The Darkest Link (Second Circle Tattoos) (20 page)

Lia looked toward Drea, who was joking with Dred about something. “And then there are the two of you. The guy will fly halfway around the world, baby in tow, just to have dinner with you. Oh, not forgetting how he bought you the business you wanted. Who would’ve thought incorporation documents were sexy? And don’t get me started on the snowflake tattoo he has over his heart,” she said, referring to the sweet nickname Dred had for Pixie.

Pixie looked over to where her man was sitting, and she grinned when he winked at her before carrying on his conversation with Drea. “Oh, Lia. You aren’t doing this because you’re lonely, are you? Because that’s entirely the wrong reason.”

“No. That’s not it at all. Watching you guys meet and fall in love taught me a really important lesson. I don’t want to fall for guy who would give me any less than that. I’d given up looking. But then this guy just drives past me on a motorbike and despite the fact that he looks incredibly hot naked, he’s a really good man.”

“Does it bother you at all, what he did? I mean, it’s not my place to pry, and I certainly don’t need all the details, but Reid just left Harper alone. For years.”

Lia considered the question for a moment. “Guilt can tear a person up inside. And pressure from other people can make them do things they wouldn’t normally consider doing on their own. But I think the fact they are getting along again speaks for itself.”

“In that case, I’m happy for everyone, because every time we looked at that damn seating plan for the wedding, she’d keep a seat empty in case he came back.”

Lia watched Reid put a handful of drinks down on the table before he started to walk toward her. She should have guessed he would be at home in the nightclub. The black shirt he wore fit him like a glove, as did the black distressed denim. It was hard to miss the number of women who cast a glance his way as he cut his way through the crowd.

“I’m gonna leave you to it,” Pixie said before heading back toward Dred, who stood and kissed the top of her head.

When Reid reached her, he slid his arms around her waist and pulled her close. He didn’t say a word as he kissed the side of her jaw. Lia tilted her head to the side and smiled. They danced slowly despite the fast beat of the music the DJ played.

His lips brushed close to her ear. “I’m glad I’m here, Lia.”

Lia sighed against him. “So am I.”

It was close to two in the morning when Lia felt the first yawn.

“Keeping you up, babe?” Reid whispered.

“Is there some weird body alarm that kicks in when you turn thirty, old man? I used to be able to stay up and party all night.”

“You’re asking a guy who goes to bed early to get up at five. We can go if you want, because I’ve been ready to get you out of this dress since you walked into the living room earlier.”

Lia laughed. “Sounds like a perfect idea,” she said, slipping the tip of her finger through the gap between two buttons on his shirt.

Harper and Trent decided to leave with them and stood on the sidewalk with her as Reid tried to flag a cab. He looked good in a collared shirt, she decided, and it would be fun to unbutton him slowly, perhaps even drop to her knees and give him a blowjob in the apartment hallway, his back pressed up against the front door.

Collins was a flurry of cars and cabs as usual, and Reid finally caught the attention of an empty one. The driver began to slow, and Reid turned to walk back toward her. He grinned at her and she couldn’t help but return the smile.

A screech of tires pulled her attention away from Reid, and she looked to her right, suddenly blinded by the headlights of a car pointed straight at her. For a second, Lia couldn’t figure out what was happening, but then Reid shouted, and Trent yelled out Harper’s name. The car wasn’t breaking, or turning.

What the hell?

It was speeding up, heading straight for her.

Oh my God, no.
She screamed as she tried to escape its path, panic powering her hurried footsteps, but the car was faster.

Pain ricocheted through her as the bumper of the vehicle took her legs out from under her, and for an instant, she was airborne. For the briefest moment, she saw Reid running toward her, but then her back slammed into the wall of the hotel and she dropped to the hard concrete.

Lia cried out in pain as she hit the ground, her wrist crumpling beneath her. Everybody said that your life passed before you in situations like this, but it didn’t for her. Pain took control, burning through her. As her head hit the ground, she noticed Harper standing pressed up against the W and Trent lying on the floor in front of her. But more importantly, she saw bone poking through the skin of her arm before the blackness overcame her.

* * *

Reid needed to pace. Fuck that. He needed to pound the shit out of something. But he couldn’t even move. He barely remembered calling 911, but he certainly remembered smoothing Lia’s hair from her forehead as she lay against the pavement until she came to again, crying out in pain. Now she was in surgery, having her arm pinned with metal screws. It was cold comfort that it wasn’t her tattooing arm.

At least he was able to get ongoing news about her progress. In a moment of quick thinking, he’d told the paramedics that he was her husband, and Lia, who had been in incredible pain, had simply gone along with his plan. When he’d asked her if she wanted him to phone her parents, though, she’d refused and gripped his hand.

Moments before the accident, they’d been standing together, his eyes on a couple of taxis in the distance. He’d stepped away from her only seconds before the car had jumped the curb, and he was convinced that the act had been deliberate. Only hours after his encounter with Winston Bell, a car had nearly killed him and his friends.

He felt ill. He’d made this mistake before. By having charged forward without considering the repercussions of his actions, he’d only made things worse for Harper. And now he’d done the same for Lia, dragging her into something in which she shouldn’t be involved.

He pulled out his phone, ignoring the admonitions posted all over the walls against using cell phones here, and texted Harper, who was in a different part of the hospital with Trent. It turned out that Trent had pushed Harper out of the way and taken the brunt of the car’s impact. So while the car had only glanced Harper’s shin, Trent had been knocked to the floor. The doctors were currently doing a CT scan on Trent to ensure that no permanent damage had been done to his skull, but other than that, the guy had been incredibly lucky to not be in worse shape.

There was no way Lia was going to be able to cope alone, at least for the first few days out of the hospital, and Reid wanted to be there for her. He dialed Jarod.

“What the . . . it’s three in the morning, boss,” Jarod said, sleepily.

Shit.
He hadn’t been thinking. “Sorry, man. It’s just . . . Lia. She got hit by a car . . . broke her arm pretty bad.”

“No . . . is she going to be okay?”

“She’ll be fine, but she’s in surgery. Look, I need a favor. How d’you feel about running Kenny’s for me for a while so I can stay here and take care of her?”

“Don’t even need to ask. I’m on it.”

“Thanks, Jarod . . . I’m . . .”

“Say no more. I got this. Go take care of Lia. And yourself, boss.”

Jarod’s enthusiasm had him questioning why he hadn’t considered making Jarod assistant manager sooner. It was the perfect solution.

As word spread amongst his friends, his phone began to fill with messages of love and support, but his only focus right now was Lia.

A doctor in a white coat walked out into the waiting area. “Reid Kennedy?”

“I’m here,” he said nervously. “How is she?”

“Julianna broke her arm; and as you already know, we had to reset it with pins. We doubt that she will suffer from any long-term complications, but there’s a risk of infection at this stage so we have her on some heavy-duty antibiotics. We’ve given her painkillers to manage her comfort level as well. The combination of all this means that first and foremost she will be very sleepy, but also that she needs to stay here overnight. I can take you through to see her for a little while before she gets moved to a ward.”

Reid followed the doctor down the hallway and past the nurses’ station and the vending machine he’d raided earlier.

“She’s through here,” the doctor said, pointing into a room. “I’ll leave the two of you alone for a little while, but the nurse is going to come in and ask you to leave after a few minutes. You’ll be more than welcome back tomorrow.”

The room was mainly dark, the small lamp attached to the headboard illuminating her hair in such a way that it appeared to be the only color in an otherwise dull room. Her eyes were closed as he made his way over to the bed. Quietly, he pulled a plastic chair over and placed it so that he could sit and take hold of her hand.

“Lia, babe. I’m sorry. When I opened my mouth earlier at your father’s, when I berated Winston, I really wasn’t thinking about all the places those words could take us. If I’d known for one millisecond that it would lead to this, I would’ve walked away.” Her hand looked small in his; it was the first time he’d really noticed how delicate it was. Her injured arm was propped up on the other side of her in some kind of foam fort.

He pressed his lips to the back of her hand. “I’ve taken some time off work so when we get out of here, I can help you.”

Her fingers moved. “Reid?” she said roughly.

“Yeah, babe. I’m right here. How are you doing, sweetheart?”

She attempted to push herself slightly higher up the pillow and groaned in pain.

“Here,” Reid said, standing. “Let me help you with that.” He put his arms around her and scooched her higher.

“How’s Trent?” she asked sleepily.

“He’s gone for a scan, but it’s more of a precaution to make sure nothing else is going on. He hit his head pretty hard.”

“My arm really hurts,” she said tearfully.

The sight of those gray eyes filled with tears came close to pushing him over the edge of the emotional roller coaster he’d been on since he called for an ambulance. He’d give anything to be able to stop the hurt. And he wished he’d been able to catch more than a fleeting glimpse of that car. He wanted to do something for her but felt useless.

“I’ll go get a nurse, get you some morphine or something,” he said, but she gripped his hand.

“Don’t leave me,” she said, wincing as she repositioned her broken arm. “The nurse told me . . . it’s coming through that drip, so I doubt there is anything else . . . short of knocking me out again. Just stay here with me.”

They sat in silence for a little while, the only sound the occasional whimper of pain from Lia as she struggled to get comfortable. He massaged the palm of her hand, then kissed it gently. “I’m sorry you hurt so bad, sweetheart, but I’m going to take care of you when you get out. You don’t need to worry about that.”

“I’m so relieved you didn’t get hurt.”

Reid huffed. “Are you kidding me? It should have been me, not you. I should have protected you.” Reid felt it all over again, that feeling of inadequacy. He should have looked after his sister and hadn’t. And now he and his stupid mouth had hurt Lia.

“Unless you had a magic hammer like Thor, there was no way in hell you were going to be able to stop that car. None of that was your fault, and you never could have predicted it.”

“I shouldn’t have mouthed off at Bell today.”

Lia turned her head toward him suddenly and groaned at the action. “You think what happened tonight was intentional?”

Reid moved to the side of the bed. Unable to resist, he smoothed her hair from her face and fixed her pillow.

“Reid, seriously, are you saying you think we were hit on purpose?”

“Yes,” he said, exasperated. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. What are the chances that I verbally yell at the guy whose son almost killed my sister, a man who went to extreme lengths to ensure that his son wasn’t charged and that blame was shifted to my sister, and then we get mowed down on the pavement the same evening?”

Lia shook her head gently. “It was just a coincidence.” She sighed. “If the driver meant to hurt you, he or she did a lousy job. You were standing in the road hailing that cab—an easy target.”

Reid thought about what she was saying and suddenly felt stupid. But what if the car hadn’t been aiming for him? It managed to take out Trent and missed Harper by a cat’s whisker. Perhaps he hadn’t been the target. There was only one way to confirm it. Confronting Winston Bell was out of the question. The guy was too smart to incriminate himself, and all those years in court as a lawyer had made him slippery as a fucking snake. So the only option Reid could see was to rely on the relationship he’d once had with Nathan Bell. Which meant finding a way to visit Nathan in prison.

“I can feel those cogs whirring over here,” Lia said, closing her eyes again. “You aren’t responsible . . . for this, Reid,” she said sleepily.

He hoped she was right, but he was going to find out for sure.

Screw the hovering nursemaid who appeared to have moved into her apartment and taken over her life like some dictatorial health expert—even if he did wear loose track shorts that hung low on his hips and revealed a perfectly sculpted V-line. Lia was taking a shower, no matter what. She smelled worse than day-old fish, and to hell with anyone who got in her way. Under Reid’s control, she hadn’t washed her hair in five days, and no amount of braiding could make it look cute for a day longer. This was quite possibly the longest she’d ever gone without wearing makeup, and while her skin seemed to be liking the break, her self-esteem was completely in the tank.

She’d done everything she was told. She’d worn her brace, kept her arm elevated for a couple of days, taken her pain meds like a good girl, and kept the incision clean and covered, even though it grossed her out to look at the sutures. She’d dealt with the splint being removed the day before and had wiggled her fingers on demand for what felt like hours.

Meanwhile Reid had stayed in the spare room, saying he didn’t want to jostle her arm and hurt her in the middle of the night. His distance was more painful than her injury. The combination of his misplaced concern and her own stir-crazy petulance made her feel like throwing something.

“Okay,” Reid said, bustling into the room like an old woman. “Breakfast is ready. And then I’ll set you up on the sofa for the day.”

“No,” Lia said, with more frustration than he probably deserved. Guilt tweaked at her when she took in the concern on his face.

“If you want to stay in bed, that’s cool, too.” He opened the blinds and the balcony door. “I’ll remake your bed while you eat and—”

“Reid, I’m not sick. I’m not dying. The surgery was nearly a week ago. You’ve got a garage to run, and I need to get on with my life.”

“It must be frustrating, babe,” he said, touching her cheek gently. “Do you need your pain meds?”

He was close enough to punch in the throat, and she debated doing it. “I’m not in pain,” she said between gritted teeth—because in truth, she was a little. “I just want up. I want a shower. I want to put on my makeup. I want to put on a fucking dress and underwear, and leave my fucking apartment. I’ll be thirty next week, so stop treating me like I’m a child.”

Reid sat on the edge of the bed and ran a finger down her cheek. “I’ll address the fact that your birthday is next week and I didn’t know in a second, babe. I’m not treating you like a child, even though you’re acting like one. It’s okay to admit it hurts, and snapping at me isn’t going to make it better. If it did, I’d encourage you to snap at me all day because you know I’d do anything to make this better for you. But you
know
all that shit, Lia. So what’s going on?”

Lia ground her teeth and looked at the comforter, embarrassment heating her face. Tears burned her eyes as she realized she was behaving
exactly
like a child.

“I’m sick of being mollycoddled. And I want to shower.”

Reid looked at his watch. “Fine. Pancakes can wait. Let’s get you into the shower. The doc said the incision needed to be kept dry for five days so you’re good.”

“And I want you to come into the shower with me,” she said boldly. If he didn’t want her to be a child, he could deal with the grown-ass woman she was.

“Lia.” He groaned. “Babe.”

“You asked me what was going on. I don’t like the distance.” She reached her good hand around the back of his neck and pulled him closer until she could feel his breath on her lips. “It makes me very . . . needy, Reid.”

Reid licked his lips and studied her mouth, and she deliberately bit her lip. Yes, she was baiting him, but right now her need for him made it worth it.

“I need hot water,” she whispered, “and soap to clean all the parts of me that are dirty. I need someone to wash my hair until white lather runs down my naked body, over my breasts, and between my legs.”

“Lia,” he said gruffly.

But it was too late. She could already see the way his erection was tenting his shorts. She had him. “I just want to feel close to you, Reid. Don’t turn me down.”

“Goddamn, babe. How the fuck am I supposed to say no to that?” He walked to the bedside table and grabbed a condom. “Might as well be prepared,” he said as he lifted her and carried her to her en suite bathroom. With the gentlest of movements, he placed her on her feet.

“You aren’t going to hurt me, Reid,” she said as he removed her brace and lifted her slip up over her head.

“Just let me take care of you, for fuck’s sake. It’s been trying my last thread of control to go to sleep in that stupid spare room every night knowing you were sleeping in silk like this. So while my dick is demanding I bend you over the sink, babe, I’m going to take my time.”

Lia grinned and placed her hand over his hard length. “Does that mean I get to take my time, too?” she asked.

He narrowed his eyes at her and lifted her hand away. “This is all about you, Lia,” he said as he shucked his clothes and dropped the condom on the bench in the shower. He turned the water on and steam started to rise. She’d never been more excited to step into her large glass shower stall. Reid tested the water; once it was to his satisfaction, he held out his hand to her.

She followed him under the spray of the large rainfall shower head. The water felt heavenly and didn’t sting her arm. Lifting her face toward the spray, she closed her eyes and exhaled. Never would she take showering for granted again.

Reid stood behind her and slid his hands over her shoulders and down her arms, avoiding her stitches, until he took hold of her hands. He pressed gentle kisses behind her ear and along her chin, and she tilted her neck to the side to give him better access. She adored feeling his solid pecs against her back, the brittle feel of the hairs on his chest, the way his cock slid between the cheeks of her ass. She needed more.

“Reid,” she moaned as his hands left hers, drifting across her stomach and cupping her breasts. He squeezed them, sliding her nipples between his fingers, occasionally tugging on them.

He reached in front of her and pulled a bottle of shampoo off the shelf. She heard the cap click shut behind her and saw the bottle had been returned. When his hands delved into her hair, she sighed. The scent of her favorite Biolage filled the air. His hands massaged her scalp confidently and she closed her eyes, enjoying the feeling of being taken care of in a way that fueled her sensual side. It wasn’t even sex that she needed, although she knew that was where they were heading. It was this. The intimate moments.

“Turn for me, Lia,” Reid instructed, and she did as he asked.

He leaned back against the wall of the shower, taking himself in hand as he watched her. “Wanna see if that soap running down your body looks as good as I imagined,” he said gruffly.

Lia stepped under the spray, sending the suds cascading down her body. She used her good hand to keep them out of her face, pressing the water along her scalp and down her back.

“Fuck, babe,” he said, tugging his cock harder. Lia physically ached where she stood, entranced by the way he slid his hand along his length.

“What next?” he asked.

“You take me. In any way you feel like.”

“Oh, I fully intend to. But only once you are clean and happy.” He picked another bottle off the shelf, reading the label. She watched as he poured conditioner onto his palm. She wanted his hands on her in places other than her scalp. He walked around the back of her again and ran the conditioner through her hair. Goddamn. All of a sudden, the shower no longer felt like the most important thing on her highly aroused to-do list.

Reid wrapped the length of her hair around his hand and slowly tugged her head back under the spray. She wasn’t big into domination, although she did love when a man took charge in the bedroom, but there was something about the way he almost lovingly pulled her into place that made her tummy tighten with excitement and her thighs press together.

When her hair was rinsed clean, he grabbed her shower gel, but instead of using the pouf that hung over the tap, he rubbed it between his hands and began to rub it over her body. He started with her shoulders, carefully lifting her arms to wash her underarms, and went around her stitches. It stung a little, but Lia didn’t have the capacity to call out. Her breath was caught in her throat.

Her nipples were hard peaks by the time he had finished with her breasts. His hands drifted lower, but just before they reached the place she wanted them, he turned her around and started from her shoulders again. By the time he had washed the cheeks of her ass and each of her legs, Lia was very much on the edge.

“Please, Reid,” she begged.

Reid pulled her against him and groaned as his cock brushed against her. “Is your tantrum over, babe?” he asked, staring straight into her eyes. “Because I really want to fuck the sexy-as-hell woman I’ve been dating, not the brat I just met in the bedroom.”

Lia nodded, unable to argue or answer.

“Good, now turn around and face the wall, rest your forehead on your good arm, and put your injured one wherever doesn’t hurt, ass in my direction,” he said.

She turned and looked over her shoulder to where he stood looking at her. “Like this?” she asked.

“Yeah. Exactly like that.” With an urgency she shared, he grabbed the condom and pulled it on. “Ready?” he asked as he stepped back under the spray, and she nodded again. “Good, now don’t move,” he said, positioning himself behind her. “Welcome back, babe. I missed you,” he said and slid deep inside her.

* * *

“I have to say, Lia, that if I worked at Second Circle, I’d be a little nervous by now. You guys have been through some scrapes.”

Detective Carter placed his coffee cup down on the table in Lia’s living room and ran his hand over his close-cropped brown hair. Reid had first met him several days earlier after Drea had called him, an act which had pissed off her boyfriend, Cujo. There was obviously some history there, and he could see why. Carter demolished the donuts-and-coffee cop stereotype, and could probably bench more than he could. He hadn’t originally been assigned to the case, but Drea pulled some strings.

The car that had hit them on the pavement had been found abandoned in an empty lot near the docks where all the cruise ships came into Miami. It was currently being combed over by a forensic unit, having been identified by CCTV from its plates as the vehicle that had jumped the curb.

“Life in the big city,” Lia said before taking a sip of her coffee. “It was probably just a drunk driver who ran.”

Reid thought back to Lia’s comments at the hospital. Even Harper and Trent agreed with her that though there was a slight possibility that the two incidents were connected, Winston had nothing to gain by hurting them other than revenge for revenge’s sake. While Winston was absolutely despicable, they were sure he wouldn’t dirty his own hands like that. Though they’d just about convinced him that it had been nothing more than coincidence, a small voice still niggled at him.

“Were you able to talk to Winston Bell?” Reid asked. “I know everybody thinks it’s nothing, but I can’t shake the fact that this happened right after I argued with him.”

Detective Carter nodded. “He was already back in Chicago by the time we got in touch with him, but he’d been with people for most of the day and offered transcripts of his phone records, including the ones from the hotel where he was staying here in Miami. All of the people we spoke to confirmed that he was with them. You know, I never say never because I’ve seen some real crazy shit happen over the years, but I gotta be honest with you, I can’t see it.”

Reid digested the information. At some point he was going to have to let it go because it burned him too much to think about it. Perhaps he was doubly sensitive because he hadn’t been there for Harper when she’d needed him.

Carter finished his coffee and stood. “I’m sorry I can’t be more help right now. Hopefully we’ll know more from the car soon and will be able to figure out our next step. Please, don’t get up.” He shook Lia’s hand, then reached across to shake Reid’s. “I’ll see myself out.”

The door to the condo closed with a click, and all that was left were empty coffee cups and packed-up bags. It was time for him to go home and take care of business. The ninety-minute drive ahead of him to Fort Pierce seemed like a million miles. Over the last few days, his relationship with Lia had gone from fledgling to full-on falling for her. And he’d had the opportunity to spend some more time with Harper when she was done with school for the day. She’d shared more of what she had been through and had even showed him the whole of the amazing tattoo Trent had done for her. They’d cried. Laughed. And most importantly, she’d forgiven him. She was anxious to talk to their parents about him, but he just wasn’t there yet.

He’d spent the last six years alone, comfortable in the home he created for himself. But suddenly the idea of going back to his apartment above the garage really sucked.

“Are you going to be okay seeing your dad?” he asked. Lia’s father had called on a number of occasions but hadn’t once asked how Lia actually was. The first message had been a barrage of questions about why she had given the Orlando newspaper permission to use her image in the expo coverage. The second and third had berated her for the events that transpired at her father’s party. The fourth was a request to attend a community event as a family. It irritated the crap out of him that her father could be furious in one message yet sycophantic in the next.

Lia placed her coffee cup down on the table. “I’d prefer to never have to speak to him again, but I think the only way to stop his requests is to go see him. But first I need to speak to Mom. I’m going to ask her if she wants to leave him. It’s likely that my father has control over their money, and I’d hate to think that was her reason for staying. I want her to know that if she wants to leave, I have the funds to help her do it.”

“I wish I didn’t have to leave,” he said as he took the coffee cups into the kitchen. He wanted to go with her when she spoke to her father, but the road and responsibilities called. The emotions he felt didn’t sit well. He wasn’t needy, or a pussy, but he had some serious anxiety about leaving her alone. And it wasn’t just some messed-up macho shit. Sure, he wanted to stay and look after her because he saw the way she winced when she accidentally put any weight on her arm. But it was more than that. Simpler. He just wanted to be with her.