Lainey falls into the kitchen, her startled face finding me at the table. “Are you okay?”
“No, I’m fucking not.” I’d get up and confront her, if I knew I could do it without hobbling like the joke I am. “Sorry it turned out like this?” I question, slamming my fist on the table, making her jump. “Are you, Lainey? Are you fucking sorry, because you seemed to find it quite fucking easy to walk away?”
“What do you want me to do?” she asks, rage brewing in her eyes. “Fall at your knees and beg you to believe me? To plead my innocence and make you understand?”
“Yes.” I stand up. I can’t move, but I need to have a presence of sorts. “Make me see. Remember? You asked me to make you see that this thing between us was right. And I fucking did. I was prepared to do anything, Lainey. Why can’t you do that for me?”
Her face falls, and tears spring into her eyes. Good. Call me callous, but when I burst into tears, which will be part in pain, part in frustration, I don’t want to be alone. My fucking foot is fucking killing me. But that’s not a scratch on my heart. That motherfucker is in tatters, and I fucking hate myself for it. I hate that she’s capable of making me feel like this. “Do it,” I roar. “Make me see that yesterday wasn’t all a lie. Because I fucking love you, Lainey, and the thought that you might not love me enough to try and fix this is a killer.”
She’s moving fast, coming at me determinedly. For a second, I think she might swing at me, so I drop to the chair, almost cowering. But when she makes it to me, she climbs onto my lap, seizes my face in one of her hands, my hair in the other, and she grips. Fucking hard. It would hurt if my mind wasn’t elsewhere. Her nostrils flare, her anger still evident, and she pushes her forehead to mine. “I fucking love you.” She grinds the words out, clenching her teeth when she’s done. “Don’t you dare question that.” Her lips crash to mine, forceful and fraught, her tongue going on a rampage in my mouth.
That’s all it takes. This, this passion, this need for me, it’s the validation I need. My mouth opens to her, and my arms grab her, hauling her into me.
“Perfect fucking chaos, Tyler,” she gasps, pulling back and breathing heavily in my face. “I love our perfect chaos. I love our perfect calm. Yesterday was the best day of my life.” She takes my arms, shaking me, as if trying to get me to see sense. “Meeting you has been the best thing that’s happened to me. Ever. Don’t you think I’ve agonized over this? Questioned the right thing to do? I’ve thought of nothing but. I’ve picked it all to pieces in my mind, thought about what people will assume.” Her eyes plead with me. “It just seemed impossible. All of it.”
My body rolls with my inhalations, calm settling over me. “Don’t walk away from me ever again. No matter what I say or do, never walk away from me.” I bury my face in her neck and close my eyes.
“Can you make the same promise?” She feels the back of my head, stroking, comforting me.
I falter for a second. She’s still searching for reassurance? Haven’t I given her enough already? “Yes. I promise.”
“Then I promise, too.” She pulls out and takes a different approach, dropping light, soft kisses across my mouth. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I should have, I know, but it’s a time in my life I’d rather forget, and then I was in too deep with you. I didn’t want to ruin it.”
I’ve been so wrapped up in my frustration and anger, I forgot the root cause of the mess we’re in. I find her gaze. “What happened?”
“It doesn’t matter what happened.”
“It does to me,” I argue. I’m already going to kill him for trying to nick my PA. Call me possessive, I don’t care. Like I said, I’m quite attached to Gina, couldn’t function without her—and God, do I need to apologize to her for what I said. But my possessiveness is on a whole different, dangerous level with Lainey. After she shares the details, to know what she endured because of that wanker politician, I won’t stop until I find a way to destroy him. He’ll lose everything he loves—his position of power, his influence, his money. “Tell me.”
She looks away, but I have none of it, taking her face and directing it back to mine. “Why’d you want to know?” she asks.
“For my sanity.” That’s a lie. I’ll lose what sanity I have left when she shares the sordid details.
“MPs.” She sighs. “They’re power-hungry fools. Arrogant, chauvinistic pigs. Not all of them, but the ones I had the pleasure of dealing with all were. I was just a skirt to order around. It started with a few discreet touches that I didn’t challenge because I knew I’d be out the door in a heartbeat. Then the touches started moving to places where—”
“Okay, stop.” That’s enough. The anger is building already, and we haven’t gotten to the crux of the story yet. I can live without the sordid details. I have to, or risk being locked up.
Lainey relents easily, probably relieved. “I’m sorry.”
“I know you are.” I sigh. “I know.” Fuck me, what a morning.
“Come back to bed,” she pleads, giving me a hopeful smile. “Please?” She removes herself from my lap and offers her hand. Who am I to refuse? I take it and rise to my feet, slowly because my foot still hurts like a bitch. “Are you limping?” She frowns at my legs. “Shit, Tyler, what’s happened to your foot?”
“I kicked the cupboard,” I grumble, solemnly regretting my choice of venting. I should have punched a wall.
Her lips straighten. “Do you have any ice?”
I point to the far side of the kitchen. “In the freezer. Bottom drawer.”
Grabbing a fresh bag of cubes and a tea towel, Lainey comes back to me, dodging the mess of broken mugs and glass on the floor, and cocks out her arm for me to take. “Does it hurt bad?”
I accept her offer of help, mortified that I actually need it. “Not so bad.” I wince the second I try to put some weight on it, and Lainey looks up at me on a disapproving shake of her head. I grit my teeth, forcing myself to tolerate the pain as we make our way to the bedroom. “You can be my nursemaid tonight.” I drop to my arse on the side of the bed.
“Bed bath?”
I grin and grab her, yanking her down onto my body. “Fuck my foot. Fuck the ice. Fuck the fucking bed bath.” I roll us until she’s trapped beneath me. “Nurse Summer, ready for your internal?”
“Tyler.” She bursts into laughter, but soon shuts up when I kiss my way down to her pussy, pull her knickers aside, and start fucking her with my tongue, her giggles turning into moans. This could be seen as marking her, claiming her, I realize that. But my girl is happy, and as much as I possibly should know more about what happened to her, it mostly doesn’t matter. Because she came out the other side so determined, and that has to be one of the main attributes I love about her.
Okay. And her pussy, too.
I WASN’T HAPPY ABOUT IT, but I dropped Lainey home yesterday evening as she apparently had stuff to do with her sister. As much as I don’t want to spend any nights apart, we’re not at living with each other stage yet. I missed her though. Truly missed her. I ended up calling Mum and having a chat, and as you can imagine, Lainey was discussed in great length. Then I killed the time clearing up the carnage in my kitchen and fixing the cupboard door.