Quick & Reckless, page 14
Shit. What if he isn’t home? He could be out. Be back at the house with Gail and my dad. Be out with another woman. Oh God, what if he’s out with another …
The door opened.
Silver froze.
Wearing nothing but those goddamn gray sweatpants and wet hair, Warren stole the oxygen from her lungs and made her panties instantly damp.
“Silver!” he blurted, surprise in his tone, not to mention concern. His brows pinched. “Everything okay? Is Ava okay?”
She opened her mouth, but nothing besides warm air came out. Why did he have to look like that? Why did he have to have eyes so fucking blue they looked like the bloody ocean on a perfect summer day, full of diamonds and twinkling with mischief?
“I … I came to apologize,” she said on an exhale. “Can I come in?”
Intrigue glimmered in those cosmic blues as he stepped aside and allowed her to enter.
She glanced around the suite as if she’d never been there before, even though a year ago she’d called it “home” for three brief days and had sex on nearly every surface. Now she felt like an intruder.
Warren grabbed a towel off the back of a chair and casually ran it through his hair. “I just got in from the gym. Was getting out of the shower when you knocked.”
She nodded, trying her damnedest not to stare at the lines across the bottom half of his waist that dipped beneath the elastic of his pants. She knew what those lines tasted like, and she wanted more of them.
“Can we talk?” she finally asked, focusing her gaze on the changing sky outside.
She didn’t see where he put the towel, but when she looked back at him, the towel was gone. He nodded, walked over to the small dining room table, leaned against it, crossed his arms and settled his gaze on hers. “Fine. Talk.”
“I came here to apologize … properly. To try to work out an arrangement of sorts if we can.”
His top lip curled up into a sneer. “Arrangement?”
Her mouth opened, but once again nothing besides hot air came out. Instead, she simply nodded. Besides giving her the best orgasms of her life, the man also managed to fluster the crap out of her with no more than a look.
“What kind of arrangement?” The way he said the last word made her whole body tingle, and not necessarily in a good way. The man was pissed. Seriously pissed. Like a tornado mixed with a hurricane and an erupting volcano all shoved into a tight little bottle. He could blow at any minute. And for a man she’d only every known as calm, cool and collected, Silver had no idea what sort of a temper lurked beneath those impossible blue eyes and charismatic smile of his. “Hmm?” he probed again, shaking her from her thoughts. Turned out, she hadn’t said anything in several moments and was simply staring at his mouth.
Shit! Get it together, woman!
Puffing out her chest and straightening her back, she lifted her head and looked him square in the eye. She was a grown-ass woman. She could do this. She needed to do this. She was here. Might as well rip off the Band-Aid and let that wound breathe.
She needed to show him she wasn’t the coward he assumed she was. Because she knew deep down he saw her as no more than a coward now. A coward he quite possibly was going to be forced to share a child with.
Letting out a long exhale, she began. “I came here tonight to apologize once again. I know that what I did was wrong, immature and thoughtless. I made assumptions about you I shouldn’t have, and I’m very sorry. You’re not the type of man who would abandon his child or his family. I think deep down, I knew that about you from the beginning. I was just scared of history repeating itself. But that’s no excuse for what I did. For my lies and deceit. I should have told you immediately that Ava might be yours and then called you when I found out we’re going to be brother and sister soon.”
He made a face as if he’d just bitten into a lemon. “Step.”
She nodded. “Right, stepbrother and -sister. Anyway, you’re a good man, an honorable man, and if Ava turns out to be yours, then I want to make this work. I’m even willing now to sit down and work out a potential custody or visitation agreement, that way when we get the results, we already have a plan in place.”
Anger and contempt filled his eyes, and he pushed himself away from the table and had her by the elbow in less than a second. She was being ushered to the door. “Visitation?” he said with a snarl, heaving the door open. “Custody agreement.” His head was shaking now as he bared his teeth. “You’ve got some fucking nerve, woman. First you keep her from me, and now you want to limit how much I see her?” He motioned for her to leave.
Silver stepped over the threshold into the hallway, shaking her head emphatically. “N-no, th-that’s not it at all. I want to make this work. You want every weekend? Holidays? We can make it work.”
The man practically roared. Hell, maybe he did. Whatever the noise that echoed down the hall was, it made her jump clear out of her skin and take a step deeper out into the corridor.
“I won’t be a goddamn weekend or holidays dad,” he said. “I will be a fucking there-for-her-every-night-to-help-her-with-her-homework-and-teach-her-to-play-catch kind of dad. I will tuck her into bed every goddamn night and sit and eat Cheerios every goddamn morning with her.” His face and chest were an angry red, and a muscle jiggled along his clenched jaw. “Not sure how we’re going to make that work, but fucking figure it out.” Then, with a final look of hate, because he obviously hated her, Warren slammed the door.
Chapter twelve
Warren
Restless and agitated after Silver left, Warren went back down to the hotel gym and ran another ten kilometers on the treadmill. But that wasn't even enough to burn off the rage, so he showered then headed up to the rooftop to the pool. Thankfully, it was pretty quiet, which seemed strange for a summer weekend. But apparently a wedding had been canceled at the last minute, so the place was dead. He swam laps until he gasped for air. Clinging to the side, his face dripped, and the anger from earlier finally seemed to slip away into the cool water. All that remained was pure self-loathing.
What just happened?
Silver came over to apologize to him. To make amends and start fresh. She wanted him to be part of Ava’s world and had extended an olive branch. Only he snatched that olive branch clean out of her hand and then subsequently threw it into the bloody wood chipper. But she’d pissed him off with her weekend and holiday visitation comment. If Ava was his, he wanted more than that, he deserved more than that. He wasn’t sure how’d he’d make it work, but what he did know was that he’d move heaven and earth to be a significant part of that little girl’s world.
Pulling himself up out of the pool, he toweled off and wandered over to the ledge of the roof. It was an even longer way down than his penthouse, and from the rooftop, the pedestrians and cars below looked like nothing more than moving dots and flashing lights. He shuddered from the sudden vertigo and quickly stepped away from the ledge. He fucking hated heights. Shaking his head, he took a seat in one of the pool chairs, wrapping the big white towel around his neck.
Letting out a long, weary sigh, he shut his eyes and eased his body back into the lounge chair.
God, he’d been such an asshole.
Here Silver had scars of her own: insecurities from her childhood and her deadbeat dad. And Warren went and acted like this insensitive jackass, kicking her out of his suite and slamming the door in her face, not bothering to sit down and discuss the situation like adults as she wanted to.
He knew she was an incredible mother; he saw that instantly. And although misguided, her intentions came from a good place. She was only doing what she thought was best for Ava. Protecting her. Protecting her heart.
Warren opened his eyes and stared up into the sky. There weren’t very many stars visible, what with all the city lights, but the ones he could see appeared to be glaring down at him.
He raked his hand over his face and pulled on his chin. Fuck, he’d fucked up. He only hoped she didn't think his reaction meant he was this unhinged lunatic with anger issues and was now rethinking her visitation offer. He needed to apologize for his behavior, prove to her he could be a good dad, and see if they could come to a more reasonable agreement. An agreement that had him being a hands-on, always around dad. The kind of dad he’d never had.
The following evening was Warren’s mother and Johnathan’s rehearsal dinner party. Silver, Ava and Silver’s friend Kylie were already at the little gazebo on the water where the ceremony would take place the next night. Warren, who was to walk his mother down the aisle, showed up last and just in time. Gail looped her arm through her son’s, and away they went.
Silver was standing up for her father as a “best woman” of sorts, while Gail asked Warren to stand up for her. He balked at the idea at first, asking why one of her friends couldn’t do it. But then she got all weepy on him, bringing up her two dead best friends back in Sydney and saying there wasn’t anyone here in Vancouver she felt close enough to yet. He acquiesced, of course, because she was his mum, and her tears were his Kryptonite. But he still felt weird standing behind a bride, let alone his mother, and being told to hold on to the ring. Was he supposed to have thrown her a bridal shower, too?
After the rehearsal, everyone headed back to Gail and Johnathan’s house for a big barbecue. All their friends were already there, setting up and drinking heavily. His mother’s knit and bitch group had a row of empty wine bottles lining the counter, and it didn’t look like any of them had poured it down the sink.
But by eight o’clock, Warren was plumb tired. Tired of people, tired of Silver avoiding him and being glared at by her overprotective friend Kylie. A few times he tried to make small talk with Kylie, but she just gave him the ol' stink-eye and walked away with not so much as a “howdy do?” or a “fuck you.”
All around, the party was getting to be too much. Too many people he didn’t know. Too many voices, too many people asking him if he’d ever “put a shrimp on the barbie.” God, he was tempted to ask them if they all lived in igloos and had pet polar bears growing up. Leaving the noise behind him, Warren made his way up the wide staircase to the second floor.
Family photos greeted him at the top. Almost all of them were of Silver. Silver and Johnathan on the beach, Silver and Johnathan fishing, Silver and Johnathan skiing. They were happy. There were a few other ones with a woman in them, he guessed Silver’s mother. Silver was quite a bit younger then, but still beautiful. Even though he claimed Ava looked just like him, because he wanted her to, he also saw a lot of her mother in her. Even more of Silver’s mother. Her cheeks, her lips, her hair, her chin. Ava was all the best parts of her mother and grandmother. Gorgeous. He continued to take in the photos, getting a glimpse into the past of the woman he thought he’d been falling in love with.
Without even thinking, he pulled out his phone and brought up the photo of Silver he took a year ago. It wasn’t a creepy stalker photo or anything; although he’d wanted to take photos of her blindfolded, bound and naked, he hadn’t, of course. This one was just of her sleeping. The covers were tucked up under her chin, but a shoulder was bare, her eyes were shut, and her hair fanned out behind her like spun gold. She was exquisite.
He’d looked at that image nearly every day over the past year. Manifesting a desire, an obsession about a woman he barely knew, yet he couldn’t deny the pull he had to her. A pull he’d hoped was mutual. She was everything he’d ever wanted in a woman: smart, funny, sweet, demure on the outside but wild on the inside. A woman who loved family just as much as he did. He thought he knew her.
A creak on the stairs had him spinning around.
“What are you doing up here?” Silver asked, her hand on the top of the banister.
Warren glanced down at his phone and made sure the photo was gone before stowing it in his pocket. “I needed to get away.”
Her eyes bugged out as she nodded. “I know what you mean. All lovely people. But in small doses.”
Warren snorted. “Yeah, like fifteen minutes, tops.”
Her head bobbed in a nod. “I, uh, I just came to use the washroom. The others are all occupied.”
“Where’s Ava?”
She seemed surprised that he asked such a thing. It’d only been a couple of days, but he was already beginning to seriously care for the little girl. He was drawn to her, much like he thought he had been to Silver. An unexplainable pull, along with the visceral need to protect and care for the baby, was beginning to consume him.
“She’s downstairs with Kylie.”
He nodded. “Oh.”
Shuffling awkwardly on her feet, she averted her gaze. He owed her an apology after last night.
But before he could say anything, she spoke. “I’ll be right back,” she whispered, taking a few steps to the closed door to the left of the stairs. She shut the door behind her, and Warren was torn with the decision of staying and resuming their conversation and trying to apologize, or taking off downstairs to go find Ava. A big pink S on a closed door to his right caught his eye, and Warren stepped forward. His hand was on the knob before he could stop himself.
It was like stepping through a time portal and going back ten or fifteen years. Boy-band posters and movie tickets, a rack loaded with CDs, a tube television with a heavy coat of dust. This was Silver’s childhood bedroom. A shrine to her teenage self. To a simpler time.
The bathroom door opened again, and panic sprinted down his spine. He was about to leave the room when Silver crossed the threshold and joined him inside.
“Kind of freaky, right?” she asked.
“Little bit.”
“I was supposed to go through everything after the wedding, pack it up or toss it all away. But after that didn’t pan out, my dad kind of dropped the hard-ass routine and said I didn’t have to move anything out until things got settled.” She shrugged. “I’m not sure they’ll ever be settled. And I’ll certainly never be able to afford a place big enough to accommodate all the important stuff. I guess I’ll just have to throw it all away.”
Warren wandered over and picked up a CD. “Did you really need to keep this Backstreet Boys CD? Can’t you just buy their album online if you want it?”
She shrugged. “Call me sentimental.”
Now it was his turn to shuffle back and forth on his feet. His head was about to explode with how confused he was. He loved this woman, he was pretty sure of it, and yet he was having a hard time getting over her secrecy. Could he trust her? And if Ava was his, would she make visitation and custody difficult? What kind of an arrangement did he want, anyway? What kind of arrangement could they even have if he was working all the way across the Pacific in Tahiti? Private plane or not, it was a trek to get to and fro. He clenched his teeth until a dull ache ran up his jaw and into the base of his neck.
He made a noise in this throat. “Listen, about last night. I want to apologize for slamming the door in your face. Your comment about being a weekend and holiday dad just really upset me. But I handled it wrong.”
Silver’s head snapped up from where she’d been studying her feet on the dove-gray carpet. “You’re apologizing to me?”
He nodded. “I handled it wrong.”
She blinked a few times before speaking again. “You handled it better than I think most men would have in your situation.”
He shook his head. “No, I didn’t. I didn’t handle it like an adult at all. You came over with the intention of offering an olive branch, and I couldn’t have been ruder. I’m sorry.” Warren swallowed hard. “I’ve still got a lot of thinking to do. About us, about Ava. But once we find out her paternity, I plan to discuss things like adults. No more door-slamming.”
She nodded with a grim smile. “Take all the time you need. If she turns out to be yours, I have zero expectations. I can take care of her on my own. You can be a part of her life as much or as little as you want. Just … ” She nibbled on her lip for a moment as a lone tear trickled down her cheek. “Just don’t treat her like a burden or an obligation. That’s all I ask.” Her eyes, glassy with tears, met his.
Warren swooped in and took her elbows in his palms. He shook his head as he bent his knees so he was eye to eye with her. “Never. I promise.”
“I’m sorry again for keeping her a secret all these months. For keeping her from you.”
“I know you are,” he said. “And I’m sorry for not being more understanding. I get it now. Your intentions were to protect Ava from the heartache you endured as a kid. You’re a good mother, and I never should have doubted you.”
“It’s okay.” Tears slipped down her cheeks, and a small, feminine sob broke free from her lips as she trembled in his arms.
Gently, as if cradling a delicate piece of crystal, Warren wiped away her tears with his thumbs, cupping her cheeks and encouraging her to lift her head. Eventually she did. Those beautifully stormy gray eyes stared back at him, remorseful, guilt-ridden but also hopeful.
He was hopeful, too.
Allowing his heart to take the lead, Warren tilted his head and took her mouth. She opened for him, and warm, salty tears trickled down between their lips. Her lips were warm and inviting, drawing him in and returning the kiss in kind. Her scent wrapped around him like a cocoon, hyacinth and honey, with just the faintest note of breast milk.
Before he knew it, he was guiding her over to her twin bed, draped in stuffed animals and a pink and gray checkered duvet. They fell together, laughing, but unwilling to pull their lips apart. His fingers ran down her waist, along the soft cotton of her dress until he found the hem. They’d have to be quick. Who knew who could come up looking for them, respite or a bathroom. The door was cocked open, too. They’d also have to be quiet.
His hand delved beneath her dress, running up along her thigh until he found her panties. They were damp. Without removing his mouth from hers, he shifted on top of her and drew them down her legs. She lifted her hips to help him, all the while making quick work of the zipper and button on his shorts. She freed his length and began to stroke him. Her soft hands brought him to full attention in no time.
