He wasn’t getting a talk. Our track record suggested talks typically led to things. “Sign the papers. Then I’ll talk to you.”
“Talk to me, and I’ll think about signing them.”
I jogged up the stairs to my door. He, of course, ended up right beside me. The flame from the porch light flickered over his face. My chest tightened. The problem was, I still loved him in a way that felt bone deep. Love was irrational while survival was rational, and Spencer put the two ideas at war.
“There’s not much to talk about.”
“Oh, please.” He snorted. “There’s plenty to fucking talk about.” He hiccupped again and rocked to the side, catching the railing to steady himself.
Remember why you left. Why you stayed away. I thought about all the broken promises, and my lips flattened into a disapproving line. “Let me guess, it’ll start with: you’ll be sober tomorrow?” The latch clicked when I turned the key in the lock.
“No, I’m not saying I’ll be sober tomorrow,” he said, sounding less inebriated than the pungent aroma of whiskey creeping across my face suggested. “I learned that lesson.”
“At least you’re being honest about it now.” I cracked the door, and he grabbed my hand.
“I miss you. . .”
My stupid heart faltered. “You’re drunk.”
“And you’re hot as fuck.” He fell into me. His chin dug into my shoulder.
“Glad you still think so.” I pushed him away. “Now, if you’ll just excuse me, I’m trying to get on with my life.”
Spencer gripped the edge of the door, then yanked it open. I braced both arms and legs in the doorway like a human starfish to block his entrance. His fingers burrowed into my hips, his hardening dick pressed against my ass, and I stumbled over the threshold, sending us both tumbling right into the wall.
“Oh my God!” Lottie shrieked. “Georgia. You scared the bloody. . .” She went bug-eyed and clutched her chest, clawing at the Midnite Kills tank top she donned. “It’s. It’s. . .Oh. My. God.”
“That’s a killer shirt.” Spencer’s arm went around my waist, and if I had to guess, he probably winked before he tugged me against his side. “At least she likes me, Rapunzel,” he whispered before nipping at my ear.
Groaning, I elbowed him away while Lottie stared at me like I’d grown a second head. She pointed a trembling finger at him, then let out a scream so shrill it could have shattered the windows.
“Hey. Hey. Hey.” Spencer covered his ears. “Christ. All that’s not necessary.”
But she kept screaming.
I slammed the door in the hopes it would drown her out before the neighbors called the police. “Lottie. Stop.”
“Spencer. It’s Spencer. Georgia.” She pointed again like I wasn’t aware of the massive, drunk asshole slouching against me. Her hands went to her head, and she spun around a few times; I was afraid she was either going to spontaneously combust or melt into the carpet. “That’s Spencer Hailstorm.”
“I know.” I sighed.
“How did you— How did he— What in the?”
Smiling like the smug bastard he was, Spencer crossed the room with complete swagger. The second he stopped in front of her and asked her name, she threw her arms around his neck. Holding up my hands, I went straight to the kitchen and rummaged through the cabinet for an open bottle of wine. I rarely drank, but this—this called for alcohol.
The stopper came out with a plunk, and I necked it.
“Wine? You’ve gone all sophisticated on me.”
I literally felt him appear in the doorway—that’s the kind of presence he’d always had.
“What happened to tequila?”
I closed my eyes and took another swig before I spun around with every intention of demanding he leave. But one look at him with his arms braced in the doorway, the hem of his shirt riding up just enough to reveal a strip of tanned skin above the jeans sitting dangerously low on his hips—the smattering of hair that traveled to places I shouldn’t want anything to do with, but God, did I. It had been so long. . .
My traitorous heart stuttered. Say something. “Lurking in the shadows and waiting on me to leave work borders on psychotic. You realize that?” I took another chug.
“No more psychotic than you jetting off halfway around the world to get away from me.” His chin dipped. His stormy gaze tapered, and that single look plastered me to the wall. Spencer’s eyes were like fire in water, a deep blue that made me want to lose myself in him, but I knew, the second I did, I’d end up with third-degree burns.
I was trapped, with nothing to keep him away from me but the half-empty bottle of wine my sweaty palms had clutched in a desperate death grip.
“Don’t forget, I know you, Georgia Anne.” He smirked. “Better than anyone else.” His white teeth raked over his lip the way they used to before he’d grab me and throw me on the bed.
The subsequent heat that built between my legs from that thought alone made me livid. “Don’t remind me.”
“I know the reason your cheeks are turning pussy-pink right now is that you’re pissed and turned on at the same time.”
Warmth spread from my chest to my neck.
His arms dropped to his sides before he took a step into the kitchen. “I swear, I can still remember the way you taste. A little salty. A little sweet.” Another determined stride.
I kept telling myself if I didn’t move, he’d just go away, even though I knew how well that worked for the kid in Jurassic Park. The T-Rex threw him and the damn Jeep over the cliff, and the closer Spencer came, I feared that was exactly where my wine bottle and I were headed. I could feel it.
The worn toe of his Van touched the tip of my Converse, and a cold sweat broke out over my body. With the warmth of his skin only inches away, the temptation to run my hands along once familiar paths caused my fingers to curl into my palms. His smell—a little clean, a little rugged, with just a spicy hint of cardamom that made me think of sex—enveloped me like a seductive invitation. His lips—God, I remembered how they felt like crushed velvet against my mouth, against my. . .
“The way you moaned,” he said, a rough edge to his tone. Spencer touched the dip of my waist in a feather-light embrace, and my knees threatened to go rubbery. “And fuck do I miss it.” His fingertips applied that perfect amount of pressure to my skin.
My pulse throbbed.
I left him because, because. . .
“Wait!” Lottie bustled into the kitchen. “You know him? You didn’t just randomly run into him and bring him here. You know him?”
Every muscle in my body tensed. “I mean. . .”
Spencer’s chin dropped on a scoff, but his hand remained on my side, burning through the thin material of my shirt and scorching my skin.
“Georgia! How could you not bloody tell me this?”
Spencer leaned down, placing his lips by my ear. “You hate me so much that you pretend we never existed?” He shoved away from me and drunkenly stumbled into the counter.
Lottie tossed her hands in the air. “At least tell me how you know him. Why he’s in our house.” Her gaze shifted to the corner of the room, and she touched an apologetic hand to her heart. “Not that I care. I’m honored, really. Just make yourself at home. Would you like some tea?” She started toward the stove and grabbed the kettle.
“Lottie, he doesn’t want tea.”
But she already had the kettle under the tap, filling it.
Spencer glowered at me. “How do you know if I want tea or not?”
“Oh, my God! You don’t drink tea.”
“Maybe I started drinking it. I’d love tea.” He glanced at Lottie and grinned. Then his gaze was back on me, narrowing while a smirk played at his lips. “Why don’t you tell her how we know each other, Georgia Anne?”
This was not a road I wanted to, nor was I prepared to go down right now. I dug my fists into my hips and cocked a brow. “Why don’t you go somewhere else?”
“I’ve got tea coming.”
Spencer leaned against the cabinets, braced his palms on the counter, and crossed one ankle over the other. And that pose right there could have graced the cover of Vogue. “So, Lottie, much to Georgia’s dismay, we used to date. It ended in nothing too serious. You know, just marriage.”
“What?” Lottie glared at me on her way back to the stove with the pot. One twist of her wrist and the gas ticked before the flame caught. “I’m sorry.” Laughing, she dropped the kettle onto the burner with a clang. “Georgia? You’re the estranged wife? You’re his wife? He’s the ex you told me about on the train. The. Ex.”
“Oh. I’m not her ex-anything.” He hiccupped before patting Lottie on the cheek. “Those papers haven’t been signed.”
Her lip went into a spasm. “You’re married to Spencer Hailstorm, and you never thought to mention that?”
The cat was out of the bag. Howling and scratching. I dropped my chin to my chest. “Shit.”
“I feel like I don’t even know you right now.”
“It’s a sore subject, Lottie. Don’t take it personally.”
“A fucking sore subject,” Spencer grumbled and pushed away from the counter with a shake of his head.
This was the Twilight Zone, and I desperately wanted out. “Anyway, Spencer, Lottie’s a huge fan. Have your tea. Make her day. I’ll leave the divorce papers by the door for you.” I placed the wine on the table on my way into the living room.
“Where are you going?” he shouted. Something banged into the wall—most likely him. “Hey!”
“To bed.”
“Hell, ye-ah. That’s more like it!” Spencer was right behind me by the time I reached the steps, the wine to his lips while he chugged.
“What are you doing?”
The bottle moved away from his mouth. “Coming to bed.”
“You don’t need any more alcohol.” I snatched the wine from his grasp. “And you are most definitely not coming to bed with me.”
“Come on, Georgia.” His shoulder brushed mine when he passed by with an arrogant gleam in his eyes like he knew he was my weakness. Two steps in front of me, he tripped. Instead of standing, he proceeded to crawl, on his hands and knees, up the stairwell. “Just one night.”
This was not good. Not good at all. He needed to get out of here. “Where are you staying?”
He managed to stand at the top of the stairwell. “I haven’t worked that out yet.”
“Well, work it out. Because you aren’t staying here.”
He snorted before making a dramatic, Jack Sparrow-like spin before he stumbled down the hall as if he knew exactly where he was going.
I started up the steps after him. “Would you get out of my house?”
“This room’s not yours. Doesn’t smell right.”
The kettle whistled. The hinges to a bed upstairs creaked.
“Ah, your bed’s comfortable, Georgia Anne. Soft and fluffy.”
I grabbed the railing and squeezed hard enough to splinter wood.
“Does he take sugar with his tea?” Lottie called from the kitchen.
“He’s not having tea, Lottie!” With a groan, I tromped up the rest of the stairs.
I kicked one of his discarded Vans down the hallway. Then the other. Jeans lay crumpled a few feet from my door. His singing rang out from my bedroom, a slurred version of “Witchy Woman.”
Much to my relief, Spencer still had on his Versace boxer briefs, but much to my dismay he was sprawled out on my bed. The lilac duvet crumpled around broad shoulders that tapered to his trim waist. A scorching heat spread from my head to my toes in a mixture of anger and unrequited lust.
“Get out.” I moved over the threshold. “Of my bed.” I passed the dresser.
He lifted his head and shot a mega-watt smile at me. “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard that. It’s usually get in my bed.” He laughed then went straight back to singing while waving his hand through the air like an eccentric, New York City Orchestra conductor.
“Spencer. Get out.”
He beckoned me with his middle finger. “You get in.”
“Oh my God. I’m going to kill you.” I stormed to the foot of the bed, grabbed both his ankles, and yanked as hard as I could. But six feet and three inches of solid muscle barely budged.
“Just so I know, is this really even your bed, or did you pay for it with money from our bank account?”
I literally growled. “I haven’t used our bank account in nearly nine months.”
“Shame. You could have bought such nice things. . .” He brushed a hand over the comforter while I dragged my hands down my face.
The bed creaked. When I looked up, Spencer was on his knees and lunging toward me. Even drunk, he was quick. With one swift move, his arm was around my waist. My back hit the mattress with an oomph. One quick roll had me pinned beneath him, caged in by his tattoo-covered arms. The scent of whiskey and mint fanned across my cheeks when he inched toward my face.
My heart short-circuited. So much about being trapped underneath him felt right. So much felt wrong. “You have three seconds before I knee you in the balls,” I said.
A spark of a smirk flashed over his lips. Then his hands were underneath my arms, tickling. I swatted and pinched and laughed against my will. “Stop. Spencer. Stop.” Another bout of giggles that made anger swell inside me. “I swear to— Stop!” Much to my surprise, he did, and I scooted off the mattress as fast as I could while trying to catch my breath.
He was frozen on all fours in the middle of my bed with his cheeks puffed out.
“No. No. No.” I shook my head. “Don’t you dare!”
He cupped a hand to his mouth and scrambled off the mattress and into the hall. The door to the bathroom slammed shut followed by awful retching.
I ran my fingers over the crumpled duvet where he’d just been laying. As much as I wished I didn’t care—there was still a piece of me that felt the need to take care of him, so I went to the bathroom and tapped a finger on the door. “Hey.”
Silence ticked by, and panic set in. He seemed drunk, but I had no idea what else he’d done. Knowing him, there was no limit. Just when I reached for the doorknob, I heard him spit and cough. The toilet flushed.
“Yeah?”
I opened the door and found him sitting on the floor beside the toilet, eyes closed with his back to the tile wall. I took a washcloth from the cabinet and ran it underneath the tap, wringing out the excess water before I stepped beside him. “Here.”
He took the damp cloth from my hand. “I’m sorry.” The pity in his voice caused the wall around my heart to crack, tiny bits of mortar crumbled. He wiped the cloth over his mouth. “Thanks.”
“Thanks for not puking on my bed.”
Silence stretched between us. Not much had changed. He was still struggling, and I still loved him. . . Years ago, I thought rock-bottom was living in an apartment complex nestled amongst crack houses, having to skip a meal here and there because money was tight.
But it wasn’t.
It was living in a house with more rooms than I could count and having him say it wasn’t good enough. It was watching him sleep away half the day because he was depressed or hungover or had downed one-too-many sleeping pills. It was Spencer being looked up to and admired for overcoming adversity when his success had him in a death grip. No, actually, it was this: wanting to be with him when I knew it wasn’t good for either of us.
“I just wanted to talk to you,” he breathed. “That’s all.” His eyelids drooped before his head lolled to the side.
The clap from my hands bounced around the tiny bathroom. “Hey. Come on.” I bent over, grabbed his hand, and pulled, but he was too messed up to go anywhere. “You can stay here. Okay?”
He stumbled to his feet and swayed from side to side. One of his shoulders bumped into the wall with a thud. “I don’t think I can get it up now.”
“I didn’t mean stay here to screw.” With a roll of my eyes, I snagged the trashcan from the floor and guided him dow
n the hallway to my bedroom. “Just go to sleep. And if you get sick, please, for the love of all things, vomit in this.” The garbage can hit the floor with a thud.
“’Kay, Georgia Anne.” He fell to the bed and rolled onto his back.
A vision of him choked on vomit cycled through my mind. My chest seized. “Roll over, Spencer.”
He attempted to swat me away. “I’m fine.”
“No. Roll over in case you puke again.”
I took his shoulders and pushed until he was on his side. Then I grabbed the extra pillow and crammed it behind his back, hoping that would keep him in place.
His chest rose and fell. “I love.” Another deep pant. “You.”
Those words stole my next breath, holding it captive. Spencer’s addiction was drugs, and mine, I was afraid, was him.
13
Spencer
There are certain things a man should never do if he wants his estranged wife to talk to him. He shouldn’t use derogatory terms. He shouldn’t ask her if she’s down to fuck. And he shouldn’t chug a bottle of whiskey, chase it with half a bottle of wine, and then toss his dinner in her bathroom.
Pretty sure I’d done all three the previous night.
Pain shot through my skull like a hollow-tip bullet when I sat up in Georgia’s—yes, I was really in Georgia’s—bed. Clutching my head, I threw my legs over the edge of the mattress, accidentally kicking over the trash can. A white pill bottle sat on the nightstand beside a stack of papers and a handwritten note from Georgia. It’s the British form of Tylenol. You’re welcome. Also, please sign the papers.
I snatched the medicine from the table with a grumble, dumped a few into my palm, then tossed them down the hatch while eyeing the document.
Petition for dissolution of marriage.
Now comes the petitioner, Georgia Hailstorm, by and through her attorneys, Laughtin and Brookes. . .
I grabbed the pen and flipped to the page marked with a fluorescent yellow flag. The tip of the ballpoint pressed against the signature line. It was pathetic of me to hold on to someone who didn’t want me anyway. I started to draw the curve of the S, then stopped.
Over You Page 9