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Heather laughs. “Well, Brooklynn knows him best, or should I say speaks to him the most, but despite the fact that he was a rock star in a band we were all obsessed with and obviously looks the way he looks while mastering the sexy, tall, silent type thing?—”
“You realize that’s her husband you’re mentally ogling,” Miranda quips.
Heather waves her away. “Whatever. I’m answering the woman’s question.” She turns back to me. “Anyway, he purchased this town six years ago, renovated the hell out of everything, and rents out the businesses essentially at cost, which is obviously so much less than market value. He earns little to no profit for himself.”
Forget lobster, I’m impersonating a goldfish. “I’m sorry, what?”
They all laugh lightly. “The only buildings he doesn’t own are the public and municipal ones, like the library and town hall, but he donated huge amounts of money for massive overhauls and renovations,” Miranda explains. “It’s all run through some dummy corporation or something, but everyone knows it’s Lenox. Sorta like his house in the woods. No one actually knows where it is or how to get there, but we know he lives there.”
“Um.” I take another sip of my coffee, needing the caffeine more by the second. “Why would he... why would he do all that?”
They shrug in unison. “No clue,” Brooklynn states. “Legit, I’ve asked him a hundred times, but he never answers me. It’s how we can afford to own the hardware store.”
“Same for me,” Paige says as she picks at her breakfast sandwich and takes a big bite, chewing as she talks. “I’d never be able to own the yoga studio if I was paying premium rent.”
Heather is nodding in agreement, and I can’t seem to understand what’s happening right now. Six years ago, is when Lenox left Boston. When he left me. But who does that? Who buys a town, shells out an untold fortune, pays to renovate everything, including businesses he doesn’t own, and only charges enough rent to cover his expenses?
“It’s done wonders for this town,” Brooklynn tells me. “I grew up a half an hour from here, and this town wasn’t much of a town. It’s always been pretty run-down, but he renewed the whole thing, and in doing so, it brought families and businesses in, and that helped with the school systems. It was a snowball effect.”
I’m utterly floored. I sit back against the soft leather cushion and stare out into the café.
What did he say to me today? My life was a mess, and you loving me was the wake-up call I never knew I wanted or needed. I had to go out and try and fix it. I had to make amends for all my wrongs the only way I could. But hurting you has been one of the main regrets of my life. Up there with letting Suzie die.
Oh, Lenox. Look at all the good you did here. Do you even see it? You certainly never take credit for it.
Because he doesn’t feel he deserves any.
It makes me want to find him and kiss the hell out of him, but it also makes me want to find him and hold him. Lenox’s demons run deep. His guilt along with them. Did he do all this as part of some strange atonement for sins he believed he committed? And am I now a part of that?
Chapter Twenty-One
Tattooing, like playing the piano, is a solitary, peaceful form of art. It’s likely why I was drawn to it. There is no forced conversation. It’s simply the client, who rarely wants to speak while someone is inking their skin, and you with your machine and creativity. Today I spent four hours shading the dragon on a mafia boss’s back.
He’s been flying in every month from Chicago for the last two months, and I think after one more scheduled visit, he’ll finally be done. This was a particularly long session—normally I don’t tattoo for that long.
It was four hours of absolute peace, only to now be interrupted by the redhead, who is once again never far from my thoughts. Like a siren, she walks toward me, purpose in her expression and determination in her stride.
“Lucy, you have some explaining to do,” she says, doing a horrible impression of Ricky Ricardo.
I fold my arms and lean back against the bench seat I just cleaned, wanting her to keep walking to me and never stop. Considering how this morning went between us, the fact that she came to me, that she’s here, that she’s looking at me this way—with a hint of mischief and a touch of awe and admiration—is so much more than I ever thought I’d get from her. Eventually, if I’m lucky, I’ll have a reckoning to face with her cousins, but that time hasn’t come yet.
I don’t ask her what I did. I can imagine she knows all the local gossip about me. Small towns are big on gossip and short on privacy, though they do, for the most part, manage to give me mine.
She stops about a foot in front of me, and for a few minutes, she silently stares up at me, examining me, searching my face as if she’s never seen me before. Then, without a sound, she drops to her knees and it’s as if she just punched all the air from my lungs.
“What are you doing?” I manage, which seems foolish since it’s obvious, especially when she starts to work on my belt, button, and zipper, but this morning she told me I was going to be spending a lot of time with my hand, and this is a gross contradiction of that. Not that I’m complaining. Not even close.
“Giving my husband the pleasure he deserves.”
My heart slams against my ribs like a jackhammer. Fuck. Motherfuck. Her calling me that just about kills me. It sure as hell makes me harder than I think I’ve ever been.
I comb my fingers through her hair, brushing the pretty red strands back from her face so I can see her face better. My thumb drags slowly over her bottom lip and her mouth opens, her pupils blooming into a delicious, sensual darkness. I haven’t forgotten how much she used to like doing this. She told me once she loved knowing how easily she could unravel me.
If only she knew that’s all she’s ever done to me.
She continues to work my pants until she’s slipped them down along with my boxer briefs, where they get trapped around my ankles. My cock springs free, and immediately she takes me in her hand, stroking me, rolling her thumb over the barbells, and around the hoop in my tip. My head falls back and my eyes momentarily close as pleasure so sweet I can hardly think thrums through my blood.
“I’ve never done this before with piercings.”
