Irresistibly Dangerous : A Marriage of Convenience Romance (Irresistibly Yours Book 5), page 24
I watch him for a moment, his tall, broad frame and the strong muscles in his back moving against the soft fabric of his gray Henley as he plays. How this beast of a man can pull the most achingly beautiful sound from a box of wood and strings is pure magic. Does he truly like being this alone, or has it become second nature to him? Is he hiding from the world because he doesn’t feel deserving, or is his reason for that far more sinister?
I find myself padding softly over to him, my fuzzy socks slipping silently across the floor, but he doesn’t react to my presence when I finally reach his side other than to scoot over to make room for me to sit. He must have heard me and Alice come in. He continues playing, his hands flying up and down the black-and-white keys, with no sheet music set before him. Whatever he’s playing is either from memory or being created in the moment.
Of all the Central Square guys, he and Grey are by far the most talented, and I can’t help but get lost in the way he plays. In the incredible music that fills the room, bouncing off the high surfaces and surrounding me in the beauty of its notes.
After a few minutes, I’m lulled into some sort of hypnotic state, my eyes closing and my head landing on his shoulder. He places a kiss on top of my head, and I sigh, smiling wistfully. I’m suddenly filled with such a tragic sense of misery and irony I swear my heart is about to give out on me.
Because I could do this.
I could live in Maine in my dream home on the lake in the middle of the woods. I could open a private practice in town and make it my own. I could fall asleep every night and wake up every morning with him wrapped around me. And I could happily sit on this piano bench and listen to him play anytime he does.
I could do all that forever.
But in my heart, in my head, I know this is only temporary. And I realize I’m hurting with that because I want that picture in my head to be my reality, my future. I’ve always wanted that with him. And no amount of protection or distance can erase that reality.
It’s Lenox. It’s always been Lenox.
There is no getting over him. There is only living with the pain of never being able to truly have him. Like a chronic condition, I may be able to treat the symptoms but will never be able to eradicate the underlying disease. I revel in that truth, bleed with it, and when I’ve come to terms with it, I tuck it into its own space in my heart instead of allowing it to continue to bleed me dry.
“Did you get Ezra arrested?” I ask when his fingers start to slow and I’m positive I have control over my voice and emotions.
He finishes off his song and shifts on the bench, forcing me to sit upright. He peers at me and answers, “Yes,” without so much as a blink of his eyes or a twitch.
“Are the drug charges fake?”
“The warrant was fake. The drug use and what they found on him is not. I didn’t have anything planted.”
“I never knew he was using drugs.”
“Recreationally. More since you left him. I noticed it in Vegas, and it prompted me to do some more digging into that. He did also have an unpaid speeding ticket, which is what gave me the idea in the first place. I didn’t set him up with anything he wasn’t already guilty of.”
“Okay.”
He gives me a wry smirk. “Just okay? I was expecting you to ream me out when you found out what I did.”
I shake my head and run my fingers through his soft, thick hair, staring at him with resigned sadness. I can say all that I want about him. I can put up a thousand walls and remind myself a thousand more times where letting him in once took me. But the truth is, hating him is ridiculous, avoiding him is futile, and building wall after wall only ends with him repeatedly knocking them down.
All without him even having to try.
“I spoke to my mother.”
“And?”
“And she’s sending me my dad’s personal laptop. Alfie has been asking for it, and she told him she threw it out. She also doesn’t know why my father changed his will, but she reminded me of how I had come to them two months before the wedding and told them I couldn’t marry Ezra and that my father pressured me into staying and seeing it through. She told me he was under a great amount of stress because of it.”
“I haven’t found any link that ties Ezra to your father’s death. The only people he’s paid are bookies, and those were to settle debts. As far as I could tell, Ezra hardly ever interacted with your father directly and wouldn’t have any direct way of knowing about the will change since your father was so careful with it.”
That’s a relief, I guess. “And Alfie?”
“I’m still working on him. He’s a hacker, Georgia, and they take more care and time as their secrets are more difficult to find and unravel. Last night, when he tried to dig into your computer, I reverse-hacked him because he left it open and didn’t mask himself. A stupid mistake, but now it’s just a matter of time, and it will move faster than it has been. I’m in something he doesn’t want anyone in, and I will discover what he’s hiding.”
I still can’t believe all that I’m hearing. It’s too much. And yet, I’m not sure I’ve ever felt safer than I do here with Lenox. I stare at him, at this fierce, loyal, determined man. I’m so grateful for all he’s done for me. For all he’s doing for me.
Still… “I wish I had never fallen in love with you. It would make my fear of doing so again so much less.”
His eyes crinkle at the corners, telling me that hurt him, but it’s true. It’s so very, very true. Love doesn’t make sense. If it did, we’d never continue to love people who hurt us or forgive them for it. There is a natural, physiological response to danger. A fight or flight response. A distress signal in your brain that activates a rush of adrenaline and sets you into motion.
You fight, or you flee.
Love doesn’t trigger the same response. Not even when it’s hurting us. Not even when it’s dangerous and we need to fight or flee for our very survival. It supersedes common sense by making us second-guess our baser gut reactions.
Love is a weapon. Whether it’s wielded by others or ourselves against us, it doesn’t matter. But when it cuts just right and makes you bleed just so, there is no sweeter weapon nor more exquisite pain than love, danger be damned.
Lenox’s eyes grow accusatory even as his knuckles gently graze up my cheek. “You still haven’t figured it out, have you?”
I gulp at his expression. “Figured what out?”
“You were everything to me, Georgia.” His voice floats over me like a whisper in the wind, but it slams into me with the force of a category-five hurricane. “I never wanted to love without you. I wanted you to love without me,” he rasps, his voice almost pleading. “You think I didn’t love you? I hurt with how I loved you. But I was already hurting too much. I had nothing to offer you. Two empty hands and a broken soul. I walked away because I had to. I let you go because I would have rather died than wrecked you along with me. And I’m tired of you not knowing it.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
I’m not sure Georgia is breathing right now. I know I’m sure as hell not. But after the way this week started between us and having her subsequently shut me out again, I’m done. I’m just fucking done. There are moments in our lives when holding intricate pieces of ourselves back is wise, but this isn’t that time. I have spent the last six years rebuilding myself into a man who could one day go toe-to-toe with her and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am fucking worthy of that footing.
I had to rebuild my mind, my life, my fucking karma, and my psyche. I had to not hate my reflection. I had to not blame myself for the death of my sister and the death of my father and the man he killed. Those aren’t overnight ventures. And bringing the woman who you consider to be your endgame—the love of your fucking life—along for that ride isn’t something you do. Love is letting go when you need to let go and hoping that their life turns out better without you in it.
That’s all I ever wanted for her.
And then she showed up at my house needing my help and now here we are, and I can’t do this anymore. I can’t pretend like it hasn’t always been her. I can’t pretend like every decision I’ve made since I left her six years ago hasn’t been made with her at the forefront of my mind.
“You told me—”
“I know what I told you. I lied.”
“Why?”
I sigh plaintively. “I blamed myself for Suzie’s death. And then I didn’t do anything to stop my father’s downward spiral because I was too deep in my own. I watched as he killed a man and then killed himself, and I was disappointed that he hadn’t killed me instead. I walked around with that for two years. I couldn’t shake it. I didn’t even try to. I earned that misery, reveled in its suffering, but you… you were light and air, and you made me want.”
“Want what?” she whispers, her voice tremulous and unsure.
“Life. You made me want to live again, Georgia. When you told me you loved me, it was as if your words shocked me out of myself. You made me want more for the first time in two years. But I was too broken, too messed up for it, and I wasn’t ready. I had treated you so poorly, and I didn’t deserve your heart or your love. I had to earn it. I knew that, but I fucking wanted it so badly. So I came clean to Zax, and I left Boston. About a week later, I was in a diner in Maine, and I heard a man who owned a bunch of real estate talking with another man about how a small town was going into mass foreclosure and the townspeople didn’t know what to do. So I bought the town, and I fixed it up so that the people who lived here and owned businesses could still do that without worry. Then I built your dream home because you were my fucking dream too, and even though I knew I’d never have you again, I wanted to give you that. All I wanted was to be a man who could be worthy of you. But when I left you, I wasn’t him yet. Not even close, and I couldn’t do that to you.”
“Because you didn’t feel you deserved me?”
My eyes flash. “I didn’t.”
“So you’ve spent the last six years working to become that man. For me.”
“Yes,” I say simply because it’s true. I did it for me—all of it—because I wanted to be a better man, a better human, someone I could respect, but it was always with her in mind.
“And now?”
“Now I fucking deserve you.” I cup the back of her head and press our foreheads together. “I can’t breathe when I’m not near you. You have my heart, Georgia. I’m yours. I’ve always been yours. I will always be yours. You are my favorite everything, and I can’t live without you anymore. But more than that, you’re my wife, and I have no plans to ever let you change that.”
I hold up my left hand, at the band that’s there covering the rose tattoo.
“You are this rose. And you are forever.”
Her eyes pinch shut, and her body trembles against mine.
I press my lips to hers, holding her so close. “Don’t be afraid to fall in love with me. I swear, I’ll never hurt you again.” My hands glide up and down her face, touching her skin. “God, Georgia, I love you so fucking much. There is madness in how much I love you. You are all I think about, day and night. There is nothing in my life more important to me than you.”
I kiss her quivering lips and wrap her up in my arms.
“Please give me another chance,” I whisper in her ear. “Everything is different now, and it will never again be like how it was.”
“What about Zax and Grey?”
I laugh because I can’t help it. After everything I just said to her, that’s what she asks? “Well, once I know you’re willing to give me a second chance, I plan to tell them you’re mine.”
“They won’t be mad. They love you.”
I smile and kiss her cheek, trickling down to her neck. “They will be mad, Georgia, and they have every right to be. I didn’t keep my promise. I told them I’d keep my distance and that I wouldn’t touch you, and I’ve done both while hiding it from them. Yet another thing I promised them I wouldn’t do.”
“Will that change this?”
I shake my head. “No. I don’t care if they’re mad, and it won’t stop me. I love them, and there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for them… except let you go.”
Georgia climbs onto my lap, and I hug her to me, moving her hair back over her shoulders so I can kiss her neck, her face, her lips. She lifts my left hand and kisses the rose I have there, then places my hand on her chest, right over her heart.
Her eyes burn into mine. “I’m giving this back to you. Don’t make me regret that.”
“I’ll keep it safe this time. I promise.”
“Don’t ever stop loving me because I know now, I never stopped loving you.”
“I never stopped loving you either.” My lips slam down on hers in an untamed rush. I need to be closer. I need to feel her every breath, every sigh. She’s mine. She’s finally fucking mine. I’ve never experienced this before.
This… rush. This… need. This… everything.
My hands slide beneath her, and I stand, lifting her in my arms as I do. I push the piano bench back and walk her across the room to the couch, where I lay her down on the soft leather and cover her body with mine. Her fingers twine up into my hair as my hot breath falls across her ear, making her shiver.
“I thought about you all day,” I whisper, trickling kisses along her neck up to her jaw. “I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t focus. I had to come home and see you. I’ve been in agony all week without you.”
I want to give Georgia everything. All of me. I never want to disappoint her again.
I twist to snatch her lips with mine, demonstrating my impatience, my desperation for her. Her eyelids flutter as I lick the seam of her lips, nibbling lightly until she opens for me. A groan sears past my throat at the first taste of her tongue, and I press in, pushing her deeper into the couch, needing to feel her body as I kiss her mouth. Our tongues coil and massage in deep, penetrating movements, and I try to slow myself down.
Not wanting lust to overtake passion.
My body vibrates with her heat as she wraps herself around me and forces me tighter against her, grinding ever so slightly against my hard length as if she can’t stop herself. My blood thrums as I devour her mouth, her kiss so intoxicating I don’t know which way is up. She hums into my mouth, a sound so sweet and clear and bright that I groan in return, twisting my head so I can take her mouth deeper, anxious for more and more.
With her body pressed against mine, trapped beneath me like this, my access to her is limited. My hands have nowhere else to go other than her hair and face and they’re growing impatient, restless with the need to touch and explore her as ours.
“Georgia,” I whisper, reaching down and adjusting her thigh, shifting it higher up my hips so I can press myself closer against her. She moans at the hard press of me into her, and my clothes feel like they’re strangling me, too tight, too restrictive. I need them off. I need hers off too.
Shifting my body to my left side, I move my hand between us, rubbing her pussy through her leggings as my mouth continues to work at a dizzying pace over hers, stealing her breath, tasting her pleasure as she whimpers into me. I pull back, catching the stunning look on her flushed face, and dive back in, flicking her tongue with mine.
My hand dives into her leggings, so grateful I don’t have to waste time fumbling with a button or zipper or deal with the cumbersome task of trying to fight with stiff pants. The leggings glide effortlessly down her legs, and she kicks them and her fuzzy socks off her feet, shivering ever so slightly when her bare skin touches the cool leather. Impatient hands trickle along my arms, ripping at the back of my shirt, and I reach behind my head to pull it off.
The storm brewing outside has nothing on the storm inside her eyes as she takes in the lines of my chest and the markings of colorful ink. I lift her sweater up and over her head, casting it on the floor along with the rest of our clothes. Her hands meet my shoulders, and she pulls me back down against her, anxious for the heat of my skin against hers. My palm flattens against her inner thigh, and I trail up marveling at her smooth skin until I’m back at her blazing hot center. I slip inside her panties, gliding my fingers up and down her wet slit while thrusting my throbbing cock against her thigh.
“Lenox.” She gasps as I circle her clit.
I lean down, my teeth nibbling at her jaw, watching as her eyes roll and then close. Her head falls back for a moment before she’s gripping the back of my head and dragging my mouth back to hers.
“Kiss me,” she rasps. “Don’t stop kissing me.”
I’m only too happy to oblige. Kissing her is like falling into a dream you never want to wake from. My finger dips into her pussy, bringing out the wetness and spreading it all over her clit.
“Oh, God.”
I don’t stop. I continue to play with her in between watching her face and kissing her lips so I can swallow her moans.
“Lenox, please.”
I thrust into her hip.
“Say it again,” I order, rubbing faster and faster, though I know she’s desperate for my fingers to pump inside of her. I can practically feel her empty core clenching with how badly she wants that.
“Lenox, please. I need your fingers inside me. Push them inside me.”
Shifting my wrist, I slip two fingers inside her, growling when I feel how fucking wet and tight and warm she is. I start to work my fingers inside her while using my thumb on her clit. Her head rolls back, and her hands shoot up, clutching onto the arm of the sofa, making her tits spill up and over the cups of her bra like a delicious invitation.
I free her nipple from her bra and suck it into my mouth, angling my head so I can watch my fingers fuck her. My mouth curves into a smile, loving how her hips rock up, fucking my hand in return. My tongue swirls around her nipple, nibbling on it, playing with it, and goddamn captivated by the wet sheen of her cunt on my fingers and the smell of her arousal. I lick my lips and then lick her tits as I increase my speed, rubbing her clit faster and harder with my thumb as I curl my fingers inside of her.
