Gladiator Hawk, page 4
The thought that Blake had explained everything to her so far, and she'd hardly explained anything to him, struck Susan like a gong. He'd been so willing to talk to her. So relieved to. And she'd barely given him any information about herself at all.
If it weren't for the fact that he'd kept being a shapeshifter a secret all those years ago, Susan thought she might have to face the disturbing possibility that this was a pattern that had permeated their relationship back then, too.
It was no big deal. Other people liked to play it close to the chest, too. Harder to get hurt that way, that was all. Safer to keep most emotion in a box, where she didn't have to think much about it. It tended to get in the way of climbing the corporate ladder, and as a single mom, Susan couldn't afford any bumps in that road.
Still, she owed Blake an explanation as to why she wanted to team up, if nothing else. Susan took a deep breath, finished most of her wine in a swallow that didn't appreciate its delicacy, and said, "Scott's the ex I was stalking back there. He used me to get into the Gladiator Foundation's archives, and stole their entire shifter database." At Blake's crinkled eyebrows, she added, "The Beren family has apparently kept genealogical records of the gladiator shifters for thousands of years. I didn't know anything about it until a few months ago. But even you're in it, Blake. Kids like you, who weren't aware of their heritage? They knew about you."
Blake sat back, stunned anger darkening his handsome features. "They…knew? And just…left me? They left me to shifters like Remus, instead of coming and saying 'hey, kid, you belong to this world'? What kind of—what kind of shit is that?!"
"I know." Susan ducked her head, eyes pressed shut. Her boss, Garius, had known about her own son, and yet had been more instinctively inclined to protect his own secrets than approach her about Jason's abilities. Under his wife Anna's influence he'd eventually come clean, but—well, it would have made Susan's life easier if he had done it in the first place.
And maybe it would have made her life easier if she'd approached him about it…but she hadn't known Garius was a shapeshifter. He had known Jason was one. The difference seemed critical, to Susan. She said, "I know," again, and looked up to meet Blake's eyes.
Within a heartbeat, she knew she shouldn't have. The pain there had the sense of an old wound, freshly re-opened. She wanted to simply crawl into his lap and embrace him, in the hopes that some of that pain would leak away in the comfort of her arms. Once upon a time, she'd been able to soothe him that way. And now she knew what that hurt was about, which changed…everything.
It didn't have to, she told herself. Not if she didn't let it. "Asher used to work for Sverre," she said quietly. "He's human, so he's probably not running Battaglia, but he might have access to whomever is. We find out, for your sake, and take them down. And in the meantime, we figure out what else in his life Scott has corrupted, and use that to take him down. Deal?"
"Deal." Blake offered his hand to shake. Susan took it, and, just as suddenly as she'd known about meeting his eyes, knew she shouldn't have taken his hand, either.
His touch ran like fire through her body. Familiar, comforting, enticing, even if all they were doing was shaking hands. Susan remembered vividly how good he'd been with those hands, how skilfully they'd touched her, and he was more grown-up, more experienced, now. She could just imagine how good he would be now.
She snatched her hand back and wiped it on her sweat pants, like she could erase the memory of his warm fingers surrounding hers. "It's late. I should get back to my room." She sounded abrupt, harsh-voiced, and cold, even to her own ears, and she didn't want that, so she blurted, "Where are you staying?" as an awkward afterthought.
"I…oh. Out on Fota Island."
Susan knew her expression betrayed surprise. Fota Island had a genuinely cool wildlife park, but also—and more relevantly—the only five star hotel in the county. "I guess whatever you're doing is treating you pretty well. That's good."
"Oh." Blake looked uncomfortable. "No, sorry, I mean I'm staying on Fota Island. There's a…there's a sea eagle habitat there, and…they can't get out, but I nest near there if I'm in Cork. It helps anybody who might see me flying put together a story that makes sense to them."
"You mean you're sleeping in a tree?"
"Well, I mean…birds do…"
"But Blake, that's dumb, I've got a room, you should…" Susan listened to herself with a sort of disembodied horror. Blake Lockwood should absolutely not come sleep in her room. That was an exceptionally terrible idea. Except she could still feel the heat of his hand, the strength of his touch, and all of her common sense seemed to have slid down her body in a hot puddle to pulse between her legs.
Blake sat so still it was like he was afraid she would come to her senses if he moved. His eyes were bright with disbelieving hope, and Susan felt a blush crawling up her throat toward her jaw.
"You should stay in my room," she said. Croaked. Her voice didn't seem to want to work anymore, not really. "It's a king-sized bed. Plenty of room for two people."
"Sure." Blake sounded just as hoarse as she did. "Are you sure?"
"We're two adult people," Susan said, trying to make herself sound casual. "We can probably manage sharing a bed without any…"
Blake volunteered, "'Shenanigans'?" and Susan gave a blort of nodding laughter.
"Right. No shenanigans." She finished her wine, set the glass aside, and rose.
Then for some stupid, inexplicable reason, she took Blake Lockwood's hand, and led him up to her room.
Blake, to Susan's huge relief, didn't comment when she took his hand, or when she realized what she'd done, and dropped it again. He did say, "I forgot my pyjamas," when they got to her room, and despite having beaten herself up all the way there, Susan laughed.
"Strangely enough, I don't have anything here that'll fit you, either. Not unless you wanna try on my party dress from tonight, or something."
"I do look good in blue," Blake replied solemnly. "If my t-shirt and shorts are okay with you, they're fine with me too. Unless you think the front desk would have some to spare."
"How walk-of-shame can you get?" Susan said with a grin. "No, shorts and t-shirt are fine. I mean, I'm sleeping in this, pretty much."
"I can build a pillow fort between us," Blake offered, and Susan laughed out loud. She couldn't remember the last time she'd laughed so often, hanging out with a guy who wasn't her son.
"I have to see that. Go for it."
Blake, with an earnest industriousness that reminded Susan sharply of her son—their son—actually set about building a pillow barricade down the middle of the bed. Cushions came off the hotel room's couch and chairs, and he raided the closet for the extra pillows before stepping back and declaring himself satisfied.
It was, Susan had to admit, a great barricade. She was short enough that she didn't think she could see over it, if she sat up on her side of the bed. Enough pillows propped the cushions up that they probably wouldn't even fall over, as long as both sleepers kept more or less to their respective outside edges. "It's amazing. There's just one problem."
Blake's face fell. "What?"
"You didn't leave us any pillows to sleep with."
"Oh. Oh, shit. Well, dammit—" He marched to the phone, picking it up to call Housekeeping. Susan, laughing again, followed him and depressed the cradle buttons.
"It's okay. I think we can manage without an actual wall between us. It's great, though. J—" She swallowed her words, having been about to say Jason would love it, and fumbled for something else to say. "J—just, uh, just as long as you haven't, uh, started snoring."
"The pillows wouldn't block that if I had," Blake pointed out.
Susan crinkled her face. "Okay, it was kind of a dumb thing to say. But know what, you should call Housekeeping anyway and see if they've got spare toothbrushes, because I'm not sharing mine."
"Legit." Blake called downstairs and by the time the toothbrush arrived, Susan had brushed her own teeth, done the rest of her nightly ablutions—including taking her earrings out, because she hated the way they dug into her head when she slept—and crawled into her side of the bed.
She definitely did not watch Blake as he went into the little hotel bathroom, or when he came out again in just his t-shirt and shorts, which were boxers and not all that exciting to look at. Which was fine, because she wasn't looking anyway. Not looking at his long legs, or the thin fabric of his t-shirt fitting against his shoulders and waist, or at the shape of his ass in the maybe-kind-of-exciting-boxers-after-all.
Susan turned her face into the pillow, bit the case, and muttered, "Shut up shut up shut up shut up!" like she could silence her unhelpfully horny brain. Or whatever parts of her it was that were horny.
"Suze?"
"I'm FINE."
No one on earth could possibly think she was fine from that response. Blake audibly hesitated, then just as obviously decided he should probably take her answer at face value, although he did, cautiously, say, "I can sleep on the floor or bug on out of here if it's too weird."
"No. Nope, it's fine. We're good." Susan unburied her face from the pillow enough to speak clearly, then eyed Blake through the dim room to see if he believed her.
He clearly couldn't tell if he did or not. "Seriously," she said, a little wryly. "It's fine. I'm just an idiot."
"Of all the words I could use to describe you, 'idiot' doesn't even feature on the long list." Blake crawled into his side of the bed, far enough away on the king-sized mattress that she didn't even really feel his weight on the bed, just a marginal shift of the blankets. "We good?"
"We're good." Susan pulled the covers up to her chin and absolutely, totally, completely failed to go to sleep.
CHAPTER 6
Susan wasn't sleeping.
Blake knew, because he, too, had been lying in bed for about two and a half hours, trying really hard to pretend the woman of his dreams wasn't lying four feet away in a t-shirt he'd bought her eleven years ago.
Obviously it wasn't working very well.
He could hear her steady breathing, just about steady enough to be asleep, but not quite. He could practically feel her radiating tension from trying to sleep and trying to ignore him, and thought she could probably feel the same from his side of the bed.
He didn't know what he'd been thinking. There was only one bed, for Christ's sake. There was only one bed! This was the stuff fan fiction was made of. Even friggin' NCIS knew the power of there was only one bed, and frankly, it had driven Blake crazy for years, trying to decide whether Ziva and Tony had banged in that one episode or not.
A sort of explosive giggle-snort escaped him at the thought, and Susan stiffened, across the bed from him. "Blake?"
"Sorry if I woke you up." He knew he hadn't, but it seemed polite to pretend.
"No, you didn't, I can't sleep. Like, 'omggg, there's a boy in my bed omggg', like I'm fourteen or something." Susan's laughter became muffled as she turned her face into the pillow.
Blake put on his most surprised-but-innocent voice. "Oh my God, really? Is that what's wrong? I'm really sorry. I'm just not used to sleeping in a bed anymore, I've been sleeping in trees for years now, I didn't realize there might be some kind of tension w—"
The faint white shadow of a pillow launching at him was all the warning he had before it hit him in the face. Blake burst out laughing at the assault. "I deserved that."
"You really did." Susan pushed up on her elbow, pale and ringleted in the poor lighting from under the hotel room door and the cracks around the window's curtains.
God, she was beautiful, even with her eyes a bit hollow from lack of sleep. Blake just barely had the sense not to say that, though. It wouldn't go over well. It had barely gone over well when they were ten years younger and together: Susan wanted to be judged by her merits, not her beauty, and god knew she had merits aplenty. Smart, ambitious, dedicated, passionate, talented…Blake could go on forever, but if he kept thinking about how great she was, some kind of over-the-top compliment would pass his lips and then she'd be annoyed with him.
The last thing on earth Blake Lockwood wanted was the ghost-pale redhead in bed beside him to be annoyed with him.
Too late, he realized he should have just thwapped her back with the pillow. Pillow fights were tension breakers. Of course, they led to roughhousing, which could lead…places he hadn't been invited.
Susan looked like maybe she was thinking thoughts like that, too, because she abruptly lay back down, her back to him, and said, "Good night, Blake."
"G'night, Suze." He rolled over, too, his back to her, and once more, did not go to sleep. Not even a little bit.
About forty minutes later, Susan breathed, "…Blake?" so softly that he wouldn't have heard it if he hadn't been listening with every fiber of his being.
"Yeah?"
"You sleeping?"
"Yeah."
She laughed and a pillow came flying at him again, but this time he caught it, and the wrist flinging it at him. "That's not nice."
"I know." She went silent a few seconds. "I told you I feel like an idiot teenager. Sorry. I don't know what's wrong with me."
"You're in bed with your ex after a complicated breakup ten years ago," Blake said wryly. "I can't imagine what might be fraught about that."
"Ooh, 'fraught'. Ten dollar word there." Susan pressed her eyes shut before her whole expression crushed. "There are some things I should tell you, Blake."
"Maybe that's why you can't sleep."
Resignation uncrinkled her face a little. "It might be."
"Look." Blake reached over to touch her, then withdrew his hand without making contact. "Middle of the night confessions are either the best or the worst idea in the world. Which does this feel like to you?"
"I really don't know."
"Then let's assume it's a bad idea," Blake said quietly. "You can tell me later, if you still think you need to. I'm not going anywhere." Too late he realized that could sound possessive, or stalkery, or…something he didn't want it to sound, anyway.
Fortunately, Susan chuckled. "Not until we've got this Battaglia and Asher thing sorted out, anyway."
A pang shot through Blake at the idea of having to go anywhere, ever, but he nodded. "Right. Not until then."
"All right." Susan sighed and rolled over again, curls cascading across her shoulders. A few exhalations later, and she was either asleep, or pretending well enough to finally fool him. Blake stayed where he was, lying where he could watch her breathe, until sleep claimed him, too.
He woke up with Susan snuggled right up against him, and his first thought was, in my defense, she's on my side of the bed!
Which she was. Blake hadn't moved, but Susan had, until her warm curves were pressed against him. He'd put his arm around her at some point, which was a problem, because she was holding onto it like a teddy bear, and he couldn't possibly extract himself without waking her up.
She was going to blow a gasket when she woke up.
Even more than boyfriends turning into raptors in the bathroom, Susan Connolly did not like emotional vulnerability. She didn't even like it in other people. Heaven forbid she should show it herself. It made her angry, as if she was failing herself by being less than perfectly armored against everything at all times.
She had made it clear when they'd met that it was how she was going to climb the ladder of success: by never letting them see her bleed. Women had to be twice as good at everything to get half the notice, so by Susan's reckoning, she needed to be four times as good to get to the top. Nothing was going to get in her way.
There were days when Blake wondered if some part of her had thought discovering he was a shifter was really a blessing in disguise, because it gave her an excuse to walk out with no regrets. The truth was, he couldn't really imagine that she would have stayed with him anyway. Not with her ambitions. Not with his lack of them. Not that working with cars or building boats was a bad occupation, but it didn't exactly hold a candle to become the CEO of a massive multi-national charitable foundation before I'm 40, which Susan had not only dreamed of, but had accomplished with apparent ease.
None of that mattered anymore. What mattered was getting his arm free from her snuggle without waking her up.
He moved about a quarter of an inch and she mumbled, stretched, and snuggled more closely against him, her warm soft bottom moving against him in the most agonizingly enticing way possible.
All of a sudden it was extremely important he get away before she woke up, even if getting away woke her up. Blake tensed, pulling his arm free, but it was too late.
Susan woke up.
CHAPTER 7
It had taken for absolute ever to go to sleep, but Susan woke up warmer, cozier, and more rested than she remembered being in years. By the time she'd drawn a full breath, though, she knew why she was so cozy…and knew a whole lot more than that, too.
Blake Lockwood was present and accounted for in every possible way, all smooshed up against her backside. Toe-curling, cheek-flushing heat surged through Susan, and the breath she hadn't quite finished taking somehow turned into a rough gasp.
"I'm so sorry." Blake sounded mortified and started to roll away.
Susan's hand, which had betrayed her last night by taking Blake's to lead him up to her room in the first place, reached back and grabbed his hip, holding him in place. It was definitely her hand, all by itself. It had not, as far as she could tell, consulted her brain on the topic at all.
Her brain, once consulted, mostly didn't seem to think letting go of Blake's hip was a great idea either, although part of it was yelling what are you doing! at the part that wouldn't let her release him.
As if she really needed a third party to explain what she was doing.
They both lay there, very still, as if maybe neither of them would notice each other if they didn't move, and then Blake curled himself closer, his face buried against Susan's shoulder. She sighed without meaning to, relaxing, and he unwound the arm around her ribs to slide it to her hip. "Susan?"
