chapter 16 #2
If I could just … I brushed my lips over her knuckles. “Let me hold you. Let me make it better.” I kissed her eyes, her nose, her cheeks, then dropped to my knees. “Let me make you feel better.”
A tear fell from her eyes, and I hated that I was once again the reason for it. “I have company,” she said. “Mo is—”
Slowly, I lifted the skirt of her dress, kissing every inch of her legs as I went. “Please,” I murmured against her skin.
“Wes,” she breathed. “We’re in the hallway.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
She’d said the same thing to me downstairs. Seemed like that was her motto lately. And she was right. Nothing else mattered but this moment. Her. And us together.
I slid her panties down her legs and tucked them into my pocket. Seconds later, I pressed my face to her core, inhaled her sweet scent, and licked her slit from front to back.
I knew we were in the open, that anyone could round the corner and catch us. But I didn’t care. I had never felt so reckless, so consumed with another person. And I needed her to know it. I needed her to feel it.
Lifting her leg up, I slung it over my shoulder and feasted on her, slipping one finger, then two inside her sweet heat. She was so wet. So ready for more. And it didn’t take her long. When I sucked her clit, she hissed my name as she climaxed.
Seconds later, her leg buckled, and she slid onto the floor.
Her eyes were wild, but she was stunning. “You can’t do this.”
I brushed my mouth over hers. “I can’t stop.”
She swallowed visibly. “I’m a liar.”
“I already knew that,” I whispered against her mouth, tracing her lips with my tongue, letting her taste herself.
“Since you know so much, what did I lie about?” she challenged.
“I knew we’d be here again.” I traced her jawline, tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear.
Gaping at me, she bit down on my bottom lip before she kissed me fully. “Seriously, Wes. This is not good. I told myself that I couldn’t do this again.”
“You haven’t done anything yet.”
A whisper of a smile crossed her lips. “But I let you do something. In a public hallway.”
“I wanted to.”
Albany searched my eyes. “I don’t think I’m strong enough to say no to you. Which is why I needed you to keep your word.”
The pain in her eyes was unmistakable. I rested my forehead against hers. “I’m trying, but I can’t stop wanting you.”
“This is so hard.”
I kissed her again, dipped my tongue in her mouth. “Yeah, but that last time … It was—”
“So good.” She cupped my cheeks in her palms. “I do want you. More than I should be admitting. But I’m getting too old to just be fucking.”
Unable to help myself, I laughed.
She dissolved into a fit of giggles, too.
Reluctantly, I stood and held out my hand to her. When she placed her palm in mine, I helped her up. I stuffed her panties into her purse. “I want to keep them, but I won’t,” I confessed.
She brushed past me. “I thought it was possible to just have one night with you, then lock it away. Keep it in the part of my heart that wants to move forward with my life.” She stopped in front of her door. “I was doing good until I saw you. With her.”
“We were never together. I didn’t lie to get her to tutor me. We’ve never been more than friends.”
“Just the thought that you were with her sent me into a rage.”
I leaned into her. “Is that so bad?”
“It’s not good.”
She unlocked her door and went inside. The fact that she didn’t slam the door in my face was all I needed to follow her. Albany walked straight to the kitchen, poured herself a large glass of wine, and gulped it down.
I slid onto one of her barstools. “Your grandfather died. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Are we there yet? At the point where I tell you all my business?”
“I think we are.” I reached across the countertop and grabbed her hand. “Bug, you know how I feel about you.”
She lifted a questioning brow. “Do I really?”
My heart raced. I knew I finally needed to tell her everything, but it didn’t feel right to say the words after what we just shared. Then again, maybe it was the perfect time. “We need to talk.”
Glancing at her watch, she smirked. “Your minute is up.”
Chuckling, I led her over to the couch. And she let me. “Can you sit with me?”
Instead of joining me on the sofa, she sat on one of the chairs. “What’s up, Wes?”
“That night …” I sighed, dreading the conversation even though I knew we needed to have it. “I didn’t want to leave you.”
“But you did.”
“After my father died, we became pawns in a world we had no idea existed. People who he worked with, who he harmed, were coming out of the woodwork demanding answers. Money. Revenge.”
She frowned. “What?”
“The night we left, I wasn’t supposed to be with you. Mom wanted us to disappear earlier in the day, but I disobeyed her to come to you. I couldn’t imagine leaving town without seeing you again.”
“But I—”
“It was a good day. Perfect. Then you kissed me and told me you were ready. We made love, and I wanted to hold on to you forever.”
“Your mom called,” she whispered.
“She’d been calling and texting all day.
I ignored her until I couldn’t. I had every intention of coming back to you that night, even if that meant I was grounded for the rest of the summer.
I knew I couldn’t leave without seeing you one more time.
But … When I got home, my mother told me that someone came to the house, threatened to take what my father owed them from Erica. ”
She gasped. “What?”
“I had to go.”
“Why didn’t you just call me?” She stood, paced the room. “You could’ve just told me the truth. I would’ve been sad, but I would’ve understood.”
“By then, it was too late. We left moments after I made it home. I couldn’t say anything. It was either that or put all of us in danger. Including you.”
“Me?” She shook her head. “What do you mean, me? I didn’t have anything to do with your father.”
“Bug, these assholes didn’t care. They threatened you, too. Anybody that meant anything to me or my family.”
“Did Granny know?”
I nodded. “She’s the one who suggested we leave town because she couldn’t trust anyone to keep us safe at the time. Since Mom was from Wellspring, Granny helped by purchasing a house there, giving us enough to live on until my mother found a job.”
For the first year, we had no contact with anyone back home.
Not even Granny. My father was indicted on money laundering, but he didn’t do it alone.
He’d built his criminal empire trafficking in drugs and military-grade weapons, and several of his key players worked for the company.
It took a while, but my grandmother used her power and influence to root out all the Batchelor Corp employees involved.
“Eventually, the police traced the threats to a childhood friend of my father and John,” I continued. “Ryan Baker. But the damage was already done. By then, Mom didn’t want anything to do with the family, and she’d resolved to stay away. Which meant, I had to stay away, too.”
Albany plopped on the chair. “So why didn’t you call when everything was over?”
“Because I wasn’t the same person. My father’s death, and everything that came with it, broke me.
I didn’t care about my life. It wasn’t worth much.
I didn’t care about waking up in the morning or falling asleep at night.
All I saw was my failure, my loss. So, I couldn’t …
” I swallowed against the hard lump in my throat.
“I didn’t think I would survive losing the only person who meant everything to me.
The one person who saw the best in me. I couldn’t risk you looking at me and feeling pity. Then leaving me.”
“I would’ve never left you, though. Not for anything.”
“You say that now, but I wasn’t the guy you fell in love with at that point.”
“But you didn’t even give me a chance to prove you wrong!” she yelled. “You just stayed away—after you walked out on me without looking back.”
“I did look back,” I told her. “Every day. I thought about you.”
Her expression softened. “I wrote you. I sent you messages on Facebook, on IG … I asked Hendrix about you. When I finally got in touch with Erica, I asked her about you. Nobody would tell me anything. I worried so much. At some point, all you had to do was send three words back. I am good.”
“I wasn’t good, Albany. I was fucked up. Drunk all the time. High. Hanging around with the wrong people. I dropped out of college. I couldn’t face you.”
“I see you like this, so tormented, and I want to help you. I want to make it better. You don’t deserve me, but I still …”
I walked to her, dropped to my knees again in front of her. “You can’t walk away either.” I rested my forehead against her lap. “You can’t leave me.”
Her fingers feathered over my scalp. “This is my fault.”
My eyes flashed to hers. “It’s not. This is all me.”
“No.” She shook her head, dashed fresh tears from her cheeks. “It’s me. I believe that you loved me as much as you could at the time.”
“I still love you.”
Her shoulders slumped forward. “But I was so engrossed in the magic we made together that I didn’t see how torn you were that night.
I was so na?ve, and I carried that naivete into my marriage.
Look where that landed me. Broke. Broken.
” She slipped out of my grasp and stood. “I can’t lose myself in you again.”
Closing my eyes, I whispered, “I’m not that same messed up, immature man, Bug.” I inched closer to her. “That’s not me anymore.”
“I can see that.” She smiled sadly. “What I don’t understand is why you didn’t at least tell me the truth when I came back.”
“I wanted to tell you that day in the café, at the fundraiser, at your apartment…. It never felt like the right time. Would it have even made a difference? Does it change things for you? Now that you know my reasons, are you willing to try and make this work?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. But I wish you would’ve said something a long time ago.”
“Albany, please …”
“I can move past it. I can not hate you. I can know that things were beyond your control as a teenager, but—”
“The past is behind us,” I said. “We can get this right.”
“It’s not, Wes. Our past is all around us.” She gestured to the space. “Mostly, here.” She placed a hand over her heart. “And here.” She pressed her other hand against my heart.
“This”—I held her palm to my chest—“my heart is not an obstacle to overcome. It’s just yours.” I kissed her softly. “Bug, there’s no one for me but you.”
“That’s not true,” she insisted. “I think Ms. Tea would like a word.”
“Fuck Ms. Tea,” I roared. “She doesn’t know anything. She doesn’t know me. And she damn sure doesn’t know us.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“You keep saying that, but I would argue that it does.”
She let out a heavy sigh. “I need some time.”
Tipping her chin up, I whispered, “I told you I would let you set the pace.”
“Is that what you’re doing?”
I held her hands in mine. “I also told you earlier that I can’t walk away from you again.”
“Yeah, I read that message.”
“You didn’t respond.”
“Because I didn’t know what to say.”
I tilted my head to meet her gaze. “I don’t believe that.”
“Why can’t you walk away? It’s not like I’m nice to you. I don’t even like you that much.”
I laughed. “Maybe. But you love me.”
She frowned. “I don’t.”
“Yeah, you do.”
“Actually, I think I’m teetering toward I-can’t-stand-you.”
“You still love me, though.”
“This is stupid. Tell me why I should believe you when you say you can’t walk away from me. Because we already established that you did before.”
“Walking away from you would destroy me. I meant what I said, you own my heart. Since I can’t live without it, I will die.”
She gasped. “Wes.”
“I’m joking, but I’m serious, too. It’s really that simple.” I placed a tentative kiss to her lips. When she didn’t pull away, I deepened it, pulling her to me. And she let me.
A soft knock broke the haze of desire simmering between us, and she jerked away from me. She didn’t speak, though. Instead, she rushed over to the door and opened it.
Mo walked in, followed by Erica and Whitney.
Albany glanced back at me. “I told you your time was up.”
“We figured we’d check on you.” Erica eyed me curiously. “Are you two okay?”
I nodded. “Yes. I’m going home.”
“Already?” Albany asked.
It was a test. One that I would pass with flying colors this time. I kissed her, not even caring that we weren’t alone. “I’ll be back. You said you needed time, and I made a promise to let you set the pace.”
She nibbled on her bottom lip. “Okay.”
I dapped Mo up, hugged Erica and Whit, then I left.