Fearless (28 page)

“Of completely losing my mind? Yes,” I say. “Of you, no.”

“Good,” he murmurs. He kisses my lips, reaching under me to tug the bells that hang from my overly sensitive nipples, and I groan. He moves behind me, his hand erotically skimming across my spine and along my crack before reaching my wet folds. His fingers thrust into me, pumping me expertly, and I can hear the wet sounds of my own arousal. I can feel my orgasm, just out of reach, building inside me again at his exquisite torture.

“Please,” I whimper, desperate for the release he is intent on denying me.

He replaces his fingers with his hard cock and I am drowning in sensation. He pumps into me from behind, his thrusts violent and rough, taking me to the edge of oblivion. The plug in my rear somehow makes him fit tighter inside of me, and every movement is intensified tenfold. His fingers wrap around my hair, holding me still as he continues his sweet assault. I am getting closer and closer to the edge of the abyss, and I can feel the taut muscles of my pussy clench against him.

“We're almost there, Angel,” he says. “Hang on just a minute more.”

“I can't,” I gasp, desperate for release.

“You can,” he says.

I can hear the tinkle of the bells as the force of him taking me keeps them in motion. His fingers find my clit and a bolt of pleasure singes through me. I can't take it anymore. I am going to die if I don't come. Somehow, in the fog of desire, I remember the only thing he has ever asked of me.

“Please, may I come?” I ask, practically sobbing.

“You destroy me,” he says, his breath ragged. He grips my hips and impales me with one hard thrust that I can feel straight to my womb. “Come for me, Angel.”

My insides coil tighter and tighter as I'm suspended for one endless moment of sheer ecstasy before my orgasm explodes around me. It roars through me as I scream, colors exploding behind my eyes as the violent pleasure sends me flying through time and space.

An eternity passes as my body continues to shudder, the orgasm seeming to last forever. I am lost in the bliss of release. Eventually, the waves subside and I collapse onto my side on the bed. Slowly my eyelids flutter open. Beckett is lying alongside me, looking at me with a tenderness I have never seen before in his eyes.

“You constantly humble me, Emmaline,” he says, his finger gently tracing the delicate curve of my ear.

Empowered by his words, I say softly to him, “Will you give me something?”

“Anything,” he says. “What do you want, Emma?”

“You,” I say simply.

“You already have me,” he says. “You have completely bewitched me. I'm yours.”

“I want all of you. Even the parts you keep hidden. I want to know you.”

“Okay,” he says quietly. “What do you want to know?”

“About your childhood,” I say. “Your dad told me how he took you and your brother out of the Amazon and adopted you when you were small. But you never told me any of that. I wouldn't have known if I wasn't writing your dad's memoir.” I can't keep the hurt out of my voice.

“I didn't tell you because it doesn't matter,” he says with a sigh, rolling onto his back.

“It matters to me,” I say.

“Okay,” he says, and I am humbled by his trust.

He tells me what he remembers—a mother with sad eyes but a fierce love for her two sons, of days spent climbing trees and fishing on the banks of the river, and hot, sticky nights spent in a hammock falling asleep to the sounds of the forest around him. Not surprisingly, his memories are vague, displaced by the life that the man he considers his real father gave him in the United States.

“I don't remember much about when Griffin was sick,” he says when I ask him about it.

“I was only four. I don't think I understood how sick he was. My mom would send me to this tree about a mile from our village. I always brought back the leaves she sent me for, but I would also bring back as much of the fruit as I could carry. It's prickly and green and doesn't look like it would be good at all, but the white flesh inside was so sweet it would make my teeth hurt. I would peel the fruit and share it with Griffin, because even when he wouldn't eat anything else, he would always eat the sweet guanabana. I didn't tell my mother, though,” he adds with a small smile. “She never knew. She was worried he would choke on the seeds. I don't know why she worried; they were small enough and he swallowed most of them anyway.”

“And then Griffin got better and my mother died, and although we always had food to eat and a place to sleep, I think we were mostly ignored until my dad came along wanting to know what had happened to the sick little boy he still remembered after three years. He would follow me to the river and sit there all day while I fished, sometimes talking, sometimes writing things in the tattered notebook he carried everywhere.”

He stops and closes his eyes for a minute, and then opens them again and looks at me. I feel like I am seeing straight through to his soul in the depths of his eyes. “It's not something anyone knows and I'd like to keep it that way, but I didn't keep it from you purposefully. I don't talk about that part of my life because as far as I'm concerned, my life didn't really begin until I became Patrick Black's son.”

I reach over and touch his lips. He sucks my finger into his mouth.

“Thank you,” I say. I lay my head on his chest and he wraps his arms around me, holding me close.

I am hovering on the precipice of sleep when he whispers, “I was wrong though. My life didn't begin until I met you.”

Since Beckett's conference lasts another week, I fly home the next day the same way I arrived, alone. Before the plane has even left the runway, I'm missing him with a ferociousness that rocks me to the core. How has this man whom I've known for such a relatively short time become so essential to my very existence? It's as if I have finally found the last piece of the puzzle that completes me, and his absence now leaves a hole.

Once I'm back home I throw myself into work, missing Beckett so much it's almost physically painful. We talk every night, but it's not the same as being with him, our bodies saying what our words sometimes can't. After three days of working non-stop, I need a break. I call Lainey, begging her to meet me for drinks after Cam gets home from work.

Beckett's chronic punctuality must be wearing off on me, because for the first time in the history of our friendship I beat Lainey to the restaurant. I've just ordered a martini for me and a margarita for her when she shows up, sliding into the booth opposite me.

“What?” she says, taking one look at me.

“What?” I say back defensively.

“You've got it bad, don't you sweetie?”

I bury my face in my hands. “How did this happen? He was supposed to be my rebound guy, the guy who helped me discover my wild side, not the one I fall in love with,” I moan.

“Sometimes that's the way it happens,” she says. She's smiling smugly. “Just when you stop looking for Mr. Right, there he is.”

“He's a far cry from Mr. Right,” I say grumpily. “He's bossy and demanding and too serious and expects me to give him everything.” I sigh. “But he's Mr. Right-For-Me. For all that he takes, he gives me everything in return. In some ways, he knows me better than I know myself.”

Lainey takes a sip of her margarita. “Then what's the problem?” she asks.

“I don't know if he feels the same way,” I say miserably.

“He adores you. His eyes didn't leave you the entire night you guys were over,” she protests. “How can you not know?”

“Well, he's not very forthcoming with sharing stuff about himself. His dad told me during our interviews last week that he adopted Beckett and his brother Griffin from South America and he never even told me!”

“Why don't you ask him about it?”

“Well, I did when we were in Las Vegas,” I confess.

“And….” she presses.

“And he told me everything. He just said it wasn't that important to him. But I don't know how it could not be important. His mother died of malaria and he almost watched his little brother die of leukemia! The only reason his brother didn't die is because of some tree in the Amazon that has some sort of antigens that kill cancer cells. Beckett told me how he would sneak the fruit of the tree and feed it to his little brother behind his mom's back just to make his brother happy. I think my heart about exploded when he told me that.”

“Why did his mom care if his brother ate the fruit?” Lainey asks, bewildered.

“I don't know,” I say, impatient with her for missing the point. “His brother was really little and his mom was afraid he would choke on the seeds. But that's irrelevant. The thing is that Beckett was just little himself and…”

I stop mid-sentence.

“Oh my gosh. It's the seeds!”

Lainey is looking at me quizzically.

“It's the seeds!” I say with dawning comprehension. “The seeds are what Griffin ate that the other kids didn't! The seeds are what had the antigens that cured Griffin's leukemia!”

When I get home I sit down and write it all out to make sure it makes sense. I add my theory that the seeds were what cured Griffin to the post-it note story board on my bathroom mirror. This won't just change the slant of the memoir, this could define it. I feel certain this is the missing piece Dr. Black has been searching for. I can hardly wait to tell him, but since it's close to midnight I figure I'd better at least wait until morning.

The next morning, I drive over to Dr. Black's house as soon as I'm dressed. I'm almost there when Nikki calls.

“Hey, sweetie,” I say, surprised but thrilled to hear from her. “What's up?”

“Are you home? Dad said he'd take me and Maddie to the water park but I forgot to pack my swimsuit. I was going to come by and get it if you're home.”

I groan. I'm almost to Dr. Black's, and if I have to wait any longer to tell him this I'm going to explode.

“I'm at Dr. Black's,” I tell her. “But you don't have to wait for me to get home to go get your stuff. Just use the spare key. Do you remember where it is? Under the flat stone with your handprint on it in the backyard flower bed?”

“I remember. Thanks, Mom. Love you.”

“Love you too,” I say. “I can't wait to see you on Saturday.”

I turn my phone off just as I turn into the mansion's circular driveway.

“What a lovely surprise,” Agnes says as she opens the door to find me standing on the doorstep. “Dr. Black didn't tell me you were coming over today.”

“He didn't know I was coming,” I confess. “Is he busy? I have a question about the book and I really need to talk to him about it.”

She ushers me back to his office where he greets me with the same pleased but surprised expression as Agnes. After she has bustled off, I sit down and tell him what Beckett told me and my theory about the seeds. He sits in complete silence for a few minutes after I finish, and I'm convinced I must be way off base. Then his bright blue eyes focus on me.

“I think you may be on to something,” he finally says.

“Really?” I say, unable to keep the excitement out of my voice. “This could change everything, couldn't it?”

“It could,” he says slowly as he absorbs the ramifications of this new development. “It would be easy enough to test. Depending on the test results, it could open the doors for more testing.”

I am so excited I can barely sit still.

Dr. Black looks at me seriously. “But you mustn't include this in the proposal,” he warns. “It's very important that we don't tip our hand yet. We need to do the preliminary testing before the public gets wind of this. Otherwise, the pharmaceutical companies will shut us down before we even get started. Once we have the testing, we can release our results in the medical journals and that will provide some semblance of protection.”

“Okay,” I say. “I had already written a draft before Beckett told me about the fruit, so I'll just go with the proposal I have. I'll send it today.”

As I get up to leave, Dr. Black takes both of my hands in his and kisses me gently on each cheek. “Thank you, my dear,” he says earnestly. “For loving Beckett for who he is, and for this. There is no greater gift you could have given me.”

I am walking on cloud nine as I leave his house, but since there is no one to celebrate with me I go to my yoga class and then treat myself to a frozen yogurt from the shop next to the yoga studio. I can't wait to tell Beckett. When I get home, I draft a letter to Dr. Black's agent and e-mail her the final proposal and outline. I still haven't heard from Beckett by ten o'clock so I send him a text that I know will catch his attention.

Just climbing into bed. You don't mind that I got a vibrator to keep me company while you're gone, do you?

He doesn't disappoint me. His response is quick.
Caught at dinner with a bunch of boring people acting doctorly. If I were there, you would be over my lap right now for being such a brat.

I get wet for him just reading his text. He sends a second one.
Remember you promised to ask. Every time. Unfortunately for you I'm going to be here for a while, so I won't be able to respond quickly.

I laugh.
You know I'm lying
, I text.

Yes, I know. I don't know whether I should punish you or reward you.

Same difference.

True….

I decide to wait to tell him the news until I see him. I text,
Goodnight. Call me tomorrow.

See you in my dreams, Angel. I miss you.

I miss you too.

The next few days drag by. With Beckett still in Las Vegas, Nikki headed to Colorado, and the book proposal turned in, I'm at loose ends. I pack for my trip to San Diego, run, work on the text for the book, and watch a lot of reality TV. By Friday, I need to get out so I book a mid-afternoon pedicure. I'm sitting in the pedicure chair, my feet immersed in the warm foot bath, when the news comes on.