Arrest (A Disarm Novel) (12 page)

“I’ll do it,” I said as we stepped onto our porch.

Henry froze, the key in his hand poised above the lock. He turned and pinned me with his gaze.

“I’ll call Dr. Harmon about the surgery,” I said, reaching out to touch his shirt, my fingers closing around the soft fabric. “I’m ready to try again.”

He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t really have to. The reverence in his eyes as he gazed at me said it all. And when he picked me up and carried me upstairs to make love to me once more, his silence spoke a thousand truths about the man I had married, the man who’d seen firsthand the ugliness of the world but never stopped believing.

“At least fourteen days?” Conor’s auburn eyebrows drew together and his lips pursed. He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his hair absently. “I don’t know.”

“It’s important,” I said, shifting my stance so that my legs were apart, readying myself for a battle.

“What’s it for?”

“Surgery.”

His eyes flickered with concern. “Life threatening?”

I sighed. “No,” I said, unable to lie and unwilling to tell the truth. I didn’t need one more man looking at me with pity. “But it’s important.”

“Can it wait?” he asked. He looked down at the calendar covering his glass desk. “Can you put it off for two weeks? At least until after we secure the Lombart account?”

I chewed on it for a moment before I began to nod. Two weeks was nothing in the grand scheme of things. “I’ll have to double-check with Henry’s schedule, but I think that will work.”

I turned to leave and was almost at the door when he called my name.

“I want you to go to Atlanta for the pitch.”

I spun around, my eyebrows rising in surprise. “You want me to go with you?”

He stuffed his hands in his pockets and flashed dimples. “No, I want you to make the presentation in my place.”

“What? Why?”

“It’s your baby, isn’t it? You know the campaign inside and out. Who better to make the presentation?”

“But that’s your job.”

He laughed. “It normally is. But I think you would make a more compelling argument.”

“One condition,” I said, raising a finger. “If we get Lombart, I want a raise.”

He grinned, unsurprised. “That was the plan all along.”

“A big one.”

“We’ll discuss the specifics later.” He looked at me expectantly. “Well?”

What could I say? This was a huge opportunity. There was no other answer than “Yes.”

—

Henry had the late shift for the rest of the week, so I continued to go out after work with Kari and a few others. I figured that if I had two weeks to live it up before I was forced to give up alcohol and partying, I might as well enjoy it now instead of sitting home alone. We went out to dinner, watched movies, and hung out at someone’s house and drank. I felt a little like I’d reverted to my early twenties, when partying was almost a necessity, but it felt good to cut loose a little and have some fun. I wasn’t hurting anybody and goodness knows I needed to relax.

I came home that Saturday at nearly four in the morning to find Henry’s car already parked in the driveway. I closed the front door behind me without any noise and winced when Law came bounding down the stairs. “Hey, boy,” I said, fielding his kisses then setting him back down. “Quiet or you’ll get me busted.”

I went upstairs but didn’t find Henry in the master or any of the spare bedrooms. I searched downstairs and found no trace of my husband. Then I heard a metallic clink and walked out to the garage, where he was working on his motorcycle in workout pants and a white shirt.

“Hi,” I said softly, taking note of the hard squeeze of his jaws.

He continued to twist a monkey wrench for the longest time, pretending not to hear me.

“When did you get home?” I asked.

Finally, he looked up at me but the ice in his stare stole the breath from my lungs. “Two,” he said tersely. “Where have you been?”

“Just out with some friends,” I said, stepping into the garage and walking closer. “I was buzzing so I slept on Kari’s couch until I was sober.”

He looked away again, his nostrils flaring. “Check your phone.”

I dug through my purse and found my phone. “Shit,” I whispered under my breath at finding several missed calls and numerous unanswered messages. “Sorry. It was on silent.”

He stood up then, the anger emanating from him. “Is this what you do every night when I’m working? You go out and get drunk?”

I bristled. Oh hell no. “Excuse me? Isn’t that what
you
do every night after work?”

“This is different,” he said in a much louder voice. “You shouldn’t be out there this late at night. It’s not safe for you out there.”

“Where exactly do you think I go?” I asked, dropping my purse on the floor. I almost pushed my sleeves up my arms and put my dukes up but decided that was too much.

He glared at me, his jaw muscles still working. “If you only knew what I see every night, all the shit people do when the sun goes down, then you would understand where I’m coming from.”

“I’d understand where you’re coming from if you ever told me any of the shit you see at night,” I spat out. God, I was so tired of this same old argument, of my same old plea. “You just need to open that mouth of yours and talk to me.”

“Talk to you? Isn’t that what we do every day?”

I shook my head sadly. “You just don’t get it, do you?” When he said nothing, I continued. “What happened to you after Afghanistan, all of that shit that ate away at you, it’s happening again.”

He scrubbed his face with his palm. “Elsie . . .”

“I feel so closed off from you. Like there’s this huge brick wall that’s between us and I can’t climb it.” When his jaw hardened once more, I said, “You’ve got to help me out here, Henry.”

His nostrils flared. “Fine. What do you want to know?”

“What happened the other night, when you told me you couldn’t lose me again?”

He looked down at the wrench in his hand.

“For fuck’s sake, tell me. Talk to me.”

“You don’t need to know.”

“No wonder I have to turn to someone else.” I spun around to leave when he grabbed my arm.

“What the hell does that mean?” he growled.

“That means I’m going to talk to someone who will actually communicate back.” And I don’t know why I said it, but suddenly, I wanted to take a sledgehammer to that hard facade. “Like Conor.”

His face turned an ugly shade of red, his nostrils flared, and his jaw muscles clenched. “What did you say?” he asked, his fingers tightening around my arm.

I tried to pull away. “Let me go.”

He pulled me against his body. “No. You’re mine, Elsie.”

I fortified my gaze, pretending my eyes were made of diamonds. “I’m not some object you can lay claim to.”

He grabbed my left hand and fingered the metal band there. “No, you’re my wife. You agree to be mine every day you put on this ring.”

I never let my gaze waver. “Then that means you belong to me. And I demand to know what happened the other night.”

He walked into me, forcing me backward a few steps. Still, I held my ground, even if my heart was thumping wildly in my chest. “Fine, I’ll tell you what happened,” he said in a low rasp. “I answered a hit-and-run call on East Sixth. Dispatch described the victim as a woman in her late twenties dressed in jogging clothes.”

I gulped as an expression flew across his features, a shadow of the pain he wore the other night. “You thought it was me,” I said.

“I drove there as fast as I could, holding my breath, praying it wasn’t you. And then it wasn’t. But to see that woman there, bleeding out on the asphalt while EMTs tried to revive her . . . I kept thinking that it could have just as easily been you.” He tried to keep his face steady, but I felt his hands trembling at my side. I grasped his fingers with my own, and brought his hands up to my face to cradle my cheeks the way he was so fond of doing.

“Why was that so hard for you to say?”

“Because the job is not supposed to affect me,” he said between his teeth. “I can’t afford to show any weakness.”

I turned my head and pressed a kiss into his palm. “You can with me,” I said against his skin. God knew I already showed him so many of my own failings.

He didn’t say anything. He just rubbed his thumbs against my cheeks, staring into my face.

“I’m worried, Henry. I don’t want you to lose yourself again.”

He shook his head. “That’s never going to happen again, Elsie,” he said. “I won’t let it.”

“And what happened in Monterey, when you broke my heart—you allowed that to happen?”

“No!” he said immediately. He took a step back and rubbed his face again. “That was . . . a stressful time in my life. I didn’t handle it as well as I should have.”

“And you don’t think this is a stressful time in our lives?” I asked, furiously trying to keep my voice under control. God, I wanted to shake him by the shoulders until his brain lodged itself back into its right place. “You think you’re handling it well right now?”

“Are you?” he shot back. “Going out drinking, coming home at four in the fucking morning?”

I took a step back, the force of his words as powerful as a punch in the gut. I was about to issue an indignant denial, but I only succeeded in standing there with my mouth agape as his words soaked in. “Maybe you’re right,” I said after some time. “But at least I haven’t stopped communicating.”

“I’m here! I’m still communicating!” he shouted, throwing his arms out. “This is me communicating! Isn’t this enough?”

I withdrew another step. “No,” I said, staring at him, unable to believe that this huffing and veiny man before me was really my husband. How he had changed from the man who met me at the end of the aisle and married me in front of the never-ending ocean.

A thought suddenly popped into my head and before I could think about the repercussions, I gave voice to it. “Maybe we need some time away from each other. Maybe this trip to Atlanta is just the break we need.”

I didn’t know what reaction I was hoping for, but Henry didn’t react at all. He simply gave me a hard stare, turned his back to me, and returned to fixing his motorcycle.

The day before the trip, Conor informed me that he’d be going to Atlanta as well.

“What? Why?” I put my pen down then picked it back up, fidgeting despite myself. This was not good news.

“Don’t sound so enthused,” he said drily.

“Sorry. I thought it was just me.”

He shrugged. “I was going to let you go alone, because I think you’d rock it, but after a lot of consideration, I think I ought to be there as well. To let the Lombart bigwigs know that their business is important enough for me to attend the pitch meeting.”

Of course he was needed at the pitch; he was the owner of the company. Yet something—an unknown feeling that niggled at me—felt strange about this trip. “Do you even need me then? I wouldn’t want to waste an extra ticket.”

“Not at all. The ticket’s a business expense,” he said. “Your presence will be highly appreciated. Trust me.”

I stared at him, wondering if I really did. Then it struck me that the real question was not if I could trust Conor but whether I could trust myself. Going to Atlanta with Conor was in the gray, murky area between right and wrong, but its outcome was ultimately up to me.

Not Henry. Not Conor. Me.

—

I was in the closet that night, reaching for a pair of shoes when I felt Henry’s presence behind me. I ignored him, like I’d done all week, and went back to my task, picking out a pair of sexy but professional heels.

“Is that really appropriate?” he asked, his tone immediately setting me on edge.

“Really?” I asked, keeping my back to him. “This is the first time you’ve spoken to me all week, and it’s something as douchey as ‘Is that really appropriate?’ Are you going to start telling me what to wear now too?”

He sighed, the melancholy deafening in the enclosed space. “I don’t think it’s possible to
tell
you to do anything. You are the colonel’s daughter after all.” He came closer, and suddenly he was everywhere, wrapping his arms around me and covering me with his body. “You’re still that same old brat after all these years.”

I tensed, knowing he meant it as a term of endearment yet feeling the opposite effect. I wrenched myself out of his hold and edged past him, out of the suffocating air of the closet.

He followed me out and sat on the bed, watching me pack. “If you want, I can try to take an hour off tomorrow to take you to the airport.”

“No need,” I said, folding a pair of slacks and placing it in the luggage. “Conor is picking me up.”

“Conor?” Henry took in a ragged breath, trying to control his reaction. “That’s nice of him to do that for an employee, but I can take you.”

“It’s fine. He’s coming too.” I don’t know why I chose that moment to break the news to him—I certainly could have handled it with a little more finesse—but I was just so damn angry all of a sudden.

The silence that followed was unnerving; I could have sworn I heard a vein in his forehead pop. Finally, he asked in a moderately controlled voice, “Conor is going to Atlanta too?”

“Yes.”

“And you decide to tell me this now?” He got to his feet and folded his arms across his chest.

“I just found out today.”

“You can’t go,” he said with finality. “You’re not going on that trip with that asshole.”

“One, he’s not an asshole. Two, this is a work trip. Three, I thought you already acknowledged the fact that you can’t tell me what to do,” I said, folding down three fingers until only the middle one was left.

He reached out and grabbed the finger, giving me a warning look. “Why are you doing this?”

“I’m not doing anything. Now let. Me. Go.”

“No.” He brought my finger up to his mouth and bit it. I reached up to smack his arm when he grabbed my wrist and pinned me in place with a look of burning anger and desire. “There’s no way in hell you’re going.”

I lifted my chin in defiance. “You can’t stop me.”

He grabbed both my wrists and twisted them behind me, holding me captive. His body was inches from mine, so close I could feel the heat emanating from him. He bent down and nipped at my lower lip, smirking as he pulled away. “You do realize I’m nearly twice your size? I can do whatever I want with you and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

My sex clenched at the rough promise of his words. My brain cried out that I shouldn’t be reacting that way, but hell if I could do anything to help myself from wanting more. “But you won’t. Because you’re too much of a fucking gentleman.”

He bared his teeth a second before he ripped my shorts down, his fingers cupping my mound. “I see through your bravado,” he gritted through his teeth. “You’re goading me because you want me inside you. Like this,” he said and roughly thrust two fingers inside my cleft.

I arched my back just as he grasped me closer against his hard body.

“Go on, Elsie. Say you don’t want me,” he said as his fingers flicked upward to connect with that special spot. He kissed my neck, running his teeth along my jaw, his soft chuckle warm against my skin. “You can’t, can you? Because you know you belong to me.” He let go of my wrists and grabbed my hair, kissing me with reckless anger to prove his ownership.

I didn’t want the pleasure to erase my anger, so I bit his bottom lip in retaliation.

He jerked back, his tongue flicking out to taste the blood I had drawn. “Fuck, Elsie,” he said a moment before he kissed me again, letting me taste the result of my anger. His hands were suddenly everywhere, clawing at my clothes until I was completely naked, my clothes pooled at our feet. He stepped away, chest heaving, and pointed across the room. “Get on the bed.”

I held my ground, daring him to carry out his threat.

“You either get on that bed on your own or I will forcibly put you there.”

My heart pounded against my chest as my emotions clamored for steady ground. I wasn’t completely comfortable with this Henry and yet I couldn’t stop my body from reacting to his dominance. To see him towering over me with that dark look on his face, his erection straining against his jeans, turned me on even more. God help me, but I wanted to push him further, to see just how far I could go before he broke. And maybe then I’d finally get a glimpse of what he was hiding behind that increasingly domineering facade.

“Make me.”

His nostrils flared before he bent down and hoisted me over his shoulder, walking over and throwing me onto the bed. He stood over me and undressed as I tried to catch my breath, only breaking eye contact when he pulled his shirt over his head.

Staring up at him, I found it hard to breathe from the unease and the lust and everything else in between. We had loved each other since we were innocent teens and now here we were, reduced to two lust-filled creatures ready to devour each other in rage.

His muscles rippled underneath his olive skin as he took one step closer to the bed. I tried to scramble away but he grabbed my ankles and tugged me toward him, lifting my legs up around his hips. He crawled on the bed like a predator and stopped when his shaft lay on my mound. He grabbed my chin and tilted my head up so he could kiss my neck. “Tell me you don’t want me inside you,” he said, sliding his heavy erection along my slick folds. “Tell me you don’t want me to fuck you senseless.”

I closed my eyes and tried to swim against the tide of pleasure coursing through my body from his words, from his actions. “I don’t—” But I couldn’t lie, not when he licked a path along my collarbone and certainly not when he took hold of his cock and teased my clit with its swollen head, rubbing my moisture in circles.

His voice was full of grit when he said, “Say it, Elsie. Tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it.”

I threw my head side to side, trying to clear my thoughts enough to find reason. It was in there somewhere, but the fog of desire was too thick; it dulled my senses but amplified the shocks of pleasure. I grabbed his ass and hissed, “Fuck me. Please.”

He gave a chuckle and in the next instant he speared me with his cock, entering me with such force that it drove the breath from my lungs. When our hips were joined and he was inside me as far as possible, he whispered roughly, “Tell me you’re mine.”

And it struck me then, as my insides contracted around his thick length, that Henry was not only claiming me, he was also trying to tame me, to keep me from running away. The ring on my finger felt heavy, no longer a symbol of love but a collar to which he was desperately trying to attach a leash. “I belong to me.”

He locked me in his blue gaze as he thrust hard, punishing me for my reticence. He slipped his hands under my back and pulled me up to sit on his lap, but even if I was in the dominant position, he still did not give up any control. He held me by the hips and drove upward, piercing through to my center with each rough thrust.

I leaned back on my hands to regain some control and smiled when he popped out. He shook his head as he grabbed his slick cock and pumped it twice before claiming me again. He pulled me up and grabbed one of my breasts, licking and sucking on it. When I rested my full weight on him to slow his pace, he growled and bit down on my nipple.

I gave a shout and beat on his back as sharp pain radiated from my breast. He only gave me a wicked grin before biting down on my other breast. With my nipple held between his teeth, he leaned away, stretching my skin even as he yanked me onto his shaft.

I keened, caught between pleasure and pain, shocked at myself for allowing Henry to do such things to my body. To retaliate, I dug my fingers into his thighs and held them there, my nails sinking deeper into his flesh, trying to break skin.

When I didn’t think I could take any more of the pain, Henry released my nipple and the relief triggered my climax. I came, my insides trembling even as I kept squeezing, holding on to him for as long as I could.

“God, Els,” he growled and then pushed me onto my back as he thrust into me one last time, his hips grinding into mine as if trying his hardest to burrow inside. “I love you so much, Elsie,” he said against my ear in a gravelly voice.

I gripped him to me, my heart pounding hard against his chest. “I love you too, Henry,” I said, choking back the sob that bubbled up in my throat. “So fucking much.”

He kissed the shell of my ear and along my jaw. “Don’t go on that trip.”

And just like that, I felt like I’d been doused with ice water. I pushed against his chest, the warm afterglow evaporating. “Get off me.” I sat up the moment he lifted away, feeling the anger rolling over my damp skin.

“What?”

I watched him sadly, his lip swollen from where I’d bitten him. “I’m going, Henry.”

He rolled off the bed and made to go to the bathroom, but turned around at the last minute. “You’d choose your job over your marriage?”

“I’m choosing myself.”

I didn’t know why we kept hurting each other, and for once, I didn’t bother trying to find out.

—

I called Conor the next day to tell him I’d just meet him at the airport, even though I hadn’t accepted Henry’s offer. I planned on driving there myself, to take advantage of the temporary peace and think about what I truly wanted in my life.

Sometimes I wondered if Henry and I had married too soon, if I should have lived by myself in Denver for a while before even contemplating getting back into a relationship with the man who had devastated me. It hurt to think what life would be like without him right now, but I couldn’t help but wonder if we’d needed that extra time apart to heal. Maybe our marriage would be different. Maybe
we
would be different.

I checked in my luggage at Denver International with a heavy heart, wishing Henry and I hadn’t left things so cold before he went to work this morning. As I walked toward the security gate, it occurred to me that, for the first time since he joined the police force, I didn’t tell him I loved him before he left for work. Slowing my pace, I searched through my purse for my phone.

As I eyed the long line at the gate, I dialed Henry’s number and was hoping wildly that he would be available to answer, when I heard the theme song to
Firefly
. My heart leapt in my throat and I turned around to find Henry standing behind me in his uniform, holding his phone to his ear.

He gave a tentative smile as he hung up and put the phone away.

“Hi,” I said, suddenly jittery with nerves.

He glanced around then grasped my hand and pulled me away from the traffic, into a quieter area by the windows. “I’m sorry,” he said, his fingers still grasping mine.

“Me too.” We looked at each other for a long while, lost in our own little world together. We’d changed so much. “But I have to do this, Henry. You told me once that you would let me go if I needed to find myself. So I’m going to Atlanta to regroup, to think.”

“So go, Elsie. But just remember that you’re my wife.” He added in a rumbling voice, “And I’m not letting you go without a fight.”

“Elsie!”

Henry’s fingers tightened around mine almost painfully when we turned to find Conor striding toward us, looking fresh and crisp in his suit, a tan leather computer bag slung over his shoulder.

“Hey there, chap,” he said, clapping Henry on the back, who flashed him a stiff-lipped smile. “You ready, Sherman?”

Henry’s eyes flashed in warning. To avoid a confrontation, I said quickly, “I’ll meet you inside,” and waved him off.

“He’s still calling you by your maiden name,” Henry said through his teeth. “That disrespectful motherfucker.”

I tugged on his hand and forced his gaze to me. “Hey, calm down.” I stood on my toes and grasped the sides of his head. “I love you, Henry. Please be safe out there.”

“I love you too, Elsie.” His eyes were still glued to Conor, who was walking through the X-ray machine. “No,” he said, refusing to let go of my hand.

I sighed. “I’ll be back tomorrow night.”

Still he wouldn’t release me.

My exasperation was reaching an all-time high. “Henry, do you trust me?”

He blinked down at me. “Of course I do.”

“Then you have to let me go.”

The look he gave me as his hand set me free shredded me, cut me to ribbons. He looked like a man who wasn’t sure if the woman he loved would ever come back.