Wild Aces (13 page)

Brea

Open your eyes, Brea.

My body was screaming for him. It felt like I was on the verge of an orgasm, and just one more flick of his powerful tongue would send me into a shuddering release. I couldn’t take this tease for another second.

Open your eyes, Brea
.

But he had read my thoughts—again. I felt myself smile as I coached myself to open my lids. Heavy doses of fear and excitement twisted inside my stomach. I knew he’d be waiting to see what I thought of him. I didn’t want to appear too blown away. No man needed his ego boosted that much. Still, I knew however he looked was going to be an image of perfection.

I opened my eyes…slowly.

I blinked, getting used to the low light, and tried to focus. I waited for my eyes to adjust and blinked again.

The tingle between my legs, the heat that rose in my chest—everything came to a painful immediate halt.

And that pain replaced every ecstatic sensation.

I clamped my hand over my mouth to muffle the screams. “Whaaaaat?” I didn’t know what to ask. What to say. What to think. I wanted to hit him and kiss him. I wanted to shout, and I wanted to cry. “What are you doing here?”

“I don’t understand…”

I felt myself panting, gasping for air, like I couldn’t fill my lungs fast enough, yet it felt like I wasn’t breathing at all. I couldn’t believe what I was looking at.
Who
I was looking at. It was definitely him. All the features I’d memorized. His intensely beautiful sharp gray eyes, his long oval face, a small but well-defined nose. Lips that were soft, gentle, and full, now surrounded by several days’ worth of scruff.

It was him.

He was here.

“Cody…” I whispered.

My Cody.

I didn’t know how this was possible. He had been hit by a car. He hadn’t survived the accident. I knew he hadn’t. I’d gone to the morgue; I’d identified his body. I’d watched his casket get lowered into the ground. I’d sprinkled rose petals on top of it. I’d watched the shovels of dirt cover it. I’d run my fingers over his gravestone, tracing the letters of his name, the date of his death. I’d hugged it. I’d hugged it and sobbed.

I’d fucking screamed for him until I no longer had a voice.

And then I’d mourned.

“No, Brea. Trapper. It’s Trapper.”

“No…it’s Cody.”

“Who the hell is Cody?”

Was this some sort of sick joke?

Of course he hadn’t come back from the dead. I knew that wasn’t possible. And I knew what I was seeing was nothing more than a good mask and some incredibly well-done makeup. He must be a criminal from one of Cody’s old cases, someone who had gotten away or someone who had recently been released. They were somehow trying to get even because Cody had put them away.

I’d gone into this blind. But he hadn’t. He knew who I was…

“When I rip off the mask, you’ll get a whole lot more of me. But not yet. I like how it feels just like this.”

I reached forward and rubbed my fingers over his cheeks, under his eyes, across his mouth. “It’s not a mask,” I whispered. When I flipped my hand over, there wasn’t anything on my fingertips. “Or makeup…” Tears were falling from my eyes so fast, it was making everything blurry.

He grabbed my hands and held them against his chest. “Of course I’m not wearing a mask or makeup.” His gray eyes searched mine. The ones I had stared into for years. The ones I had loved. “This is me.”

“You…” My nose was running. I could taste eyeliner on my lips. My legs were shaking so hard, my feet felt like they were going to give out. If he wasn’t wearing a mask, then that could only mean one thing. “But it can’t be you. You’re dead.”

“Dead? Brea, I’m not dead.”

I pushed him away, but he didn’t move. He did release my hands, so I wrapped them around me, balling my fingers into fists.

“Why?” I screamed. “Why would you do this to me, Cody? Why would you put me through all this? Make me believe this? Hurt me this bad?”

He took a step closer. “Come here.”

I shifted to the side to put more space between us.

“Trapper. My name is Trapper, Brea. I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

“What I’m talking about?” I was staring at my dead—or undead or somehow survived—boyfriend in the face, and he didn’t know what I was talking about. “I think I’m going to be sick.” I turned my face away from him and bent over, dry-heaving onto the pavement. Nothing came out. My stomach was empty. I hadn’t eaten today because I’d been so nervous about our date.

“Brea, let me—”

“Don’t touch me. Don’t come near me.” I took a step toward the sidewalk.

My Cody wouldn’t have done this to me. He wouldn’t have left me. He wouldn’t have made me believe for almost two years that he was dead. The man standing in front of me had hurt me, and I had to get away from him.

He gripped the upper part of my arm when I tried to leave, and the tears started pouring down even harder.

“I don’t know who Cody is. You need to believe me.”

I didn’t believe him. I didn’t really know what I believed. But I couldn’t breathe. I needed air. I needed to find air, air that didn’t have him in it.

“Let me go.”

As I twisted out of his grip, he pulled me closer.

“No!” I shouted. “Stop! Just let me go.”

He held me even tighter. “Look at me, Brea.”

I kept my back to him, unable to look at his face for another second.

“I can’t—”

“Look at me.” His voice was so stern. “I’m not letting you go until you look at me.”

I tried pulling myself free, but he wouldn’t budge. He wasn’t giving me a choice. I had to look at him. I slowly glanced behind me, and our eyes connected. His were full of pain—pain like when we had fought about how much he worked, like when his father was diagnosed with cancer, like when I told him our relationship wasn’t working.

“Why did you come back, Cody? I believed, this whole time, you were dead. So, why are you here? Why now?”

His mouth opened, his stare bouncing between my eyes. Back and forth. Again and again. “I—”

I bent over once more, the pain in my stomach hitting me again so suddenly. Nothing came out when I gagged. His hands rubbed the middle of my back as I stayed hunched over, and it gave me just the amount of time and space I needed to get away. A few steps, and I was out onto the sidewalk, running between the people who were walking around me.

“Brea…” I heard from behind me. “Brea, don’t leave.”

I pushed my way down the pavement, saw the lights from an available taxi, and threw myself into the backseat.

“Brea, wait! I’m not—”

I slammed the door and wrapped my arms around my stomach. “Drive! Now!”

“Where to, miss?”

“Anywhere.” I bent over and rocked, trying to ease the pain. “Just get me far away from here.”

Trapper

What the fuck just happened?

I wanted Brea to open her eyes in that alley, wrap her arms around my neck, and give me that dangerous mouth of hers. But she took one look at me and freaked the hell out. She kept calling me Cody. I had no idea who she was talking about.

She didn’t listen when I told her I didn’t know who he was and that I wasn’t him. She didn’t listen when I said my name again and again. And she didn’t listen when I tried to stop her from running. She just kept going until she was too far away for me to catch her.

Her taxi was now driving away, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. My hands clenched together, remembering what it felt like to have her between them. All that was left now in her place were a hell of a lot of questions.

How had everything gone so wrong?

She was accusing me of something…of being dead?

Seeing my face for the first time had caused this. I was used to women screaming when they looked into my eyes, but it was for an entirely different reason. None of them had ever thrown up or cried or turned her head so that she wouldn’t have to look at me until I demanded it from her. But Brea did.

Whoever Cody was, it was his face she saw. His face caused her reaction.

How much of a resemblance could there possibly be?

“Excuse me,” a woman said, pushing past me as she walked by.

I hadn’t moved, hadn’t stopped staring at the empty spot where the taxi was parked before it drove off.

I didn’t know why the hell I was still standing there. She wasn’t coming back. She wasn’t calling my phone or texting me to explain why she had taken off. She was gone. And I needed to find her.

But there was something else I needed to do first.

Brea

Tucked in the backseat of the taxi while the driver took me to Frankie’s, I searched through my purse to find my phone. When I had it, I clicked on Net’s number.

“Hey,” I said as he picked up, “I really need your help.” Getting answers was the only thing that would ease the throbbing pain inside my chest.

“Don’t tell me it’s for your boss’s boyfriend again. That Derek Block dude have another crazy ex you need to get info on?”

Whenever I needed information, I went to Net; there wasn’t anything he couldn’t find. I’d known him since my freshman year of college when we had a computer class together, and by junior year, he was working full-time as a hacker. I kept his name a secret, not even Frankie knew. Net wanted it that way.

“No. This time, it’s for me.”

“Now, I’m really listening. Speak to me, little lady.”

Did I have him look into Cody’s death first or this fake Trapper identity he was using? Cody had been a detective, so protective custody was the only thing that made sense. I just didn’t understand how he was able to come back to Boston, unmasked, in the area where I lived, knowing he could run into people we both knew.

“I need you to find everything you can on a guy named Trapper.”

“What’s his last name?”

My lips had devoured his, yet I didn’t even know his last name.
Nice, Brea. Real fucking nice.
My stomach hurt even worse now. “I…don’t know. I’ll have to text it to you later.”

It wasn’t the only thing missing. I also didn’t know his birthday or where he was from or even what he did for a living. I really knew nothing, but it hadn’t stopped me from wanting him, from touching him, from melting in front of him. From sending him sexy pictures and having a screaming orgasm on the phone with him.

“I know he owns a place in the Back Bay.”

That piece didn’t make any sense. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I knew that. How could Cody buy a townhouse in my part of the city? If he were really in hiding, wouldn’t he be in some cabin in Alaska, salmon-fishing for a living and covering his face with five layers of wool?

“I’ll see what I can find out,” he said.

Net moved fast—even faster if I brought him a bag of weed. Pot made me eat my entire fridge and pass out, but somehow, it helped him concentrate. I kept some in my freezer for times like this…although times had never really been like this.

“I’ll come over in a little while with a present. A sticky green one.”

“Don’t tease me. I’m in hell right now, a hell that has nothing green inside it, and you just reminded me how much it blows.”

“Hell?”

“The Middle East. Can’t say where exactly. But all I see is fucking sand, and all I smell is camel shit. And I have a welt on my leg the size of a dog’s paw from some fucking desert bug.”

“Shit.” I rubbed my forehead as I tried to think of another plan. “When will you be back?”

“Couple weeks probably. This goddamn job has me by the balls. Once I’m stateside, I’ll be all over it—that is, if I don’t die beforehand. I think this welt is starting to grow antlers.”

If my stomach wasn’t empty, I probably would have gagged.

“Bear with me, B. I’ll get you what you need.”

“Be careful over there.” I tossed my cell back inside my purse without looking at the screen. I’d heard a text come through while I was on the phone with Net, but I didn’t want to see it. I knew it was from Cody…or Trapper—whatever his name was now.

Two years ago, I would have given anything to hold his face, to kiss it, to gaze into his eyes one last time without seeing the image of those eyes staring lifelessly back at me. But those lifeless eyes had been a lie, and all those years of mourning had been for nothing.