Saving Grace (Serve and Protect Series) (30 page)

He laid a hand on her bare back. “Sweetheart, I’m so sorry about that‌—”

“I’m not like your mother,” she interrupted. “I tried to be, but I can’t. I’m not really that much of a lady, I guess.”

He felt the words welling up in him, then. Words he’d never said to another living soul. Reflexively, he tried to push them back down, choke them back, drown them.

Grace was still talking. “I can’t be that woman you wanted,” she said. “I mean, I wasn’t
un
happy exactly. But now, after this past week, I can’t go back to‌—”

He opened his mouth to say again that he was sorry, but what came out were the words he’d tried to swallow down.

“My mother was a whore.”

The words exploded in Grace’s head.
My mother was a whore
. She gripped the sheet in her fingers. What was he talking about? Gladys Morgan had been a paragon.

“Say again?”

“My mother was a drug-addicted prostitute.”

His words were expressionless.

“But you said....”

“Yeah,
I said
.” He laughed harshly. “I said a lot of things about my mother. I said she was a saint. And of course, devoted to the memory of my dear departed father.”

“She wasn’t those things?”

“She was a hooker in Montreal and I’m her bastard child. I don’t know who my father was. I grew up with her turning tricks in our lousy little two-room apartment. The things I saw.... Then she’d use most of the money getting wasted. Sometimes, she’d even send me out to score for her.”

“Oh, Ray.”

“When I was old enough to leave school without bringing the social workers down on us, I got a job. I figured if I could provide for us, she wouldn’t have to turn tricks.”

She squeezed his leg in a wordless encouragement.

“But see, it wasn’t about the money. I finally figured that out. It was about self-destruction. She was on some kind of twisted journey and she wasn’t interested in any detours.”

“What’d you do then?”

“I left. Went to Toronto. Supported myself for a couple of years working for a courier company, then got admitted to U of T as a mature student. I invented what I thought was a nice, normal childhood, dated nice, normal college girls, and planned a nice, normal life as a mechanical engineer.”

Grace blinked. “You were going to be an
engineer
?”

“I only did one year.”

God, he’d lied to her, about his entire background, for their whole marriage. That’s what it amounted to, didn’t it? A lie?

No, not a lie
, she realized. Survival. He’d created his own personal witness protection program to disappear into, a cover under which he could shed his pain and shame. He hadn’t set out to deceive her. He’d just gone about living the new identity he’d created for himself.

She swallowed a lump in her throat. “What happened? Why didn’t you finish your degree?”

“My mother died. Strangled to death. One of her johns, they thought, though they never found the guy. Hell, they never even tried very hard. Just one less hooker walking the track. One less junkie.”

Her heart contracted. No matter what else she’d been, she’d been his mother. “Is that what made you decide to be a cop?”

“Went straight into the academy. The rest you know.”

“I’m so sorry.” She slid back down beside him but he didn’t close his arm around her as before. Undaunted, she curled close against him. “I wish I’d known. It all makes sense now.”

He closed a hand on her upper arm, holding her away. His eyes glinted with suspicious moisture. “You gotta believe I didn’t understand what I was doing, how I was hurting you.”

“Sssh,” she put a finger to his lips. “You didn’t hurt me.”

“I did.” He caught her hand. “I tried to arrest your development.”

“You were very tender. Very sweet.”

“I stifled your sexuality.”

“Are you planning to do it again?”

He shook his head solemnly.

She grinned. In a swift move, she pulled herself astride him. “Then you’re forgiven.”

He curled up to wrap his arms around her for a fierce hug. She returned his embrace with equal fervor. Then his hands were in her hair, angling her head so he could kiss her feverishly.

Desire pulsed to life again, along with the conviction that she would never, ever get enough of this man, not if they grew old and grey together.

Sighing, she rubbed her breasts against his chest, shivering at the glorious friction. Ray’s hands dropped away from her shoulders to cup the sides of her breasts. She gave herself up to the sensation, groaning when the caressing heat of his hands was withdrawn. But then he was lifting her, shifting her. A second later, he joined them. Grace gasped, throwing her head back, clinging to his shoulders. Ray shuddered.

“I love you, Gracie.” He muttered the words into her neck. “I really, truly,
finally
love you the way you deserve to be loved.”

A shaft of sweetness, so poignant it was painful, pierced her.

“I love you, too. You’re never gonna get rid of me now, Ray Morgan.”

He covered her mouth in a kiss of overwhelming, chaste tenderness. She wanted that sweetness to go on and on without end, but the desire thrumming through her veins wouldn’t be denied. Almost unconsciously, she began moving against him, over him, her urgency growing.

“Slow, sweetheart. Let’s make it last this time.”

They did. Beneath her, he set an exquisitely slow pace, all the while whispering to her. His words alternatively soothed and inflamed her, as did the hands that roamed her back, her neck, her buttocks.

Finally, when her need outgrew the languorous tempo he’d imposed, she cried out her need. In answer, he rolled her under him and brought them both to a swift release.

Afterward, she rested her head on his chest as they lay tangled, listening to his pounding heart gradually slow.

“Oh, Lord, this is nice,” she said eventually.

“Nice? It’s perfect.”

Perfect?
Almost. She pulled back far enough so she could look at his face, propping her head on one hand. She rested the other hand on his chest, not ready to break their connection.

His expression changed. He didn’t tense, but his hooded eyes suddenly looked less slumberous. “What?”

She shifted her gaze to his chest where her white fingers contrasted with his darker skin.
Just say it
. She lifted her gaze to meet his worried one.

“When I said I couldn’t go back to how it was before, I meant more than just this.”

His heart kicked beneath her hand. “What do you mean?”

“My job. Ray, I can’t go back to the way it was at the paper, covering the IODE house tours and writing fluff pieces. With the story I’m going to turn in, Katie will let me do other assignments. She’ll
have
to. This is my chance.”

He regarded her for a moment. She could see he was thinking of all the reasons why she shouldn’t pursue investigative reporting. Heaven knew she’d heard them often enough before, from Katie and from others.

You’re a woman. You’re not tough enough.

Now she had more to add to the list: You’re pregnant. You botched your last effort royally, putting lives in danger.

Lifting her chin, she waited for him to enumerate these and more. Instead, he drew a deep breath and closed his eyes. When he opened them a few seconds later, they were clear again.

“Okay.”

She blinked. “Okay?”

He caught her hand, grazing her knuckles with a kiss. “If it’s what you really want to do, you should do it.”

She grinned. “I can’t believe this. I thought you’d say it was too dangerous. That it was okay for you to go out and face down criminals every day, but that no wife of yours blah, blah, blah.”

“I
do
think it can be dangerous.” He returned her hand to his chest, pinning it there with his own. “We’ve just seen exactly how dangerous it can be. But other times, I imagine it’s just hard work, routine slogging. Just like police work.”

“Exactly! But I still can’t believe you’re not going to fight me on this.”

He shrugged. “I trust you not to take unnecessary risks. And you’re pretty good at it.”

Tears, sudden and unexpected, stung her eyes. “Thank you.”

Ray felt emotion threaten to close his own throat as he watched his Gracie blink back tears. “Don’t thank me yet,” he said, his voice gruff. “I’ll probably hound you every day to find out what you’re working on so I can assess the risks.”

She smiled. “Fair enough.”

“And I’ll teach you every trick I know, for self-defense, for keeping command, for defusing situations.”

“Good idea.”

“Not that you’ll need to use it, ’cuz you’re going to tell me about anything that remotely looks like it might get sticky.”

“Of course.”

“I’ll worry about you,” he warned, smoothing her hair, the silky texture under his hand both a comfort and a sensual pleasure. “I can’t shut that off, so don’t ask me to.”

She stretched up and kissed him, their lips clinging for minutes.

“So,” he said when he lifted his head, “that leaves just one thing.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

He brushed a tendril of fiery hair back behind her ear. “Can I please,
please
, go back to wearing jeans with the crotch where it’s supposed to be?”

Her laughter rang out, clear and joyous, until he reached up and caught it for himself, absorbing it.

Gracie
. He sighed against her lush, kiss-swollen lips.
My Grace.

Thank you for investing that most precious of commodities‌—‌your time‌—‌in my book! If you enjoyed
Saving Grace
, I would be thrilled if you could help me buzz it. You can do this by:

Recommending it
. Help other readers find this book by recommending it to friends, readers’ groups and discussion boards.

Reviewing it
. Please share with other readers what you liked about this book by reviewing it wherever you purchased it, or at readers’ sites such as Goodreads. If you do choose to review it, I would be delighted to gift you with a copy of your choice of any of my other titles. Simply email me to alert me to your review and let me know which of my books you would like to have and in what format. My email address is
[email protected]
.