His Runaway Bride (Alphalicious Billionaires Book 7)

by Lindsey Hart

  Instead he pulled out and came in hot, ropy jets all over her stomach and crotch and thighs. Coating her. Marking her.

  When she opened her eyes and blinked up at him with a mix of awe and contentment, that sleepy, heavy lidded, sexed up look that a thoroughly pleasured woman has, he was done.

  If she ran from him, she ran. If she never forgave him when he told her the truth, she’d never forgive him. There was nothing he could do now that he was in too deep. No effing pun intended, because that shit was not funny.

  For the first time ever, he’d given a part of himself to another person. Left it with her. That small part of his soul that he was so sure he’d never let another person borrow, let alone have. He’d guarded it jealously, kept that shit on lockdown, and then, in one night, Noemi had swept in and he’d given it freely. She didn’t have to steal it. She didn’t have to break into his soul and rob it. It was like she’d always been there, nameless, silent, but waiting. Waiting for that moment when she’d finally reveal herself.

  If that wasn’t the definition of in too deep, he wasn’t sure what was, because it was the deepest he’d ever been in. People said over their head. He was far, far above his head. Years above his head.

  The stupid thing was, he’d planned on getting Noemi to agree on a loveless, sexless, paper marriage and a looming divorce. It only took twenty-four hours to wreck every single one of his plans. Twenty. Four. Hours.

  No, that wasn’t quite right. It was less than that. More like sixteen. Sixteen hours to do what no one else had been able to achieve. Ever.

  He was pretty dang sure that made her the most dangerous woman on the planet, with the power to pulverize the parts of him that she held so delicately and precariously in her beautiful little hands.

  CHAPTER 12

  Noemi

  She wasn’t sure what the total O tally was. She’d lost track somewhere after the seven that Cason promised. They’d finally fallen into bed, exhausted, somewhere right around that time when the first grey rays of early morning crept through the blinds and stole into the room.

  She should have been able to sleep. Not just because she hadn’t really had more than a few hours, but also because of the crazy post climactic bliss she was riding. Her body felt like goo and she melted into the mattress, but her mind wouldn’t turn off. Apparently, Cason had the same problem.

  He tossed and turned and even though his breathing was deep and even, she knew he wasn’t asleep. Finally, after an hour of lying there with her back turned to Cason, she gave up on the pretense and rolled to face him. She wasn’t surprised that a few minutes later, his eyes opened.

  “Can’t sleep either?”

  He let out a massive sigh, flipped onto his back, and tucked his arms behind his head so that he could stare up at the ceiling. “I guess not. You?”

  A smile tugged at her lips. “Obviously not.”

  Even though it was way too familiar, she rolled into him, settled her head against his warm chest and threw her arm over as much of him as she could actually hold, which wasn’t much. She’d never been with anyone who took up ninety-nine percent of the bed just by existing, not because they were sprawled out.

  His chest was warm and sticky beneath her cheek. It would have grossed her out with anyone else, damp skin, her nose filled up with the spicy, musky, sexual scent of what they’d just been doing, but not with him. Cason was different. It was like his body scent was specially formulated just to make her feel all mushy and warm inside.

  She closed her eyes and just savored being near him. She had no idea what she was doing there. Not really. This new version of herself was scary and alarming. It was a version that took chances and put herself out there, made herself vulnerable, even at what was one of the worst times in her life.

  “You asked me if I was okay. I said I was, but that’s a lie. I’m probably not.”

  She stiffened, not sure what she was supposed to say to that. Her head felt like a sexed up, overtired soup. Even if she was fully alert, she wasn’t sure how to take that statement. Instead of speaking, she ran her fingertip right by her face, twirling patterns gently over Cason’s right pec, above his heartbeat. She lifted her leg and threaded it over his, like by spreading herself out across him as a human blanket she could protect him from the pain threatening to bubble over.

  One big hand came down on her shoulder, bracing her or holding her there, she wasn’t exactly sure.

  “My mom died when I was basically just a kid. It was really sudden. She got diagnosed with cancer and then she was just gone.”

  Noemi went full on board rigid. Injecting the Big C into the room felt a little like she was listening in on Cason’s most private confession.

  “I- I’m sorry,” she whispered. It was what she hated most when other people found out about her mom. Useless. That’s what those words were. They didn’t mean anything, and they didn’t bring anyone back. She hated that they were the first words that sprung to her tongue and popped out of her mouth.

  “Not your fault.” Cason’s hand ran through the strands of her hair, soothing himself more than her. “She was there one day and just- gone the next. I- I didn’t know how to process that as a kid. My dad was worse. He loved my mom more than he loved his own life. She was his everything. He had no idea of how to cope with that kind of pain. He was head of a business and he- just kind of lost it. Didn’t go to work. Let his VP and the others take over and try and hold the ship together while he set sail without them, adrift on his own fucked up ocean. It was shitty being at home. He never saw me. It was like I didn’t even exist. Except for the odd night when he’d have too much to drink and made me wish I didn’t exist.”

  Noemi’s heart raced and ached at the same time. She flattened her palm out over Cason’s heart and waited.

  “He wasn’t a raging drunk or anything. Most times he wasn’t even around. I don’t know where he went. Didn’t ask. I went to school. Made out like it was normal and we were doing alright. I didn’t want anyone to find out what was going on. How I was home alone most of the time. How I didn’t even know where my own father was. I didn’t want people to come take me away and put me into the system. I was old enough to know about that shit and young enough that I didn’t know what to do about any of it, so I just coasted by, existing, I guess.”

  Cason went quiet and words eluded her. The space was awkward, bleeding with pain. She wondered if he’d ever told anyone about his mom or dad before. It didn’t seem like it, but that was just her best guess. The words were kind of coming out like even he was shocked at the fact that he was giving them voice and form.

  She thought about the wicked scar she’d seen on his back. “That- that scar… it wasn’t from a tree house, was it?”

  “Yeah,” he snorted. “It actually was, in a way. Just not the way I made it sound like. I was building a fort with some kids at school. I used some of my dad’s power tools, without asking. He found out. Got shitfaced one night. Decided to teach me a lesson about taking things that weren’t mine.”

  Noemi gasped, even though she tried to hold it in. “That’s terrible.”

  “Yeah, well, there are a lot of bad things in the world. I guess I learned the hard way not to take shit that isn’t mine. It was a lesson in permission.”

  Her hand curled into a fist. “He should never have done it.”

  “It’s over now. The scar doesn’t bother me. It hurt like a bitch at the time. I had to call the school and fake his voice for three days because I couldn’t even walk. After that, a bunch of bandages and a torn-up t-shirt pretty much held it together.”

  What the hell? Even at the worst of times, her dad had always been there for her. He’d tried to be available, even in his grief. It made her feel extra guilty that at the moment, he was probably worried sick about her. She knew she needed to call him and at least tell him that she was safe and well, even if she didn’t give him her location.

  “The last time I ever saw him, I was sixteen. I’d just got my lice
nse a few months before. He actually let me use the car now and then. The drinking was worse. He’d go out and expect me to pick his ass up in the middle of the night when he was totally tanked. I remember it was winter. Winter in New York was shit. I thought he was doing better, even though the drinking was escalating. He was back at work. The company was doing well. He’d be normal, at least some days. He even cared about where I was and what I was doing at school about a quarter of the time. He was trying. Really. He was. I think he was doing the best he could. I have no doubt that the best parts of him died with my mom. Like, literally. Like they tore them out of him and buried them in the ground with her and he was just left, with all these missing pieces, bleeding all over, and no bandages and ripped up t-shirts and time were going to put him back together. They were the kinds of wounds that never become scars.”

  That’s no excuse.

  “Anyway, this is probably fucking depressing and the last thing that you expected when you asked me if I was okay.”

  “It’s alright. You can tell me what you need to tell me.”

  “Here I thought you were just with me for the multiple orgasms and the vague promise of waffles.”

  “I’m here because from the second I saw you, and yes, I saw you in that coffee shop, I knew that I couldn’t not be here.”

  Cason hesitated like that meant something to him, but he wasn’t exactly sure how to tell her, so he opted for silence instead. She left it that way, until he was comfortable continuing.

  “The last time I saw him, he was tanked. I’d picked him up from some fucking bar at three in the morning and I was pissed. I just wanted to be a kid. I wanted to have a normal life. I’d lost my mom too, but he acted like he was completely alone in that. I told him I wasn’t going to haul him home again. That I wasn’t the parent. That it was supposed to be the other way around. Of course, he went off on me. He wasn’t usually violent when he was drunk, minus the tree fort incident, but he did like to say stupid shit. Maybe he meant it. Maybe he just needed to vent all the badness out of himself. I don’t know. He started telling me that I was good for nothing. A piece of shit. That he was never going to leave the company or any money to me because I’d just fuck it all up anyway. It would have been fine if he’d left it at that. I knew he didn’t actually mean much of it.”

  “Still- that’s- that’s awful.”

  Cason’s fingers stroked down her hair, smoothing the tangles out of the strands. “It’s alright. A lot of other people have it worse. And it wasn’t like that all the time. I’m not painting a very complete picture, telling you about all the bullshit.”

  “Yes, you are. You’re giving him more credit than I feel like he deserves.”

  “That may be. I just don’t want you to think he was a terrible man. He wasn’t. He was lost. Lost and fucked up by something that never should have happened. But it did. It tore out his soul.”

  “But he still had you. He should have lived for you. Children shouldn’t have to parent their parents or go through any of that.”

  “I knew kids at school that had it a lot worse. Anyway, I don’t want you to feel sorry for me. The next time you come over here, I don’t expect a pity fuck. What I do expect is for you to lay down on the kitchen table and let me lick whipped cream off just about every single body part you own.”

  It was obvious that he was trying to deflect and change the conversation. She let him, because she wasn’t going to push into all the open wounds and spread her own brand of salt in when he chose to open up to her, to let her in on his private pain, when he didn’t have to do any of it.

  “Anyway, for the grand finale, since I can’t just leave that shit hanging like that… he started going off. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard it. But then he just- was different. He looked at me and he was just gone… checked right out. Blank. Not drunk blank, like really blank. Like I truly meant nothing. He told me that he would exchange me for my mother in a heartbeat. That if he’d had the choice, he would have made it be me.”

  “What the-”

  “Yeah. Harsh. I know. Anyway, I didn’t take it well as a sixteen year old kid who was bitter and hurting and had enough already. I told him to go fuck himself, and no, not in uncertain terms. I threw the car keys at him and told him to drive himself home from now on, on the odd occasion he felt like being there. I said that I got why he felt like that, because I’d trade him in for my mother any day. Then I said that I felt like I’d be better off if he wasn’t around, because he was a shit father anyway, and I went inside. It was cold. Winter. The streets were icy. He got in the car. Tanked. Drove himself nine blocks from the house and crashed into a pole going seventy miles an hour in a thirty zone. Died on impact because he ejected out of the car.”

  What Cason said wasn’t funny. What was funny was that Noemi felt like she’d just ejected through something and into something. It felt like her heart had ripped through her chest and landed on the floor. Gory, but true. It hurt. Her chest. Her body. All of her. Cason’s pain ate away at her like the cancer had at her own mother. She didn’t tell him that her mom had gone the same way. That her mom was dead. She didn’t tell him any of it, because it wasn’t what he needed to hear. She didn’t know what he needed to hear. She doubted she could form words past the lump the size of a fist choking her throat, making language impossible.

  All she could do was keep herself draped over him and let some of his pain soak into her through some weird osmosis that actually seemed to be working. Either that, or Cason was just one of those people that had total control of his emotions, because he wasn’t a mess. He wasn’t even angry. She heard the pain leaching into every word, soaking and dripping in his tone, but there was no anger. Resignation maybe. Somehow it was far worse, like he’d accepted what happened and lived with it all the following years.

  Noemi couldn’t say how she knew, but she definitely knew that he hadn’t told anyone else about what happened. Anyone who didn’t already know it, at any rate.

  “Anyway…” Cason sighed. “I sometimes dream about it. It’s not pleasant. I had to identify the body after. I see that, in the dream. The whole last scenario plays out. His words. Me throwing the keys to him.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “I know.” His voice was gentle, and he smoothed his hand over her hair again, like she needed the reassurance. “I know. I know it wasn’t my fault. I just wish all of it had been different. Everything. My mom. My dad. I wish she’d had more time and he hadn’t lost her. That he’d been better able to cope with the pain. That I was older and could have taken care of him and myself. I know it’s useless, wishing for it to be the other way around. All of it made me who I am. I don’t know that it’s a good thing, necessarily, but I worked hard to prove my dad wrong. He told me I’d never amount of anything, that I’d run his company into the ground. I haven’t. I didn’t. He did leave it to me. He didn’t have time to change his will, obviously. I came into the money and the company when I was eighteen. Was involved before then. Everyone was surprisingly helpful and welcoming. They didn’t mind that I was really just a kid. I think they were just happy to keep their jobs. Anyway. I don’t know why I told you any of that. It’s not exactly a romantic first date story.”

  Her hand flexed on his chest, relaxing from the tight fist she’d balled it into. “This isn’t exactly a first date.”

  She didn’t look up at him, but she could sense his smile. “I’m glad I told you. Sorry if it gives you nightmares now, or if you think I’m a creep. It’s just been a long time that I’ve kept it bottled up and it was kind of like soda, if you shake it hard and twist the cap, eventually it just explodes everywhere. I hadn’t got to that point, in case you’re wondering, but this helped. And if I randomly soak the bed again and you find me having a pity party in the tub, you’ll know why.”

  “It’s okay,” she assured him. “Really. All of it. What you said. I- thank you for sharing. I won’t tell anyone.”

  “Oh, I know. It’s kind of an
awkward point in conversation, telling someone how you had the best sex of your life, and then in the same breath telling them that the man who gave you said best sex turned into a complete chick and spilled his whole terrible life story to you.”

  She couldn’t help it. It was his words. His tone. The fact that after everything, he was still there. She knew he was wrong. That he wasn’t a bad person. That when he said it made him who he was, he obviously thought that he was lacking in some way. He was trying to make the whole thing a little less awkward, like he’d said, so she let herself let out a breath that sounded half like a small laugh.

  Cason’s arm tightened around her shoulders and he seemed content to just hold her. His breathing deepened and evened out, his chest rising and falling beneath her cheek and hand, and she could tell he was actually asleep, like the telling of it all had unburdened his soul and he could sleep soundly, maybe for the first time since he was a kid and his life unraveled.

  Noemi didn’t. She stayed awake for a long time. Thinking about his burden. About her own. About his family. About her mom. About her dad. About life.

  Finally, when actual real rays of dawn crept into the room, she untangled herself from Cason’s heavy limbs. She was careful not to wake him, but she had a feeling he would have slept loudly even if a meteor dropped out of the sky and fell right onto the house, right next to the bed.

  She dressed in total silence, gathered up her things and let herself out of the house.

  It turned out that her walk of shame wasn’t shameful at all.

  CHAPTER 13

  Noemi

  After a shower and a much needed stop at the coffee shop down the block- the same one where she’d first seen Cason- Noemi settled back in on her bed at the hotel, her laptop open in front of her. Her brain felt scrambled, like literally, someone had cracked open the shell and dipped in there with a flipper and messed everything up into jumbled white and yellow fluffy goo.