Tough Enough (Tough Love Book 3)

by Trixie More

  “You better not put me in that category,” she said.

  “You don’t want me to take care of you?” he asked with a smirk. “I guess I got that wrong last night.”

  “Trust me. You didn’t get anything wrong last night,” she said, stretching her arms out and then wrapping them around his neck. The compliment was inestimable.

  “So, how come you feel like you have to take care of your sisters and mother? Do you have any brothers? Where’s your father?”

  “That’s a lot of questions. Here’s the thirty-second story of my life,” he said, rearranging her body, so she was draped over him. He fiddled with her nipple, rolling it while he spoke. “My father was a missionary,” he began. He told her the story of it. He wished he could see the pink tip between his fingers better. He tugged at it and felt his groin tighten. He pinched her, and her head rolled back and forth. He told her how Mary had tried to feed them, collecting a few dollars from men she kissed behind a bar. Sophia started at that, raising her head and looking at him. Regretfully, he released the turgid point, putting his hand on her belly. He could see into her eyes; the daylight was getting stronger.

  Sophia asked him if Mary had been a prostitute. Happily, he could honestly say he didn’t know. He told her about the conceited and angry young man he became. “I never gave my father a dime. I did a lot of drugs, ran with some arrogant and really despicable people. I slept around. The whole package.”

  Sophia sighed and shifted, turning to her side. He supposed she didn’t enjoy hearing that. “Then I met Ed Walker, and all of that changed.”

  She didn’t ask him why.

  Because she knows, he thought. He pulled her close and kissed her. “Your turn.”

  “Hmm,” she said, stretching out, catlike. Doug placed his hands on her shoulder blades and felt them lift, pull together. He slid his hand down her spine, feeling the strength and fragility there, her muscular bottom flexing as she lengthened from fingers to toes. He had a long, fit, and very relaxed lioness draped across his lap. Right now, her hair was tousled. He supposed the darkening around her eyes was smudged makeup. Doug bent over to get a closer look.

  “What?” she asked.

  Satisfaction eased through him. His cool and unyielding panther was definitely mussed up. He planted a kiss on the nose of the woman who’d stolen his heart, smiling like a twelve-year-old, and internally mocking his own lovelorn idiocy. “I’m waiting.”

  She rolled over, bending her back over his lap, stretching again. Her breasts rose; between her legs, just a thin strip of darker curls. He stroked her-how could he help it?

  “Well. It’s a very over-done story,” Sophia said. “Banal, really.”

  “Tell me,” he said, trying to see her clearly. The light let him see more of her, but all the edges were soft, fuzzy like a video taken before high-def.

  Sophia released herself from the stretch and curled a bit toward him, bending her knees and hiding the little drift of color at the top of her legs. He took her hand, raised it, inspecting her fingernails. Still perfect. He let it fall and leaned back.

  “All right. Thirty seconds, here goes. My father is a world-renowned brain surgeon. I have two brothers, David and Derrick. Davey is the oldest, he became a doctor. My mother never worked. Derry is closer to me in age. He’s an ironworker. He was in the alley that day, between you and Ed.”

  “That tank was your brother?”

  A happy smile crossed her face. He leaned down to see better. She looked like she was a teenager herself with that silly smirk. It was clear she loved this guy.

  “Yep. I’m closest to Derrick.” She patted Doug’s face, running a finger around his ear. He pushed into that hand like a lapdog.

  “Okay, well, at some point, my father kinda put us each in a box. Davey was labeled his mini-me, Derrick was the dumb one, and I was the pretty one.” She sighed. “That’s all I got to be, in his eyes.”

  “You have to understand, we all grew up in awe of him. He’s a bit of a grandstander. He’s accomplished amazing things in his life and saved a ton of people, but he also made sure his family heard about each and every triumph. If he ever failed, we didn’t find out from him. So we all kinda grew up trying to live out of his shadow, but he made it so damn big.”

  His fingers told him she was frowning. She grabbed his hand and kissed it.

  “It’s such a bullshit story,” Sophia continued. “I’m really a rich girl complaining that she didn’t get enough attention. It’s pathetic.”

  Her hair was smooth, with rougher places beneath his hand as he stroked her.

  “I’ll be the judge of that, please continue...without dissing my,” he faltered.

  A jerk of her head at that, beneath his stroking palm. “I’m what?”

  “I don’t know what to call you.”

  He didn’t know what to call her?

  “Okaaay,” she teased, giving him an eye roll that was big and exaggerated, and still probably wasted on him. She was his lover, and he was hers, and she wasn’t going to talk about the afternoon at the fair. No way.

  “Anyway, I decided to go into law because medicine was taken, and Derrick kinda had to play the role of rebel, and really, black is such a bad color for me.” Doug gave her ass a playful slap, and she snuggled in closer. She supposed she should tell him something deeper. “Pretty much my whole life, I’ve felt I have to fight twice as hard to get people to take me seriously.”

  There it was. That wasn’t all, was it?

  “And...” Sophia hesitated.

  “And...” he echoed back, his warm hand tugging the covers over them. She resented that a bit, didn’t want him to take care of her, treat her as if she was fragile. She sat up and let the blanket fall.

  “I’m not special. At least not that way. It’s like, with men, I don’t know, they all think I’m going to break or maybe, it’s like they want to collect me.”

  He tipped his head.

  “You know, like get me to hook up with them so they can say they got a...a...”

  She had a hard time spitting it out. It sounded so conceited.

  Doug waited.

  “Like, if I’m beautiful, that makes them something, says something about them. I’m a trophy.”

  She glanced over at him. His head was slightly bowed, his mouth turned down. He didn’t look at her, didn’t say anything. It looked like he was concentrating, waiting for more. The silence stretched, and slowly the words came out of her.

  “I’ve watched my father all these years. I just think...” She trailed off. What did she think? “I just think he uses my looks to make him something more. He married a beautiful woman, and he created a beautiful woman, so he must be all that. I did so well in law school, and all he could say was I was too pretty to work in the Bronx.” Was that what she was mad about all these years? It sounded so petty. Her dad didn’t value her for her brain. There had to be more to it? Didn’t there?

  Beside her, Doug was warm and quiet, frowning down at his hands. She could tell he was listening. He flicked a glance at her, just for a second, his expression sad and affectionate, and returned to waiting. Sophia felt frustration rise up in her. Why wasn’t he cooing, commiserating, telling her he’d fix it, that he was different?

  “And men!” The words burst from her. “Men are the worst!” She slapped her hands on the blankets. “They take one look at me and ask me out. They have no freakin’ clue who I am. It makes me crazy. Why not just cut to the chase? I love you—as long as you look perfect; otherwise, you’re out!” Tears sprouted at the corners of her eyes, and that made her madder. She wasn’t sad, she was angry. She brushed them away roughly. “Do you know how hard it is to make friends with other women when you’re beautiful?”

  He shook his head.

  “What?” she shouted at him.

  “I know it’s hard to make friends with women when you’re plug-ugly,” he smirked.

  “You are not ugly!”

  “And I know how easy it is to make
friends when you’re rich,” he stated calmly.

  “Oh.” That stopped the flood of anger in its tracks. A slow calm presented itself inside her. What he’d said was true. Being wealthy was not who Doug was any more than being beautiful was who she was. Just like she could lose her beauty, he could undoubtedly lose his money. “So, you do know.”

  “Here’s what I know,” he said. Next to Sophia, he shifted, taking her face in his rough, warm palms and turned her toward him. He got close, looking at her directly, igniting that spark she felt any time he focused all his attention directly at her. “I was in a relationship with a beautiful woman before you. She turned heads wherever we went, and she took my breath away.”

  No. Sophia didn’t want to know this, didn’t want to hear any of it.

  “I remember the first time I saw you,” he said, and she was gripped by curiosity. They’d never talked about the day in the courtroom before he went to prison the first time. She’d seen him then. She held her breath, expecting him to say he’d first met her this year.

  “It was during my bail hearing for my first arrest, three years ago.” Her heart sped up. Don’t say it, please don’t say you noticed my looks. But he did.

  “You were beautiful. I was looking around the courtroom, and there you were. I remember thinking, There’s nothing there to interest me.”

  Her beautiful eyes went wide. Doug leaned his forehead against hers. God, please let me keep this sight of mine, he prayed. I can’t bear not being able to look into her mind.

  Just as suddenly, he remembered: this was all coming to an end, the moment he confessed.

  Doug sighed and kissed her.

  “And?” she said. “What are we doing here, then?”

  He smiled. His lover looked offended, perhaps a little hurt, sitting up so straight, holding herself stiffly upright. Her breasts, high and proud, were a distraction, but he wasn’t going to go there after what she’d just confessed.

  “We’re here because you dropped your pen that day,” he said.

  “I did. It rolled, and I had to fish it out from beneath the bench.”

  “Yes, and when you sat back up...”

  “I looked right into your eyes.” They both said it at the same moment.

  “It was electric,” she said.

  “I was stunned,” he confirmed. “It was like I could see right into your mind, and it was fast, sharp, exhilarating,” he said. “It’s still like that for me.”

  Her cool fingers found his wrists, wrapping around them. She relaxed, just a bit, leaning forward with a hunger he could recognize. Sophia was starving for someone to describe her to herself in a way that made her worthy. He understood because that was what he wanted most of all, he realized. Doug wanted to be worthy. He wanted to be forgiven. The emotion that followed that word caused turmoil in his body, a rising, a tensing, a tide of wild movement and drama. He tamped it down. “Everything you do is done with grace.”

  She started to shake her head.

  “Not like that, stop it,” he said, holding her face, not letting her look away. “Stop it. Hold still. Let me find the right words.” He tried again. “I was raised in a God-fearing family. When I say grace, I mean Grace, with a capital G. The unmerited favor.”

  Now it was he who looked away, unable to control the trembling of his mouth. Sophia was trying to turn his face. He could feel the lithe twisting of her body, her stiffness erased. He prayed for the composure to finish his sentence in strength, not like a mewling infant.

  “Like you gave to me,” he whispered, and then she was in his arms, kissing him, holding him, her upper arms resting on his shoulders, his face pulled into her long neck, her thick hair. She had her forearms behind his head, her hands crossed and laying on his crown, and he loved it, loved this gesture of hers, the fierce protectiveness of it, the power of her. He pressed his face into her hair, not yet willing to share it all with her, trying to keep his strength. He squeezed her to him, tightening his arms around her, feeling the thin sheath of muscle around her waist, the barest covering of skin on her ribs. He squeezed once more and loosened up again, pulling back to look in her eyes.

  “I never wanted to love a beautiful woman again,” he said. “I really didn’t want to love anyone again.” He smiled at her. “It seems you have what I can’t resist.”

  Her face was a pale oval, her coffee eyes were shining at him. She looked at him with wonder, and he wanted to see that in her eyes forever.

  “You are justice embodied.” She tipped her head; his heart hammered out the words. “You are a fierce Athena walking the battleground of Troy.” He winced. Was that a bit over the top?

  “Not Helen?”

  He shook his head, and the smile that burst over her face grew with each word he spoke.

  “How could you ever be lying around inside a walled city while the battle raged outside?” Radiance on her face. He felt a wild need to memorize every nuance of it.

  “Oh,” Sophia said, her voice throaty. “You are good.” Now it was his turn to grin back at her. He hugged her close and whispered in her ear, “To me, your beauty is in your intelligence, your honor, and your Grace.”

  She hugged him back, and he heard her sniffle. He smiled.

  “And, I really, really like it when your hair is messed up.”

  She laughed, the sound a bit watery. Good. It was better if they were both a bit affected by all this. Sophia might be fierce and honorable, but he? Was not.

  Chapter 26

  The morning was slow and lazy. Doug and Sophia made love again on the mattress, just inches from the floor, and slept in a tangle of limbs, sheets, and sunlight. When they woke, they showered together without discussing it, ordered brunch in and retreated to the bed so they could press as much of themselves against each other as possible. It was unspoken, this mutual desire to have every feeling, touch every place, experience a full twenty-four hours so that for the rest of their lives, they would have that one day to stand in for all the days they were going to lose. When the sun retreated below the horizon again, Doug turned to her, and her heart clenched.

  “I don’t know if I can do this,” Sophia whispered. She was going to make Doug hers, bare her soul and mourn the loss of her lover in a single day—if she didn’t lose her mind first. There was no hashtag for this, no quick posting of her perfect life or simple judgment she could make. It was real, it was complicated, and it hurt like hell.

  Doug’s gaze roamed unfocused over her face. He was propped up on a stack of pillows against the wall. Their laptops lay abandoned on the floor. One freckled leg, muscular and pale, was bent, his foot flat on the bed. He leaned an arm on his knee, and the sheet pooled in his lap. Could she just lay her head in that lap and sleep? Postpone this?

  “It’s not going to get easier,” he said.

  How the hell could he be so calm about it? Maybe he didn’t feel as strongly about her as she did about him.

  “It doesn’t seem like it’s all that hard for you,” she snapped. She pushed her hair back from her face. Whatever smoothing her flat iron had done was gone now. Her hair was frizzing, thick and ordinary. She didn’t have her raincoat, her hair wasn’t smooth, her nail polish was chipping. Was this who she was underneath it all? The thought frightened her. As much as she longed to be divorced from her looks, there was no waiting answer to the question of who she was without them.

  “Sophia...” Doug’s voice held a warning, just reinforcing the evidence that he was nothing like Ben. He wasn’t willing to overlook her faults just to keep her. He wanted her to rise to the occasion. He demanded it.

  For the first time, she wondered what it might have been like to work for him, back before—well, before everything. The only one who would know that was Tom. She wasn’t going to ask him.

  Don’t you want to have one more night? Sophia thought it, wanted so badly to ask him, but she didn’t say a word.

  “What do you think?” His hand was warm and rough as it slid over her shoulder. She shiver
ed. “Are you cold?”

  She shook her head, holding her breath.

  “Answer me,” he said.

  She lowered her eyes, focusing on his face and the beard that was just starting to return. She would have sworn she’d never be attracted to a man who had one. She’d been wrong about so many things.

  “I don’t think I should have said it that you hadn’t suffered enough.” She looked up at him. His face was close, and he could see her now, she could tell. “I don’t think that now, you know.”

  He smiled thinly. “Getting blinded satisfied you?”

  The verbal blow caught her by surprise. Was she that blood-thirsty? What would she condone in the name of justice?

  He brushed her hair back from her face, and she protested.

  “It’s a mess, don’t touch it.”

  His response was fast and angry. Doug shoved both of his hands through her hair and pushed his mouth against hers, open and wild. She reached around him, bringing each of her hands to his shoulders, pulling at him just as harshly, and that gentled him. Warm and dry, his lips rasped over hers, then across her cheek, the wet heat of his tongue tracing down her neck. He gathered her closer and started whispering to her.

  “You know I love you, you know I never want to let you go.” His words turned angry on the last syllables, and he squeezed her in time with them. He leaned back, looking into her eyes, his blue gaze flickering over her face. He squeezed her again. “Say it.”

  The constriction inside her, the tightness that was her constant companion, slipped just a bit, and that was how she knew she’d been caught up tight all her life. The relief made her gasp. What was this difference?

  “Sophia!” The shock and demand in his voice shook her free.

  “Yes!”

  “Yes, what?”

  “I know you love me,” she said, and she started to sob.

  “I do, so much,” he said, clasping her to him. “Shh,” he said as he caressed her scalp, smoothed her hair, cradled her against his broad shoulders. “Shh, that’s all right, it’s all right.” He rocked her gently as she blubbered, snot, and tears on her face. He didn’t seem to care, couldn’t see her at this angle anyway, and that thought made her gasp out a small laugh. The wonders of a blind lover. His fingers were everywhere, as if he was memorizing every inch of her. Still, he didn’t let her off the hook.