Hiding in Plain Sight (18 page)

Oh, shit.

Brand was dead on the money.

"What do you think he would do to you, or your family, my beautiful girl, if it became known you'd been given to him in any other condition than what he'd paid for, hmmm?"

Mama.

I didn't care what they did to my booze-hound of a father and his demons-in-training, sons since they were all, part and parcel, a den of vipers.  But my mother? 

"Won't that bring you trouble?" I asked finally, my heart beating so hard it was gonna come out of my chest.  "They're gonna blame you."

His beautiful light eyes came to rest on mine.  "I can handle trouble," he assured me and I felt my terror step down a notch.  From what I'd seen, he was really good at handling trouble.

"Would we have to stay married after this is over?" I was trying to poke holes in his plan but didn't know anything other than to protect myself.

"Not if you don't want to."  I couldn't be certain but I thought his voice held a tinge of regret as he answered.  But that couldn't be right.  He didn't know me any better than I knew him.

My stress at his answer came down another couple of points.

I let my eyes roam as I thought, unseeing as I tried to search for another way.  A
different
way out of the mess I was in.  If there was one, I couldn't find it.

And Bay gave me the room to think even though our hands were still linked.

My eyes were drawn to his, but my mind went back to the feel of him holding me tightly during that awful storm that crashed over us after we first met.

I remembered the two of us in the middle of the king-sized bed as he'd upended the carrier bag filled with things to change me so I could hide.

I recalled the look on his face the times we'd been naked, joined together; the sweetness when he'd touched me, entered and rode me, creating more joy inside my body and heart than I'd ever had in my entire life.

*.*.*.*.*

 He watched her swallow thickly and let go of her fingers, making his way back to settle again in the chair, legs back up on the bed.

"Married?" she repeated, her face in profile, eyes blinking rapidly.

"Yes."  It probably would've been better if he'd tried to hide his smile, but her reaction was too cute for him to hold it back.

She turned to the wall, her back to him.  He knew her head must be spinning, and he simply waited until she absorbed his words, knowing she'd be too curious not to question his suggestion further.  Reese carefully put her food on the nightstand before she turned and scooted, rearranging the pillows until her back was propped against the headboard, her arms securing her waist.

"Just to make sure, this would be a temporary deal, right?" Her voice was calm as she asked the question again, though she was again pulling at her lip.  But it was the hopeful note in it that sent his stomach southward.

"If that is what you want, my Reese," he repeated his answer softly, dropping his eyes to his feet but his heart took up a rhythm hard and deep within him.

"Of
course
that's what I want!" she cried, throwing up her hands and shifting to sit straight up.  Her eyes, those beautiful big pools of brown, finally met his.  "Damn, Bay!  Why would I
ever
want to marry?  Especially to get hitched to a man who is
still
in love
with his dead girlfriend!" 

He deserved that, those words from her and was surprised that she wasn't saying more.  In the hours of riding they had done, he'd turned the words Reese had screamed at him over and over in his head.  At first, he denied it to himself since he knew he most definitely had not been thinking of Nadia at that particular amazing moment.  But how else would Reese had known her name? 

"When the danger is over, then we will divorce if that is what you want." This was the third time he'd assured her on this particular point, and he didn't want to say it again.

"Why not an annulment?" Reese's head tilted in confusion.

"Because, draga, we would have to present grounds for an annulment.  One of which is that we would not have shared physical pleasures," he replied uncomfortably and moved his feet to re-cross his ankles.

Her eyebrows raised sharply at his pronouncement as she stared at him.  "I could do that," she said, after a time of the eye stares they both seemed to frequently get caught up in. "I don't need to have sex with you in order get Louie off my ass."

It was his turn to experience incredulity at her words.  She didn't mean that, did she?  He knew she found him attractive and had found bliss not only under his fingers but with his cock.  He'd been looking forward to giving her pleasure with his tongue as well, but according to her, she could do without any of the physical side of marriage.

Well maybe she could, but he sure as shit couldn't!

"No," he said firmly, feeling his anger quickly taking over, not realizing it was reflected on his face with his deep scowl.  "We marry, we fuck."

She blinked as she quickly turned her face away at his crudeness.  He saw her hand come up to grab her lower lip again.

"I will marry you to protect you and in return, you will let me into your beautiful, hot, wet body, allowing us both to find joy in our naked joining."  He was careful with his explanation, trying not to speak as crudely as before even though the words were bubbling inside him.  But at just the thought, the saying of the words, he felt his cock thicken.

Her eyes slowly came back to his.  "You can never call out her name when we're doing…" she began.

"I will watch my words, my Reese," he promised, interrupting her and holding up his hand.  He'd already worked it through, in the hours on the bike, how he would've felt if she'd called him by another's name during their shared moments when he was deep within her.  And he admitted to himself, it wouldn't have gone well.

"Okay," she said on an indrawn breath.  "You marry me, keep me safe and I'll let you screw me."

"No," Brand drawled the word out.  "I marry you, keep you safe and we will find our enjoyment together.  If I had a choice to use my hand or an unmoving, unfeeling pussy to get off, I would choose my hand.  You must be an active… ah, a
willing
participant in our sex."

There were a series of slow blinks from her as she processed his words.  At long last he heard her, though her voice was very low, very quiet.  "Okay."

"Tell me what you have agreed to, my Reese," he pressed.

"We will marry, you will protect me, and we will… we will… ah, both
do
things… erm,
enjoy
things, when we get busy," she said, her eyes wide and slightly unfocused. "Then, once it's safe, we'll get a divorce."

He let his eyes trail down her body and saw her nipples were hard beneath her sleep shirt.  His hard-on pulsed against his leather pants at the evidence of her reluctant arousal.

"Can I ask a question, though?" Her eyes speared his when he again raised them to her face.  At his nod, she continued.  "What's your last name?"

"Jovanovic.  Brandimir Jovanovic," he replied with a grin.  Why hadn't he ever, in the six days they'd been together, given her his full name?  In order to cover his embarrassment of nondisclosure, he stood and moved the chair back to the table before taking off his t-shirt and easing himself out of his leathers.  Clad only in his boxer briefs, he joined her on the bed.

"Where were you born?" She slid down onto the pillows and turned on her side, tucking her hands under her cheek as he rolled to face her, head propped on his hand.

The next few hours sped by for Brand in both asking and answering questions that became more personal the longer they spoke.  As the inquiries got deeper, more private, their bodies drew closer with the need to touch and be touched. 

She played with his fingers when he described his earliest years and his family, making her laugh with his stories of the scrapes he got into due to his younger self's curiosity.  And of how he'd more than earned the nickname of 'Bayco'.

His fingers stroked and combed through her hair when she spoke warmly and with love of her mother as his heart bled for their suffering at the hands of the weak, insecure men who found their manhood in the subjugation of women.

Reese was nestled on his chest, her forehead to his neck and his arms tightly holding her in place and quiet was between them, when he knew it was time to talk about the elephant in the room.

"Do you want to know of her, my Reese?" he said low and slow into the silence.

"Who?"

"My Nadia?"

She shifted before tilting her face up to his.  "Can you talk about her without yelling?"

He grinned down into her questioning eyes. 

"I think so," he murmured.

Chapter Seventeen

"I met her father when Niko, Atin and I were at a resettlement camp after we were transferred to the United States," he began.  "He held a very high position and was on the committee of AmCroSer, which controlled the influx of immigrants from my country, those who wanted to come to America."

"You mean like with visas and stuff?" I asked.  I didn't know much about immigration other than what I saw on TV in the 'Battle for the Border' as the newscasters called it.  With a large portion of Texas touching Mexico, there was always something in the news about immigration.

"Yes.  For whatever reason, Mr. Stankovic took a special interest in me and my brothers,” Bay’s voice continued.  I could hear it rumbling underneath the ear I had pressed to his chest.  His fingers were slowly making circles, catching on the t-shirt material covering my back. 

"You have more brothers?"

"You have not met Niko yet.  But they are not my brothers by blood.  Niko, Atin and I met when we were very young and in our first camp," he explained.  "It was an honor for such a man, such a successful man, to show an interest in us.  When we were old enough, he had Atin and I transferred to a boarding school in Maryland so we could be closer to D.C. where he worked and lived."

"Washington D.C.?"   His voice had wound down and I wanted, no needed, him to keep going.  To get to the Nadia part.

"Correct.  He would come to see us, to take us out for the day about once a month but by the time we were sixteen, we would take the train to his house to spend the day.  It was one such time that Atin and I were introduced to Nadia."  Bay's voice had dropped both in pitch and in volume.

"Where was Niko?  Didn't he go with you?"

I felt him shift, re-crossing his ankles at my question.

"Niko had been adopted right after we were first introduced to Nadia's father," he answered.

"So, when you first met her, was it love at first sight?"

"Uhm, no, I would not call it that," he said with a chuckle.  "She was very beautiful and very poised, especially for one as young as we were.  But she was very much out of my league.  What I remember of that day was feeling very awkward, stupidly clumsy and extremely horny."

I couldn't help my sharp bark of laughter at his words and got a squeeze in reply.

"I did not think I had made a very good impression on her and thought her interest had been in Atin since she had spent most of that time talking with him.  So I was surprised when her father called and asked me to escort her to one of her school dances," he continued.

"Her
dad
asked you out?" I had no idea if that was just the way they did things in his culture, but I'd never heard of such a thing before.

"It was a boy-girl dance and I believe Mr. Stankovic wanted to control the situation.  To have her attend with a boy he knew, rather than the possible devil he did not," Bay explained.  "Soon, I was her date for a number of outings, parties that she and her father attended and school events."

"So you guys fell in love slowly," I murmured with a delicious shiver.  My mind was picturing a younger Bay learning to love a beautiful young woman as they went to glittering parties in fancy clothes and eating expensive finger food.

I felt him shrug. 

"And fell so deep that your heart still yearns for her even after all these years.  That's awesomely romantic."  I tilted my face up again to find him looking at me.  And I was confused by his lack of expression.  I don't know what I'd expected to see.  Sorrow maybe?  Or a soft smile at the memory of the woman he still held in his heart?

I was unsure, but from what he'd saidn I hadn't heard him declare his undying love for Nadia.  Not his words, in his tone of voice or with his body.  I put my head back down.

"Bay?" I started, trying to find the right way to say what I wanted to ask next.  When it came to this subject, the responses from both him and Vana had been so extreme.  I didn't want to set him off again.  Especially since he was really relaxed, and I didn't want it to be me who destroyed that vibe.  "How did she die?"

"A car bomb exploded her father's car," he replied, his voice flat and emotionless.  As empty as the face I'd seen earlier.

"Do they know who did it?" I tilted my head up again to see his face since his tone gave none of his emotions away.  That lack of feeling was starting to make me uncomfortable.

"Her father had been receiving threats for denying entrance visas."  He cleared his throat and looked down at me as he continued.  "The men looking for you work for one of the people Mr. Stankovic did not want to allow into the U.S."

"Milosevics?" My voice was a squeak with my question.

"It was never proven, but it had all the signs of how the Milosevics deal with their enemies."

I just stared at him, my mind finally catching up.  Blowing up his girlfriend's father's car with her in it might make Brand want to learn more about the people who'd done the deed.

"Did they ever find who did it?  I mean, somebody must have been charged with the two murders," I hedged, hoping that for Nadia and her dad justice had prevailed.

"Three murders," Bay murmured.  "Nadia was pregnant with my child."

Everything within me stilled.  Two and two were starting to make four as I put the pieces together.  To a young man without a family, in a strange country, having a girlfriend of someone successful from the old place would be a big deal. 

To knock her up and start your own family would be huge.

"We were to be married before she announced her pregnancy to avoid embarrassment within our community." His voice was now a rough whisper.

"I'm sorry for your loss, Bay," knowing my words, though sincerely said, couldn't help him with his pain or memories.

"It happened a long time ago," I heard him say.

"Yeah, but I'm still sorry it still hurts."  I felt him shift again and gained another squeeze of his arm whether because he was moving or because of my words.  He changed our positions until we were covered by the sheet.

"Are you sleepy, my Reese?" he asked after we'd settled, my back to his front.

"Kind of," I admitted.  Which wasn't exactly true because my mind was still going eighty miles an hour with what he'd told me.  I felt him reach behind us as he turned the light out.  When he turned back to cuddle me, his hand shifted my hair to the side and his lips hit the side of my neck in a soft, short kiss.

"Brand?" I whispered into the dark, trying out his name.  It felt good in my mouth.  "Do you think you'll ever fall in love again?"

There was a long pause, long enough to make me wonder if he'd gone to sleep. 

"I do not know if I can love at all," I heard from over my shoulder and for some reason, his words hurt me around the same spot in my heart as hearing him calling Nadia's name in our moment of passion. 

But the hurt I felt was for him, not myself.

I turned myself slowly so that we were face to face, even though I couldn't see him in the night of our room.  Feeling his breath on my cheeks, I used my hands to find his shoulders and pushed up until my mouth was on his forehead.  I planted a soft kiss on the furrows which released as I lifted away.

My lips found his eyes and dropped a peck on each, wondering at the moisture I felt there.  I tilted my chin and gently placed a kiss on each cheek, feeling his skin's sharp stubble as it rasped.  Scooting down, I finally pressed my mouth to his, gently at first, then applying pressure as I angled my head, allowing the tip of my tongue to trace the seam of his lips.

Brand kept his lips sealed together, but I could feel a stirring against my thigh.

I broke away and lifted the t-shirt over my head before shifting back to him.  As I pressed my naked body back to his, my breasts thrilling at the feel of his muscled chest against my sensitive, hard peaks, I entwined his neck with my arms.

Without a word, his mouth sought mine, only this time his lips were open, soft and hot.  He pulled me to him with a groan. 

This time, in this coming together, things were slow and sweet.  Drawn out caresses and tender kisses on any skin available. 

We both did exactly as we said we would. 

I was an active participant. 

He watched his words.

And it was indescribably beautiful.