I use every reserve I have not to take her hard and unapologetic right here right now. “I know,” I whisper back and I do. She isn’t there yet and I don’t want to push her. I’m not going to be the reason she wakes up tomorrow and can’t forgiveherself for giving in, no matter how bad we both feel it. Not when everything is finally coming together for the first time since I let her go. I pull back some more and look at her as she opens those beautiful chocolate eyes. “I’ll take the couch,” I say.
She blinks confused. “What? No, you don’t have to…”
“I know I don’t have to, but I am going to.” She looks at me for a long moment with that same longing in her eyes I’ve felt every day. Her arms find their way around my neck as I move my hands to cup her taut ass and lift her as I stand. She wraps her legs around me without hesitation, without question, and it’s the most natural thing either of us has felt all day. I carry her down the hall to my bedroom. She doesn’t say anything and neither do I as her head rests in the crook of my neck and one hand curled into the back of my shirt. I push the bedroom door open with my foot and cross to the bed, lowering her down onto it slowly and carefully, savoring the moment with her. I pull back and she looks up at me, hair spread out across my pillows and her eyes soft in a way she would never allow me to see in the daylight. I kiss her lips gently, squeezing her hip slightly as I straighten. “Goodnight,” she says quietly. I turn to leave, pulling the door most of the way closed.
CHAPTER 48
Ledgar
I standin the hallway for a moment with my hand still on the doorframe and the weight of the whole day sitting across my shoulders. She stood inches away from me in my kitchen, looking up at me through her lashes with those big beautiful doe eyes, and said I smelled good, like it was nothing and then walked back to her barstool with that smile that nearly undid me. Then there was the couch where she let me hold her and kiss her again. If I didn’t carry her down the hall and set her down on that bed and walk out, there is no telling what we would’ve done. It was the right thing to do in that moment but it didn’t make it any easier.
I push off the doorframe and head down the hall to the laundry room and open the dryer and grab a pair of boxers and a pair of shorts so I can shower. It’s been six years since I last saw her, and last night she was asleep on my couch. This morning she stood in my kitchen smelling like that shampoo that drives me wild to this day, and she looked at me the way she used to, if even for a moment. I’ve never been a patient man, but with herthe patience and willpower go hand in hand, and since I set eyes on her again…both of those things have their limits.
I head to the bathroom on the other side of the house and close the door behind me. I turn the shower on cold and contemplate standing in it, letting the cold water shock my body and wash the remnant of her scent off me. Then I turn on the hot because I’m not a monk. Just a man who has been wanting the same woman for six years and now she’s only thirty feet away, laying in my bed and my willpower can only extend so far before it snaps. I step in and put both hands flat against the tile and drop my head, letting the water run down my neck and back as I think about her. About the way she felt against my side on the couch, where she belonged. The way her hands found my jaw when I kissed her, and the sound she made when I pulled her closer. Or the way she looked up at me in that flirtatious, devilish way, knowing exactly what she was doing when she moaned over that piece of chicken.
I palm my cock in my hand, squeezing hard and pumping it a few times to relieve some tension. When it doesn’t work, I close my eyes and think of her lying in my bed and stroke my cock hard and fast, imagining her hand beneath mine and those perfect lips wrapped around my cock, licking and sucking. My balls draw up tight and I grunt out my release against the shower wall, panting heavy as the last drop leaves my trembling body.
When I’m done showering, I shut the water off and grab a towel hanging on the rack and dry off. I pull on my boxers and shorts and run a hand through my wet hair and look at myself in the mirror for a second before I shut the light off and head back down the hall. Duke is already on the couch, stretched diagonally across the full length of it. “Move,” I tell him. He opens one eye and closes it again. I stand there for a moment looking at him, this forty-pound animal who has completely seized a piece of furniture that cost more than most people’s firstcars. I sit down in the twelve inches of space he graciously gives me at the end and lean my head back and stare at the ceiling. Duke’s snoring softly beside me as I stare at the ceiling and think about the woman down the hall in a bed that should have been hers a long time ago. The way her voice cracked when she told me she waited a long time, and all the things she still has left to know. The email Griffith sent me from Jarrell and the order in which I’m going to have to tell her. It’s not going to be easy for her to hear or for me to watch. I think about what it cost for Jarrell to write those words and encrypt them for just the right moment, and the promise I made him, I made her, and the way I betrayed them both.
I don’t sleep. Last night I sat in that chair across the room and watched her sleep while holding onto the fact that she was here. One wrong move and I’d be back to sitting in this house by myself with nothing and no one but Duke and the quiet. Tonight is different. She drove fourteen hours on nothing but a dead man’s last wishes and a bone deep instinct that knowing damn well she argued with herself before she followed. But she’s here and she’s still hurt and angry. She hasn’t forgiven me and probably won’t for awhile but she’s here and I’m not letting her go again. I can’t.
CHAPTER 49
Payson
It’s beentwo weeks and three days since I first pulled into the driveway. Two weeks and three days since Duke nudged me awake with his whiskers and I opened my eyes to find Ledgar sitting across the room from me. The routine we formed happened without either of us planning it. He makes coffee first thing, always, and by the time I come down the hall he has a cup poured for both of us on the counter and he’s usually already on the porch or moving through the kitchen doing something. We just exist in the little moments together for a little while before the day requires anything from us. I never knew how much I needed that in the mornings until I had it.
Duke has decided we are both equally his and divides his time and affection between us. In the morning he’s mine, and in the evening he’s Ledgar’s, and somewhere in between he belongs to whoever will throw the bumper. We’ve kept our distance from each other but there are moments small and charged and impossible to escape. Like when the kitchen gets too small or the porch gets too quiet and the space between us electrifies witheverything neither of us is ready to say yet. And he’s a pro at those moments.
I come down the hall and he’s moving slower than usual and there are creases on his face that have nothing to do with sleep and everything to do with the piece of furniture Duke has taken refuge on every night. I lean against the kitchen counter with my arms crossed and look at him. “You look terrible,” I say.
“Good morning to you too.”
“How much of the couch are you actually getting?”
He pours my coffee like he does every morning and sets it on the counter, followed by my favorite creamer. “Enough.”
“Duke disagrees,” I say, looking down at Duke who is nudging my leg for me to pet him. He looks at me then at the dog and huffs a sigh. “You can sleep in the bed,” I say flatly.
“It’s your bed, and I’m not going to have you destroying your back on that couch.” He turns and looks at me. “You are not sleeping on the couch,” he protests.
“No, I’m not. And I’m not negotiating this with you.” I pick up my mug. “It’s no big deal. It’s a huge bed and there is an entire side empty. Just sleep in it.” He watches me for a second, trying to read me the way he always has and find out if I’m telling the truth or not. That night he waits until I’m asleep before slipping in. I know because I’m not all the way there when I feel the other side of the bed dip with his weight. He stays on his side, not once reaching for me, and I lie there on my side with my eyes closed, secretly hoping he would just pull me to him already, but I let it be and eventually fall asleep. The next several days we continue the same ole routine. I wake up and go get my coffee and we don’t speak about anything. He goes on with his day like he has before I even got here. Some days he stays in the office down the hall almost all day long, and I don’t bother asking what he does. Each and every night he waits until I’m asleep before he slides in next to me and every morning I wake up alone, untilthis morning. At some point in the night I must have said fuck it because I’m currently tucked against his side, my head on his chest, one of my legs thrown over his, and his arm wrapped around me. Duke is curled at the very end at our feet, and it’s the most comfortable I have been in longer than I can remember.
I can tell he’s still asleep because his breathing is slow and steady and his chest is warm under my cheek. I lie there for a moment in the early light and I am honest enough with myself to admit that this is exactly where I want to be. I close my eyes and just lie there and let myself revel in the warmth of his body against mine for a few minutes. When I open my eyes again, he’s gone, but his side of the bed is still warm. I can hear him in the kitchen, the quiet sounds of the coffee maker and his boots on the floor, and I lie there in the warm space he left and stare at the ceiling thinking about how he woke up tangled with me and quietly removed himself before I get up and go get my coffee and let the morning start the way it has been and smile softly to myself realizing that a small piece of me wants this.
CHAPTER 50
Payson
It’slate in the evening and we are sitting on the porch, Duke quietly between us on the steps watching the tree line go dark as the sun fades away. We talked over dinner about the casino and how he is now the acting CEO, has been the whole time. Griffith only handles anything that requires him to be present. He tells me he’s always been behind everything and maintained his distance because that was the deal he made with Vivian. I listen to him tell me all of it and don’t say anything as he does. “So she thought if you disappeared I’d be easier to manage,” I say finally.
“I suppose.”
“And you let her think that.” He looks down not saying anything as he beats himself up for it. “Did it work?”
He chuckles. “For awhile. She underestimated some things.”
“Like what?”
