The Pretender Read online

  Now it was early evening. Past dinner and the sun had started to set as dusk moved in. She’d finished searching for the day and hung around with Ted on Craig’s boat before the two of them took off for whatever they planned to do in Baltimore tonight. She intended to walk back to the guesthouse but she saw the fire. She couldn’t make out the figure from this distance and in this light, but she’d bet the man at the fire pit was Harris.

  Before she knew it, she was there, standing at the edge of the small patio. As she watched, he sat on the bench with his legs stretched out in front of him. No s’mores tonight. He held a water bottle and stared into the dancing flames.

  “You just don’t learn, do you?” There was no reason to play coy, so she sat down next to him. Only a few inches separated their thighs on the bench.

  He handed her the water bottle. “I liked the memory of us here.”

  Her heart flipped again. The stupid traitorous thing. It needed to stop doing that when he said something kind of sweet.

  She took the bottle because it gave her something to do with her hands. “Why are you out here alone?”

  “It’s been a long day.” He rubbed his palms up and down on his legs. “Kramer gave me ‘the talk’ this morning.”

  The plastic crinkled in her hand as the water bottle dropped and bounced on the pavers. “What?”

  “He thinks you need protection from me.” Harris still hadn’t looked at her. Didn’t look at the bottle where it rolled around next to his foot either.

  He continued to watch the fire, follow each cinder as it spun into the wind and up into the sky.

  “I’m thinking he might not be wrong,” she said.

  He leaned back against the bench and turned his face to her. “I screwed up.”

  “Genius deduction.” But she didn’t feel any anger. Not there, not in that second when the light of the fire let her see the starkness in his eyes.

  “Any chance you’ll give me another shot?”

  “I guess that depends on whether I need to use sex to evade another conversation.” She tried to lighten the mood but she couldn’t tell if the joke worked. “Want to ask me a few questions and we’ll see if I automatically jump on you?”

  His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Cute.”

  “You asked for it.”

  “True.” For almost a minute he didn’t say anything. He looked like he wanted to, but stayed quiet. Then he sat up straighter. “I’m skeptical when people act on emotion. I assume they need something from me or are trying to pull me off topic. Taking people at face value, believing them, is not one of my strengths.”

  “That sounds healthy.”

  He reached down to retrieve the water bottle. “Blame my mother. She lied to me my entire life.”

  As soon as he said the words he closed his eyes. He sat there, passing the bottle back and forth between his palms. Rolling it and ignoring the sound it made as the plastic gave under the force of his hands.

  But she sensed the slip, and it was clear that was what it was. It provided a small window into the man behind the sexy smile and killer shoulders. A way for her to get in. “What does that mean?”

  “Nothing.” He shook his head as he stood up and poked the fire.

  Right now would be the right time to let the topic drop. She knew that. His comments hinted at something deep and difficult, but she couldn’t walk away. If that were possible she’d be back in the guesthouse and not sitting next to him right now.

  That was the point. From the very beginning, something about him pulled her in. Two people who skirted the truth. Two lost souls. Two people with secrets that threatened to split them open. Whatever bound them together attracted and scared her, and it wasn’t going away. Not yet.

  She continued to watch him stir the embers and send puffs of red sparks flying into the air. “You started this, Harris.”

  “What I said isn’t relevant.”

  She’d used lines like that her entire adult life. She recognized the trick. “If you want forgiveness, earn it.”

  He turned around with his back lit by the fire. He hesitated, holding the stick but not moving. Then he blew out a long breath. She could visibly see his chest rise and fall as he pitched the stick to the side.

  “She had this secret life.” He dropped down next to her with one arm stretched on top of the back of the bench behind her. “She did the carpool and ran forgotten projects to school.”

  “Sounds like normal stuff.”

  “Yeah, my dad and I thought she went to work every day. In a way I guess she did. It’s just that instead of going into the doctor’s office and being a receptionist as she said . . .” He stopped as if it hurt to say the words. “She stole things.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “For most of my life it was small stuff, not that I knew that at the time.” He sighed. “I found out many years later—everyone did—about the money missing back when she had a part-time job at the preschool. She was let go and no one said anything. Then it was the money from my soccer club. Then things went missing from friends’ and relatives’ houses. Then a jewelry store. Then another, all without getting caught. The police only discovered the pattern later.”

  Gabby figured it had to be a cry for help or something similar. “So, she’s a kleptomaniac.”

  “Oh, no. It’s so much bigger than that.” This time he shook his head. “What she did with those smaller jobs was prepare for her dream career.”

  She felt a little queasy. “I almost hate to ask.”

  “She robbed banks.”

  Gabby almost laughed. The idea was so absurd that he had to be telling a joke, like some tall tale to get her to smile. “What?”

  “Sounds ridiculous, right?”

  “A little.” Way more than a little. It sounded like pure fiction. The kind of story he told to impress a woman in a bar with what a bad boy he was. She’d heard silly lines over the years but never that one.

  He wrapped a strand of her hair around his finger. Didn’t tug or pull. Just slid the circle he made up and down, smoothed it over his skin.

  He believed this nonsense. The thought slammed into her. This wasn’t a joke, or if it was he played the role well. His shoulders slumped and some of the color drained from his face. He looked beaten and exhausted. Totally done.

  “She kept meticulous notes and it was obvious she planned out the bigger jobs for months, maybe longer, and fed her stealing habit with smaller jobs in the meantime,” he said, as if that cleared anything up.

  “I don’t . . .” God, she just couldn’t take it in. Gabby put her hand on his knee and leaned in closer, hoping to be able to read through any act he was trying to sell. “Are you serious?”

  “Very. She doesn’t exactly own her actions and take responsibility for them, but expert witnesses and therapists who talked with her over the years point to her having this compulsion. This need to keep taking, to ratchet up the danger and live in this chaotic state.”

  “God, why?”

  “A really messed up childhood with a dad who put her to work stealing instead of signing her up for kindergarten.” He exhaled. “On the outside she presented one picture of herself—this totally together loving mom—but there was this broken part inside she kept trying to fix with these dangerous thrills.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “In prison.” He stopped looking at her hair and his finger and met her gaze. “Will be there until she dies.”

  Her hand squeezed his leg. “What the hell did she steal to get that sentence?”

  “Her accomplice, the driver of the getaway car and likely her secret boyfriend, though she won’t admit that part, got into a chase with the police. An officer and an innocent woman driving her dog to the vet were killed in the chaos.” He pounded the side of his fist against the bench. Not hard but enough to make a soft thud. “That’s how we found out about her other life. The police came to the door.”

  “I want to believe you’re trying to win me over with
a sob story, because . . .” She gave up the fight with a groan. “But you’re not, are you?”

  He shook his head. “Nope.”

  “I’m not even sure what to say.” Her family tree was bathed in death. She mourned losing her parents’ trust but she never believed she’d lost their love. The media played up the estrangement but that was more fiction than fact, or it was after those first few lonely years.

  She’d lost so much, so many people. But none of them had chosen something as stupid as stealing over her. They died. They were taken, literally ripped away from her.

  “My mom, what she did, the lies and how it destroyed my dad, it all plays a part in who I am today . . . in the choices I’ve made,” Harris said in a voice barely above a whisper.

  “Have you been to a therapist?” She didn’t even know if the question fit in with this conversation, but she felt the need to ask it.

  “I don’t really need one to figure out why I am the way I am.” He snorted. “The cause and effect is pretty clear.”

  A terrible thought hit her. “Please tell me you don’t rob banks.”

  He shifted in his seat until their shoulders touched. His hand slipped over hers, his fingers entwined with hers. “I’ve never robbed a bank.”

  She settled against him, letting the warmth of his body wrap around hers. “I’ve seen a therapist on and off for years just to figure out how to get up in the morning.”

  “Was it like that before your parents and your sister?”

  She wanted to lie. She prided herself on keeping it together. Through the accusations and all the ugly comments hurled at her, she’d hung on to that. She soldiered through. Admitting that at some point it hadn’t been that easy really meant admitting she’d once allowed herself to be vulnerable. She had vowed never to do that again.

  But blame the caress of his thumb over the back of her hand or the fire or the intoxicating crackle and smell of burning wood, her defenses refused to rise. Before she could think about it, the words tumbled out. “I always suffered from not-good-enough issues. Weirdly enough, losing my parents changed that. It was as if something shifted inside me and what used to matter didn’t anymore. I no longer worried about failing because I was too busy being sick about never seeing them again.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “I just want to preserve their memories, you know?” She ached to make them proud of her.

  “We all have secrets, Gabby. We all have reasons to grab a shovel and dig in the yard.” His gaze searched her face as he talked. “That doesn’t make you guilty of killing your sister, and I get that. I know the difference between the secrets we hide out of self-preservation and the sins we deserve to shoulder.”

  The man knew the right thing to say. The soft words, the understanding, it broke through. She was thrown back into the same state from last night. She needed to be touched and held. Not by just anyone, but by him. “Any chance I can lure you back to the guesthouse?”

  “So long as you understand I’m a bad bet.” There was no amusement in his voice. “Sex, I get. Heat, attraction, bodies—all good. But if you’re looking to believe in someone, I’m not your guy.”

  He was actually warning her off. It would have been cute if she didn’t want this so much.

  “Can I trust you not to say something annoying while I get your clothes off?” she asked.

  He shot her that sexy smile that melted her resistance and more than a few brain cells. “I think I can control my impulses for that long.”

  “That’s good enough for now.”

  Chapter 10

  Harris blocked out every word, every doubt. The voice at the back of his head shouted for him to stop. She deserved better. She needed to hear the truth. All true, but he didn’t exactly lie to her. Not exactly. She knew he was holding back . . . they both were.

  His emotions volleyed back and forth as they made the slow walk to the guesthouse. The stay-away-from-her side won by a mile but he couldn’t make himself break away. He’d spent so much of his time knowing her—most of which she didn’t know he existed—floundering in a quicksand of guilt. Before they exchanged one look he’d already failed her.

  Every argument and bit of common sense told him to step back. To put a wall between them. But the minute he thought about the solution, he abandoned it. His need for her veered into the wild and uncontrollable. Maybe if they had this one time he could find some sort of equilibrium. Either that or the guilt would plunge him under once and for all.

  He had no idea how they made it across the lawn without tripping. The walk started out fine. Hurried, but fine. No touching. Then the back of his hand brushed against hers and he practically climbed on top of her. He wrapped his arms around her. His hands roamed all over her. By the time they got to the guesthouse they were locked in a blinding kiss.

  He pressed her back against the door, held her there with a hand on either side of her head. Need pounded inside him and he poured it into the kiss. No holding back. The air between them thrummed with electricity. And when her fingers went to the button on the top of his jeans he almost lost it.

  “Inside.” The pent-up feelings for her had him barking out the order.

  Her mouth went to his neck as she reached behind her and turned the knob. The door opened and they almost fell through the opening, but he caught her just in time. He held her, walking her backward. They knocked against a table and thumped into the wall. A lamp tipped and rocked on its base but thanks to some miracle didn’t fall over.

  Through it all he kept kissing her. He couldn’t stop. Her mouth lured him in. Her scent and those hands.

  He tugged the bottom of her shirt out of her cargo pants. His fingers fumbled with the buttons until she pushed his hands away. She had the material open and dropping to the floor while he worked on her pants zipper. He lowered it tick by tick as they passed through the doorway to the bedroom.

  Her weight shifted while she kicked off one sneaker then the other. Then she was sitting on the edge of the bed with her hand running over the front of his jeans. She’d gotten the button open, but they balanced on his hips.

  “God, Gabby. Do it.” He wanted the zipper down and his clothes off.

  He didn’t even need to say the words. She leaned forward and pressed a kiss against him. Outlined his bulge with her fingers. Caressed him through the material until he sucked in his stomach on a sharp hiss. Then she did it again.

  Looking down was like every fantasy come to life. He skimmed his fingers through her soft hair. Watched as her mouth worked and her hands traveled over him. She was open and honest in this. For a person who shut down and closed herself off, she didn’t hide now.

  So sexy.

  She lifted up long enough to kick her pants off. She sat there, wearing only a simple white bra and the sexiest little pair of bikini underwear he’d ever seen. He itched to strip it all off her, but there was no way he was skipping this part.

  Her hands slid inside the waistband of his jeans as she tugged the zipper down. The pants slipped over him. He was so hard, so sensitive, that the rough scratch of the material had his hips pushing forward.

  Hot and wet, her mouth covered him, surrounded him. She squeezed the base of his shaft and licked the tip. The mix of touching and tasting had his vision blinking out.

  “Gabby . . .” That was all he could get out. A soft whisper of need.

  His fingers slipped through her hair as he held her head close. He didn’t want to break contact. Then she licked her tongue up his length and his knees buckled. Standing above her he had the perfect view of the curve of her neck. The light danced on her skin. He could see the inviting shadow between her breasts.

  God, he wanted her.

  Unable to hold back, he put his hand under her chin and lifted her head. Her lips were wet and puffy. So damn sexy.

  “Your turn.” He almost didn’t recognize the rough sound of his own voice.

  She nodded but didn’t say a word. Using her hands and legs, she scooted u
p higher on the bed, making room for him. He didn’t hesitate. He stripped his jeans the rest of the way down his legs and took the boxer briefs with them. Naked now, he crawled up the mattress. In between her legs.

  Kneeling there, he ran his fingertips over her upper thighs and along the elastic band of her bikini bottoms. Every inch of her intrigued him. Her skin was so smooth, so perfect. A mix of lean muscle and incredible softness.

  He reached under her and skimmed his palms over her ass. She lifted her hips as he peeled her underwear off. Then he lowered his body, slipped down until his chest touched the mattress and his mouth swept over her. He blew a shot of warm air over her and her hips started to move. Her hands fisted in the comforter on either side of her.

  Lying there, she was open and ready for him. He could smell her. He slipped a finger inside her then out again and saw the wetness on his skin.

  “Harris, please.”

  He wanted to make her beg. Hear her chant his name. But he was never going to last that long.

  He needed her with him, as gone as he was. To get her there, he lowered his head. Slipped his tongue over her, inside of her. He used his fingers and his mouth, taking turns as he caressed her.

  Her legs fell open and a sweet moan escaped her throat. The sound echoed through him, testing his control. He couldn’t wait another minute. He needed to be inside her, plunging into her, feeling her close around him.

  He lifted up on his elbows. Trailing kisses over her stomach then up until he reached the edge of her bra. He couldn’t believe he’d left it on this long. He unclipped the hooks as he licked and kissed a trail to her neck. His hands worked between their heated bodies as his mouth met hers. The kisses mirrored the touches, wild and full of need.

  His heart raced in a frantic beat. It hammered hard enough to throw off his breathing. He was panting, his hands moving over her. He cupped her breasts and kissed that soft space behind her ear. His body caught fire just as the heat rose off hers.

  She caught his face in her palms. “Condom.”

  The haze cleared for a second. “Right.”

  He struggled to remember where he was as he loomed over her. The strange bedroom . . . where he put the condoms . . .