Sloane (32 page)

Sweet warmth radiated into my core. I threw my head
back.

“Say yes,” he urged, his fingers still moving on my
skin.

“Axel,” I managed.

He dragged one hand down my torso, easing between my
legs.

I moaned, letting his touch drive me to a frenzy.

His lips were at my ear. “Stay with me.”

I struggled to catch my breath. “Yes,” I whispered.
“Yes.”

He made a satisfied noise in the back of his throat.
“They’re all going to hate it, you know. None of them like me.”

“I don’t care,” I gasped. “I like you.”

“I
love
you,” he growled.

“I love you too.” I kissed him.

And he tugged me back to his bedroom, where he tore
at my clothes and sighed and gasped his way back inside me.

Later, I lay there, basking in the aftermath of our
pleasure, his skin warm on my own, and I felt something stronger
than I’d ever known. I
belonged
here.

* * *

Axel was right. No one was particularly happy the
next day when I told them that I was staying in Boston instead of
flying back with them. But, to their credit, no one really tried to
talk me out of it. Silas made a lot of grudging noises about just
wanting me to be happy and left it at that. Griffin said it was
none of his business but told me to call him if I ever needed
anything, and he’d come get me. Leigh just watched Axel with a
puzzled expression. She didn’t say much, but she gave me a hug and
told me she really wanted everything to work out.

We took them to the airport, and I hugged everyone
goodbye.

And then Axel and I went back to his place and
basically didn’t get out of bed for a week.

After having sex constantly for days on end, we
finally emerged from our little bubble to try to reassemble our
lives.

I managed to work things out with all my professors
back home, claiming that my grandmother had died. So, I got to take
all my finals late, and I graduated.

I didn’t sell the house back in Morgantown right
away, though. I was happy staying with Axel, but I wanted to keep
it there—just in case. Things were going well, but, from what I’d
seen of relationships, things always went well at the beginning.
Those first few months were blissful and amazing, but there was
also a hint of stress underneath it. I was waiting for the other
shoe to drop.

Axel stopped managing The Golden Key, but he didn’t
sell it, because he was really proud of his first profitable
business. He hired some hotshot guy to take over the place, and it
ended up being a good move, because the profits doubled in just a
couple months. Axel grudgingly admitted that maybe he’d spent too
much of his time there fucked up to be very good at running the
place.

He started working on real estate investments
instead, not that he really worked many hours a day or anything.
And it was hard to call it working, at least to my mind, because
mostly it looked like having drinks with people and complementing
them and stuff. If it came down to it, I guess I was “working” too,
because he liked to have me along with them on a lot of his
business meetings.

Which meant that my “job” mostly consisted of having
lively conversations with people and wearing awesome clothes.

Axel and I even began working on finding ways to
legitimize the money that I’d gotten when Op Wraith had been
destroyed, so that I could use it to do my own investing. It was
important to him that I never felt trapped with him, he said. He
didn’t want me to feel like I had to stay with him if I wanted to
keep up my lifestyle. He was very worried about our relationship
turning into his parents’ relationship.

I had to admit that it was liberating to be able to
use my money without fear that it would draw unwanted (and possibly
dangerous) attention to me.

Mostly, everything between us went perfectly. It was
as if we fit together, and that our lives came together seamlessly.
I had never considered that I’d be good at this lifestyle, but it
seemed that my previous experiences actually served me well. I’d
spent most of my time as a sniper, staying back, watching the
action unfold. I was always alert to danger, and I was always
making a plan to counter it. That turned out to be a very
beneficial talent in investment.

And getting to wear pretty dresses and having people
look at me all the time?

I never thought I’d like that. But I realized that
I’d spent too much of my life hiding. I actually really enjoyed
being noticeable. Axel brought that out of me. He showed me that I
was beautiful and polished. He made me feel regal. Sophisticated.
It was… fun.

There was never any problem with Axel and other
women. Sure, he was a charming guy, and maybe another woman
wouldn’t have liked how easy it was for him to disarm the opposite
sex. But Axel looked at me and spoke to me and touched me in a very
different way than the way he interacted with other women. And I
was never even the slightest bit insecure.

The cocaine, however?

Well, the cocaine was not an easy issue.

There were two problems. One was that Axel had a very
bad problem, and it was hard for him to stop. He cut back
immediately, and he never used it day in, day out ever again, but
he still felt the need to use it occasionally when he was
celebrating.

And the second problem was that I… I did too.

Cocaine was disturbingly seductive. I found that I
had a hard time turning it down. And I couldn’t deny that it made
parties more fun.

So, we were always making excuses for the other one,
telling each other that it was only sometimes, and it was only for
fun, and that if we only did it once and while, it wouldn’t be a
big deal.

It was only after Axel ended up in the hospital with
heart palpitations that we got really serious about it. The boy had
been using coke on a daily basis since he was a teenager, so it was
possible he’d done a ridiculous amount of damage to his body. It
turned out that he was fine, and he wasn’t in any serious
trouble.

But the trip to the hospital scared us both, and it
was the only thing that made us stop. Really stop. Completely.

After that happened, well, I guess that was the other
shoe that I’d been waiting for. It had dropped, and we’d gotten
through it, and we’d come out stronger and even more committed to
each other.

So, that was when I really got all of my stuff out of
Morgantown and was officially full time in Boston with Axel. I
stopped worrying that things weren’t going to work out between us,
and I accepted my new life.

We were happy. Very happy. We belonged with each
other, and we both knew it.

EPILOGUE

two years later…

Axel made a rueful face at me as I started to knock
on the door of Silas’ and Christa’s apartment in Austin.

I dropped my hand. “What?”

“Why am I even here?” he said.

“Because they invited you,” I said.

“But you know they don’t want me around.”

I knocked on the door. “It’s going to be different
this time.” I bit my lip. “Maybe.”

He chuckled, shaking his head.

“And if it’s not different, we won’t stay very long,”
I said.

Axel and I hadn’t spent a lot of quality time with
the others in a while. There had been a particularly disastrous
Christmas celebration the first year that Axel and I had been
together. I’d invited everyone to Boston, thinking it would be
wonderful to have everyone there, and knowing that Axel and I had
more room than everyone else did.

But Axel and I had still been using cocaine at that
point, and we might have taken the idea of letting it snow a little
bit too literally.

Leigh had freaked out. She’d gone on a big tangent
about how this was exactly what she thought Axel was going to do to
me, and how I was screwing up my life. And I’d yelled back, and
we’d both ended up in tears.

And Silas had been livid. He’d demanded to know how I
could be messing with drugs, after everything that had happened
with our parents. And, of course, I’d felt stupid and guilty. But
I’d also been coked out of my mind, so I’d screamed at him too.

Anyway, it hadn’t gone well, and we hadn’t all spent
a holiday together since, even though they all knew that Axel and I
were clean now.

Silas opened the door. “Sloane!” He yanked me in and
gave me a huge hug. “I’m so glad you came.”

I hugged him back. “Good to see you too.”

Axel sidled in behind me.

Silas and Axel eyed each other warily before settling
on a stiff handshake.

Then I grabbed Axel by the hand and resolved not to
let go of him until everyone was being more friendly.

Luckily, Christa ran in tackled him with a huge hug
right away, gushing over how glad she was to see him and how much
she liked his suit (which was peach).

I was glad that she made a point of greeting him
first. She understood how awkward it must be for him, and her
enthusiasm helped a lot.

The apartment was full of overstuffed furniture and
smelled strongly of scented candles. It looked as if it had been
recently vacuumed.

Christa hugged me next. “Sloane! Thank you so much
for coming to my graduation party.”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” I said.

She released me. “All the Austin people aren’t going
to show up until later. I wanted it just to be family for dinner.
Griffin and Leigh are in the kitchen helping my mom put stuff
together, and I’m running around crazy, freaking out.”

“Don’t freak out,” I said. “It’s your party. Is there
something Axel and I can do to help out?”

She shook her head. “Oh, no, don’t be silly. You guys
sit down over there.” She pointed at the couch. She turned to
Silas. “And you. Where is the beer?”

Silas spread his hands. “I thought you wanted me to
work on setting the table.”

“No,” she said as if he were particularly idiotic, “I
want you to bring the beer up, because everybody’s here.”

He glared at her. “All right, I’m going to go, but
then I’ll get halfway there, and you’re going to change your mind
and want me to do something else.”

“I am not,” said Christa. To Axel and me, “Silas
brewed a special beer just for my graduation. It’s called ‘Cherry
Smart,’ because it’s a cherry wheat beer, and he won’t let me taste
it yet, and I really want him to get it.”

“I’m going,” said Silas.

“Thank you,” she called after him. As an
afterthought, “I love you.”

He grinned over his shoulder at her.

Christa pointed at the couch. “Seriously, guys,
sit
. I mean it.”

Axel and I sat.

Christa turned in a circle, as if she couldn’t
remember what she was doing. “I’ll be back,” she said, and she
scampered off.

I squeezed Axel’s hand. “So, it’s not bad so far,
right?”

“So far,” he said.

“The only thing that was bad last time was the coke,”
I said. “And we don’t even do that anymore, so it’s going to be
fine. I mean, they can’t still think that you’re a womanizing jerk
who won’t commit to me. We’ve been together for two years.”

He kissed me on the cheek. “I don’t care what they
think.”

“I know.” I took a deep breath. “I don’t either.”

Someone cleared his throat.

We looked up to see that Griffin and Leigh were
shuffling into the living room. They looked a little
uncomfortable.

I stood up. “Hi,” I said brightly.

Leigh took a step towards me. “Hi.” There was an
awkward moment, and then we hugged. “Good to see you,” she
whispered.

And then she surprised me by hugging Axel too.

So I gave Griffin a hug.

And Leigh and Axel were still hugging. She was
whispering something in his ear, and she was crying.

I heard Axel’s deep rumble. “No, Leigh. I’m the one
who should apologize.”

She broke away, wiping her eyes. “I don’t want there
to be any more bad feelings between us.” She included me in that.
“You’re my two best friends, and now it’s like we hardly speak.
That doesn’t make any sense.”

I grinned at Axel.

He looked more relaxed now than he had since the
moment we got on the plane to come here.

Griffin offered Axel his hand, and they shook. He
started to say something, but he was interrupted when Silas
barreled back into the room with a wooden box full of glass
bottles.

Silas set them down on the coffee table. “Christa!”
he yelled. “Can I let people have beer?”

“Wait till I get there,” came her voice.

“Fine,” said Silas. “You guys wait. I’m going to get
glassware and Christa.” He ducked out of the room.

We all stared at each other.

“So,” said Griffin. “How you been?”

“Good,” I said.

“Good,” said Axel.

It was quiet. We might not all be angry at each
other, but it still didn’t seem like we had much to talk about.

Silas came back in with his arms full of glasses.
Christa trailed after him. She had glasses as well. And behind them
came Christa’s and Griffin’s mother Beverly.

“All right,” said Silas, distributing glasses to all
of us. “Now, it’s very important that you don’t try to drink this
out of the bottle, okay? Just watch me.” Once we all had glasses,
he picked up one of the bottles. “Okay, see, you’re going to need
to really gently get all the good flavoring from the bottom up into
the beer.” He turned the bottle on its side and began to roll it in
his hands. “And see, then, when you pour it…” He turned to Christa.
“Where’s the bottle opener?”

She handed it to him.

He popped open the bottle and then picked up a glass
and, tilting it sideways, began to pour the beer into it. “Then,
when you pour it, it’s going to be perfect, okay? And…” He finished
filling the glass. “First glass is for you, Christa.”