Need You Now (Martha's Way Series Book 2) (29 page)

Forrest drew his breath and released it before speaking.
“Why?” His voice was thick with frustration, emotions.

Claire’s eyes wavered from Lily to Forrest. “I…”

“You have to lea
ve,” Forrest cut
her off. “You always have to leave. Not tonight, Claire. Come with us.”

An awkward silence settled within the group. No one moved
until Zander’s phone started to ring. He retrieved the phone from his pocket
and frowned. “I have to take
this,” he said and
walked away.

“I’ll come for a little while, but I can’t stay,” Claire
said to the group.

Zander returned quickly. Lily examined her brother; his
big, muscular body was now rigid with tension. He picked up his shirt and put
it back on, th
en smiled warmly at her.

“Is everything okay?” she asked her brother. He had a
dangerous job, and she always worried about his safety.

He nodded. “Yeah, it was work.”

“Beer or not?”
Adam asked.

“Beer.”
The men answered.

“Shower first,” Max
said,
which gene
rated a cough from
Adam.

“Fine, pretty boy,” her fiancé teased, laughter in his
voice. “See you all in about one hour.”

Hand in hand, Lily walked back to the Maserati with Adam
and everyone just as a black Ford pulled up. The same reporter jumped out of th
e car and hurried toward them. Adam stopped and held her
close to him.

“I am seriously contemplating getting a restraining order,”
he said under his breath.

In the fear of the moment, time stood still and yet it
raced. Her brothers watched with curiosity.
Zander
leaned against the Range Rover with his arms crossed over his chest, quietly
taking in the event. Jason, Forrest and Blake looked ready to attack.

“Pereira Cooper,” the man said smugly.

Lily glanced at Adam. His eyes twitched. A new,
uncomfortable p
erplexity began to invade her.

“What do you want?” he asked, tone stern.

“You already know what I want.
The truth.”

“No interview.”

The man looked at Adam then gave Lily a quick once-over.
She stared back at him as he moved closer.

“You should know who you
’re going
to marry,” he warned.

“Leave her out of this,” Adam growled low in his throat.

But Lily released his hand and stepped forward with one
desire and that was to protect Adam from whatever this man had over him. “I’m
with my family. I’d appreciate it
if you’d leave.”

“You don’t know him.”

She knew he was a big puzzle with damaged pieces, but
nothing they couldn’t put back together. Yeah, some pieces might bend, curl at
the end or have to be squeezed back into their spots, not fit as they once
were, bu
t none of that mattered. No one was perfect,
and she loved Adam with all of his perfect imperfections. Lily smiled. “I know
enough.”

But the man looked over her shoulder to Adam then whipped
his head to the others watching like hawks. Even her brothers see
med guarded. Finally, Zander stepped forward, placed his
hand over the stranger’s shoulder.

“I don’t really care about him.” Zander motioned to Adam.
“But my sister seems to care.” He flashed the man a warning smile. “I suggest
you leave now or if he choos
es to rearrange your
face, all of us might join him.”

The man sneered. “Is that a threat?”

Zander shrugged casually.
“Yeah.
And
don’t
worry
,
I always deliver on my threats.”

Lily looked at Zander. He gave her a reassuring nod.
Whatever reservation he had a
bout her relationship
with Adam had taken a back seat. He and the other imposing figures all ready to
attack, except Rafa. He leaned back watching the whole scene unfolding.

“I can take care of my own business,” Adam said to Zander.

“Yeah, I see that,” her
brother
responded in a calm tone.

“Show is over,” Adam announced. He pulled gently on her
hand. “Come on, let’s go home. See everyone in one hour.”

They drove in silence to the house. From time to time she
glanced over at Adam’s profile. His face was set
in a
stony expression, completely shutting her off.
Or at least trying to.

Once inside, Adam stripped out of his clothes and went
straight to the shower. Lily dropped her purse on the floor, kicked off her
sneakers and sat on the bed, listening to the soun
d
of the water running.
Her stomach
spasmed for Adam.
Another reminder behind his smile was a hurting heart,
filled with torment.

Her phone buzzed. Lily fetched it from her purse and
glanced at the text.

I’m
still in love with you. Nate.

Frustrated, she
blew out a breath
and texted back.

Please
Nate. Not now.

And let her body fall back on the bed with her eyes fixed
on the ceiling. When the door opened and Adam stepped into the bedroom, she
turned to look at him. He stood stark naked for a moment, the
n walked away to retrieve a pair of black boxer briefs and
slipped them on.

Silence clung to the room.

“You’re shutting me out again,” she said into the silence.

“Not my intention.” He came to stand at the side of the
bed, eyes dark and personal. “Ask me t
he questions
and I will answer.”

Lily brought herself to a sitting position. “Who was that
man? What’s his name?”

“Marcos Souza.” Adam lowered himself to the bed and sat
next to her.

“Why don’t you give him the interview and move on?”

“It’s my story, my pa
st. I don’t
feel like sharing it with the world. My parents have two years of my life
pretty much sealed. From age eight to ten. They wanted to give
me
a chance to create my own path without being judged.”

She gripped his hand and held on. His gaze rested
on their connection.

“I think,” he started again, his voice thick, “the Internet
states I was an orphan until the age of ten when I was adopted. I don’t know
for sure, I never really looked.” His jaw clenched. “Souza is digging for that.
He’ll get what he’
s looking for soon enough.”

 
“The accident
with your birth father is not public?”

He turned and held her gaze. “It wasn’t an accident,
Liliana. I shot him. I took his life. I had no right to do that, no matter how
much of an asshole he was.”

She looked at
his profile, so
harsh and wounded. “You were eight and beaten down.” From what she’d learned
physically and mentally. “Eventually you have to take a deep breath and let it
go. Sometime the way to do that is to face it head on.” He taught her that
lesson th
at night he found her crying.

No response.

“Anything else I need to know?” she asked into the echoing
silence and tried not to think of worst-case scenarios. But then again, what
could be worse than taking the life of your own father?

“Not really.” He
raked a hand
through his wet hair. But there was an edge in his voice. “My father was taken
to the hospital where he died of exsanguination. Severe blood loss,” he
explained. “My lawyer was able to convince the jury that I acted in
self-defense.” He shrugg
ed. “So I walked. I was under
psychiatric care for a while. Went to a few foster homes and eventually was
adopted by my parents.”

Lily let out a breath and tried to process everything she’d
learned, but she was too physically and mentally exhausted.
And sa
d.
Too damn sad.
“You’ve been through so much,” she said
with tears in her eyes.
“Just too
much.”

“I survived.”

He lay on the bed and pulled her into his arms. She cuddled
against him and ran her fingers over his solid wall of male chest.

“And who is…” sh
e paused, unable
to remember the first part of the name the reporter mentioned. “Cooper.”

“Pereira Cooper.”

She nodded.

“My birth parents’ surnames,” he said thickly.
“Maria de Lourdes Pereira and Timothy
Cooper.”

“Cooper is your last name.”

He nodded. “On
ce upon a time I
was Adam Pereira Cooper. My parents dropped them once I was adopted.” He ran
his hand over her arm. “How come you never asked about that?”

Her hands gracefully moved to his waist, slipped beneath
his briefs gripped his virile masculinity.
“Many reasons.”

He waited.

Her entire body was now vibrating with need, but tried very
hard to stay calm and give him the security and comfort he needed.
Because those things were part of loving
someone.
“Because that’s your past.
Not who you are now.”

“My
past shaped me.”

She tilted up and kissed his chiseled cheekbones. “Yes, a
part of your story.
A couple of
chapters in your life.”
She lowered her lips to his chest where his heart beat.
“Don’t give it too much power.”

“And this is all okay with you?” he
asked. His hands slid to her hips and stayed there.

“What you went through as a child will never change how I
feel about you. It’s the man you’ve become who has a hold on me.”

With a sweeping motion, Adam pinned her under him. He
pulled her to him and kis
sed her with a hunger so
strong it made her knees wobble. “I’m going to make love to you very slowly,”
he promised against her lips.

“Aren’t we going to meet everyone?”

“They can wait.”

And he kissed her with a hunger so strong, Lily was glad
she was lying
down; otherwise, her knees might have
given out on her. A soft laughter rushed from the back of her throat, she
wrapped her arms around his neck. “Is sex the gateway to get you to talk to
me?”

He smiled, a very sexy smile filled with promises of things
to
come. “It works. No one loses.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“Every saint has a past, every sinner
has a future.”

Oscar Wilde

It turned out marathon sex with Lily was the cure for
nightmares. After they returned from Vapor, they’d barely made it inside the
house when she tore his shirt off. They didn’t quite make
it to the bedroom at the first go. He’d taken her on the floor and had the
bruises on his knees to prove it. That suited him fine. And Lily hadn’t
complained. One of the many things he loved about
her;
always ready to take a trip on the wild side as long as he was by her side.
Once they caught their breaths, she dragged him to the bedroom, straddled him
and made both of them climax so hard, Adam thought the earth shook. He loved
that too.

Sometime i
n the night, they’d
eventually collapsed in bed half-delirious with pleasure and completely
satiated. He slept hard, and no dreams, at least not the kind that left him
covered in sweat. In fact, he remembered nothing from the moment he kissed her
goodnight
.

Trusting, warm Lily had brought him peace. He loved that
too.

Love.
There was that word again. Lately, it
had become synonymous with Lily. From the way she smiled, her touch, her
resilience. He’d known for a while his feelings ran deeper than their physi
cal connection, but like any other man not looking to put
his heart on the table, he fought. And it worked; at least until the moment he
chose to walk down the Lily path naked and exposed too much of his heart, his
mind, and what existed on the inside. He
showed too
much of himself; surprisingly, that was when he started to get it right. To
think, only a week ago, she told him she wanted nothing but mad, passionate
love. Slowly, but surely he had given up control and surrendered to her wishes.
And she had b
ecome his deepest, most desperate
desire.

She stirred and his arms automatically tightened, holding
her close to his heart.

“Adam,” she called his name, eyes still closed.

“Yeah…
”

“Did you sleep?”

“Yeah.”

A smile touched her lips. Eyes still closed. “Good.
I’m tired.” The words were a slur of exhaustion.

“Then sleep.”

“Hold me.”

“I am.”

He drew her naked body closer and she snuggled against him,
still sleeping, breathing softly, cozily installed in his lair.
Skin on skin.
He glanced down at her body; his ga
ze rested on her stomach, and became overwhelmed with a
sensation that went beyond anything he ever experienced. The fire in him that
only she could ignite flared up. His first thought was to roll her on her back
and spread her legs. He wanted to hear her
cry out
his name again and again, but damn it, there was no need to wake her up. Come
to think of it, he’d been rather on the selfish side for beating her body so
much. He’d make sure they took it easy today. No sex; well, at least nothing
rough, or hard a
s she often requested, and who was he
not to oblige?

Adam grabbed the comforter and yanked it over them. He
placed his free arm under his head and fixed his eyes on the ceiling while
Lily’s head rested on his chest, one of her legs slung over his Tonight w
as dinner with her family and his. That ought to be fun.
Because he cared for the woman in his arms and knew deep down she’d want her
pain in the ass brothers to get along with him. He made a silent vow to be at
his best behavior.

During the football game
and even
at the bar, he’d caught Lily smiling a few times while he interacted with the
big goofs. As long as Lily didn’t expect him and the knuckleheads to break out
into
Kumbaya,
the evening would be a success. To be
fair, Zander and Max seemed to have wa
rm up to him.
Rafa, on the other hand, was still a fucker. His bad attitude made it easier
for Adam to dislike him. But then again, he detected the feeling was mutual. A
vision of his mother sitting across
from
him, giving him the now-Adam-behave stare dow
n flashed before him. He smiled. How many times in his life
had she whipped him into shape with only that look?

The morning slowly drifted. Adam lost track of how long he
lay there with Lily in his arms. It wasn’t until she stirred and mumbled, “I
can stay in your arms forever” did he make any attempt to move, but even then,
he stayed still until she broke their con
tact and sat
by his side. She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hands.

“Do you feel sick?” He was constantly worried about her
health, whether she was consuming enough food.

“Nope.”
She stretched.

Adam gaze rested on her perky breasts. “Stop doing that.
”

Her eyebrows squished together in confusion,
then
she realized his eyes were on her
breasts. She laughed breathlessly. “Oh, I was stretching.”

But the twinkle in her eyes told him she enjoyed torturing
him. Well, two could play the game. He chafed his th
umb
over her dark pink areola. She immediately stopped laughing and moaned instead.

He lifted his weight enough for his lips to touch her
stomach, circled his tongue over the tip of her navel ring then kissed the spot
below. “Hey, little guy.”

He felt her
body freeze. “What
are you doing?” she asked, her voice filled with emotion.

“I’m saying hello to our son.”

Her fingers slid into his hair, giving him a shiver. “Or
daughter,” she added, her voice hoarse.

“It doesn’t matter to me.” He kissed her belly agai
n, circled her waist and fell back on the bed, bringing her
along with him. Her breasts crushed against his chest. “What time do you have
to meet Minka today?” he asked, trying to figure out if they had time for a
quickie.

“What time is it?”

He grabbed his
phone on the
nightstand. “Eleven.”

She froze, jerked upright and leaped out of the bed,
gloriously naked. “Shit. I’m going to be late. How did you let me sleep that
late?”

There were a few reasons. He wanted her to rest, had no
clue at what time she was s
upposed to meet with
Minka, but most importantly, she had felt so damn good in his arms. “I like the
feel of you against me.”

She looked down into his face for a long moment.

Enjoying the view, he leaned back with his hands behind his
head. “What?” He laug
hed, feeling light-headed
and…Adam searched his brain for the appropriate word. Happy, he was happy.

She shook her head. “I’m going to shower.” She stopped by
the door and looked at him. She looked relaxed and happy.
“Any nightmares?”

“No.”

She smiled and
disappeared into
the shower. Adam lay there with his hands under his head, smiling for a few
minutes. His phone beeped on the nightstand. Barely moving, he reached for it
and answered his mother’s call.

“Are you in front of a television?”

The panic in her
voice cause his
gut to tighten and his smile faded. “Do I need to be?”

“Does Liliana know everything?”

“Yes,” he answered without a beat. There was nothing else
to tell, so much so that at this point he didn’t even care if Souza dug deep
enough.

“What abou
t her family?”

He froze. He never gave her family much thought about his
violent past.
Shit.

“Adam?”

He shook himself and rolled out of bed. “I’m here. What’s
on the news?”

“Souza found your trial.
The shooting.
It’s in the news.”

He closed his eyes moment
arily.
This meant Lily’s parents and brothers were probably aware of everything. He
swore. He didn’t like being bamboozled or cornered. Not that his past was still
that anchor holding him back, he was learning to let go with Lily, for Lily,
for them. But f
uck, even unexpected as the pregnancy
was, everything that happened so far had been on his own terms. “I have to go.”

“What do you need us to do?” his mother asked.

What his mother didn’t say was
Do
you want us to sue Souza’s ass? We can find a way.
“Nothi
ng,” he
answered without a beat, no longer caring about Souza. His mind was on Lily and
her family. They had to get to them and put everything on the table. “I have to
go.”

“Adam.”

He paused.

“We love you.”

“I know. I love you too. See you tonight.”

For a
moment he stood in the
middle of the room, waiting for Lily to come out of the shower, contemplating
his next move. His phone vibrated in his hand.

What
do you want me to do?

He read Jason’s text. Jason was the first to befriend him
when he started comin
g to the Vineyard with his
adoptive parents. He hadn’t bought the chip Adam carried on his shoulder.
Because of that the two had become friends since the age of ten. The following
summer, he met Blake, Forrest, and Claire. Since then, they’ve become insepa
rable, family. They had each other’s back.

I’m
sure there’s a law somewhere this asshole has violated. We will get him.

He glanced at Blake’s text and would have chuckled if he
wasn’t too fucking riled up. The only law that was broken was exposure. Last
time he checked, that wasn’t a crime.

Surfing
tomorrow? Whatever…I’m available.

Forrest was always up for an adrenaline rush.

Adam…Does
Lily know all of this?

He could sense the shock in Claire’s text. For some reason
he and the boys had shielded her f
rom his past. For
no particular reason, except when he did open up and confessed, she had not
been around. After that night, the topic was never discussed again.

Lily stepped into the bedroom wrapped in a towel, her hair
slicked back. She took one look at
him and stopped.

“We’re going to Martha’s Way to see your parents.”

Her brows furrowed. “What’s going on?”

Before Adam could answer, her phone chirped. She walked
over to retrieve it, looked at the screen then back to Adam. “That’s Rafa
asking me to come t
o Martha’s Way. Tell me what’s
going on.”

“Apparently I made the news. I take it your brother caught
my face plastered all over.”

Lily exhaled a deep painful breath. He watched her type
away on the phone then placed it back on the nightstand. She walked up
to him and wrapped her arms around his neck. “We’re in
this together.” She repeated the words he once said to her. “I’ll get dressed
while you shower.”

* * * *

Rafa’s dark expression confirmed what Adam had told her.
She studied Zander and Max. They
surprisingly looked
calm. Her parents were sitting holding each other’s hands, their faces crammed
with concern. She captured Adam’s hand in hers.

“Mom, Dad.”

Her parents glanced at her, then at Adam.

“How can you feel safe with him?” Rafa spat.

“Come on m
an, don’t be a dick,”
Zander said, surprising Lily.

“Sorry,” Max said to his parents, “but boys curse. So
there’s going to be a lot of cursing going on here.”