CHAPTER FOURTEEN

A pink and purple illustration of an animal stared at her.

“I don’t even want to ask why you’re buying that,” her grandmother said with a laugh, pointing to Shannon’s purchase as the cashier at the party store rang them up.

“It’s a surprise for someone,” Shannon answered with a wink and snatched the little gift and tucked it into her purse.

“That’ll be fifty-seven twenty-one,” the cashier said, bagging up the balloons, streamers, cups and party favors that Victoria had picked up for the birthday party she was throwing for her great-granddaughter’s third birthday—the grand-daughter of Shannon’s aunt.

Before her grandma could stop her, Shannon slid her credit card through the machine to pay.

“You didn’t have to do that,” the older woman said.

Shannon flashed her a smile as she tucked her card into her purse. “I know I didn’t have to. I wanted to.” She scooped up the bag and headed to her car. They’d attended a sunrise yoga class, then stopped at the store on the way home, and now Shannon needed to return to the studio for a few hours before her lunch date.

It was definitely a date.

“Might that someone you’re surprising be your old beau?”

“Beau. Boy. You’re so old-fashioned, Nana,” Shannon said as she backed out of the lot and turned onto the main drag.

“Well?” she asked pointedly. “Is he?”

Shannon shrugged, but her lips curved into a grin. “Maybe.”

Victoria patted her knee as they slowed to a stop at a red light a few blocks from her home. “Excellent. So what are we going to do about your brothers then?”

“What about them? The fact that all three are total pains in the ass?” Shannon teased.

“Not that. The fact that they’re all single. Maybe we need to set up a matchmaking service for those boys.”

“Good luck getting the three cavemen married off,” Shannon joked as the light changed, and she turned left onto Victoria’s street.

Her grandmother gestured grandly, as if she were putting their names in lights. “Matchmakers for the Paige Men.”

Shannon startled for a moment at hearing that name. They were all so used to being Sloans now.

“I meant the Sloan men,” her grandmother quickly corrected.

Just like that, Shannon’s mind latched onto another Paige man. The one who was long gone. Try as she might, the past was never far away. Little things slammed her back in time. Like her old name. Like driving, of all things.

Her father’s final moments had been in a car, driving home from work late one night, pulling into the driveway of his home. The one place where he should always have been safe from harm.

She pressed her teeth into her bottom lip, holding her emotions in as she turned into her grandmother’s driveway.

It was only a driveway. A mundane, ordinary slick of concrete. Her grandmother didn’t even live anywhere near the home where her dad had been shot. But as she cut the engine and looked at her father’s mother, she knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Victoria was thinking the same thing. That she, too, had been jolted out of a festive moment of party planning and pretend matchmaking and hurtled back in time to eighteen years ago. She saw it in her grandma’s eyes—the same sadness she felt was reflected back at her.

“Sometimes it’s hard just turning in the driveway,” Shannon said softly. “Makes me think of my dad.”

Her grandmother clasped her hand. “I know. Every day, I think about him.”

Shannon looked down at their hands. “I miss him.”

“I do too, sweetie.”

After she walked her grandmother inside and said goodbye, she returned to her car. She scanned the surrounding area, as always, alert for anything amiss. Listening for that footstep crunching on the grass. Seeking the shadow of someone who wasn’t supposed to be there.

The hair on her neck stood on end, and for a second, she wished she carried her gun with her. But that weapon was locked away at her home.

Shannon’s eyes roamed the sidewalk, the house, and the garage before she unlocked the car door. This hyper-alertness fried her nerves. No one was there. It was morning. She was safe, and Victoria was fine, and she had to refuse to live in fear. She had to kick the damn specter of hidden guns, and gangs, and shooters, and plots for murder far out of her daily agenda.

She took a deep breath, letting it spread through her body, coaxing it to ease away the stranglehold of the past. Good thing she was seeing Brent that afternoon. He was her antidote. He’d wash away the cruel memories.

But by the time lunch rolled around, she no longer wanted to rely on her old habits with Brent. He’d always been her magic bullet to extradite the pain. Maybe to truly change, she needed to give instead of to take.

Over salad and pasta at an Italian restaurant inside Caesars Shops, she asked him more about work, peppering him with questions about his clubs, the expansion, his vision for Edge, reminding herself the whole time not to be jealous. She listened intently, because she didn’t want to feel an ounce of resentment for his choices, including the one to ditch the very industry that had once been so important to him.

“And Edge will keep on growing,” she said.

“That’s the goal,” he said with a wide smile. He truly seemed happy with his new path. That was his special talent. He knew how to find the happiness in everything. Someone like him never seemed to need much, while she often felt she required far too much. That was exactly why she’d picked up the gift at the party store. He loved the little things in life.

“Close your eyes,” she said, after the waiter cleared their plates and she joined him on his side of the table.

“You gonna blindfold me? I’m game,” he joked as he followed her order.

She reached into her purse, rolled up his shirtsleeve, and dipped a cloth napkin in a water glass.

“Go ahead. Undress me here. I don’t mind,” he continued.

“I know you don’t, you dirty man.”

“You wouldn’t have me any other way.”

“You’re right,” she whispered as she positioned the square of paper on his arm, then pressed the wet napkin on top of it and counted to thirty. When she peeled the backing paper off, she told him to open his eyes.

“Tada!” She showed him the mark she’d left on his arm, and his big, deep laugh rumbled across the restaurant.

He nodded approvingly at the pink and purple temporary tattoo of a little horse she’d fixed to his bicep. “A pony. You got me a pony. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted.”

“It’s not quite a badass flying Pegasus, but if you’re a good boy, I’ll get you a winged one next,” she said.

“Or a unicorn maybe?”

“That could be arranged.”

After they left the restaurant, they wandered past the designer shops of Caesars, with luxuries from the likes of Gucci and Louboutin. She peered in the windows of her favorites, admiring a pair of black shoes and a dove gray bag.

“Thank you for taking time out of your day for me,” she said as they continued their stroll.

“Nothing I’d rather do.”

“Will you have to work late to make up for playing hooky?”

“Maybe, but it’s worth it.”

A flash of color caught her eye. In the midst of all the black and silver high-end items, she spotted an old-fashioned photo booth down a quiet hallway that led to the restrooms. Painted bright red and white, the booth boasted a sign advertising Four photos for $1.

“That’s a bargain,” she said, then grabbed his hand and tugged him to the booth. “Let’s get a picture to go with your cool new ink. Show it to your brother. Let him know how wild and crazy you can be.”

“We can even put on disguises and shoot cool selfies,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “Please let there be a fake mustache. Please, pretty please.” He held up his hand and crossed his fingers.

She swatted him and grinned. In the past, contact with him had blotted out the bad. But this was better. This was about laughter, and talking, and her giving something to him. Something silly, but then, she knew he liked those gifts best of all.

Strange as it sounded, she knew he would cherish a ridiculous photo of the two of them. She pulled him inside and yanked the curtain closed.

“Damn,” she said, snapping her fingers when she saw the Broken sign slung across the viewfinder. “No wonder no one was down this hallway.”

“We can make our own photo booth picture. You must have something in your purse.”

“Right. Of course. Let me just get out my purple wig. And the fake nose I keep in there,” she said, deadpan.

“Now you’re talking.”

Instead, she grabbed her sunglasses, and slid them to the bridge of her nose, puckering her lips. He bared his teeth in an exaggerated grin and flexed his bicep, showing off his new pink and purple pony ink. She snapped a picture on her phone and showed it to him.

“We are so hot together,” he said, with over-the-top admiration. He patted his thighs. “Climb up. Take another picture.”

“You’re just trying to get me to sit on your lap.”

“Yes. I am.”

She straddled him, the soft cotton of her black dress flaring across his jeans, then held out the phone. “Smile,” she instructed.

But instead of smiling, he wrapped his arms around her, planting a soft, wisp of a kiss on her neck.

Her eyes floated closed as her thumb slid aimlessly across the screen, capturing them. She didn’t stop to look this time, because he was brushing his lips along her neck, buzzing a path to her ear. She let the phone fall to the bench along with her sunglasses, and turned to meet his lips. The goofiness vanished. The silliness evaporated as the moment folded and unfolded into something else, shifting from temporary tattoos and selfies to a hot, wet, deep kiss that swamped her body with desire.

She moaned his name as if he were all she wanted, and he was. “Brent.”

“You can’t resist me,” he said, breaking the kiss for a moment. He ran his hand up her back, against the fabric of her dress, and she arched into him, moving in time with his touch.

“You’re such a cocky bastard,” she tossed back.

“Just admit it,” he said, as he gently tugged her bottom lip through his teeth, making her moan. He flicked his tongue across her top lip in such a slow, sexy, seductive fashion that she thought she might reach the peak of a climax if he kept it up. “Admit you can’t resist me.”

She sighed and gave in. No point denying the truth they both knew. “Not when you kiss me like that. Not when you touch me the way you do.”

“I better do both again, then,” he said as he worked his way up her neck, kissing her throat, her jaw, her cheek, then her earlobe. Her body practically vibrated from the tender and delicious way he traveled across her skin. The kiss was driving him wild too, judging by the bulge in his jeans and the pressure from his fingers as he dug them into her hips with each each lick, each sweep of his tongue.

She could subsist on this moment. She could use it as the balm to her overactive brain, to all the harsh moments that rattled into her life from out of nowhere. Keep taking more from him—more kisses, more touching, more contact.

But she wanted to give, too. To give to him as he’d done for her.

“My turn,” she said, as she returned the favor. She worked her way up his neck, kissing his jaw, then his earlobe. He grasped her harder as she mapped his skin, loving his clean scent, his rough stubble, and his hard body.

“You’re quite good at taking your turn,” he murmured.

She nibbled on his earlobe, and he pumped his pelvis up into her on a muffled groan. A blast of heat tore through her, and taking and giving smashed together.

“Ride me,” he said in a rough, husky voice. They were wanting all the same things. Wanting the give and the take as well. “Ride me hard. Like I know you want to.”

His words ignited her. She followed them to the letter, as they collided in a mad frenzy in the photo booth. Through their clothes, she was grinding against him in seconds, her white panties and his jeans the only barriers. They became a tangle of teeth and heat and madness, as she kissed him ruthlessly and slammed against him. He kissed back the same way, wild and untamed, his hands knotting through her hair, pulling hard. Grabbing. Biting. Tugging. Hands and fingers clawing everywhere. Their breaths turned loud. If anyone walked by on the way to the restroom, surely they’d hear her moans of desire.

She didn’t care.

Not with the way his lips consumed her, taking over this bruising, needy, dangerous kiss that felt like tipping over. Like she was losing what little control she had of her emotions for him. She was poised, teetering on the edge of something. This week had been so sweet, so delicious, so like a perfect courtship that it made her remember how deeply she’d been in love with him before. The way he’d treated her stirred up all those feelings she’d forced out of her mind and shoved into a box for the last ten years. They were resurfacing, breaking free of the past, and fighting their way up her body. Terrible, dangerous feelings that threatened to take over her mind.

She moved faster, harder, kissed more deeply, her desire climbing higher.

But then he placed his hands on her shoulders, and gently, but firmly, pushed her away. Forcing her to look at him.

“Shan, why don’t we get a room?” he asked, his eyes hazy with lust. “You know I want you so much. You’re driving me wild, and we’re practically fucking with our clothes on in a photo booth. C’mon,” he said, tipping his forehead to the curtain as if to say Let’s go.

And then, like the motherfucker it was, the past grabbed her throat. Like a slingshot, it snapped her back to everything that had broken between them.

She clenched her jaw, grabbed his collar. “I can’t just go have sex with you, Brent.”

“Why not? Isn’t that pretty close to what we’re doing now?”

She swallowed hard, and let it out in a harsh, broken whisper. “Because it was never just sex with you.”

But she didn’t stop moving on him. She only slowed the pace, because she couldn’t break the connection. This electric thread was part of them, part of who they were, part of who they were becoming again. She downshifted from the madness to a slow grind. He followed her lead, adjusting his rhythm too, shifting his touch to a softer one, as he ran his hands along the bare skin of her arms. Gently, he kissed her shoulder, making her shiver. “What was it with me?”

She cupped his cheeks, and looked him in the eyes. Spoke the truth. “It was everything,” she said, as she moved against him, the friction sending another powerful wave of desire through her. “All of it. This. You. Us. You were everything to me.”

He laced a hand through her hair. “Do you have any idea how much I want to be everything to you again?”

She shook her head. She was still stuck in time. The freshness of the hurt felt so new again. “Do you have any idea how devastating it was when you broke up with me?”

He groaned, sounding annoyed. Defeated. “I thought we weren’t going to talk about the past,” he whispered as he kissed her neck. His lips were barely there, just the flutter of a hummingbird’s wings. Even so, the kiss turned her liquid. How the hell could they kiss and argue? But then, that was what they’d always done. Even while they fought, they could never stop touching.

“I can’t hide from the past. I can’t move on unless we talk about it.”

“Then tell me,” he said roughly. “Tell me what you want to talk about so we can start over.”

“How do I know it will be different?” she asked, as she leaned her head back and succumbed to the strange combination of kissing and confessing. Or touching and talking. “Because of the shoes, because of the bracelet, because of scarves and lunches and the dinner and the tickets this weekend to Alvin Ailey?”

“No. Those are just things. It’s what’s behind those things that matters, and that’s how I feel for you. Because I would do anything to have you back,” he said, holding her face and forcing her to look him in the eyes.

And as she did, something inside her cracked open. The ice that she’d packed around her heart that he’d been chipping away at day by day, thawed completely.

“It’s harder for me to just start over than it is for you,” she blurted out, even though it was selfish, what she was saying. She knew that. But she couldn’t escape the painful truth of who she was. She stared fiercely at him, keenly aware of both the intensity of this conversation and the pressure from his erection between her legs pressing hard against her damp panties.

“Why? Why is it harder for you?”

“Because you broke my heart—don’t you get it? Mine had already splintered into a million pieces one night in a driveway, and I can only sustain so many breaks before it’s shattered.”

She stopped moving on him, and let the tears slide down her cheeks, as they’d done so many times with him. He gathered her close in his arms, and stroked her hair.

“Let me be the one for you. I won’t break your heart again. I promise.”

She wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe herself, too. But there were things she had to tell him. Things that might tear him apart. “I don’t want to break your heart either.”

He smiled that crazy, gorgeous, cocky lopsided grin. He rapped his knuckles against his chest. “I’m tough. I can handle anything you throw at me.”

She wasn’t so sure, but even so, she loved this side of him.

Heels clicked against the floor. Someone was walking past them. The sound of the footsteps sped up. She covered her mouth and widened her eyes, and he laughed silently.

Then, maybe because of his admission, or maybe even more so because of hers, she brushed her lips against his, and kissed him softly, picking up the pace once more. She felt a freedom from the weight of memories. Maybe simply voicing them was what she had truly needed to move on. Oh, how she wanted to move on.

In every way with him.

Every. Single. Way.

“Soon,” she whispered in his ear. “Soon. I want to be with you again. I want you in every way. I swear.”

The talking of the past stopped, as it needed to. She’d said all she truly needed to say, and now all she wanted was to feel. Because she felt so much for him. More than she’d wanted to when she’d first agreed to dinner. More than she’d ever expected when he’d walked back into her life. Damn him, damn the heart, damn the body.

“Babe,” he said in a soft but firm voice. “Rock your body against me.”

“How is it we can talk like this and I’m still hot for you?” she murmured in his ear.

“Because I turn you on and because you’re crazy about me, too,” he said, low and sexy, and just for her. She shivered against him, saying nothing, refusing to give voice to the yes that formed on her tongue as she began moving again, her small body riding his big, strong frame.

“Just like that. Keep it up,” he told her, urging her on. “I can feel you getting close.”

“I’m so close,” she said on a quiet gasp.

“Let go. Let go for me,” he said as he thrust his hips up against her, and yanked her down harder on him.

She let the past fall behind her once more as she returned to what they’d been doing before. Coming together. She moved on him, harder, faster. There were no more words, no confessions, and no questions. Just movement. Their need for each other had never been quenched. She didn’t know if it ever would be, even as her belly tightened and she felt the start of that intense rush of pleasure. She pushed onto him, hitting that point where she lost control, and came apart for him, grabbing his back, biting down on his shoulder, falling apart in his arms.

In a broken photo booth in the back of a casino.

Of all the damn places in the world. Yet it felt so right.

But even through the haze of her orgasm, she knew she couldn’t escape the past. She couldn’t hide from it in all this contact with him.

Soon, very soon, she was going to have to tell him that he’d been the father of her child.