18. Aubree
18
AUbrEE
HEAVEN AND HELL
H e says good slut . But what he means is I love you.
He says I’ll fuck you like a dog . But his heart is saying I’ll never let you go .
I don’t need to hold him in my hands for me to know those things. The real message rings as clear in this room as if he’d said the words out loud. And now, while I doze on his chest, my ear on his heart and my legs splayed over his hips, while his fingers rhythmically stroke the small of my back, he’s saying I’m addicted to you . But this addiction is the kind lungs have to air .
“Are you okay?” He lifts his head just an inch and presses a kiss to the top of my hair. Then he drops back again, lazily spread out on a massive bed while Copeland City wakes around us. Snow drifts from the sky, flurries floating in my peripherals, and the fireplace still burns. Which means, I guess, it’s probably electric and just looks like a fireplace. “Aubree?”
“I’m okay.” I suck back the line of dribble attempting to escape the corner of my lips. And when the action registers in my mind, I snicker. “Cute.”
“There’s nothing you can do that isn’t cute. And I’ve got more than your saliva on me. I don’t mind one bit.”
Grinning, I push up to my elbows and rest the pointy ends on his belly. I have years of frustration still built up over this man. “So me glueing the TV remote to your screen? ”
“The most fucking annoying thing that’s ever happened to me.” He swaps his gentle, stroking finger for a gripping palm, cupping my ass. “You were going for long-term irritation.”
“I’m nothing if not a forward thinker.” I drop a kiss to the center of his chest, if only to hide my smile from the man so many others are scared of. But not me. Never me. “I wonder if anyone has binoculars outside?” Playfully, I drop again, resting my cheek on his thrumming heart and turning my head to look out the windows. “They can probably see my naked butt.”
“One way glass.” He squeezes again. “Like at the cop shop. No one gets to see your butt except me.” But then he strokes again. So gentle. So sweet. “I wanna stay in this room with you forever.”
A happy sigh rolls along my throat, but then, of course, my phone bleats, breaking the peace we both desperately cling to.
“It’s Sunday. Sunday means you’re not working.”
“But it also means a dozen people watched me walk out of that wedding last night with a mafioso. They worry.” I press one last kiss to his heart and push up until sweat slurps between us. My cheeks flame red and my heart gives an embarrassed stutter. But I crawl to the edge of the mattress, then off before I realize I have to walk, buck ass naked, across a large room in front of this man.
Lying with him, naked, is one thing. But parading myself completely and totally vulnerable, where everything I am is on full display…
“Stop freaking out.” He inches along the bed and rests his back against the headboard. Then he looks me up and down with a sly gaze. “Turn and sway your hips while you walk. Shake your ass. I wanna see.”
“No.” I follow the sound of my phone and find it amongst my purse. My dress. A single, discarded heel. Then sweeping it up, I spy Minka’s name flashing on the screen. “Shit.”
“What’s wrong?” He folds his arms behind his head and seems to have absolutely no trouble at all posing completely naked. One of us is insecure. And the other is Timothy Malone. “Aubree?”
“It’s Minka.”
His eyes narrow to slits. “Work, or big sister ass kicking?”
“Don’t know.” Swiping to answer before the call rings out, I bring the device to my ear. “Could be either. Hello?”
“Well, you lived,” she grumbles, straight to the ass kicking, but breathing out a sigh of relief at the same time. “I have sources that say you left with Tim last night, but neither of you are at the bar, and those same sources say you’re not at your apartment either. So…? ”
“We’re still at the hotel.” I can’t stand on full display for a second longer, not without crossing my legs and covering my nether regions with a splayed hand. So I walk back to the bed and crawl onto the mattress. I’d rather he hold me than study me. “Tim got one of the fancy rooms at the top.”
“And you stayed there with him?”
I rest on my belly and study the tattoos marking his ribs. A lot of it is messy. Unruly lines, and smudged detail. It seems he cared more about covering the scars than he did about what those coverings would look like. “Yes. I slept here.”
“And your…” She clears her throat. “Purity?”
Fire burns in my cheeks. So I plaster my face to the bed and snicker. “Uh…”
“Message received,” she sighs. “Jesus. Okay. Are you…um… are you okay?”
“Yes, mother.”
“Does he know?”
“That I’m here?” I look up again and find his eyes burning down into mine. “Yeah. He’s looking at me.”
“No. Does he know what he took? I know most women would share that information with their lover, but you’re you, Aubree Emeri. And you’re never what I consider first as an example of normal.”
“You’re mean. And no. I didn’t say.”
She grunts, dropping her head back until I hear a muffled thump. I picture her in my mind, lying in bed similar to how Tim is posed. “You’re a pain, you know that?”
“I hardly see how it’s your business, Boss. Were you calling for work? Or just to catch the gossip?”
“Gossip,” Archer answers, because of course, he’s right there, listening in and as obsessed with her as Tim is with me. “She worries, Doctor Emeri. Blink twice if you need to be saved from my brother.”
“I’m not blinking. But I am hanging up.”
“Wait!” Minka snaps that single word out so loud, even Tim hears it, his brow popping high on his forehead and his lips firming. “Are you gonna tell him?” she asks quietly. “He probably deserves to know, don’t you think?”
“Not necessarily. Are we done?”
“Was it good?” She giggles like a schoolgirl, growing louder so I have to assume Archer touches her. “On a scale of Felix to Micah to Archer, where do you think he slots in? ”
“Goodbye.” I drag the phone from my ear and crush my thumb to the red icon on the screen. Then I toss the device so it lands somewhere at the bottom of the bed with a muffled thump. “She wants me to compare you to your brothers.”
“How could you?” He wraps his hand around the side of my neck and drags me closer until my breasts rest on his chest. “You haven’t slept with my brothers. And you never will. Comparison is impossible.”
“That’s what I said.” Well, sort of . “She’s annoying.”
“She sure fuckin’ is.” Rolling me to my back, he towers over me and peppers a gentle kiss to my cheek. My lips. My chin. And all the while, his free hand walks along my hip and down to tap my clit before my brain has a chance to catch up. I gasp, loud and breathy and so friggin’ wanting, I embarrass myself. But when he slips his fingers in, the pleasure I felt earlier turns to a hiss.
He stops. His entire body freezes. Then his eyes scan my lower half before coming up to search mine. “Are you sore?”
“A little.” My cheeks flame, but when I try to turn my face, he nudges me back with the tip of his nose. “It’s just a little sensitive.”
“Which is completely normal. Come on.” He quickly pulls back, surprising me with his swift move, then he tugs me off the bed and makes a beeline for the bathroom. “Bubbles. Warm water. I’ll get you coffee and we can chill the fuck out in the tub for a while.”
“Well, actually…” I stop in the door and watch the mighty and powerful Timothy Malone lean over a lake-sized jacuzzi tub and switch the taps on. Shut up, shut up, shut up ! But when he grabs a bottle of perfumed soap, I can’t help myself. “That stuff is really bad for vaginal health.” Dear lord, shut up Joanette. “Our natural pH levels are thrown out after sex. Bubbles are the kiss of death when trying to rebalance things.”
He looks down at the purple bottle, then over his shoulder at me—blushing. Then he tosses the bottle. “Noted. I want your pH levels to be perfect, of course. Your mother would disapprove of anything less.”
“ Godddddd .”
He spins and sweeps me into his arms, his smile wide and beautiful as a squeal bursts from my chest. But then he walks me to the filling tub and risks both our necks when he steps over the side. “I’ll set you on your feet.” He drops a gentle kiss on my lips. “You can sit in your own time, okay? If it’s too hot or too cold, tell me.”
Pleasure mingles in my blood with a painful dose of worry. Because I’m here with Tim and he wants to take care of me. But also, I’m here with Tim , and having a bath with the man I’ve fawned over for too long is terrifying.
“Stop freaking out,” he croons, carefully lowering my legs and balancing me on my feet. Already, the warm water touches my skin and slows my racing heart. “You’re getting a little pale now that the sun is coming up. And I don’t want us to have that awkward morning after.”
“Because it’s weird?”
“Because it hurts you.” He releases my torso, but twines his fingers with mine. Then he sinks into the wide tub with his legs on either side of mine, resting his back against the freezing porcelain. And though he’s now eye-level with my vagina, he looks up instead, holding my eyes and gently coaxing me down. “Sit with me, Aubree. You even get to have your back to me, which means no eye contact.” He presses a kiss to my thigh, just inches from my core. And yet, he makes it feel wholesome. Adoring. And not at all seductive. “I want you to do whatever is comfortable.”
“I can sit.” Hesitant— how does one sit without bending? And if I bend, I’ll flash the poor man my butt. But… he had his tongue in my ass just a little while ago. Soooo…
“Aubree?”
“Yeah.” I rest my hands on the lip of the tub and lower to nestle between his thick thighs. And though I hold my breath when the water laps against my sensitive skin, it doesn’t sting. The warmth, the contact, none of it hurts nearly as much as I expected it would. “It’s not so bad.”
He cups the warm water and trickles it over my uncovered nipples. “ It’s not so bad . Those are exactly the words I was hoping you’d use the first time we share a bath together.”
“Oh, shush.” I relax against his chest and exhale a contented sigh as the rushing water level rises. Over my thighs and up to my belly. Then my sternum. “This isn’t about you, okay? Not everything is about you.”
“Did you forget my last name?” He feathers a gentle kiss to my temple. “Everything is about me. Always.”
“Narcissist.”
“Confidently well bred.” He cups more water and drips it over my collarbone. “Feel better?”
“Yeah.” And I do. So much better. Tilting my head back, I search for his eyes and smile when they dance with pleasure. Adoration. Sweet, kind obsession. “I don’t know what happens once we leave this room and go back to the real world. And I don’t know if we’re saying this. But I love you.”
His heart thumps to a standstill beneath my ear .
“It can be the friendship kind of love. Or the family kind. Or the lovers kind. But I need you to know you’re loved.”
“Aubree—”
“Ever since I sat down and started bugging the cranky, older bartender, that’s the way I felt. It didn’t make sense, and God knows, you’re not the type of man I should give my heart to. But I know the life you’ve lived, and I know you probably haven’t heard those words very often. Not even from the brothers who do, in fact, love you.”
Never , his eyes scream. Never, ever, in the history of ever have I heard those words. Not like this .
“So you need to know how I feel.” I drag my bottom lip between my teeth and fight back the blush that wants to fill my cheeks. “This isn’t one of those post-sex word-vomit declarations. This is the same love I felt for you yesterday.”
He sets the pad of his thumb on my lip, tugging it from my teeth, and sliding the digit from left to right. “I know. All of it. I love you too. And not just because I know what your pussy tastes like.”
“You’re a jackass.” I turn in the bath, rising water lapping at the walls because of my momentum. But I rest against his chest and smile. I refuse to give him the satisfaction of seeing my expression. Because he is, in fact, a jackass. But he’s my jackass, and that love I feel wouldn’t exist if he was different.
Flaws and all. We’re not who we are unless we embrace every facet.
“Jackass.”
He brings a hand up and slowly begins plucking pins from my hair. One, then two. Three and four. I know my updo is messy. Falling out in places and sitting off center because of the way I slept. Because of the way he wrapped my locks around his wrist and tugged so recently. But I didn’t remove the pins before I slept, and now they’re lost in my hair. Hidden as he slowly picks through and sets the steel lengths on the lip of the bath. “What are we when we leave this hotel?” He finds another pin, but drops it into the water by accident. “When we go back to our real lives, do you return to hating my guts and destroying my property, or…?”
“Do you want me to hate you and break your things?”
“No. I want you to marry me, move into my apartment, and grow old and fat and be all mine.” Another pin, and then his lips pressed to my cheek. “I can have things finalized within the hour. And if you don’t want to live above the bar, I can get us a house before the end of today.”
“Or…?” Nerves hammer at the base of my heart, pounding like a drum. Bu t I tilt my head and glance up to search his eyes. “I could keep my apartment, and you keep yours. And then maybe we can get that coffee you asked me out for. If things go well, maybe we graduate to getting dinner. Marriage in three to five years.”
“Marriage in three to five business days.” He sets his hand on my throat and draws me up until our lips touch. “Babies in three to five years, since your career is important and you’re not ready to slow down.”
“Five years before we have kids… makes you an old man.”
He squeezes, just a little tighter, and grins. “I’ve got me under control. And you’re young, so we’re good for a while yet.” He bites my bottom lip and chuckles when I hiss. “I’ll create an heir, Aubree Grace. But we don’t need a boy, and I sure as fuck won’t name it Tim.”
“Coffee first.” I turn again, plastering my back to his chest and snuggling into what may be the most comfortable bath I’ve ever experienced in my life. “I know for a fact you bought Minka a coffee machine for her birthday last year. You’re gonna have to make our coffee date memorable, or I might worry you love her more than you love me.”
He scoffs. “She’s a pain in my ass and half the reason I’m angry all the time.”
“Only half?”
“You, sweet Aubree, are the other half.” He trails his fingertips over my chest and down the valley between my breasts, then his hand disappears beneath the surface of the water, over my belly and down to my humming core. Finally, he slips a single digit in and steals my breath away. “You are where everything begins and ends for me. My good moods and my bad. I’m wrapped up in you and never want to escape. Does that feel better?”
I clutch to the sides of the tub and whimper, my legs splaying wide and a mewling cry rolling along my throat. Because pain turns to pleasure, and Timothy Malone’s touch is like coming home. “Shit.”
He taps my clit and drags me toward ecstasy. “Much better. Now we’re gonna bathe in your pleasure.”