Chapter Fifty-Eight #2
His eyes are panicked now. Hoping I’ll say the answer in the heat of the moment so that I won’t stop myself from doing the things I want.
“It means that you can’t do this with me if you’re going to marry her.”
I can’t give him what he wants. I can’t give him a life together, no matter how much I want it. I can, however, give him this. Just not while he is engaged to another.
“But is this all we are going to get?” he asks.
“It’s all I can give you.”
He removes himself from me. “Fuck, Sunny.” He covers his mouth. “I-“ He shakes his head. “I’m engaged. I’m engaged because you told me to move forward. And now we are here, doing this.”
I look down because I can’t meet what’s behind his eyes. I can’t. I know I’m confusing him. I’m confusing myself. He can be with anyone else. Anyone. Just not her. Yet my heart whispers that’s a lie.
If I have to be the thing to pull them apart, I will be. It’s selfish. It’s confusing. It’s a power trip. I know that. Of course I know that. But I don’t know what else to do.
“I can’t let you go, Sunny. My heart is bruised by you pulling away.” His voice breaks.
Tears sting my eyes again, because I understand the feeling of a bruised heart. It feels like mine is in that perpetual state until we’re together.
He starts pacing again, trying to formulate his thoughts. I still stand against the wall, my hands behind my back as I watch him.
He stops his pacing and looks at me as he runs a hand over his face. His emerald eyes are back to that raging fire.
“We can’t.” I shake my head.
“Fuck it.” He grabs my face in his hands, pressing his lips on mine.
One moment we are two separate beings, the next we are one. His body molds to mine with a deep moan. His need is prevalent through the layers of his suit. My hand falls to where he’s pressed against me, creating a friction that drives him wilder into this feral haze.
“Fuck, Sunny,” he groans. “It’s a good thing no one can hear us down here, because I’m going to have you screaming my name,” he says, sliding a hand through my skirt band and into my underwear, pushing his fingers inside me.
I gasp. Or moan. Or both.
All I know is it feels fucking good. I’m soaked for him. My hips immediately start grinding, trying to get him deeper. Peeling his suit jacket off, he removes those god damn fingers from me to help shimmy himself out of that tight suit.
My hands run up the carved muscles of his arms, wrapping around the back of his neck and pulling him back to my lips. And I taste it all as his tongue twines with mine. Love, desperation, need and pain.
If there's anything I know about Tyler, the more contact the better. The less clothing even better.
One hand grips my thigh, bringing it up his hip while the other slowly inches between my spread legs.
“You’re so fucking wet for me.” He smiles against my lips.
When he pushes his fingers into me again, I lose control as my head rolls back with a loud moan. A gentle kiss is placed on the tender skin of my scar, creating a chain down the plunge of my dress until he’s on his knees in front of me.
And damn, is that a sight to see.
“Take them off,” he demands, toying with the lacey fabric of my panties. Before I can even help, he’s already tugging them down while he licks his lips in anticipation. “These belong to me now.” He fists them in his hand and stands to his full height.
Wrapping my arms around his neck, I press my nose in the place between his collar and jaw, taking him in. The intimate part that only I can access as I inhale his scent.
Regardless of my need for him, the desperation to make him tremble under my fingers takes over. I undo his belt, almost freeing him save for his boxer briefs, but he snatches my hand, pinning it against the wall above my head.
“I’m going to show you just how much I want you.” His lips slam into mine.
We’re so close to crossing the line we have been balancing on for months.
Then we hear the door open.
TYLER
I have big plans for the way I will make her mine.
I will explore every line, every mark, every crook, every inch of her skin.
I’ll watch her face as I push myself into her and make her mine.
And as she screams my name, my lips will brand all the places he’s ever hurt her as proof that another’s love can erase another’s abuse.
As soon as I’m convinced I’m going to throw all those plans out the window and make love to her right here, the doors open. Instinctively I cover her, guarding her body with my own, so that whoever chooses to risk coming down here won’t see her.
Bracing the wall behind her to cocoon her body in mine, I look over my shoulder to see who our intruder is. “Mace, what the fuck are you doing down here?”
“Oh.” Her eyes dart between me and Sunny.
“Macey, what the hell?” I ask again.
“Everyone is looking for you, Tyler.” She points a thumb behind her.
When I look at Sunny her face tells me nothing again. The fortress is back up.
Stuck on what to do, I swallow hard, weighing my options. I want to grab her hand and walk out with her, showing all those bastards what’s truly mine. What I actually want.
Her blue-green irises look up at me. “Go,” is all she says.
“Come on, Tyler. Shelby is on a mission trying to find you. And down here will not be good,” Macey urges.
“Come with me,” I say, looking at Sunny.
She slowly shakes her head—defeat has my hands slide off the wall and hang at my sides.
“Tyler, they are about to make a toast.” Macey glances over her shoulder.
I hear another set of footsteps coming down the stairs in congruence to my heart hammering in my chest. I stand here like an idiot in hopes she’ll change her mind. I’m ready to set my world on fire for her, burning it all down if it means she’ll walk through the flames with me.
“Tyler, come on.” Cole grabs me by the shoulders, guiding me out of the cellar. He picks up my coat and shoves it into my chest. “Mitchell has a manhunt for you.”
Before I can even say anything else, I’m shoved out into masses of people. It all feels like it’s in slow motion as I pull my jacket back on. Realizing Sunny’s underwear is still in my hand, I shove them in my coat pocket. She won’t be getting them back.
Shelby saunters over to me with two flutes of champagne, preparing for the toasts and speeches. Turning to Cole, I look at my brother frantically.
“I need you to do me a favor.”
SUNNY
“What just happened?” Macey asks, rushing next to me against the wall.
My eyes pan over to her, finally admitting the one thing I’d been running from. “I fell in love with him.”
“Well, we all knew that.”
“What?” I croak.
“You’re just now realizing you love him?” She laughs.
“I don’t understand. You all knew?”
“Of course we knew! Oh Sunny. You’ve loved him for a while now. You just haven’t wanted to admit it.” She wraps her arms around my neck in a hug.
Clearly I spent a lot of time running from my feelings that I just came full circle, and smacked into them instead.
“So what’s going to happen now?” She eyes me. A hope sets flame behind her eyes. Hope Tyler won’t marry Shelby. Hope that this would be a reason for me to stay. But he still went up there with his bride to be, and I still have to leave.
Everything changed. But in the same breath, nothing at all.
“I don’t know.” I push off the wall. “I’m so confused, Mace.”
“Do you think…do you think he will call it off?” she asks, darting her eyes between me and the staircase waiting for us. I don’t want to go back up. I don't want to hear the toasts. I don’t want to see her hang on his arm like the gloating bride to be.
I shrug without any other words.
“Why can’t you just stay, Sunny?”
“Because I can’t let him find me.”
While the links on my chain to Ryan have grown longer, I’m still shackled by him. I will be forever unless he turns up dead or in prison.
Maybe I underestimate Tyler too much, but if detectives can’t even find him, how will he? The longer I stay, the higher the risk Ryan can find me. A false hope of his death was a beacon to a better life. But now, this is what I get. And maybe what I deserve, too.
With a sigh, she loops her arm through mine. “Come on. Let’s go back out there.”
I hate breaking their hearts. But if there’s anything more painful than this, it’d be a life with Ryan. It’d be him finding me, and having to relive the nightmares I finally have a handle on, to come back and haunt me.
I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.
She jerks us back into the crowds of unfamiliar faces.
“Dude, did you two fuck?” Sam joins me and Macey.
“Say it a little louder Sam.” I murmur.
“Let them hear!” She throws her hands up.
“No, we didn’t,” I whisper.
“But they were about to,” Macey says.
I shoot a look at her.
“Oh, come on, Sunny. You and I both know that’s the truth,” she laughs.
“What does this mean?” Sam eyes me.
It’s the same answer. “I don’t know.”
“I mean, he has got to end it, right? There’s no way he’s going to follow through with this when y’all were literally about to fuck downstairs,” she continues “I mean your plan had to work, right?”
In a haze of desperation, my only way to save him was to make him consumed by me. Lead him on in a way that would lead him away from her, even if it meant he didn’t get me in the end.
But much like my plan I had for Boston, I don’t think this one will work, either.
TYLER
Toasts are made. People clap. Forks clink against glasses as the anticipation of a kiss between me and Shelby looms like a heavy storm in the air. I don’t want to do it, but I have to play my part, like I always fucking do.
The taste of Sunny still lingers on my tongue, a sweetness I savor as a reminder of her feelings for me, so deeply on my tongue. Until it’s taken away by lip gloss and champagne.
My disappearance is only shown in subtle signs from Shelby, like her red nails clutching my bicep and her persistent presence right next to me. Still, she keeps that barbie doll smile plastered to her face as we greet our guests.
I wonder if she can smell the other woman on me.
We leave the marble interior and trade it for the outdoor view of lush trees and a pond that glistens the reflection of a full moon. The garden is filled with people forming around the string quartet filling the cold night air with music.
“This would make such a gorgeous venue, too. I think the venue our parents secured will be perfect.” Shelby says on my arm.
I don’t say anything as I scan the area, searching for any way out of this conversation because frankly, I don’t fucking care. And where the hell is Sunny?
“Maybe we could hire them for the wedding.” Shelby looks up at me.
“Maybe,” I say, but my eyes are on my family now.
There she is.
Macey is curled into Cole, her shield from the cold while Anthony talks to them, the grin never leaving his face despite the circumstances.
Sam and Sunny stand together, murmuring things I can’t read from this far. The friendship I hoped and prayed for between my sister and the woman I’d maybe one day love. And I got it.
Sam downs her champagne, already grabbing another from a waiter tray. A wind kicks up, blowing Sunny’s curls around and making her rub her bare arms against the cold.
Instinct takes over, and I immediately start peeling my jacket off.
“Ugh, thank you. It’s so cold out here.” Shelby takes it as if it’s meant for her. “Such a gentleman.” She shrugs it onto her shoulders.
I look across the way, still seeing Sunny fighting off the cold.
My jacket is on the wrong girl.
It’s a brief moment, one where her eyes flick to mine, and nothing else exists in the world. Until her already big blue-green eyes round even wider as she looks at Shelby.
It’s in slow motion. It’s all in slow motion as I look from Sunny to Shelby who stands next to me.
And Shelby pulls her hand out of the pocket of my jacket, holding another woman’s underwear in her hands.