The Ex File (Behind the Blue Line Series Book 1) (2 page)

He got up and took her glass to the kitchen to get some more ice. “Sometimes it feels like not nearly long enough. Been over a year.”

Which she would have known if she’d called, regardless of the reasons, no matter how relevant. She felt like an ass. “I’m sorry. She got the house, I take it?”

He sighed deeply. “Not exactly.” He returned with refreshed drinks and stared at her as he sat down. “She vanished one day. Out of the blue. Left me with a half-million dollar house and an irate father-in-law blaming me for her leaving.”

When he paused, she knew he expected a reply, but she suddenly couldn’t think of anything appropriate. It wasn’t surprising that his father-in-law was involved, because she’d had her own run-ins with him, but she’d never intended on sharing that with Sean. “What’d you do?”

“Other than destroy a couple rooms in the house?” He drained his glass and set it on the coaster. “Involved lawyers, the usual.”

“And Pia?” Ellie toed off her shoes and set her feet on the table as a mirror image to him. She was suddenly grateful for the pedicure her best friend had forced on her as a birthday present.

He shrugged. “She felt neglected when I started doing undercover work. And I’ll admit I wasn’t spending a lot of time at home, but still, she knew what she was getting. She found an old high school boyfriend online, one her father hated more than me, apparently.”

She winced and drained her glass, pretty sure if she stood up right then the floor was going to attack her again, only this time for a totally legitimate reason. “I can figure out the rest.” Hearing what he went through…
damn
. She wanted to reach out and touch him, be closer to him. Of course, that could have also been the liquor talking, but it was at least being logical.

Sean’s smile held no joy and his eyes looked almost hollow. He nudged her foot with the toe of his boot. “So, are you gonna make me ask?”

Oh, such a loaded question.
There were many answers she was willing to give him to questions she was sure he’d never even contemplated. She probably should have left that last caipirinha alone. “I’m going to need you to be more specific.”

He shifted on the couch until he was facing her more directly, his eyes full of shadows. “Why’d you vanish?” he asked softly.

His blue eyes seemed to pin her to the spot, and demanded an answer she wouldn’t give—couldn’t give. Sean didn’t need to know about the conversation she’d had with his father-in-law in the waiting room the day he’d gotten shot…the sacrifice she’d made for him. It wasn’t something that ever needed to see the light of day again. “Your ice is dry. Let me go get you a refill.” She reached for his glass and the bottle at the same time he reached forward to stop her.

Sean’s hands enveloped hers gently as he stared into her eyes. “My drink is fine, Eleanor. Answer the question.”

He was close enough to her that she could almost taste his breath, sweet and citrusy. She licked her lips and his eyes followed the motion right before crushing her lips under his. His lips were warm and soft with a hint of lime flavor, as her mouth opened on a gasp. Sean took full advantage, his tongue tracing the inner lining of her lips before dipping playfully inside, his fingers tangled in her hair. She responded in kind and the touch sent a shudder through him.

She pulled back, breathing harder than she expected. Mortification and arousal warred within her, because this was so not what she’d planned to do tonight. They hadn’t seen each other in the better part of three years, and she shouldn’t have just jumped him like that without preamble. She was glad, at least, that he seemed as affected as she was, his blue eyes clear and fire bright in the dim light and his lips still shiny wet.

He ran his hands through his hair and laced them behind his neck as he leaned back. “That wasn’t an answer.”

She was tempted to reach for the bottle and drink directly from it. “I suppose it depends on the question.”

Dropping his head on a huff of laughter, he looked over at her through his lashes. “Okay then, we’ll revisit that question later. You know what I meant.”

“And I’m not prepared to give you an answer,” she said as she pushed to her feet gingerly. Once she was sure that the floor didn’t harbor any murderous intent toward her, she made her way over to the French doors nearest the stereo and looked out into the garden. Dew-covered ivy inched up from the ground to frame the windows, collections of peonies lined the small fenced-in yard. In the tiny patch of grass was a wrought iron patio set at which she had no problem imagining him enjoying his morning coffee and paper. She felt the heat of him at her back, almost touching, but didn’t turn around.

“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t need to know.”

His voice, quietly serious and rough, almost melted her knees. She knew that was true, they had that in common. It did not, however, mean he needed the whole story, at least not now when the emotions were still so raw. “I just…” she shrugged in futility, never taking her eyes from the night beyond the glass, “I needed to distance myself in order to respect your marriage.”

The loss of his heat was noticeable as he stalked across the room. “Respect my marriage? What the hell does that mean?”

She trailed her fingers down a wavy pane of glass as she rested her forehead against the frame. “It means I didn’t think you needed to juggle two women in your life, so I bowed out in favor of the one who bore your ring and name.” It sounded great on paper, even if her stomach churned a little at how close she was to the ugly truth. Ellie wrapped her arms around her middle and lightly thumped her head against the window frame, the rhythm surprisingly soothing. “I saw that a choice had to be made, so I made it.”

“On the day I got shot?”

Ellie didn’t have to look at him to know he looked completely vexed and incredulous. She tried to lighten the mood. “What can I say? My timing sucked.”

“It’s not funny.” He took her arm and turned her to face him, eyes full of unmitigated pain. “All this time I wondered… I needed… you walked away from me… for me.”

For reasons he couldn’t have possibly imagined. Ellie’s eyes fell to the tips of his boots and she couldn’t speak, her voice choked with the tears she’d refused to shed because she did the right thing, the honorable thing. She could only nod and then she was in his arms, her face buried in his chest as he held her so tight she could scarcely breathe.

The tears, they did not fall, beaten back by what she could only call forgiveness and understanding, for both of them. They stood in his living room like that, her arms around his waist and his cradling her close to him, his chin on her head for a long while, only moving apart when the album side ended.

“The only reason I have CDs,” she said on a small chuckle as he stepped away from her to flip the record.

“Philistine,” he murmured, but she could hear the smile in his voice. He collected the glasses and cachaça and returned them to the kitchen before coming to lean against the doorway of the kitchen. “Do you know…? No, of course not. Why would you?”

Ellie raised an eyebrow. “Come up with a complete question and maybe I’ll be able to answer it.”

“Smartass.” His dimples flashed briefly in his cheeks before he became serious again. “I’ve missed this.”

She nodded slightly in agreement. “Me too.” She came up the two steps to rest on the railing above the living room, watching as Guinness resumed his spot on the couch they’d vacated. “Did you have a question?”

Sean snorted a half laugh and ran his fingers through his hair. “Not one that can be asked and answered simply, no.”

“Try anyway. If you screw it up, we’ll chalk it up to the booze.” Her smile was full, and infinitely braver than she felt. Whatever he had to say, she was pretty sure everything was going to change. For the better or worse remained to be seen, but this was going to be huge. And irrevocable.

“All right, then.” He chuckled outright before taking a deep breath and tucking his bangs behind his ear. He licked his lips and hooked his fingers in his back pockets. “Do you know,” he started thoughtfully as he walked across the room toward her again, slowly and full of purpose, “what the one thing that hurt the most during the whole marriage implosion,” he waved a hand searching for the word, “debacle was?”

He stopped in front of her, and it was all she could do not to take a step back, even though there was nowhere for her to go. “No,” she answered, her eyes never leaving his.

“My scar.”

Her eyes fell briefly to the side where she knew it to be before she looked back at him.

“That was when things really started to unravel in my life. Not just the marriage, but everything. You’ve never seen it, have you?”

Her breath caught on an involuntary gasp. It was more a statement than a question, and certainly not one she would have ever expected to hear. “No.”

Sean pulled off his shirt and dropped it on the railing next to her, and Ellie had to remind herself to breathe. Sure, she’d seen him without a shirt before, swimming and whatever, but she’d always coveted from afar, afraid that being close to him would totally give away her crush. Now, he was close enough to touch. The scar was easy to pick out, the only flaw in an otherwise pristine landscape of hard planes and ridges. Below his ribs on his left side, an unreplaced divot in the flesh that was—even now—calling to her fingertips. Fingertips that were, at that moment, embedding themselves in the railing above his couch, possibly permanently.

His finger under her chin brought her dark eyes back to his, flame bright. “I lost more than just one of my nine lives that day, you know.”

She snorted a quick laugh before looking away. “Don’t joke about that.”

He waited until she looked back at him, his gaze earnest. “I lost you that day, too, and that was the one thing I could never escape every time I saw it.”

It was everything she’d ever wanted to hear, and nothing she could deal with right now. “The booze seems very eloquent tonight.” She went for the joke because otherwise she was going to fragment into a billion pieces.

He shook his head, his bangs streaming down into his face. “This isn’t the booze.” He cupped her cheek in his palm. “I should have told you this way before now.”

“And Pia?” She tilted her chin up to an almost defiant angle, doing everything in her power to ignore the white-hot trail of his fingertips down her neck to her shoulder. She had to know. She knew this was so much more than a drunken fling with an old friend, even if he wasn't aware of it, and couldn't let herself ignore it.

Sean tore his eyes from her neck to lock them with hers. His voice was low, definite, and unyielding in tone. “That chapter in my life has been closed for over a year. This isn’t about her.”

She searched his eyes for only a moment before responding. “Good enough.” The words were barely past her lips before his mouth crushed down on hers. His hand cradled her head as she melted against him, her fingers coming free from the railing to hook into his belt loops and pull him closer.

When they both came up for air, speech was a long forgotten art form, well beyond their comprehension. He inclined his head toward the doorway leading to the stairs, and she gave the barest of nods. From there it was a race of deep kisses, playful bites, and tangled limbs as they finally migrated to his bedroom.

Ellie followed him, pausing momentarily in the doorway to reassure herself that she was not only not crazy, but not alone in her potential madness. The room was expansive in the darkness. There were windows behind the headboard of the bed, letting the moonlight bathe the silver sheets in her ethereal glow. Her brief reverie was interrupted by the barely audible sound of a doleful, penitent piano coming from speakers she was too preoccupied to locate visually. The only things she could process were Sean and the fact that he was standing next to what may have been the largest bed she’d ever seen.

She made her way over to his side, stepping around his hastily discarded boots and socks, and looked from the bed that came up to just below her ribcage to him, shirtless and in a pair of jeans that was reaching the limits of its structural integrity. “I, um… I don’t see a ladder,” she said in as nonchalant a tone as she could manage.

A quickly squelched smirk stole across his full lips. “Not a problem.”

Only a moment later, Ellie found herself on her back, lightly tossed sideways into the middle of the mattress like she was bedtime reading. She’d known he was strong—the muscles were hard to miss when she was running her hands all over his chest and arms—but… “Damn.”

“And for my next trick…” He flashed her a confident grin before bounding into the bed next to her to the sound of her startled squeak. The sound brought Guinness to the door, but upon seeing both humans in his designated spot, he harrumphed and trekked back downstairs.

The impact rolled her into him, pressing her tightly against him from shoulder to knee as they were both enveloped by the sheets and soft bedding. There were definitely worse places in the world she could have been right then. He was breathing hard, whether from exertion or excitement, she couldn’t tell, but when he tangled his fingers in her curly black hair and brought her mouth to his, she was pretty sure she didn’t care.

His lips were soft, agile, quickly forging a path from her mouth to the spot just below her ear while his hands busied themselves with the hem of her t-shirt. They pulled apart just to toss her shirt and bra to the side and then came back together, chest to chest. The heat of his skin, the rumble of his soft groan at the contact, their legs entwined together, momentous didn’t even begin to cover it.