Knight in Blue Jeans (11 page)

“The Comitatus think they can tell everyone what to do just because of their money,” Trace Beaudry argued through a mouthful of mashed potatoes. “No offense.”

Arden sat straighter. “No offense to whom?”

In answer, Trace grabbed another biscuit and took a bite to muffle any possible answer.

Greta wished she could see their expressions, but even their body language, at the edge of her vision, spoke volumes. She felt quite sure that Smith and Mitch both were former Comitatus like her papa. Trace, she hadn’t decided yet. He had neither their breeding nor their composure. But the bigger man had worked tirelessly at long-neglected repairs to her home. He treated her with unflagging respect. He was, she suspected, smarter than his impatience and social bluntness let on.

And she adored feeding so enthusiastic an eater.

“They used to be heroes,” she reminded everyone, passing around the platter of fried chicken. “My father gave up everything trying to redeem them. Perhaps it’s not too late. The world needs heroes.”

Smith said nothing. She wished she could see his expres
sion most of all. He seemed to have so much going on behind his cavalier attitude.

Arden said, “Whatever we do, can we do it in time to save Molly’s reputation?”

Trace swallowed his biscuit. “Destroying them would be more fun.”

Young Sibyl appeared to nod enthusiastically.

“I’m not especially worried about the comptroller,” Smith admitted finally. “I’m worried about Arden.”

“Nobody asked you to be,” the recipient of his worry challenged.

“They’ve got you on tape. Greta will be safer if you’re not here. Mitch should be back soon.” But Smith turned toward the cuckoo clock on Greta’s kitchen wall. “He can help Trace watch Greta’s place.”

“Which reminds me—where is Mitch?” asked Arden.

Sibyl said, “I can help Trace protect Greta.”

Trace snickered. The others stared.

“Thank you, dear.” Greta offered Sibyl more green beans. Whatever her story was, she obviously felt safer here, too.

Just as Greta did, now that the young folks were around.

Arden asked again, “Where
is
Mitch? Is he all right?”

“He’s fine,” Smith insisted. “But he couldn’t stop Lowell, so you’re going to have to stay away from your usual haunts for a few days. No going back to your apartment, or your father’s place or the rec center.”

That would not sit well. “Smith, the youth center is my life.”

“It could
lose
you your life if the Comitatus find you there.”

“And how long do you see me staying in hiding?”

“Until we stop them.”

“Then let’s stop them. And, oh, yes,
where is Mitch?
Where did he follow Lowell?”

After a long, stretched silence, Smith admitted, “Local Comitatus headquarters.”

“Where’s that?” asked Trace, then startled. “Ouch!”

Arden sat back in her chair. “Smith, did you just
kick him?
”

It was time to put a stop to this. “I called Valeria while you were tending to Smith’s wounds,” Greta admitted. “She’ll be here soon to watch out for me, so that nobody else need feel obliged. Arden, she says you can stay at her apartment tonight. I doubt anyone will look for you there. Does that settle everything?”

“No,” Smith and Arden grumped at the same time and turned to each other, likely startled by their mutual reaction. As if they weren’t meant for each other.

It was amazing, thought Greta, how much she could see with these old, failing eyes that they could not. She only hoped her need of their help wasn’t putting any of them into worse danger.

No amount of improvements to her life would be worth that.

Arden felt her blood starting to boil yet again. She’d been more than patient. She’d been willing to wait until they had some privacy to ask Smith about his involvement with the Comitatus. But if Smith was going to behave like a child, all bets were off.

Considering the feelings this day had released in her, feelings she’d thought lost—admiration, attraction, more—the idea of private time held more danger than simply learning a hard-to-imagine truth. But what did
he
have to be grumpy about? He was the one keeping secrets about Mitch, kicking Trace under the table, trying to keep her ignorant about everything.

If it was just to protect her, Arden feared she might show him just how little she needed his protection. She might show him with some kind of blunt object. It wasn’t as if the day’s adventure hadn’t soiled and stained her sundress beyond redemption.

“We’ve still got to worry about our little conspiracy theorist here,” Smith scowled. “And who’s going to keep an eye on Arden at Val’s?”

Trace snorted. “Yeah. Big mystery. Who gets to guard Arden’s body—
Stop it!
”

At least
that
kick didn’t need explaining.

“And what are we going to do about Molly?” demanded Arden.

“It’s being taken care of,” insisted Mr. Mystery, as if that would appease her.

“And the Comitatus?”

“Ditto.”

She narrowed her eyes. “And I’m supposed to do what—hide and look pretty?”

Smith narrowed his eyes right back at her. “The looking pretty is optional.”

“It’s the hiding part I don’t like.”

“Why? Is it in poor taste?”

Things degenerated from there. Luckily, Val soon arrived to interrupt the escalation of World War III—to the apparent disappointment of Trace and Sibyl, who’d been eating home-baked cookies as they watched, like refreshments at a sports competition. Arden’s friend strode into Greta’s house, looking wholly in charge and ready to take on anything that might threaten the older woman.

Even Dido, though still excited for the company, didn’t bark at Val.

“Take my car,” Val murmured simply to Arden, pressing a key chain into her hand, then lowered her voice to a husky whisper. “There’s protection in the bedside table.”

Then, only a gleam in her topaz eyes to indicate her amusement, Val continued on to meet the mysterious Vox07, aka Sibyl.

Arden stared momentarily at the keys in her hand.
Protection…?

For a moment she thought Val meant she’d left a second gun. Then she realized…But that was ridiculous, right?

“Are you ready to go?” demanded Smith from the doorway, in a voice she would moments ago have labeled as petulant. “Or do you have to fix your hair or something?”

But Arden suddenly suspected that his petulance and bad humor were as much a protective mask as some of his smiles. Because, with a hollow swoop deep inside her where she’d been guarding her heart, she suddenly realized that hers certainly were.

Protective.

A mask.

She wasn’t furious at Smith at all.

She just hadn’t wanted to admit, even to herself, how badly she needed to take him to bed.

Arden was strangely quiet as she drove Smith to her friend Valeria’s apartment. Smith wouldn’t blame her if she was still angry. Angry, he could handle. But—
silent?

That, thought Smith grimly, was not going to make this easy.

They were supposed to fight, dammit. He would keep sniping at her until she dropped that challenging, überpolite front of hers and sniped back. Her temper would then hold him back the way her vague pleasantries had no hope of doing. Eventually there would be yelling and, if he was lucky, slamming doors, and it wouldn’t matter how much he still needed her.

It wouldn’t matter how every bit of air had left his body when she’d stalked outside to face down Prescott Lowell.

It wouldn’t matter how protective rage had blinded him when he’d realized the damaging proof Lowell had gotten on her. It wouldn’t matter how he’d felt when she’d knelt over him in the road, her eyes glistening with concern and dismay over his injuries, or how she’d felt in his arms as he’d rolled them out of the way of the car, or how gently she’d tended his wounds at Greta’s place.

Yelling and slammed doors. That should do the trick of
keeping them apart. Sniping and keeping them safe. But she wasn’t cooperating.

Did he have to handle
everything?

As soon as they’d locked themselves into Valeria Diaz’s second-floor apartment, in a small complex old enough to boast large floor plans and tiny kitchen units, Smith channeled his frustration into yet another volley. “This has been a crappy day. If you think I’m sleeping on the floor just because you’re the lady, you have another—”

But Arden’s sudden kiss stole the rest of the challenge right out of his mouth.

T
he hell with argument.

Smith kissed her back.

He slid the fingers of one hand into her thick, black hair, tasted the curve and sweetness of her lips, used his other arm to brace against the small of her back as he held her as safe as he could, as close to him as he could, and kissed her until he felt dizzy from lack of oxygen, or rapid heart rate…or love.

She was marvelous, exquisite. And for this moment she was his, his, his….

Something poked at the back of his mind, and he ignored it to kiss Arden.

Her soft arms looped smoothly behind his neck, hanging on to him as if for life. She sank against him, her breasts pillowing erotically against his chest, her cheek resting on his shoulder as he turned his head to follow her lips. He’d wanted this for so long, wanted her….

Of everything he’d lost in his exile from the Comitatus, from his previous life, the loss of Arden really had been the worst.

You’re still exiled,
the little voice poked.
You’re still dirt-poor.

You still don’t deserve her.

And even worse—you’ve got other duties.

But she was still kissing him, so he had no trouble shutting out that voice with the louder one—
She’s gorgeous, fearless, perfect. I could have lost her. It’s been so damned long….

When she turned her face away, into his shoulder to catch her breath, he took advantage of the moment to gulp some much needed air of his own and said nothing. He just savored her cuddling against him, so close, so beautiful, and he refused to be the one to draw back again. He didn’t want to draw back, ever. He never had wanted that.

With him stoically saying nothing, it was her who looked up and said, “Take me to the bedroom.”

Smith almost winced in expected disappointment before the words registered. She didn’t think this was a mistake? She wasn’t asking for more gentlemanly treatment? What about her six-month rule?

Who cared?
He scooped her and all her dirt-stained pink skirtage up into his arms, barely noticing the twinge from his bandaged cuts. Arden gasped and then laughed, husky and erotic, as he carried her in the direction that the bedroom should be. Back hallway, good. A door—

“Not that one.” Arden laughed as he pushed it open with his foot. Ah. Tiny bathroom.

He grunted manfully, followed her graceful point, and pushed through the other door into a large bedroom with brick-red walls and rustic, oversized furniture. He deposited Arden on the bed, then hopped eagerly aboard himself, rolling into a position over her, taking his weight on his knees and elbows to kiss her more thoroughly.

She all but purred as her soft body stretched out and shifted beneath him.

It wasn’t long before he was starting to do some writhing himself. It wasn’t much longer before he was kissing across the collar of her dress, sliding a hand up under her skirt to savor the delicacy of her skin, bearing down on her—just a little—to test his welcome through his jeans.

The way she moved against him, she didn’t seem the least bit unwelcoming. Until—

“Up,” she demanded, probably more than once since he was having trouble hearing her through the rush in his ears. When he placed her command, he reluctantly sank back, off of her, and sat up on his knees. She slid her legs under her on the bed, as well—

And surprised him again by grabbing the bottom of his T-shirt and tugging it upward.

Damn—was this even Arden, or had Smith hit his head when he lost his grip on Lowell’s car? If this was just an erotic dream, he hoped he could dream it to the end. He obediently stripped his shirt up and over his head and, at her insistence, let her ease the sleeves more carefully over his bandage-gauntlets. She was barely done before he was scooping billows of her own rosy sundress up and over her head, revealing soft scoops of flesh supported by the a red lace bra….

Finally, words tugged out of him. “You were
planning
this?”

She shook her head with a smile that somehow managed to be both knowing and innocent. “If a lady knows she’s well put together under her clothes, she’s more likely to—”

Got it. He laid her back on the bed and resumed the kissing of her, starting with the edge of that bra.

Some part of him repeated
She wasn’t planning this, either.
As if that meant something. But as long as it meant they were finally going to make love, finally going to consummate the deep connection they’d felt, then fought, then danced around
for so long, he wasn’t about to question it. Instead he murmured, when he could find words, how beautiful she was, how perfect she was, how badly he’d missed her.

Her hands massaged his scalp through his hair, and the back of his neck and his shoulders. She kissed his jaw, kissed down his neck, kissed across his chest. And she murmured, “Oh, Smith, I do love you….”

At least once. When he finally heard it—

That’s when he rolled off her.

Dammit!
Dammit, dammit, dammit. No matter how badly he’d been living for over a year. No matter how rebellious he’d been in his youth. No matter how much he loved flaunting the rules. Some part of him needed to be the gentleman that she wanted, the hero that she deserved, badly enough to stop.

“Smith?” She slid a hand down his bare chest, toward his jeans, but he caught her wrist and—in pain from more than his injuries—asked, “But what about your six-month rule?”

Her smile lit the shadowy room. “Let’s call it retroactive.” Dark hair curling heavily down to curtain them to either side, she leaned over him, kissed him.

He kissed her back at first—but didn’t let go of her wrist.
Duty, dammit.
As soon as he’d summoned a little more will-power, he said, “I may not be around much longer, Ard. Not if my plans against—not if I manage everything I’ve been working toward.”

This time he saw the flash of pain in her beautiful green eyes. But, stubbornly, simply, she said, “Then let’s make the most of the time we have.”

When she bent to kiss him, he set his mouth, seriously unsettled.
She loved him.

She deserved better.

She drew back and said, “It’s all right if you don’t love me back—” That’s when he rolled completely off the bed and to his bare feet.

“What kind of crap is
that?
”

“Smith?” There she knelt, her chest heaving against that incredible bra, her slip askew enough to show a hint of matching red lace on one luscious hip, in the middle of Valeria Diaz’s now-rumpled bed. And here he stood, shirtless and barefoot and barely able to think through his hard, throbbing need of her. And
it didn’t matter if he didn’t love her?

“Of course it matters!” Smith argued, channeling all his frustration out into his words. “Don’t you ever say—much less do this with any—I mean…”

Okay, way to ruin a good tirade. That was the problem with letting his frustration talk.

Her gaze searched his, trying to make sense of him, so he went with the most simple, most undeniable of his truths. “I love you, too, dammit.”

Which did nothing to help the fact that a relationship between them was near about impossible, as long as her father was head of the Comitatus, as long as Smith was blacklisted from getting any solid job or even a decent apartment. It did nothing to help the fact that he’d kept secrets from her, from the moment they’d met, and that he was still keeping them. It did nothing to help the way his secrets could tear her family—not just her father, but her baby brother—from her in raw wounds that might never heal.

But words couldn’t be spoken to help any of that. And the other words…

They were so easy to say that he tried them again. “No matter what else happens, Arden Leigh, I love you with everything I’ve got left. So don’t you dare say it doesn’t matter. It matters.
You
matter. You always have mattered.”

She gazed at him, seeming to measure his words. They’d known each other, maybe loved each other, for years, and yet somehow this was the first time they’d dropped every protective facade.

The first time they’d really stopped sparring.

After a moment of silence, Arden twisted on the bed just enough to draw her ruffly slip off her hips and butt—the red lace panties were even better than the bra—and down her smooth, pale thighs and off her curved, firm calves. She dropped them off the side of the bed and sat there like some kind of virgin sacrifice. Like a bride on her wedding night.

Like a goddess.

“Smith,” she said softly. “Darling Smith. Come to bed.”

Don’t touch her,
whispered a rapidly fading warning from somewhere inside him.
If you touch her, you’ll be lost.

But he both loved her and needed her so badly that he stripped off his jeans and did just that.

Arden woke to late morning light, stretched in the unconscious loop of Smith’s heavy arms, and felt loved. Thoroughly. Physically. Emotionally.

Smith loved her.

From what she could read between the lines, between his sighs and his kisses, he’d loved her even when he’d broken up with her.

Broken up with her because he was—had been—part of a powerful, all-male secret society that had turned bad.

She wasn’t quite sure what she felt about that, beyond one determined certainty: Smith was one of the good guys.

No matter what else she knew or did not know, she believed that with every cell in her body.

She watched him sleep, noting how his face relaxed in unconsciousness, no smiling mask of biting humor, no scowl of self-protective disapproval. His beauty went deeper than cheekbones, stubbly jaw, or that slightly crooked nose. It was the face of a man who had sacrificed not just for the good, but for her. Who was still sacrificing for her.

She felt approval stretch her lips into a smile.
Her hero.

And to think that, even before their first breakup, she’d thought him more of an antihero.

He also had a smear of something brown on his chest, which looked oddly like a…handprint. The size of her hand. Carefully, so as to not wake him, Arden freed her hands and arms enough to see the random brown smudging here and there on her skin. She sniffed one, and her stomach turned far more from the significance than the faintly rusty smell.

Blood.

He must have opened one of his wounds during their second bout of lovemaking.

Remembering how he’d drawn back after smudging her with dust, back in her bedroom, Arden did her best to slide backward out of bed without waking him.

“Hey,” he murmured, his fingers tightening on the small of her back. “You okay? You’re still here?”

So she kissed him. Any excuse to kiss him. “Powder-room break. I’ll be right back.”

To her relief, he didn’t open his eyes. “Promise?”

“Promise.”

With a deep, sleepy sigh, he turned his face into the pillow and let her go. She was able to slip into the bathroom and wash the smears of dried blood off herself before he could see them. She considered combing her hair, which was a woolly mess, but decided that she preferred the honesty of it, of the whisker burn flushing one cheek, of the spattering of freckles across her bare, powderless nose. Instead, she simply wrapped herself in Val’s boldly striped cotton robe before finding her friend’s first-aid kit.

She carried it and several dark towels back to the bed with her.

Smith was awake—barely—and waiting for her. At her reappearance, his petulant expression eased into a more honest smile than she may ever have seen on his playful features. “Hey, there, sweetness.”

“Good morning, yourself.” She smiled, kneeling on the bed beside him and opening the box.

“Bandages…towels…antibacterial wipes…You like it kinky, huh?”

“Hush up and give me your arm.”

He did and lay with surprising obedience, caressing her with his gaze as she cleaned and rebandaged his wounds. Warmed by his unfeigned approval, Arden was glad she hadn’t combed her hair or put on makeup.

“You really should have had these seen to at a hospital,” she murmured finally, wrapping the second arm.

“One of the secrets to living off the grid is avoiding places like emergency rooms.” Saying that, he flinched—and not, Arden thought, because of her ministrations.

They’d more or less avoided this subject last night. He’d been trying to hide the truth from her, from the start. But if they were to have any hope—

After the miracle of their lovemaking, there had to be hope.

She took a deep breath. “You’re living off the grid because of your exile from the Comitatus.”

Smith said nothing, his surprisingly vulnerable brown gaze searching her face.

“I’m not a fool, Smith.”

“I know that.”

“And I realize—Greta said that her father took vows of secrecy. The only reason he told her anything was because of his Alzheimer’s. So I imagine that if you took similar vows then, well…” She smiled wryly. “You can neither confirm nor deny.”

He shrugged a hard, bare shoulder, still watching her as if counting her breaths. His eyes spoke volumes…and the helplessness of his silence soothed her as words never could. If he hadn’t taken a vow of secrecy, then he full well could deny it.

In his silence, she had her answer.

She moved the first-aid kit to the bedside table so that she
could scoot closer beside him. Being beside him felt
right.
“Don’t worry about confessions. I just want you to know how
I
see it. I think you joined this organization because you believed in their heroic legends, the part of them Greta’s still certain exists. You joined…” Of course. “Your father must belong, as well, and his father. Smith, have you even seen your parents since—since we broke up?”

Apparently, that he could answer. “I’ve visited my mother a couple of times, when I knew my father was out of town.”

“You poor…” When she saw his eyes narrow, she remembered how little men liked to be pitied. “Your poor mother.”

Again he shrugged, as if to dismiss their separation as par for the course. Considering that he’d initially dismissed their own relationship with a similar artificial indiffernce, Arden didn’t believe him. But she, of anyone, understood social lies.