“Because we were all together,” I repeat as I lean forward to brush his lips over mine.
He kisses me deeply, his tongue parting my lips softly. That draws a low moan from somewhere inside of me.
“Make love to me tonight,” I say against his mouth as soon as the kiss breaks. “I want you to make love to me.”
With effortless ease, he flips me over until I’m on my back, and he’s staring down at me.
His hand moves to grip the side of my panties. “I’m going to ruin these, dear.”
“Why am I not surprised, darling?” I ask with a smile.
“I’ll buy you a few dozen new pairs,” he promises with a soft kiss on my forehead.
I cup his face in my hands so I can gaze into his eyes. “Let me take the pelican statue with me when I move back home, and we’ll call it even.”
His brow furrows, but not a word escapes him. With a heavy exhale, he buries his face in my neck before he rips my panties from my body.
Chapter Forty-Three
Graham
“You show up empty-handed and expect me to let you in?” Kavan stands in the doorway of his home.
He’s a penthouse dweller as well, but his is on Fifth Avenue in a building that has always been, and will always be, well out of my price range.
“I need to talk to you.” I push past him, which isn’t an easy task.
Kavan has a couple of inches on me and at least twenty pounds. He’s in the best shape of his life. I am too, but still I wouldn’t challenge him to a fistfight.
“C’mon in,” he says with a sarcastic bite in his tone. “It’s late. What the hell are you doing here?”
“I need a drink,” I blurt out. “Something strong and…”
“Expensive?” he asks as he rounds me to head straight for a bar cart that sits near a bank of windows. “I’m giving you the cheap stuff since you showed up without warning. What if I had company?”
It’s a rhetorical question.
Kavan doesn’t invite people into his home or his world.
There are three people he tolerates. I’m one, and there’s Sean and Harrison. Beyond that, his world consists of business associates and lawyers. He does his best to interact with all of them as infrequently as possible.
He pours me two fingers of Macallan 15.
I greedily take it and down it all in one gulp.
“Well, then.” His arms cross his bare chest.
It’s obvious I got him out of bed with my incessant knocking on his door. I bribed the doorman to let me up. It took five hundred dollars, but it was worth it because Kavan had ignored the three calls I made on my way over here. As soon as Trina fell asleep, I got up, put my clothes back on, and left.
Panic drove me over here.
“What do you want, Graham?”
“It’s Trina,” I say and then stop.
How the fuck am I going to explain what’s going on to Bane when I can’t make sense of it myself?
“You fucked her,” he deduces the way he always does.
Nodding, I head toward the bar cart for a refill. “More than once.”
I have no goddamn idea why I add that on. It hardly matters how many times I’ve taken my wife. I was lost to her the moment she agreed to marry me. My heart became hers when we kissed.
Now, she owns me through and through.
“Help yourself,” Bane says as I fill my glass halfway.
I take another mouthful and savor it this time. The burn on my throat is exactly what I need.
“You’re in love with her,” he states as he walks toward me. “You’ve fallen in love with your fake wife.”
I finish the drink before I turn to face him. “I don’t know. I’m feeling things.”
“Things?” His hands drop to his hips. He tugs on the waistband of the black pajama pants he’s wearing. “That’s vague. Is she feeling things for you too?”
I shake my head. “I have no fucking idea.”
“Wrong answer.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” I spit out the words at him.
He points a finger at me. “Your feelings scared the hell out of you, so you ran over here to hear me tell you to go back home and confess what you’re feeling to your wife.”
“I can’t tell her,” I argue. “If I do that, I’ll have to tell her about my past. I can’t start a real relationship with her until I tell her everything.”
His chin lifts, his jaw tensing. “Your sins amount to nothing, Locke. Nothing.”
He won’t admit it, but I know that in his mind, he’s comparing his sins to mine. He always does when I jump into a discussion about my past. Kavan often reminds me that I walked away from the person I used to be unscathed.
“Tell her what you did. You’ll see forgiveness there,” he says matter-of-factly.
“You don’t know that,” I bite back.
He steps closer to me. His eyes bore into mine. “I know that you think you did unforgivable things, but you didn’t. You were a messed up kid doing screwed-up shit. Forgive yourself already. It’s time.”
I want to toss those words back at him, but I won’t.
Kavan’s past will trail him until the day he dies.
He’ll never allow another person to get close to him. Any woman who enters his life is barred from it in a few hours. He fucks for release. That’s who he has become. It’s how he’ll remain.
“Go home, Graham.” He gestures to the door.
“What if she feels nothing for me?”
He taps me on the side of my head. “You’re an idiot. Do you think she screwed you because you’re that goddamn irresistible? There are a lot of men in this city. She didn’t jump into bed with any of them. Your wife chose you.”
He’s right. She did choose me. She wanted me as desperately as I wanted her, but it’s a leap to go from wanting a fuck to falling in love.
“She might laugh in my face if I confess what I’m feeling.”
He looks me over. “She might, but you won’t know until you talk to her.”
“This advice you’re dishing out is surprisingly decent,” I quip as I pour myself another drink.
Kavan snatches the bottle from my hand and grabs a glass of his own. “It’s common sense. That’s something you’ve always lacked.”
I wait until he’s finished pouring his drink before I raise mine in the air. “Fuck you, Bane.”
He ignores the gesture and instead swallows what’s in his glass. “And a big fuck you to you. Now, finish that drink and get the hell out of here.”
Chapter Forty-Four
Trina
“What’s on your schedule for today?” Graham asks from where he’s standing near the door to the washroom.
He’s freshly showered with a towel wrapped around his waist.
I could stare at him like this for hours, but I need to be somewhere soon even though I want to stay in this room with him all day.
I’ve been asleep the past two nights when he’s gotten home from work. His days have been extra long since he’s been immersed in negotiations with a new manufacturer.