Backlash

by Geneva Lee

  A battle wages in her green eyes. It’s not an easy choice. I knew it wouldn’t be. But she has to be the one to make it. Maybe she will never trust me again. Maybe we’re still doomed. But I can give her this, if nothing else.

  “I already drew up the papers,” I say to her.

  “I don’t have the money to buy it,” she says softly. “You must know that.”

  “Lucky, it’s yours. Your birthright. I’m not selling it to you. I’m giving it to you.” I pause, realizing there are some other things she ought to know. “I don’t hold all the shares, though. Jack and Luca do as well.”

  “I suspected.” She does a fair job of looking put out by this. “I can’t take the shares. They belong to you.”

  “That’s what you don’t get.” I hook a finger in the waistband of her pants and draw her closer to me. “Everything I have—everything I am—is yours.”

  “Does the bank know that?” She laughs nervously. It fades when she sees that I’m serious.

  “They’re just waiting on your signatures.”

  Adair pushes away, her eyes widening. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m all in,” I tell her. “I meant it when I wrote it on that card. I always will be. Maybe this is a shitty way of showing you, but what’s mine is yours. All of it. You can help me build more or ruin me, but I can’t deny you belong with me, at my side. Equals. I know that compared to your family, it’s nothing, but it’s yours.”

  “It’s everything,” she whispers.

  “I never thought a MacLaine would settle for so little,” I tease.

  “Sterling.” She bites her bottom lip, her lashes fluttering as she gazes into my eyes. “What if I don’t want to be a MacLaine anymore?”

  My cock stiffens at the implication of her words. “What are you saying, Lucky?”

  “There’s so much I need to tell you, and I still have questions—”

  “What are you saying?” I repeat before she can walk her words back any further.

  She’s so breathless, I can barely hear her. “I don’t want to be a MacLaine anymore. I want a real family. I want you.”

  “Come here.” I wrap her in my arms, holding her and savoring her completion of me. Her head fits into the hollow under my chin, and her scent—magnolias wafting through the southern summer heat—fills my nose, telling me I’m home.

  For almost a month I’ve been driving myself crazy trying to prove my love to Adair. Now I’ve done it, and I’m not sure how. Since she’s the one that saved me. From madness. From ruin. I spent five years telling myself it wasn’t real, believing she deserved a reckoning and that it would finally sever her hold on me.

  But now I recognize the truth. Our lives were never separate. There was only ever us. At the time we met, we were waiting—full of anger and frustration—for life to begin. Meeting her was no less than being born: confusing, exhilarating, intense. Life from nothing.

  But others came between us, and we let them. Ever since then we’ve been pale shadows of real people, haunting our own lives like ghosts. Unable to move on. Unable to let go of the real life we once glimpsed.

  I draw her head up and cup her chin. “I will always love you.”

  “Sterling, I love you,” she purrs, nuzzling my earlobe with her nose.

  “Does it feel good to say it again?” I lift her, cradling her body in my arms, and carry her towards the bedroom.

  “God, yes,” she says, her emerald eyes piercing through me to my soul.

  “I’m going to worship you, Lucky. Every fucking inch of you.” I want to give her a taste of what awaits her for the rest of her life. I need to.

  “Mmm?” She gives me a dreamy look, and the corners of her mouth curl into a satisfied grin. “Every inch, huh?”

  “You are a goddess.” I back through the door of her room and lay her on the bed. “Goddesses deserve to be worshipped.”

  “Should I be taking notes?” she says teasingly, but her eyelids are already heavy, her mouth the perfect, kissable pout.

  I pull the knot of my tie and slide it free of my collar, dropping it on the bed next to her. This wakes her up a little. Her tongue flickers over her lower lip as my fingers close over the first button.

  “Feel free to skip to the good part,” she says, reaching to tug my shirt free. I push her hand away.

  “Patience,” I murmur. Her pout deepens, but I take my time with each button, never letting my eyes leave hers. “There’s a ritual to worshipping, Adair,” I explain. “Certain formalities.”

  This proclamation is met with a skeptical glare. “Fuck formalities!”

  I kick off my shoes and bend to slowly pull off each sock. She watches, her hips wriggling restlessly. Her teeth bite down on her lower lip when my fingers reach for my belt buckle and my cock hardens at the greedy gleam in her eyes. “Oh, I don’t know. I think you’ll end up liking the formalities.”

  She blushes, ruddy patches of red glowing through the cream of her skin. I slide the belt off and abandon it next to my tie. Adair’s breathing grows shallow as I unfasten my pants and let them fall to the floor. Those green eyes of hers zero in on the silhouette of my cock, straining to escape my boxers. I hook my thumbs under the elastic and pause to drink in the sight of her strewn across the bed, waiting for me. Her knees are raised, wedging her shorts around her shapely ass. There’s a hand tucked where her thighs press together as her body writhes to the pulse of need overtaking her body. The straps of her threadbare tank fall over her shoulders. And the look on her face. Swollen lips. Pink cheeks. Her hair a tangled copper pool haloing her head. It’s the goddamn sexiest thing I’ve seen in my entire life.

  Circling to the foot of the bed, I drop onto the mattress and prowl toward her. I pause at her feet, slipping off her sandals and kissing each bit of exposed skin. My hands slide up her legs, reaching for her shorts. I quickly trail kisses from her feet to her knees, slowing as I reach her perfect thighs. She lifts her hips instinctively and I tug off her shorts to reveal a pair of black lace underwear.

  My mouth teases down her thighs, tasting her soft skin, until I reach her panties, then it closes over the lace-covered mound. Her scent fills my nostrils, sending another rush of blood to my already painfully hard cock. I can taste her through the fabric and I can’t help allowing myself one gentle suck. A hopeful moan slips from her lips, followed by another “I love you.”

  The curves of her body guides my lips to her navel as I push the hem of her shirt up to reveal more delicious flesh. Her bra is sheer black and trimmed with lace, and the promise of her luscious breasts makes my cock pulse. I lift her sharply to me, crushing her plump, pink mouth to mine. I suck her lower lip into my mouth, savoring not only the taste of her, but how she melts against me. I can do anything I want to her. She’ll let me. She’s given me her body completely. There’s not an ounce of resistance in her, and I’m going to reward her for that abandon.

  I release her lip to draw her top over her head. Her breath catches, then her chest deflates in a deep sigh. Unclasping her bra, I throw her clothes behind me onto the floor. I want to make every part of her swollen and sensitive. I want every inch of her to experience the orgasm I’m about to give her. It’s what a goddess deserves.

  Lowering her shoulders back onto the bed, my arm still beneath them, I roll from between her legs to lie beside her. My mouth finds her breast, kissing slow circles as my hand caresses the other one. Drawing the furl of her nipple into my mouth, I suck hard, eliciting a sharp hiss. I attend to her other breast the same way, my hand gliding slowly down to hover over her panties.

  Adair’s body responds instantly, her hips bucking as she tries to create more friction between my hand and her panties. For a moment I do nothing but let her circle against me, in thrall to her body’s response, powerless to her perfection.

  She groans as I abandon her nipple, and the sound draws me to her mouth. I go there next, my lips finding hers, then journeying to the soft curve where her shoulder and neck meet. When I ni
p the tender, vulnerable flesh there she jolts up, her teeth sinking into my shoulder for a second before she moves on hungrily. Her fingernails dig into my back as she clutches me tightly.

  I’m lost to it, the feeling of her mouth, her teeth. She sucks my ear, bites down hard into the sinew where neck meets shoulder. She could eat me alive and I would thank her.

  But I can’t stop myself from taking back control. Angling my face over hers, I capture her lips again, sucking until the slightest hint of pain escapes her. She releases me and I plunge down, burying my face between her legs. Her fingers tangle in my hair, caressing my scalp as I gather the fabric of her panties in my hands.

  “I’d order you to stop wearing these,” I say, “but I do like ripping them off you.” I find the seam and pull, my efforts rewarded by the subtle pop of each thread giving way.

  Lucky’s whole body begins to vibrate in anticipation as the last barrier between us gives way. She whimpers, her fingers tugging my hair, her hips bucking closer. “Put your mouth on me. Worship me."

  “Fuck yes,” I say, so consumed that I don’t know which one of us needs it more.

  I thrust my tongue inside her as her hips roll up, opening all of her to me. Licking slowly, I savor her with long, intense strokes, building in pace along with the guidance of her hips.

  “Oh my God.” The words roll out of her like thunder when I take her clit into my mouth, sucking until it swells. The fingers in my hair grasp and pull. It’s not a plea to stop, just a tether to grip as she rides out the pleasure.

  The surges fade to aftershocks and the hands pulling my hair relax. I crawl forward, kissing her belly, her breasts, and appreciating the languid, trembling of her body.

  “I need you inside me,” she pleads, her voice a deep, aching thing. “Make love to me.”

  “I worship you,” I say, kissing her collarbone as I lower my hips, nudging between her slick heat and lingering there. “I love you.”

  There’s no resistance when I thrust forward. She takes all of me in one powerful stroke, and the look on her face is one I know I will see in my dreams forever, divine and profane at the same time. A goddess come down to earth.

  I can’t be gentle or slow. I need to watch her unravel again. Grabbing her shoulders, I slam against her again and again, a throbbing pain echoing from my balls with each stroke.

  “Yes!” she screams, all restraint gone, total abandon unlocked.

  It spurs me on, driving me into a frenzy. “I love you,” escapes my lips, the subconscious thoughts inside my head spilling out of me unfiltered, as easily as talking to myself.

  “Don’t leave me again,” she sobs, hooking her heels behind my hips and adding their strength to my own. Her fingers dig into my back, and every time I pull away I feel their sharp sting, telling me the price of parting from her and inviting my return.

  “Never,” I promise. Our eyes meet, finding calm in the eye of the storm ravaging our bodies.

  She surrenders first, her body tightening around me and I join her, my low, unending groan filling the room in chorus with her own.

  Her body melts into the bed as her shaking subsides, and I pull from her gently, turning her onto her side and drawing her to me, back to chest, my chin on her shoulder, my arms wrapped around her, promising never to let her go.

  The world feels tender and raw, as new and beautiful as the woman in my arms. I want to explore both. For now, though, I want only to hold her.

  Life from nothing. Rapture from ruin. Us.

  28

  Sterling

  The Past

  I don’t know how I wound up here.

  A pin sticks my thigh, and I yelp, glaring down at the seamstress.

  “Sorry,” she says past a dozen more of the offending instruments clamped between her teeth.

  “Do I really need my own tuxedo?” I ask Adair for what must be the twentieth time this week.

  “Cyrus’s does not fit you,” she says firmly, “and why rent? I’m probably going to have to drag you to a million more of these things.”

  “Is your brother planning on getting married to a lot of women?” I cock an eyebrow at her reflection in the mirror.

  “Him and everyone else I know,” she teases. “It’s our way of life.”

  The seamstress pops the final pin out of her mouth. “She’s got a point.”

  It’s strange how easily people laugh off weddings and divorces around here. The closer to Malcolm MacLaine’s wedding we’ve come, the more jokes I’ve heard—from everyone. Cyrus. Adair. Even Poppy has made a crack or two, and she’s the optimistic one, usually.

  “Of course, you don’t have to come,” Adair says.

  “I’m coming, Lucky. Done deal. Unless you want to take someone else.”

  She moves behind me, her delicate hands resting on my shoulders, and our eyes meet in the mirror. “Not with how you look in this. Damn, Ford.”

  At least she’s pumping up my ego, since she’s going to insist on buying me the suit. She started hinting at it before we left New York. Then, she mentioned the plans for the wedding: a formal afternoon ceremony at a large cathedral in Nashville followed by a reception at the Valmont Country Club. I said yes before I found out that she was in the wedding. She softened the blow by telling me Cyrus and Poppy would be there. We were three weeks into the new semester when she mentioned actually buying a tuxedo.

  “You could have told me you were dragging me for a fitting, you know?”

  “Would you have come?” she asks.

  “I’m just saying that when you get all dolled up and wag your little finger at me to follow you—it gets my hopes up.”

  She showed up outside my Finance class wearing a denim skirt too short for January paired with thigh-high suede boots. I should have known she was up to something. That’s what I get for letting my dick do the thinking.

  Adair leans forward, lowering her voice so the seamstress doesn’t hear her, “I’ll make it up to you.”

  That’s more like it.

  Her lips turn down, and it takes me a second to realize the frown glaring back at me in the mirror is due to the ringing of her phone.

  “Who could that be?” I ask.

  “You only get married for the first time once,” she says through gritted teeth. “I’ll be right back.”

  It’s the third time her future sister-in-law has called since we arrived at the Italian suit shop. She darts out of the fitting room to take the call, leaving me to stand awkwardly while the seamstress continues to adjust the fit of my suit. Finally, she steps away, admiring her work.

  “It will be ready next week. When do you need to pick it up?”

  “The wedding is a week from Saturday,” I say.

  “Not a problem.” She makes a note. “Will you be picking it up?”

  “I guess.” I wish Adair hadn’t left me to answer these questions. It’s not as if I have much say in any of this. Suddenly, I understand how a trophy wife feels. My job is to put on the tux and look dashing at her side.

  “And the bill?”

  “Oh, um.” I don’t know what to say.

  “You can pay when you pick it up,” she offers. She pulls a yellow sheet off her receipt book and places it on the chair holding my clothes. “Bring this with you when you come. We’ll call when it’s finished. Just take that off and hang it here.”

  She leaves and I carefully remove the suit pieces and hang them like instructed. I don’t want to pick up the receipt, but I have to if I want to get to my jeans. I don’t know what a tuxedo costs, and Adair refuses to tell me. I move the yellow paper to the side, but a number catches my eye: a five followed by a few too many zeros. I grab it and look.

  I’m still staring at it when Adair returns.

  “She needed my opinion on what nail polish we should wear,” she announces. “Apparently, I don’t get to choose.” She waits for me to respond. When I don’t, she stops texting and looks over. The second she sees the receipt, she grabs it from me.

 
; “Have you lost your mind?” I demand. “Five-thousand dollars? For a suit?”

  “You’re going to need—”

  “I’d have to wear it every second for the rest of my life and be buried in it—and I’m still not sure that justifies it.”

  She sighs, her shoulders slumping. “Don’t make this a big deal.”

  “It is a big deal.” I can’t let her think this is normal. Not for me. “Francie makes that in a month in New York. It’s half the rent on our house. It’s…just…crazy.”

  “I have spent the last month meeting with a walking coach so that I look graceful going down an aisle—as if I forgot how to walk. I have been forced to try fifty bites of cake and then spit them out, so I can ‘fit in my dress.’ I am booked for three hours of hair and make-up on the wedding day. And I have to spend this weekend in Ashville pretending that I don’t want to strangle Ginny,” she explodes. “So will you please just let me buy you a tuxedo, so I have something sexy to look at next week to distract me from this shit circus?”

  Well, when she puts it like that. My eyebrow lifts. “You think I look sexy?”

  Adair’s eyes narrow, her lips flatten into a line, but she can’t stop herself from laughing.

  “Sorry, Lucky,” I say, pulling her to me. “I’m trying.”

  “I know. Me, too. We’ll get better at this.”

  “At what? Being from different sides of the track?”

  “At just letting small stuff like this go,” she says.

  I open my mouth, about to tell her that I can’t let five-thousand dollars go, but then I shut it. She’s right. Money matters a lot more when you don’t have it. Adair does. I can’t change that. But it doesn’t define who she is, and I know it.

  “Now, I think you said something about making this up to me?” I remind her, my head dipping to her neck.

  “What do you have in mind?” she murmurs.