There was a word for that, but Lola couldn’t let it form in her mind. If she did, she’d never see clearly again. They stared at each other, both breathing deeply.
He detangled from her finally and went to turn away, but reached back and took her arm. “Do not leave my side.” He walked them up to the counter where he placed the gun down but didn’t release it. He kept his other hand on Lola. The attendant was on the phone with the police.
“Tell them we can still catch the guy,” Beau said, glancing at the door. “And to hurry the fuck up.”
“Beau?” Lola asked.
“Not now. I have to do this.” He let her go and took the phone right out of the kid’s hand. “Is someone on the way?” he asked and waited. “Every second that passes, he gets farther away. I don’t even know—”
Sirens sounded out front.
“Never mind,” Beau said, dropping the receiver.
He took two steps before the attendant called after him. “Dude, my gun. You go out there with that and they’ll turn you into Swiss cheese.”
Beau rubbed his forehead tensely and looked at his hand.
“Put it down,” Lola said. “He’s not coming back.”
He slid it across the counter to the attendant. “Stay here,” he said to Lola. He didn’t move a moment, then took her shoulders firmly. “Do you hear me, Lola? Don’t try and be brave. Just stay put until I come get you.”
He was afraid. Now that her sense had returned, she was too. She nodded quickly, breathlessly. “I won’t move.”
His fingers loosened, but he wouldn’t stop looking at her. “You really fucking scared me, you know that? This is why I never stray from the plan—not ever.”
She searched his face. “What plan?”
“There’s always a plan, Lola. Tonight was about you and me, and that’s why I wanted to stay in the hotel room. Just be with you. This is all my fault for not sticking to the plan.”
“But it was my idea,” she said.
He pulled her against him hard and hugged her. He buried his face in her hair. “Goddamn it,” he whispered.
He released her all at once and strode out of the convenience store. The attendant was already in front. She stood frozen to the spot. Her breathing hadn’t calmed. Her heart felt like it was bottoming out.
She’d almost lost everything in minutes. Her life. Her future. Their future. Beau. She shook her head. He wasn’t everything. He was just a man she’d spent two nights with. A man she’d already been planning to say goodbye to in a few hours.
She’d risked her life for that man. For a man she’d never see again after tonight. And he—he had done the same by not letting her out of his sight, even to save himself.
She’d almost lost him in minutes. He was everything.
There was a word for that—it was love.
The car dipped as they entered the hotel’s underground garage. The gun’s cold metal was still under Lola’s chin. She wanted Beau’s touch to replace it. To replace the last hour of being separated from him as policemen questioned each of them. Lola rubbed her hands up and down her thighs. She’d stopped shaking, but she was jittery.
Beau pulled into a parking spot and shut off the car. “In the morning, we’ll—” He stopped.
What, go get a bite to eat? Give the credit card companies a call? Pick her up a replacement cell phone? That wasn’t their life. Their life followed the sun’s schedule, and it would be waking up soon. “In the morning, we’ll nothing,” she said. “Nothing.”
They were silent. The police had asked if Beau was her boyfriend. Where they’d been. Where they were going. Why they needed a hotel if they lived in Los Angeles. The dashboard in front of Lola blurred and doubled. She breathed in and out.
What would they have said if she’d told them the truth?
“We’re not what you think, Officer. He’s paying me to be here right now. In this gas station. I’m being paid for this.”
She didn’t want Beau’s money. She could give it back and not leave in the morning, but then there was Johnny. Johnny, who hadn’t protected her. He hadn’t known if Beau would hurt her, or if she’d come home in one piece. He’d sent her off into a potentially dangerous situation—twice. He would’ve let the man with the gun take her outside to save his ass.
She undid her seatbelt.
“Lola?” Beau asked.
She put a knee over the console and climbed onto him. He didn’t protest, just took her hips as she settled into his lap. She put her hands on both sides of his face and kissed him. He was solid. Real. Immovable. He tasted salty. One of them was crying.
“It’s okay to be scared,” Beau whispered. “You don’t have to be strong all hours of the day.”
“For you.” She was trembling again, but this time it wasn’t because of the gun. She couldn’t say goodbye to him. She wouldn’t. She’d walked into the gas station. He’d had a gun to his head. It was branded into her heart. His stubble scraped against her fingertips and her palms. She might’ve never felt that again.
“I was scared for you,” she said, her tears sliding down both their cheeks. “Scared something would happen to you.”
His arms tightened around her. “We’re both safe now,” he said in a humming, soothing voice. “I’ll keep you safe.”
He had needs too. She kissed his lips, his cheek. “What about you? Who will keep you safe?”
“You did, Lola.”
She shuddered. If she had saved him, it was to protect herself. She couldn’t live without knowing if all of her life had been leading up to this moment. She stayed in his lap, dug her fingers into his face and released. She fought herself.
“What is it?” he asked, his eyebrows heavy. “We’re running out of time.”
She reached for his fly to undo it, but stopped. Sobs racked her body. She fisted his shirt, stretching it. There was everything, and there was everything else. Beau had remained solid through it all. Beau had been strong and unwavering. Beau was hers. Nobody was going to take him away from her.
She clung to him. “I’m falling in love with you.”
He stilled completely. It was dark, but his eyes were green as they looked up into hers. She felt his chest again, as if checking for a bullet wound. He slid his hands down her back and into the seat of her pants, pulling her against him. Their lips met fast and hot like flames licking at their faces, every touch gasoline on the fire. He opened her jeans, yanking them down over and over, trying to get to her. She had to lift her knee to get one pant leg off so he could angle upward, his own pants barely undone, to find his way inside her. He took control of her hips, pushing her down on him. There wasn’t even time to moan, to think, to do anything but feel him hard and filling her.
“Look at me and say it,” Beau said.
She found his eyes with hers. They weren’t words, just breaths. “I love you.”
He pulled on the neckline of her T-shirt, grabbed her breasts. She arched into his hands, throwing her back against the steering wheel. The horn honked and her jeans ripped somewhere and she was coming as hard as he was thrusting up into her. He groaned louder and louder until he also came.
She reached out to grab onto anything. Her palm connected with the cold window, her other hand landing on his heaving chest. They were real things, unlike love, unlike fear, which she couldn’t hold.
The car was closing in on her. She opened the door and would’ve tumbled out if Beau hadn’t caught her waist. She slapped his hands away and stood. It took her three fumbling tries to get back into her jeans. She ran both hands through her hair. “Fuck,” she screamed. It bounced off the gray, concrete walls. Nothing had ever seemed as dire. She loved two men, but she loved them differently. With Johnny, it was in a way that she’d let him go before she returned with only part of the heart that had belonged to him. With Beau, her love wasn’t that selfless. It was an annihilation of her senses. A conquest, a theft of her entire self. She squatted between two painted white lines and pulled hard on her
hair. “I’m so fucked,” she said between hitched breaths, rocking back and forth.
A car door slammed, echoing around the garage. Beau walked up next to her.
This had to be her moment alone. She deserved to do this on her own for the way she’d led everyone into this mess. She could’ve ended it all with a firm, simple no. “Go away. I can’t do this right now.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“I mean it,” she said.
“You’re in the middle of a parking spot.” He leaned down to help her up, but she jumped to her feet. He had tricked her. Pulled the wool over her eyes. It was the only explanation. She hadn’t even tried to keep love out of it, because love hadn’t been an option. It had blindsided her completely. She shoved him backward. “I said go. I hate you.”
He took two large steps and grabbed her wrists before she could push him again.
“I hate you for this,” she said. “You ruined everything. We were fine before you. We were happy.”
“You said it yourself—you wouldn’t be here if that were true.” He forced her against his chest where she broke down and bawled. He wrapped his arms around her, rubbing her back with his large hand.
“Nobody has ever made me feel so alone,” she said.
He pulled away slightly. “I make you feel alone?”
She’d learned her lesson as a kid when her dad had walked out on her and her mom—the only person she could rely on was herself. Not even Johnny or her mom. But she couldn’t see beyond tomorrow, beyond Beau, when she’d have to go back to a life that had been fine before him. “I could always take care of myself. I’ve never needed anyone.” She wouldn’t look at him. “I haven’t even left yet, and I already feel alone.”
Even she didn’t trust herself. Just yesterday, it’d been Johnny she’d loved. Nothing could erase that, but their love had stopped growing somewhere along the way—not because it hadn’t been nourished or tended to, but because from the start, it could only get so big.
What she felt for Beau was new, but already it seemed as though it could reach a terrifying size. It couldn’t be trimmed, monitored or kept. It was a vine that had the potential to overtake everything in its path. Lola didn’t know which of the two was the right kind, only that after glimpsing the possibility of her and Beau, a stunted love with Johnny wouldn’t be enough anymore.
Beau covered her hair with both hands. His grip was firm, but his words were soft. “I don’t want you to feel alone.”
She looked up finally. “What do you want me to feel?”
“Loved.”
“Johnny loves me.”
His eyes darted between hers. The garage was silent except for the one rapid heartbeat between them. He opened his mouth and shut it. He put a hand on her cheek. “Lola.”
He said her name so thickly, she could almost reach out and touch it. Her fingertips tingled. She was back in the drugstore as a teenager about to commit a crime. She wouldn’t stand in the way anymore. She wanted him. She’d chained it up inside early on, but it was coming loose. If Johnny had fought for her at all, Beau had fought harder.
His eyebrows gathered as he frowned down at her. “Sometimes I think you can see through things other people can’t. You see me. You make me powerful, but more,” he paused, swallowing, as if the words were fighting within him, “you make me powerless.”
Powerless. That was what she’d seen in his eyes when she couldn’t read him. It wasn’t that he’d been asking anything of her, but that he’d been unable to do anything for her, and Beau thrived on his power.
“And I don’t want to put you in that car at sunrise,” he said.
“You don’t?”
“No, but I have to. It’s our agreement.”
“I don’t care about the money,” she said. “I love you. I love him. Tell me what to do, Beau. I’ll do it.”
“Okay.” He was dependable. He made decisions in her best interest, not his. Even when he commanded her, he did it to give her things she hadn’t known she wanted. He smoothed his hand lovingly over her hair until he was cupping the back of her head. “Here’s what you’re going to do, Lola. You’re going to go home. You’re going to tell Johnny it’s over.”
Involuntarily, she curled her hands harder into his T-shirt. They were two distinct concepts in her mind. There was loving Beau, and there was ending it with Johnny. They’d been two mutually exclusive ideas, one she was submitting to and one she hadn’t seriously entertained. Beau wanted to merge them. “Just like that? Over?”
“Isn’t it?” he asked. “How can you be with him after this?”
She shook her head. “How can I do that to him?”
“I told you once, you can’t sacrifice yourself to make him happy. You know what you want, but somewhere along the way, he helped you bury your instinct. Go there again. What does it tell you?”
Her heart swelled. Johnny liked Lola’s edge, but it was true. He preferred her a little dulled. Beau, on the other hand, wanted what he’d been asking for all along—her. He hadn’t even put one day between meeting her and making his proposition. Within an hour of their sidewalk encounter, he’d told her she had his attention. His assurance was in his actions. Maybe he’d known all along. Maybe this had always been his plan. It was the reason she’d been pressing him for. He’d chosen her because he was a man who knew what he wanted.
“My instinct tells me that Johnny and I have history,” she said, “but that he’s not my future.”
“And why not?” he prompted.
“Because you are.”
Chapter 27
Back on the sixteenth floor, Lola and Beau went about their tasks. It was time to return her to Johnny. Her rightful owner. She showered again to rid herself completely of the man with the gun and gathered her things while Beau changed. When she was ready, she sat on the edge of the bed.
Beau hung up his phone and set it on the nightstand next to her. “Warner’ll be here in a few minutes,” he said, looking down at her. “I’m not coming with you.”
He was having seconds thoughts. No—she had to trust him. She took a deep breath. “How come?”
“I want you back here tonight.” He rubbed his forehead with tense fingers. “Warner will sit out front until you’re ready while I take care of things here. I have the suite as long as we need it. Leave whatever you don’t need there. We can figure the rest out once this is done.”
“I don’t think I can just walk in there, get my things and walk back out,” she said.
“That’s why I can’t go. Warner will wait as long as it takes, though. I don’t want you staying overnight there, Lola.”
He was shifting back into business mode as the night dissolved into dawn. Lola bit her bottom lip. “Are you sure about this?”
He didn’t answer right away. He reached out, fingered a piece of her hair and tucked it behind her ear. With his thumb and forefinger, he lifted her chin. “I’m not Johnny. I don’t waver in my decisions. I don’t backtrack. I don’t put anything on your shoulders if I can help it. If I could do this part for you, I would. Yes, I’m sure.”
She drew on his strength, lengthening her spine and holding his gaze. “I can do this part myself. It won’t be easy, but I can do it if you’re waiting for me.”
He smiled. “There’s the girl on the sidewalk I had to have. The one who kicks cars and doesn’t apologize.”
She nodded, but hard as she fought it, her mind was creeping ahead of the moment. It was in her apartment, waking Johnny up from a dream to plunge him into a nightmare. “I think it’s best I call Johnny to let him know I’m on my way.”
“Why?”
“He should be completely awake for this conversation. I’ll tell him to have coffee ready.”
Beau raised his eyebrows at her. “You’re telling me he’s asleep right now? While you’re here with me, he’s asleep?”
If things went like they had her first night with Beau, Johnny would be sleeping off his drunkenness. She shook her hea
d. “It’s a good thing. He’d drive himself crazy otherwise.”
Beau sighed and pointed at the nightstand. “Your cell phone was in your purse?”
“Yes.”
“Use mine. Also—” He paused, hedging. “The other half of your money’s in the closet. I was also going to give it to you in cash.”
“Was?” she asked.
“Like I said, I’ve never broken the terms of an agreement, but I’m making an exception on this point. Understand me when I say—I don’t have many regrets in my life, but making you feel worthless is one of them. This money does not belong to you because you did not earn it. You are not this money. Understand me?”
It was all she’d wanted to hear since this thing had started, she just hadn’t realized it until then. That she, her love, was worth more than any dollar amount. Lola’s chest ached. “I don’t want it.”
“Good.” He put his hands on his hips and dropped his forehead toward the floor. After a deep breath, he opened his mouth. “There’s something else—” He shook his head. Paused. Cleared his throat.
“What else?”
“Nothing. Never mind. We can talk later.”
It was a rare thing to see him nervous. It could’ve been because of what they were about to do, but it almost seemed like something else. “Talk about what?” she asked warily.
“Everything. There’s a lot to figure out, but now you’d better go.” He walked away. “I’ll grab shoes and walk you down.”
She had to make the call. Lola’s body was a tornado of emotion. Her heart beat so hard, it practically reached for Beau as he disappeared into the closet. Her stomach, on the other hand, was in knots. It was not a conversation she’d ever pictured herself having with Johnny, but now she couldn’t imagine not doing it. She’d made the decision to leave him so quickly that she wondered if it’d been waiting just below the surface, and if so, for how long.
She picked up Beau’s phone. As she dialed Johnny’s cell phone, a text message from Brigitte popped up.
Good luck this morning. Remember what I said last night. Stick to the plan. The bitch is just getting what she deserves. Can’t wait to hear all about it tonight. See you downstairs. xo
Don't Break This Kiss (Top Shelf Romance Book 5) Page 30