I scoot off the bed and when I hunt for my clothes, Eric’s there, fully dressed already except for his shoes, handing them to me, his eyes meeting mine, but there are no answers there for me to find. Just shadows and pain, I think. He’s hurting. “Your father—?”
“Supposedly hasn’t called anyone or communicated with anyone since arriving to his hotel room.” That’s as much of that “talk” he keeps promising I get before he shuts me down. “Get dressed,” he says, and when he would turn away, I grab his arm.
“Eric—”
“He’s alive, Harper,” he states flatly. “That’s what you want to know, right? I didn’t kill him.” He untangles himself from my grip and steps away, his anger palpable, as i
s his intent to put space between us.
He’s angry and he’s angry with me. It’s then that I realize that maybe, just maybe, I’ve hurt him. I’ve thought him capable of hurting his father when he needed me to have faith in him and his decisions. I do need to get dressed and talk to him, really talk to him. I need to make this right.
I quickly dress, and by the time I’m slipping into my heels, he’s put his shoes on, too. We come together in the middle of the room and just stand there, staring at each other, seconds ticking by before he drags me to him, his forehead finding mine. “We have to use a condom from now on.”
It’s not at all what I expect to hear. “What?” I blanch and look up at him, feeling an invisible knife stab my heart. I was right. He’s going to hurt me. “I mean—okay.”
“Not for the reasons you think.” His hands come down on my arms. “I was in the moment with you. I want to live in the moment with you but as I stand here right now, I know that no child should inherit my hell.”
“You mean your family?”
“They’re only part of my so-called ‘gifts,’ but yes. My family.” His voice vibrates with the same anger I see in his eyes.
“The savant—”
“Is like a monster inside me, Harper. You haven’t seen just what it is yet.” His hands come down on my shoulders. “It pulls at me. It makes my decisions but I need you to know that while I may do things you won’t approve of, I won’t do anything I don’t think is necessary.”
“What does that mean?” I press again. “Your father—”
“Sent someone to meet me in a dark alley tonight.”
“What does that mean?” I ask again. “Sent someone—” I can barely ask the question. “To hurt you?”
“Yes. To hurt me.”
“No. No. Tell me he didn’t do that.”
His lips flatten into a hard line. “I wish I could.”
“Oh god.” My hand settles on my belly, the depth of evil that is this family, almost too much to comprehend. “Thank God you’re okay.” I grab his shirt then flatten my hands on my his chest, just needing to feel him, to feel him right here, and whole. “What happened? Tell me everything.”
“I left the guy he hired holding his balls in pain and came back here but this is war. We can’t even think about having a child, let alone a real life together until they stop coming at us. And they won’t, which is why I’m going after them. The way I should have a long time ago. The way they came at my mother.” Anger and bitterness vibrate through his words and I’m suddenly rocked by the secrets I’ve kept from him about his mother. Things I’ve already decided I have to tell him but not now, when those things could be triggers. Not until this is over so I focus on just that. How this ends.
“What are we going to do?” I ask, steeling myself for an answer that I’m certain I won’t like but I’m not sure I can reject. Not now. Not after his father sent someone to hurt him, maybe even kill him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Harper
“We?” he asks.
“We,” I confirm. “I’ve told you. I’m with you and that man, that man that is your father, is also my mother’s husband.” My fingers close around his shirt. “I don’t want anyone to die but I want this ended. I want him ended and there has to be a way that doesn’t include murder. So—I ask again. What are we going to do?”
His phone buzzes with a text. “We have people waiting on us downstairs, so right now, we’re going downstairs to deal with the houseful of people waiting on us. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
I want to push for more but he’s already snagged my hand and is guiding me forward. I’m right behind Eric when he starts down the stairs and when he seems to be pulling ahead of me, he abruptly stops walking and faces me, and then his hand is under my hair and he’s pulling his mouth to mine. A kiss that is just lips to lips, no tongue, and as we linger there, there is so much to this kiss. There is hunger, pain, torment, and possessiveness. He’s telling me that he’s not letting me go, and that’s everything to me right now. Our lips part and for several beats we linger there, breathing together until he strokes my hair and then laces the fingers of one hand with mine.
That’s how we walk down the stairs and when we reach the living room, we find Savage and Blake at the fireplace, flames licking at the glass cover.
“Ho, ho, ho,” Savage says, as we join them. “I came back bearing gifts. Or one gift.” He motions to Blake. “I brought the hacker extraordinaire. I tried to put a bow on him, but he refused.”