Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Oliver
Jeremy becomes my favorite of Lemon’s friends as he helps us to the car. She yawns when he buckles her into my passenger seat.
“I know, Jer. I promizzz I’ll behave.” Lemon hiccups, swatting her best friend’s hand as he pads her makeup clean. “I don’t liiike that brand. They aren’t cruelty-free!”
“Stop it,” Jeremy scolds, “you can resume political activism when you’re sober. Now, hold still or you’ll look ugly next to the small ding-a-ling the whole ride home.”
“I lied,” she sobs. “It’s huuuge. Couldn’t even hold the thing!”
“Shh, I know. It’s okay, babe.” He brushes sticky strands away from her face and raises a smug eyebrow my way.
He’s right; it is tear streaked. And she is into an old guy with pants tented for her.
Jeremy makes her laugh, dabbing beneath her eyes with the morally questionable compact, and I think back to the conversations we’ve had after being intimate.
This is a one-time thing.
You can’t tell your father.
They all have one theme in common.
We can’t be.
Jeremy pats the hood of my car. “Thanks, Mr. Nashville.” He winks. “Now, get my girl home and fill her up with something.”
“What?”
“Food.” He winks, returning to the bar.
“Don’t you jus’ love him?” Lemon smiles. “He told me I loved you back at the stuuupid market!” She flips the sun-visor, meeting her reflection in the mirror. “I shouldn’t ‘ave gone back to the bus that day. Felt your hands on my skin.”
It grows quiet as that settles.
I say nothing more, and she says nothing less. We enter and exit the highway before she finally breaks the silence
“You!” She twists, as if she’s only just seen me.
Is she so drunk she already forgot Jeremy putting her in the car?
“Youuu have some nerve, makin’ me fall in love with your stupid face and your dumb stubble-beard jusssta act like you don’t have feelings!
Well, I have ’em! And even if you don’t want me—”
I stop the car.
“I want you, Lem.”
She freezes, glassy eyes searching mine. “You do?”
I nod.
“I want to keep you, Lemon Perkins.”
“Fucking keep me, then.” She moves across the console, swinging her leg over my waist, straddling me and casting a spell with those fiercely violet eyes.
“You’re drunk,” I say, as her mouth meets mine. Her hips rock into me and our centers press together as knowledge builds that it’s just clothing between my cock and her willing cunt.
But the unmistakable tinge of the tequila she just consumed zings across my tongue when she kisses me, and I am many things I’m not proud of, but I am not that kind of man.
“You’re drunk, Lem. We can’t do this.”
“We can’t do this! You alwayssayyy that. I feel fine.” She slumps into her seat with lips pressed in a pout that would drive any man mad. She knows it, too. “I want this, Mr. Nashville.” She bats her lashes. “I want it so bad, I—”
“You are intoxicated.” It isn’t just her I’m reminding. “I will not take advantage of you under the influence. That’s final.”
“Okay, Dad.”
“I can’t believe I’m having this conversation with a grown adult.” I grip the wheel tighter.
“Oh, sorry,” She bats her lashes. “I mean, Daddy. You like it when I call you that, don’t you, Daddy?”
“Lemon, stop it. I’m not playing games tonight.”
“Or what? You gonna spank me, Daddy?”
“I swear to God.”
“Oooh, take me to church. I looove a sky daddy!”
“Enough!” I slam my hands over the steering wheel.
“We haven’t even made it halfway home, you’re about six shots of tequila deep, wearing nothing but fucking roller skates and a…
what the fuck is that thing, a corset tucked into pantyhose?
I don’t even know! And I want—more than anything right now—to bend you over my lap and take my hand across your bratty ass until it glows so red it lights up the night when I bury my cock inside it, but you are under influence! ”
Silence overtakes the rest of our drive.
I find I like it less than anger.
We drive in a state of nothingness for a few side roads before a sniffle to my right pinches my heart.
She wipes her tears with the hoodie Jeremy gave her, and even though he seemed supportive of whatever Lemon and I are to each other, it still bothers me it’s not my hoodie.
It’s reassuring to know she has loyal friends. It’s all Flinger models and sugar daddies with how she talks, but I’m beginning to wonder which parts of Lemon have been a guise this whole time I’ve known her. Jeremy seems like one of the real parts, the one I find myself increasingly curious about.
What are her dreams? Her greatest fears? What kind of man could earn her heart?
My eyes pull her way to find her asleep against the window. It settles my nerves to have her near me. My girl, safely curled beside me.
But she’s not mine.
And the silence is annihilated as my phone rings through the car speakers. I shoot a glance at Lemon as I lower the volume.
“Mr. Perkins.”
“Bitte, Olly. You know it is Emil to you, my friend.”
“Sorry, Emil. How’s the European tour looking for numbers? I talked to some of the guys earlier today, they’re on their best behavior with that new hire you sent.”
“Yes, it does sound like she runs a tight ship.”
Tight something, I mumble beneath my breath.
“Oliver,” his voice cracks, “I aim to check in on my daughter. She won’t answer my calls, but I didn’t think she would. She’s good on a grudge, you know.”
“Oh, I know.” I look at the sleeping woman beside me, and I admire her forwardness earlier. I wish I wasn’t the cause of her tears, but I can’t have sex with a woman who could barely get herself to the car, let alone buckle herself in. “She’s been a huge help, sir. My girls really respond to her.”
“She is not giving you a hard time, then?”
“Not at all,” I rush out. “My littlest, she sees the world differently, but she’s taken to Lem like nothing I’ve ever seen.
Bryar is helping with chores again. She’s even put me in my place a time or two.
” My smile fades when I think of how many times she’s propositioned me over the years, and how very many times I’ve rejected her. “I deserve it.”
Emil chuckles. “I’ll bet she does, Lem.” He pauses on the nickname I just used. “She loves just as deep as she should be loved back,” he says. “But look at me, taking up your Saturday night. I’ll leave you to it. I trust I will see you at the charity event tomorrow evening?”
The charity? I’d nearly forgotten with setting up for next week’s camping trip and Lemon involved in my entire everything lately.
“Of course. Looking forward to it,” I lie.
The very least I can do is sneak in a quick appearance for the man who just made me a millionaire.
“With a plus one, yes? Appearances must be impeccable. Miss Shaylyn Tryst will be in attendance.”
I jerk the car. “Shaylyn Tryst?”
He chuckles. “You’ve heard of her.”
“The same Shaylyn Tryst whose posters are plastered over my daughters’ bedroom walls? Sir…signing with her could mean…”
“Yes, Olly. And I aim to make American Sounds look like the lesser choice at this event. We already have the upper hand with Darkpath’s success this year.”
I scrub my hand down my face. This will be huge for Perkins Global. But I stall on the thing he said before. “You mentioned a plus one.”
I steal a glance at the girl in my passenger seat, curled up with dried tears on her cheeks. I care whether she sleeps or wakes, if she’s rested or well.
She is my plus one.
When did that happen?
But I can’t tell her father that.
“I admit,” Emil lowers his voice. “My request that you bring a date is shamefully one-sided. I have a lady friend joining, too,” he clears his throat, “and it would ease my mind to have a…eh, what ist das Wort? A wingman.”
“A date?” Lemon shoots up in her seat.
“Zitrone, is that you?”
“Yes, Vater, whom I am not speaking with ‘cause you sssold me, it is I, your precious bargaining chip, fresh off the bottle in a strange man’s car, just like you predicted.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Perkins, you weren’t supposed to know she was in here…like this.” I shoot Lemon a desperate look. “Please,” I mouth across the seat.
Please don’t tell your father I can still taste your pussy on my tongue.
His relieved sigh travels candidly through the speakers. “You see, Zitrone? Das ist why I have placed you in the care of my—”
“Most trussssted employee, yadda yadda yadda. You gave him millions for his loyalty, but you should have given him a medal, too, for his unwavering goddamned abstinence.” She sticks her tongue out.
I want to cover it with my cock.
“Zitrone, bitte! Stop this nonsense.”
“No, you stop it, Papa!” Her voice slices through the car. “You lost faith in me. Called me a mess.” Tears streak from a storming violet glare. “And you cockblocked me.”
I hardly breathe as my eyes work on a plea with hers.
If she reveals to her father the things we’ve done, or the way we’ve been, I lose the promotion…
the raise…the job…my girls’ future. I lose everything.
She knows this, flaring her nostrils in that way she and Emil both do, challenging anyone brave enough to step any closer should they dare.
I do not.
And I lower my eyes, conceding to her, whatever that means.
I swear, I hear her sigh of disappointment as I pull into the driveway, past the unforgiving metal gates that cage me to sameness.
Even as my heart bangs against the bars to take a risk, for the kids…
Lemon, I’m still here on the inside, behind painted glass I’m afraid to shatter.
“Yes, Papa. He cockblocked me, then drove me back to his…” She chews her lip. “Very safe home.” Her eyes never leave mine. “A home where I’ll be tucked away in a room, blocked by any and all cocks,” she rolls her eyes, “how everyone here seems to want it.”
“Sir, I—”
“Thank you, Oliver. I’ll see you, tomorrow.”
“Sure,” I start, but he cuts me off, addressing his daughter. And once again, I’m reminded of who she is. An heiress. His heiress.
“You will be there, too, Zitrone.”