Chapter 41
CARLIE
The fish tank floor is littered with printouts. Budgets. Marketing. PR plans. Company org charts. And so on. Despite having a business degree similar to Lawson’s, spending a decade in PR means I’m out of practice when it comes to business management.
Technically, I’m qualified.
Practically . . . not so much.
What was Serelle thinking, letting him quit?
I sigh, shifting the laptop off my sweater-clad lap as I lean over and hunt for the forecasts and projections for the House for the next quarter.
I need to redo the current budgets and projects to accommodate the influx of donors after the Robbinses sponsored us, and their friends and associates followed suit.
Now we are set to thrive, not just survive.
It’s exciting and terrifying. God, I cannot screw this up. Every choice I make feels like the wrong one. I close my eyes with a sigh. “Where are you, Lawson?” I groan, slapping papers over my face.
A knock rattles the glass door.
I let the papers fall away from my face.
The man himself stands there. “Right here, Princess.”
I drop the papers to the floor, mouth agape.
If I hadn’t gotten a solid seven hours of sleep last night, I’d say I drifted off on the piles of paperwork and this is simply a dream. He takes a step into the fish tank. I scramble to my feet, but I really can’t figure out what to say first.
To apologize for ghosting him while I’m sorting out my abandonment issues.
To cuss him out for quitting a job he loved for me.
For being so stupidly selfless.
It’s been almost two sleepless weeks of being back and forth on whether I can do this and trust myself not to ruin everything every time something gets hard, like I did when Millie was in the hospital.
That was unforgivable.
Mills was so cranky at me.
“Carlie . . .”
I suck in a wobbly breath, running my bottom lip through my teeth. I want to respond. Now I know what I’d go with. Just sorry. Plain and simple. He deserves more, but I—
“Need a hand, Princess?”
His gaze casts over the paper-strewn floor. Always so selfless.
“No,” I manage. “I don’t need a hand, Lawson. I need—”
I scrunch my face up as the emotion commandeers my ability to speak, running all the logical thoughts I had from my mind.
He closes the distance between us. “Tell me.”
His knuckles brush over my cheek, and my eyes fall shut at his warmth. His touch.
Oh god, I missed him so fucking much.
“I ain’t askin’, darlin’.”
I huff a breathy laugh and open my eyes at the phrase his father uses. It suits him. It’s evidence of the man he is. The family he comes from. The devotion he has to his family. To the people he loves.
“What if I can’t?” I whisper.
“Then I’ll wait until you figure it out.”
“What if it takes months?”
My chest caves when a small smile pops up on one corner of his mouth. “Even if it takes us years.”
“Us?”
“Yes ma’am.”
I huff out a sob, my palm landing over his heart. His big damn heart . . .
“In that case, I have something for you.” I break away and pad to my desk, rummaging through the drawers before I find what I’m looking for.
I return to Lawson. He’s where I left him, as I left him. As if proving the point on his patience.
I swallow and hold the hard glass object in my hands.
Before I can get a word out, his hands fold over mine.
“I know I can trust you, Cowboy.” My words are soft but steady. “It’s going to take me a little time to get used to being one-half of somethin—”
His forehead drops to my own. “Something this incredible.”
“Yeah, that. But . . . I’m scared.”
“If it’s your heart you’re worried about, baby, don’t be. I keep my promises.”
“I know, I’m not. It’s yours I can’t trust myself with. But I’m willing to try for real, if you are.”
He breaks away a little and opens my hands, the pink glass heart sitting in my palms. “So, this is my heart?”
I nod, but that’s not quite right, either. “It’s ours.”
And right now, it sits in my hands, now cradled inside his.
“It’s perfect, Princess.”
“My part is the fragility of it, but the shine, also. That I can give you.”
“And mine to protect,” he rasps as his hands curl, his thumb brushing over the smooth, hard surface. “My part, the permanent, unmoving. The way it will not yield. Always standing true for yours.”
Tears burn behind my eyes.
His hand falls away and he cups my jaw, tilting my head up. “Now tell me, Carlie. What do you want?”
A smile grows over my face. “I’d rather show you than tell you, Cowboy.”
I push up on my tiptoes and brush my lips over his. “I want this.” I kiss his jaw. “And this.”
Dotting kisses down his neck and over his Adam’s apple, I breathe, “And definitely this . . .”
It bobs as he chuckles. Leaning to one side, he places the heart on the desk.
“My turn.”
“It is?” I raise a brow.
“Abso-fuckin-lutely, Princess.”
He hauls me to his hips and walks from the fish tank.
“Where are we going?”
“The best make-out spot in this place.”
We round the supply room to the copier, and I laugh so hearty my head falls back.
“I could fucking eat you, baby,” he growls. “Look at you, happy and—Christ—damn edible in these sweatpants.”
“This does it for you? Not my expensive designer skirts and heels?”
“That works, too. Maybe it’s not the clothes at all.” The ridiculous grin on his face has a smile growing on my own. But it falters as his head dips and his mouth finds my peaks through the lopsided T-shirt I have on.
My hair is up in a bun, and I slip a finger into the band, releasing it. Strawberry blonde waves tumble over my shoulder, and he groans. The sound vibrates around my nipple and all of a sudden, I’m at a loss for air.
“Goddamn, Carlie.”
My ass meets the copier, and I spread my legs, making space for him to get as close as possible. My hands in his hair, I can’t breathe when he slips my T-shirt from my body, his fingers releasing the clasp on my bra, his lips falling back to my aching nipple . . .
“Oh god.”
“Baby, he ain’t here. Just your cowboy.”
A strangled, desperate chuckle slips through my parted lips.
My cowboy.
Mine.
A fire is lit, well and truly, low in my core. Now the last thing I want is to be wearing clothes. For him to be wearing clothes. I wriggle on the machine, and the plastic creaks.
“Patience, Princess.”
“No.”
“No?” His head pops up. “Sassy little woman, aren’t you.”
“It’s one of my best qualities.”
He chuckles. “I know.”
I slide forward, and he catches me in his arms, letting me down onto his hips. “Take me home, Cowboy.”
“Mills might—”
“Your home, Laws.”
The second the door to Lawson’s apartment closes, he has me pinned to it. I open for him. He takes everything, devouring my mouth, hands scaling my ribs, a thumb brushing the underside of my breast.
Damn, I can’t wait a moment longer.
Two weeks without this man is too long.
Far too long.
“Wait, I want to do something first.” He breaks away, cupping my face with his hands.
“What is it?” I breathe.
He opens my bag, pulling out the glass heart. He takes my hand and walks into his bedroom. We stand in front of his dresser as he makes room in the center and places it there. “Safe as houses.”
I huddle into his side, lacing my fingers with his. “Safe as houses.” I tilt my gaze up. Adoration fills his deep blue eyes as he plants a kiss into my hair.
I push him backward, and he grins as the back of his legs hit the bed. After a well-placed shove to his chest, he sits on the end of the big bed and spreads his legs, not giving me a second before he pulls me into his space, trapping me there.
“Now, where were we?” I whisper, cupping his jaw with both hands.
His blue eyes have darkened, his breathing picking up the pace as I send my hands through his hair.
Deft fingers toss my T-shirt away once again.
My bra disappears quicker than before, and my breath hitches as warm lips close around my peak, and we pick up where we left off.
“Fuck, Laws.”
He rumbles something I can’t make out, releasing the nipple with a delicious pop.
“Don’t stop, please . . .”
Teeth clamp down around my other peak and heat tumbles down my spine before growing in my core. I lose my tangled fingers from his hair and make quick work of my jeans, needing them gone. In only panties, I reclaim his jawline in both hands, sinking my mouth over his.
A tight grip finds my hips as his palm travels up my rib cage, cupping a breast. The other hand tracks the pads of his fingers over the cleft of my hip and inside my thigh, running along the edge of my panties, now soaked.
His finger slips past the elastic barrier, and I moan. A sound he swallows down, taking it in as his own breath.
“Never going to happen,” he rasps as he breaks away.
The overwhelming need for Lawson sends my body trembling. I wave him backward. “Back, on the bed. All the way.”
Ignoring my instructions, he stands and is naked a moment later. He slides his hands down my ribs and over my ass before pulling me up onto his hips. “There so many spots we can do this that don’t include the bed.”
“Fine,” I breathe.
We’re in the kitchen a heartbeat later, the small counter hitting my ass. I’m clawing at him as he dots hot, wet kisses down my neck, over my collarbones, and nips the flesh of one breast. I plant my hands behind me, leaning back, and he spreads my thighs, dropping his head between them.
“Fuck, baby, damn soaked.”
I grip his hair with a fist holding his mouth where I want it. With the first sweep of his hot tongue through my center, I buck off the counter, falling back.
The few items he had on the counter in a small tray are knocked to the floor with a smash. A breathy chuckle against my pussy, and I’m writhing on the countertop, grip firm in his dark hair.
“Ride my face, Princess. Fucking ride it. Then I’m going to fuck this tight little pussy until you’re screaming my name.”
I whimper as he suckles down hard on my clit.
Promises, promises.