if it was what you wanted. Still not sure.’

‘I’m sure,’ she said, but he was already turning away.

‘C’mon, let’s finish the feast,’ he said and drew her back towards the table. They finished their main course and then smiling people cleared the table and dessert and coffee arrived.

Lena looked at the table laden with sweet delicacies and groaned. ‘I can’t.’ There was simply no room left in her stomach.

Trig grinned and popped a baklava into his mouth.

‘Oh, stuff it,’ she said and reached for a baklava too.

Trig began to laugh, a sound that was front and centre of so many of her memories. He hadn’t laughed much on this trip. For a man on his honeymoon he seemed to have a hell of a lot on his mind.

‘Are you really worried about having sex with me?’ she asked and Trig promptly swallowed down hard on his baklava. ‘Because I truly don’t understand why.’

‘I just want you to have all your memories back first.’

‘I don’t understand that either. What’s wrong with making new memories? I’m loving these new memories.’

Trig sat back and began to fiddle with the stem of his wine glass. ‘Me too.’

‘Is it the room? Is it too weird? Because, I have to say... I really like this place. I could get naked here and my scars wouldn’t look that out of place amongst the freaky furnishings. They fit. I fit. Being here with you in this place, it’s like a gift. Makes me want to check my inhibitions at the door.’

Trig pinned her with an intent gaze. ‘What inhibitions?’

‘Well, there’s the scars... I saw the way people stared at me in the bath house. I know the marks aren’t pretty, they’re never going to be pretty but they’re mine and the getting of them wasn’t without honour. You told me that.’

‘Lena—’

‘We don’t have to have the lights on. They can be off.’

‘I thought you said you were checking your inhibitions at the door?’

‘I’m just thinking about ways to make it better for you. You said you had performance pressure. I wondered if maybe you had trouble staying interested because of the scars.’

‘I don’t need the lights off,’ he said flatly.

‘Because you wouldn’t have to touch them. The scars, I mean. I don’t know what we usually do, but I do know that they wouldn’t be a turn-on for you. You probably just...skim.’

‘Lena, you have no idea what you’re talking about,’ he said icily. ‘I love you. Every contrary bit of you. Why the hell would I want to skim?’

He moved fast when he wanted to. He swept her off her feet and the next thing she knew she was on the bed and Trig was sinking down next to her, sending pillows tumbling to the floor. No weight on her at all but for the pressure of his hands curling around her wrists as he pinned her arms above her head.

‘I don’t skim,’ he rasped, and dragged his lips from her temple to the edge of her mouth. ‘Not with you. How the hell can you not know that?’

And then his lips were on hers and she opened for him and tasted champagne and cinnamon and the truth of his desire for her and it lit her blood faster than anything else ever could.

He didn’t rush. He kissed her for a good long while before moving on to her shoulders and her throat. By the time his lips skated the bodice of her dress, Lena was writhing against him, impatient for more. He found the zipper on her dress and it slid down easy and then his lips were on her again, his tongue curling around her nipple, flicking over it and then sucking softly, testing to see which one she liked best and hands down the sucking won. Hands in his hair she told him that, with her head flung back and her breath gone ragged.

He began to edge her dress down further but she stopped him with her hands. ‘Lights off,’ she whispered.

‘No.’

He shed his shirt, he got all the way undressed, not a shy bone in his body, and she loved that about him, even as she struggled with shedding her dress. He let her keep her panties on as he pressed open-mouthed kisses to the underside of her breasts and then her ribs and then his fingers touched the scar tissue that ran all the way from hip to groin. He pushed her legs apart and licked a stripe straight up the worst of the scars and she shuddered beneath the onslaught.

‘Don’t,’ she whimpered. She didn’t need this. He didn’t need to do this.

But he pressed soft kisses into the rest of her scars next and then set his mouth to the centre of her panties and started drawing circles with his tongue. Ever smaller circles until she was pushing those panties down herself and the minute she had them off one leg he got one arm beneath her buttocks and set his mouth to her again.

She couldn’t stop watching him and he kept his eyes on her, right up until his fingers joined the party and exposed her even more.

And then his lips were back on her scars and his cheek felt soft against them as he explored them with exactly the same attention as he’d given to the rest of her.

‘You don’t ever need to hide these from me,’ he muttered, while his fingers continued to work their magic, rendering her slick and ready for him. ‘I’ve seen them. I’ve watched you fight against them, get angry at them, despair of them but those are your emotions, not mine. These marks on your skin are a part of you now and I love them. I love you.’

He eased back up the bed until they were face-to-face again.

‘Say it,’ he demanded softly. ‘Say, “Trig loves all of me and always will and I will never doubt it”.’

‘Trig loves me,’ she whispered.

‘Louder.’

‘Trig loves me,’ she said more firmly.

‘Again.’

‘You love me. Now would you mind showing me?’

‘Been showing you for years.’

He eased onto his back, his gaze intent, willing her to follow, and she went with him, hands to his chest as she straddled him. Damn but he was built. She wasn’t going to break him, that was for sure. She wondered how careful he had to be when it came to not breaking her.

‘Take your time,’ he muttered. ‘There’s no rush.’

‘That’s good.’ Because she wasn’t in any hurry.

She started at his shoulders, touching and tasting, not skimming as she moved down his torso and learned the way his muscles ran and bunched. She put her hand over his and learned the rhythms he liked, the little flick of his thumb at the top of each stroke, and eventually she wet her lips and took him in her mouth, just the tip and took his curse as a benediction.

His hand fell away and she took him in deeper, feeling the stretch in her lips because he was beautifully proportioned all over and wasn’t exactly small. She tried to take a little more but ended up pulling off him with a loud pop. ‘Damn but you’d think I’d remember that,’ she offered. ‘Not to mention what I used to do with it because right now I’m guessing that deep throating you is out unless I’m a hell of a lot more practised at this than I appear to be.’

Trig groaned and hooked his hands beneath her armpits and the next minute he was kissing her again and surging against her, not inside her, not yet, but doing a mighty fine job of jutting up against her sweet spot regardless.

He had a thing about her hair, winding his hands in it as he grasped her head and deepened the kiss. He had a thing for wrapping his arms around her, one hand between her shoulder blades and the other palming her buttocks. He had a thing about kisses, deep and dirty.

Finally, she sat up and took him in hand and positioned him at her entrance. He put his hands to her hips and bit his lower lip, his eyes a hot glitter as he gave a little push.

Lena gasped. Trig stopped, closed his eyes and breathed.

She pitched forward, skin against skin, as much as she could. ‘Kiss me through it,’ she whispered against his lips, and he did, until he was embedded all the way inside her.

‘You okay?’ he asked.

‘I will be.’

‘You sure?’

‘You know me. I love a good challenge.’

‘You’re not exactly reassuring me here, Lena.’

‘You don’t need reassuring—we’ve done this before.’ She moved, a slow slide, a little pitch from side to side. He controlled her with his hands at her waist, lifting until she was almost off him, before sliding slowly back into her.

This time they both groaned.

He kept the pace slow and the rhythm easy. ‘You’re holding back on me, aren’t you?’ she whispered. ‘I thought you said you were all in?’

‘I am all in. Which is why I’m holding back on you.’

The man had a point. ‘Doesn’t seem exactly fair.’

‘I’m good,’ he said. ‘Any gooder and I’ll be gone.’

‘Still—’

‘Why are you even thinking?’ he said, and flipped her over and kissed her, probably just to shut her up, but the kiss turned sweet and tender somewhere along the way, and his hands were so very gentle as he slid between her legs and began to move.

She stopped thinking around about the time he tilted her hips just so and rocked against her. Every muscle in her stomach and below tightened in response.

‘You like that?’ he murmured against her lips.

‘Just like that.’

So he gave it to her exactly like that and shot her up to a place where she didn’t have to think at all.

Just feel.

* * *

Trig woke well before the dawn, pretending sleep, watching Lena sleep until he couldn’t stay there a moment longer. Regret rode him hard and shame followed suit. He hadn’t meant to lie beyond the hospital emergency rooms. He’d never meant to lie to Lena at all, but the lies had just kept coming and there’d never been a time to tell her straight that they weren’t married.

Except maybe last night.

Or the one before that.

Rolling from the bed, he groped around on the floor for his sweat pants and pulled them on. He headed for the courtyard and some air, looking out over the low stone fence at the lights of the city below. A party city, some said. A reckless place where people left their inhibitions behind and went after what they truly wanted.

Last night he’d taken what he’d wanted and to hell with the consequences.

This morning he wouldn’t be able to look at himself in the mirror.

He heard the rustle of bedcovers followed by a barely there groan. He turned and watched as Lena slipped from the bed and limped over to her suitcase. She drew out a white baby-doll nightie and slipped it on, lifting her hair out from underneath it. She tried to finger-comb her hair, caught him looking at her and stopped and shot him a rueful smile.

What was she thinking? What was her brain doing when it buried some memories and made a meal out of others? Why had she found it so easy to believe that they were married?

She walked up to his side and turned her back on the city lights in favour of leaning back against the wall and looking at him.

He couldn’t hold her gaze.

He leaned forward, hands to the wall and kept his eyes on the city. He shouldn’t have given in. Nobody was perfect, he knew that, but hell. His abuse of Lena’s trust was staggering.

‘Couldn’t sleep?’

‘No.’

‘Anything to do with me?’

‘No.’

‘Pretty sure you’re lying.’

‘Yeah, well. I do that.’

Lena wrapped her arms around her waist as if cold. ‘Why?’

Trig closed his eyes. ‘Just one bad call leading to the next, I guess. I got no excuses for you, Lena.’

She stayed silent for a while after that and Trig willed her to go away, go back to bed, anywhere as long as it was away from him. But she didn’t go anywhere, just ducked her head and bumped her shoulder against his. Wanting body contact, more body contact, and he flinched beneath the weight of her need and his guilt.

‘What else have you lied about?’ she asked raggedly.

Where did he even start?

‘Do you love me?’ she whispered and he closed his eyes and told her the one truth that had never wavered.

‘So much.’

‘Then it’s the job you’re lying about. You keep checking your phone. Something’s up. Is it a job? For ASIS?’

‘There is a job here,’ he offered, and cursed himself for taking the coward’s way out. ‘And you do need to know the basics of it, because it involves Jared, and because before you got concussed you were spearheading it.’

Lena blinked and then put the heels of her hands to her eyes in a gesture he knew of old.

‘I don’t remember,’ she whispered.

‘I know.’

‘Then isn’t it time you told me why we’re here?’

‘We’re here to find Jared.’

‘And then what?’

‘And then we leave.’

‘Doesn’t sound like much of a job.’

‘Finding him’s the catch.’

‘Jericho3,’ she murmured.

‘I had Damon do some digging. The owner’s a billionaire arms dealer. Russian.’

‘Specialising in what?’

‘Everything.’

‘And that’s where you think Jared is?’

‘Best guess. Truth is, I don’t know. He could be undercover. He might not want to break cover. He might not be able to break cover.’

‘If Jared’s undercover, why does he want to see us at all?’

‘Didn’t say he did. We’re the ones pushing for contact.’

‘But why?’

‘The old you is concerned for Jared’s safety. He hasn’t been in contact for a while.’

‘Are you concerned for his safety?’ Lena asked bluntly.

‘Not as concerned as you.’

‘Are ASIS concerned for his safety?’ Trig hesitated, and Lena drew a ragged breath. ‘Trig? Tell me Jared’s not working off the grid.’

‘Can’t tell you that.’

She put her hand to her head. ‘But he is reporting to someone. To you.’

‘No.’

‘How long since anyone’s seen him?’

‘It’s been a while.’

‘Trig, how long?’

‘Nineteen months.’

‘What?’ She didn’t understand. Her confusion was visible, palpable, and so was her anxiety. He reached for her and she went to him, still trusting him as he wrapped his arms around her.

‘How could we get married without him being there?’ Her words were muffled by his chest but Trig heard them anyway. He could have come clean then. We’re not married, he could have said.

But he didn’t.

‘Copper-haired girl said a woman and kid come in off that floating fortress once a week to attend a hospital appointment, regular as clockwork. They’re due in today. Copper-haired girl said they come with bodyguards. There’ll be someone to pilot the cruiser. I’ve tried to let Jared know we’re here. Someone’s clearing his phone messages. Might not be Jared, but if it is, he knows we’re here and he’ll do what he can to contact us.’

‘You think he’ll be part of the crew that’s coming in today?’

‘If he can be.’

‘And if he’s not?’

‘I take you home. Come back alone. Try and get an invite aboard Jericho3.’

‘No!’ Lena’s arms tightened around his waist. ‘I’m not losing you too.’

‘Lena—’

‘No. If Jared can’t get off that boat we put someone on watch here and we go home and pull Poppy and Damon into the picture and plan from there. You don’t get to be the idiot my brother is. I won’t let you.’

‘God, I love the new you.’ Trig lifted her and set her gently on the stone wall and she wrapped her legs around him and her arms around him as if she’d never let him go.

‘Good, because I’m beginning to think that the old me was a fool.’ Her eyes were grey this morning, a clear and guileless grey. ‘I love you. These secrets you keep from me, they don’t change that.’

He kissed her so that he wouldn’t have to speak.

Because the secret he still held... The one that sat like acid in his gut...

That little revelation was primed to destroy both their worlds and he had no one to blame but himself.