Finding Gary (The Romanovsky Brothers Book 4) (26 page)

“I love you,” he gasped. 

Moving his hand to the back of her neck, the brush of his frantic lips traveled up each of her cheeks, tasting the tears there, over each eye, and down her jaw.  His lips found hers just in time to drink in her shaky whimper.  He breathed in desperately when she accepted his kiss, and his grip on her neck was no longer necessary.  She pushed into him, and a moan spread his lips wide, the sound deepening alongside his kiss; growing in volume when the moisture of her tongue brushed his. 

“I love you.”  His hand left her cheek and snatched at the button of her jeans as the kiss grew in ferocity.  He had the button and zipper undone in moments.

Zoey cried out when he broke their kiss just long enough to snatch her jeans and panties down her legs. Standing tall with her bare ass cupped under his big hands, he reclaimed her swollen, parted lips.  She was on top of the counter in seconds, fighting for breath as he finished yanking her jeans and panties off her ankles, tossing them.  Legs freed, she guided him between her splayed thighs while giving his jeans the same treatment he’d given hers, undoing them speedily and shoving them down over his ass. 

Her eyes fluttered closed, and she screamed into the warm cavern of his mouth when he entered her, wondering how it had happened so quickly. Then she was rocking with him on the countertop, clawing her nails into the back of his t-shirt.  He bent his head forward and let her pull it over his head, but was unable to finish the job of removing it as her pussy tugged him, his hips slamming into her so furiously the sound became ear-splitting in its fervor.

Months of dreaming about that moment rendered his passion short-lived, and as he whimpered his first orgasm into her shoulder, his trembling hand came between her legs, making her scream when he brushed her clit.

“More?” he purred.

“More,” was all she could beg, her own lips falling open even wider when he picked up the pace of his gentle strumming, lighting fire to her tightening bud, a fire that grew unstoppable with each moan that left her lips.  “More.”  She clawed her nails into his back, feeling him twitch and harden again inside her, shutting her eyes to the amazing beauty of him filling her, just as her orgasm hit, slick around his heat as her walls tightened and contracted.

She couldn’t even scream, coming silently, letting her shuttering body tell him the truth she wouldn’t dare say out loud.

***

Taj didn’t have audio, but he didn’t need it.  The black and white image told the story perfectly.  Even as the video transmission went in and out—causing him to jolt every time—it was still impossible to misinterpret the parted lips, heated eyes and traveling hands as Val took Zoey around the waist and lifted her off the kitchen counter.  She wrapped her legs around his waist while throwing her head back. 

As Val carried her out of the kitchen, their lips met passionately.

Taj sat taller at his desk, slamming his finger against a button on his computer, switching the feed.  Knowing where they were bound to be going, he wasn’t surprised when, just a moment after switching to the Nanny cam that focused on Zoey’s king sized bed, she and Val came barreling through the door of her bedroom, tumbling onto the sheets.

Covering his mouth and leaning forward, squinting at the screen, Taj pressed another button. Now that they were in Zoey’s bedroom, on the other side of the apartment, they wouldn’t hear the audio feed.

It kicked in just as Val lay between Zoey’s splayed legs.  Her spine bent.  The deep moan that left her full lips didn’t just fill Taj’s quiet room, but every corner of his soul. The scowl on his face deepened at his body’s instant response.  He ignored the stiffness under his zipper, too entranced by the sight of Zoey as Val finished undressing her.  His blue eyes were laser focused on each inch of new expanse of mocha skin revealed.  Her nipples were just as dark brown as he’d always imagined, surrounded by tiny areola’s that made his mouth water.  He breathed in another breath, stronger this time, as Val spread his lips wide over her nipple, sucking it between his lips with vigor, his face contorted into something that looked like a toss between pained and desperate.  Val’s groans joined Zoey’s, gnawing softly at each of her brown buds until they were both standing at full attention.  Val pulled back and took in the sight.  Then he removed the rest of his clothes, never moving far enough away from Zoey to stop them from touching.

“I love you, Zo…”

Taj pushed his eyes closed and finally pressed the palm of his hand into the throbbing zipper of his jeans.  A sharp hiss escaped his lips, and he slammed the laptop closed, standing from his chair and moving to the door.

He pressed his forehead against the cool wood and tried to regain any shred of the control he’d lost.  Utterly disrespectful to his fight, his hands shot down and undid his jeans.  In the next instant, the head of his heat was under the tight vise of his palm.  He inhaled sharply and went back to the desk, still holding himself in a furious grip with one hand while throwing the laptop back open with the other.

The picture blurred and then cleared, just as Zoey was sinking down on Val’s dick, the purrs leaving her lips straight from heaven itself as she let him in to the hilt.

Taj matched her soft gasps, tugging his pounding member and biting his bottom lip when Zoey gave Val a steady bounce, stealing a pained cry from his usually stoic lips.

Zeroing in on her tight pussy, hugging the shaft she rode like it was built just for her, Taj felt his heart shred, even as his cum filled the palm of his hand, and his moans overpowered the audio.

***

Zoey sat down on Val’s hardness, her arms slung around his shoulders, lips brushing his, taking in his tightly closed eyes as he flinched underneath her, spilling everything he had inside.  She cupped his jaw and took every twitch, every uncontrollable slam of his hips, every inch of him until his own arms came around her waist.

She dug her fingers into his hair as he buried his gasping lips between her breasts, sounding spent, but also relieved.  Her eyes fluttered, and she let him pull her down onto the pillows with him, tucking her forehead into his neck.

His scent entered her system, pervaded, and was unbearable.  Still she curled in closer, taking the strong arms he wrapped around her waist while throwing her thigh over the top of his body.

“Zo,” Val whispered. “I’m so in love with you.”

She felt his warm breath playing between the strands of her hair, and the pressure on her head when he kissed it.  His kisses traveled down her temple, her forehead, and her cheek until he was shuffling down to face her completely.  Her lips burned at the kiss he gave her, along with her fingers as he entwined them under the sheets.  Their sweaty chests joined and their juices mixed, making the act of getting closer that much harder.  Still he tried, splaying his hand against the small of her back and trying to pull her close, even as it slipped all over her glistening skin.

“No one on Earth makes love like you,” he said.

His eyes still shimmered brighter after an orgasm, she noticed.  More gold and luminous than any piece of jewelry she owned.  They still ran over her face as if it was the last time he’d see her.

“I always wondered why you looked at me like that,” she whispered, searching his eyes.

A lazy smile spread his lips, but when she didn’t return it, it slowly disappeared.   “How do I look at you?” he asked, his voice strained from the passion of their lovemaking.

Zoey’s eyes fell to his lips.  “From the very first time we made love, you always looked at me like you were trying to memorize my face.  Like you were afraid you would forget.”  Her eyes rose back to his.  “I never understood why a man would have to memorize me when I’d already agreed to be his forever.”

Val’s gaze grew more sober with each word she said.  The remnants of their love, which had brightened his eyes and spread his lips, was quickly being put in reverse, starting with the frown collecting between his brows.

“This was the last time,” Zoey whispered.

The hand he had on the small of her back instantly tightened and every inch of joy vanished from his eyes.  The tips of his nails dug into her skin, then he encircled her body completely, pulling her in tight.  His nose angled next to hers, and he pressed it hard into her cheek, his body now shaking with the evidence of his pain and not his pleasure.

Zoey cupped his shoulders with both hands and tried to push away, but he was too much bigger, too much stronger.

“This was the last time we’ll ever make love,” she finished, shaking her head when she felt his body begin shaking uncontrollably.  “I won’t keep Marcus from you.  You can see him whenever you want, but…”

“Zoey, please don’t do this,” he begged, this time putting his own thigh across her body, locking it around her.  “I want you to be my wife.  I want us to be a family.”

Zoey swallowed back the lump in her throat, giving up the fight to push away from him when he suddenly pulled his head back and met her eyes, cupping her face in his hands.

“I can’t look at you the same,” she whimpered. 

“We just made love, Zoey, Jesus Christ, don’t do this.”

She shook her head, their sweaty foreheads brushing as she did.  “My body still belongs to you.  My heart belongs to you.  But my mind… my mind can’t catch up.  My mind can’t stop the truth from spilling out and infecting everything else.”

“So we’ll figure out how to heal it.  We’ll heal each other.  We’ll heal our son.  He deserves to know how much we loved each other once.  How much we love each other now.”

The first tear left the corner of her eye, spilled over her nose, and down the palm of his hand.

“Making love with you tonight was so beautiful,” she whispered.  “But I just can’t
stomach
…”

Val’s eyes slammed closed and he hid his face against hers, again.

Zoey’s teary eyes went to the ceiling.  “I can’t stomach how you could do something so beautiful with me, for so long, and still lie.”  She craned her head away and sat up, pulling the sheets and blankets around her naked body.

She felt his eyes burning into her back, the heat of his fingertips warming her spine.

“If I lose you…” His voice hit her ears from behind.  “I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.”

Zoey sniffled and ran the back of her hand over her nose.  “My head can’t catch up.”  She craned her head over her shoulder but didn’t look at him.  “I’ll never let that happen again, Val.  And, I’m sorry, if making love with you tonight has hurt you anywhere near as much as you’ve hurt me.  Because I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”

His hand fell from her back.  She heard it hit the mattress, felt the bed vibrate.

She took a deep breath; each second bringing a new wave of sense blasting in, and her voice grew serious.  “I think you should go.”

A long silence fell in, and she waited for him to touch her again.  To speak to her again.  To warm the edge of her ear with his buttery voice.  To send another eclipse over her mind as he retook control of her body—a body that would always belong to him. 

“Alright,” he whispered.

And Zoey drew in the breath she’d been holding. She brought her knees to her chest and hid her face. She kept her back turned as his weight left the bed, feeling the shift in the mattress when he was on his feet.  The rustle of his clothes filled her ears, his belt buckle, and the clink of his watch.  Sharp sniffles joined in, along with his deep sighs, every now and again.  They sounded like bombs going off.

His scent waned, dissipated, then she heard the door handle jiggle.

“I’ll never stop loving you, Zo.”

And then, the door squeaked closed.

Silence.

The silence curled her lips and rendered her bones useless as she fell back onto the pillows and broke into tears.

22

Zoey’s eyes fluttered shut, and she let the wine roll down her throat, heating it up in the most pleasant way.  She allowed the aroma to fill her nose, enhancing the flavors soaking her tongue, before she slowly blinked her eyes open. 

When she found Taj’s smiling blue eyes watching her from the other side of the sofa, she laughed.

Tomorrow morning, the torturous trial would conclude with a testimony from an expert brake mechanic, and then the jury would be released for deliberations.  In less than 24 hours, Victor King’s fate could be decided.  Understandably anxious, Taj had insisted Zoey join him in the living room for copious amounts of red wine and bad TV.  He’d made good on both, and even though their Netflix marathon was currently on mute on the flat screen before them, they were plenty entertained.

Cuddled up on the sofa, they spoke about themselves and their lives, with a depth they hadn’t yet ventured.  The few professional walls that had remained up between them had officially been imploded that night. 

They’d told each other their entire life stories, and most of their darkest secrets.

Well, Zoey had anyway.

“What about you?” Zoey asked, shifting on the couch and facing him. Her teeth shone under the moonlight blasting into the living room windows.  “You never talk about yourself, no matter how nosey I am.  You’ve let me drone on about my childhood with a nose full of snot. But I still I don’t know anything about your friends, your family, the people
you
love.”  She squinted at him, tilting her head.  “Who is Taj?”

Taj chuckled, moaning into his wine glass as he brought it to his lips.  The heat of his breath made the glass steam up, and it stayed long after he’d pulled it away from his lips.  “I’m boring, Zo.”

She rested her head against her hand, leaning on the back of the couch and curled herself into a ball.  “Not to me.”

Taj kept his eyes forward, drinking in the Manhattan view outside the window.  He remained silent as if struggling against every voice in his head.  Then, he cut his eyes to the corners and snuck a look at her.

Zoey licked her lips, resting her wine glass on her thigh as her eyes fell to his mouth. She saw him lick his lips too.  “Tell me about your childhood.  That’s always the most traumatizing time in most people’s lives, right?  Always a good way to learn why people are the way they are.”

Taj’s eyes remained glued to her smiling lips, and they stayed that way until his chest lifted with a deep breath, and he forced his gaze up to hers.  “My childhood was… boring.”

Zoey scoffed.

He laughed with a shrug.  “Nice parents, nice neighborhood, nice house, nice schools.  It was…”

“Nice?” Zoey offered, raising his eyebrows.

“I know you’re into that bad boy type.”

“I’m into what now?”

“Don’t play coy.  I’ve come to know you pretty well here, these past few months.  You’re attracted to the kind of guy who has the potential to rough you up a little.  Who makes you believe he might even do it—if you piss him off enough, even though you both know, deep down, he never will.  You’re attracted to that rush, that fear, that what if, that unknown…”  He shrugged.  “I’ll never be that guy for you.  I’m just Taj.”

Zoey swallowed, and she could feel the huge lump moving down her throat, knowing it was big enough to see.  “When did I say anything about you being the guy for me?  I just asked you about your childhood.  Hell of a Freudian slip there, Taj Mahal.  Way to go,” she laughed.  “And you’re wrong about me.  I’m not attracted to dominant men.  I just happened to get dropped right smack in the middle of five of them when I was fourteen.”

“When did Val try it on you?” Taj asked.  “Was it when you were fourteen?”

She chortled.  “He couldn’t even look at me.  Left a room the moment I stepped in.  Had me convinced he hated my existence.”

“So he’s loved you all along.”

She took a healthy sip.  “Right, because when you love someone, it’s
always
easier to treat them like sharing the same air with them is poisonous.”

“You clearly don’t understand men.”

“No arguments here, Sir.”

“Never once?” Taj asked.  “Not a hand a little too low on the back when he went in for a hug?  A kiss on the cheek a little too close to the corner of the mouth?  A sideways glance that stayed just a little too long?”

She grinned at him.  “Are we still talking about Val?”

“Who else would we be talking about?”

She looked away.  “Whenever I started dating someone new at school, the boys always came to my rescue.  All four of them.  Before I went on dates, they would take the guy for a “nice drive” around the block.  They actually called them “nice drives.” ” She made air quotes.

Taj chuckled.

“If you could see the look on my date’s faces by the time they made it around that corner—
if
they made it…” She shook her head.  “Roman would tell me how Val always put a little more elbow grease behind those “nice talks” and “nice drives”.  Roman was trying to give me a hint about Val’s feelings, but I was too naive and confused to see it.  I couldn’t see that Val treated me badly because it was the only thing that he knew how to do.  It was the only thing that made sense to him.”  She tried to take another sip, but her glass was empty.  She frowned down at it in shock, and her eyes shot up when the bottle came into view, gripped in Taj’s hand.  She offered him her glass to refill.

“When she was five… my sister…” Taj started, setting the bottle down on the table.  “She disappeared for a year.”

Zoey jolted and nearly choked on the swallow of wine she’d just taken.  “You just got finished telling me you had a boring childhood.”

“I have a tendency not to open up until someone else already has.”

“My god, a year?  And she was only five?  What happened?  Where did she disappear to?  How did she get home?”

Taj gazed out the window.  “You know the lies some people tell themselves to justify the fact that their kid disappeared without them noticing?  They’ll say, ‘hey, kids wander off sometimes…’, or ‘hey, kids get lost.’” He let his head fall back on the cushions and then looked at her from the corner of his eye.  “It always felt like a cheap excuse to me.  A cop out.  Kids don’t get lost.  People lose them.  I really believed that.  Until I lost Hailey.”

Zoey nodded.

“I was her big brother.  I was supposed to protect her the way yours always protected you.  I didn’t.”

“You were a kid, too, right? No way you should be taking responsibility for something like that.”

“Tell that to my parents.”

Zoey breathed in deep.

“We had a year to grieve her.  Once we finally accepted that she wasn’t coming back, that’s when I really felt it.  The blame.  The anger.  It came down on my shoulders like a bulldozer.  Then, one day, my father got a phone call at work.  Twelve girls had been found alive in a row house in Park Slope. 
Park Slope
.”  He chuckled.  “It was a busy, family neighborhood.  Houses in that neighborhood go for millions today, and nobody had a clue that children were being trafficked right in their backyard. Right across the street.”

Zoey held her breath.

“One of the other girls, a few years older than Hailey… she tied her bed sheets together in the middle of the night and climbed down from the tenth floor.  The sheets only went about five floors down, so she had to jump the rest of the way.”

“God,” Zoey covered her eyes with her hand when emotion overtook her.

“Sprained her ankle, but that didn’t stop her from getting to the nearest precinct.  She saved all their lives.”  Taj swallowed thickly.  “When they brought Hailey home, I was standing at the bottom of the stairs in our family home.  Right in front of the door.  Hailey froze in the doorway; she froze, and just looked at me.  I waited to feel from her what I’d spent a year feeling from my parents.  The anger.  The blame.  But, instead, she dropped her bag and jetted across the room.   She wrapped her arms around my waist.  And we both just… burst into tears.”

Tears stabbed her own eyes, and Zoey covered her mouth with her hand. 

“She’ll never be completely safe again.  The men who destroyed her life… they’ll never stop looking for her.  They would do anything to get her back under their claws, just to know they could.  They truly believe she belongs to them.”  Taj cringed.

Zoey shook her head, wine forgotten, biting back the ‘wow’ on the tip of her tongue.

“And the weirdest part,” Taj said.  “When Hailey came home and hugged me… I looked up at that exact moment, and there was a double rainbow in the sky.  Peeking in through the front door while we cried together on the stairs.”  He exhaled.  “To this day, I can’t look at a double rainbow without thinking about her.  They’re beautiful to everyone else, but they make me sick to my stomach. 

“And Hailey?”

He rested his cheek on the cushion, letting his eyes run her face.  “She hates double rainbows, too.”

Zoey laughed.  “No.  I mean, how has she coped with everything?  Where is she now?  She’s prospering, I hope.”

Taj’s chest picked up with his deep breath. 

Zoey gasped in a breath of her own when he reached over and buried his fingers in her curls.  The wine glass grew slack in her hand as the beds of his fingers massaged her scalp.  Her eyes fluttered slowly closed, and she swallowed, still tasting the lingering flavor of red wine on her tongue.  She opened her eyes and found Taj’s riveted to her lips.  He licked his own.  She watched it happen, seeing his tongue stained with the same red wine she could still taste.

He leaned in, and then paused, letting his hooded eyes move up to hers.

Zoey’s breathing picked up, and then went into overdrive.  She leaned closer, too, her toes curling when his fingers dove deeper into her hair, gripping it, pulling her in. 

His breath warmed her lips, and her eyes fluttered closed once more.  Just as she parted her lips to accept him, her eyes flew back open. 

“Wait,” she breathed.

Taj hid his face in her shoulder, and his guttural groan tickled her collarbone.

Zoey could hardly accept what she’d just done.  “Taj…” She clutched his arm with her free hand, feeling his strength, squeezing it when the hot puffs of his breath on her skin nearly sent her into overdrive.  “I’m so… unbelievably attracted to you…”

“Me too,” he graveled, following her collarbone with his lips.

“But…”

The word sent the air audibly racing from his lungs, and he pulled back.

Zoey was relieved when, in the absence of his lips on her skin, her sensibilities came flying back. 

“But we can’t do that,” she said, letting her eyes fall to her lap when his hand came out of her hair and pushed a chunk of it behind her ear.  “It wouldn’t be fair to you.”

“Because you’re still in love with Val,” Taj said, letting his hand fall into his lap.

Zoey bit her bottom lip and shook her head.  “I don’t want to be.”

“But you are.”

“It’s this damn trial.  Spending all day in that courtroom, hearing the truth about that night, reliving every moment I’ve ever spent with that family.  It’s got my head all…” She made a claw next to her skull, widening her eyes.  “It’s got me all fucked up.  Going back to a time when I thought the Romanovskys were really on my team.  When I thought they were really my family.  Even now that the truth has come out, I can’t shake that young girl who was stupid enough to love them.  To love him.  She’s still inside me.  Who knows if I’ll ever get her out?”

“It’s okay, Zoey.  Truly.  From the moment I saw you, I wanted you, but I also knew you’d never be in the position to want me back.   Not the same way.  And that’s okay.”

“I just need time.”

“You don’t have to make me any promises.”

“What if I want to?”

“Don’t.  Not even if you want to.”  He took a deep breath.  “Because you’re the kind of woman that’ll have a guy looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life.  Even when he’s found someone else.  Even when he’s started a family of his own.  The spell you’ve cast on Val wasn’t a fluke.  He’s lost everything looking over his shoulder for you, and he will continue looking over his shoulder, every day, until his dying day, wondering if today will be the day.  The day when you’ll be there, ready to take him back.   Val didn’t become that guy by accident; he became that guy because you’re that woman.  That woman that can destroy a man forever, even when she doesn’t mean to.  So, don’t make me any promises, Zoey.”

“Alright.  No promises here.”

Taj’s eyes darkened.  “Good.”

***

After Zoey stumbled off to bed, slamming into walls on her drunken journey from the living room to her bedroom, Taj waited until she’d been asleep for an hour to step onto the penthouse balcony and return the only phone call he’d received all night. 

“Tomorrow is the day,” Victor said on the other end of the line.  “My attorney has done all she can, but I’m going to be found guilty.  I’ll be damned if I don’t take every member of that family down with me. Be ready.”