Empire (Eagle Elite Book 7) (39 page)

“Sergio?” Val ducked her head into my chest.

“She died here.” I pointed to the ground. “Watching the sunrise. Smiling. Happy. Peaceful.”

Val choked back a sob.

“So this is where we dance.” I announced turning toward her. “This is where we twirl.”

“But—”

“Life…” I couldn’t believe it, but I was channeling Andi. Something snapped inside my bitter chest, like a crack that finally allowed the sun to break through. Val needed to mourn, but she also needed to see that Andi’s life was a celebration. I’d been given that chance. She hadn’t. “…is meant to be lived — felt — experienced. Why spend your life walking — when you can dance?” I gripped both of her hands and started dancing with her in the field as memories of Andi’s life flashed through my mind.

Her smile.

The way she laughed.

Slowly, I held up my hand as Val twirled once beneath my arm, her face finally breaking out into a smile as rain poured down her face mixing with her tears.

“Again,” I whispered as I held her close. “Two twirls, you deserve two twirls.”

She twirled three times and then wrapped her arms around my neck, her warm lips touching my skin with a sizzle. “The last letter was for us.”

“Yeah, it was.”

“I’m not sorry.”

“What?” I pulled back searching her eyes. “What do you mean?”

“I’m not sorry that I’m falling for you. I should be sorry, but I’m not. I’m torn between wishing my best friend was here — and feeling guilty that I’m glad it’s me…” She shook her head. “Glad that it’s me, dancing with you, twirling, because not having you in my life terrifies me more than death.”

“Val—” I cursed. “I don’t want you to be sorry for that.”

“No?”

“I’m not sorry either,” I whispered. “I miss her more than life itself… and she’ll always be here.” I placed Val’s hand on my chest. “But the really great part about being human is our hearts grow, they make room, they have no parameters for how big or how much they can love, and even though I’m not worthy, I’m honored that you’re willing to share space with someone I loved — I’m falling for you too, and I’m not sorry for it. I’m only sorry that the road was marked with so much pain for you — and for her.”

“Kiss me.” Her hands tugged greedily at my shirt. “Please. Because, that was really romantic, and I’m still sad, and I don’t want to be sad, I don’t want to be sad…”

“It’s okay to be sad.”

“I know.”

“It’s okay to cry.”

“I know.”

“Val…” I brushed a kiss across her lips. “What do you want? Just tell me.”

“You.” She sighed. “I want you.”

What is Pyramus? A lover, or a tyrant?—A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Valentina

SERGIO HAD ALWAYS
been beautiful — masculine in the way the lines of his face met each other. Everything from the contouring of his cheeks to the fullness of his lips had me wondering if he was some sort of misplaced knight from a storybook.

What made it worse was his hair.

Just slightly past his ears, it curled near the nape of his neck, just begging for a girl to give it a little tug.

But wet.

Sergio. Wet.

Sergio. Wet and strong.

Sergio being my rock.

That was sexy.

Never in my life had I needed him to step up to the plate more… and never in my life had I doubted so much — that he’d fail to do it, after all, it was his dead wife.

I expected him to cry with me, to run off, to blame me, to pull at every ounce of bitterness he still had and toss it in my direction.

“Let’s go.” He tugged me against his chest as we walked side-by-side back to the house.

Once we were inside and the door was shut, he peeled off his shirt and tossed it to the ground, then shrugged out of his jeans and repeated the process until he was completely naked.

I went from sobbing to gaping. From cold, to sizzling.

“Here.” With a gruff curse he tugged my shirt over my head and moved his warm hands to my hips as he slowly rolled down my leggings, then pulled my boots off, tugging the leggings over my stocking clad feet.

How unfair.

He was naked and beautiful.

And I had on my bra, panties, and ugly wool socks.

“I think my grandma had a pair of those.” He pointed at them and smirked. “Which means they need to go.”

“Chicago’s cold,” I said with a tremor in my voice.

“Maybe if your husband wasn’t such an ass, you wouldn’t have to wear wool socks.” He leaned down, his muscled thighs tightening as he gripped one foot and tugged the sock off, then grabbed the other. “Because you’d be sleeping with him instead.”

“He’s only an ass sometimes.” I felt the need to defend him.

Sergio looked up at me from underneath dark eyelashes. “You don’t need to butter me up with compliments, Val. I’m already going to sleep with you.”

“Like now.” I grinned ignoring the way my foot felt in his hand, and how my skin buzzed with his tender touch. “Right now you’re only kind of an ass.”

“You smiled.” He stood to his full height then cupped my face. “Which means I’m doing something right.”

Sighing, I wrapped my arms around his naked body. “You do a lot of things right, it’s the whole after you do the right thing that really pisses me off… you know. Kissing, then running away, sleeping with me then slamming doors, sharing fun intimate details, then threatening to kill me—

“I get the point.” He held up his hand.

“Are you sure? Because I think I have more examples.”

“I’m good.” He nodded. “Thanks though, makes a man feel good that you have all of those incidents stored right up here.” He tapped the side of my head. “Now… you said something about not being sad.”

“I’m not sad,” I lied as a choking wave of anxiety washed over me. She was his first. He was my first. “I mean I am. I’m sad. I miss her. And it makes me feel like I can’t breathe and then, when I’m done missing her, I’m angry.”

“Okay.” He picked me up as though I weighed nothing and carried me up the stairs. “I know anger, we’re practically best friends.”

“And here I thought you didn’t have friends.”

“I have you,” he whispered. “Now, stop attacking me, I’m not the one you’re angry with, at least this time.”

“That’s true, it would be easier if it was your fault.”

“Would you like me to take the blame? Be the punching bag? I can do that, if it helps. I’d be more than happy to be on the receiving end of a black eye; I imagine I’d be your first recipient.”

He walked us into his room then placed me on the bed and went into the large marble bathroom. There was glass everywhere, no privacy whatsoever. How did he live that way? I shivered at the raw sexuality he emitted by merely walking, the muscles in his legs shifted and tugged all the way up his tight as sin ass.

My body broke out in a cold sweat at the sound of water, and then he was walking back toward me. It was almost impossible to keep my eyes on his face when there were other parts of his body fighting for my attention.

At least it was a distraction.

He was a distraction.

Yet, every time I looked at him, I saw her touching him, loving him, pleasing him, and it made me sick to my stomach.

I wanted to scream with jealousy while at the same time sob with the unfairness of her death.

“Hey.” Suddenly Sergio was in front of me. “You’re still angry.”

“Yeah.” I gripped the comforter with my fist and twisted, afraid that if I used my words, said all the horrible things I was thinking, he would hate me. I felt bad enough for even thinking them, let alone speaking them out loud.

“It’s a new bed.” He pointed down at my hand. “So you don’t need to take out your aggression on the pillows and down.” He gently grabbed my hand releasing my fingers from the comforter. “Do you really think I’m that much of an ass? That I’d bring you into my room, strip you naked… on the very same bed? With the very same scents?”

I didn’t trust myself to speak and not scream. “I wasn’t sure.”

“Val.” Sergio frowned. “I’m trying here, but you have to meet me halfway. Normally, you speak what’s on your mind, normally you’re only quiet because you’re pissed at me, and I can fix that. But I can’t fix this unless you tell me what’s going on inside your head.”

I sighed.

“Fine.” He grabbed my hand and tugged me off the bed. Once my feet hit the bathroom tile, they immediately warmed, heated tile? A giant old-fashioned claw-foot bathtub waited in the corner. “I’ll go first.”

“Go?” I frowned.

“I’m angry,” he whispered, “that she didn’t tell you who she was.”

“Me too.” My voice shook.

“I’m angry…” His mouth met my ear in a wet whisper as he unhooked my bra and slowly pulled it free from my body. “That I’m torn between missing her and being pissed at her for making you sad.”

That made two of us.

His hands moved down my hips, fingers hooking into my underwear as he slid them down to my ankles, his lips met the back of my thigh. “I’m angry that for the first time in weeks, I have you naked, and you aren’t blushing.”

I blushed, basically, on cue as it dawned on me that I was completely without clothes in front of him, with every single bathroom light shining on my body.

“That’s better.” He stood and pulled me back against him. “Anger isn’t bad, Val. It’s normal to feel anger. Anger turns deadly when you allow it to control other emotions, because then you go from having a natural response to a supernatural reaction that manifests and eats its way through every positive area of your life.”

Tears welled in my eyes, I held them back, because they weren’t the sad kind, they were the angry kind, and I knew if I let them fall, I’d do something stupid, like yell, or say all the things I shouldn’t say.

“In the tub.” Sergio sighed heavily and turned off the water. “Unless you’d rather I take advantage of your nakedness.”

I hurried into the tub and sat, only to be immediately joined by him.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Isn’t it obvious?” His deadly smile deepened as the water swished around our bodies. Slowly, with cat like precision, he moved until he was kneeling over me, almost chest to chest. “I’m seducing you so you’ll tell me all your secrets.”

“Oh,” I squeaked, unable to escape. “Isn’t that cheating?”

“So is that one of your things, Val? You like people to play fair?”

“Good looking people, people like you… they should always play fair.”

“Why?”

“Because you already have all the advantage!” I pushed back against the tub, water sloshing into my hair as he looked down at my breasts and breathed out a curse.

“I have all the advantage?” He raised his hand to one as it overflowed his hand and cursed again. “Yeah, I’m going to have to disagree.”

His other hand danced along my collarbone and then slid down my stomach until he reached the apex of my thighs.

I squirmed beneath the pressure of his touch.

“Talk to me,” he demanded, one deadly hand was massaging my breast while the other skillfully wreaked havoc on the lower half of my body. “Now.”

“No,” I moaned, nearly rising out of the water as he toyed with me over and over again. The bath water felt too hot, sweat started pouring down my face, and just when I felt like I was ready to lose my mind, he stopped touching me and leaned back. “What are you doing?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, were you expecting more?” He tilted his head. “Relationships don’t work like that Val. You can’t just take. You have to give too.”

“Is this your way of asking for a sexual favor?”

“I don’t want sex.”

“Right.”

“I want you to talk to me.”

“And I want to forget about today.”

“And when you’re done using me, using us, what then?” Sergio asked, his tone was scary calm. “You’ll go back to being angry and sad and eventually you’re going to resent me, resent us, resent the whole situation. No, we deal with this now.”

“In the tub?” I threw up my hands and splashed the water, angry that he was making me talk when all I wanted to do was go curl up in the corner and rock back and forth.

“In the tub.”

“Now?”

“Now would be good.”

“You really will keep me in here won’t you?”

“I think you know where I stand when it comes to my threats.” He leaned forward again submerging his fingers beneath the water, I tensed at the first touch and then relaxed as a slow rhythm built within my body, images of her, images of him, images of everything flashed in my mind. One last touch.

One last vision of them holding hands.

In bed.

Married.

“I hate her!” I yelled slamming my hands against the water. “I hate that she ruined this! I hate that she left me! She abandoned me! My best friend! She lied to me! She betrayed me!” My voice was going hoarse. “And she had you!” I sobbed. “She had you, all of you! And I get the pieces! I don’t want the pieces, I know I said I’d try to make you happy and I’d work to make everything okay but I can’t function that way, I tried, and I can’t do that. I can’t live in constant comparison with a girl that up until today used to be my idea of perfection! You were married to the perfect girl, and now you have me, and I’m angry, so angry, that selfishly I hate being second best. I want to be first, Sergio. You were my first and….”