In the dining room, Ghost stood in front of the arched window, watching the rain. Even with his back to her, he seemed to radiate authority. His hands were interlocked behind his back, callused palms facing her. An officer’s stance.
He looked so…alone.
“Are you all right?” she asked softly as she took a seat on the couch.
He turned, and his eyes lightened. “I’m always better when you’re here.”
Couldn’t he just melt a girl’s heart?
He’d already set out a glass of wine and a bottle of beer on the coffee table, and he sat down beside her.
The tall windows were open, letting in the moist offshore breezes with a trace of perfume from the tropical flowers. The sound of rain was a soft pattering, accompanied by the low rumble of thunder. It felt so…right, simply to share a quiet evening with him.
He picked up her hand and curled her fingers around the wine glass. “I thought you might like this red.”
The merlot was smooth and soft with a lingering plummy taste. “It’s perfect.” She took another sip, then frowned. “You sound hoarser than normal.”
His laugh was rueful. “I was passing an accident where a pickup had smashed the rear of a sedan. The driver—a drunk guy in a suit—was bellowing at the other driver, a tiny woman who was probably about eighty. And…I might have yelled at him for a while.”
“Of course you did.” Laughing, Valerie shook her head, then eyed him. “I noticed you have some scars on your neck. Did your vocal cords get injured? Is that why you get hoarse?”
“Good guess. Back in my first days with Special Forces, I ended up too close to an explosion. Whatever hit me fractured my larynx. The vocal cords caught some damage, then picked up scar tissue, too. Could’ve been worse. I had good surgeons, so I have a voice”—he ran his hand over the scars on his neck and grinned—“and can still yell at assholes.”
He really was amazing. The only response she could find was to trail kisses from his jaw and down his neck. The explosion could so easily have killed him.
Eventually, she settled back against him and drank some of the wine he’d brought out because he knew what she liked. “So, speaking of assholes, do you think Wrecker will give up on trying to get revenge now?”
Brows drawn, Ghost sipped his beer as he thought. “Difficult to say. The manager job is only part-time, so the loss shouldn’t affect him much. However, if his ego is tied up in being a Dom, he’ll hate having lost access to the club. All the clubs.”
Gods, she really hoped Scott would leave well enough alone.
“Thank you again for what you did.” Ghost took her hand and kissed her fingers.
She moved her shoulders. “I’ve been wondering. Why do you feel as if what happened with Faylee was your fault? I can see you think that.”
His face went still. “Yes, I should explain.”
At the pain in his voice, she ran her hand through his dark gray hair. Cut in a short no-nonsense style, his hair had the wavy softness of a sheep’s fleece. “Ghost—Finn, you don’t have to tell me any of this.”
“No, if you’re playing with me, you need to know I can make mistakes.” A muscle flexed in his cheek. “Since I’d seen Faylee around, I knew she was a masochist and experienced enough to know what she liked. She said she was a pain slut and wanted to be restrained and whipped hard enough to leave lines—and it’s not an unusual request. But when she asked to be pushed, I refused since pushing boundaries isn’t something to get into with pick-up play. During the negotiations…hell, I was struggling with being there without Kelly.”
How he must have hurt. Missing his wife and trying to move on. It’d taken him a year. Then Valerie blinked. “Wait… Do you feel guilty because you didn’t catch her lie?”
“I should have seen it,” he growled. “My head wasn’t completely in the game.
Of course it hadn’t been. And Faylee had pulled a sneaky trick with spilling her drink.
Ghost wouldn’t accept her sympathy, so maybe she’d poke the bear instead to get him past this sticking point. “I guess Doms aren’t allowed to be human. I suppose I should address you as Supreme Power?”
His eyes held surprise, then narrowed.
“That would be a fine start, yes.” He set his beer down with a thump—all the warning she had before he yanked her, belly-down,