Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Oliver
She loves me? She loves…a lot of things, but me? I’ve never been one of them.
Fast cars, rockstars, shots of Patron from stiletto shaped goblets…that’s the kind of stuff Lemon loves.
At least I thought it was, until this week.In this seven-day stretch of madness—half of which I’m shoving my cock to the side of my leg to avoid her mocking smiles—I’ve learned things about her I never noticed under the hazy lights of my tour bus.
First, she takes seven-and-a-half-minute showers. It’s the same every time. Yeah, it’s fucked up that I know that, but she times it down to the half second. What is that? And how does she do that? Suspiciously fast for how good she smells.
She’s also a workout junkie. She’s always skated around, literally, but she also runs and does yoga.
Right below my window.
When she isn’t off teaching my girls some new way to make the house even messier, or texting God knows who in that phone, she’s up and moving.
Lemon Perkins never sits still.
And those bracelets of hers…those, I haven’t figured out. She’s always had them. You can’t know her and not notice, but she’s been worrying her fingers over one of the charms all week, some silver thing I can’t get close enough to see.
I increase my speed to eight-point-two. It’s faster than I normally run, but it feels good to push my muscles.
To feel something other than the gutting jealousy that rakes me when I think of who she’s texting.
I see the way Onyx Barringer looks at her.
Hell, it’s plastered across the tabloids and newsstands in that photo I can’t wipe from my mind.
She doesn’t double-dip.
But will she with him?
My feet pound the treadmill with the thought.
For six days on that tour bus, I watched him tongue her body. I’ll admit I thought about it, got myself off to the image of her screams, and I’d do it again, because watching Lemon Perkins drives me mad. Pain and loss can’t coexist with her pleasure.
Seeing her come undone is worth gold.
But before, I could leave the bus. Shut the door. I hadn’t touched her. Hadn’t tasted her fucking come on my tongue, so damn sweet for the sour mouth.
I want all of her, and I should have known not to take it this far. That I would be the one unable to keep it together once we finally did.
But that was when I thought it was one-sided. Just another scuff on her skates, that’s all I ever was to her, but now…she loves me.
My heart thuds against my chest. I slow to a walking pace, but there is no cooling down when he comes back to my mind.
I don’t know if she responded to the string of texts she’s been sent, but I suddenly can’t bear the thought of it.
Will she text him back under my roof? Touch herself to another man’s pictures in one of my beds?
And if it’s Onyx?
Her father paid me millions to prevent this exact damn thing. I could tell Emil he’s involved, but what would that prove to Lem? That I’m just as untrusting as she says I am?
Involving her father isn’t right, and I know that.
And if it isn’t Onyx, it will be another. The sugar daddy she mentioned with the panties…who the hell was he?
If she was trying to get a rise out of me, it worked, and now all I can think about anytime I run on this god dammed treadmill is the way her eyes looked when she snapped that photo of her sweaty, pushed up tits and claimed it wasn’t for me.
“What do I do, Lo? You always knew what to do when things got messy, but here I am with the biggest mess of them all, and I—”
I love her too.
Whatever comes over me next is wrong. I know it with all my being, but here I am anyway, a jealous, angry, widowed, old fool, fallen for the most wildly inappropriate woman anyone could have picked, and I know she can’t be mine, but I’ll be damned if she’ll be someone else’s while she lives with me.
I tell myself it’s for the band.
For the deal with her father.
It’s for Lemon’s own good because her inheritance rests on this, does it not?
“Barringer,” I clip. There’s some shuffling and zipping on the other end of the phone before he clears his throat.
“Hey! Boss man. What’s up? We miss you on tour, but they got this sexy little number working as your replacement, so don’t rush back from desk duty, all right?” He snickers, like we’re buddies.
We are not.
“Good to hear.” I grind out, choosing my next words carefully. “Look, there’s some important people on this stop of the tour, and between us, they’re looking at what you guys can do with more set-time.”
“No shit?” Onyx whispers something to the girl in the background, who giggles as his bed creaks, and I know Lemon is open with her partners, but something about Onyx texting her and sleeping with the new tour manager at the same time leaves me with zero remorse for what I say next.
“Yes, shit. So, play it cool and maintain that nice boy image, got it? We already have four other band members claiming the bad boy territory, and Perkins wants you to be the face of this next generation of listeners.”
“Straight up?” I can feel his ambition through the phone. Good.
“All the way up, kid. I know you’ll do us proud. Now, enjoy the rest of Europe, and one last thing.”
“Anything, man.”
“Stop texting Emil’s daughter.”
“Lem?” The line goes quiet, and I try not to bristle at the nickname he’s allowed to call her. “Is this about the tabloid? Because I told the label it would never happen again. We were all drunk and careless that night. I know it.”
“Don’t text her.”
The line goes quiet with the possessiveness of my growl, surprising us both.
She’s mine, it screams.
“Enjoy the tour, Onyx.”
“Yes, Mr. Nashville.”
Click.
Silence can be extremely loud.
I know what I’ve just done is wrong. I knew it the whole time I did it.
And what’s worse is Lemon’s right. What I say does go. But this is different.
She sees me.
She calls me out for things nobody has ever dared before. I’m ashamed to admit that when Lauren died, we weren’t on the best of terms.
Cancer is hard.
I was angry when she stopped fighting, even if the chances were next to nothing, it was enough for me to hope.
That hope was all I fucking had.
So, when she looked at me, a wisp of what she once was, and the smile couldn’t even form for pretend, for the kids…I shut myself away, a concrete pillar wedged between what we were and what we became.
Until death do us part.
But did it? Part of her is with me every time I breathe.
And then there’s Lemon.
She treats me like any other man, one who isn’t on a pedestal bridled with the responsibilities or expectations that come with management of a company and a family. She doesn’t fawn over me like the doe-eyed interns who whisper as I enter a room.
She encourages porn, wipes her cum on my jacket, and points out when I’m being a shitty father.
I’m present because of her.
Kimmie laughs because of her.
Bryar has an ally I didn’t know she needed.
And Poppy…what does Poppy do? I don’t know, but I do know Lemon bought her a training bra I failed to supply.
She may be new to my family, but this wonder of a woman has been taking up space in my heart for almost a decade, hasn’t she?
And I’ll be damned if I don’t love her, too.
My phone rings, a number I don’t know. “Perkins Global, Nashville speaking.”
“Okayyy, now, that’s hot,” a male I don’t recognize sings into the phone. “Lem, he sounds so much grumblier than you said.”
“Lemon?” I rasp. “She’s with you? Is she all right? She skated off so fast, I…”
I know she can take care of herself, but she’s gorgeous, and alone, and wearing hardly anything but leggings. I’m relieved her friend has called me.
Her male friend.
A storm of jealousy I haven’t felt in all the years I played voyeur to this woman boils from within me and erupts into the phone. “Who am I speaking with?”
“Possessive, too?” he coos. “I think he wants to fight me for you, baby cakes. Love that.”
Baby cakes?
“If you are another one of her flings, like that idiot drummer, just know she’s occupied from now for the rest of the summer. Employed by me.”
“Oh, gosh, yeah.” He sighs. “I heard all about him tonight, too. My honest best friend opinion, hon? He is so last week. Single dads with tented sweatpants are the new in, if you catch my balls.”
“Izz’e talking about Onyx? I knew he saw my text! Giiimmie the phone, Jer!”
“Is she drinking?” I rub my forehead.
“That’s why I called you. She skated to Cowboy’s Paradise, like the whole way here, and she was pretty much drenched in sweat and teary-eyed mascara lines when I gave her the first shot, but I’ll be honest, I can’t stop her once she starts a quest. Nobody can. She’s a whole vibe, ya know?”
“I know.”
“Yeah. Well, I still have three hours before my shift is up, and homegirl is welcome to stay with me until she’s done loathing you, but she wants to fuck your brains out and kill you at the same time, and I reckon she can’t do either of those things from here.”
“What’re you saying to him? Tell’m I lied. His ding-a-ling is smaaall!”
“So, yeah,” he says.
“I’ll be there in fifteen.”