Page 15 of Strict Confidence (Rochester Trilogy 2)
“Damn right they didn’t fit,” I say, cupping her in my hand. “He doesn’t know how they feel, the softness of them, the weight of them. He’s never done this.”
I bend my head and kiss her nipple. It hardens against my lips. The temptation is unholy. I lap at her, and she shivers in my arms. Moonlight casts a pale glow on her skin. I trace the letters on the plush slope of her breast. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.
Her eyes are mournful. “Beau.”
I suckle her again, until her eyes fall shut. I swirl her hard nub with my tongue. God, she tastes delicious. Woman and warmth. Salt and sea. I want to swallow her whole.
“Mr. Rochester.”
The formality stops me in my tracks. It’s like she dumped a bucket of cold water over me. I straighten and pull back. “Did I hurt you?”
“Yes,” she whispers.
“Christ.” I run my hands over her breasts, down her flat stomach. I’m looking for something. A cut, a bruise. Something left over from the fire that I touched. “Where?”
She takes my hand between both of hers. It makes me look fairly giant, my heavy fist encased in her small, delicate fingers. My palm lands on her chest. Her heart thumps beneath her sternum. “Here,” she whispers. “You hurt me here.”
It’s not that you aren’t beautiful. You are.
I told her I loved her in the fire. Then I tried to let her down easy in the hospital. There’s no rhyme to it. No reason. The world can’t reorder itself to make this relationship work. The boss and the nanny? No. It’s wrong, but my body doesn’t care. My heart sure as hell doesn’t care either. I want her any way I can have her—secret, forbidden, taboo.
What I want doesn’t matter.
Not if Paige might be in danger. Jane might be in danger, too. “I’m sorry,” I say, but it’s not a true apology. I’m not taking back my refusal. I’m affirming it. I can’t be with her, not while there’s still someone out there trying to hurt us. It’s small and it’s broken, this family—but it’s mine.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Jane Mendoza
It’s already bright outside when I wake up. There’s a heavy feeling of exhaustion leftover from the fire like Dr. Gupta said there would be. But I have a job to do. A child to take care of. So I shower gingerly and head downstairs.
Beau’s already gone from the Lighthouse Inn.
Visiting the house, Marjorie tells me.
Mateo’s also gone, doing business, whatever that means.
It’s only me and Paige and a breakfast spread on the sideboard that could feed an army.
There are large sticky cinnamon buns and eggs Benedict. Thick slices of bacon. Home fries. My stomach growls as I pile a plate high, reminding me that we haven’t actually eaten much since the fire.
Paige crumbles a blueberry streusel muffin into pieces. I can tell from the pile that she hasn’t eaten much, but I don’t want to pressure her.
“Do you want something else to eat? The fruit salad looks good.”
She shakes her head. “No, thank you.”
The small, polite tone makes my heart squeeze. Where is the wild, defiant girl I learned to care for in the house? She’s hiding somewhere in those blue eyes. “I’ll ask if she can make oatmeal tomorrow. Like you usually have for breakfast.”
A shrug. I’ve never seen her this quiet. This withdrawn.
I almost prefer the screaming tantrum to this quiet version.
Of course she looks different, too, wearing a ruffled sky blue shirt with botanical drawings of flowers on it and a pair of skinny jeans. New clothes stock our wardrobes, but there is nothing in black tulle, nothing with Monopoly figures on it.
Beau left an envelope with my name scrawled across it. Jane. I’ve never seen his handwriting before. It’s strong and messy, much like the man who wrote it. My cheeks turn warm. Inside there’s a black AMEX with my name on it and a Post-it telling me to get whatever we need.
So I sit down at the small business corner with its fancy MacBook and start shopping. Cute T-shirts that say I own the block and Go directly to jail, do not pass go will not really fix her shock and trauma from the fire, but it’s all I can do right now. I spend $500 on cute Monopoly-themed clothes from Etsy that are definitely not licensed.
Of course it’s not only the clothes she loves. It’s the game itself.
That becomes a problem, because there are many kinds of Monopoly. That’s something I figure out pretty quickly. Paige doesn’t want Maine-opoly or Ultimate Banking Edition or even a solid wood luxury version that costs $500.
“It’s not the same,” she says, her expression horrified that I’d even suggest such a thing.
She doesn’t want the digital Nintendo version for Switch, either.
Unfortunately they don’t make the very specific version of Monopoly anymore. It’s one of the classic lines, the regular Monopoly, basically, but not the Updated and Improved version that retails at Target and toy stores right now.
