Mika Harris’s House

Manhattan Beach, Los Angeles, California

 

Stevie walked slowly up to the front door, admiring the architecture of the house. It was built to disappear into the landscape, a stone house built with both native stone and hand-cut wood. The double doors opened right up onto the long, pebble-covered drive, the brass door handle the same deep mahogany as the doors themselves. There were windows everywhere, and a veranda that clearly wrapped completely around the house. She’d never seen anything quite so subtle and luxurious all at the same time.

The cops had tied her up at the station for hours, demanding to know everything about her life and career before they finally announced that they’d found a child’s toy gun at the scene, and they were declaring it a case of juvenile delinquency rather than a shooting.

Bullshit!

Stevie knew the power a bullet had and what it could do to a brick wall. She knew what had happened. She’d seen the bullet slam into the side of the building, seen the flash when the second bullet went flying toward Mika. Someone was trying to kill him—or, at least, scare him. She hadn’t gotten a chance to ask him who the prime suspect might be because the cops had separated them, interviewing them separately.

Technically, Mika’s safety wasn’t part of her case, so she didn’t have to worry about protecting him. But the fact that someone was firing a gun at the prime suspect in her case was her business. She needed to know what was going on.

She knocked on the big mahogany door, frustrated once again that she couldn’t hear the response that might come from the other side. She waited, assuming he was there because his car was parked in the drive. There were no lights on, no obvious signs of life. She could be knocking on the door of an empty house.

She knocked a second and third time, waiting less patiently each time. She was about to turn and go when the door suddenly burst open, and Mika appeared in nothing but a pair of sweatpants, his bare chest damp, his curls heavy with water.

He’d been in the shower.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

He asked that a lot.

“Need to talk about what happened downtown.”

He studied her, his eyes moving slowly down the length of her. She suddenly wished she’d taken the time to stop by her house and change into jeans and a t-shirt, her more preferred style of dress. His eyes moving over her skirt made her knees weaken a little.

It was a distraction. She didn’t need a distraction just then.

“Are you going to let me in, or what?”

His eyebrows rose, but he stepped back and gestured for her to move past him. But he didn’t move over very far, forcing her to step so close to him that her shoulder brushed his ribs. He smelled like patchouli and sandalwood.

Some things never changed.

The front doors opened onto a massive living room dominated by a huge stone fireplace. Stevie found herself looking up, however, at the exposed beams of the ceiling and the beautiful ceiling fan that looked almost like a work of art all on its own.

She walked across the room to the French doors that opened onto the back veranda and the beach that came right up to the steps. It was a beautiful sight, the waves crashing almost lazily against the wet sand. She could almost feel the sand between her toes. A flash of memory from the last time she’d felt sand between her toes rushed through her mind, and she turned away, trying to forget that she’d once been young and carefree, once deeply in love with the half-naked man standing across the room from her.

“The cops are convinced it was some kid just playing around. They’re not taking this seriously.”

“You disagree?”

“Someone fired a 9mm at you, Mika.” She lowered her head slightly, not wanting to look at his bare chest, at a tattoo that she’d watched the artist draw on his chest. “I disagree.”

But she couldn’t have a conversation without looking at him. She pulled her eyes up to his face and found herself staring into the dark brown eyes that had always been such a draw for her. She could stare into his eyes for hours. And when they were closed, when he was sleeping beside her, she’d stare into his face, imagine her child having the same square jaw and the same perfect nose, memorizing every inch until she knew it better than her own reflection in the mirror.

“How do you know the caliber of the gun?”

“Because I know the damage a 9mm can do.”

“How? And why did you have a gun?”

She knew he’d ask. She’d tried to come up with a good explanation even as she’d been drawing the weapon out of the side of her ankle boot. But she still couldn’t think of one.

But she didn’t seem to need one.

“It’s Durango, right? He pulled you into his security firm?”

She shook her head. “Durango doesn’t pull me into anything.”

“You always did whatever he said, whenever he said it.”

“I did not!”

“He could just shoot you a look, and you’d go racing after him. I’m surprised you didn’t settle in Chicago when he decided to make that his home.”

“You’ve stayed in touch with him?”

“Not really. But I hear things.”

“How do you know I wasn’t in Chicago?”

“You were in upstate New York.”

“We established that.”

He rested his hands on his hips and studied her, his eyes again moving down over the length of her body, studying the way she looked in her skirt, a familiar hint of lust coming into his eyes. She turned, walked toward the fireplace. It was a warm night, but there was a fire burning there just the same. She stared into the flames, thinking how perfect they were. Efficient little things that lived long enough to do what they were meant to do and then died out, growing smaller and smaller, colder and colder, until they were completely gone.

Sometimes she wished—

Mika rested a heavy hand on her shoulder and forced her to turn toward him. Her eyes landed on that tattoo, and she realized for the first time that he’d had it altered.

He’d added the date of their son’s death under his name.

“Why would you do that?”

She reached out to touch it, like she still had the right to do that. He grabbed her wrist, stopping her just a breath away from his skin. For some reason, that act made her so angry that she thought she might burst with the intensity of it.

She jerked her wrist from his touch. “Why would you do that?” she demanded again.

“To remember.”

“Like you’d ever forget it!” She spun away from him, her hands shaking so hard that she needed to hit something, anything. She stormed back over to the French doors and slammed her hands against the solid glass. “It was supposed to represent life! It was supposed to be about the person William would be one day! It wasn’t supposed to be a damn memorial!”

He grabbed her again, forcing her around so that she could see his lips. “It’s for…”

But she refused to read his lips. She didn’t care what he had to say. She jerked her arms, trying to pull away, but he held on too tightly. And then he was pulling her toward him, pulling her into his chest, his face so close to hers that she couldn’t help but look up at him.

“He died, Stevie,” he said, his eyes dark with emotion-packed clouds. “But that didn’t have to be the end. He wasn’t the only thing that brought us together!”

She shook her head, turning her face, refusing to see anything else he had to say. But he wouldn’t let her ignore him. He jerked her body hard against his, the length of him so hard against her small body.

“I….too!”

She turned her head. She didn’t want to know.

Her jerked her, pulled her so tight against his chest that she almost couldn’t breathe as his arms wrapped around her, forced her to remain there. There were tiny beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead, moisture around his eyes. He stared at her for a long moment, and then he kissed her. It wasn’t a passionate kiss. It was a hard, punishing kiss. It was a kiss full of so much frustration and anger and hurt that it felt like an invasion, like a violation. She tried to turn her head, but he held her even tighter, his muscles vibrating with the effort.

And then his lips softened. Just slightly. Just enough to give her a choice.

She opened to him, but she wasn’t sure if it was because she was desperate to take a breath or because she wanted to taste him inside of her. But once he was there…how could something be that familiar, that incredible? How could he feel that good? It was like no time had passed, like they’d never been apart.

She slid her hand over his chest, her fingers inadvertently touching that tattoo again. But she couldn’t think about that. She couldn’t think about anything but the feel of him against her, the heat and the vitality of him.

His hands were bruising, the way they held her, keeping her imprisoned in her arms. But then they began to explore, moving down the length of her back and then taking great handfuls of her ass. She hadn’t been touched like that…well, ever! But when he lifted her up and carried her across the room, she didn’t feel the way his fingers pressed so hard into her flesh that she would have bruises in the morning. All she felt was the need that seemed to be growing exponentially inside of her, threatening to take over everything, every thought, every movement, every breath.

He slammed her back against the wall at one point, his fingers now digging into her clothing, finding a way up her skirt to rip away her panties. And then he was exploring her, discovering just how excited his touch had made her. It seemed so quick, but not quite fast enough. She pressed her hands against his chest, sliding them downward as he moved his mouth from her lips to her throat, biting at her flesh as he slowly made his way down to her cleavage. She pressed her hands under his sweats and discovered he hadn’t bothered with underwear, his manhood swollen and anxious to break free of its cotton prison.

He teased her, moving down to the center of her belly, kissing her in places that weren’t proper for a man to touch without consent. Her thighs were quivering, already parting for the exploration she’d thought was coming. But then he lifted her again, carried her into the kitchen. Without ceremony, he tossed her over the kitchen table, lifting her skirt roughly as his knees pushed hers apart.

If he said anything at that point, she obviously didn’t hear it. And, maybe, that was a blessing.

He’d never been so rough with her, but it felt almost right. It was punishment for everything that had gone down between them, for everything she’d done wrong. It was her just desserts for the death of their child and her decision to abandon him in the aftermath.

He was inside of her for only a few minutes, but it felt like a lifetime. She closed her eyes, her body jerking with each of his thrusts. She should have felt humiliated, ashamed, but she didn’t. The pleasure that rushed through her body reminded her of how good this had always been between them. How desperately she’d wanted this from the first moment she set eyes on him in his office. It wasn’t punishment. It was more pleasure than she’d allowed herself in years.

He lifted her off the table toward the end, his arms coming around her, his hands moving over her breasts. He kissed her neck, his face wet as it pressed against her flesh. She leaned back and kissed his mouth as they both sailed toward their climax, as their bodies did what their hearts and mouths couldn’t. They spoke to each other and found equal footing for the first time since their baby boy was taken from them.