Chapter 20 #2
“You good?” she asked, crossing her arms beneath her breasts and leaning her hip against the door frame.
“I’m very good,” he said, crossing the space and gathering her into his arms, his hunger spilling over into a kiss that didn’t end. All he could do was devour her, taste her deep and long.
He kissed his way down her neck, down to the curve of her breast.
He wanted to strip this thing off of her, but he also wanted to look at her in it forever.
A real conundrum.
She angled her head and whispered in his ear. “There’s a slit cut in between the legs.”
He felt like he’d been stabbed clean through the ribs.
“Oh.”
Then she led him to the bed, lay down on it, resting on her elbows, relaxing her thighs and letting him see exactly what she meant.
He swore an oath, which was maybe a prayer, or a curse, he couldn’t say. Then he fell to his knees in front of her on the mattress, and buried his face between her legs, starving for her. The taste of her, the scent of her. Everything.
He claimed her with his mouth until she was whimpering, crying out his name, until he thought he might lose his mind.
She grabbed hold of his hair, came hard, called out his name, and he rose up between her thighs, kissing her lips and letting her taste her own arousal as he thrust deep inside of her.
As he claimed her repeatedly, cemented something between them that was real. Intense. Desperate and lasting.
There were things he wanted to say, but he didn’t quite have the vocabulary to say them. There was an intensity to his feelings, to the way that his heart was beating, and it was more than just sex. More than just the fact that his own orgasm was closing in on him like a tidal wave.
And as he shuddered out his release, while she climbed the peak of her second, he wrapped his arms around her and held her close, sifted her hair through his fingers, kissed her face.
Neither of them said anything when all was finished.
But he knew they both felt the same thing.
And it was big. Too big to put into words right then. Too big to make promises around.
Too big to do anything but let it sit there in the room with them.
“You bought this for me?” he finally asked, sliding his fingers beneath the strap on her shoulder.
“Yes,” she said. “Just for you.”
“But they all think it’s for Jason,” he said.
“I mean, Marlowe and Addison do.”
He growled.
“You know I made it up,” she said.
“I know. I don’t like it.”
“You can’t have your cake and eat it too.” She dove under the covers then, snuggling under them and giving him a saucy look.
Goddamn it. Wasn’t that the truth.
He couldn’t have a secret and also let everybody know that she was his.
Couldn’t keep something locked away and set it free.
“Touché,” he said.
“This is not the only thing I brought in my bag,” she said, her tone teasing.
“Well, I look forward to seeing the rest.”
“It’s going to be a long night.”
For the first time in his life the prospect of a long night seemed like a good thing. They lingered in bed most of the day, until hunger finally drove them out.
He was blown away again, when they actually managed to get dressed and get down to dinner. The dress that Lila was wearing was so unlike anything he had ever seen her in before.
It felt like this whole thing was a runaway freight train, something that he couldn’t grab hold of, something he wasn’t sure he wanted to grab hold of.
Because here she was, this woman he had known for so long, surprising him. Showing that he didn’t know everything about her, demonstrating that she had way more power in this arrangement than he had a feeling anyone would give her credit for if they knew about it.
He wrapped his arm around her waist as they walked through the hotel, pulled her chair out for her at the table as they sat down.
They were given menus and glasses of water, and suddenly Lila slammed her menu down. “This is our first date.”
A date.
That crossed it over from just sex.
Not that he had felt like it was just sex for more than a minute now.
Because, of course, it was so much more than that. Of course, it had been for some time.
But no, they had never been on a date before. And that made him feel like shit, because Lila deserved to be taken out, and if there were any other guy treating her this way, he would have called it out, but it was him, he was the problem. And had been.
And yet, he didn’t quite know what the answer to it was.
Beyond telling everybody and then telling them all to stay out of their business, and that just wasn’t how anything worked. Not in a town as small as Mustang River, and not in a crew as tight as they had at the ranch.
“Hell,” he said. “It is.”
Underplaying the actual feelings that were rolling through his body.
“You don’t have to look like that,” she whispered.
“Like what?”
“Like I’m going to attack you and demand a commitment.”
That wasn’t what he’d been thinking at all.
“I was just thinking about the fact that if we tried to go out in Mustang River, we would cause a commotion.”
She laughed. “Putting it mildly.”
“Yeah. Commotion,” he said, looking back down at the menu.
“So, are you ready for this weekend? Meeting your family?”
“No. Not at all. I don’t even know what the hell we’re going to talk about. We’re meeting at my mom’s house, I don’t know if she’s going to be there. I haven’t been given an indication of... Not of anything.”
“That seems odd. It seems like they’d want you to know.”
“I don’t know what they know. I don’t know what my mom told them, I don’t know what they think is happening.”
And it isn’t their fault.
“I guess not. But... They must realize that if your mom abandoned you, it’s not like the circumstances were good.”
“Yeah. But in spite of all that, I’m trying to be somewhat sensitive. Imagine you find out your mom had a whole life before you. And that it wasn’t a great one. Maybe they don’t know that she’s an addict.”
“Maybe not. But none of that is your fault. Your mom kept a secret for all this time, and all of that is on her. She’s entitled to that, I suppose. But at the same time... You’re entitled to share your story, and she’s not in charge of it.”
“Yeah, I suppose that’s true, but I’m also just... I’m the one that’s crashing into their life. Maybe everything is perfect, and just because my life wasn’t perfect, does that give me the right to do this?”
“I feel like... This is the way the world is now. People upload their DNA onto websites, and then family members come out of the woodwork. If you aren’t prepared for that, I suppose you shouldn’t be sharing your DNA.”
“I guess not,” he said.
“It could be worse,” she said. “You could have uncovered that someone in their family was a serial killer or whatever, like your DNA could have been the missing link.”
“Well. I guess that’s true.”
“Maybe... Maybe your mom is sorry. Maybe everybody knows about you. Maybe it’s not that big of a deal.”
“Yeah, but she always knew where she could find me. So, that makes me suspect that isn’t the case.”
“Well, nothing’s going to change. You have us.
So if everybody rejects you, you didn’t lose anything.
” She reached across the table, put her hand on his, and right then, he just wasn’t sure if any of that was true.
Because what if he fucked things up with her?
He didn’t know how to handle anything fragile, and this felt fragile.
He couldn’t have his cake and eat it too. That’s what he kept coming back to. How could he have her without breaking her to pieces? Without destroying this? Without compromising everything that he had in his life?
He didn’t know if there was a way to do that, and it scared the hell out of him.
But all that had to be left unsaid, because they were on a dinner date, and he didn’t want to bring up questions he didn’t have answers to. She didn’t deserve that. She deserved more, she deserved better. She deserved everything.
He also didn’t want to tell her that he had a feeling if he did fuck things up with her, he wasn’t going to have her brothers either.
He had already taken the biggest risk with the most established family he had.
And he felt grim about it. Really, really grim.
“I know.” He lied. “I’ll always have you.”
“Yes. You will,” she said, smiling. “And when we get back up to the bedroom, I’ll show you some of the other things I brought.”
He couldn’t eat dinner fast enough.