Chapter 36 Lance
Lance
I find her in the garden.
Not the manicured part with the topiaries and the fountain where guests sometimes wander with their champagne.
The back garden, past the hedge wall, where the Calloway estate bleeds into old-growth trees and the landscape lighting doesn’t reach.
There’s a stone bench tucked into an alcove of ivy that Jules and I used to hide in as kids when the house got too loud.
Genevieve is sitting on it, her teal dress pooling around her like water, her shoes kicked off into the grass. The ring catches the moonlight every time she moves her hand, and she keeps looking at it like she’s waiting for it to disappear.
She hears me before she sees me.
“If you’re here to tell me I did the right thing, I don’t want to hear it.”
“I’m not.”
She looks up. Her eyes are red-rimmed but dry. She’s not crying. But I think she’s in that place I know too well, the hollow place after the adrenaline, where your body has processed the disaster but your brain is still three steps behind.
“This is so fucking stupid,” she says. “Art’s—”
“Don’t.” I stop in front of her, and everything I’ve been holding since the moment Art dropped to one knee comes surging up my throat. “Don’t say his name right now.”
She stands. “You don’t get to say that when you told me to say yes.”
“I know.”
“You looked at me across that table and you nodded, and how could you do that?”
She shoves my shoulders, her eyes glassy.
My chest smarts.
“I know what I did.”
She shoves me again, and again I let her, because if she needs something to hit, I’ll be that for her.
I’d be anything for her.
“How could it be so easy for you?”
“Easy?” The word rips out of me. “You think that was easy?”
“You didn’t even flinch.”
“Because a hundred people were watching!”
I grab her wrists before she can shove me again and hold them between us. Her pulse flutters against my fingers.
“You think I didn’t want to flip that table? You think I didn’t want to rip that ring out of his hand and tell every person in that room that you’re mine?”
I stop, running a palm down my face.
“That I’m what?” she whispers.
“Mine,” I say again.
Something snaps in my chest. Not the controlled break from last night, and not the slow surrender in the armchair. This is jealousy and grief and the image of Art’s hand sliding up her thigh while I sat three feet away and pretended I didn’t care.
“He’s your best friend.”
“I fucking know that. I’m his best friend, and I’m the man who’s so in love with you I can’t breathe, and I don’t know how to be both of those people anymore.”
She sucks in a breath, her perfect mouth popping open.
I close the distance in one step, backing her against the ivy-covered wall, her wrists still locked in my grip.
“You’re mine, Genevieve, and he doesn’t get to have you just because he dropped to one knee in front of a crowd and said the right words.”
And then I lean down and kiss her.
I kiss her like I’m trying to burn Art’s touch off her skin, and she lets me, my hands pulling her into me until there’s nothing between us but the thin fabric of her dress and every lie we’ve ever told.
She gasps into my mouth when I spin her around, her palms flattening against the stone, and I press my chest to her back, my lips at her ear.
One hand slides up her arm, slow, fingers trailing over her goose bumps, until I reach her wrist again and pin it gently against the wall.
The other grips her hip, squeezing softly, before I tug up the bottom of her dress and slip my fingers underneath, cupping her between the legs.
“This is mine, too,” I say. “Not his.”
I press a kiss to the spot behind her ear, and she sucks in a shaky inhale. My lips skim to the place where her neck meets her shoulder. I bite gently and she whimpers. And then, I slide her lacy underwear to the side and my fingers slip into her wetness. I work her slow.
Deliberate circles, spreading her slickness over her clit until she’s trembling against the wall. Every few strokes I dip back down, slipping just inside her entrance before dragging back up.
“You’re shaking,” I say.
“Because you’re torturing me.”
I press harder. Fingers flat against her, grinding in slow, firm presses, and her head drops forward between her arms.
“He touched you tonight.” I kiss below her ear. “His hand on your thigh. Right here.” My palm slides down and I push inside her, and she gasps, her back arching against my chest. “Did it feel like this?”
“No. Nothing feels like you.”
I curl my fingers and her knees almost buckle. I catch her with my other arm, wrapping it across her stomach, pinning her to me while I work her open. Every stroke deliberate, designed to take her apart piece by piece.
“Good,” I say against her throat. “Remember that.”
When I pull away, she whines at the loss. But then I’m back on her clit, which is slick and swollen under my touch. I alternate circles and pressure, then the slow push inside that makes her clench around me and whisper my name like it’s the only word she knows.
“That’s right, Genevieve. It’s my name on your lips.”
She’s close. Her thighs are trembling, her breathing is choppy, and her fingers are scraping against the stone like she’s trying to hold on to something solid. I pull my hand away again.
“No,” she says. “Fuck.”
I turn her around to face me, pressing her back against the ivy. Her eyes are wild, her lips swollen, her chest heaving. The teal dress is bunched at her hips, and she looks messy, and perfect, and mine. I hold her gaze while I bring my fingers to my mouth and taste her.
Her lips part, the most beautiful pink flushing up her neck and across her cheeks.
And then I sink to my knees.
Her breath stutters. “Lance.”
“Quiet.” I press a kiss to her knee. Then higher, my mouth dragging up the inside of her thigh, and she grabs my shoulders for balance.
I take my time. Tasting every inch of skin as I push the dress higher.
The soft spot above her knee that makes her fingers dig into me.
The faint bruise on her hip from last night, already turning purple, and I press my lips to it like an apology and a brand at the same time.
“Someone could see,” she breathes.
“Then you’d better not make a sound.”
The sight of her looking down at me, hair falling around her face, bottom lip caught between her teeth, is something I’ll carry with me into every moment for the rest of my life.
I hook my fingers into the waistband of her underwear and drag them over her legs. She steps out of them, and I tuck them into my jacket pocket without breaking eye contact.
Her mouth falls open.
“You’re not getting those back.”
I press my mouth to the inside of her thigh, reveling in the taste of her skin, and then I trail higher, gripping just under her ass, spreading her open.
One of her hands threads into my hair, the other braces against the wall, and when I lick up the length of her pussy, the sound she makes is so broken and beautiful that I have to grip her tighter to keep us both upright.
She’s already so swollen from my touch that every stroke of my tongue makes her body jolt. I seal my lips around her clit and she bites back a cry, her fingers twisting in my strands.
I drag it out, tasting everything my fingers just felt, and her knees nearly give. I grip her thighs harder, holding her up, and do it again. Learning the rhythm that makes her gasp, the pressure that makes her moan, the angle that makes her pull my hair so hard it stings.
“Oh my God.” Her head tips back against the ivy. “Oh my God, I can’t…”
“You can.” I slide two fingers back inside her while my tongue circles her clit, and her hips buck against my face. “You will.”
She’s dripping down my chin, and I groan against her because I will never get enough of this.
Her hips roll, chasing my mouth, and I let her.
Let her grind against me, let her pull my hair, let her take exactly what she needs.
Because this isn’t about me. This is about showing her what it’s like to be wanted by someone who pays attention.
Someone who feels the tremble in her thighs before she does and adjusts.
Slows down. Draws it out until she’s begging.
I want her to know that no one else could ever make her feel like this.
“Please.” She gasps.
“Not yet.” I pull back just enough to press another wet kiss to her inner thigh, and she makes a sound somewhere between a sob and a curse. My fingers keep moving inside her, dragging against that soft, spongy spot that makes her legs shake.
“I could do this all night,” I murmur against her skin. “Keep you right here, on the edge, while he’s inside wondering where his fiancée went.”
“Don’t,” she whispers, but her hips roll into my hand.
“Don’t what? Don’t talk about him?” I curl my fingers and she gasps. “Or don’t stop?”
“Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”
I press my mouth to her and give her everything.
No more teasing. My tongue and my hand working together until I feel her tighten.
Her thighs clamping around my head. Her pulling my hair so hard my scalp burns.
Her breathing in short bursts she’s trying to keep quiet.
I reach up with my free hand and lace my fingers through hers where they’re braced against the wall.
The ring presses cold between our palms, and my chest twists.
“Come for me,” I say. “Show me who you belong to.”
She shatters.
Her back arches off the wall, and the moan that tears from her throat is so raw I surge up and cover her mouth with mine, swallowing the sound, and letting her suck my tongue to taste herself—kissing her through it while my fingers keep working, drawing it out until she’s shaking so hard she can barely stand.
I hold her up. My arm around her waist, her body slumped against mine, her face hidden in my neck. She’s trembling. Breathing in stuttered gasps. Her fists curled into my suit jacket like I’m the only thing keeping her from dissolving.
Through the hedge, champagne glasses clink. Someone laughs. The party goes on.
I pull my fingers from her slowly, and she whimpers against my neck. I move my lips to her temple, the same spot Art kissed earlier and hold them there like I can wash away his touch with my own.
She moves back just enough to look at me. Her eyes are glassy, lips swollen, hair a disaster of copper against the ivy.
She looks wrecked.
She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
Genevieve reaches up and wipes her lipstick from the corner of my mouth with her thumb, and my heart skips.
“I know you,” I say. “I know the sound you make before you break, and the way you sing off-key when you think nobody’s listening.”
She presses her lips together.
“You touch your ear when you lie, you show your love through food, and you talk to Cavall in French because you think he deserves romance.”
A tear slips down her cheek, and I wipe it away with my thumb.
“I know you check your phone for your dad every morning before your feet hit the floor, and you compartmentalize so you don’t get sad.” I lean my forehead on hers. “So he can have the ring and the room and every camera in Rosebrook Falls. But he will never know you the way I do.”
Her eyes are dark, and her lips are parted, and her fingers grip the fabric of my suit.
“And in two days, I’m getting you to Boston.”
She sucks in a stuttered breath. “What?”
“Play the game. Be the queen. And then it’s time to strike.”
“Two days,” she says.
“Two days.”
She nods. Then she reaches down, finds her shoes in the grass, and slides them on. She smooths her dress. Touches her hair. Rebuilds the mask piece by piece, and I watch her do it with a sinking feeling in my gut.
“How do I look?” she asks.
“You look perfect.”
She smiles.
Then she turns and walks toward the hedge, and just before she disappears through the gap in the greenery, she looks over her shoulder.
“Lance?”
“Yeah?”
“Promise everything will be okay?”
I swallow, but I can’t find the words. So I give her a soft grin, instead.
After she’s gone, I lean against the wall of the alcove, the stone still warm where her back was pressed against it, the taste of her still on my lips, her underwear still in my pocket.
And I don’t make a promise I know I can’t keep.
The People’s Prince Takes His Queen: Arthur Penngrove Proposes at Calloway Anniversary Gala
Grab the tissues, Rosebrook. This one’s a moment.
In what can only be described as the most dramatic thing to happen at a Calloway party since Alex tried to crowd-surf at last year’s Fourth of July (never forget), Arthur Penngrove dropped to one knee at Paxton and Tiffany Calloway’s anniversary celebration and proposed to Genevieve DeGrance.
In front of everyone.
During someone else’s party.
But who are we to critique the timing when the ring was that stunning?
And Lance Calloway?
Multiple sources confirm the youngest Calloway brother left the party shortly after the proposal and didn’t return. Whether that’s significant or just Lance being Lance is anyone’s guess, but our inbox is already flooded.
And we remember the bench. And the walk. And the potential overnight stays.
Meanwhile, Mayor Penngrove is reportedly “thrilled.”
As for the happy couple, they’ve been notably quiet since the big night. No joint appearances. No social media announcement. No ring selfie.
But what do we know? We’re just a small-town tabloid with impeccable instincts and an anonymous tip line.
The Rag sends its warmest congratulations.
#PenngroveProposal #CallowayCrash #RingWatch #WhereIsLance #AnniversaryAmbush #RosebrookRagExclusive