He slid under the covers and lay back against her chest. Though he was reclining against her, he didn’t feel heavy. His body was a comforting weight.
Stephan took the tablet and scrolled through the report she’d brought up on the screen.
Roselle pointed at the figures in one of the tables. “As you can see, there was a sharp decline in the Brazilian market that year. Fifteen percent is a lot.” He’d said her insights were invaluable, so she shared her opinions often.
“Yeah,” Stephan said slowly. “And that was after the launch of the new line?”
“Yes. We were never able to penetrate that market for some reason.”
He continued scrolling until he came to the end of the report. He swiped to the next one.
“If you don’t have a type, what do you like about me?” Stephan asked, picking up their conversation from earlier.
“You make me laugh.”
She slid a hand repeatedly over his head, gently rubbing his soft hair. He liked it when she did that, and she could already feel him relaxing further as excess tension oozed from his body.
“So I’m a joke to you?” Stephan asked.
“No.” Roselle lightly pinched the muscle in his shoulder. “What do you like about me?”
He was quiet for a while, and the wait for an answer seemed to take an hour instead of only seconds. Finally, he set down the iPad and twisted onto his side, resting on his elbow and looking directly into her eyes.
“Your smart, sweet, and sexy.” All playfulness was gone from his face. “I think more when I’m with you. The truth is, I haven’t always made the right decisions. You make me want to do right.”
Such an honest answer deserved an honest answer in return. Roselle trailed a finger down the middle of his chest. “I love your body, you really do make me laugh, and you’re considerate. I don’t feel alone or afraid when I’m with you, and you make me…you make me want to stop hiding.”
She kissed him softly on the mouth, and he cupped her jaw, deepening the kiss. She breathed into his mouth as desire crawled through her veins. Stephan helped her out of the T-shirt and tossed it to the floor. Then his thumbs hooked in the waistband of her panties, and she helped him push them down her legs.
“I keep telling you to stop wearing panties to bed. Four out of five gynecologists say you should let the vagina breathe at night.” His breath was fresh and smelled like wintergreen toothpaste.
Roselle smiled against his lips and kissed his mouth some more. “I’m pretty sure that’s not a thing.”
He sucked the sensitive part of her neck, and she gasped as shivers spattered over her skin. “I’m pretty sure it is. I keep telling you that, but you don’t believe me.”
“Because you made it up. You’re not a doctor.”
He lifted his head and frowned at her indignantly. “I don’t brag about my medical degree, but my specialty is gynecology, and my colleagues and I have determined the vagina needs air at night—especially when you’re lying in bed with me.” He flashed a sexy grin. “You may call me Dr. Brooks. I’m here to help.”
He kissed a path down her stomach to between her legs, stroking his tongue through the wet folds and kissing her lower lips with the same affection he did her upper ones. Roselle writhed under the ministrations of his mouth until he kissed his way back up her stomach, sucking on her nipples and teasing them with his tongue.
“I swear that pussy tastes better every time. You got me addicted, girl,” he whispered.
His mouth covered hers, but Roselle pushed him onto his back and took control of the kiss, while Stephan’s fingers started playing with her clit. She ground her hips into his hand, so horny and anxious for the joining of their bodies.
Her aunt was right. She was falling in love with him. The intoxicating newness of love formed a heady rush of heat and excitement. It had to be the best, scariest feeling in the whole world.
The tip of his shaft nudged the cleft between her legs. The next time he teasingly prodded her entrance, a fit of recklessness spurred her into action, and she sank onto him, eyes rolling back at the splendor of his raw possession.
Stephan gasped and froze, his fingers sinking into her ass. “Fuck.”
He flipped her onto her back and pounded into her as if he’d been waiting for this very opportunity to claim her. He knew better, she knew better, but in the heat of the moment, none of that mattered. Not when her desire for him beat like a bass drum in her loins.
Hooking his arms behind her knees, he pressed them back to her chest. She clung to him, clasping the back of his head, arching into each powerful thrust. Head thrown back, she drowned in a sea of emotion, savoring all the textures of his skin—the hardness of his chest, the tickle of his hair-rough thighs, the strength in his arms as he pinned her to the bed.
As the orgasm slowly built, her cries of pleasure matched his animalistic growls. She splintered soon after, her feminine muscles quivering around him. Then Stephan came too, grinding his hips into hers, burying himself deep and hard. He swore again, shuddered, and then let out a deep-chested groan before dropping his head to her shoulder.
Exhausted but satisfied, she turned her head and kissed his temple.
Chapter 22
Roselle awoke with a start. She blinked, eyes adjusting to the dark before she remembered where she was. At a hotel in Charlotte, with Stephan. As she became aware of her surroundings, she also became aware of Stephan’s deep breathing and his arm thrown across the back of her waist.
Her heart was racing.
What had woken her up? A dream? She couldn’t remember, but a heavy, oppressive energy in the air warned that something was wrong. But what?
She swallowed and took a few deep breaths to calm the energetic pounding of her heart. As the frantic beating settled, a need to call her Aunt Betty came out of nowhere and formed a knot as big and tight as a closed fist.
They’d talked before she left on her trip. Her summer cold had returned and morphed into bronchitis, and the infection turned into pneumonia. Roselle had been ready to cancel her plans, but at her great-aunt’s insistence, came on the trip with Stephan. She talked to her once when they landed and again before they went to The Underground Charlotte. She had sounded much better, and the on-staff nurse confirmed to Roselle that she was definitely on the mend.
The weird feeling she had was probably nothing, but she needed to put her mind at ease. Slowly, she slid from under Stephan’s arm and eased off the mattress so as not to wake him. She slipped back on his T-shirt and picked up her phone from the table in the corner where it was charging.
She quietly closed the door to the bedroom and sat in one of the armchairs. She dialed the number for Covent Gardens and waited for someone to answer.
“Hello?” The voice was vaguely familiar.
“Hello, this is Roselle Parker. This is going to sound weird, but I called to check on my great-aunt and make sure that she’s okay. Her name is Betty Parker.”
“Oh, hi, Roselle. This is Stacy. I checked on your aunt a couple of hours ago, and she was doing fine. Do you still want me to check on her?”
“Yes, if you don’t mind. It will make me feel better.”
“Sure thing, honey. I’ll go upstairs now and call you back in a few minutes, okay? What’s your number?”
Roselle gave it to her and said, “Thanks. I appreciate this so much.”
Clutching the phone to her chest, Roselle closed her eyes and rested the back of her head against the chair. If her aunt had been fine two hours ago, then she was probably fine now. She laughed to herself at her silly overreaction. She’d probably come awake because of a dream she immediately forgot upon waking up. Probably one of those dreams where she was falling off a cliff or something.
She continued to wait, bouncing one leg over the other.
What was taking so long? Had Stacy misplaced her number that fast?
One at a time, she rubbed her clammy hands on the chair fabric and stared at the phone’s dark
screen, frowning. “A few more minutes.” Then she’d call back.
Two minutes later, the phone rang, and she immediately answered. “Hello?”
“Hello, Roselle?” Stacy didn’t sound the way she had sounded when she hung up before. Her voice sounded strained, and Roselle was immediately on alert. She sat up straight and held the phone tightly to her ear.
“Yes?”
“Honey, I’m so sorry…” Her voice broke.
Her stomach twisted in protest. “No, go back. Did you go to the right room? Betty Parker. B-E-T-T-Y—”
“Roselle, I’m sorry, but she’s—”
“No!” Roselle screamed. She didn’t want to hear it. Despite sensing something was wrong, she couldn’t bear to hear the words. “No!”
Stephan sat up, blinking the sleep from his eyes.
“No!”
That was Roselle’s voice, sounding cracked and broken.
He hopped up naked from the bed and ran to the door. He yanked it open and laid eyes on Roselle, who had collapsed onto the floor on her haunches, bent over as if in physical pain.
He dropped to his knees before her and placed a comforting hand on her back. “Roselle, what’s wrong?”
She looked up at him, tears streaming down her face. “It’s—it’s my Aunt Betty.” She held a death grip on the phone.
“Hello? Hello, Roselle?” a female voice on the other line said.
“Give me the phone, babe,” Stephan said gently.
She stared at him with unseeing eyes. She seemed to have gone into shock, so he took one end of the phone and gently tugged. She released it but remained numb, staring at the window across the room, emptiness in her eyes.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hello, this is Stacy at Covent Gardens nursing home. Is Roselle…is she okay?”
He glanced at her. She appeared to be in a catatonic state, frozen.
“No, she’s not,” he said.
“I’m so sorry. To get this news in the middle of the night is devastating, and I know the type of relationship Roselle and her Aunt Betty had. We dialed 911, but it’s obvious it’s already too late. At some point during the night, Miss Betty took a turn for the worst. She’s gone.”
Oh no.
He had never met Roselle’s aunt, but she talked about her a lot, and it was clear that she considered to be her mother. He could only imagine her devastation.
“Tell her I’m sorry. We’re all sorry. We loved Miss Betty.” He heard tears in the woman’s voice.
“I’ll let her know.”
Stephan hung up the phone. “Babe, look at me.” He took Roselle’s chin in his hand.
She blinked and focused on him.
Stephan took both of her hands in his. “We need to fly back to Atlanta right away. Let’s get our stuff together and I’ll see about getting a flight down there immediately, okay?”
She nodded.
That was better than before. At least the catatonic freeze was no longer in place.
Stephan helped her to her feet, but her hands tightened on his. “They made a mistake, right? Stacy… She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. My aunt is fine. She was fine before we left Atlanta, and she was fine when they checked on her two hours ago.”
“Babe—”
“We can go to Atlanta right away, but I’m going to be very upset with them for causing me so much stress when there’s nothing wrong with my aunt.”
Stephan cupped her face in his hands. “Babe, you heard what she said, right? She’s gone.”
Her lower lip trembled and fresh tears shimmered in her eyes.
“They’re not wrong. This is real,” Stephan said softly. If he could, he’d take away her pain, stuff it inside his own body to make her feel better.
Her face crumpled. “Not her. She’s all I have in the world. She’s all I have, Stephan.”
Stephan shook his head. “No, she’s not. You’ve got me, too.” He pulled her into his arms, and she sobbed against his bare chest.
“I’m here, babe. I got you, okay? I got you.”
Chapter 23
The knocking started again, and Roselle had a feeling she knew who stood on the opposite side of the door. Stephan.
She hadn’t seen him since the funeral on Saturday. She could leave him out there, ignore the knocking the way she’d ignored his calls over the past three days that she’d missed work. But the truth was, they needed to talk.
Her therapist would say she was punishing herself. Cutting herself off from the man she loved over the guilt of leaving her aunt alone when she was sick, and having her die without Roselle by her side.
“It’s okay to be happy. You don’t have to punish yourself,” he’d say.
Then he’d tell her to journal or meditate. But she hadn’t journaled in years, and she didn’t want to meditate. She wanted to face the death of her aunt head-on.
Dragging herself from bed, Roselle quickly splashed water on her face, went to the door, and opened it. As she suspected, Stephan stood outside. He was in the process of dialing, probably her number because she hadn’t answered the door quickly enough. She wouldn’t have received the call, though. She’d turned off her phone and buried it in the bottom of a drawer.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hey.” Concern filled his eyes. “Babe, what’s going on? I’ve been trying to reach you for the past three days. I was worried. Why haven’t you returned my calls?”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Can I help?”
Roselle shook her head. “No.”
“Can I do anything? Is there anything you need?”
She didn’t respond. Having him here made her happy and sad at the same time. Happy, because she loved his company—because she loved him. But sad, because she knew what she had to do and didn’t want to. The thought of breaking up made her weepy.
“Let me in, and we can talk,” Stephan said gently.
Roselle stepped aside. He came in, and she rested her back against the closed door. Concern remained in Stephan’s eyes, and she straightened her shoulders. “You won’t like what I’m about to say.”
He swallowed as if he already anticipated the words. “Before you make any drastic decisions—”
“I want to be alone, Stephan.”
“Babe, listen to me.” He reached for her, but she pulled back, and his hand fell away.
“You didn’t do anything wrong, but I’ve been thinking since the funeral, about our relationship.”
He remained silent, his body tensing almost imperceptibly.
“It takes up a lot of my time.”
“We can dial things back. We see each other at work every day, then several times a week you’re at my house. Sometimes you spend the whole weekend. It’s a lot. I get it. We don’t have to see each other as often.”
He was being so accommodating, which made what she had to do so hard.
“I didn’t have to take that trip to Charlotte with you. If I hadn’t, I would have been here when my great-aunt passed and she wouldn’t have been alone during her final hours.” The guilt tore her up inside. Ruthless, unyielding, punishing in its brutality.
“You shouldn’t blame yourself in any way for not being here when she passed. What happened to her was a tragedy. There’s no reason—”
“I need a break from you, from us, from this relationship. It’s too much.”
His eyes turned bleak. “For how long?”
Her heart cracked into a thousand pieces. “Indefinitely,” she said quietly. It pained her to say that word. It was so final.
“That’s not a break. You’re ending our relationship. Talk to me, Roselle. Did I screw something up?”
She shook her head. “It’s not you, it’s me.”
“Then let me help you.”
“Stop. I don’t want your help. I can handle this on my own. Please, stop.”
“You want me to walk away and pretend like our relationship means nothing? It’s over, just like that?”
/> “Why are you doing this?”
“I care about you.”
“We’re different. We come from different worlds and have different needs. You have all these friends and acquaintances and family. My aunt is gone, and she’s all I had.”
“You keep saying that, and I’m standing right here!” He slammed a fist against his chest.
“The person I loved most in the world died. This is real life, Stephan. Not another party or club opening.”
His eyebrows arrowed down in anger. “What does that mean? You think that’s all I’m about?”
“What do you have to worry about except looking good and having a good time? Your job at SJ Brands isn’t even real. If you walk away from the business development department at any time, you’ll still be fine. You’re rich and live a privileged life.”
Color tinged the top of his cheekbones, and he let out a bitter laugh. “That’s what you think of me? I’m a pretty boy whose life is easy? I don’t have to work, and I sure as heck don’t understand pain, right? You really think I’m that shallow?”
“I’m not saying you’re shallow. I’m saying, what have you had to suffer through? Have you ever had to struggle?”
Stephan fell quiet, which was very unlike him. He stared at his shoes, and an uncomfortable, awkward silence engulfed them. When he finally looked at her, he’d turned off all emotion. Was he angry, disappointed, had she hurt him?
“In case you don’t know, different people deal with pain and loss in different ways. Yes, I have life easier than most, and I don’t deny that. But I watched my parents hurt each other for a long time before they divorced. Then I watched my mother struggle to be whole again after the man she loved left. I struggled because I didn’t have my father around anymore. My Uncle Cyrus died in the hospital after a drunk driver hit his limo. My Uncle Anthony was murdered by his wife. And that’s just on my mother’s side of the family.”
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