Something was bothering Morgan, but once again, she wouldn’t open up to him about it. River wasn’t sure if she didn’t trust him or if it was one of those damned Steele secrets holding her mind hostage. Either way, her stress was palpable and ruining the vibe of their weekend retreat.
So far things had been fine but hadn’t exactly gone to plan. She was here in his bed, unable to flee back to the office or the mansion, but his indulgent fantasies were still out of reach. The lights were still dim or completely darkened when they made love. And while they weren’t fully or partially clothed, she had packed a wide array of lingerie.
Normally, River would find lingerie intriguing. Silky straps, lacy panels, strategic cutouts... There wasn’t anything wrong with that. But on Morgan, it felt like a lacy barrier protecting her from something. Him, he supposed.
He’d offered to help her forget whatever was bothering her and the way she’d curled her leg around his hip seemed like an acceptance of his proposal. Her fingers were brushing over his beard and burying themselves in the thick waves of his hair. All signs pointed to her wanting him, and yet, as before, she was a little overdressed for the occasion. She’d put on a pale pink silk nightgown before she got into bed. It had to go. He’d just hold his breath to see if she stopped him.
He placed one open palm on her thigh and rubbed up her leg to her hip. River caressed the skin, skimming over her tummy and moving up beneath the chemise to cup one firm breast. He watched her reaction with curiosity, but so far, it was all okay.
Until he started pushing the gown up higher. That’s when he felt her stiffening the way she had just before she bolted from that town house. He eased back, afraid to push her too far. They weren’t in the middle of town where she could just jump up and leave. This time he was going to get to the bottom of it all.
“I need you to tell me exactly what it is that I’m doing that makes you nervous,” he said.
Morgan bit at her lip as she pushed up onto her elbows. She gently tugged the gown back down as she shook her head. “It’s nothing,” she argued.
“Okay. Then let’s take this thing off. It’s in the way and I want to see you. All of you.” River gripped at the hem to pull the silky slip of fabric over her head, but the fear in her eyes stopped him before she could argue.
“I’d rather not.”
He sighed and leaned back. “I don’t understand what you think you have to hide, Morgan. I could tell you that you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever had in my bed. I could tell you that I’ve done nothing but fantasize about you for ten years—and in all those fantasies, you were completely naked. I’m not sure it would make a difference with you, though.”
“Fantasies aren’t reality. I’m not nineteen anymore.”
“I don’t want you to be nineteen. I want you. Right now. Just as you are. And I want you to trust me when I say that I mean it. I don’t know what you could possibly be hiding. Did you get an ugly tattoo? Grow a big hairy mole? A gnarly scar? None of that matters to me. You’re beautiful, Morgan. Every inch of you.”
Her brow knit together in thought as she considered his words. “Give me a minute,” she said at last.
He considered arguing but thought better of it. If she needed a little bit of time to be comfortable with the idea, he shouldn’t push her. “Okay.”
Morgan left the bed, rummaging through her luggage for a moment and then disappeared into the bathroom. River laid back against the pillows and stared up at the skylight. A moment later, he saw a streak of light cross the sky. Maybe he would get his wish tonight and Morgan would stop holding back. The clothes and the lighting seemed like they were just a physical manifestation of the way she was resisting her feelings for him. He’d hoped getting her here away from the city and the Steeles might help.
When the bathroom door opened, all River could see was the nude silhouette of Morgan against the bright backlighting. The nightie was gone, with all of her curves on display. He could tell she was topless. The natural movement of her full breasts and their taut nipples were visible as she turned to face him, even from a distance. But as his eyes adjusted to the light, he noticed that she wasn’t entirely naked. Even after their discussion.
Morgan crossed the room, leaned over to the nightstand and flipped on the small lamp there. The light bathed the room in a golden glow that wasn’t too bright, but it was more light than he’d seen her in, as yet. Now he could see that she had on some clothing, but it was hard to complain about her choice of outfit. She had on a fire-engine red satin garter belt with red and black lace that stretched over her hips and tummy. The garters stretched down her creamy thighs and each clasp had a silk rosette that held up a sheer pair of black stockings. A hint of her bare skin was visible beneath the edge of the lace as she moved, and he was pretty sure there were no panties beneath the garter belt.
Then Morgan surprised him by turning around to give him the full view. Apparently, it wasn’t shyness that kept her partially covered. In the back, the lingerie had little more than a thin belt and another set of garters holding up the stockings. The plump curve of her bare ass was gloriously on display, confirming his suspicions about her missing panties.
“Damn,” he whispered as she turned back to face him. If she felt the need to wear something, River had to admit it was a great choice.
She pulled back the covers and slipped into the bed. “Is this okay?” she asked. “There shouldn’t be anything in your way.”
River could hardly speak for the lump in his throat. He only nodded and reached for her. “Come here,” he said at last with a rough voice.
Morgan immediately curled beside him, letting River cover every inch of her body with his own. He ran his hands over her stockings, loving the feel of them against his rough skin. She didn’t hesitate to part her silk-clad thighs as he moved higher, letting him seek out her heat with his hand.
She gasped and arched her back off the bed as he gently stroked her center. He teased at it at first, applying more pressure gradually until she was pressing her hips against his hand. He slipped one finger, then another inside of her, grinding harder until she was panting and squirming anxiously beneath him.
“I need you now, River,” she cried. “I don’t want to come without you.”
He stilled his hand, considering sending her over the edge anyway, but opted to give her what she wanted. With a condom in place, he nestled between her thighs and found his home there. He bit his lip and surged forward until he was buried deep inside her. He closed his eyes and savored the feeling of her heat wrapped around him. The soft stockings rubbing against his hips as she pulled up her legs to cradle him, the rough tickle of her lace garter belt against his stomach.
Even with that last scrap of clothing left behind, it seemed like a victory. He’d never felt closer to Morgan than he did at that moment.
She must have felt the same way, because they moved together as though they were one person. River refused to rush this time, slowing the pace to taste her mouth, her throat and her breasts. Tonight, they had all the time in the world together to enjoy this. He reveled in the sound of Morgan’s soft cries and the press of her fingertips into his shoulder blades. After the last few weeks together, he could even feel her release building up inside as her muscles tensed around him and her breath moved rapidly in her chest.
“River,” she gasped with an edge to her voice.
She was so close. He knew she would be after he’d taken her so far before. This time he wasn’t going to stop until she was screaming his name. “Don’t hold back, baby,” he whispered against the outer shell of her ear. “Just let it happen.”
River was talking about more than just her orgasm. He wanted her to stop resisting all of this. Maybe she felt like she had good reasons to hold back her feelings for River, but he didn’t want her to fight it anymore. He wanted this moment to last. Beyond tonight, beyond the weekend, beyond the key ceremony. He wanted to give this a real try without the interference of anyone else.
They deserved a second chance. A real chance, not just some fling to relive their youth and soothe their past wrongs. They both knew it meant more than that. He was lost the moment he laid eyes on her again. All the old feelings, good and bad, had rushed to the surface. With most of the bad set aside, he was tired of fighting the good.
“Yes, River!” she shouted to the empty room, clinging to his shoulders as her body was rocked with the spasm of her release. “Yes!” she cried again and again until she stilled beneath him.
It was only then that River let himself finish. He buried his face in her throat and thrust into her until he unraveled with a low groan of pleasure.
After a moment, River rolled onto his back to catch his breath. He could get used to being woken up like that more often. He stumbled into the bathroom to clean up, and when he returned a moment later, he found that Morgan had changed back into the silky chemise he’d banished from the bed earlier.
With a sigh, he climbed back under the covers, wanting so badly to say something about the outfit. Instead, he snuggled up with her and decided to enjoy their night for what it was. They’d made progress. Baby steps, but progress.
“So tell me,” he said, as they were on the edge of sleep. “It’s an awful tattoo you’re hiding, isn’t it? Do you have Kermit the Frog on your hip bone or something? Property of Big Jim?”
He was answered only with a fluffy pillow straight to the face.
“Good night, River,” was all she said.
“Good night,” he replied with a chuckle. He pulled her close against him and drifted off into a contented sleep.
* * *
Normally, when Morgan worked at Steele headquarters, she tried to stay as far away as she could from the executive suites. That was the turf of her father, brothers and others entrusted with the day-to-day running of Steele Tools. There, they discussed and worried about things she couldn’t care less about—like whether moving their manufacturing facility to China would improve their bottom line, or if a hammer looked better with the traditional Steele red or exciting new yellow rubber grips.
Tools were the family industry and she reaped the benefits of it, but that didn’t mean she had to live and breathe it the way the others did. In fact, if her father hadn’t indulged her in creating a charitable branch she could run, she wouldn’t have worked for the company at all. Several people in the family had started in the company and branched off into careers in politics or kicked off their own start-ups. Morgan felt like she would be one of those who eventually stepped out of the tool business. Into what, she had no idea.
But Tuesday morning, after her long weekend at River’s place on Kiawah Island, she marched down the hallway toward the executive offices like a woman on a mission. She ignored everyone she passed on the way to her father’s office. It was early, not even eight o’clock yet, but she knew he would be there. Her father had spent the majority of his life in this office. If he wasn’t at home, he was in his executive chair, wheeling and dealing.
His administrative assistant hadn’t come in yet, and for that, she was thankful. One less roadblock. She glanced through the glass of his office wall long enough to confirm he was there and alone, then she barged inside.
Her father shot up in surprise, nearly spilling the coffee he was sipping all over his keyboard. “Morgan!” he declared, before gently setting the coffee aside. “Is something wrong?”
“Yes. I have something I have to ask you and I need you to be honest with me.”
Trevor cocked his head curiously and gestured to the guest chair. “Okay. Why don’t you sit down, sunshine, and we can talk it all out.”
She winced at the sound of her pet name. She was not in the mood to be Daddy’s little girl. She was mad at him and she didn’t want him clouding her feelings with things like that. Still, she sat down in the chair, hovering on the edge and refusing to relax into the soft leather. “I had a discussion with River recently. He mentioned how he used the money you bribed him with to start his company. That sounds a little bit different from the version of events you told me.”
“Bribe is a strong word, Morgan.” Trevor smiled at his daughter indulgently, but she wasn’t going to let him sweet-talk his way out of this. It was her life he was toying with. She wasn’t a chess piece to be moved around at his will.
“Dad, this is no time for semantics. Did River demand the money to go or did you offer it to him?”
Trevor sat back in his chair and sighed. “What does it matter? He took the money, didn’t he? That’s the important part, isn’t it?”
“No, it isn’t. I don’t blame him for taking what was offered. What else did he have after you stole me away? What’s important is that you made me believe that he had demanded that money to go away quietly. You told me that you had to pay him off to keep him from stalling the annulment and demanding a part of my estate since I was too naïve to get a prenuptial agreement. You told me he threatened to go to the newspapers about our affair if you didn’t write him a check on the spot. None of that was true, was it?”
Trevor watched her for a moment, the muscles in his jaw tensing. “No, it wasn’t true,” he admitted at last. “I told you that so you’d keep away from him. He wasn’t the right boy for you, but you were too blinded by young love to see it. I offered him the money in the hopes he’d take it and disappear. And he did. So things worked out in the end, didn’t they? He’s a success. You’re doing well. No harm, no foul.”
She shook her head. “I can’t believe this. When he told me about the money, there was a part of me that was certain this was just his way of getting me to move past it. But River was telling the truth. You bribed him, and then made me think he was just a gold digger using me to get to my money.”
“I thought it was for the best, sunshine. It was a story so awful that it would make the break clean and you wouldn’t try to run back to him when I wasn’t looking.”
“For the best? Daddy, do you realize what you did? You didn’t just break up a pair of young, foolish lovers. You broke my heart when you told me that. You made me believe that no man could ever love me just for me, that my money would always be a factor when a man showed an interest in me. It made me so suspicious that I stopped trusting people. All these years... After everything that happened...”
Trevor frowned as she spoke, but he didn’t interrupt. “Morgan, I never realized it had that kind of impact on you. I only wanted you to marry someone who was worthy of you.”
“River was worthy. He was worthy in more ways than I can count. He wasn’t rich, but he was a good person and he loved me. So tell the truth—when you say worthy, you mean rich.”
He sighed. “When you have the kind of money our family has, it’s not unheard of for people to be targeted romantically. How was I to know if River was sincere or not?”
“It would’ve helped if the first words you spoke to him weren’t, ‘Get your hands off my daughter and put on some clothes.’”
Trevor leaned closer and cocked a brow at her. “It also would’ve helped if I had met my future son-in-law before he was my son-in-law, Morgan. By secretly eloping, it seemed like you had something to hide.”
“I did. I was hiding him from you, because I knew that you wouldn’t allow us to get married.” Morgan’s gaze dropped sadly to the hands she had folded in her lap. “You’ve controlled every aspect of my life since I was a child. The moment I tried to live my own life as an adult, you shut it down.”
“You got married, Morgan. This wasn’t a nose piercing or some other type of harmless youthful rebellion. You married a boy you’d known for less than three months. Without your family. Without a prenuptial agreement. Letting you live your own life was starting out as a disaster. You were only nineteen years old.”
Morgan’s head snapped up as his words fanned the fire of anger heating her cheeks. “Stop it right there. Stop twisting this conversation into a lecture about what you think I did wrong with my life. We’re here to talk about what you did. You lied to me. You manipulated my feelings. I’m almost thirty years old and sometimes I think you’re still pulling the strings of my life like I’m some marionette puppet.”
“I think that’s a little overdramatic, Morgan.”
“Maybe, but I’m allowed to feel however I want to feel. You’re not in charge of that.” She took a moment to collect her thoughts and figure out what she wanted to say to him. “I think that perhaps having you as my father and my boss has given you too much control in my life. Perhaps some space would be healthy.”
Trevor chuckled dismissively at her words. “You can’t quit being my daughter.”
“Technically, I could. I’m sure the Nolans would be happy to see more of me. I haven’t gotten to spend as much time with them as I’d like to, but I’m pretty certain they would never tell me who I could love or decide who was good enough for me. But I couldn’t do that to the rest of the family. Or to you, no matter how badly you’ve hurt me, Daddy. But I can quit my job.”
That caught his attention. He sat upright in his chair, no doubt thinking of all the loose ends she would leave behind if she walked out the door at that exact moment. “Are you serious?”
Morgan took a deep breath and nodded. “Yes. But don’t worry, I’ll finish this year’s project. It’s too late in the game to turn it over to someone else. But after the key ceremony is over, you can consider this my notice.”
Her knees were shaking as she pushed herself up from the chair and turned her back on her father. She tried to walk to the door without losing her cool and made it as far as grasping the handle when her father spoke again.
“Does he know about Dawn?”
Morgan froze on the spot, her hand gripping the doorknob for support. She couldn’t make herself turn around or face him, because they both knew the answer to his question was no.
“You kept that from him, didn’t you? Because you thought it was for the best. That he would be hurt by the truth.”
She felt her father’s presence behind her as his hand came to rest gently but firmly on her shoulder. She didn’t flinch away from his touch, as even in this moment, it was a comfort to have him there. He was always there for her, even when she thought she didn’t need him.
“You justified keeping your daughter a secret in your mind, but if he found out about her now, don’t you think he would be angry with you?”
“Yes.” Somehow, she knew he would be. She had punished him for a crime he hadn’t committed and now they would all suffer for it.
“Now you see where I’m coming from, sunshine. I’m sorry that what I did hurt you. It was the last thing I wanted to do. But we all make choices and sometimes the right answer isn’t so easy to come by. Sometimes we end up hurting the ones we love in an attempt to protect them.”
She did understand. She didn’t want to, but she did. There was a part of her that had kept the truth about their daughter from River to protect him. But she’d also been angry with him. Now that those excuses were gone, what was keeping her silent? It was knowing that finding out the truth now would only hurt him. And that he would blame her.
“Do you think he’ll ever be able to forgive me?” she asked quietly, the words barely a whisper.
The hand on her shoulder tightened into a gentle squeeze of support. “For your sake, I hope so, honey.”