Authors: Mari Carr
When his father threw the struggling waitress onto the hood of a car and started to lift her skirt, the other men holding her down and tearing off her clothes, his dead soul came to life. He didn’t remember grabbing his father or pulling him away from the woman. There were only brief flashes of recollection in his memory. Of him pounding his old man into the asphalt. Of him beating the shit out of the other three men. Of the crying woman running away—her eyes reflecting absolute fear even though he’d just saved her. He didn’t blame her for being afraid. He could only imagine what he’d looked like in that moment. Too many years’ worth of rage had found their way to his fists and he was a man out of control.
In the end, all he recalled was standing in the middle of a dark parking lot with four unconscious men and the sound of sirens in the distance. He’d hopped on his bike and never looked back.
“Blake? What are you doing here?”
Blake blinked, forcing himself to the present, shocked to find Chloe standing in front of him. How the hell had she left the bar and walked all the way across the street without him noticing? So much for this stakeout.
Chloe looked completely annoyed. And a bit nervous.
He grinned. He could work with that. “I just got off duty, so I thought I’d take a little walk.”
She rolled her eyes. “Not much of a walk. I could see you from the front window of the Blue Note. You’ve been holding up this wall for the last twenty minutes. How did you even know I was going to be here?”
“I’m a detective.”
She smirked. “My mother told you.”
He chuckled. “Yeah. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
She sighed. “I’m perfectly capable of fending a guy off if he oversteps, despite my failed attempts with you.”
He knew that, but he suspected she’d prefer thinking he was just concerned for her safety rather than the fact he was so jealous he couldn’t see straight, so he let the lie stand. “Are you finished for the day?”
She shrugged. “I’m finished as far as working with Mr. January is concerned. Now I’m heading back to my studio to download the photos, find the best and tweak it.”
“Have time for lunch?”
She hesitated, but didn’t instantly refuse. Blake took that as a sign of progress. Before she could answer one way or the other, he pointed down Bourbon Street. “What do you say we grab some crawfish beignets at Bayou Burger?”
Chloe crinkled her nose. “Please tell me you don’t still eat those.”
Blake wrapped his arm around her shoulder, gently directing her toward the restaurant. Chloe fell into step easily beside him.
“Gotta say, Chloe, I’m sorry to hear you’re still a finicky eater.”
She scoffed. “The fact that I don’t cover every meal in hot sauce does not mean I’m picky. Quite the opposite, actually. It means I prefer to taste my food. You should try it some time.”
He laughed, the two of them trading barbs about their eating habits all the way to Bayou Burger. It wasn’t until they were seated and their drinks ordered that Blake could lean back and relax without worrying she’d change her mind and run.
“It was good to see your family again on Sunday, but I’m not sure who Zac is.”
Chloe took a sip from her water glass. “He’s my foster brother. You wouldn’t have met him. He came to live with us the summer after you…” She paused.
There was no point pretending. “After I left,” he finished for her.
She nodded. “He and his younger brother, Noah, were removed from their home when their mother was arrested for prostitution and drugs. Zac was fifteen and Noah was only twelve. Before they came to stay with us, they’d been living in a house with no running water and eating whatever they could steal from dumpsters behind restaurants.”
The story sounded familiar. Blake had done a bit of fine garbage dining himself when he was younger, but Chloe didn’t know that. He’d never told her anything about his childhood because at the time, Blake had worried she would either dump him or worse, pity him. There were times he wished he could go back and kick his nineteen-year-old self’s ass for being such a prideful idiot.
Listening to her tell Zac’s story, he didn’t hear sympathy as much as anger toward the boys’ mother.
“How long did they stay with you?”
Chloe sighed. “Two years the first time. Then the court—in its less-than-infinite wisdom—gave them back to their mother. Their lives returned to more of the same, only worse. Their mother kept smoking crack and sleeping with men for drug money. One of the guys—a customer—beat Zac up one night. It was really bad. Noah was scared so he ran to a neighbor’s house and called my mom. She phoned the police, then all three of my brothers. They got to the house just before the cops and found Zac in a bloody heap on the floor.”
“Jesus.” Blake couldn’t imagine how hard it would have been for those young boys to spend two years in the loving, safe Lewis home, only to have to give that up to return to the slum. Then he recalled the few times he’d found security in his young life. Every single time, he’d willingly given it up and gone back to the hell that was life with his dad.
“Mama said she’d never been so scared in her life. She thought Zac was dead. Anyway, Caliph stayed with Zac, while Jett and Justin helped Mama and Noah pack up all their belongings.”
“What about Zac and Noah’s mother?”
“She’d been passed out in her bedroom. Didn’t even realize anything had happened to Zac. She came out in the hall and started screaming at my mother because she thought she was stealing her sons. She told them to get out, to leave her boys alone. Justin said Mama looked that woman straight in the eye and told her she should be ashamed of herself.”
Blake fiddled with his fork, chuckling. “Did it work?”
Chloe grinned. “What do you think? Mama’s good at guilt trips. It’s pretty much the way I was raised. She only had to look at me with that
I’m so disappointed
face and I’d crumble like a house of cards.”
Blake laughed. “I remember that. She used that look on me a couple times. It’s powerful.”
“Justin said the lectures we’d gotten as kids were small potatoes compared to the speech she gave Zac and Noah’s mom. He said he was nearly in tears and begging for forgiveness himself and he hadn’t done anything wrong. Their mom fell apart when she saw Zac lying on the floor and she asked my mother to take her boys, to give them a chance to grow up safe and healthy. They’ve been ours ever since.”
“What happened to their mom? Did she straighten her act out?”
Chloe shook her head sadly. “She’s still alive. I know Zac goes to see her every now and then, takes her some food and medicine, but no. There wasn’t a happy ending. She’s still addicted. You know how that goes.”
Blake knew only too well. “Yeah, I do.”
“Did you really arrest your dad?”
He nodded. He’d been expecting the question ever since he stupidly made that comment at Sunday dinner. “I did.”
“That couldn’t have been easy.”
Blake shrugged as he recalled the near-rape in the bar parking lot. In some ways, putting his dad in prison had been a hell of a lot simpler than he would have thought. “My dad and I had parted ways several years before the arrest. He’d been a criminal, on some level, for my entire life. Stealing, drunk driving arrests, drugs—selling and using—assault, you name it, it was on his rap sheet.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me that when we were dating?”
Blake wasn’t pleased with his answer, but it was the only one he had. “Pride.”
She frowned. “What?”
He released a long breath. “You weren’t like any other girl I’d ever dated, Chloe. You didn’t come from the same place I did. When I was with you, I could pretend I wasn’t that guy.”
“What guy?”
“My life wasn’t all that different from Zac and Noah’s. Only I was dealing with a drunk dad instead of a strung-out mother.”
“I wish…”
Chloe’s whisper faded away, leaving Blake to fill in the blank. What did she wish? That she’d known? That Mama Lewis had shown up in the middle of the night and dragged
him
out of hell? That he hadn’t been such a prideful, puffed-up idiot?
He smiled. “There are a lot of things I wish too. But none of that matters. I’ve done a lot of things I regret, Chloe, but I can’t let my mind linger on that too long. Everything that’s happened has made me the man I am today.”
She studied his face in silence, glancing away briefly. Then her eyes lifted to his once more. They were shuttered, closed and he knew she was finished with this conversation.
The waiter brought their meals and they allowed the conversation to drift to safer realms. Chloe talked about her experiences putting together her book and he shared some of his more humorous arrest stories just so he could hear Chloe’s laughter.
Once he’d paid the bill, he took her hand, offering to walk her back to her place. She didn’t refuse.
When they arrived, she invited him inside, giving him a tour. The studio apartment was a large, wide-open space, filled with sunlight and color. It suited Chloe perfectly. Near the front door, she’d set up her portrait area with lighting and backdrops, tripods and cameras. Then, they walked farther into the room to her living area. A plush couch and ottoman flanked by two recliners all faced the large-screen television.
Blake whistled. “Damn. Man cave.”
She laughed. “Yeah. My brothers and I are huge hockey fans and I was tired of all of us trying to cram ourselves into Jett’s shoebox apartment on game nights.”
“Why not go to Justin’s? Didn’t he mention something on Sunday about his house?”
Chloe nodded. “Yeah, but he lives too far out of town. The trek there and back in a cab is a pain. And Caliph’s work schedule changes all the time.”
“So you put a hockey haven in your apartment.”
She grinned. “Yep. Between October and April, you can find at least a couple Lewises here almost every night, depending on the match-ups.”
“Sounds like fun. I’m a Maple Leaf fan myself.”
Chloe looked horrified. “Dear God. I didn’t think anyone rooted for Toronto unless they were forced to because they lived there. You must be a glutton for punishment.”
He narrowed his eyes. “They aren’t that bad.”
She shuddered, clearly enjoying the opportunity to push his buttons. “Yeah, well, they aren’t that good, either.”
“You and I are going to make a wager once the season starts back up.”
“What makes you think you’re still going to be around come October?”
Blake reached for her before she could read his intent. He tugged her body flush against his until he could feel her hot breath on his face. “I’m going to be here.”
She opened her mouth to chastise him, but there was only one way he’d accept her tongue-lashing and that was literally. He kissed her, holding tightly—partly out of fear she’d try to stop him and partly because there was no way he could resist the feeling of her body pressed against his. The last decade melted away—all the pain, anger and loneliness fading until there was nothing left, but this moment. And them.
Chloe wrapped her hands around his neck, the action lifting her breasts higher against his chest, capturing his attention. Keeping one arm around her waist, he brought his left hand up to cup her breast.
Chloe’s lips left his as she released a sharp, excited breath. Blake increased the pressure of this touch, squeezing, kneading. Neither of them sought to continue the kiss. Instead, Blake placed his lips to her forehead as Chloe panted softly, her quiet mews encouraging him. He ran his hands under her shirt, savoring the softness of her skin. He stroked his way around her waist, up her sides until he found the breast he’d just left. He smiled when he felt her lacy bra, the texture reminding him of the first time he’d ventured under Chloe’s shirt. Her breasts were slightly smaller then.
However, Chloe’s response was just the same. Her breathing was heavy, her body so hot, he wondered how she wasn’t burning his fingers. Her hips—now, like then—ground against his, taunting his cock, driving him insane with need.
When he was younger, he’d insisted they were made for each other. Chloe would laugh and tease him, claiming it was the girl’s job to be the silly romantic, not the guy’s. However, after years spent trying to find warmth in the arms of too many women, he realized it hadn’t been a foolish dream. It was the truth.
Blake ran his hands along the top of her bra, enjoying the slight shudder his touch provoked. Then he dipped his fingers beneath the lace, delving deeper until he found what he was searching for.
“God!” Chloe jerked when he lightly pinched her nipple, but his arm was still wrapped around her back and it kept her from escaping. Not that she was trying to. She plunged her hands into his hair, gripping it so tightly it stung. He didn’t care. He relished the pain, loved feeling her passion, her need. It made him feel less alone.
He pinched her nipple again, firmer this time. Chloe’s hips thrust against his and he wished there weren’t so many damn clothes between them.
That thought prompted action. He reached for the button on her jeans, delighted when Chloe mimicked the motion on his pants.
“I want you, Chloe,” he whispered, needing to make sure she understood. If they took their pants off, he was lying her down on the couch and taking her.
“Hurry up.”
Her words hit him like the loud bang of a starter pistol. The only sounds in the room were those of the rushed flurry of hands as they unzipped and tugged down their jeans, of shoes hitting the floor, of a foil condom wrapper crinkling and Chloe’s soft cry when Blake lay her down on the couch and came over her. He pushed his cock deep inside her with one hard thrust.
It wasn’t until he was completely buried that they paused, both of them panting, air being sucked in and blown out loudly. Blake rested on his elbows above her, studying her flushed face, her closed eyes.
“Chloe. Look at me.”
Her eyelids flittered open, her vision clearly fuzzy. He waited until her focus returned. He saw the moment it happened because a crease formed in her brow. They’d acted on impulse, neither of them considering the consequences of what they were doing until now.