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“I know, but it feels… I don’t know what I feel. But now the winery—”
I cup her face. “Do not make this about the winery. That is your money. That is your first big success.”
“But Nick—”
I kiss her. “No buts. We’ll deal with the winery. This is for you. Okay?”
“Yes. Okay.”
“Good. Now. Let’s go home.”
“Your home.”
“My home,” I say. “That is far better with you in it.” I turn her toward the car, and she’s still trembling. And the depth of her emotional response affects me. Everything about Faith affects me.
…
Thirty minutes later, Faith and I are standing by my bed, her shoes kicked off, and she is finally coming down from her high, her body calming. “I’m completely wiped out,” she says. “I think you are going to wish I was someone else tonight.”
I cup her head and pull her to me. “What did you say?” I don’t give her time to reply. “That came from someplace I’d most likely name as Macom. I’m not him. And we are more than the sum of how many times we manage to fuck each other. And for the record. To repeat what I’ve already said. I don’t want anyone else.”
Her lashes lower. “I think that was possibly the most perfect thing you could say to me right now.”
In that moment, I remember her comment about Macom competing with her, and I decide Faith thinks her success comes with punishment. A problem I need to fix. For now, I kiss her, a soft brush of lips over lips, before I turn her around and unzip her dress, dragging it down her shoulders. Her bra is next. Then her hose, but I leave the panties, and as much as it kills me, I hold up the blanket and urge her to climb under. She turns around and faces me, pressing herself against me.
“You feel good, sweetheart, but you’ll feel better when you’re rested. Climb into bed. I’ll be right there after I make sure I’ve locked up.”
“You, Nick, are nothing I expected.”
“You, Faith, are nothing I expected.”
She kisses my cheek, a mere peck, which might be the best kiss this woman has given me, and I don’t fucking have a clue why. It’s a peck, but it’s sweet. It’s emotional in some unnamed way, and I like it. She climbs into bed. My bed. And damn, I like her there more now than I did this morning. She snuggles down in the blankets, and I walk to the door, where I find myself just staring at her, watching as her breathing slows and turns even. She’s asleep. She trusts me. Damn it, I need to solve this mystery so I can tell her everything and deal with the aftermath.
I exit the bedroom and head down the stairs to my office, walking to a chair in the corner and removing a box I have shoved underneath it. Stacks of my father’s papers. I shrug out of my jacket, pull away my tie, and start going through them again. Somewhere in here is my answer. I just have to find it. Time passes. Documents are read. My eyes are blurry. Finally, I decide I have to go to bed. I’m stuffing the papers back in the box when a small book on legal ethics falls to the ground and a piece of paper pokes from the side. I grab it and open it to read:
Faith Winter is the problem. She’s dangerous. Far more than her mother. She must be stopped.
I stare at that piece of paper for long minutes, and I try to make sense of it. I return the box to its spot under the chair with that piece of paper inside it. I stand and walk upstairs, standing at that doorway again and at the naked woman in my bed, wondering which one of us is now exposed. Knowing it’s time to find out.
SHAMELESS
Book Two of the WHITE LIES Duet
Chapter One
Nick
Faith Winter is the problem. She’s dangerous. Far more than her mother. She must be stopped.
Those are my dead father’s words, scribbled on a piece of paper I found in his things only minutes ago. Words now burned in my mind, as I stand in the doorway of my bedroom, staring at Faith as she sleeps, moonlight from a nearby window casting her in a soft glow. Her blonde hair draped over my pillow. Her amber-and-vanilla scent a sweet whisper in the air on my skin. While the wordsshe’s dangerousrepeat in my mind again and again, radiating through me like an electric charge, but not because I trusted my father’s opinion about anything. But rather, there is no denying the fact that I did seek Faith out with the opinion that he was murdered, perhaps by her.
And he didn’t say she’s trouble or a problem or difficult. He said that she’s dangerous.
And yet, as seconds tick by, I am riveted by the image of Faithin my bed, where I invited her to sleep, and holy fuck, I like her there. Iwanther there, when I never let any other woman in my house, let alone in my bed. I’m obsessed with this woman, and as Faith herself warned yesterday, obsession is dangerous. Some—most—would say fucking a woman you suspect killed her mother and your father is dangerous, but it doesn’t seem to matter. I want her. I am crazy about this woman, and maybe that just makes me crazy.
Needing space to clear my head, I walk across the room toward the bathroom, my tie and jacket that I’d worn to tonight’s event at the Merit gallery gone, and I don’t even remember removing them. I remember Faith. Her smile as she’d been praised for her art. The way she trembled with the news of her success, when she is not a woman who trembles. Not unless it’s with pleasure. And these thoughts are exactly why I stop myself from turning back to her, because what I really want is to be in that bed with her. But, when I’m with her, touching her, kissing her, just fucking holding her, even looking at her in my bed, I am not objective. And yet, knowing this, I reach the doorway, about to escape into the quiet sanctuary of the next room, seconds from the space I need to rein in my thoughts, and fuck me, I find myself pausing in the doorway, facing the bed again.
She stirs suddenly, as if she senses me watching her, a soft, sexy sound slipping from her lips as she shifts from her side to her back, her hand settling on the pillow next to her. She instantly rolls over to where I should be, reaching for me, only to sit up, the sheet falling away, and even in the shadows, I am aware of her naked breasts, her naked body, which I know feels so damn good against mine. “Nick?” she calls out, turning in my direction, sensing me here.
