AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You’re angry with me,” he said.
Genius, aren’t you?I looked away and said nothing.
He stood up.
“You are,” he said. “Look at you. You’re practically shaking. You’re furious with me.”
I tried to hold it back, but I couldn’t any longer.
“You’re damn right I am!” I yelled. The force of my voice shocked me, and Alex took a step back.
“You’ve taken me from my home, from my daughter. And you’ve brought me out here to the middle of nowhere, to some mansion. And I’m tired, and I’m afraid. Not just for me, but for Macy. I told her I’d be there tomorrow. She’s going to wake up—” I was beginning to cry now, “—and I won’t be there, again, and isn’t it enough? I mean, how much worse of a mother could I be? To have signed up to this, to have done all this, foryou?”
Alex stood, watching me. For the first time, it struck me how amazingly resilient he was. He’d just seen his most treasured business burned to the ground. He’d been arrested, and told he was in danger, and he’d driven me out here in the dead of night. And I’d just yelled the meanest thing I could possibly think of at him. And somehow he was still standing upright.
“You’re not a bad mother,” he said, and kneeled down with his back to me, tending the fire.
“What?” I said, stepping around to the side of him.
“You’re not a bad mother at all,” he said, and while Alex’s face was still and unmoved, I could see his eyes gleaming in the firelight, the orange tongues of flame playing strangely across the surface of his blue, shimmering eyes. He blinked mechanically, every few seconds.
I’d never looked at Alex’s face so closely before. And for the first time, I noticed that even though he wasn’t smiling, his eyeswere. He was trying to reassure me, to make me happy. How many times had he looked at me this way, and I hadn’t even noticed?
“I feel like I am,” I said. “She needs me. And I’m not there right now.”And neither are you, I thought.
“I know. But it’s not your fault, and she’s going to be fine.”
“You think?”
“How could she not be, with you for a mom?”
I was stunned––stunned at his kindness.
“That’s maybe the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” I murmured. My eyes were drawn to the stray locks of hair which hung over Alex’s brow, while he tended the fire.
He turned and looked at me, and there was a warm glow to his cheeks.
I kneeled beside him, my knees on the fur rug. It was soft, and I could smell the deep, heavy scent of woodsmoke and a few traces of the glorious, sweet cologne that Alex had worn to the church. The church where he’d chosen me, of all people, to marry him. A woman who’d given him nothing but trouble.
I wondered whether Alex would have ever married someone. He seemed to exist apart from the rest of the world, from its everyday concerns. To marry someone was an impossible thing for a man like him—requiring absolute trust, absolute loyalty.
And he had married me. Even if it wasn’t real. Even if it was in a moment of desperation.
“Hey,” I said, hearing my voice, low and husky, a little tired. He turned to me, and as he turned, I reached towards him, my hand coming to rest on the rough stubble of his chin.
“Lola,” he said, and for the millionth time I wondered how it felt so good to have someone hear my name.
He leaned towards me, and we kissed, a rush of dark desire forcing its way down from my lips as they pressed against his. He pulled back for a moment, and I looked into his eyes, blue eyes, sweet eyes, welcoming and warm. Their hard, glassy surface dissolved at last, by the warming reach of the fire.
He kissed me once again, and this time I heard a soft moan escape up through my mouth as it pressed to his, and through his lips, I felt the excitement and wonder I stirred in Alex. Slowly, as I grasped at his sides, at the shirt he wore, the shirt which smelled of smoke and ruin and sweet cologne, he bore down on me, until I lay on my back.
Alex reached down, his hands sending a pleasurable tingle of lust through me as they explored my breasts, my hips, and finally my waist. I felt like a woman with him. It was as if the last few hours had stripped away every mask I wore—waitress, mom, former singer—until I was just me, was just the essence of who I was. And a smile played on my lips and I sighed contentedly as he reached beneath the folds of my wedding dress, and his hands rested on my thighs. One of his arms reached up my skirts, and before I knew it, he’d rested his palm against my panties, and I began to grind my hips against his hand in response. I wanted him to know how much I desired him. I had to have him.
I sat up, in the firelight, as though shocked out of a dream. My hands reached instinctively for the buttons on his shirt. I wanted to peel down his defenses too, let him feel just like a man, with me, just a woman.
But Alex firmly gripped my hands.
“What?” I said, suddenly worried he didn’t want this, that somehow I’d misread every one of the signals, even though that was surely impossible.
