Hard Rules (Dirty Money #1)(59)

“I don’t want your money.”

“All right. I’m sorry. It was just my instinct to give you what you gave up for me.” He lowers his forehead to mine. “Forgive me.”

The apology tears down the wall I’ve instinctively erected, my anger sliding away with it, my hand curling on his cheek. “Yes.”

Leaning back, he cups my face to look at me. “Thank you for what you did.” He leans in and brushes his lips over mine, his hands slipping under my shirt, his shirt, to scorch my bare skin. “Thank you for coming here tonight.” He drags the T-shirt over my head, tossing it aside, his gaze and fingers are instantly on my nipples, which tighten with electric sensations. “I won’t bribe you with money,” he promises, his sizzling stare lifting to mine, “but sex, is another story.”

“What exactly is it that you want to bribe me for?”

“I haven’t decided yet.” He lowers me to the couch, the deliciously heavy weight of him settling on top of me. “But,” he continues, “I am certain no answer I’ll come up with, including giving you your clothes back, will come to me any time soon.” His mouth closes down on mine, his tongue doing a sultry slide past my lips. I think right now I’d give him anything he’d ask for. Even the revelation of my secret, which I know I’d live to regret. And so would Shane.





This is the life we chose, the life we lead. And there is only one guarantee: none of us will see heaven.



—John Rooney





CHAPTER FOURTEEN


SHANE


I wake on the couch where Emily has fallen asleep on top of me, the dim lights I never turned off glowing around us. I hear her murmuring, “No. No. No. It can’t be true. No!”

“Emily, sweetheart,” I say, stroking her hair.

“No! No, I—”

“Emily,” I say more firmly. “You’re having a nightmare.”

She jerks up, her hand pressed to my chest, her naked body draped over mine. “What happened?” She shuts her eyes. “Nightmare. It was a nightmare, right?”

“Yes. Do you have them often?”

“Yes. What time is it?”

I glance at my watch. “Three o’clock in the morning.”

“I … should go.”

I tighten my arm around her waist. “You’re not going anywhere, sweetheart.” And I’m surprised at how vehemently I say those words and mean them. “Not unless you plan on me going with you.”

Her eyes flicker with some emotion I want to name but never get the chance. She eases back down, pressing her cheek to my chest. I rest my hand on her head and back, capturing one of her legs with mine. “You want to talk about it?”

“No,” she says, her fingers curling in my chest hair. “I most definitely do not want to talk about it.”

My nature is to press for answers, and I want to know Emily inside and out, but I read people well, and if I push her too hard, she will run again. I settle for holding her, listening to her breathing slow, reveling in the feel of holding her close, this woman who has taken me by storm and managed to be the cool breeze in the midst of my personal hell. Only when I am certain she’s asleep do I shut my eyes and let my mind go to the place it resists. I can only assume that Derek is watching me as I am him, and he’ll know Emily was here. The question is, how will he handle that information? My mind starts chasing the possibilities, and I lose myself in my thoughts. They fade into the sound of her breathing and the darkness that transforms into the past.

It’s only one week before college entrance exams and I get the flipping flu and then manage to lose my house key. Feeling like absolute hell is not the time to do this shit. I walk around the back of the house where I hope the door is unlocked. It might not be, considering my brother is off at college, my mother is off on some girls’ weekend trip, and my father is never home. I reach for the knob, and hell yes! It’s open. I enter the house, and head straight to the kitchen for something to drink, stopping dead in my tracks. I blink, not sure I’m seeing what is in front of me. But I am. Our neighbor, and my friend’s mother, is naked on our counter while my father’s pants are around his ankles while he bangs her.

“You sorry son of a bitch,” I growl, turning away before I beat the shit out of him, and leave the house. Fighting the urge to turn back around and pound him, I take off running, and I don’t stop until the nausea hits me a good few blocks away. I turn the corner and enter a park. I find a tree to collapse underneath before dialing Derek and hoping like hell he’s not in class.

“What’s up, brother?” he answers.

“I just walked in on Dad f*cking our neighbor.”

“Oh shit man. Congrats.”

“Congrats? What the f*ck is that, Derek?”

“You just scored hush money, or that Mustang Cobra you wanted.”

“Hush money?”

“How do you think I got my Porsche? I know something he doesn’t want me to tell.”

“You think this is okay?”

“It is what it is, Shane. You’ll figure that out in time. When something goes wrong, find a way to get something out of it. Take the Mustang and keep your mouth shut.”

I come back to the present in a rush of sunlight and the sound of my cell phone ringing. I inhale Emily’s sweet scent, and feel the knot of guilt lodged in my chest for never telling my mother about that day. I wonder if she’d have really cared any more than she does today. The ringing stops and I glance at my watch. Seven A.M. That, and Emily’s naked body pressed to mine, inspire me to close my eyes and attempt to go back to sleep. The ringing starts again, the persistence upping the chances it’s Seth and thus important. Reluctantly, I ease Emily off me, her naked breasts brushing my hand. Her soft moan is pure sex that has my body thickening in uncomfortable demand.