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I open my eyes. Watching Jake’s awe. Listening to ceaseless dirty thoughts tumble unbound from his mouth, telling me how much he likes how tight and wet I am. I feel every inch of him and, each time his hips jerk, the last thing Jake makes me feel is tight.
The conflict between us these past few months morphs into the struggle to remain as close as possible. Perhaps that’s why we fight. We’ve been trying to make sense of everything so we can be together.
Jake brings me to the edge and backs off until the rumpled silk of my gown is damp with sweat and perspiration drips down his temple. Giving into pleasure, I’ve all but forgotten that he’s-not-to-be-trusted Jake Ballentine and I’m can’t-be-honest Paisley Cooper. The way I tumble over the edge, my thighs clamped around Jake’s waist and my pussy pulsing around his breathtaking dick, is the most genuine experience I’ve had. I swear I see stars when Jake gets me there a second time as his own orgasm overtakes him.
His hips keep riding the slow rippling waves that leave me incoherent. Mere inches from suckling on my nipple, I anticipate the sting when Jake beads it between his lips and teases it with his teeth. I want to make love to him all night. But everything comes to a screeching halt.
He stares at the flat white scar over my sternum. His expression is as horrified as mine.
I yank the bodice over my exposed front. “Jake, I can explain.”
I should have told him about the surgeries I had when I was a kid. About how I have a congenital heart defect passed on by my father. A father who dedicated his life to research and cardiac patients, and whose legacy was organizing a charity benefit so that people like me have a chance to live a long life. Because he wasn’t just a doctor, my dad was a patient, too.
There was no reason to reveal this part of me to Jake when we met. I’m flawed and Jake has his choice of sexy and flawless strippers at Sweet Caroline’s. Sex wasn’t a reality between us. He wasn’t winning me over with his devilish charms. We weren’t supposed to keep kissing one another. I wasn’t supposed to fall in love.
Jake has already scrambled off the mattress and grabbed his trousers. He’s halfway out the bedroom door, clutching his clothes like he’s woken from a siren song as I’m about to lure him into the depths.
I begin to shake, my heart aware of his revulsion the way only a few moments ago my body accepted him inside of me.
This man was the means to my end with Gavin. Then faking our relationship was to put a stop to Jake’s friends harassing him about settling down. We were using one another. I was an easy target. An easy lay. But Jake didn’t get the sensual, beautiful, perfect woman he made one last bargain for. I did my best to dazzle him and dupe him into taking me to bed.
It’s obvious omitting the truth disgusts Jake. When he dares a last look at my tear-stained face his features harden and he says the last thing I’d ever expect.
“I threw the rock.”
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24
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I’m familiar with the feeling of getting in the car and driving to a destination, but the middle part—the actual travel—gets lost. Autopilot it’s called. But for that to happen, I figured a person needs a mental roadmap of the streets they’re traveling to get to the destination.
I’ve never been where I am. Although an internal compass led me here; down a two-lane country road, past a well-maintained Tudor mansion surrounded by a tall fence. I turn the wheel right. The tires bump over gravel. In my rear view mirror, yellowish orange dust kicks up. Through the translucent plume, I can still make out where I came from. The problem is, I can’t see what’s in front of me, and I haven’t been able to see where I’m headed for a long time. A haze of uncertainty has obscured the road in front of me for years.
Peeking from between the trees to my left, I spy a round turret of a Victorian. It’s not as old or as big, yet it is as elegant as the Tudor I passed and even the Georgian monstrosity I grew up in. To my right, there are stables and a veterinary office. Straight ahead are row upon row of vines. Perched in the midst is a massive barn-like building, marked: banquet hall and tasting room.
I pull into the winery parking lot, kill the engine and sit there, a witness to the surrounding greenery and expansive vineyard that has the pull of heaven.
“What the hell are you doing?”I ask myself for the umpteenth time. My fingers grip my unwashed hair.
I’ve been alone with my thoughts since bolting from Paisley’s.
For as much as I wanted to fuck her from the instant she leaped into my arms on Valentine’s Day, I’d been waiting for Paisley to be ready for us to be intimate. Our chemistry was off the charts, so when we finally fell into bed, the experience was bound to be explosive.
But I’ve avoided what I’ve known on a deeper level, too. That the sizzle between us is more than sex. It made lying to my friends effortless, and our connection an easier pill for me to swallow.
I’d decided when Liz died that relationships, girlfriends, and especially wives were a burden. I wasn’t tying myself down to any woman. But something about Paisley being brave and stubborn—and fucking crazy enough to pass off an asshole like me as her lover—gave me no choice.
I can still feel her baby-soft skin under my fingertips. The way strands of her silky brown hair glide between my fingers when I massage the base of her neck. My dick has tried to punch through my fly the number of times I’ve thought about the way her lashes fluttered when she sucked me off. I was seconds from bailing on attending the benefit, and it wasn’t Paisley’s lips wrapped around my cock that convinced me to stay by her side. It was every moment I’d spent with her until that point.
On the way to Paisley’s house, I’d come to the conclusion that she should go alone so that I didn’t have to deal with any fallout from Laughton. Gavin has to have known I was the one who broke the boutique window. How was she going to stay with me if he let that slip? And if he didn’t? If Laughton acted more like I would have when I held any power? The last thing I needed was for Paisley’s ex to laud that information over my head.
I’m convinced Laughton is the better man for Paisley. She was a rockstar at the gala. I was so turned on. So tuned in to her. I don’t remember the last time I saw a woman with the immense poise and sophistication to let bygones be bygones.
To ignore anyone’s shit.
Yeah, I do. She left this earth too early. And, when I didn’t get my way, I was an ass to her, too.
