Forever Never

Brick was sound asleep, his body wrapped around Remi’s in a tangle of limbs and sheets, when his phone chimed three times in rapid succession on the nightstand.

Remi grumbled into her pillow.

Whatever the notification was, it could wait until he’d gotten at least two more hours of sleep. He buried his face in Remi’s neck. She smelled like him. It made him half-hard. But it was too early, and she’d be sore after their fun and games last night in the alley and the office. And then again in an actual bed when they got home.

Home. She was staying. She’d chosen him and this place he loved. She was committing to building a life with him here. And he was going to do whatever it took to finalize his claim on her. Starting with locking up Vorhees. The next order of business was a fucking ring. He’d force it on her finger with his cock inside her if it was necessary.

That’s where she surrendered to him, trusting him completely to take care of her body. After so many years of chasing after her, the rush of possessing her physically was indescribable. And it already wasn’t enough. He wanted the commitment. The papers. The fuss and celebration. The acknowledgment of the world that she was his.

His phone rang obnoxiously on the nightstand.

Remi growled. Smiling into her hair, he squeezed her sweet little ass before rolling over and reaching blindly for the phone.

“Hello?” he rasped.

“Brick, it’s Juanita Houston from the coffee shop. Sorry for calling this early after you had such a late night at the bar.”

Juanita ran the cafe across the street from the ferry landing and knew everything about everybody.

“What can I do for you, Juanita?” he said, trying to muffle a yawn.

Remi rolled over to snuggle up against his back, and he looked down at her, feeling his chest flood with warmth. She didn’t look angelic in the early morning light. She looked more like a nymph, recharging her energy just to cause more trouble.

The wave of love, of possession, that crashed over him threatened to level him.

“I know you asked a few of us to keep an eye out for that Vorhees fellow.”

His muscles tensed, and he jackknifed up.

“Yes,” he said, his voice terse.

“Well, you know how I don’t mind a little digging—”

Naked, Brick launched himself off the bed and headed for the closet, snatching his gun off the dresser. “Did you see him? Here?”

Remi stirred on the bed behind him.

“Oh. No, no. Not anything like that.” Juanita chuckled.

He blew out a breath and closed his eyes.

“But I think I saw his wife get off the first ferry.”

He glanced at his watch. The ferry would have landed less than ten minutes ago.

Swearing under his breath, he reached for his sweatpants.

“Was she with anyone? Did you see which way she went?”

“I got swamped with the morning rush,” she said. “But I figured I should let you know.”

“Thanks, Juanita,” he said, dragging on the pants and sweatshirt.

“Oh, sure. I’ll keep an eye out and let you know if I see her again or that Vorhees guy.”

“Appreciate it,” Brick said. He hung up and jammed his feet into sneakers, leaving them untied.

“What’s going on?” Remi asked groggily.

“Nothing, baby. Go back to sleep,” he said, pausing only long enough to press a kiss to her forehead.

“Nothing doesn’t require a gun,” she rasped after him. But he was already on the stairs.

The doorbell rang just as he hit the first floor. Keeping his gun at the ready, he reached for the deadbolt and threw open the door.

“Dad?” Brick was dumbstruck on his own doorstep.

“Camille?” Remi, dressed only in one of his t-shirts, pushed past him and carefully wrapped her arms around the woman standing next to his father.

She reminded him of one of his grandmother’s prized swan figurines. Delicate and lovely. Spencer had broken it accidentally, in the midst of gangly puberty when he’d had no more control over his own body than a marionette.

The swan had shattered, its long graceful neck snapped. But instead of careless accidents, Camille’s porcelain skin bore the evidence of grisly, purposeful violence.

“Oh, my God,” Kimber, pink-cheeked and hair tousled, appeared on the porch behind his father.

“Where were you?” Brick asked.

“Uh. Out for a run.”

She was a shit liar, but he had much bigger fish to fry.

“What’s going on?” Ian demanded.

“Nothing, sweetheart, go upstairs,” Kimber said, stepping past Brick and urging her son toward the staircase. “If you go back to bed for half an hour, I’ll make you chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast.”

“With gluten and syrup?” Hadley asked, peering over the railing from the second floor.

“Get inside,” Brick snapped at William. A rage so fierce bubbled in his blood he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to control it.

His own father baited the trap. Warren Vorhees would track his wife right to Brick’s door. Right to Remington.

“Come on,” Remi said softly, coaxing Camille across the threshold.

Brick watched, helpless, as she walked stiffly, carefully, like a woman decades older. There was a pained weariness in her gaze as it landed on his face.

“I’m so sorry to drop by unannounced like this,” she said. Even through a split lip and bruised jaw, she had polish and breeding written all over her.

“Kimber, can you take my friend Camille back to the kitchen and make her some tea while I get her room ready?” Remi asked.

“Tea with bourbon. And my sister and kids made cookies yesterday,” Kimber told Camille as she guided the woman away.

Brick’s throat was closing in on itself, fury choking him. He couldn’t even look his father in the eyes.

Before he could force out any of the words that clogged his throat, Remi had walked into his father’s arms and wrapped him in a hug. “Thank you, Mr. Callan,” she whispered. “Thank you for bringing my friend to me. You saved her life.”

It was the tears bright in Remi’s eyes that had Brick putting a stopper in his anger.

His father hugged her back awkwardly, a myriad of emotions flickering over his face. Awe. Embarrassment. Gratitude.

His Remi didn’t see a criminal, a con man. She saw a man who brought her friend home.

“I know it’s not ideal,” William said. “But he went after her, and I couldn’t walk away. Couldn’t leave her there.”

“You did exactly the right thing, and I’ll be grateful to you for the rest of my life. You knew she’d be safe here. You knew Brick would keep her safe.”

His father bobbed his head before looking to gauge Brick’s reaction.

Remi pressed a kiss on his whiskered cheek, then did the same to Brick. “Be kind,” she whispered to him before running up the stairs.

William Callan II looked much older than the last time Brick had seen him. His hair had gone gray, and it was shaggy and thinning on top. He’d put on some weight. A little paunch around the middle. He looked how a doting grandfather should. Not a felon.

“What the hell happened?” Brick demanded harshly.

“I’ve been keeping an eye on Vorhees like you asked. He comes and goes, flies to D.C. a lot. But this is the first time she’s been out of the house on her own. No husband, no security. She just went shopping. When she got back to the parking garage, he was waiting behind her car. He grabbed her. There wasn’t anyone else around, and he just lost his damn mind. He hit her in the face, and she went down.”

“What did you do, Dad?”

“I did what I had to do. I called 911 and then hit the son of a bitch over the head with the bat I keep in the car. I picked her up, helped her into my car, and we took off.”

“You drove straight here?” Brick ran the calculations.

“Straight through. Six hours. Police scanner picked up a mugging victim in the parking garage about forty minutes after we left.”

“Fuck.”

“He’s a goddamn monster, son. I witnessed it firsthand. I’ll say it in any court of law.”

“You better hope you get the opportunity. Do you know who you’re messing with? Do you know who you just brought to my island? To my doorstep?” To his woman. His future.

“I do know.” William’s tone was serious. “But what else was I supposed to do, Will?”

“It’s Brick,” he corrected automatically.

His father blinked. “Brick? As in brick wall?”

“Pretty much.” He rubbed a hand over his forehead. He had too many things he needed to be doing right now. Too many preparations to make to have this conversation. “Look, make yourself at home. Or whatever. I need to make some calls.”

“Sure,” William said. “If you don’t mind, I’ll go check in on Cami. We bonded a little bit on our drive.”

“Fine. Whatever,” Brick said, already lost in preparations.

His father hurried off in the direction of the kitchen.

“Uncle Brick?” Hadley appeared on the bottom step, hand wrapped around the newel post.

“Yeah, Had?” he said wearily. He had a houseful of women that needed protecting. A houseful of women who would deny that until the bitter end. And his own father had goaded a madman.

“Are you mad at that man for bringing Aunt Remi’s friend here?”

Yes. “No. I’m…concerned.”

“Is she in trouble?”

He was big on protecting kids from ugly truths whenever he could. But in this instance, innocence needed to take a backseat to vigilance.

“She is. And that trouble could come here, Hadley. So I need you to keep an eye out. You’re a good observer. If you see anyone paying too much attention to this house, or to your aunt Remi, I need to know. Got it?”

She nodded solemnly. “I’ll keep watching.”

Going on instinct, he gave the girl a one-armed hug and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “We’ll all be okay,” he promised.

She gave him a small smile. “I know we will. You’re here.”

“Go check on your brother, okay? Make sure he isn’t brushing Mega’s teeth with my toothbrush.”

She shot him a smile and disappeared up the stairs.

He gave himself a beat to think and then fished his phone out of his pants pocket.

Brick: Emergency. My place. How soon can you be here?

Chief Ford: Is there blood or do I have time for coffee?

Brick: No blood. But get it to go.

Chief Ford: Be there in 5.

Brick locked the deadbolt on the front door and bounded up the stairs two at a time. He found Remi in the guest bedroom next to theirs. She’d laid out some of her own clothes on the bed and was karate chopping the bed pillows with more violence than style.

He watched her as she moved around the room. Tension in her jaw and shoulders. Every few moments, she’d stop and take a deep breath. Over and over again, the tension built and rose until she breathed it out.

“Fuck,” she muttered under her breath. She hurled a useless pillow against the wall and brought her hands to her face.

He went to her, banding his arms around her and holding on tight.

“None of this would be happening if I had gotten her out earlier,” she whispered against his chest. “If I had talked her into it. Hell, if I had kidnapped her and thrown her in my trunk and driven to Rhode Island.”

“None of this is your fault.”

“It’s not your father’s either,” she shot back.

He clenched his jaw. “He’s going to bring Vorhees right to you.”

She pulled back and looked up at him. “We both know he was always going to come for me. I never should have led him here.” Her voice broke, and it took a jagged piece of his heart with it.

He hugged her hard, wishing he could keep her right there, against his chest, locked in his arms where she was safe.

“Listen to me, Remington. None of this is your fault. This is how it’s playing out. There’s no point in wishing away how it started. What matters is how we’re ending it.”

“I hope it ends with my foot in his balls,” she whispered fiercely.

He vowed the man would never make it that close to her. Because if he did, a pair of handcuffs and a jail cell weren’t going to be enough.

“I need you to focus on Camille. She’s going to have to talk.”

Remi’s hands fisted in his sweatshirt like she couldn’t bear any space between them. He knew the feeling.

“He’s going to come for you, Brick.”

He hoped to fucking God that was the way it went down. He wanted his shot at the man who haunted Remi’s dreams.

“Don’t think like that,” he told her, stroking his hand over her hair. It settled him to slide his fingers through all that red gold.

“He’s going to come for Camille. And me. And you because it will hurt me.”

“I’m not going to let that happen.” He would walk through the fires of hell first.

“I know you won’t.”

There was something else happening in those beautiful green eyes. Another worry that had surfaced.

“Tell me what else is wrong,” he said gruffly.

She pulled in a shaky breath. “Is there something wrong with me that I want to be treated like…like I do when Camille was being hurt at home?”

His heart rolled over in his chest. Brick closed his eyes and took a breath. “Remington.”

A single tear rolled down her cheek and broke his fucking heart.

“You know it’s different.”

She sniffled. “I know you’re different. But does it mean there’s something wrong with me that I like it when my best friend…”

“Baby, come here.” He couldn’t stand watching her worry her way through this alone. He sat on the bed and pulled her into his lap. “What we do together, we agree on.”

“Technically don’t Camille and Warren have an agreement? She stays or he’ll kill her.”

Brick tucked her head under his chin. “This is different. You’re the one who told me that nothing we do together is wrong.”

She nodded. “And I believe that. I really do. It’s just it feels muddled in my head right now. Like maybe I shouldn’t want it. Or it shouldn’t make me feel so…safe? So I don’t know, treasured?”

He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Baby, what we have is different. This isn’t me controlling you with physical force. You know that, right?”

She nodded. “It is about control, but you don’t want to control me. You like it when I surrender to you.”

He fucking lived for it. A wild creature like Remi giving up control to him, trusting him to take care of her, was a potent turn-on. It filled a void in him that he hadn’t known existed.

“I do,” he agreed. “And you like submitting to me and letting me take that control. We both get something out of it. It’s a mutual agreement. A mutual satisfaction. Do you know that I would never hurt you in that way?”

“Don’t be a dumbass just because I’m being one,” Remi said.

“Then you also need to realize that if someone tried to hurt you the way Vorhees hurts Camille, I’d end him.”

She stiffened in his arms and didn’t relax until he began to rub little circles in her neck with his fingers.

“I’m not trying to humiliate you or control you, Remi. I’m trying to give you what you need. In return, you give me the same.”

“What do you need?” she asked softly, melting against him.

“I get off on having the uncontrollable Remington Ford do what I say. But, baby, when we have our clothes on and we’re out in public, if you started playing submissive with me, I’d lose my damn mind. I love your wild side. I love your fearlessness. I love your independence even when it drives me fucking crazy. When you let me take you, when you give yourself to me? There’s nothing more intoxicating in the world than you thinking I’m good enough to surrender to.”

She was like one of the wild stallions that the ranch he’d worked on would round up every winter. They called it breaking, and some men went into it with the intent to break the horse’s spirit. But in its truest form, it was about earning the respect of a wild thing. The grudging regard didn’t make the horse any less wild. It didn’t make it much easier for someone else to seat. But earning that respect made Brick feel like more of a man than if he’d taken it, broken it. Fear was no replacement for respect.

And that was something Vorhees didn’t understand.

She let out the breath that she’d been holding. “Now, see, when you say it like that, I feel like an idiot for getting it confused. I mean, I’m not going to say, ‘Hey, Camille, I get really excited when Brick pins me down and bangs me sixty ways to Sunday after spanking me.’”

He groaned as his cock stirred against her. She snuggled closer. “But I also don’t have to feel so guilty about it now.”

“It’s that easy?” he asked.

She looped her arms around his neck. “It’s that easy. You do what you do to please me, not hurt me. And pleasing you amps up my pleasure into the stratosphere. We’re like two missing puzzle pieces that finally fit together.”

He needed a ring on her finger. Needed that piece of paper binding her to him.

He held her quietly and waited for her to get to the next thing that was bothering her. He could feel it simmering under the surface.

“While we’re on the subject,” she began.

He smiled and pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

“Have you ever…done this with…anyone else?” Her fingers were tugging at the hair on his neck.

He nudged her chin up to look at him. “You’re the only one.” She always had been. Somehow all those years ago, he’d known and he’d waited.

After a decade and a half of missteps, they’d found their way back to each other.

“So not even with Audrey?” she asked in a tiny voice.

“No,” he said, stroking a hand over her hair and admiring the way it gleamed under the light. A thought occurred to him that had him tensing. “Have you?”

“With Audrey? No,” she said, feigning seriousness.

“Remi,” he warned.

She shook her head. “I wouldn’t have even known how to ask for it,” she admitted.

He relaxed slowly. “I hate thinking about you being with anyone else,” he admitted.

“Think how I felt,” she said.

“About what?”

“When you married Audrey. On your wedding night. On your first anniversary. Just imagine if it had been me and Spence,” she said.

The slice of pain was instantaneous, as if she’d jammed a knife between his ribs. How would he have survived that? How would he have looked across the breakfast table when they’d come to visit him? Would the four of them have been friends? While he pined for the girl his brother had?

“Jesus. Remi,” he said. His heart felt like it was in a vice.

“I remember your wedding day,” she continued, oblivious to the fact that he was one second away from groveling on the floor for her forgiveness. “I was here. In my parents’ house. In my room. I told them I had the flu so they’d go without me. I couldn’t go near that church. I couldn’t be here anymore. Not when I knew I’d see you two looking so happy together. Not when I wanted it to be me. I emptied my savings and I bought a ticket to Chicago while you were saying your vows.”

Vows that had made him sweat. He’d loved Audrey. In his own way. And she’d been in love with at least the idea of him. But it had never been right.

“Baby.”

“It’s selfish, but I’m glad you saved this for me,” she said.

“Only you,” he said fiercely.

She exhaled slowly. “Speaking of Audrey and Spencer. Would you be upset if they got together?”

Brick shrugged. “Why would I care?”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and squeezed. “Good answer, because I think they’re banging.”

“Speaking of, I just busted your sister doing the walk of shame up our porch steps.”

Remi squirmed against him. “Are you serious?”

“Said she was out for a run.”

“My sister doesn’t run,” she scoffed.

“She was wearing Kyle’s law school sweatshirt.”

“What a weird day,” she said, grinning up at him.

“I love you, Remington.” He felt like he was being swept away by a current stronger than he was. It was both terrifying and exhilarating.

“I love you, Brick. Now, let’s go downstairs, solve everyone’s problems, and go back to bed so I can show you with my mouth just how much I love you.”