by Stacey Lynn
She’s yelled at me enough about my temper, and the last thing I want is to become my old man. Who was just as big of an asshole when I saw him today as he always is.
“Anyway,” she waves her hand and grabs another piece of pizza. “It doesn’t matter. His excuses are empty, and really, like I said, things were over with us. I was just holding on to a memory of what used to be good.”
It kills me to say it, but I force it out with gritted teeth. “You can talk about him, you know. You spent seven years with Drake. He’s bound to come up.”
“I’m not avoiding talking about him because you might get mad,” she says, looking at me and smiling. “It’s just, there’s not a lot to say about earlier. He apologized, said whatever he felt like he needed to, and I got to say goodbye. It hurts, because like you said, there’s time invested. But it doesn’t hurt like it’s fresh anymore.”
God I hope she’s telling the truth.
“So you got closure.”
“Yeah. Plus, I got some great books on starting your own business.”
I pull her to me, throwing my arm over her shoulder and tugging her close until I can kiss her hair. She always smells like lavender. Tastes like cherries from her lip balm. It’s becoming some strange obsession. Her sweet cunt and pretty scent and fruity lips. We could bottle it and make millions.
“Look at you, Miss Entrepreneur. If you need anything, I’m sure Trey can help you, too.”
And me, but I know she’s not liking the idea of me taking care of her. I’ll let Trey handle her business shit until she realizes all I want to do is take care of her.
I’m not falling for her. I’ve already fallen and I don’t care how big of a pussy it might make me.
I’m pretty certain I’m in love with this woman. Eleanor once told me she and my grandpa fell in love within minutes of meeting each other. If it’s possible for that to happen, then why should days or weeks be impossible?
“Thank you,” she whispers. She tilts her head back and kisses my jaw, then my throat. I can feel her smiling against my skin and I hold her tighter. “Thanks for being good about today and Drake. Didn’t you want to talk about some things this morning?”
“Yeah.” I’m having a hard time thinking about what they are, though. She smells good. She feels better. She’s already come once, which means if I take her now, I’ll get to play longer.
My dick jumps at the thought. I think of baseball stats and my earlier conversation with my dad.
That shrivels my balls right up.
We actually do have crap to talk about and I want it settled.
Standing from the couch, I reach for her emptied wineglass. “I’m going to get a beer. Do you want another drink?”
“Am I going to need another drink for this?”
“Probably.”
She laughs softly, and it’s a balm to my stressed-out, overly angry soul. God, this woman. She just does it for me in all the ways I never knew I needed. “Fill me up then.”
I go to the kitchen, grab a fresh beer for me, and fill her glass. When I come back, she’s eyeing the last piece of pizza.
“You can have it,” I say, grinning at her when she looks at me like she’s been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.
“I shouldn’t.”
Is it wrong for my dick to go hard when she takes it anyway? I don’t care.
I slide the wineglass on the coffee table within her reach and lean back in the corner of the couch, kicking my feet up onto the table. My relaxed posture is the opposite of the storm still brewing inside me, but Teagan doesn’t need to be worried about anything.
I’ve got her covered for as long as she’ll have me, and then some.
“In Eleanor’s will, you know she gave me the Cannon Bluffs property. For my dad, she willed him her shares of Lane Holdings, so he can have majority ownership. It’s always been planned that when he retires and steps down, his shares are supposed to transfer to me so I can become the majority holder and CEO of the company.”
“Okay…” Her brow furrows and she wipes the corners of her mouth with a napkin.
“Today I signed away all rights to my shares.”
“What?”
I take a heavy swig of my beer and set it down. “Officially, in two weeks, I will no longer be employed with Lane Holdings, nor will I have any stock in the future success of my family’s company.”
“But, Corbin,” she says, and she scoots across the couch, reaching for me. She pulls back, her face paling, and confusion is thick on her features. “I don’t understand. Why would you do that?”
“Because I don’t want it. I never have, not since I learned of Grant’s existence anyway. My dad expects me to run the company because I’m his son by blood, because that’s what Lanes do, but I’m not an office guy, and I fucking hate the idea of taking something over after my dad, always being connected to him in that way. I won’t walk in his shadow, fighting the rest of my life to be better than him. I’m over it.”
“You can’t just be over it.”
Her back straightens. She’s on her knees, feet tucked under her, and her hands are in her lap like she’s ready to jump. If I tell her I love her and want a simple life with her, her farm, and Cannon Bluffs forever, she’ll scamper out of here so quick I’ll never see her again.
“It seems sudden, but it’s not. This shit has been brewing for a decade, but I’ve never been ready to take the leap. Eleanor has given me that, securing my future.” You’ve secured my future is what I mean and don’t say.
I level her with a look, trying to silently tell her everything I truly feel, and she blushes.
“Corbin—”
“It’s not because of you,” I say, lying. “Eleanor knows the only thing I’ve ever wanted is to be in that home, providing for myself. Her will, our marriage, gives me that security, and if I don’t do this now, I might never have the chance. It’s time for a clean break.”
“From your father? He won’t allow it.”
“He doesn’t have a choice. I told him what I plan on doing and when that dissolved into one of our typical arguments, I walked out and typed up my resignation. He’ll get final paperwork tomorrow. Once everything is signed off, it’s a done deal.”
“And that’s why you’re selling this place?”
“I want to start my future, and I’m not wasting time.”
Kicking my feet off the coffee table, I sit up and shift, facing her. Taking her hand in mine, I pull it onto my thigh, holding her close in the only way I know she’ll allow based on the tension still holding her back. “You look like a scared little jackrabbit right now, but nothing changes. We’re getting married in less than a month and then all our dreams, both of ours, that we’ve wanted for so long will finally come true.”
“Yeah.” Her soft voice falters and she tugs on her hand, but I hold it tight, brushing my thumb over the back of her hand. “Everything I’ve always wanted.”
She blinks rapidly and looks away. We’re not in sync and I want nothing more than to tell her I love her. That I want her. I want the real marriage and the wife and the kids running through the bluebells that bloom all over the property. I want the day trips to the beach and accomplishing all our dreams. All of them. And I want them with her.
But now isn’t that time, not when uncertainty and fear are sparking from her like a beacon.
So instead I do the only thing I can think of.
I tug her hand harder, forcing her to fall into me, and when she’s close, I grip her hips and pull her over me until she’s straddling me and I’m holding her hips in my hands.
“Don’t you know?” I ask, running my hands up her sides, to her shoulders, down her arms. My intention is to calm her, but as soon as she shivers, my dick takes notice. Pulses and hardens and pushes against my zipper. Damn this girl. She’s everything. “Don’t you know how crazy I am about you?”
It’s the only truth I can give her. Her eyes widen, and she stares back at me, and she opens her mouth, but I don’
t let her speak. I press my hands to her jaw, slide my fingers into her hair, and pull her against me until our mouths are fused.
And Jesus. She’s delicious, soft and tense until she melts into me, sliding her tongue against mine, kissing me back with the same softness, the same passion I’m showering on her.
She sighs into my mouth and I swallow her groans, her tiny whimpers that pull my balls tight and light a fire in my spine. I slide one hand from her hair and down her back until I can push up her sweatshirt. Pulling my mouth off hers, I tilt her head to the side and lave the column of her porcelain throat with gentle kisses that make her quiver against me, hips rolling, pressing down where she needs the most attention, and I do nothing to force this further.
I could kiss Teagan Monroe for the rest of my life and never tire of the taste of her or the feel of her skin beneath my hands or the excited, needy sounds she makes when she’s turned on.
“Damn it,” she whispers, her fingers digging into my shoulders. She rocks against me and I bite down on her collarbone, on display from the ratty, worn sweatshirt.
I want to see her in it every single damn day.
This woman does things, makes me feel things I never knew I had in me, but she’s dug deep, and if I feel this insane for her in under two weeks, how in the hell am I going to feel in years? Decades?
I might have to chain her up, keep her tied up in my workshop so no one has the opportunity to tempt her away from me.
“Corbin,” she whispers. She’s panting, soft little pants in my ear that drive me insane. Absolutely crazy. “You make me feel things—”
“I know.” Because God, do I know how none of this makes sense, but feels so perfect.
I kiss her and cut her off again and we’re a tangle of fingers tugging on shirts, her hands at my zipper. She lifts off me, hands going to my fly, and she’s ripping my shirt from my waistband, pulling down my zipper, sliding her hand down until I stop her.
“We should go upstairs.”
She buries her head into my shoulder, her breath against my skin burning me from the outside deep down to the heart I didn’t even know I had until this woman waltzed into my life.
“No.” She shakes her head, moves her hand deeper into my pants, and wraps her hot fingers around my shaft.
“Fuck,” I groan, and I’m done for. Her excitement to get her hands on me is unlike anything I’ve ever known.
Still, I fight for the remaining thread of common sense. “I don’t have condoms down here.”
She slides her hand over my dick, cups my balls, and squeezes. “I’m on the pill.”
Four words that should send any man running. They do the opposite with me. With her. With this moment.
It shows the depth of her trust in me, of her feelings for me. It’s all I can do not to bust my nut in her hand before she even frees me from my damn pants.
I groan her name and she responds, “I know. I need you, too.”
I rip off her shirt and unclasp her bra, pulling her nipple into my mouth and sucking before I have her bra straps down her arms.
We’re shifting and adjusting, pushing off clothes and pulling off shirts until we’re skin to skin, mouths fused like we’ve been cemented together, and then her hand is on me, sliding my tip through her center and gathering moisture, and then we’re connected.
Holy hot damn, shit, to hell in a handbasket, the heat of her is glorious.
“Oh shit.” I shudder from the feel of her. Ungloved. All of her, every ridge deep inside, the pulsing heat claiming me. I still her hips, hold her, and push my head against the back of the couch. “Give me a minute.”
“I can’t.” She laughs softly, hips rolling the tiniest degree, unable to still, and damn I love her.
My dick rages at me to take her, consume her, devour her, and claim her in all the ways that can make her mine. To hide her pills and knock her up because, holy shit, this woman is going to marry me and someday she’s going to have my kids, and I can’t wait to get started.
But that remaining thread of my common sense remains, and we can wait. A month. Two. A year if I have to until she’s settled, and I’m thinking of all of this, staring at her, one hand on her hip, the other at her jaw, holding her still, our gazes fixed on each other so she can see
Every.
Damn.
Thing I want from her.
“Corbin,” she breathes, and she gets it. Tears form in her eyes and I can hardly close my eyes and focus on this moment, what we’re doing, because it’s too damn beautiful.
I glance down. My pants are at my knees, my shirt is on the couch. Her bra is still between us, tangled at her wrists, and who knows where I’ve thrown her pants.
We’re a mess.
A beautiful, perfect mess.
“I love you,” I say, unable to stop it. My control has snapped and there’s no going back. There’s no wanting to go back.
She jerks against me, pussy clamping around me. Her mouth drops open in surprise or excitement or agreement. I don’t know. I don’t give her a chance to think. I slam her mouth to mine, hold her against me, and then we move.
Hips rolling, shifting, up and down, I thrust into her, snapping my hips up and pulling her down until her moans become pants. She chants words I pay no attention to because my balls are hard and pulled tight. It’s all I can do to hold off my orgasm.
“Corbin!” She shouts my name, OhmyGod, repeatedly on her pretty pink cherry lips as she comes.
Perfectly. Loudly. She orgasms as passionately and sweetly as she lives her life, and she’s so utterly bared to me I can’t stop myself from falling over the ledge.
I hold her to me, forehead to forehead, breaths mingling, connected in the most intimate places and whisper it again and again. “I love you. I love you.”
I don’t need her response. I don’t need to know she feels the same.
She does. It’s in her eyes and her looks and her touches and her smiles and the way she gives herself to me so freely.
She’s everything.
And mine, completely.
Chapter 24
Teagan
I love you. I love you.
I hear the words repeatedly through the night. Corbin’s voice in my head lulls me to sleep when we finally make it to bed and it pulls me to consciousness through the night, waking me several times. Every time I wake up, he’s there, next to me, beneath me, my head on his chest, my hand on his stomach, my thigh draped over his. He’s hot, a little bit sweaty, and yet he holds me to him all night long in a grip so firm and so tight I’ve never felt safer.
Even if I am too terrified to repeat it back to him. But God, I do love him. It makes no sense and it feels so perfect. We’ve come together in the most random of ways and I’m falling every day, without a chute and yet in his arms, I don’t need one.
Corbin will always keep me safe. I feel it down to my marrow, more certain of him than I am of the sun rising.
My sleep is both restless and peaceful, thoughts awakening me and his security pulling me back to darkness. In the morning, I wake to the heat of the sun through the windows, his warm lips and minty breath at my temple.
“Rise and shine, sleepyhead.”
I love you. I love you.
I roll to my side and reach for him as he sits on the edge of the bed, his tie sliding through my fingertips before my eyes are fully open.
“You’re so sexy in a suit,” I say, my voice groggy and sleepy.
He grins, and it’s more beautiful than ever.
I love you. I love you.
Will I ever forget the first time he said it to me? I hope not.
“Where are you going?”
I climb into his lap, drape my arms over his shoulders, and play with the hair at the back of his head, uncaring he’s in a suit, or that I could wrinkle it.
I’m naked. It’s probably all he sees. By the glint in his eye as his gaze drops and rises, I’m not that far off.
“I have a meeting with my lawye
r today, ironing out all the details of a few things.”
I don’t ask what things. Talking about his dad or his position at Lane Holdings is not how I’m starting the day.
“Okay. Will you be home late? I can try to make dinner again.”
“I’d love that.” I love you. I shiver and he kisses me, my cheeks heating.
The words burn the tip of my tongue but don’t release. They’re stuck there, and I can’t speak them as much as I want to. To have him know.
But he does know, because his hand cups my cheek, thumb brushes against my jaw. He kisses me gently, sucking my bottom lip into his mouth as if he’s taking the words from me.
“Corbin.” I breathe his name on a whisper and a prayer and a hope for forever.
“I know, angel.”
He kisses me softly again, tongue tips tasting and not delving deeper. Then he lifts me off him and stands, brushing down his tie and smoothing down his suit. “What are you doing today?”
I stretch out on my back, arms above my head, groaning. I ache deliciously everywhere. I’m naked and unashamed.
His dick is thick against his pants and unbuttoned suit coat.
I grin. “I can help you with that.”
“I know you can.” He adjusts himself, smiling.
Our banter is perfect. Too perfect. The bad always chases the good and we are too good to be true.
God, I need coffee. A pick-me-up to shake off the morose mood.
“You didn’t answer my question,” he says, tossing the blanket over me. I pull it to my shoulders and sit up on the bed. “Are you doing anything today?”
“College application, probably. I have to get that in. And your mom emailed me a bunch of flower options.”
The talk of the wedding sours my mood. Last night when Corbin said nothing between us has to change, I wanted to tell him he was wrong. I want everything to change. I want the real wedding to a man I love, not the fake one due to a deal and a need. I want the proposal on one knee and promises of a beautiful future, not a vintage ring politely handed out.
But I have everything else I want. Right?
This is okay. He loves me and I love him. We’ll make it work through the fakeness of the rest.