Fearsome (40 page)

He sighs and then pulls back to look at me with a curved mouth. “It’s been a long three weeks since you slept at my house.”

“I wouldn’t call what we did sleeping,” I say and he smiles.

“I miss you. Every day. The first thought I have when I wake up is
you
and the last thought I have before I fall asleep at night is
you
. I don’t want you to forget about me.”

“Don’t worry; Hera is hurting for available good looking, young studs, so you’re always in the running.”

He laughs and runs his hands around my waist. “I also miss your sense of humor.”

“I miss you, too.” Saying it out loud is liberating and for the first time, I feel like I’m making myself available for real intimacy. I’ve been hurting over missing him, so rather than doing it in silence, I might as well summon up some bravery and say how I feel.

“Thank you,” he says. “Thank you for saying that.”

“I’m not just saying it. It’s true.”

Carson kisses me harder, with more purpose, and I melt into the strokes of his tongue, letting my hands rest in his hair.

He presses into me and the zing of arousal is instantly amplified.

“I can either take you on this desk or the couch. Either works for me,” he says into my ear with a husky voice.

“We can’t. The girls are right next door, working in the other room.”

“That’s what doors are for.”

He grabs my hand and pulls me across the room to slam the door to the hallway closed. I turn the bolt to prevent any surprise visitors. Then he swings me around to the couch so I land on my back against the aged leather cushions. He pushes my legs apart and nestles his body on top of me. He kisses me with a grateful brutality. His erection feels like a brick against my pelvis and I get wet thinking about it being inside of me.

“I have been hard since this morning when you sent the first text. So, I decided I would either have to jerk myself off while thinking about you, or I could drive up here and convince you that Tuesday afternoons are the optimum time for sex.”

“Take off your clothes,” I command, pulling the bottom of his T-shirt up.

Carson stands up and hurriedly takes off his shirt, yanks his boots off and then throws his jeans and boxer briefs off. I’m lying on the couch as he pulls my leggings and panties off with such force that I slide across the leather cushions. I slip my oversized shirt over my head without unbuttoning it. Carson’s eyes widen when he sees that I’m braless.

He kneels on the couch between my legs as I take in his beautifully sculpted features; his olive skin that looks so dark against my fair complexion when he runs his fingers up my leg and his handsome face that shadows with lust and love when his eyes meet mine.

As he leans down, propping his arms on either side of my head, I take his erection in my hand and rub it against my wet folds. “I’m so ready.”

“Good,” he chokes out. “I’ve been waiting all day to do this. I need you now. This second.”

I put him partially in me and grab his back to drive him into me. He obliges without delay and goes deep with the first thrust. “I’m sorry, baby, but this is going to be fast and hard.”

“Yes,” I whisper as he pummels me with his thickness.

Our moans and grunts escalate with each thrust. Suddenly dance music with a heavy, thumping bass starts blasting from the other side of the wall where Lauren and Imogene are working. Carson and I laugh as he pumps into me with more force in sync with the quick beat of the music. I lock my legs around him and he moves in closer, changing his long thrusts to faster, shorter pumps so his hips are doing most of the work. As soon as I start arching upwards, the friction on my special spot makes me tighter and hotter.

“Carson,” I moan as an orgasm takes command of my nervous system and I fall into a delirious series of aftershocks.

“Ah, shit,” Carson says as his own release takes over him. “God, fuck; I love you.” He covers my mouth with his as he rams his last shred of hardness into me.

He collapses on me, all two hundred plus pounds of him, and I hope the couch doesn’t collapse after all that creaking and crunching coming from the wood frame. His mouth travels down to my breasts and sucks on each nipple. “And I love these,” he says then kisses my ears, shoulders and hands, proclaiming his love for them as well.

I roll to the edge of the couch so Carson can lie behind me against the back of the couch and hold me. He grabs the throw blanket from the armrest and covers us. I snuggle against him so he can spoon me.

“Thanks for the booty call,” he says and kisses the nape of my neck.

“My pleasure.”

“Trust me, it was mine. I wasn’t kidding; I’ve been carrying a hard-on all day over you. A guy can only adjust his dick so many times before he loses his vision and implodes. I was ready to hunt you down; I couldn’t think straight at work.”

I laugh. The music volume suddenly goes down and we both laugh again.

“Guess we were rocking the house,” he says.

“Carson,” I say softly.

“What?” He plants another kiss on my neck.

“Thank you for not hating me. I can’t bear the thought of you hating me.”

He holds my chin and directs it slowly towards his face. I have to turn my whole body towards him to see his blue eyes that exude warmth for me, creating a tight spasm in my heart. “I could never hate you,” he says.

My head rests on his bicep as I trace the outline of his jaw. He closes his eyes and then inhales and exhales slowly.

“Carson, I know Aunt Ginnie had some photos of me from school. I think she had some from the conferences I spoke at. There was one I did on computer analysis, if I recall.” I pretend not to remember the name.

“It was a symposium on software testing and analysis. You were the third presenter that day,” he rattles this off with his eyes closed, enjoying my light touch.

He remembers every detail; the titles of the conferences don’t fluster him in the least. He must have been paying very close attention when he was stalking me. The thought of Carson navigating the conferences then sitting and listening to the dry material is more than thrilling, knowing he was near me.

“Yeah, that was it. And then I had a bigger one on numerical computations.”

Carson jumps right in, not aware that I’m testing him. “That was the conference on computational methods and function theory. You gave a talk on theory and algorithms,” he says matter-of-factly. “You were very good, professional and entertaining at the same time.”

“Carson?”

“Yes?” He opens his eyes and looks at me.

“What was my Master’s in?”

“Science. You specialized in computation for design and optimization.”

I smile. “And how do you know so much?”

“Oh.” It finally hits him. “You know.”

“That there was no detective? I can’t believe I fell for that malarkey.”

“Dylan told you?”

“Right before he left town, he told me. I had no idea you knew so much about me and shadowed me through school.”

“It started as a favor to your aunt. I was going into the city on business and she mentioned you were graduating. I didn’t ask how she got her information. I suppose through old friends of hers in the city. I didn’t think anything of it. You were a kid. Fourteen? Almost fifteen? I got some shots of you outside the high school and it made Gin really happy.”

“How did you recognize me?”

“Your long, red hair, big brown eyes and you looked like you could boss any guy around.”

I laugh. “I grew out of the bossy phase when I became the youngest person in every school I attended. I became timid.”

“No matter. I found you.”

“And the other photos in college?”

“It was easy at Columbia because I was enrolled part-time, so I found some of your information. I knew where you lived and I sat in some of your classes—the big lectures—and nabbed some photos on my phone. It was harder to keep tabs on you at M.I.T., though. But when I saw you…”

“What? When did you see me?”

“You were eighteen. I sat in the different conferences they had your last year of graduate school. I checked agendas to see where you were speaking. By then I could get partial videos for Gin and some very good shots. You were—”

“I was what?”

“Fearsome, beautiful, and so fucking smart. You took my sanity away. And then, after graduation, you turned nineteen and went to work for 5 Alpha. I have a huge client in the Village so I actually passed you a few times on the street near your apartment.”

“I can’t believe you recognized me. There are beautiful women all over New York. Those fucking Amazonian models on every goddamn street corner who make people like me look like shlubs.”

“No, you are beautiful. I couldn’t miss you. That’s about the time when I started falling for you.”

“You didn’t know me.”

“I knew your voice. I also knew it was at least two octaves higher when you talked to your girlfriends about tacos or shoes.”

I start laughing and slap him on the shoulder.

“No, really. Your voice was deeper when you were giving lectures and you’d wear glasses and put your hair up to look older. You really
were
a fearsome creature. You spoke with so much confidence and you were graceful and poised; I was blown away by your maturity and intelligence. That’s how I started thinking about you. It was about the time Gin was diagnosed and she wanted to plan what to do with the house. She didn’t think you’d want it, but I probably pushed her more than anyone else to give you the house instead of the proceeds from a sale. I wanted you here and Gin agreed that a home with a solid community would be good for you since you didn’t have the happiest family situation growing up.”

“Like you, right?”

“Yeah,” he says and kisses my forehead. “I thought we could both use something better and it seemed like the ideal opportunity for you to come here and experience something other than dance clubs and fine dining in the greatest city in the world. Hera has sushi you know.”

We both laugh. “Thanks.” I kiss his neck and inhale his manly, musky scent of sweat.

“You can text me anytime for this,” he jokes, but this isn’t just sex for him. He’s already revealed so much about himself and how he feels about me. My insides are like jelly, I am turning into a big pile of mush around him.

“No, I was thanking you for this home, helping my aunt and finding out who I am. Thank you. I’m not sure I deserve this.”

“We both deserve this.”

I snuggle against him and he holds me tightly. I feel safe asking him anything.

“Okay, maybe you never mentioned this to me because it’s not something you like to talk about, but why didn’t you mention you were adopted?”

Carson is quiet and then focuses intently on me. “Does it matter?”

“That you’re adopted doesn’t matter. It’s that you chose to omit it from any of our conversations that’s strange. You even alluded to a genetic predisposition to mental illness, but you’re not biologically related to Dylan.”

“He’s my only family regardless of what circumstances brought us together. Just like your parents are your family and someday you’ll see that you want them in your life. I want to have a family even if Dylan is the only member I ever have. Family is everything. But I hope my family grows. I want Dylan and myself to have more than this. It’s one of the reasons why I supported the idea of you taking over Gin’s home. I wanted you near me. I did everything for my own selfish reasons.”

Finally, the knot in my chest loosens and I exhale. Carson keeps giving me more reasons to love him and it’s beginning to seem incredibly easy.

“Will you tell me about your family?” I ask.

“The only parents I remember are Abby and Robert Blackard. I remember the day they drove me to their home. I remember how the car smelled. My dad was driving and my mom was sitting next to me explaining that they were my parents now. She made me feel safe. It was a good feeling.”

“She was very caring, like you. She gave you the beautiful name, didn’t she?”

“Yes, she told me it was so I could start over.”

I kiss his cheek and run my fingers along his jaw. Carson closes his eyes as I touch him.

“I thought my new parents were pretty great,” he says, looking at me again. “I had my own room with a lot of toys, but it didn’t last long. Soon there was a crib and then a crying baby. Dylan. I thought he was pretty great, too. I liked having a little brother. We had about five years of being a perfect family. We loved each other and my parents never fought. It was good and it was safe. Then my mom got sick and my dad fell into a bad depression. You know the rest of that story. It’s those five great years that I try to remember more than the bad stuff that came later. We lost the house because of the medical bills. Then, when my mom died, we moved to a rental in a run-down trailer park. That’s when everything went to shit.”

“I sound petty when I complain about my parents,” I whisper “It makes me sad to think of you and Dylan as young boys, struggling to survive all that pain. I don’t know how people overcome that.”

“I figured out what was important and put everything into that. It came down to Dylan and making a living. If you have someone you care about, you figure out a way to make it happen.”

“Your dad couldn’t do that. I don’t know if I’d be strong enough to do it, either.”

“Like I said, you figure out what’s important and you do it.”

“Carson,
you’re
fearsome.”

“Why do you think I’m here?” he asks and kisses me thoroughly before I can say anything.

Forty

When we open the door to the library, Lauren is leaning her hip against the second floor railing with her arms crossed, looking expectantly at us. I’m a little uncomfortable with her scrutinizing expression, but Carson is unfazed.

“Hello, Carson,” she says.

“Lauren,” he replies.

“Imogene is cooking a scrumptious stew for dinner and wants to know if you’d like to join us?”

Carson looks at me.

“Please?” I ask.