Entice (Hearts of Stone #2) (24 page)

Owen is intent on wearing me out tonight. I'm spent. Utterly spent and immensely satisfied, as I lie with my head on his chest, breathing in his scent. Neither one of us has said anything in a while and I'm sure he's fallen asleep. But then…

"I'm still curious," he says, "remember that night you came over for the photographs?"

I nod, smiling a little.

"What did you mean, when you said the cheerleading picture brought back bad memories."

I lift my head to look at him. "That's a strange thing for you to be thinking about."

"I think about a lot of things." He runs his fingers through my hair, holding out the strands as though admiring the way they glow golden in the light of the lamp. "Most of them have to do with you."

Resting my chin on his shoulder, I deliberate on what I should say. The topic is bound to ruin the mood, but I can tell he's curious enough to press me for an answer. "My mom had—has issues with addiction."

"Alcohol?" he asks automatically.

"Yes. And drugs, too."

His eyes dart across my face, trying to read my memories so I don't have to share them. But, of course, he can't. And no matter how hard he works to keep his lips pressed together, another question parts them. "Was she violent?"

"Sometimes. Mostly she just…sort of forgot about us—about my sister and me. Disappeared for a while without telling us if she was ever coming back. Always treated us like a burden. Like we were disposable to her. Little tokens to make people pity her, look at poor Cassandra raising these two girls on her own. But it was bullshit. She didn't raise me. My sister did."

Owen allows my words to settle into a brief silence then, matter-of-factly, he says, "My father had a nasty temper when I was a kid."
 

"Really?"

"Oh yeah. Drank himself stupid every night." He hesitates a moment, and then, "It's not a heart attack that got him hospitalized. His heart attack was minor, but what they found is that his liver is nearly useless. He's going to need a transplant soon. That's why my sister wants him under her roof. She wants to make sure he doesn't drink himself to death."

"Jesus."

We fall silent again as I consider his words, their implication.
 

I feel a twitch of insecurity Owen will realize what a stark contrast he is from me. He seems so absolutely steadfast and certain in who he is and what he stands for. When I look at him, I see someone comfortable in his own skin, not just physically, but mentally as well. Someone who has reconciled what he's been through and doesn't let it define him, his relationships, or his future.
 

Owen's consistent. Stable. Watching the way he is gives me the impression there's a puzzle in me, one I'm meant to solve before I can even dream to reach his level of comfort.
 

I've never known stability, real stability. Just lulls. Moments when things go still and there are no fires to put out. But for the first time in my life, this feels like more than just a lull. This loft, my home, it fills me with a splitting joy. This man, my man, he makes me feel safe and steady. And my new job, it's exactly what I needed, just when I needed it.
 

But the unpleasant feeling I've been keeping at bay swirls around in my stomach, obscuring the gratitude and churning along with a low voice in the back of my mind.
 

You don't deserve this. You don't deserve any of it.

"Are you asleep?" Owen asks.

I lift my head, hoping he doesn't have the secret power to read my thoughts.
 

"What are you thinking?" I ask, before I can stop myself.
 

What a generic, needy question.

He doesn't seem to mind. In fact, he smiles a little as if he's glad I asked.
 

"I'm thinking about how I should've found the damn balls to talk to you, long before that night."

That night. The night I bothered to glance at him, but not long enough to really register his face. The night of the dance when he got the living crap beaten out of him by my ex-boyfriend.

"Shit," I say, closing my eyes. The thought of it still makes me cringe. "I hate that Jonathan hurt you like that."

He shakes his head. "I don't. I'm glad it happened. It taught me a good lesson."

"What's that?"

"If you don't want to get beat up, get bigger and learn to fight."

 
I run a hand over the curve of his biceps. "And become a cop?"

"That might've been overkill."

"Worked in my favor, though," I say. "The uniform. The muscles." I press my lips to his chest and feel them mold over his firm frame.

"Worked out in my favor, too. Look who ended up with the girl."

"Don't get cocky," I tease.

Owen abruptly pulls me up by the underarms, eliciting a shriek of laughter out of me, and settles me onto him until we are both sitting upright, facing each other, my naked body firmly on top of his.

 
I shake my head as if in a slow realization. "You can't possibly want more already?"

But even as I say that, I can already tell he's growing hard beneath me.

"You think there's a second that goes by I don't want more?" He runs a hand down my back and cups my ass, squeezing it and tugging me closer to him, his erection teasing me.

"How many more times can you possibly screw me before your cock falls off from overuse?"
 

"Why don't we try and find out?"

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

I've forgotten the nuances of being with someone, dancing the line between building intimacy and withholding unflattering information. Lying by omission. Everyone does it, especially in the beginning. It's the novelty of starting something new with another person. Pretending they're a clean slate just because they're new to you, fresh to your eyes. Pretending their history doesn't matter, isn't relevant, as long as you don't bring it to light. Pretending the differences between the two of you are small, inconsequential gaps that won't widen with time.

Owen doesn't drink and, though he's never said as much, he doesn't like when I drink. His reaction is measured: eyes lingering over the glass of clear liquid in my hand, lips turning slightly downward before bringing his attention back to his dinner.
 

I suspect it has to do with his father, but whatever the reason, Owen resists the urge to tell me and so I resist the urge to ask. I pretend I don't notice his disapproval because I'm not doing anything wrong.

Before Bernstein fired me, I'd have a beer once or twice a week and stronger drinks at bars when I got around to partying, which wasn't often. These days, maybe driven by the boredom of living alone, I indulge in a glass or two of something stronger with more regularity. It's not even the taste I enjoy. I find comfort in the burn.

Owen will work through the weekend, but thankfully, they're dayshifts so I'll get to see him after work. Though the thought of him having days off this week while I'm stuck in the office really sucks.
 

I expect him to spend the night on Sunday but he leaves me early, before the sun even sets. I'm left missing him a lot more than usual and I'm not sure why. A restlessness comes over me that I haven't experienced before, a heaviness in my stomach when the door closes behind him. Dread weighs on me as heavy as the thick silence of the loft.

Monday morning, an alarm blares so loud it jolts me as though someone drove a knife straight into my brain. The sound comes from my phone, so I reach for it and hit one of the side buttons to silence the alarm.
 

Burying my face back into the pillow, I try to will myself to get up. I doze off for what feels like another minute or two. Lifting my head and squinting against the brightness of my bedroom, I peer at my cellphone again. My eyes widen at the time displayed on the screen. Eight in the morning. Precisely the time I should be getting into work.

Panic jars me and I shoot out of bed. If I leave right now, in the next few minutes, I will be forty minutes late to the office. Cursing under my breath, I rush into the bathroom and splash water on my face. I barely glance at my reflection long enough to smooth my hair up with my fingers and twist it into a bun. A minute later, I'm wiggling into my dress pants and pulling on a blouse. Grabbing my shoes, I slip them on my feet as I walk to the door, my keys in my hand, remembering only at the last moment to grab my purse.
 

I settle into my car and am relieved to see a bottle of water in the cup holder. I take it and chug down the few inches left inside, my mouth still impossibly dry.

It's not until I've pulled out onto the road that I begin to realize I'm not disoriented from being jolted awake and rushing out the door. Something is wrong, my eyes sting and the road ahead blurs ever so slightly. I press down on my brakes. A car horn blares from behind me, long and angry.
 

I clutch the steering wheel tighter, the blaring sound exasperating my panic. From my peripheral vision, I catch the reflection of the car that was behind me swerving into the lane beside me. A blue Honda, it speeds by, passing me with obvious flair. And when I half roll my eyes at their dramatics, the driver of the car swerves once more, pulling into the lane in front of me and slams on his brakes, as though to teach me a lesson. My foot is already hovering on the brake, but I immediately know the car won't stop fast enough to avoid colliding into the car. I'm left with no choice but to yank the steering wheel to the right and swerve onto the side of the road, slamming on my brakes once again and coming to a complete stop.
 

"Fuck!" I punch the steering wheel, dizzy from all the blood rushing to my head. My hands are shaking and I feel I might throw up. Laying my head on the steering wheel, I try to take deep, calming breaths.
 

What the fuck is wrong with people?
 

And what the fuck is wrong with me? God, I don't feel good, at all.

Another sound blares behind me, this time a sound that never fails to plunge me into a mild panic. Sirens chirp twice and, glancing up at the rearview mirror, I see a police cruiser pulling up behind me.
 

Fantastic. As though I'm not already late enough, and now I have to explain why I've swerved onto the side of the road. The cop will probably want to see my identification and ask me a few questions. This is going to take at least another ten minutes.
 

The man that gets out of the car isn't just any cop. It's Owen. And despite the situation, despite the uncomfortable churning in my stomach, a smile tugs on my lips as I watch my insanely sexy, uniformed boyfriend walk up to my car.

"Hey," he says when he reaches the window, which I've rolled down expectedly. "Are you okay? Is your car stuck?"

I try to speak, but have to press my head back onto the headrest as my surroundings seem to wobble. I swallow back the acid rising in my throat.

"Emily?" Owen's voice grows stiff, as though he's drawing backward in realization.
 

My eyes fly open at his tone. "Yeah," I groan. But even as I say it, my hand flies up to cover my mouth and I heave. Owen opens the car door and steps to the side just as I bend forward and throw up over the doorframe of my car and onto the dirt path. Nothing comes out the first time. The second time, there's some liquid.
 

"Jesus christ," Owen says, lowering his voice. "Emily, have you been drinking?"

I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, fear surges through me.
 

Drunk
? I'm not drunk.
 

I just woke up.
 

"No," I say in a low voice. I feel small, and disgusting under his critical glare. And embarrassed that he saw me vomit.

"Get out of the car," he orders, none too friendly.
 

I do so, careful to step around the vomit. Owen's expression is one I've never seen from him before, an anger I can't quite reconcile.

"I'm not drunk, Owen," I say. "I swear, I just woke up…and ran out the door."

"Were you drinking before you went to sleep?" He eyes my gaze in a strange way, as though testing it for sharpness.

"I…well, yeah. But—"

"How much?"

"What?"

"How much did you drink?"

"I-I don't know. That was hours ago. I went to sleep and—Owen, that was
hours
ago."

"You're slurring your words," he says, evenly. "Obviously you're still drunk."
 

I shake my head, sicker to my stomach than before with not just embarrassment squirming in me, but self-loathing too. I can't be drunk, can I? Not if I slept through the night. I slept six…five hours, I think.
 

I try to recall how many drinks I had, try to mentally pull the statistic of how many hours it takes for alcohol to work its way through a person's system. But trying to think so hard just makes everything spin again.

"Don't move," Owen says, before heading back to his cruiser, and I notice for the first time there's another person there in the passenger seat, a female cop. He talks to her for a few minutes, nodding over at me a few times. I can't tell what he's saying. I can't gauge what's going to happen next.

When he returns, Owen tells me to get back into my car. In the passenger side.

"Where are you taking me?" I ask as he pulls out onto the road.

"Home."

"What? No! Owen, I have to be at work!"

"Emily," he pauses to take a deep breath, as though so frustrated he could scream, "you have no business being at work. Do you understand that? You're intoxicated."

"That's impossible—"

"What time did you have your last drink."

"Eleven," I say immediately. Then I hesitate. I watched another movie…it might have been closer to one in the morning. Or even later. I glance at the side view mirror and in a low, guilt-ridden voice, ask, "What did you tell your partner?"
 

His eyes snap in my direction as though my question irritates him more than anything else. "I told her you're my girlfriend. That you have a stomach virus and that's why you had to pull over onto the side of the road to throw up."