Chapter 43
Chapter Forty-Three
FALLON
Never Let Go
Elizabeth has been gone for almost an hour.
With Jay. Knox said he saw him in the passenger seat when she drove off.
Whether it’s for an hour or forever, the waiting is suffocating.
Then again, I’d been suffocating without her for two decades.
I’d only just begun to start breathing the moment I saw her sitting at the café table in Venice.
Leaning forward, I bury my face in my hands, as if I can force the ache back into my bones. The thought of a future without her carves into my heart and hollows it out until there is nothing left. If she can’t forgive me, if she walks away for good, I’ll have no one to blame but myself.
Aurora comes out onto the front porch and sits down next to me on the bench swing. The party has been winding down, everyone passing out hugs, saying their goodbyes, and asking where Elizabeth is. Aurora and JD stuck around to help with the clean up.
“Want some company while you silently brood in the dark?”
“Not really.”
The swing creaks as she slowly rocks it back and forth. “Too bad.”
My sister can be the most infuriating woman sometimes.
“I can’t believe that our older brother is finally getting married. I’m thinking a grand wedding at the Montgomery estate. The gardens would be a perfect backdrop. They could arrive in a hot air balloon.”
I know she’s joking. Aurora isn’t that tacky. “Isn’t that up to him and Austin to decide?”
“And have them fly to Vegas for a quickie wedding? Hell, no. They deserve a proper wedding with all the bells and whistles and utter chaos.”
“Point taken.”
Aurora and I twist around when we hear giggles coming from the side of the house. Charlotte and Grant stumble into view, lips locked in a frenzied kiss, their groping hands all over each other.
“You get her pregnant before she’s twenty-one, and I’ll castrate you.”
They pull apart as if lightning struck them, guilty looks burning their faces red with embarrassment.
“Um…uh…when’s Mom getting back?” Charlotte asks.
“Soon, so I’d suggest you make sure the trash is put out, the food put up, and the kitchen cleaned before she gets here.”
“Marcus and Christopher are doing it,” she replies.
“Then go help them.” I narrow my eyes at Grant, a silent warning for him to keep his pecker away from Charlotte.
His Adam’s apple bobs when he swallows thickly. “Yes, sir.”
Aurora starts laughing as soon as they haul ass toward the backyard. “Look at you being all parental,” she says, patting my knee.
“Hardly.”
“You never see what I see. What our brothers and sisters see. What Elizabeth sees and those kids see. You are a good man, Fallon.”
I get angry, not at her, but at myself. “A good man wouldn’t keep breaking the heart of the woman he loves.”
Aurora appears thoughtful for a moment before replying, “Cam’s mom told me something when JD came back. When I told her that he broke my heart, she said, Then maybe he’s just the man to put it back together. ”
The rumble of a car’s engine is heard just as headlights appear in the distance.
Aurora kisses me on the cheek before standing up. “You tell me all the time how strong I am, but Elizabeth is the strongest woman I’ve ever met. She’s also the most understanding and the most forgiving.”
Elizabeth parks her car beside Jules’s SUV, and dread sinks its claws into me when I see Jay’s profile through the front window glass. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
I track Elizabeth as she comes up the walkway. When she gets to the porch, she won’t look at me.
“Sorry I was gone for so long,” she says to Aurora and walks inside without another word.
Aurora peers down at me, her bemusement clearly present. “She’s most definitely pissed. I’d suggest some good old-fashioned groveling. The ‘on your knees’ kind.” She gives Jay a scathing scowl before going into the house.
Jay stops at the bottom porch step. “Want some advice?”
Because the porch railing cuts off the top half of his head, I get to my feet and casually lean against the post. “No, Jay, I don’t want your fucking advice.”
He rolls his damn eyes. “I’m giving it to you anyway. The tighter you try to hold onto her, the easier it will be for her to slip right through your fingers. Trust me on this. Could you do me a favor and tell Jules I’m ready to leave?”
“We’re coming,” Julien says as he, Elijah, and Nicholas come barreling out of the house.
“Jules.” He turns around. There’s nothing else I can say except, “I’m sorry.”
“I get that Ry made you promise. It would be very hypocritical of me to be upset about that since I put Liz in a similar situation with Elijah. But fuck, man, you should have told me as soon as you found her. You sat on that information for months, knowing what we were going through.”
Elijah gives me a supportive shoulder squeeze as he waits for everyone to pile into the SUV. With a heavy sigh fraught with the worry of the hard conversation I know is about to happen with Elizabeth, I head inside.
“Where’s your mother?” I ask Chris when I pass him on his way out of the kitchen, a trash bag in each hand.
“I think she went to take a shower. Is she okay?”
This kid acts like he has the biggest chip on his shoulder, when in fact, it’s his heart he’s got sitting there.
Chris and I are still building trust, and the last thing I’m going to do is pretend his concerns aren’t valid by giving him some bullshit reply.
“She’s upset with me.”
“Are you going to fix it?”
“I’m sure as hell going to try.”
When I get to the end of the hall, I hear the shower running from Elizabeth’s bedroom. The door to the guest room across the hallway is slightly ajar, Daniel’s voice seeping out as he talks to Drew.
Quietly entering her room, I close and lock the door, then rap a knuckle on the doorjamb of the bathroom.
“Yeah?”
Just the sound of her voice has the heartache and longing intensifying. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. This soul-consuming need for another person.
“Just me,” I say. The silence that follows is as thick as the jasmine-scented steam filling the room. I look at her through the glass wall of the walk-in shower, the vibrant blue of her butterfly tattoos like pieces of stained glass. “Can we talk?”
“I’m almost done.” She tips her head under the spray.
“Do you want me to leave?” I despise how weak I sound. But I am weak when it comes to her.
“Do what you want. It’s your choice .”
Her passive dig is heard loud and clear.
Quickly stripping out of my clothes, I pull the shower door open and step inside.
My gaze roams her naked body. Her pale skin sprinkled with a spattering of freckles, the hourglass curves of her hips and waist, her long legs and her pink nail-polished toes.
I want to tell her that nothing in this world is more beautiful than she is.
Her bare breasts press to my chest when I run my fingers through her hair, sluicing water down her long tresses until all the shampoo is rinsed away. My cock responds to her nearness, wanting to sink into her warmth. Stake my claim to her. That she’s mine and not his.
“The tighter you try to hold onto her, the easier it will be for her to slip right through your fingers.”
“I’m sorry.” My lips kiss along her shoulder. “I’m so sorry,” I tell her with every press of my mouth on her wet skin.
She looks up at me through the falling water, and I get lost in the soft green of her eyes. Grabbing the bottle of liquid soap from the inset shelf, she pours some into her hands and begins lathering my chest.
I still her ministrations and bring her hands to my lips. “You said you would always trust me, even when I lied to you.”
Her mouth purses, and her eyes heat. “I’m intelligent enough to know the difference between keeping a secret and lying. You didn’t lie, Fallon, but you took away my choice. And Ryder…I just don’t understand why he kept it from me.”
“Even the most honorable man isn’t infallible. Love makes us cross moral lines and venture blindly into the gray areas that exist between black and white.”
My rock-hard cock throbs against her stomach, but I refuse to give in to its demands. As much as I want to fuck her, I need to know where I stand, so I can prepare my heart for when it shatters.
“Do you still love him?”
Twisting the length of her hair, she wrings the water out and drapes the ends over one shoulder. “That’s not a fair question, and you damn well know why.”
“After everything he did?” Because if she can forgive Jay, there is hope for me.
“Says the man preaching from the pedestal he built out of secrets.”
Not able to endure the mere millimeter of space separating us, I push closer and take her face between my hands with something close to desperation. “I told you that once I had you, you were mine.”
“That’s possession, Fallon, not love.”
“It’s how I love, Elizabeth. I love you completely and with no end. I’ve never loved another person the way I love you. You are it for me. So, if you want to be with him, I won’t stop you. I will always be waiting for you when you come back.”
Her hands glide up my chest, over my nipples, then settle around the base of my neck. Her thumbs dig into my jugular notch, almost as if she’s contemplating strangling me. “I love you, too. I’m just mad at you and don’t like you very much at the moment—stop smiling.”
I can’t help it. I get stupid every time I hear her say that she loves me. “You can be angry at me and not like me all you want, as long as you love me.”
She makes the most adorable huff. “That’s the most ridiculous?—”
I spin her around, my hands anxious to explore her water-slicked body. “No more talking,” I tell her as my mouth seduces the column of her neck.
Curving a hand under her thigh, I lift it up and place her foot on the shower bench in front of us, opening her more fully. She moans when I sink two fingers inside her, my thumb teasing circles around her clit.
“Already so wet for me.”
She doesn’t deny it, only rocks her hips forward, following the movement of my fingers as I slowly fuck her with them.
Kissing behind her ear, I murmur, “You feel so good. I love touching you, making you come, hearing you moan.” I cup her breast, feeling its fullness before rolling her nipple between my thumb and middle finger.
“Fallon,” she hushes, reaching an arm behind her and pulling my mouth to hers. Our tongues dance with sybaritic movements, our kiss as sensual as the way her body is writhing against mine.
“Tell me again.” The strokes of my fingers slow, not letting her come until she says the words I’m so addicted to.
“I love you,” she rasps against my mouth.
Removing my fingers, I enter her from behind, thrusting into her tight heat, and within minutes, she climaxes beautifully in my arms. I kiss her through her orgasm, wanting to drink in every moan she makes.
When her body goes lax, I turn off the shower and lift her in my arms.
“You didn’t… you know ,” she says.
Carefully stepping out of the stall, I set her gently on her feet.
“Not about me tonight, baby.” Grabbing a towel from the bar, I take my time drying her off before draping it over the vanity.
“Up you go,” I tell her, picking her up by the hips and sitting her down on the countertop.
Finding where she keeps her blow dryer, I plug it in.
“You’re going to dry my hair?”
“Part of the pampering. Aurora suggested I grovel on my knees.”
Elizabeth cheekily pulls her bottom lip between her teeth. “That would be fun to watch.”
I kiss her puckered, pink nipples because they’re just too pretty, then I kiss her lips. “Groveling won’t be the only thing I’ll be doing on my knees, Kitten,” I tell her and turn on the blow dryer.
I can feel her hum of contentment as I comb through her hair with my fingers, making sure to dry each strand evenly. The act of taking care of her like this, something as simple as drying her hair, completes me in a way I never thought possible.
When I’m done, she slides off the vanity and goes into the bedroom. “Are you staying tonight?”
She grabs one of my button-down dress shirts I left draped over the back of the armchair and puts it on, pushing each button through its buttonhole, but leaving the last two undone.
The hem hits below her knees and hangs loose on her slender frame, and the sleeves hang past her hands.
She rolls up one side past the wrist, then the other.
Seeing her wearing my clothes is as erotic as seeing her with nothing on.
“Only if you want me to stay.”
There’s a flicker of hesitation when she glances at the bed, a silent war waging inside her. “I want you to stay.”
Knowing this aspect of our relationship needs to be walked with baby steps, I take her hand and brush a thumb stroke over her knuckles. “Movie?”
Relief lifts the worry from her eyes.
The house is quiet, except for the occasional clatter in the kitchen as dishes are being put away. Settling on the couch, I tug her down beside me and grab the remote from the coffee table.
“Preference?”
She folds her legs under her and tucks into my side, my arm around her, her hand resting lightly on my chest. “Something violent with lots of action and blood.”
“Woman after my own heart.”
I barely pay attention to the television screen when the John Wick movie starts playing. My focus is solely on Elizabeth.
However, the quiet doesn’t last long.
Charlotte, Grant, and Christopher appear, stopping at the entryway arch. When he sees what we’re watching, Chris joins us on the couch.
“If it’s that one with the guy who holds up the poster boards, I’ll pass,” Charlotte says.
Elizabeth chuckles. “It’s not that one.”
“Keanu,” Chris says. Apparently, that’s all Charlotte needs to hear.
“Scoot over.”
Chris vocalizes his annoyance but makes room for her and Grant, who nervously glances at me before taking a seat at the far end of the sofa.
“I can’t watch the part with the dog.” Charlotte hides her face in Grant’s shoulder.
Chris’s head falls back on his neck with a dramatic groan. “It’s thirty seconds of sadness for two hours of awesomeness.”
“That scene is emotionally scarring to dog lovers.”
“It serves as the catalyst for the entire story. That’s the whole point,” he argues. “Grant, back me up.”
“I’m not getting in the middle.”
“But you will to defend my honor because I’m your girlfriend,” Charlotte replies.
“Uh…” Grant gives Chris a helpless look.
“Best friends get dibs over girls,” Chris counters.
“Not if he ever wants to kiss me again.”
Elizabeth’s shoulders shake as she tries to hold in her laughter as the two of them bicker while Grant says nothing.
I want more of this. Nights like this, spent with the woman I love and the family that isn’t mine, but the one I want more than anything.