Between Hearts: A Romance Anthology Page 6

  She laughs, and it turns into a moan when she feels me pressing into her body and sliding inside her.

  “Being inside you feels like home. The only place I belong. I belong to you, Lilly.”

  She squeezes my hand and pushes up her hips under me, urging me to take over.

  “You do. You belong to me and I belong to you. You are my home, too.”

  I move with her, watching her face and reading her expressions. I know when she’s about to orgasm, and I thrust a little harder, a little faster until she comes for me. I follow her. I will always follow her, my heart beating fast and strong.

  I roll to her side after a few minutes. “Do you want to open your last wish?”

  She’s surprised. That last wish has been in the jar for four years. It has followed us to college and back home on breaks, on vacations and back to the apartment we’ve shared since freshman year at the University of Maryland, where we are both finishing our pre-med junior year, the university that both my donor and the doctor who saved my life attended. Fate at play again.

  Lilly always has the jar within sight, and right now, it sits on the nightstand next to our bed. I reach over and give it to her. I know she hasn’t opened it, nor has she ever asked me about it since that day, the day she thought she lost me.

  The jar of wishes has waited patiently to be opened again, and the time is now.

  “Are you sure?” She hesitates, not entirely convinced she should open it.

  “Yes, I’m sure. I’ve been sure my entire life. Open it.”

  She looks at me. I see wonder in her eyes. She twists the top open and gently puts the lid on the bed between us, then tilts the jar. The last folded piece of pink paper falls into her open palm.

  She closes her hand on it before setting the jar down on the nightstand behind her.

  “There’s something inside here,” she says, looking at me.

  I smile and cover her hand with mine, the folded piece of paper between our fingers.

  “I’ve loved you my entire life. I can’t remember a day that you weren’t in it. I can’t imagine a day without you. I waited this long to give you the last wish in this jar, but it’s not my last wish for you or for us. I have a thousand more wishes to fulfill, and every single one of them has you in it.”

  I kiss her fingers. “Open it.”

  She looks at her hand and carefully opens the folded paper and gasps at what she finds inside.

  “When did you do this?”

  “Yesterday, when you weren’t looking.”

  I pick up the white gold ring with the heart-cut diamond and slide it onto her finger. “I gave you my hearts, both of them.” I smile. “Will you take the rest of me and keep it forever?”

  She looks between me and the ring on her finger, and for the first time ever, she has no words. Her arms come around my neck and I can feel her tears on my skin.

  “Yes, Zac, a thousand times, a million times, yes! I love you so much. I want all of your wishes, all of your tomorrows.”

  My hands come around her, holding her to my chest. Our hearts touch, beating strong to the same tempo. “I’m thinking about a graduation wedding. What do you think?”

  “I think that would be perfect.” Her voice is muffled in my neck.

  “You haven’t read your last wish yet.”

  She pulls away from me and opens her hand to look at the last piece of paper from her jar of wishes.

  #17: I wish for forever with you.

  You Can Save a Life

  More than 121,000 people in the United States are currently on the waiting list for a lifesaving organ transplant. A new name is added to the national transplant waiting list every 10 minutes.

  On average, 22 people die every day from the lack of available organs for transplant—more than 8,000 each year.

  One deceased donor can save up to eight lives through organ donation and can save and enhance more than 100 lives through the lifesaving and healing gift of tissue donation.

  Please consider making this lifesaving choice.

  For more information, please go to:

  http://www.organdonor.gov/index.html

  About the Author

  Erica Alexander’s love affair with books started at a very early age, and the love of reading became the love of writing. When Erica is not writing, reading or daydreaming new stories, she enjoys baking, looking up pictures of hot guys on Pinterest (for research of course) and commiserating with friends over their mutual hatred of laundry.

  You can find Erica Alexander at:

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  Locked In

  Katharine Leigh

  Chapter One

  Benjamin Hertz stared at the shiny business card in his hands, not quite sure how it had gotten there. Details were fuzzy, but he remembered that last night one of the cops in the precinct where his sister’s case was being handled took pity on him and invited him over for drinks. He had been at the station every single day for the past five weeks, trying to stay in the loop. Not that they were forthcoming with information; after all, Lara’s disappearance was an ongoing investigation. At this point, Ben was pretty sure the cops considered him a fixture.

  With nothing else to do but go back to his motel and stare at the ceiling all night, he joined the officers at their usual dive. His blurry recollections offered no clue as to how a PI’s business card landed in his pocket. Clueless seemed to be his default these days.

  He groaned and disentangled himself from the sheets. A glance at the clock told him he passed out for about eight hours. It was the most his brain had shut off since he received the news about his baby sister. His head fell back to the dusty pillow with a soft thud.

  Five weeks. Lara had not been seen in five weeks.

  He was a mathematician. He loved numbers and statistics. Unlike people, numbers rarely lied. He knew the odds of a good outcome diminished by the minute. His eyes misted and in an attempt to stop the futile tears, he looked again at the little card.

  Del Stark, PI.

  It didn’t have a phone number, just an address. Guess they took their anonymity seriously, which was a good thing considering their line of work. He had considered recurring to the private sector to aid the investigation before, but regard to his bank account and the hope that the police would solve the mystery held him back. All his life, he had respected institutions. They existed for a reason. After thirty-eight days, three hours, thirty minutes and counting, however, that trust had dwindled.

  Newly determined, he got up from bed and set his askew glasses straight. He slept with his glasses on? Jesus, he hadn’t been drunk like that since before grad school.

  He would put his meager resources to good use and hire that PI.

  “But first, a shower,” he said out loud, feeling slightly silly for talking to an empty room. Whatever, it boosted his optimism. He’d take what he could get.

  * * *

  Forty minutes later, he stood in front of the building listed on the card. It was situated in a good neighborhood. Kind of inconspicuous. He entered the foyer, which was much more luxurious than he expected from the exterior. He doubled his efforts in forgetting about his relatively scant funds. After all, universities tended to frown upon their professors taking leaves of absence overnight. He might not have a job when he got back to Oklahoma, but finding his sister took priority.

  Ben made his way to the reception desk. There was no one in sight, so he lingered for a few minutes, looking around distractedly until he heard a small voice talking to him from under the desk.

  “Who are you?” demanded the distinct voice of a child.

  “My name is Benjamin. Who are you?” he asked just as rudely when the little girl emerged from under the desk. He judged her to be around six years old. She was wearing glasses almost as thick as his own and two very high pigtails.

>   “Madeline, but people call me Maddie. Stupid nickname. I’m not mad,” she sighed, clearly aggravated.

  He hid a smile.

  “Nice to meet you, Madeline,” he replied, puzzled as to why they would leave such a small girl alone where anyone could enter.

  “Your skin is very brown,” she stated, narrowing her magnified eyes at him.

  “Your hair is very yellow. Your point?” He arched an eyebrow at her.

  “I would like to have brown skin, but my mommy also has yellow hair, so I can only be a yellow,” she explained to him patiently. He detachedly recognized the urge to explain genetics to the girl, but his professor persona had been getting quieter each day.

  “Blonde,” he corrected her.

  She rolled her eyes.

  “Is your mom around?” he asked, figuring her mom must be the receptionist.

  Madeline looked confused. “Why would my mommy be around?” she asked.

  “Madeline Scarlett Avery, what are you supposed to be doing down there?” a man yelled from the stairs to the left of the reception area.

  Maddie’s eyes widened and she hid beneath the desk again.

  “I already saw you, young lady.” The man, a young Hispanic guy, glared at the general direction of where she was. “I’m sorry, it will just be a moment,” the newcomer addressed Ben.

  He nodded in acknowledgement.

  “But Greg, I was just trying to unlock the drawer where you keep my candies,” the little girl said, adopting a ridiculously funny reasonable tone, reemerging from her hideout.

  ¨You’re just digging yourself deeper here, Mads,” Greg deadpanned.

  ¨Digging? I’m not digging anything. I’m trying to pick the lock.” She frowned and raised a metal nail file that was previously hidden under the desk.

  Ben snorted a laugh as Greg muttered a “Lord, have mercy.”

  “Your mother will be extremely disappointed in you, Maddie.” Greg shook his head at the girl.

  Her shoulders sagged.

  “You cannot pick that lock with that; you need this.” He grinned and produced another silvery thing from his pocket.

  Maddie grinned back and jumped to retrieve the instrument from Greg’s hand. The man raised a finger signaling to wait when Ben opened his mouth to intervene. The girl put her little tongue out in a gesture of extreme concentration.

  Madeline yelped in triumph when she managed to open the drawer.

  “You can have one candy bar,” the man said.

  The girl dove into the bag so fast, you’d think it contained the secrets of the universe. For a child, Ben supposed that might be true. Lara had been just like that when she was little. He barely felt a pang at the thought anymore.

  “I’m looking for Del Stark?” Ben’s statement came out as a question.

  Greg was watching the little girl run back upstairs with a fond smile, which disappeared when he heard Ben’s inquiry and was replaced with a confused frown. Sighing inwardly, Ben handed him the card.

  “Ah.” Greg’s eyes lit up in understanding. “Follow me, please,” he added and took the stairs Madeleine took a few seconds earlier.

  Whatever Ben was expecting to find when he reached the top floor was nothing like what he found. The place was barely organized chaos. There were several magazine cutouts spread on every wall with Post-Its placed around with random words on them. There were four desks overflowing with folders in all colors, coffee mugs literally everywhere, mismatched chairs spread out across the room, a collection of lamps in all shapes to the left, and clocks to the right. There were so many details it was hard to take it all in with only one glance. Ben guessed it would take super honed investigative skills to find any particular item in the room.

  Greg didn’t stop walking until he reached a door by the end of a wide corridor, knocking lightly. He gestured for Ben to follow him, without waiting for an answer from the other side.

  “What is it, Gregory? I haven’t finished my morning puzzle yet,” muttered an accented voice from behind a newspaper.

  Ben blinked. It was a female, British-sounding voice. He was sort of expecting a middle-aged, balding man with a Boston accent. Who might even be wearing a fedora and smoking a cigarette. Well, that’ll teach him to make assumptions. After all, he was hardly the distressed Lady in Peril who often hired detectives in movies.

  Greg reached behind the newspaper and shoved the card at the woman’s face.

  She let out an annoyed huff and lowered her puzzle. “What is the matter with you, Gregory?”

  She gave the younger man a narrowed look. Her eyes were too assessing to belong to anyone other than a detective. She directed her gaze Ben’s way, and he could only blink stupidly back at her.

  As a general rule, he did not like white women. Yes, he could appreciate beauty in all forms, shapes and colors. However, to like someone there had to be more than that, and all his previous experiences with women found that more than that only came in women of color. Except all his previous experiences liking women had not prepared him at all for what he felt in that moment. If he were prone to poetics, he’d say that his molecules rearranged and somehow, even though he was in a difficult situation in life at the moment, everything in his universe righted itself the second she looked at him.

  Her face was too angular to be classically beautiful, but there was symmetry in her features that appealed to his core. She had dark brown hair pulled up in one of those fashionable messy buns. Her porcelain skin had a faint blush, a healthy glow like the kind you get after working out. Her cherry red lips were thin, but had a slight bow to them. Her wide eyes were coffee brown.

  “And who is this?”

  Ben had somehow forgotten—along with his own name and other irrelevant information—that she spoke with a British accent. Yeah. He was officially in trouble.

  “My name is Benjamin Hertz.” He cleared his throat and looked down at his shoes, trying to get his bearings. Christ, he was acting like a blushing school boy. Could he get any lamer? He peripherally noted that Gregory had left the room and shut the door behind him.

  “And to what do I owe the pleasure?” the woman asked, extending her hand in greeting.

  “I’m sorry, are you Del Stark?” he replied with his own question, shaking her hand.

  Her eyes narrowed fractionally, and her gaze turned speculative. In response, he extended the little black card to her. She frowned and looked back at him openly confused. Ben had the impression that such displays from this woman were not frequent.

  As soon as that thought formed in his head, she smoothed her features and stood up from her chair. She walked around him, and he nervously followed her with his eyes.

  “Young, smart, definitely an academic, probably physics or mathematics. If I had to guess a personality, I’d say you’re one of those idealistic hero types who carries the weight of the world on his shoulders. Drank yourself to stupidity recently; you reek of whiskey. Mint?” She paused in her monologue to indeed offer him a mint. Ben took it automatically, blinking. She kept on talking not to him, but about him. “You haven’t been sleeping in your bed for a while. It’s likely you cannot afford my services, and yet here you are. Tell me, Benjamin Hertz.” She stopped her pacing directly in front of him. “What have you lost?”

  Chapter Two

  “My sister,” Ben croaked. “Lara. She’s been missing for thirty-eight days and five hours.”

  Her expression lit up in understanding. He was glad one of them was following. It definitely wasn’t him. The woman returned to her seat, motioning for him to sit down as well.

  “Del Stark was my father. He had the brilliant idea of naming me after him. I’m Delaney,” she continued happily. She had a dimpled smile, he noted. “And how are the boys at the 15th? I haven’t seen that old dog Caruthers in ages.”

  “How did you do that?” Ben blurted out.

  Delaney didn’t pretend to misunderstand the question. “I can see more when I talk.” She shrugged as if that explained eve
rything. “Did Caruthers give you something else for me? He wouldn’t have sent you to me empty-handed.” She looked at him expectantly.

  “He didn’t,” Ben admitted. That could have technically been a lie, since he had no recollection of Detective Caruthers even giving him the card at all.

  “Talk me through Lara’s disappearance,” Delaney demanded while smoothing the wrinkles out of her newspaper and putting it in a drawer. Her desk, unlike the preceding room, was impeccable. He noted with vague surprise that her newspaper wasn’t in English; she’d been completing a crossword puzzle in an undetermined European language. He recognized some of the characters from the time he dated a girl from the linguistics department some years ago.

  “I hadn’t heard from her in a while,” he started before she interrupted.

  “What’s a while? Be as precise as you can muster.”

  “About nine months,” he continued. “And then, one night I received a call from her. I was at a lecture, so it went straight to voicemail. She was frantic, talking nonsense. I heard it the morning after because she called from a private number, and I figured it was a telemarketer so not a priority. She never parts from her cell phone, so it didn’t occur to me… The weird thing is, her roommate had already reported her missing two days before Lara made that call.” Ben cleared his throat, fighting the urge to fidget.

  “So she was still alive days after she disappeared,” Delaney stated, nodding along. Standard police procedure was to wait forty-eight hours to consider an adult person missing, Ben had learned.

  He nodded mutely.

  “I’m going to need access to this message, Mister Hertz.”

  He dialed his voicemail, handing it to her right before his sister’s voice blared out. He watched Delaney as she listened attentively to the message he knew by heart.

  Benny, I screwed up. I’m so sorry. I hope you got the package… give it to Trent when he finds you. I never should’ve trusted Eli… Please get [static sounds] I’m so scared, Benny. You have to—