Love and Always (A Pound of Flesh #1.5) (2 page)

In a brief moment of doubt, he pulled back from her eager mouth, tracing her flushed cheek with the back of his hand. “Did you mean it?” he asked seriously, watching her carefully. “Will you really marry me?”

Her eyes met his and a slow smile teased at the edges of her lips. “Yes. With my whole heart, I meant it.” She lifted her head, hunting out his tongue with hers. “I love you.”

“Christ,” he murmured, dropping his face to her neck, reveling in the sparks of lust and passion her words sent through his body. His hips undulated against her, driven by the want and desire he’d forever felt for her. “Baby,” he growled as he licked her throat, holding her grabby hands to the floor. “Do you know what your words do to me?”

Her response, as she arched her neck, was a wanton sigh.

He smiled. “I’m hard again.”

Her moan was all the beautiful assurance he needed as he once again pushed into her welcoming body.

To say that Carter entered WCS Communications with a spring in his step the next day would have been a huge understatement. Floating was a more apt description, walking on sunshine. He smiled and greeted the weekend staff with an enthusiastic good morning, garnering perplexed looks from those who’d only known him as a quiet, formidable ex con in the thirteen months he’d been the official CEO.

But he didn’t give a shit. No one was going to piss on his parade today.

“Coffee, Mr. Carter?” his PA, Martha, asked with a grin.

“You know what I like,” he retorted with a wink as he strode into his office and placed his bike helmet on his desk. Shaking off his leather jacket, and replacing it with the double-breasted Tom Ford jacket hanging from the back of the door, he looked out across the exquisite view of the city his office was fortunate to have.

Despite it being three days before Christmas, it was a brisk, sunny day in New York. The snow had managed to stay relatively low-key, but more was forecast in the coming days. And if that meant he was going to be snowed in with his fiancée over Christmas and New Year’s, who was he to complain?

Fiancée.

Shit, didn’t that just make him feel full of the cute and cuddlies?

“Do I even wanna know what happened to make you smile like that?”

Ben Thomas’s voice roused Carter from his daydreams, making his smile wider. He turned to look at his newly appointed business attorney and shrugged off the nearly overwhelming urge to shout his news across the office, out the window, down the phone to the
New York
fucking
Times.

Ben cocked a suspicious eyebrow. “Okaaaay,” he said, closing the office door behind him. “Well, I thought you’d want to know the latest. Austin Ford has opened a consulting firm in Chicago.”

Carter frowned. “Chicago.”

“Apparently. I’m not sure what his business will be consulting for, or whether it’s a euphemism for shady shit, but I’ll do some more digging. Adam doesn’t seem to know much about it.”

Carter sat down and gestured for Ben to do the same. “Should I be worried?”

His cousin, Austin, was one slippery motherfucker but, surprisingly, had been off the business radar for a long time. As far as Carter was aware, and from the small snippets of information he gathered from Austin’s brother, Adam, Austin had been keeping himself busy spending his millions, traveling the world, which suited Carter just fine. As long as he stayed the hell away from Carter. And his wife-to-be.

Ben shook his head. “Nah. Don’t be worried. He won’t—can’t—touch you, Kat, or WCS. But I’ll keep my eye on him, find out who he’s dealing with.”

“I appreciate that.”

Ben had been an integral force in Carter’s reclaiming the family business from Austin. He was determined, loyal, and Kat trusted him implicitly. It hadn’t taken Carter long to realize that Ben would be an invaluable addition to his new staff at WCS. He’d pretty much offered the bastard all but the kitchen sink to lure him from his last position, but it had been more than worth it. As well as being outstanding at his job, over the past few months, thanks in no small part to Kat, Ben and Carter had also become good friends.

“Keep me updated will you?” Carter asked as he pulled off his biker boots.

“You bet,” Ben agreed with a smile, watching Carter remove his leathers, under which—Ben was relieved to see—were gray suit pants. Carter’s boots were replaced with more respectable shiny black Dior loafers, which he grabbed from underneath the desk.

“I can’t believe Kat lets you ride your bike to the office,” Ben said with a chuckle. “We have a car service, you know.”

Carter rolled his eyes and held up a finger. “First, I’m my own man and I make my own decisions. Kat doesn’t ‘let’ me do anything.” He paused. “Unless I ask nicely.” Ben laughed knowingly. “Second, my bike’s name is Kala, and the car service can eat a dick. I like traveling in style.” He smirked. “Besides, chicks dig leather.”

Ben snorted. “Fair enough. I also wanted you to know that the paperwork has been finalized on the O’Hare body shop.”

Carter sighed and nodded. “With all the clauses I stipulated?”

“Every one. Max will remain the primary owner. He’ll be paid a regular monthly income, as will his workers. The final debts have been wiped and the business is slowly creeping back into the black.”

It was hard for Carter to smile, despite the relief that warmed his chest. “Good. Max doesn’t need to be worrying about that place while he’s . . . recovering.”

“Agreed,” Ben affirmed. “You heard from him?”

Carter sat back in his chair, glancing out the window. “Yesterday.”

Ben didn’t push and Carter was glad of it. Hearing Max, his best friend, so distant, so tired and battle worn, had been very tough. He’d been at the rehab clinic for a little over three weeks, with no communication allowed for the first fourteen days. As much as he’d tried to hide it, Carter had been worried sick, frequently checking his cell phone for word that Max had busted out of the place, flipped out, or worse.

The first call he’d received had done little to ease his anxiety. Max was beyond low, lost in a depression so thick, Carter couldn’t bear to think what would have happened if he hadn’t convinced Max that rehab was the way forward. In twenty years, Carter had never heard his friend sound so without hope, and it was truly terrifying.

Almost immediately after his admittance, Max had been placed on heavy medication and the few phone calls Carter had received suggested it was helping. A little. Nevertheless, the boy still had a long way to go, and Carter would be there every step of the way. It had taken some rather aggressive coercing, but once Max had been admitted, and the days turned into weeks with no sign of Max going all
Great Escape,
Carter had begun to breathe a little easier.

Carter wondered fleetingly what Max’s reaction would be to his engagement to Kat. Of course, Carter would want the son of a bitch there for it all, best man and all that shit, but would Max be happy? With all of Max’s baggage with his ex, Lizzie, hell if Carter knew.

But remembering the dazzling look on Kat’s face when he asked her to be his wife and her emphatic yes was enough to bring the warm-and-fuzzy buzz back to the fore. It was like a huge fluffy fucking hug. With a short laugh that surprised both himself and Ben, he tried to shake off his excitement with a rub of his face.

Jesus, he was losing it.

Ben regarded Carter for a moment while Carter pretended to peruse some e-mails on his computer monitor. What the hell was written on the screen, though, God alone knew. Carter’s head wasn’t exactly in the game.

“So are you gonna tell me what’s going on with you, or are you gonna continue to pretend you’re doing work?”

Carter couldn’t fight the beaming smile that began to tug at his cheeks. “I proposed to Kat.” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them, and the relief of finally telling
someone
made him collapse back into his chair.

Ben sat up straight, eyes wide and dancing. “And I’m assuming from your shit-eating grin that she said yes.”

With his tongue between his teeth, Carter gave two big thumbs-up and laughed. Ben shot up out of his seat with his hand outstretched. Carter stood to meet him. The two men shook hands, followed by a manly hug and backslap.

“That’s fantastic, Carter. Congratulations.”

“Thanks, man,” Carter replied, pushing his hands into his pockets. “I was going to wait until Christmas Day, but when she came in from work yesterday, I just had to.”

Ben nodded, smiling. “You look ecstatic.”

“I am.” Carter rubbed the back of his neck. “Relieved. So happy. I can’t believe she said yes.”

Both men heard the underlying apprehension in Carter’s voice. Regardless of the fact that he and Kat had been together for as long as they had and all they’d been through, Carter still had trouble believing that she had chosen
him
. Carter’s sigh of gratitude brought Ben’s hand up to Carter’s shoulder. “You deserve her. You both deserve to be happy.”

“Thanks.”

Ben cleared his throat. “So what did Eva say?”

Fuck. Carter had tried not to think about Kat’s mother’s reaction, but the truth was, she and Kat’s grandmother, Nana Boo, were joining them for their first Christmas at the beach house, so Carter had exactly T-minus-forty-eight hours before the shit hit the proverbial fan.

Carter’s happy-happy-joy-joy started backing the hell up at a rapid pace. “Well . . .”

Ben chuckled. “Shit, man, you mean she doesn’t know? You didn’t ask her permission?”

That brought Carter up short. “Say
what
?”

He needed
permission
? What was this, kiddie hour?

His face must have said it all. Ben held his hands up as they both sat back down. “It’s a tradition. When you ask a girl to marry you, you ask her father for his permission, passing on the flame so to speak. In Kat’s case, you’d have to ask Eva.”

Carter sat forward, perplexed, pressing an accusatory finger to his desk. “And this is, like, a thing? People do this?”

Ben shrugged. “I did. I asked Abby’s father. Bastard sat there with a Smith and Wesson while I did it, too.” He chuckled but Carter didn’t join in.

God fucking dammit, a Smith & Wesson would be the least of Carter’s worries when Eva arrived to see the three-carat rock on her baby girl’s finger.

“How did I not know this?” He slumped back in his seat and clutched the bridge of his nose. Just what he needed, another damned reason for Eva to be on his case.

Granted, she’d been nowhere near as haughty or curt with him since their heated conversation at Nana Boo’s Thanksgiving a year ago, when she found out that it was Carter who’d saved Kat from an almost-certain death when she was nine years old. Eva had even kept her mouth shut when he and Kat had moved in together, but Carter could still sense her disapproval every time they were in a room together, prickling his skin and his self-confidence, like she was just waiting for him to screw up and prove her right. She hid it well, but it was there, lurking under the surface of her immaculate makeup and stiff smile.

“Don’t worry,” Ben said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “It’ll be fine. She’ll see how happy Kat is and move on.”

But neither man believed that for a second.

As noon approached on Christmas Eve, Kat was about ready to crawl out of her skin.

She’d changed her outfit three times, from jeans to a skirt to dress pants and back again. She’d put her hair up, then taken it down; curled it; then straightened it. She’d made sure the food she’d cooked was organized and ready more times than she could count, and cleaned the house over and over from top to bottom until the wood was gleaming so brightly Carter had suggested in bemusement that they eat off the floor instead of plates around the dinner table.

But none of it did anything to ease her sense of dread.

The truth was, Kat had no idea what her mother’s reaction was going to be. Frankly, she didn’t care, though a small part of her longed for her mother to be happy. Kat wanted to marry Carter with everything that she was: body, mind, and soul, and no one could convince her otherwise. But it didn’t change the fact that her mother was a tricky beast.