Unforgiven (3 page)

Marissa’s fingernails curled into the nape of his neck under his shirt collar, her body hot and trembling against his. He wanted to hoist her higher, but any movement in the closet would advertise their location. So he closed his eyes and moved, slow, secretive, stealthy. Withdraw. Wait until temptation becomes torture. Push back inside, parting those slick, swollen walls, feel her quiver as he stretched her, then snugged up against her clit. Her tremors increased but he couldn’t stop, couldn’t do anything but feel his balls tighten, the pressure seethe in the tip of his cock as he did it again, again.

“He looked different.”

Delaney’s voice again, but he ruthlessly blocked her out. He needed all his strength and coordination to hold Marissa because she was shaking in his arms like she was going to fly apart. When he stroked in he knew why. She buried her face in the crook of his neck, stifling high-pitched gasps as her pussy contracted around his cock.

She’d come.

Thought flared in his brain in time to the rapid thumps of his heart. He’d done nothing for her except grope her with less technique than he’d used before, then fuck her in what was likely the most uncomfortable position ever, with her back to rough shelves. And she’d come.

Thump.

Sex could be like this?

Thump.

What would it be like if he got her flat on her back, in a bed, somewhere private?

Thumpthumpthump . . .

Endless, erotic possibility opened up before him, snapping his control. It was too much, a decade of denial, her helpless surrender, enforced silence, the imminent threat of discovery, sharing air in the small, dark space. Her heels hooked around his thighs, holding him close as he slammed home once, twice, then came. Hard.

When the blackness receded he said the first thing that came to mind, drawn out of long-submerged dreams. “I wanted that to last longer,” he said, low and gruff. The sound of his voice recalled Delaney’s, and he glanced at the door.

“They’re gone,” Marissa said expressionlessly.

Her face was a pale oval in the darkness, her mouth still red temptation. She unwound her legs from around his thighs, and braced her hands against his chest until he withdrew and backed away. The ache receded, but he knew that was only temporary. What remained was a taste of something dark and edgy, yet familiar. The smell of sex layered over damp earth and Marissa’s skin. Perhaps it was the rich, bitter layer of revenge, the coppery tang of blood mixed with salty sweat. Maybe it was lust.

Whatever it was, emotionless it was not. The dragon, awakened and hungry, shifted in his chest, stretched leathery wings against his collarbone and shoulders.

“Fuck,” he said under his breath.

He could hear her rearranging her clothes by feel in the dark, then she opened the door and peered out. “There’s a bathroom across the hall.”

He crossed to the small, antique-looking half bath across the way. Inside he ditched the condom, washed his hands, and looked in the mirror. None of the glossy color on Marissa’s mouth had come off on his. He checked his neck and shoulder, and realization bloomed. Twelve years earlier, every minute of every hour they spent together dripped emotion. Anger, fear, longing, exhilaration, the temptation of testing the edges of his control. This time it was hot and slick and irresistible on the surface, and like her lipstick, she left nothing of herself behind. The Marine Corps taught him how to hold it all in.

But who’d taught
her
? Where was the passionate girl he remembered?

When he opened the door, she stood in front of the pantry, her arms crossed, the halter hiding the sex flush on her collarbone and neck. “See?” she said. “No big deal.”

Her words landed with the impact of a roundhouse kick, but he’d learned his lessons well and didn’t so much as blink. “Right,” he said. “No big deal.”

“Good night, Adam,” she said, then opened the door to the servants’ quarters and slipped inside.

The bolt shot home with a firm click as he stood there, hands on his hips, and compared the only two women he’d let into his life. In the months since their breakup, he realized he hadn’t loved Delaney as much as he’d loved the way she looked at him when he came home on leave before deploying to Iraq the first time. He’d worn his uniform with a self-conscious pride that made him cringe now, and he hadn’t been too eager to closely examine the way it caused a sudden and profound transformation in the eyes of Walkers Ford. When pretty, kind Delaney Walker stopped to talk to him, to ask him about boot camp, then invited him to a party at her parents’ lake house over the weekend, a sense of relief dropped over his soul, like a curtain over a window framing the black thunderclouds and horizon-searing lightning. Too relieved that Delaney’s respect and love erased what he’d done to Josh and Marissa at Brookhaven, he’d never stopped to count the cost. She resisted sex before an engagement, no great difficulty when she was in college and he was deployed; when he’d produced a ring, she’d gone on the pill, and they’d used condoms.

And while the experience was a pale imitation of what he’d felt with Marissa that spring, he’d taken that for a good thing. This was reasonable. Understandable. A manageable urge, as unlike what Marissa inspired in him as civilians and Marines.

But now he was back in Walkers Ford, out of the Corps, tying up loose ends before the wedding, and before he moved on with his life. They’d gotten twelve years of curiosity out of their systems, and besides, he had one more unannounced homecoming to go. She’d said good night. He could return the courtesy.

“Good night, Ris,” he said softly. Then he shoved the screen door open and strode down the hill to his Charger, got in the car, and drove away, all the while wondering where the passionate, impetuous girl had gone.

3

W
ITH WATERY KNEES
and sensitized nerves firing randomly in all her hot spots, Marissa trailed Delaney and Stacey through the kitchen, entryway, and great room, half listening to their earnest conversation about wedding details, but mostly focused on
what just happened
.

Because
what just happened
, namely, a quickie with Adam Collins in her
pantry
, shocked the hell out of her. Worse, it made her forget about Brookhaven for a few minutes, an indulgence she couldn’t afford for a number of reasons. She’d said it was no big deal, but that was pride talking. Twelve years earlier she’d loved Adam Collins with the passion only a seventeen-year-old girl could muster. She would have done anything with him, even though she’d known he was leaving.

Back then, everyone had dreams, or at least a plan. Delaney planned to go to college, then to grad school to become a school psychologist. Keith planned on college, then law school, then a job at his father’s practice. Marissa was a Brooks, which meant she had dreams, not plans, and no money; like her father before her, she dreamed of restoring Brookhaven to pristine condition. Adam was a Collins, and like his deadbeat father before him, he dreamed of speed. Not stock cars. Motorcycles. In the rare moments when they weren’t screaming around eastern South Dakota at ninety miles an hour they talked about dreams. Adam dreamed of getting out of Walkers Ford, as fast as his Hayabusa could carry him. His need to prove himself was as tangible as the humid spring air.

Back then, she didn’t care that he was leaving, and she didn’t want to go with him. All she wanted was him, inside her, going all the way. Stopping short channeled her desire into love and Adam’s pent-up longing into increasingly reckless decisions. Risky moves on the bike. Drinking, something he’d rarely done before that spring. Risky moves, alcohol, and a teenage dare crashed together the night of graduation, at Brookhaven, and the consequences changed their lives, forever.

He left, not for the racing circuit, but for the Marine Corps, and broke her heart. But one fifteen-minute interlude with Adam in her pantry wouldn’t risk her heart again. It wasn’t likely he’d take an interest in her anyway. The idea of Adam Collins, seasoned Marine and world traveler, settling down in Brookings, South Dakota, was ridiculous. She would finish restoring Brookhaven, her only dream, and go on with her life.

The thought sent her stomach twisting and looping like a ride at the county fair.

Delaney and Stacey stopped in front of the grand fireplace for another moment of low-voiced conversation in the empty room. At Delaney’s request, Keith drove Mrs. Walker home an hour earlier. Alana stayed for a while, too polite to ask Marissa where she’d disappeared to for twenty minutes, but even she’d given up and gone home to Walkers Ford. Was that Adam’s next stop, his mother’s house? Darla Collins kept Adam’s bike. Did Adam know it lurked under a shroud in the garage? He’d had a plan, starting with smaller races as an amateur, making money where he could, working his way up to a sponsorship deal. He was fearless, gifted with unbelievable spatial awareness and reflexes. He would have succeeded, if not for—

“Marissa,” Delaney asked as Stacey pulled on her coat and prepared to leave. “Do you have a minute?”

Delaney’s father wrote her a check large enough to pay off the HVAC bill with some left over for the lumberyard. Their agreement gave Delaney access to the house whenever she wanted, and they both knew it. Or maybe Delaney still felt a tad bit possessive about her ex-fiancé.

“Of course,” she said, and closed the door behind Stacey. So polite. It really was impossible to find fault with Delaney. Her father owned the state’s largest privately held bank, but Delaney opted for a career as a licensed school psychologist serving three rural counties and volunteering at Pine Ridge once a month. She was pretty, reserved, always dressed on the demure side of current fashion. They made a great story, the good girl and the bad boy turned Marine, until Adam ended things before the storybook finish. The news had rocked not only Walkers Ford but the entire county. Fairy tales starring Marines and pretty school psychologists didn’t end that way.

They didn’t start with getting fucked in a pantry, either.

The air on the west side of the great room held warmth despite the rapid drop in temperature as night fell; or maybe that was heat lingering under her skin. Delaney waited until Marissa joined her in front of the unfinished fireplace. “The house looks beautiful,” she began, genuine approval in her voice. “But the wedding is in four weeks. Will you be able to repair this wall before then?”

Both ends of Brookhaven’s great room were finished in floor-to-ceiling oak woodwork panels that mimicked the construction of the sliding panels that defined Brookhaven’s unique style. The smaller, less elaborate fireplace in the dining area was intact and polished to a high sheen. The fireplace at the south end of the great room stood under walls stripped to the plaster and lathing. The rest of the house had been done since the spring, but summer’s busy season in construction stopped her progress. Or that’s what she told herself.

“Not a problem,” she said.

“What happened to it?” Delaney asked. “The other fireplace is in such excellent shape.”

Memories surfaced from the lockbox deep inside, pushed through her skin as prickling, hot shame. She should have stopped Adam before things got out of control. Even though the county technically owned the house at that point, Brookhaven was hers. Her responsibility. Her obligation. Her dream, even then.

“Vandals,” Marissa said shortly.

Delaney nodded, as if agreeing, but said, “Adam looked well, don’t you think?”

Marissa kept her gaze on the exposed brick and plaster. He did look good. His hair was still regulation short, the color of aged cedar, his eyes a true hazel, his body as hard against her stomach and breasts as the shelving was against her back.

“A little older, maybe,” Marissa said when the silence stretched into unnecessary guilt. Adam no longer belonged to Delaney. Marissa hadn’t done anything wrong.

Delaney joined Marissa in her close examination of the unfinished mantel, lifting her smooth, pale hand to touch the exposed brick and plaster. Keith’s engagement ring glittered brilliantly in the light, a move Marissa thought was intended to show off the diamond until she remembered Delaney was left-handed.

Delaney smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Thank you again for allowing me to use your house,” she said.

“My pleasure,” Marissa said. Delaney thought of it as her wedding. Marissa thought of it as Brookhaven’s redemption, the final act in her father’s lifelong dream, and hers.

Delaney let herself out. Marissa locked the door behind her, then walked around the house, turning off the lights, plunging the room into blackness. As her eyes adjusted, she could see in the distance the cottonwood trees lining the riverbed at the bottom of the pasture that sloped away from the house.

She’d kissed Adam for the first time against one of those cottonwoods. They’d been barefoot and muddy after a mile-long water fight along the creek left her white top clinging to her skin and her hair in dark tendrils on her shoulders. Weak from laughter, turned-on from the newly discovered sensation of being prey to a boy’s predator, she’d leaned against a big tree, wrung water from her hair, and found him watching her with the same expression on his face he’d worn in the kitchen tonight. The intensity scared her then, but now he had the body and the demeanor to go with the eyes, and she had the experience to deal with it.

He still left her weak, but not from laughter, and despite the rumors flying around town, he wasn’t staying. That dream died long ago, and she of all people knew sex didn’t change it.

Now, alone in the house, she pushed through the swinging doors into the kitchen. The whiskey bottle and two shot glasses sat in plain view on the kitchen counter, something neither Delaney nor Stacey commented on while they discussed foot-traffic flow into the great room. She ran water in the sink and washed the glasses and wiped down the counter. Then she carefully tightened the cap on the bottle and put it back in the pantry she used because the servants’ quarters had a bare minimum of cabinets in the kitchen.

When the door opened, the slightest hint of Adam’s skin and sex wafted past her to dissipate in the kitchen’s cool air. Nerves awakened, and barely satisfied, lit up like Brookhaven’s porch light on a clear winter night. She set the whiskey bottle in its accustomed place, then stepped out and carefully closed the pantry door—like the proverbial barn door—too late. She wasn’t known for playing hard-to-get, but they’d gone from
Hello, Marissa
to the shocking, stretching glide of his cock into her body, with his ex-fiancée right outside, in less than twenty minutes.

Why the hell did you do that?

Because it’s been forever and a day since you had a new experience.

She stepped out to the white-painted planks of the tiny porch. Rain dripped cold and steady from the overhang covering the servants’ entrance to the house her great-grandfather built when he arrived in the Dakota territory, flush with his inheritance from the Brooks shipping fortune. Succeeding generations ran through the inheritance in true Brooks-dreamer fashion. She and her father had lived in the house until they moved into a rented house in town, taking with them boxes of artifacts from Brookhaven’s glory days, memories not of his childhood but his father’s, passed down to him, and from him to Marissa.

Her father taught her to dream. Life taught her dreams don’t always come true. Her first time with Adam fell more in the realm of fantasy fulfilled.

Why the hell did you do that?

Because for the first time, he clearly wasn’t going to say no.

The flashpoint memory of his body pounding into hers sent an aftershock rippling through her.

Her heart had stopped when he walked into the room. Alana was there not as one of Delaney’s attendants but as Marissa’s friend, and even the smooth, composed librarian faltered when Adam walked on the scene.

Isn’t that . . . ?

Yes.

Oh my.

Marissa had no response to that, because Adam wasn’t supposed to be there. He’d caught her off guard—that was a handy excuse for
Why the hell did you do that?
—and based on the looks ranging from raised eyebrows to dropped-jaw shock, no one else in the room was, either. Even Keith, normally so arrogantly slick and confident, looked almost panicked. No one expected him until much closer to the wedding, but there he was, wearing cargo pants and a button-down shirt, shoulders squared, jaw set, boots thunking against the hardwood. The room was massive, high ceilings, open floor plan, and Adam dominated it from the moment he strode through Brookhaven’s double front doors. Apparently you could take the man out of the Marine Corps, but you couldn’t take the Marine Corps out of the man.

But something glinted in Adam’s eyes, something that made her heart knock hard against her throat and had her searching for an opening. Now, with her mouth numb from three shots of whiskey, her legs weak from a mighty orgasm, and her shoulders sore from getting sandwiched between oak supports and Adam’s hard body, she knew why.

The boy she’d thought was long gone still lived in that straight-backed, broad-shouldered recruiting poster.

The lights of Walkers Ford, twinkling through the steady rain, called her back to the present. Her life rolled out before her like the sodden prairie sloping away from Brookhaven, to the creek and beyond. Priority number one was to cover the exposed plaster and lathing around the great room’s fireplace in time for the wedding.

It sounded so simple. Another house built by Henry Dalton Mead lay just east of Brookings, due to be demolished. All she had to do was tear off that house’s mantel and paneling, transport it to Brookhaven, and install it. She’d have her dream, for herself, for her dad, for all the Brookses who came before them.

So why can’t you turn into the driveway, let alone walk into the house?

She would try again. She would do this. Had to do this. Wanted to do this, even, so this time there wouldn’t be a problem. Above all, she wouldn’t show any weakness, any hint of hesitation.

You can’t even turn into the driveway . . .

A shiver chased up her spine. Nothing a hot bath wouldn’t cure. She locked herself in Brookhaven and went to turn on the water.