Chapter 23 Theo
Pound, pound, pound.
Sweat builds in my neck, trickles down my back, my heartbeat rages in my chest.
I can’t fucking do this anymore.
Pound, pound, pound.
I’m hitting the boxing bag like it’s attacking me, landing brutal punches over and over, and the image isn’t erasing.
Lexie in that dress. Her tits pushed up, her skin begging to be licked.
The lush red hair swept to the side exposing the sweet, delicate slope in her neck.
Soft lace hugging her mouth-watering curves.
It was exactly how I’d pictured her. If things were different, if Anna was different, if I was different…
Beads of sweat run down my forehead. In the dressing room, Lexie’s sweet scent assaulted my mind.
The sex and sweetness aura she emits is too much and it breaks me.
I need to stay fucking focused. When she stood there as I adjusted her dress, I wanted to scoop her in my arms and take her away and pretend, for just a day, that we lived in a different reality.
That she was mine, and I was hers, and none of the outside elements existed.
But then, what I said. She attacked, and I hit back. Twice as hard, twice as fast, like I always fucking do.
Fuck.
Red fills me. Why does she do this to me?
Every goddamn time. It’s been almost two weeks and the wedding dress shop consumes my every waking hour.
She’s the quintessential forbidden fruit, but I can’t stop.
My raw desire eats at me, I’m powerless.
The feel of her skin under my fingers, the way she looked, how she smelled.
Her coconut-scented hair buried into my nose that night.
So, like a fucking lunatic, I sniffed bottles of shampoo at a store until I found one that smelled like her and brought it home.
She cast a spell on me that I can’t break.
Pound, pound, pound.
I need Anna, my anchor and stabilizer, to come home.
I need things to go back to normal. The longer she’s gone and the more time I spend around Lexie, the further I spiral.
Reality feels warped, upside down, while I’m usually razor-sharp.
Decisions that once came easily now drag. Sleep barely exists.
When I first decided to use Lexie as the wedding planner, it seemed perfect.
After years of her haunting me, I thought being back in her life again, forcing myself to remember exactly why I don’t deserve her, would finally exorcise her for good.
Instead, I’m ravenous. Nothing extinguishes the blaze.
This all started to get her out of my head once and for all—to make sure she couldn’t interfere in my investigation and to clear the past so I could settle down and commit to marrying Anna with my whole being.
Pound, pound, pound.
Visions fill me, imagining her on her knees, that luscious mouth wrapped around me, her trailing tongue…
I slam into the bag. The more brutal I land the punches, the harder I kick, the more strikes I hand out, the worse I feel.
Worse. Hard and angry breaths expel; my muscles burn from the inside out.
But no amount of lifting, running, or hitting the bag is lightening whatever the fuck is happening.
My body verges on breaking. I rest my dripping head against the bag as my lungs seize.
What am I doing? Being around Lexie is like watching my heart edge itself outside of my body and dive into rush hour traffic.
I want to run, because it’s going to fucking hurt when it gets slammed and crushed into the road.
I should take five, but I don’t want to. I hit again. And again. I’ll keep hitting until I can’t breathe, until I sweat her out of my system, until I’m done with this bullshit.
“Hey, Dr. Astor, hitting it hard today, huh?” Lou, one of my patients and the toughest sixty-year-old I’ve ever met, says as he taps the bag in front of him and starts swinging.
It takes his words to snap me out of it. I drop my arms. “What did I tell you about cardio for men like us?”
Lou grunts through his nose. “Bullshit,” he says, his faded navy tattoos stretching against his spotted skin as he hits. “Men like us. You look like you just stepped off one of those pretty boy magazines. I’ve got four teeth left and look like I have one foot in the ground.”
I chuckle, thankful for the reprieve. I bite the edge of the Velcro to loosen the gloves and tug them off. “Don’t forget to hydrate,” I say as I swing the towel around my neck and swipe it down my face.
“Coconut water or some shit, right?” Lou says. “Got it, Doc.”
I give him a quick slap on the back and rush to the shower.
When I’m done, I settle into the SUV.
“You doing all right, sir?” Michael says.
I know why he’s asking. Because I’m not doing fucking all right. I’m hitting the gym two, sometimes three times a day. I’m not sleeping. I’m restless, itchy, and angry. “Yeah, I’m good. Let’s go to my place.”
He nods, hands me a protein shake, and pulls into traffic.
This man needs a raise.
My phone rings. Anna. I exhale a hefty breath and push away all thoughts of Lexie. For now. “Hey, you.” I lean back into the seat and watch the city pass by. “Miss me yet?”
“Truthfully?”
“Nope.” I grin. “Lie to me and say yes. My heart can’t take it that you’ve left me in New York for an Italian retreat.”
“God, you’re the most dramatic person I know. And that’s saying a lot considering who raised me.”
I chuckle. “How’s Nonna?”
“Stubborn as hell. She has a perfectly good physical therapist but refuses to do anything unless I’m there, watching.
” The sound of her slurping what’s most likely an iced coffee—even at this hour—sounds through the phone.
“But she has some stiffness and today the skin around the incision was inflamed and red—”
I pinch my nose. “Jesus, Anna. You have to call her doctor. It’s probably infected—”
“You don’t think I’ve picked up a thing or two by now being in your almighty presence?
” She laughs. “Done and done. They already prescribed antibiotics and tomorrow they’re going to check if they need to drain it.
I don’t know how you doctors do it. I almost passed out just from listening to the instructions. ”
“It’s like re-watching the same porn,” I say, slamming back the protein shake. “Eventually you get desensitized.”
Anna groans so loud I move the phone from my ear. “You did not just compare my grandmother’s infected wound to porn, right? Are you trying to kill my sex life for good?”
“Fair,” I say, grinning. “Bad analogy.”
I ask about her trip, how she’s managing her non-profit business remotely, and give her some updates on the wedding planning.
I’m focusing as hard as I can, but talk of the wedding makes me think of Lexie again.
It’s been almost two weeks without her and I can’t handle it.
Watching her from the window isn’t enough.
She manipulates. It’s her nature. And she’s so skilled at it that I can never tell when she’s being sincere.
Maybe I should meet with her again to be sure. Just once and I can move on.
“So… it’s going to be a few more weeks before I come home,” Anna says, and I hate myself right now that I missed whatever she said before this.
My body deflates at the realization that she won’t be back anytime soon to save me, so I try to deflect with humor. “No shock. I know you. And unfortunately, I know Nonna too.”
“Theodore James Astor. You’ll put soap in your mouth for that one,” she says with a giggle. “So… I don’t know if I’ll be back in time for dance rehearsals.”
Fucking dance rehearsals. “Cool, we can cancel, then.”
“You know we can’t.”
The words weighing down the tip of my tongue could land me in jail, so instead of going off, I take a breath.
My future mother-in-law is a conniving, evil, wife of a billionaire who meets and exceeds every stereotype that a wife of a billionaire has.
What she did to Anna… the heated rage builds in my stomach.
But, thank Christ, so far, she’s been more hands-off than anticipated for the actual event. But she insisted on using some former Juilliard prodigy, retired ballet superstar, as our choreographer. I still can’t believe I agreed to the arrangement.
“Fine,” I say. “But I want the record to show I am seriously taking one for the team on this.”
“Filed with the courts and entered into Exhibit A,” Anna says. “I should run. I really do miss you. Thank you for everything you’re doing back home for the wedding.”
I miss her, too. She’s been a constant in my life, one of the positive beacons of light, and probably the only reason I’m as grounded as I am.
She’s always showed me a pure love. One that I never got from my parents, one that I didn’t know I needed until she gave it to me.
But, as much as I want her home, it’s evident that I need a little more time to get Lexie out of my system.
My legs bounce in the back of the SUV. What’s Lexie doing tonight? Has she met some asshole? I bet she did. I bet she’s laying there, getting railed but not taken care of, by some dumb prick that cums on her ass after they fuck and doesn’t even have the decency to clean her off.
Christ, I need to get her out of my mind. Lexie with her wide, beautiful gap-toothed smile. Does she know the effect she has on me? That she must have on everyone? She’s a pestilent honey trap, luring people in with those eyes and that wicked mouth, and it works every time.
Lexie shatters my mental dexterity. She shatters everything. My mind, my breath, my clarity. My thoughts and visions.
And if I’m not careful, my future.