Chapter Twenty-Six
Clay
They ate a late dinner at the kitchen table, overlooking Prague’s fairy-tale view of spires reaching toward the blushing sky and the castle on the hill keeping watch over the people below. Harley made orange and rosemary goose served with glazed carrots and fresh bread from the bakery downstairs, and Jasper shocked Clay by eating every bite of the not-so-kid-friendly food and asking for seconds of the carrots.
His son was smart, sweet, funny, and ate his vegetables without threats, meltdowns, or bribes. He was sure Jasper had his faults like everyone else, but so far Clay couldn’t see them.
Even his resistance to going to bed on time was charming.
“But I need to stay up to see all the stars come out,” Jasper said, yawning as Harley helped him into his pajamas. “I’m learning the constellations. I need to show them to you, Mom. If you’re lost at sea, you’re going to need this information.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Harley said. “But the stars will still be there tomorrow.”
“Not if there’s a storm,” Jasper countered though he obediently lifted his arms so Harley could strip off his tee shirt and replace it with a soft-looking pajama top with an octopus holding eight paintbrushes on the front. “You can’t see the stars if there are clouds in the way.”
“Good thing we’re supposed to have beautiful weather for the next week then, isn’t it,” she said, patting his bottom before pointing toward the bed. “Up you go. You’re obviously beat, buddy. Get good rest tonight and you can stay up late tomorrow and show me the constellations.”
Jasper turned and climbed up on the big white bed. “Clay too? He’s not going to leave like Dom?”
“Yes, Clay too,” Harley said, shooting a quick sideways glance his way before her gaze returned to Jasper. “Lay down and I’ll tuck you in tight, just the way you like. No room for wiggles.”
Jasper sighed happily. “Good. Dom never got the covers tight enough.”
Harley stiffened, but didn’t say a word or turn to look at him again. Things had been even more awkward between the two of them since this afternoon, but he was glad he’d overheard her argument with Dom. Knowing that what they’d shared all those years ago had altered her as profoundly as it had altered him didn’t change the present, but it firmed up the moorings of the past.
For the first time in years, he felt like he could trust his emotional intuition.
Harley might have told hundreds of lies that summer, but that one thing—the love they’d felt—had been real. He hadn’t been a fool conned by a monster. He had just been a man who had fallen in love with the wrong girl, a wild, dangerous, unbalanced girl with a lust for revenge that had shattered both of their lives, but at least the girl had loved him back.
He hadn’t been wrong about that. So maybe, somewhere down the line, when all the chaos and upheaval was behind him, his heart could be trusted to start looking for love again.
“I’m going to head to bed, too,” Harley whispered as she closed the door to Jasper’s room gently behind them. “All the stress and the travel finally caught up with me. Do you want the front room, and I’ll take the one here by Jasper?”
Clay nodded. “Sounds good. Good night.”
“Good night,” she said, hesitating the barest second before she moved past him, her sweet, sad smell swirling in the air, making him wish he could pull her into his arms and just…hold her.
Just for a little while.
Instead, he kept his arms at his sides and watched her disappear into the bedroom down the hall. Wanting to fuck her was bad enough. Wanting to draw her close and lend her his strength was dangerously stupid. Not to mention cruel. It would be cruel to pretend he had anything real to offer her and he no longer had any urge to be cruel to this woman.
But that wouldn’t stop him from doing what he had to do.
Jasper had always been his top priority. Now that he’d actually met his son, he refused to allow anything to interfere with his efforts to keep him safe, not even his growing sense of obligation to the mother Jasper clearly loved to distraction.
Love was well and good, but love didn’t stop bullets or disarm bombs. Putting love first was a luxury reserved for people who weren’t on a drug lord’s hit list. Maybe in six months or a year, when Marlowe was behind bars and his thugs rotting there with him, it would be safe to rearrange his priorities, but for now he and Jasper would both be choosing safety over sentiment.
It was the right choice, the only choice.
So why did it feel so completely shitty?
His chest tight and his thoughts locked into a holding pattern that ensured sleep was nowhere in his near future, Clay showered, changed into pajama pants and a tee shirt, and went out onto the balcony to watch the city lights flicker to life beneath him.
At nearly ten o’clock, dusk still lingered on the horizon, a gentle purple-rose blush that kept him at the balcony railing, watching the light fade as the air turned cool enough to lift the hairs on his arms. He wasn’t ready to let go of the day just yet. The city was beautiful, danger was distant for now, and his stomach was resting happily after a wonderful meal with a beautiful woman and an amazing little boy he was lucky enough to call his son.
If only there was just this, just the sky and the city below it and a safe place in between where three people could figure out what they were to each other, maybe there could be something more.
Something…good. Better than good.
The balcony door opened behind him. “I’m sorry,” Harley said softly. “I didn’t know you were out here. The shades are all pulled on the windows.”
“It’s okay.” He turned to see her standing in the doorway wearing the black tee shirt and silver pajama bottoms she’d bought in Bangkok, her hair in damp curls around her shoulders. “Come out. I don’t mind.”
She closed the door behind her, crossing her arms against the chill as she padded over to join him at the railing. Her eyes scanned the horizon, but he kept his gaze on her—on the lips that looked even softer than usual, the translucent skin around her clever eyes, and the determined chin jutting out from her heart-shaped face daring the world to take its best shot.
She had been beautiful today with her makeup and jade earrings bringing out the green flecks in her eyes, but fresh from the shower she was stunning. There was only her, bare and vulnerable, with nothing to hide behind and nothing to distract from her perfection.
She was lovely. Perfect—at least to him.
He suspected that no other woman would ever be as beautiful in his eyes as she was, not even if he were lucky enough to get another chance at love. Harley had captured his imagination so completely that he would never be free of her.
But maybe that was okay, too.
Maybe some memories aren’t intended to be left behind but instead carried with us as a reminder that there are moments when love is like magic, transforming the landscape of our souls forever.
She sighed, a sad sound that echoed through the melancholy places inside of him. “It’s so beautiful.”
“It is,” he murmured, gaze fixed on her face.
He was still memorizing the delicate curves of her profile when she turned to him. Their eyes met and held and all his noble intentions evaporated in the face of the need to touch her, just one more time.
He lifted his hand, cupping her cheek, his thumb tracing the angle of her stubborn chin. “You are so beautiful.”
“Clay,” she whispered.
His name was a question he didn’t know how to answer, so he didn’t. He simply put his arms around her and they came together like they had been made to fit, all their sharp edges dulling as their lips met and they kissed as something other than enemies for the first time in six years.
And it was sweet and soul-stealing and even better than he’d remembered.
His tongue stroked into her mouth and she melted against him, her defenses crashing to the ground as she returned the kiss. Her fingernails dug into his neck as he captured her bottom in his hands and drew her up his body, pinning her hips to where he ached while they did their best to consume each other whole.
Tongues danced, breath sped, and his cock pulsed hungrily against her thigh. Her legs came around his hips and his hand fisted in her hair, pulling her closer as his lips trailed down her neck, kissing and biting. Her soft, hungry moans were enough to make him want to take her right there on the balcony, to strip her pants down her legs and impale her on his cock and let all of Prague hear her scream, but this time he wanted more than fast and furious.
This time, he wanted to memorize every inch of her skin, to make one last memory neither of them would ever forget.
He brought his lips back to hers, kissing her until he swore he could feel her heart beating in his chest and her breath in his lungs and her need dancing across his skin. Flashes of light and bursts of color sparkled and crashed in the darkness behind his closed lids, but he waited until the wanting was almost blinding before he ripped his mouth from hers.
“Can I take you to bed?” he asked, needing to hear the words, needing to know that she wanted this as much as he did.
“Yes,” she breathed, legs tightening around his hips. “Now. Please.”
A moment later he was at the balcony door, yanking it sharply open with one hand while he held tight to the woman in his arms with the other. Fourteen long steps and they were in his bedroom, ten more and he was laying Harley down on the bed and lengthening himself above her, his blood rushing as her hands smoothed up his bare stomach beneath his shirt.
“Touch me,” she whispered against his mouth. “Please, Clay, touch me everywhere. I need you so much.”
He groaned as her hips tilted, her pelvis rocking against where he was hard and hungry for her and only her—his best enemy, his wicked friend, the only one who had ever made him feel like half of something whole.
His shirt vanished and hers followed seconds later and then his mouth was hot on her neck, kissing down to her breasts. His tongue curled around her nipple, teasing her before he drew her deep into his mouth.
Damn, she was so sweet. It was like her skin was covered in sifted sugar, but better because there was the spicy sunshine taste of Harley beneath it highlighting the sweetness, making it something more complicated, more intense, more precious and irreplaceable. He pulled her pajama pants down her legs, desperate to discover the sweetness he’d neglected during the twisted games they’d played in the jungle.
With his hands firm on her thighs, he spread her legs and settled between them, finding paradise and letting himself get lost.
Just this one last time.