Chapter Ten #2
“None of this is your fault,” he finally said. “None. And I—God. Christ. I can’t believe any of this was happening to you. I feel so … powerless. So … furious, too. I think—I need a fucking minute.”
“Of course,” I muttered, that dread spreading. “Take as much time as you need. I totally understand.”
“No, you don’t. You can’t, because I’m not capable of telling you what I want to say. I can’t find a way to make you understand, I—” He shook his head.
My phone pinged from the console at the entrance before Turner could continue.
We both stiffened.
It did again. And again, and again.
We stood and crossed the few feet to it at the same time.
I unlocked it, Turner at my back, alert, head bouncing side to side.
He’d already checked the entirety of this room, twice.
Even set a chair against the door. I hesitated, but then unlocked it.
This was just a phone. He couldn’t hurt us through a phone.
“It’s my agent,” I said, relief making my shoulders sink. I looked up at him. “She’s just checking up on me.”
Turner didn’t look all that relieved. “Do you want to call her? I can go out into the solarium and give you some privacy.”
“The solarium?”
“I guess it used to be some sort of rooftop terrace before.” He shrugged. “There’s no chance someone could jump from a neighboring room. I checked, I promise.”
“I believe you. And I wasn’t asking because of that. I … You don’t need to give me privacy. She’s just checking in on me after hearing about the cancelation. I should have probably reached out myself. I’ll just text her back. Give me a second.”
He scratched the side of his neck, that beautiful black ink on the back of his hand distracting me, just like always. “I’ll wait there anyways. I’ll triple-check that there’s no one hiding under the hot tub or some shit. I need to make myself useful.”
My eyes widened at the already turning shape of Turner Reece. “What hot tub?”
“This is the honeymoon suite,” he threw over his shoulder, sounding almost bitter. “I thought I mentioned that on our way up.”
When I joined Turner in the solarium, he was pulling the hot tub cover back in place.
The space wasn’t large, just big enough to accommodate a couple of chairs in one section and a small platform on the other, where the hot tub was installed. It was all protected by a curved glass structure that made it look a little like a greenhouse.
If the greenhouse had survived a blizzard and was barely standing under a ton of snow.
I hugged my midsection. “So … the honeymoon suite?”
He straightened to his full height and faced me, wiping his hands on his jeans. “It was the only one available.” I frowned at that, but he beat me to it. “Do you feel weird staying in a honeymoon suite with me? Because Mia and I almost got married?”
My cheeks fired up. It felt like he was asking me only because I said that I didn’t know if I could come second to him. “I don’t know what to tell you.”
“How about the truth?”
“I …”
“I’ll start then,” he said, letting his hands drop to his sides.
“When I checked in and saw this here, I thought of you. I thought of you in it. I thought of us grabbing that drink we had, and me taking you up here. There was no blizzard, or psychopath, or you telling me you’ve been so goddamn lonely that I want to punch a hole through that glass wall. ”
That warmth in my face spread down. “I would have loved that,” I admitted. “Not the fist through the wall, because all that snow would probably fall right on top of us. But the rest.”
The corner of his lips twitched with amusement that died off quickly.
“Now there’s no chance, huh? This situation is hardly normal, and I feel like a bully for consistently pushing my feelings on you.
Especially when I’m part of the problem.
You deserve things I can’t give you, Frankie.
Like rewriting the past. Words are not enough for that, and that’s all I got for once. ”
“You’re not bullying me into anything,” I corrected him, taking a step closer. “You’re not part of the problem.”
Turner nodded his head. But I could see he didn’t believe me. For the first time this weekend he looked … defeated. Heartbroken.
It broke me in return. I felt partly responsible.
We kept dancing around each other’s feelings.
He kept being too careful, and I kept overcomplicating it by remaining stuck in the past. Or dumping really heavy stuff on him.
I couldn’t change how I still felt towards him or the mess we’d been sucked into, but dear God, I was exhausted from thinking.
I was devastated by the look on Turner’s face too, and wanted to make it go away.
I wanted to let him show me, like he’d said. To make this as close to the picture he’d painted a minute ago.
Maybe we couldn’t be that Frankie and Turner I’d dreamed of.
But we could be that Frankie and Turner he’d imagined.
The Frankie and Turner that could grab a drink, flirt, go up to his room, and maybe kiss; with no baggage, stalker or confessions of bone-chilling loneliness.
The Frankie and Turner that could talk and joke like nothing had brought them apart.
Not even themselves.
“Do you think it works?” I asked Turner.
His brows arched in question.
“It’s cold as balls out here,” I said. “I’d love to take this conversation into that hot tub. I know it’s probably stupid, considering I’ve plotted sillier ways for a character to die, but—”
“Frankie,” Turner warned. “Don’t joke about that, Christ.”
“Tough shit, Reececup. I’ll joke if I want to.”
His eyes narrowed. “What are you doing?”
“Normalcy. But new. We deserve it. Although calling you by your childhood nickname is probably regressing.” I cleared my throat. Looked at him dead in the eye. “Turner Reece, I want to get naked with you. In the hot tub. Can you please check if it works before I strip?”
I don’t know what it was about my poorly-delivered ‘YOLO’ speech that made him turn around and climb back onto the wooden platform. But something did. He leaned closer to the wall, then pressed a button.
An electric, low-sounding buzz roared to life.
He faced me with the ghost of a smirk.
That was more like it.
Without thinking too much about it, I pulled at the hem of my sweater and discarded it on a nearby chair. It really was cold out here. I hadn’t been wearing a shirt underneath, just my bra. Layers hadn’t been a priority when storming out of my room after the mirror incident.
Turner wasn’t complaining. He wasn’t saying anything, really.
He was watching me, lips parted, eyes bouncing back and forth from my face to my breasts.
I liked that, too. A lot.
I also got this overwhelming sense of déjà vu. Like this had happened. Like we’d been here at some point, me stripping my clothes, and catching Turner completely out of sorts about it.
“Reececup?” I called, without thinking. The déjà vu was making me silly.
Brown eyes flashed back to mine. He snapped out of it. “How about just Turner? Until we settle on something less tween and more fuck me daddy.”
I almost dropped to the deck, that was how automatically horny I was.
He’d never said something that filthy, and he’d already whispered some pretty arousing stuff to me last night and this morning.
Was this a byproduct of a dangerous situation?
Of semi-public nudity and potentially sex?
Of the cold making us both get a little too reckless?
“Cover,” I said. Not bothering to find out. I unzipped my jeans, kicked off my boots, and started to shimmy out of them. Once in my panties, I realized Turner wasn’t moving. “Turner—”
He was suddenly on me. Throwing me over a shoulder.
A yelp of complaint left me, but it died the instant I felt him moving with me inside the steamed up glass house, then dragging me down his body until he set me on the tips of his boots.
“Was that necessary?” I breathed out, tipping my head back.
He was smiling. “I saw a chance and took it.”
“Am I the chance?”
“My biggest one.”
My heart skipped a beat, then started racing. I went on my tiptoes and brushed a kiss on his jaw. Then, walked off his boots. “The cover is still there,” I whispered.
“Right,” he said, smile turning bashful. Bashful Turner was even more attractive somehow. And that was saying something. He turned around, removed the covering and faced me. “Tub is ready, princess.”
I wrinkled my nose. “We’re gonna stick to baby. I think. Frankie baby, if possible.”
Before he could get a word in, I padded to the edge, brought my hands back to unhook the clasp of my bra, eased it down my arms and slipped into the hot, bubbling water without breaking eye contact.
Turner’s groan was so loud I felt it in my belly. “Was that ink? On your skin?”
It was. Right between my breasts. So tiny I was surprised he’d seen it. So tiny it had gone unnoticed by him until now, when I’d taken off my bra. “Maybe. Only one way to find out.”
That smirk of his fully took over.
It was beautiful. Cocky. Dangerous.
The furthest thing from normal. Or the best way to set new rules for what now defined it.
His hands went to the edge of his sweater, and he pulled it over his head with one quick motion.
A broad expanse of skin covered in spots of black ink was revealed for my eyes to feast on.
It wasn’t just the tattoos. It was also the wide shoulders, the pecs dusted with hair, and that enticing trail that traced a line down to his zipper.
Turner Reece had always been exquisite in my eyes, but having him like this, undressing for me, was a new sort of breathtaking.
“I shouldn’t be entertaining this,” he rasped. And I felt like it had been more of an afterthought than words he meant to say. “It’s not safe. It’s stupid. But I might die if I don’t get in there with you.”
My eyes bounced back to his, finding two pools of sultry chocolate brown staring back at me. I popped my mouth open to argue but his hands distracted me.
Determined fingers unclasped the button of his jeans, and when that stunning moth fluttered its wings and he pulled the zipper down, I felt my whole body flush ten times hotter.
Turner was hard. He was hard, and big, and the outline of his length was visibly straining against the barrier of his boxers.
I swallowed in anticipation. Turner must have seen it, because he hurried to slip his boots off, absentmindedly palming himself through the fabric of his underwear.
Need pooled down my body at the sight. Pants came down those sturdy legs I’d always been weak for, and I thought of the fact he had no ink there.
How come, I wanted to ask him. Tell me all your secrets. But then his boxers followed.
Turner Reece, the man I’d loved with everything I had for all my conscious life, was completely naked. Standing all tall and big and inked and yes, incredibly hard too, right in front of me.
“I love this kind of normal,” I breathed, feeling like I was going to disintegrate in this hot tub if I didn’t get to touch him soon.
“And I love you,” Turner said. “I’ll love any normal where you’re included. I always have.”
Shock made everything around me freeze.
I love you.
I always have.
Turner sunk into the tub in one swift motion, eyes on me the whole time. “You heard that right, baby. I’m in love with you.”