“You’re not serious!” Her eyes were wide, and her lips were parted slightly.
“I am,” he admitted with a shrug. “I thought you were gorgeous and brilliant and seriously the toughest person I’d ever met. But I wasn’t brave enough to ask you out back then. And now Carlyle has beat me to it. Damn him.” He was smiling, and his tone was easy. He obviously wasn’t angry at Lance.
Savannah’s cheeks were slightly flushed, and she couldn’t help but be pleased and flattered by that revelation about her high school crush. “Well, truth be known, I had a thing for you back then too, so I definitely would have said yes if you’d asked.”
“Really?” He gave an exaggerated aw-shucks snap of his fingers. “I guess I missed my chance. If Carlyle wasn’t such a good guy, I’d resent him.”
Savannah laughed, still awed by something she’d never suspected.
Carter said, “It’s nice to see you smiling. I was worried when I saw you earlier. You looked so... I don’t know. I thought something might have been wrong.”
She shook her head. “I’m fine. But thank you.” Then, spontaneously, she reached to give Carter a soft hug. “You’re a really good guy too. You know that, right?”
Carter laughed and hugged her back. “I do my best.”
She was pulling away from him, still smiling, when she was suddenly aware of someone right beside her.
Lance.
Even on the first glance, she knew something was going on with him. She had no idea what—his expression was perfectly composed and he was even smiling as he stuck his hand out toward Carter, but she saw something under the surface.
He was tense. Tense. And Lance Carlyle was never tense.
“There you are,” he said, turning to look down on her. “I was wondering where you’d disappeared to, and here I find you in the arms of another man.”
Savannah gave him a sharp look, but his expression was perfectly bland.
Carter laughed as if he’d made a joke. “I was just telling Savannah that it’s too bad you beat me to asking her out.”
A muscle in Lance’s jaw rippled. “Because if you asked her out first, she’d definitely be married to you now instead of me?”
Savannah sucked in a breath at the bite to Lance’s tone, but Carter didn’t appear to notice. “I can only dream.”
That was definitely the wrong thing to say, however innocently Carter meant it. Lance’s shoulders stiffened visibly.
Savannah intervened quickly. “Whatever happened to your date, Carter? Maybe you should go find her.”
“I definitely should.” Carter leaned over to kiss her cheek. “I’ll see you later, Savannah.” He clapped Lance on the shoulder as he left and didn’t seem to notice that Lance didn’t move or say a word.
As soon as Carter was gone, Savannah glared up at him. “What’s your problem?” she said in just over a whisper.
Lance’s eyes flashed down at her. “You’re seriously asking that?”
“Yes, I’m asking that. You’re acting like... like... I don’t know what you’re acting like, but it’s ridiculous. Carter and I were just—”
“Yes, I saw what you were doing with him.”
“Asshole,” Savannah hissed. She would have said more, but the bride and groom were making their way past them just then, so they had to stop and greet them.
Then someone else came up to talk to them, and then they had to watch the cake being cut and get their little pieces to eat.
So Savannah decided it would be better to wait until they’d left the reception before they finished the conversation. But she was stewing for the rest of the time.
He appeared to be doing the same.
IT WAS DARK OUTSIDE when they left the church building and walked through the parking lot toward Lance’s SUV.
Savannah truly thought she was on the verge of losing it. Of bursting into tears or beating Lance to a pulp or hiking up her skirt and running away. She’d just come to the difficult realization that she’d forgiven him for the past when he suddenly turned into the asshole he used to be.
Instead of doing any of the things she felt like doing, she tried to breathe through the rising flood of feeling, holding on to her control so tightly she was shaking with it.
Lance didn’t say anything. His jaw was clenched, and his gaze was averted. He wasn’t acting like himself at all—and least not the him she’d believed him to be now—and for some reason that just made her angrier.
When they reached the car, he walked with her and opened the passenger-side door for her.
And that was it.
That simple act of old-fashioned courtesy.
She snapped. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
He blinked, his hand still on the door handle. “What?”
“I asked what the hell is wrong with you? Why did you suddenly turn into an asshole with Carter back there?”
“You—” He broke off with a choking sound. “You’re angry with me?”
The outraged confusion in his tone was infuriating. “Yes, I’m angry with you. Why wouldn’t I be? There was no excuse for how you acted back there.”
“No ex—” He cut his words off again and took a step backward. For a moment she thought he was going to let the whole thing go to avoid the fight, but that wasn’t like Lance any more than it was like her. Both of them were made for fighting.
Instead of heading for the other side of the SUV, he stepped around the open passenger door and came up close to her, bracing a hand against the back door in a move that trapped her between it and his body.
He leaned in close and murmured thickly, “You really think you’re the one who should be angry here? You’re the one who asked me to go with you to a wedding where you knew nearly everyone would hate me, and I did it because you wanted me to, and then you act like you’re embarrassed of me the whole time, and I turn around for a few minutes only to find my wife hanging all over some other man.”
She nearly strangled on a sound of indignation. “What... what... what?” She couldn’t remember ever being so furious in her life—not even when Lance got her fired when she was seventeen. She was almost in tears from the force of her emotions, but she managed to hold them back so Lance wouldn’t think he had an advantage. She gave his shoulder a little push to get him to step back.
He had no right to be trapping her against the car this way.
He had no right to convince her to forgive him—to trust him—only to turn around and act like this.
The timing was unfortunate. Lance stepped back immediately, but her push was witnessed by a group of people who’d just left the reception and were heading to their cars. Savannah glanced over and saw they were all watching with interest what was obviously a fight between her and the husband no one believed she’d end up with.
She turned back to Lance. “I wasn’t hanging all over Carter.”
Lance’s eyebrows arched in the coolest, most obnoxious way. “You were pressed up against him, and his arms were definitely around you.”
“We were hugging! A friendly hug!” She kept her voice soft, keenly aware of their audience, but there was no mistaking the degree of her outrage. “What’s wrong with you that you don’t know people occasionally do that?”
“So you’re saying you weren’t in love with that man since high school? And if he asked, you wouldn’t hook up with him as soon as the divorce papers with me are signed?” He’d moved closer to her again, but he wasn’t using his arm to block her this time. He was tense and cold as ice. Even his eyes were unnaturally vacant.
“No!” That came out too loud. A couple of other people in the parking lot glanced toward them. She lowered her voice to continue, “I’ve never given you any cause to suddenly turn into this stupid, jealous caveman. I’m not your property. You can’t treat me like I am. And I’ve never given you any reason to doubt I’ll fulfill every single term of our marriage contract. So what exactly is your problem with me here?”
He stared at her for a
long time, a force of tension in his body barely reined in. Then he let out a breath and glanced away from her, tamping back whatever had been about to break free. “Our marriage contract? That’s what you think is at issue here?”
“I don’t know! You tell me. You’re the one who’s suddenly making up stories about me running off with Carter. And what the hell did you mean by embarrassed? I wasn’t embarrassed by you.”
“Weren’t you?” His tone wasn’t really angry anymore. Just cool and bitter.
“No, I wasn’t.”
“You’re really going with that? A flat denial of something that was painfully obvious?”
She clenched her fists to keep from grabbing his suit labels and trying to shake him. “I wasn’t embarrassed. I wasn’t. I’d just realized that... that... and it was hard.” Tears were burning in her eyes now.
She didn’t want to cry. She didn’t want to scream at him. She didn’t want to have a public fight with him in the mostly dark parking lot of a church.
She didn’t want to tell him the truth.
She didn’t want to risk him crushing her heart completely.
His expression changed. “You realized what?”
All the emotional momentum blew out of her like the air from a popped balloon. She mumbled, “Forget it” and climbed into the passenger seat.
Lance closed the door and walked around to the other side. Once behind the wheel, he asked, “That’s it? You want to just forget the whole thing?”
“Yes, I want to forget it. This fight was going nowhere, and it was stupid to begin with.” She was pleased she managed to sound basically composed despite having to lift her chin to keep unshed tears from falling. She looked away from Lance—out her window—so he wouldn’t be able to see.
Lance turned on the ignition. It felt like he was looking at her, but she wasn’t about to glance over to verify. “So none of it matters?”
“No. None of it matters. Can you please just take us home?” The final sentence came out closer to a plea than she wanted it to, but it was the best she could do.
Lance didn’t say anything else. He put the SUV into drive and backed out of his parking space. Savannah sat in her seat, staring out the side window and doing her best not to cry.
THEY DIDN’T TALK AT all on the ride home or on their way up to the fourth floor of their building. When they got into the condo, Savannah toed off her heels in the entryway, dropped her purse beside them, and walked into the kitchen.
She didn’t really know what she was doing in there, so she grabbed a bottle of sparkling water as an excuse for opening the refrigerator.
She unscrewed the bottle and took a sip, lowering it to find that Lance was right there.
Right there in front of her.
He looked rumpled and exhausted and full of something she didn’t understand.
“What?” she asked rather sharply.
“You’re really okay with this?”
“With what?” She wasn’t going to be able to handle this. She hadn’t yet gotten herself under control. Her eyes still burned with emotion, and her chest might explode at any moment.
“With pretending that whole thing never happened. With acting like nothing has changed between us.”
“Nothing has changed.” She set her Perrier on the counter since the glass kept slipping against her damp hand. “What exactly do you want from me, Carlyle?”
He made a loud, helpless sound in his throat and took a step toward her. “I want you to say something. Do something. Act on whatever it is you’re feeling instead of pretending you’re some kind of invulnerable warrior who’s always bracing herself to be attacked.”
The words hit her hard. Strange. It was like they tore a hole into her soul and lodged there. Because she’d changed. Mostly because of him. “That’s not...” Her voice broke, and she had to start again. “That’s not... me.”
“Then show me!” he burst out, suddenly anything but cool. “Damn it, Savannah. I’m not made of glass any more than you are. We’re not going to break. Neither one of us. If you’re angry, be angry. If you want to cry, then do it. I can take anything you give me. So show me!”
She launched herself at him. There was no other way to describe it. One second she was standing near the kitchen counter, hugging her arms to her chest, and then the next second she was all over him, wrapping her arms around him and yanking his head down into a kiss.
He responded immediately, taking control of her body, turning them both around, and then pressing her back against the edge of the countertop. They kissed with a frantic urgency that was more emotional than hot. She clawed at his suit, at his hard body beneath it. She was practically climbing up the solid length of him in her need to feel him even more, closer, deeper.
He finally broke his mouth away, but only to mouth and bite his way down her neck. He yanked one of her breasts out of the cup of her bra and the dip of her neckline so he could suckle vigorously on her nipple.
She arched back and let out a ragged sob.
He was already aroused. She knew it when she yanked up her skirt and wrapped one of her legs around him. She felt the hard bulge in the front of his trousers and ground herself against it.
She fisted her hands in his hair, lifting his head so she could kiss his mouth again. He propped her up on the counter edge, yanking her skirt out of the way and stepping between her legs.
Her body was out of her control. All the emotional turmoil she’d been fighting had erupted into this one act. Taking Lance. Letting him take her.
Making love to him.
She fumbled with his belt, whimpering in frustration when she couldn’t unbuckle it fast enough. He moved a hand down to help her, and together they opened the belt, undid his trousers, and pulled his erection out of his underwear.
Then he was pushing closer to her, fitting himself between her thighs and moving aside her panties.
“Come on, come on, come on, come on,” she muttered under her breath as he positioned himself at her entrance.
Finding the best angle, he pushed into her.
She cried out at the feeling. They’d had almost no foreplay, so she wasn’t as wet as usual, but she was wet enough to be comfortable. He was very tight inside her, and he shifted his hips as he let out a long, hoarse exhale, one arm wrapped around her and the other braced against the countertop.
“Take me,” she breathed, her mouth against the soft suit fabric on his shoulder. “Take me now.”
He made a guttural sound and started to thrust, pushing against her so hard her body jerked and jiggled.
It was exactly what she wanted. She clung to him and tried to meet him. She wrapped one leg around his waist to draw him deeper.
They rutted like animals against the countertop, their loud grunts growing louder and louder.
It wasn’t going to last long. Not like this. Not with such intensity. Even as an orgasm tightened inside her, she could feel Lance’s body start to shake.
“Savannah,” he rasped against her ear, almost desperate.
“Do it. Come. Come!”
He tried to hold out but couldn’t, coming with a strangled cry, his hips jerking desperately against her.
Savannah felt him soften in her arms as he panted out his release. He stayed where he was for a minute, obviously recovering from his climax. Then he pulled out of her and readjusted his position.
He slid three fingers inside her and used the other arm to hold her close. He was almost cradling her as he fucked her with his fingers, exactly the way she liked.
She buried her face against his shoulder and sobbed—literally sobbed, tears streaming out of her eyes—as he took her to orgasm once and then again.
He was still holding on to her tightly when he finally retrieved his hand.
She collapsed against him limply, still crying a little bit, and he stroked her back and hair and murmured something soothing and incomprehensible into her hair.
It was a few minutes before she recovered her
self enough to find her feet and pull down the skirt of her dress.
Lance tucked himself back into his underwear and zipped his trousers before he slowly raised his gaze to meet hers.
Her stomach clenched hard in fear. “We’ve got to stop doing this,” she mumbled.
It was the wrong thing to say. She knew it as soon as the words were spoken. She didn’t need to see Lance stiffen to know she should have said something else.
“Doing what?” he asked very slowly.
She tried to fix it. She had to fix it. She had to tell him the truth. “Casual-slash-hate sex isn’t... isn’t....” She was trying so hard to get the words said—that what she had with him wasn’t casual or filled with hate and it probably never had been—but it went against her very nature and the words caught in her throat.
Casual-slash-hate sex isn’t what this is.
She didn’t hate him. She didn’t even dislike him anymore.
It wasn’t even liking that she was feeling now.
She loved him.
She was in love with Lance Carlyle. Her husband.
And nothing she’d experienced in her thirty-one years had been so utterly terrifying.
He was staring at her blankly, not moving a muscle.
“It isn’t...” She could barely get even two words out through the waves of fear and confusion overwhelming her.
Maybe he’d help. Maybe he’d finish her sentence. Maybe he’d changed his mind too. Maybe he felt more for her now than he used to. Maybe he wanted more than some hot sex to pass the time before he was free to fuck whomever he wanted again.
Maybe...
His face twisted so briefly she might have imagined it, because then it revealed nothing but a cool and slightly bitter derision. The way he used to look all the time. “It isn’t what?” he drawled. Bone dry. “What you want anymore? The girl who’s always been too afraid to have casual sex before. Or even get drunk. Why doesn’t that surprise me that you’ve already sounded the retreat?”
It hurt so much she had to fight a surge of nausea. She wrapped her arms around her belly and held on.
A Wedded Arrangement (Convenient Marriages, #3) Page 15