ASHFORD (Gray Wolf Security #5) (115 page)

“Touch yourself,” Carl said again, and Levi’s eyelids didn’t so much as flicker. I spread my legs, obedient, and moved my hand down between them, just as I’d done so many times before.

But something was different this time. Something was crucially different, and even as I went through the motions, my hand twisting against my body, my lips parting automatically, Carl watching my every move, I knew that it wasn’t the same.

I was doing this because I was choosing to do this. I was doing this as a means to an end, and the end would be final. I’d done it hopelessly and helplessly back at home, held hostage by Carl’s threat against my mother. But this time, he didn’t realize that he was the one in danger.

I inhaled sharply, then let out a low moan, just as I’d done for him in the past, but it was all playacting. I didn’t feel the animal attraction. The maw didn’t yawn open, beckoning for me to use an orgasm to fall inside of it. I had a clear, singular purpose, and I manipulated Carl with my quickening breathing, my fluttering eyelids, and one long, loud cry …

… there. Carl’s eyes fluttered closed in response to me, a stain spreading in his pants, I was sure, and I lunged across the bed for my purse, grabbing the gun and whirling around even before he could open his eyes, disengaging the safety, knowing, by the weight of it, that it was fully loaded, waiting, my hand not even shaking, for him to open his eyes, to know what was happening.

To know why.

His eyes finally did open, his mouth opening as well to tell me something disgusting, probably,  but he stopped in shock, looking at the metal of the gun gleam in my hand, trying to puzzle over what was happening — perhaps, why I wasn’t collapsed on the bed, crying because of my betrayal of Levi, because I’d fallen back down into the hole I’d started climbing up out of.

No, nothing was as Carl expected. Poor, poor Carl.

“Meagan?” he managed to ask.

“Fuck you.” I pulled the trigger, the shots deafening in the bedroom, echoing through the rest of the townhouse, probably audible throughout the entire block. I squeezed it until it was empty, the thump of Carl hitting the floor somehow louder than the shots that put them there. I squeezed until all my gun did was click and click, staring at the stain that spread around my tormenter.

As the room filled with people, rushing around, rushing around me, I looked over at Levi, wide eyed and panting, panicking, wondering why he hadn’t woken up.

“What did you want to have for dinner?” Levi asked me, making me look up from the book I was reading.

“I thought you sent the chef home,” I remarked, smiling.

“I did.”

“And I thought we were going to have a meal in for once,” I said, raising an eyebrow.

“We are.”

“And so who is going to cook this meal in question?” He knew for a fact that I was worthless in the kitchen. I’d subsided almost entirely on gas station food for nearly an entire year, after all. He was the one with the good taste in food.

“I’m going to cook.” He grinned at my expression of surprise. “You don’t believe me?”

“I do not believe you,” I said. “I would have to see it.”

“Have faith, Meagan,” he chided me, his blue eyes sparkling with mirth. “I’m a hell of a cook.”

“I might believe that, but you do realize you’re paying a chef to be on call at all hours to prepare food for you, right?” I took the hand he offered me and rose from the couch. “Just seems like a waste for someone who already knows how to cook.”

“Do you want me to tell her that — that you think she’s a waste.”

“You better not!” I squawked, slapping him on his rump as I followed him into the kitchen. “I’d starve to death!”

“I like cooking, but I never have time to,” Levi explained as I perched on the other side of the counter, watching him set out bowls and ingredients, prepping the stove and oven.

“You have time to now? I thought there was that big design deadline that you had to push to meet.”

“I’m making time to now because I want to,” he said, opening various packages and tossing the wrappings in the garbage. “The design will get met. This is more important to me, now.”

“It looks like you were planning this,” I observed as he seasoned a pair of steaks, rubbing the herbs and spices into the red, raw meat. “What if I told you I’d become a vegetarian? Would that change the menu?”

He halted his preparations for a second before scoffing. “You ate two hotdogs at the park yesterday — two. You’ll never be a vegetarian.”

The weather had been so nice lately that everyone was convinced we had shrugged off winter for the year. New York City’s spring was magical — flowers and trees blooming, people emerging from their season-long hibernations to seek out the sun, spread out on colorful blankets over what free patches of grass they could find. It was so special to be here — even more special to be here with Levi.

His support had remained unwavering even in my darkest moments. It had seen me through to the light on the other side.

After Carl had fallen, the gun hot and heavy in my hand, and both police and security personnel swarmed the place from the outside to the inside, I’d thought that all would be lost. I was moved to recall the time when authorities had surrounded me in my mother’s room, me sobbing over her body and trying to convince them that the man who’d killed her was still out there. They hadn’t believed me then, thinking I was simply in shock, grieving over the inevitable death of my sick mother.

What reason would they have to believe me now?

Even as someone pried the gun from my fingers, I insisted over and over again that the man who’d fallen, the man whose blood marred the rug on the bedroom floor was Carl Prentice. I was so frightened no one would believe me, especially since he looked nothing like the description I’d given to the police sketcher. I was afraid that Carl would continue to ruin my life after he was dead and gone, sending me to jail for killing him.

There were a tense couple of days of waiting for the investigation to find something, expedited, of course, through Levi’s influence, but fingerprints were the only thing Carl couldn’t disguise.

Across the nation, police records and warrants lit up like the Fourth of July. Carl was a wanted man in more states than I’d ever been to, masterfully changing his appearance in each place to suit whatever situation he’d found to exploit for the time being. There were charges of rape, fraud, assault, and many more I couldn’t wrap my mind around. Somehow, seeing it all there, displayed on multiple computer screens at the police station, validated everything I’d been through.

The things I hadn’t been able to tell my mother — and hadn’t had a chance to tell my brother — were supported by the other horrors Carl had committed, as documented by those screens.

I didn’t need Levi to believe me, to believe what I’d been through. He’d supported me from the very beginning, even when he hadn’t fully understood what had happened. But as he studied those records alongside me, his hand squeezing mine, his mouth set in a tight line, I was validated all the same.

“They should make a medal to give to you, Ms. Green,” a detective murmured at my shoulder, making me turn around.

“A medal? Why?” I’d killed somebody. I still fully expected to be led to the cells past the door on the far side of the room in handcuffs.

“Because you stood up to him,” the detective said. “Now, he can’t hurt anyone else.”

It was a huge moment for me to realize that — “transformative,” my doctor called it. I’d been able to stand up to Carl — or whatever his real name was — and not only free myself from him, but protect anyone else he might’ve preyed upon in the future.

To call it empowering would be almost selling it short. I was newly self-confident, shrugging myself out of the chains that had surrounded me, the weight of my past slowly lessening.

During one of our sessions, my doctor had warned me against expecting some miraculous, immediate “cure” for what ailed me. However, realizing that I’d protected people who might’ve experience what I went through was an immediate balm on much of my soul. There were still open wounds, sure, but they would fade, given time.

And given love.

I’d been so frightened when Levi hadn't so much as flinched at the gunfire after I pulled the trigger, or at least cracked an eye open at the thud when Carl collapsed to the floor. But he’d started stirring when his security team hefted him up, carrying him downstairs as the EMTs tried to bustle upstairs to help him.

“I’m fine,” he’d said crossly as one of them tried to secure a cuff around his upper arm to take his blood pressure. “Where’s Meagan?”

“Here,” I said weakly. I was still hearing the shots in my mind, over and over again, still seeing Carl drop to the floor, still so frightened at the fact that Levi hadn’t moved when it all happened that it was difficult to believe that he was sitting up, being angry at people fussing over him.

He couldn’t have known what happened, but he held his arms out to me all the same, willing to comfort me even if he didn't understand what had almost happened to him, what had almost happened to me.

“It’s over,” I said, trying to convince myself of the fact more than anything else. “It’s finally over.”

Levi was horrified when he finally learned what had happened, angry with himself and everyone around us, threatening to jettison the entire security team because of Carl’s ability to ooze in and fool people, but I was able to convince him to relax. To let it go. To accept that it had happened and accept that it was over.

Somehow, through the horror, we came out on the other side relatively unscathed and stronger than ever.

I watched him now, bustling around the kitchen, yet another facet of himself revealed to me, and I delighted in the knowledge that we would continue learning more and more about each other the longer we stayed together.

I started attending a vocational college of my own volition, eager to seek out my path, to find out what life had in store for me after I’d had to defer my future for such a long time, in the grasp of Carl and his immediate aftermath.

“You don’t have to do anything, if you don’t want to,” Levi had told me when I expressed interest in going back to school.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I have more than enough money to support you doing whatever you want to do,” he said. “Lounging around the house. Shopping. I don’t know.”

“You make me sound like I’m a lazy, useless, oaf,” I cried, laughing at the same time. “No, that’s it. I’m going to this school, and that’s the end of it. I don’t want to lounge or shop all the time. Just some of the time. I want to be useful.”

And as I went to school, got involved on campus, and met more people, my path became clearer and clearer. I wanted to be an advocate for people who couldn’t speak up for themselves, for people stuck in harmful relationships, for people who told their stories and still weren’t believed by the ones who said they’d help them.

“Is this really what you want to do?” Levi asked me when I outlined my plan for the nonprofit I had in mind after several months of planning in the business class I was taking.

“Do you not think it’s a good idea?”

“I think it’s a wonderful idea,” he clarified. “It’s enormously selfless. You’re not going to become rich off of it …”

“That’s what I have you for,” I teased.

“Yes, that’s what I’m here for — your own, personal moneybags.” Levi sighed, suddenly sad. “It’s just … don’t you think running this kind of operation will remind you too much of your stepfather? Of what happened to you? Don’t you think it’ll make you upset all the time.”

“That’s the thing,” I said, taking his hand. “What happened to me … that’s a part of me, whether I want it to be or not. I could struggle against it, if I wanted to, try to forget it, but it happened all the same. It was awful, but it’s over. What I want to do now is to give back. To make it matter. There would be no worse thing in the world than for all of my suffering to be for nothing. I could do this good thing that would continue to do good things hopefully long after I’m gone.”

Levi opened his mouth to say something and shut it again, instead enveloping me in a tight hug.

“So, what?” I said, groaning as he squeezed me. “Is that a yes? Will you support my operation?”

“Of course I’ll support your operation,” he said, releasing me and kissing me. “I’ll always support you, Meagan. In whatever you want to do. Because you’re amazing. You truly are. You’re an inspiration, and I know you’re going to inspire others to keep moving forward, to never give up.”

Giving up just wasn’t an option anymore. There was too much I wanted, too much to do. Too many people to save, even, but I was going to try. For every person I did help, well, that just made my work worth it.

The center Levi had designed for me was set to open in the fall, and I was just as busy as Levi was for once, hiring staff, soliciting donations, telling my story again and again until it didn’t hurt as badly to do so anymore, hoping that my suffering could help end others’ sufferings, as well. There had already been several articles written about the venture — one in the New York Times.

“You did this,” I said, accusatory, holding the offending page up to Levi’s nose.

“I can’t control the papers, Meagan,” he said, holding his hands up defensively. “They write about whatever they want.”

I was sure that was true, but that it also probably helped that one of the city’s illustrious and handsome billionaires was working on this project for the mysterious young woman he lived with and was often seen with, sharing romantic dinners.

Except for this romantic dinner, which would be enjoyed away from prying eyes, in the comfort of our own home.

“Everything is smelling so good,” I said, comfortable in my seat watching Levi toil over his various recipes and dishes.

“You just wait,” he said, taking a moment to pour a bit more wine in my glass. “It’s going to taste even better.”

Levi had asked me if I wanted to move, after what happened. He said he wouldn’t blame me if the townhouse felt threatening after Carl had been able to infiltrate it. But I didn’t. It already felt like home, and I knew Levi loved it. He’d designed all the interiors, after all, to suit his most beloved tastes. Living here was like knowing him even better, and it made me love him even more.

I would want to live here for the rest of my life — or anywhere, really, as long as Levi was right there with me. Home was by his side.

“Hot plate,” Levi warned, sliding a steaming platter across the countertop at me. Every inch of it was covered with food — the savory steak, roasted Brussels sprouts, a hunk of bread covered in rapidly melting butter, spicy baked apples bathed in their own juices. The man could cook. I’d give him that.

“You know, I think I still have an opening in the cafeteria at the center,” I joked, chewing on a succulent bite of steak. “Know anyone I could ask? Someone looking to switch careers, maybe?”

He pretended to think about it. “I’ll ask around.”

Dinner was amazing, but dessert was perhaps even better, the both of us slowly undressing each other, teasing each other with the strawberries and cream that had actually been on the menu for after dinner, me licking cream from his fingers until Levi couldn’t stand it anymore and lifted me up on the counter, burying his face between my legs, declaring that I tasted even better than strawberries.

What I’d told Levi about my past was true. It would always be there, sometimes looming behind me. I’d have good days and bad days. But the hole that Carl had created in me, the one that had yawned open so often, demanding some kind of distraction, compelling me to sleep with strangers just as a distraction from the torment I was feeling … that was slowly closing up, scarring over, returning to normal.