West-End Boys (Naïve Mistakes) (7 page)

-1-

Training with Trey went on daily for four weeks. By the end of it, my muscles were so sore it felt like they'd never heal. I'd learned everything from how to disarm a guy and kill him using his own weapon to breaking his nuts if he tried to get frisky with me. Then,
bonus!
, I also learned how to fire a gun! That wasn't Krav Maga. Trey just figured it'd be good to know.

On the day of my 'graduation'—basically, Trey slapping me on the back and saying, "Now you're ready"—the three West End Boys met up again at
Red-Light
and I decided to get a little tipsy in celebration of how bad-ass I felt. Kayla hadn't done the whole training line-up but she'd done most of it. We felt like ninjas, the two of us. Often we'd play-fought out on Conall's back-lawn over the last few weeks. Fun times.

It was mid-summer now. The weather was getting warmer. I even had a dress on tonight.

Conall's unease had settled slightly over the last few weeks and I'd stopped asking about it, choosing to let sleeping dogs lie. Brad had gotten well into his security gig at the house and even wore a suit most of the time now. He was permanently stationed at the cottage, watching cameras and liaising with Security Companies, testing their response times blah blah blah.

Kayla and I had
finally applied to the University of England and, thanks to a few strings pulled by Conall's father, I got accepted. My average had not been great the year before but I'd had a lot on my mind. And I'd proven myself by taking an entrance exam with them which I'd aced. (
Score!
) Kayla, however, had not been lost in the sea of broken love during high school final exams and so her grades had been good enough to get her in without any further testing.

We had decided to major in Fashion Design. It's always been my interest more than hers, but I think Kay was simply happy to have something to major
in.
Even her mom called to congratulate her.

Honestly, I was excited.
Real
excited! For years I'd wondered where I'd go to college, what my goal was, where I'd live... Life had always been so boring on the Upper East Side, having everything given to me.

I think rich parents have a duty to insist their kids work for the things they want. That had been my dad's philosophy. But, well, with mom winning custody, her methods of 'raising me' had taken precedence. Moving to the UK had been the real factor in making me grow up. And majoring in Fashion Design and going to college to study something that I was actually
interested in
made me feel like I had a purpose. Like I had something to live for now. An honest-to-God future.

Four years in the UK, at least. It was a dream.

I'd worked it out with mom and dad that I'd visit them in December. I'd insisted on paying for it myself but neither of them would have it either way. Even my relationship with my mom was getting better. We'd actually spoken on the phone a few nights before and she'd told me that she missed me but that she was proud for all I was doing.

Both of them knew about Conall. But neither of them sure as hell ever heard about my abduction! It had been hard keeping that from dad. He and I had always been close. He'd picked up something was wrong when we'd talked on the phone. I could feel it in my spine, his questions, his insistence that he'd felt something had been 'off' in my voice...

I'd outright lied. I didn't want to worry him. And I didn't want to ruin what I felt now was the right track for my life.

The only other person I really missed was Maria, my nanny, my real mother when my biological one had been out boozing or jet-setting around the world because of her
ever-present business 'needs.' And other needs, I'm sure.

Maria and I had stayed in touch mostly by email since I'd been in the UK. More in the beginning. Last night I'd called her, and I'd told her everything... She'd panicked. But she'd finally accepted it.
Never keep anything like this from me again, OK?
she'd said.

The West End Boys stood around the
Red-Light Diner
table now and joked and teased and even threw me a punch once or twice as a game.

I laughed and smiled and played along... But my mind was adrift as I held my long drink in my hand and thought of all of the above. Most of all, however, I thought of how, tomorrow, I was going to Seaford again.

Without Conall.

-2-

"Still certain of your decision?" Conall asked inside his luxurious Merc. We were driving home. Brad and Kay were staying at a hotel in London at Conall's expense as a "reward for great work since Brad arrived"—but also because both were so hammered that letting them drive would be like giving each a gun and asking them to pull the trigger.

"Sure I'm sure."

Conall needed to go to the states to help the cops become hackers or something, and to catch up on business, and to go to meetings... I'd made the decision to close things off at Seaford for good. Kayla and I had worked out to go and pick my stuff up and stay a few days to catch some sun.

Conall had been concerned about leaving me alone. "It's been over two months," I said. "I can't keep living like Raphael Varela defines my entire life for me."

Conall nodded. We'd discussed this endlessly already. Trey's training had really helped me. It had brought me up from scared kitten to, well, tiger with sharp claws. I wasn't afraid to walk down the street anymore, or to sit at a coffee shop.

"Besides," I said, "I like it there."

Conall stayed silent. Then, "Alex called this morning."

"She did?"

"She sounded odd."

"Oh, are things not working out with her and Pedro?"

"I don't know. She didn't say much. But I sensed something wasn't right. Maybe she misses you..."

"I'll call her tomorrow." Pause. "I'm gonna miss you," I said.

"You're the one who didn't want to come to the states with me."

"I know... I just—"

"I know, I know. You want to start doing things on your own. I respect that. It's a lesson we all have to learn."

"That we can do things on our own?"

He glanced over at me. Street lights reflected off his dark pupils. He smiled. "If I told you what the lesson was, you'd fail at learning it for yourself."

I frowned. "'Learn a lesson'? Am I being punished like a schoolgirl or something?"

His voice changed to a seductive purr. "Oh, Leora, I love it when you talk dirty..." He moved his left hand to my thigh and slid it up under my dress. It made my breath catch.

"You're cheating," I said.

"Cheating at what?" He squeezed my leg, moved his hand up further. My crotch tightened, so did my chest. "You're distracting me with, um..." I looked at his hand.

He grinned knowingly. "I know."

He really had distracted me. I was all over the place. What had we been talking about? Alex? No. Traffic... Ah! "Lesson, you said."

He chuckled. "Back on track, eh?"

"Come on, just tell me."

"It's best if I don't. Besides, it's my own personal theory. Just, Leora, go ahead and do what
you
feel you need to do for yourself. It's important. At least in the beginning."

In the beginning of what? "You sound like the frickin Dalai Lama. Can you talk straight?"

The bastard slid his hand back up my dress. My chest heated up and I inhaled deeply. Oh, brother... Forget it. "OK, you win," I said.

"I knew I would."

-3-

"I have a surprise for you."

"You do?"

"Yes." He smirked. The gate to his driveway opened. My sternum buzzed anxiously.

-4-

His Tudor mansion wreaked of butter and herbs when we walked in. Conall laced his fingers in mine, bent down to whisper in my ear as he trickled his fingers down my shoulder. "Think of it as a going away present," he whispered, temptation trickling off his rumbling voice like oil-covered hands around my stiffened breasts. "Just so you'll be yearning for my touch every aching moment you are here without me."

Hell, baby, I'm yearning for it already.

My chest burned. It felt like someone was about to take a pizza from inside me! My legs weakened and I found my hand grazing his sturdy forearm, tickling the hairs on it.

He eased his lips down to mine as his hand cupped my cheek. When he kissed me, my eyes fluttered. I felt my heart stamp at my throat and my mouth water for reasons other than the smell of Mediterranean food wafting around the entranceway.

"First we will eat," he said.

Dinner was lobster, dirty and decadent. My fingers dripped with remnant butter as I sucked the exquisite juices from its legs. It wasn't elegant on my part, but Conall wasn't playing for that either: His fingers were as dirty as mine.

He'd set it up perfectly, candles, a soft red glow of light from a covered lamp in a back corner, easy music. Red wine.

"Who cooked this?" I asked.

"Would you believe it if I said I did?"

"You were with me all night. I know it wasn't you."

"You called me Batman once. Maybe I got changed in a booth and flew over here, then returned back to you all in the space of a second."

"You have your superheroes mixed up. Now who cooked it?"

He grinned. "The important thing is that it's cooked. Speaking of which, you never told me how you learned cooking yourself."

"Huh?"

"Cooking. You made that roast—"

"Ah, right, um, actually, I downloaded a free cooking book and then burned several dinners before that one."

He chuckled. "And here I thought I was going to be served for the rest of my life."

I shrugged. "If you want—"

"Leora, please. I do know how to cook if you must know. And as much as I loved your roast, I don't want you stuck in the kitchen for me. That's not how I envisaged our relationship."

"And here I thought you were ready to slap an apron on me and chain me to the stove."

"Oh, I'd love to slap an apron on you, but only if you're not wearing anything underneath." He sipped his wine, smirking...

My legs went warm. I wanted to reply, I just couldn't. He'd made me hot, as hot for him as I'd been on the day I'd met him, not an ounce of the passion we felt for each other having cooled since that night. We hadn't made love for a few days. Conall had had business, then I'd needed to visit the college campus with Kayla. I'd had to pack.

I was needy for it now. Needy for him.

I could see, as the candlelight flickered across his blue irises, that he was uneasy. An uneasiness that comes with wealth. But I could see also that he was putting those fears aside. Making the night just about us.

"You don't have to worry about me," I said, dipping my fingers in warm lemon-water.

His glass paused at his lips. "Who says I'm worried about you?"

"You don't need to say it. I know it."

He drank, put his glass down. "The more time we spend together, the more you see through me, don't you?"

It was true. I knew him better than I knew anyone. And how much of me did he know? "You saw through me the night we first had dinner, up on that rooftop," I said.

"Did I?"

I nodded, remembering my insecurities in those days, how they'd changed. How
I'd
changed... "You did."

"But you're a different person now."

"How so?"

He hesitated, shook his head.

"You want to say I'm a 'woman' now, don't you?"

"You were a woman when I met you."

"No, I wasn't."

"You were to me, as womanly as I've ever known anyone to be. So womanly that I find myself aroused every time I think of you, your sensuousness, your penetrating eyes, your seductive lips..."

I gushed, felt it in my underwear, tightened my legs and sensed the clamps come down on my abs. I bent forward over the table. Took a sip of wine.

I eased my hand over to his fingers. They sizzled against my own. My head went woozy. I sipped more wine.

I confess that I fished for more compliments. "I have penetrating eyes?"

Conall smiled, stood, wiped his lips with a napkin. The bulge under his slacks made me look away briefly lest I rip them off right now. The hairs on my skin cried out for him. Cool air danced against them. I quickly put my knife and fork in a position that said I was finished, as if he needed to know that.

I stood just before he arrived at my seat, ready for him. I would show him the woman I'd become.

He looped his arm around my waist and moved into me, made my neck fall back as he breathed into me with his kiss. He sat me on the table and I heard the clatter of dishes as they shook precariously. "We're going to spill wine on the floor," I said.

"It won't be the first time." He kissed my neck, lifted the velvet dress I had on, quickly, up to the tops of my thighs.