
What’s Left of Us
Prologue
PROLOGUE
Lincoln
F uck her.
Picking up the box of Johnnie Walker Blue Label left at the bottom of the stairwell, I glare at the white ribbon stuck to the top and grip the present as I walk up into the air-conditioned living room of the two-thousand-square-foot split-level ranch. The second I open the door, my body is cocooned by the strong scent of floral Valentino perfume lingering in the air.
Nostrils flaring, I drop the whiskey onto the entryway table a little harder than necessary and glance at the matching red lacy bra and panty set on the carpet.
“What are you doing here?” I ask the woman lounging on the couch.
Nothing about the sleeveless red cotton dress she’s wearing should make me as hard as I am right now, considering the circumstances, but it never ceases to fail. Especially not when those long brunette locks are pulled away from her petite, feminine face, and her round amber eyes, striking and mischievous, lift from her phone screen to my piercing scowl.
Georgia Del Rossi is the kind of beautiful that turns heads—lean with the slightest curves and long legs that any man would fantasize having wrapped around them.
The problem with beauty like hers is that she knows how to weaponize it.
She smiles, her bright lips painted the same sinful shade of her dress. “Hello, darling.”
Teeth grinding at her flirty greeting, I walk over and take her phone—the one I bought for her all those years ago. “No.”
“No, what?” she asks innocently.
“We’re not doing this today.”
Her lips twitch. “Doing what, exactly? I’m here to see you. That’s not illegal. You, of all people, should know that.”
The timid girl I met at the bar almost a decade ago is long gone, morphed into a manipulative temptress. That’s what he wanted, wasn’t it? And I hate that those sharp, manicured nails still have their grip on me after everything she’s done.
“You need to leave,” I tell her, trying to ignore the growing ball of tension in my chest. “I’ve had a long day, and I’m in no mood to handle whatever the hell this is.”
“Funny,” she muses, eyelashes batting as she bites into her bottom lip. “You used to love handling me.”
What the fuck does she think this is? I’m getting whiplash trying to decipher what she expects from me these days.
Closing my eyes, I count to three to simmer the temptation that twitches my cock.
“Georgia…” I murmur, feeling her palms slide up my chest and resting over my shoulders.
I open my eyes.
“If you want me to leave,” she says sweetly, rising onto her knees, “you’re going to have to make me.”
Something inside me snaps at the challenge in her voice. I wrap my hand around her throat to make her stand.
When she peeks up at me through her dark lashes, there’s a flash of lust in her whiskey-colored eyes that curls her lips higher. This is a game to her.
Cat and mouse.
So, I’ll play.
My fingertips tighten around her neck before I crush my lips against hers, spin her away from the couch, and force her onto her knees in the middle of the floor.
Because this is what she’s here for.
Grabbing a pair of handcuffs that I keep tucked in one of the cabinets under the entertainment stand, I dangle them from my fingers. “Put these on behind your back and open your mouth.”
She watches me with a Cheshire cat grin and obeys. My ears perk when I hear the two subtle clicks of each of the metal cuffs that secure her hands.
I reach down and grab her chin, tilting her face up after undoing my pants to take myself out. “What did I tell you to do, Georgia?”
Her tongue drags slowly over her bottom lip before they part for me.
She always used to listen to me.
Submit to me.
Listen to every command willingly.
When the hell did she stop?
My hand goes to the back of her head, threading in her silky chocolate hair and cupping her skull before pushing her onto my dick.
Stifling a groan as she chokes on my growing length, I watch her bob over me. Her tongue glides along my shaft, her lips twisting just under the tip and causing me to jerk when she hits my nerve endings with skillful precision.
“That’s it,” I praise, forcing her to take me deeper until she gags. The sound makes me harder, growing in her mouth until another gag vibrates over me. She grazes her teeth along the sensitive skin, not quite biting but taunting me with the possibility. She’s become a master of this—trained for pleasure. My pleasure.
And goddamn , does it bring back memories.
Pulling her away, I take a fistful of her hair around my hand and guide her up to stand. Twisting her around, my other palm grips the chain cuff links as I walk her to the dining room.
One of her palms wraps around my cock, stroking it and earning her a purred, “Good girl.”
Once upon a time, she used to be innocent. Every touch was hesitant, every stroke experimental, and every kiss shy. I broke her of those habits years ago.
Broke her.
And inevitably, us.
As if she knows the mental spiral I’m falling into, her grip on my cock tightens and pulls me from the thoughts leading me to rock bottom quickly. “Don’t,” she whispers, her hand fondling me until I twitch in her hand.
It’s enough to make me forget. At least for a little while. “You know exactly what I like, pretty girl.”
Forcefully, I push her over onto the corner of the expensive cherry table, lifting her dress and studying her perky round ass exposed to me. I’ve missed this sight more than I like to admit, and no number of cold showers with my hand around my dick can do the real thing any justice.
“Is this what you came here for?” I ask, running my finger down the seam of her and pressing against the entrance just north of where she’s aching for me. “Did you hope for this, my little slut?”
She sucks in a breath when the pad of my finger applies the slightest pressure against the puckered hole. Wiggling her hips, she juts her ass out and whimpers when my finger slides south until it gets closer to where she wants me most.
“No words?” I ask, bending over and biting her ass cheek hard enough to leave a mark behind. She gasps, causing me to smirk against her as I trail my nose down, down, down as if I’m going to get a taste.
I already know what she tastes like.
Sweet.
Sultry.
My Georgia Peach.
Mine.
Reality seeps in, washing away some of the lust clouding my vision.
No . Not mine.
Not anymore.
It breaks whatever spell she has on me.
Standing to my full height, I stroke myself and step forward, lining myself up to her. I give her no warning before settling my dick between her legs and surging forward, getting a strangled moan of pleasure from her that reminds me all too well of our first time.
Except this time, it’s hard, rough, and brutal as her body welcomes me with the sound of her aroused mewls.
There’s no gentleness or comforting coos or praising kisses. We’re beyond that.
Not mine, a taunting voice in my head whispers in my ear.
I grab her hair and yank her up, keeping myself buried inside her as I walk us to the back deck just off the kitchen.
I don’t stop my assault on her pussy as I bend her over the back railing and grin as she clenches me. My hands squeeze her hips as the wood shakes with each thrust, feeling her coating both of us as we lose ourselves in the moment.
I shove two fingers into her mouth to quiet the noises she makes, leaning forward until my lips graze her ear. “Be quiet, or the neighbors will hear.”
Her teeth sink down, but not hard enough to break skin.
Georgia still loves this.
Even if she stopped loving me.
I look over my shoulder at the security camera above the back door and wink, knowing she still gets the footage through the app on her phone. I could have kicked her off of it by now, but I haven’t.
Once, I debated on bringing home somebody new just so she could witness it—hurt her like she hurt me—but I never did.
It’s always been her.
This.
Us.
When she does little to muzzle her noises, I move her one last time to the patio table, shoving her over the glass top and pressing her face against it to stifle the sounds as I build my release.
The sparks shooting down my spine as I jackknife forward tell me I’m close. I pump twice more before pulling out, stroking myself until every drop is painted across her lower back.
There’s a moment of primal satisfaction seeing myself dripping off her body before I use the hem of her dress to wipe myself off and tuck myself back into my pants.
Once upon a time, I would have gotten a towel, cleaned her off, told her I loved her, then pressed a kiss to her temple.
But that was before.
I drop her stained dress, leaving her bent over and catching her breath. Knowing she didn’t come. Knowing she was close.
She’s not my responsibility now.
“Now that’s over, pick up your shit and get the fuck out of my house.”
Shifting on my heel, I walk inside and hear, “Until the divorce is final, this house is still half mine, Linc.”
Linc. She’s the only person who calls me by that name.
I look over my shoulder, wondering what her motive for being here is. “Then do us both a favor and sign the goddamn papers, Georgia. Put me out of my misery. I don’t have time for any more of your bullshit.”
There’s only a moment, the briefest second when her eyes flash the way they used to in the past when I hurt her feelings during an argument. But why are they dulled with sadness when she caused this to begin with?
“Just…” I pause, giving her one last look before shaking my head when I see that damn necklace hanging from her neck. Why hasn’t she taken it off? “Get out before you do more damage than you’ve already done. Go back to Luca.”
She gapes at me, then stands taller. It’s all mock confidence—as fake as the makeup on her face. Almost eight years. Nearly a fucking decade later, I finally understand that there was nothing ever real about Georgia Del Rossi.
Right before I close the door to the back deck in hopes she’ll let herself out, she says, “Don’t go tomorrow.”
Tomorrow.
My fist clenches around the door handle. “Do I want to know how you know about that?”
There’s a pregnant pause, but I refuse to look over my shoulder at those pleading amber eyes. I don’t want to get sucked into the guilt for what needs to be done. “Just…please. Don’t go. Tell Matt you changed your mind.”
She’d love that, wouldn’t she? My knuckles turn white where they remain on the handle. It’s the only thing grounding me where I stand.
“We’re going to that house and executing the arrest warrant,” I inform her, using the same stern voice I use on the people I interview in interrogation rooms. There’s no room for bullshit. Not there and not here. “It’s time we ended this.”
This . The ultimate game her father started years ago when he tried threatening my career. He knew the truth, and his secrets were finally about to be exposed.
It was him or me.
His livelihood was at stake.
But so was mine.
Don’t go.
“I have a bad feeling,” she whispers, her words causing the hairs on the back of my neck to stand up. “And I’m asking you to do one last thing for me, even though I don’t deserve it. Don’t go tomorrow.”
Is that a warning? Or a last-minute plea?
Either way, it’s pointless.
“If you came here to convince me to change my mind with sex, it’s not going to work,” I tell her, turning the door handle and opening it. I pause halfway through the threshold, the next two sentences streaming past my lips before I can filter the cold words. “Your pussy is good, baby girl. But it’s not that good.”
I hear her intake of breath but can’t find it in me to feel bad. All I’ve felt for the past two years is bad—bad because I can’t make her happy and bad because I can’t make things better with her family. Hell, bad, because I refuse to give up my mission to destroy the man who’s done everything in his power to destroy me first.
There’s nothing left in me to feel bad about.
“Lincoln,” she whispers.
I stop just inside the house, ears perking at my name on her lips. It elicits the same reaction it always does, sending my heartbeat into overdrive like it forgets what she’s done.
“Happy birthday,” is the last thing she says.
Slamming the door shut, I’m tempted to slide the lock into place and make her walk around the house without her bra and panties.
But I don’t.
Because Georgia still holds a place in my heart despite the knife she stuck into it when she chose him .