Return to Poughkeepsie (54 page)

At the stoplight, she angled her side mirror, and he pointed to the left, toward his house. It felt like the old times for a few more turns until they parked, and she got off the motorcycle. The look on her face when he met her in the driveway was so much more complicated than it had been back in the day.

Of course, she’d just been trying to kill him back then, not love him.

“You saved my ass back there—not that I asked for it.” Beckett pointed at his front door, and she followed him inside.

The windows had all been replaced, and with a few extras he had the contractors throw in as well, this place was now a fortress. He locked the door behind them and smiled. This time no one without a Sherman tank could bust down his door or break his windows.

She took off her jacket and tossed it on the back of the couch. Gandhi snorted himself awake, and Beckett had the pleasure of finally introducing him to Eve. Sure, she’d spent the night with him once, but she hadn’t even known his name. It helped that G was a shameless flirt. Eve crouched down, and he waddled his way over.

She let him snorfle at her hand before petting his head. “What happened?”

Beckett needed a moment to register what she meant, as he didn’t even see the scars anymore. The dog’s face was such a part of him now.

“Somebody tried to fight him.” Gandhi rolled onto his back, offering her his belly. His happy, slobbery noises proved how unfit he was for anything but love.

“Dog fighting?”

“Yup. He was about an hour from death row when I busted him out. He kept me from losing my mind when I was away. Forced me to get out every day, you know?” Beckett came close and helped Eve pet the dog’s middle.

She stood, stepping back as soon as Beckett was close. “What’s his name?”

“Gandhi. I hope that’s not rude. Never thought about it until too late.” Beckett leashed the bulldog and stepped outside with him. When they returned, Eve was walking through the house, noting the improvements.

Beckett locked up and pulled out two glasses. “Thirsty?”

She answered with a quick nod and he began pouring vodka, adding a few things from the bar to make it fancy.

Beckett made sure his hand took up way too much real estate on the glass when he handed it to her, ensuring she’d have to touch him to get her drink. She did so without looking at his face. She turned to look out his living room window and took an impressive swallow before holding the glass with two hands, like it was a cup of coffee keeping her hands warm.

He stood across the room, giving her space as he forced her to face this emotional thing between them.

“I expected to lay it out tonight. Why’d you show up?” He tried his own drink, barely tasting it as he waited for her answer.

“Because Mouse would’ve wanted me to.” Still, she wouldn’t look at him.

“And if all hell had broken loose?” The tension was like a high wire, strung from his heart to hers. He could almost see it.

It was then she set her blue eyes on him. “I’ve got the devil on speed dial.”

He took another drink, buying time. “Lucky bastard.”

She was dressed like a dominatrix, but this was clearly a fragile moment for her. He had to believe that.

“All this time and here we are. Wish it was different?” He set his glass down, as if about to do battle.

She tensed. There was no response forever as she looked at her boots, then her clasped fist, and finally back at him. “When I’m not with you, I’m wishing I was.”

And with that, the tension snapped and a whirlwind began.

“Come here to me,” Beckett demanded in a gravelly voice. He pointed to the spot in front of him. “Come here or run, because the next choice you make will be for the rest of your life.”

He felt anything but sure, but he didn’t let his uncertainty seep into his demeanor. If Beckett knew anything, it was that Eve liked him to be rough, uncompromising.

She took her time walking to him, her bravado slightly false as she put the tips of her boots against the toes of his shoes. She was gorgeous enough for candles and romantic music, but that’s not what he had. Beckett bit his bottom lip as he dragged his hand over her thigh, up to her stomach, and across her breasts to grab the hair at the nape of her neck. He grabbed it hard and felt the knife she kept hidden there slice into his hand. Hot blood seeped from his hand into her hair, but he watched desire surge through her. Her pupils dilated and her stance widened.

She licked her lips. “Abuse me.”

“Oh, shit,” Beckett breathed as he put his other hand on her ass and pulled her against him. She tilted her head back, digging the knife in deeper.

She slapped his face, and when he turned back to her, he bit her neck. He raked his teeth across her chest and bruised her skin with his fingers. He knew she’d never show weakness, but he might actually die trying to make her do just that.

And then she engaged, so needy with her hands and mouth, it damn near choked him up. She climbed him, hanging on while she kissed him like she might never stop. It felt like Eve was trying to get inside him, and he staggered backward. Regaining his balance, he started up the stairs, setting her down hard halfway up. She took the opportunity to undress him—the jacket she clawed off, and his shirt ripped as she found his chest. She looked up at him as she licked her way across his abs and twirled her tongue delicately around his nipple before biting down.

He grabbed her by the throat and pinned her against the stairs. He watched her lips go blue as he undid his belt and let his pants hit the floor. Her eyes started to widen, the lack of oxygen getting to her. When he kissed her, her blue lips had turned cold.

“I know how you like it, you sick fucking bitch. You have to be half dead to come.” As he let go of her neck, he noticed his injured hand had left a bloody print. He wiped his palm across her heaving chest. “Fuck, Eve, how dare you think you could live without this? Without me?”

He yanked her quickly so she was ass up. He put his foot in the center of her back and stripped her like she was his enemy. Using the knife she had strapped to her thigh to rip through the lacing, he destroyed her corset. Next he set to work on her insanely skin-tight pants. He could hear her seething, breathing through her teeth, but when she tried to get up, he slammed her against the stairs again. He shredded the leather into pieces, finally getting her bare, though the strips hung down like a hula skirt. He pushed through them and into her with no warning. Three fingers, no waiting.

She gasped, and he loved it. “Do you know what’s next? I’m going to fuck the hell out of you.”

He let her up, and she was already swinging. She gave him two hard nut shots, his boxer briefs offering little protection. His anger and his lust combined in the precise way only she could make him feel. He roughhoused her up the stairs to the top. She was claws and teeth, mixed with a soft tongue on occasion. With brute force he wrestled her onto her back, spreading her legs and pinning her knees on either side of her head. Her spike heels became deadly obstacles between him and her beautiful face.

Eve was spitting mad, but after one glance at her bareness, he could see she was also wet, ready. He was fucking conquering her, and it was all she needed. He’d been ready to sink into her from the second he saw her at Rodolfo’s.

Beckett pulled his briefs down just enough to release himself. He slapped her center with his dick, once and then twice before dragging himself along her. “Beg for it, Eve. Fucking beg for it.” He had her bent like a damn pretzel, so he put his face close to hers, always conscious of her damn spike heels. She captured his bottom lip in her teeth, pulling enough to worry him. Then she switched to licking, slowly outlining his released lip. He let his tongue touch hers.

So close to her, he could smell the sex between them. “Beg for it,” he commanded softly.

She closed her eyes, breathing shallowly before finally looking back at him. “Five years was enough begging.”

Beckett let go of her legs, allowing her to change her mind. For all his brutality, he knew she was in charge. This moment was hers to choose.

“It’d take me a thousand fucking lives to be worth you.”

Sitting up, topless and bloody, Eve shook her head. “You don’t get it.”

She stood and turned, her strips of pants swirling around her legs. His dick almost died as he saw all her amazing bare skin. Her stilettos scratched the hardwood floors, and his favorite birthmark in the world breezed by on the back of her left thigh. Slamming his bedroom door against the wall, she strolled in. As he followed, she found her way to his meticulously organized closet. After angrily removing her belt and tossing her pant remnants on the floor, she stood naked, save for the fuck-me boots, in the small room.

Beckett slipped to his knees, watching her. Besides the ridiculous horniness he had going on—which could very well become his super power right fucking now—her body was his home. Every curve, all the soft lines around her strong muscles were his. When they’d been together years ago, their bodies were their pawns, amusement parks, a way to feel something. But now…

She yanked a crisp white shirt off the hanger. It still had the tags from the dry cleaner, and she tore those off as well. Pulling the shirt on, she buttoned it up, her insane boots now at war with the simple button down.

“Tell me what I don’t get. Don’t be a fucking woman with the silent treatment crap. We’re too old for that.” Beckett had pulled his boxers back in place, but still he ached for her.

She seemed to reset herself for a beat before coming to meet him in the bedroom. She knelt as well. In the white shirt, she looked less lethal—despite the blood on her, his blood on her. Allowing her to choose him was bathing her in his sins. But if all this time between them had taught him anything, it was that they were orbiting the same fate. Together, always together, even when physically apart.

“Your time away went from you being a better man, to me not being worth coming home to.” She set her hands on her lap.

“That’s not true. That’s not what I wanted.” He needed her in his lap, or on her knees, his hands grabbing her breasts. He willed himself to focus.

“I believe that. But when were you coming back? If Livia hadn’t been taken, when were you coming back?” The pinkie on her left hand began to twitch, the only sign of her internal distress.

He could only be honest. “I don’t know.” He needed her on top of him, sweating, tossing her hair, growling.

She nodded. “Should that be enough for me? Do you think that’s enough?”

He knew Eve despised asking these questions, navigating through this. Cracks had begun to appear in her icy demeanor.

“No. Right. You know what I want
for you
, but it’s different than what
I
want. I told you a million years ago: A minivan, kids, PTA mom. Making you wait for that shit ain’t right. But I’ll never be that guy. Even when I try to do things differently, even when I
am
doing things differently, I’m still me. Shit, I had to almost strangle myself to keep from killing a guy down in Maryland. And then I killed him anyway. Bastard deserved it.” He shook his head. “I can see you in a wedding dress. I know I’ll miss you every day of my life, but I don’t deserve you. And you sure as shit need more than this.” Beckett clenched and unclenched his hands again and again. The blood began to flow renewed from his palm. “But I won’t let you say I haven’t loved you, haven’t tried to be right for you. You know I fucking love you.”

She thought for a few minutes, this woman of few words trying to make him understand her heart. He wanted to hush her desperate search for her feelings with his mouth on hers.

“Here’s the truth.” She looked as sharp as when she was loading a gun. “I can’t
think
like that. I’m always looking for an exit, I
never
sit with my back to a window, and I practice death skills all the time. It’s the only thing that makes sense. I cracked a long time ago, died a long time ago. But I’m still here. And this—” She slapped her chest and then his over and over, back and forth. “This is all I have. Waiting for you, loving you—if that’s what this pain is—it’s why I face a day instead of eating a bullet. Only you understand the me that’s left.” And then she exhaled.

“Eve, I don’t…” Beckett was at an impasse. There was no rulebook for this, for her. What, for all the donkey punches in the world, was the right thing to do? He’d spent five years trying to answer that question, and it seemed no clearer than the day he’d moved away.

“Don’t.” Her voice froze him. “Don’t feed me shit you make up. Just truth. Give me the truth. Telling me you love me is not an apology. It’s not a future. It’s not a choice. I
do
need more. You told me downstairs to come to you or run. I came to you.” She stood, agitated, pointing at him. “Now I’ll tell you the same thing. Come here to me or run. Truth, right?”

Beckett stood—even with her boots, he was a head taller than she was. “I don’t have a choice. Don’t you get it? I’m too selfish to stay away, too stupid to care what it does to you.” He grabbed her again, his red palm marking the shirt she wore. She looked like a butcher, and maybe that’s all she was. Maybe that’s all she had the capacity for anymore, and maybe he wasn’t meant to keep pushing her toward the life he’d created for her in his head. She was who she was, and her past was never going to be different. His part in making her who she’d become was never going to be different. But they were right for each other as they were now, and he was fucking kidding himself if he thought he’d let another bastard have her. He was jealous, he was dominant, and he was in love.