28 Seconds: A House of Valentine Novella (12 page)

He led me to the bed, tucking me back under the covers. “You know, in all the time I’ve known him, I’ve never known Franco to take a single drug. Not even at times, like tonight, when he desperately needed it. What you did for him, for us, I don’t think you’ve any idea the gratitude and respect that’s going to come from that.”

“I drugged my father, Cole. Please don’t make it into some Valentine code of honor thing. I really can’t handle that type of pressure right now.”

“Just giving you fair warning.”

“For chrissakes, please tell me there won’t be more flowers.”

He chuckled and kissed my forehead. “I’ll see to it. You try and rest. I’m going to check on your father.  I’ll have Tony and Al right outside but it’ll just be a couple of minutes.”

“You two were ready to kill each other,” I protested.

“He’s said his peace, made his position clear with me and I’ve made mine.”

“So a stalemate.”

“No,” he laughed, “it’s never that simple with Franco.  He’ll keep trying to get me away from you but the next time he argues, it will be with you.”

“Awesome.”

He laughed.  “I’ll be right back.”

“But-”

“No one else will go check on him, Ariana, and don’t forget he is my family too.  Just like you, he’s been through hell this week and I’m sure he’d like a familiar face.  Even if it’s mine.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“What the hell happened?”

“She just had a nightmare. Scared the shit out of us but, we’re good. Aren’t we, kid?”

I nodded but couldn’t bring myself to look Cole’s direction. I knew he would be checking his watch, surveying my every twitch and inhalation.

“Franco’s out. Lock down the house and then put all the men on rotating shifts. I want everyone logging sleep and have meals brought in. All the house - well rested and well fed, no exceptions.”

“Yes, sir.” Tony ruffled my hair as he strode past and out the door.

Cole was beside me in two long strides. When he reached for me, I batted his touch away.

“Ariana-”

“Why did you lie to me? All of you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Every one of you. Since the moment you’ve found me. Has every single thing been a lie?”

“I know you’re upset-”

“Don’t patronize me!”

“Then don’t call me a fucking liar!” he roared. But just as fast as his temper flared, it vaporized and he had his hands on my knees. “Ariana, look at me. Let’s start over. Tell me what you’ve remembered.”

“I saw them, Cole. Valentine men at my 16th birthday party. Laughing, joking, having a fabulous time with my mother.”

“No-”

“I saw them! I saw the Valentine brands on their arms. You told me she’d fled. That she’d had no contact in fifteen years!”

“Not possible-” he mumbled, sinking onto the bed beside me. “It’s just not.”

“My mother stayed in contact this whole time. But you’ve sat here and lied to me from the moment I met you.”

He locked my face between his hands and it was impossible to doubt his sincerity. “Ariana, I did not lie.”

“Then tell me something, Cole. Explain something, anything, to me instead of treating me like a fucking child that needs her hand held.”

He nodded, but it took him several minutes to begin. “I was eleven when you and Teresa left. Your father, for what it’s worth, tried to be what he envisioned a father should be. By the time I was fifteen he had no idea what to do with me so I was inducted into the family.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means I developed a drug of my choosing, administered it to a person your father selected and then watched him die.” His eyes were harsh on mine, refusing to look away, and I threaded my fingers through his. “I was never the best chemist. It took days as he slowly bled out and I had to sit through every agonizing second of it.”

“That’s why you are so careful now,” I whispered. “So fanatical about the recipes and their side effects.”

“I watched, I learned, and by the time I was twenty I’d proven myself invaluable to Franco. That’s when he tasked me with finding you and Teresa...entrusted me with what I saw as the most personal of missions. Ariana, I’ve searched for six years. An absolutely meticulous search and yet I never even once came close.” He turned to face me again, his eyes dark and intense. “I’m not lying. If men from the house of Valentine were in contact with your mother, I had no knowledge of it. And that contact was covered up by someone much, much more powerful than me.”

“My father,” I whispered.

“You don’t know that. I don’t know that.”

“Then who else?”

“I don’t know that either. But I do know that facts, rather than quick assumptions, are what will eventually help us find out.”

He shifted, leaning against the headboard and then opened his arms. I climbed inside, curling my body against his and resting my head on his chest. His breaths were quiet, his heartbeat steady and I let his calm strength envelope me.

“He looked so broken every time my mother was mentioned.”

“He was, he is” Cole assured me. “His love for her was indescribable. It was the love of legends, of fairy tales.”

I turned, adjusting my legs to straddle him. His hands locked on my hips, pressing me tighter against him. That he wanted me closer made a warm smolder start to rise somewhere deep inside.

I began undoing the buttons of his shirt, one by one. “But?”

“But, earlier, when he talked of burdens, your father-”

“Knew I was in the room when he gave his soul stirring speech about regrets. I know, Cole. How many times will it take for you to believe me when I say I’m not a complete idiot?”

Rather than answer, his eyes narrowed on me. They followed my every move: each kiss against his bare chest; each stroke of my tongue along the ridges of his muscles; and each brush of my fingertips against the front of his jeans.

“Are you trying to seduce me?”

“Is it working?”

“Of course,” he grumbled. He shifted me inches off his growing erection, tugging the button fly of his jeans wider open. His cock edged out, already thick and rigid. That I could make him so hard, so easily, made an irrational confidence swell within me. Cupping his hand over mine, he curled my fingers around his swollen shaft and began a slow, steady rhythm. When I had the pace and pressure he wanted, he let my hand go, and leaned back with a sigh of contentment. He sat in silence for a few minutes, watching me stroke him, and then the touched the tips of his fingers to my knee.

“I do love you, Ariana.”

“You’ve known me for week.”

“I’ve known you all your life,” he corrected. “You’ve only known
me
for a week. And love has no rules to you Valentines. What was it? Fierce, inexplicable, extraordinary...”

“Devastating, Cole. The important one.”

“Then I suppose it’s a good thing that both of us are too reckless to give a damn about consequences, hm?” A single finger touched my temple and traced down over my lips. It continued a trail: first to one nipple, then the other, and then danced across my navel before zig-zagging down to outline the shape of my thighs. “Speaking of reckless,” he murmured, “how are you faring?”

“You know damn well how I’m faring,” I grumbled.

And it was true. He was too observant to have missed the shallowing of my breath, my nipples growing hard and erect against the heathered cotton of my shirt, and the way I had been subtly rocking myself against his leg as I stroked him.

“You have a curiously strong sexual appetite. Is that my influence or are you using me to ignore all the other emotions twirling out of control in your head?”

“Both. Always both.”

“At least you’re honest about it,” he laughed. “In the future, feel free to use me to your heart’s content. But, for now,” he took my hand from his crotch and kissed my palm, “we are under strict orders to sleep.”

“Aren’t you the one who ordered us all to sleep?”

“No, baby girl,” he chuckled, “that was you. I’d happily break my own rules any day but yours are an entirely different matter.”

“Remind me never to do that again,” I grumbled but moved to lay beside him, curling my back into his chest and squeezing him so tight I could barely breathe. “I feel like-”

He shifted her bodies closer, molding them together where I could still feel his cock long and hard against my flesh. He rested his mouth at my throat. “What?”

“I feel like no matter how close you are, it’s never close enough.”

“Empty,” he murmured. “That’s what you said. You felt empty without me inside you.”

“And it scared you,” I said, finally able to understand the emotion on his face that I’d been unable to define.

“Yes,” he admitted, “when I always thought myself fearless.” His touch was soft against my hair, following a path from the tip of my head, down my shoulders and over my arm to rest at his favorite spot on my hip. “When you and Teresa left, it felt like my world was torn apart. I felt alone, adrift and…”

“Empty,’ I whispered.

“Yes. I never want you to experience that, Ariana. It leaves a mark on your soul that isn’t easily forgotten.” He nudged me. “Hey, look at me.”

I rolled around in his arms, our noses inches from each other. His voice was a quiet hum. “Have they ever been this bad? This close together? And don’t lie.”

I shook my head.

“Do you think it’s being here? If it’s too much, if I’m too much, or we are too fast, too…”

“No,” I cut him off with a soft kiss. “It may be the stress or it may be it’s just time for me to know them. Maybe it’s because I’ve been thrown into a past I never knew existed. I don’t have the answers. I wish I did. But I do know you are the only thing right now that
doesn’t
give me nightmares.”

“This one was different. You weren’t-”

“A child, I know.” There were probably a million more things I needed to say but I just couldn’t bring myself to vocalize it. It didn’t matter - he already knew. If I was remembering things from such a recent time, there was no telling what else my mother had hidden away in my brain.

“I know you’ll tell me about your memories when you’re ready. And I don’t want to bring on another-”

“Cole, please just ask me whatever it is.”

“The Valentine men, from your party - could you see their faces this time?”

“Yes.”

A pained look caused the muscles in his jaw to twitch but it was gone as soon as it appeared. No doubt wishing I could name them for him. “Were either Al or Tony there?”

“You doubt them?”

“I doubt everyone, Ariana,” he murmured, “and that doubt is what’s going to keep the two of us alive.”

I stretched up, kissing his neck and placing my hand against his cheek. “No, neither of them.”

His returned my kiss, drifting his lips across mine. “Thank you.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Although I tried exceptionally hard to get out of the meeting at the church, neither Franco or Cole would hear of it. Instead, after taking ten minutes for them to down sandwiches, they were ushering me down the street the few blocks to the church. Franco was grousing about security, demanding cars be readied for the funeral mass, and Cole was nodding in silent accommodation. Apparently the various families already had representatives at the church and the men would be meeting to discuss seating, safety, and who was actually deemed worthy of admission to my mother’s funeral. They acted like it was a freaking carnival show or wedding and my irritation continued to grow with each step closer.

As soon as we entered the building, we were surrounded by a cluster of Valentine men. Franco squeezed my hand and offered a reassuring smile.  “The men aren't much for personal space.  They’ll have to learn that about you.”

His words caused the circle to loosen but I still could’ve reached out and touched each of them.  I swallowed a shuddering breath, trying to find Cole in the madness but everyone looked the same from my rather short viewpoint.  

“Want an arm, spitfire?”

Tony’s quiet voice beside me made me smile and I nodded, tucking my arm into his.

“He had to do a sweep of the hall,” Al explained from my other side. “It’s already been done but Franco wanted Cole specifically to do another.”  

I opened by mouth to question his choice of words just as I was yanked into a massive embrace.  I was choking before Tony had me free.  He gave me an apologetic shrug.  “I would’ve slugged him for you but I think there’s a special place in hell for people that do that.  Ariana, meet Father Michael.”

He was ancient but spry, maybe? I wasn’t even quite sure how to describe the man before me.  He seemed perfectly at ease among the Valentine men and he kept reaching out to touch my head like I was some gift.