I pointed to Landon with my fork. “If baseball doesn’t work out for you, I see a culinary career in your future.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed it.” He pushed his empty plate forward.
“It was delicious.” I placed my napkin over my bare dish. “It’s not lady-like to clean your plate off but that was really good.”
Landon took our dishes back to the kitchen and I moved from the quaint table to the loveseat in front of the fire pit. Though the night air was warm, sitting so high up, there was a brisk chill in the wind. Landon returned to my side with an oversized blanket draped over his arms and handed me a spoon. He raised his other hand and showed me the pint of Ben and Jerry’s Chubby Hubby.
“Ice cream?”
“Oh yeah.” I scooted over on the couch, tapping the cushion. I opened the blanket over our bodies. Landon popped the lid open and passed the pint in my direction.
The gas flame changed between blue and orange as Landon and I shared a pint of delicious succulent ice cream. Once we’d devoured it, I leaned my body on Landon’s chest. His strong hands rubbed along the upper arm, the loud city below us and the cool night above our head.
A chill shivered up my back and a cold ache chilled my bones. “Cold?” Landon asked, hugging me closer to him.
“A little.”
“Come on. We can watch a movie” Landon tossed the blanket off his legs and helped me up.
The inside of his home was warm and cozy. Landon lifted the remote from the couch and dropped his body. I mimicked his move, lying next to him.
Being around Landon was easy. There was no other word to describe it. I wasn’t nervous around him, he didn’t cloud my brain, and he wasn’t overpowering. But he wasn’t Haas . . .
Deciding on a romantic comedy, I kicked my shoes off and curled up next to Landon. His lips brushed the side of my head before he pressed a button on the central remote and the light dimmed around us.
It wasn’t a night in the playroom.
Peyton
I had graduated from law school close to ten years ago. I paid my dues, worked like a mad man my first two years and then took out the money from my trust fund to start up my own firm. Yet I had never worked as much as I had these past few months. Work became my escape from my life. It was the only way to avoid Devon’s nagging, and it was also the only way I could stop myself from stalking Braelynn.
She had asked me to leave her alone, and that much I could do. Though she refused to ever speak to him or use him for his services, Thomas continued to follow her around town and I knew I could call him for an update.
Melissa covered her mouth and yawned as she dropped my schedule on my desk. “Fun night?’ I questioned.
“Sorry.” She grinned. “It’s been a few years since I worked consecutive Saturdays.” Melissa pulled up the chair in front of my desk and began discussing my upcoming events, meetings and court dates.
By one in the afternoon, I was ready to call it a day. I packed up my desk, shoving more work into my briefcase, then shut down the computer and locked my office behind me. I strolled towards Melissa, her back facing me as she surfed the Internet. I didn’t care how she occupied her time as long as her work was completed in a timely manner.
I watched as she scrolled through her Instagram page and then stopped at a picture. The blonde in the picture was none other than my blonde, my Braelynn. She was in the arms of Landon. Her arms held a baseball helmet as his arms were wrapped around her body. It looked as though he was leaning in to kiss her.
“Fuck.”
Melissa jumped in her chair. Fumbling with the mouse on her computer, she lowered the screen. “I-I . . . shit,” she stuttered, looking up at me and then back to the computer.
“Can you open it back up?’ I asked, moving to stand next to her.
“It’s just a gossip blog I follow. I doubt there’s any truth to it.”
I knew she was trying to protect my feelings. But, gossip blog or not, there was a photo of Braelynn and Landon. “Melissa.”
Exasperated, she opened the page again. I leaned forward and rested my hand on the desk as I examined the picture. “There,” I pointed to the link, “click on that.”
Chewing on her lips, she inhaled before she clicked on the page. An article about Landon Jenkins and Braelynn Wolf popped up on the screen. I didn’t read the words, but the article was filled with pictures from bystanders and fans. There was one of them on go-karts, another of them in line grabbing food, and a bunch of them in what looked like a batting cage.
My stomach turned. She was on a date. Something I had never done with her. Her eyes were bright and in every picture she had a beautiful smile on her face. The last time I had seen that much joy on her face was when we were in Italy.
I didn’t have the right to be mad. It was only natural that she would move on. But she was mine, and sharing her was out of the question.
“Lets go.” I grabbed my briefcase that I’d dropped to the floor and marched towards the elevator. Melissa joined me in front of the steel doors as they slid opened.
She didn’t say a word.
We stepped off the elevator and I walked straight to the town car that waited for me. Trembling with rage, I wanted to hit something. Preferably Landon.
Louis shut the door behind him and turned on the car. “Where to, sir?”
“Braelynn’s home.”
It was wrong to bother her again. It was unfair to keep toying with her emotions, but I couldn’t let him have her. Louis drove straight to her home.
Braelynn
The painful kink in my neck woke me up from my peaceful sleep. Peeling my eyes opened, I realized I wasn’t home. I sat up, my hands rushing to my chest as I gasped for air. The clock on the cable box read that it was five in the morning. I had spent the night with Landon. Well, I had slept on his couch but still. My hands rushed to my eyes, rubbing the sleep from them. Landon stretched his arms next to me. I peeled my blanket off my body and reached for my shoes.
My hair must have looked like a beehive and I could only imagine what my makeup looked like smeared on my face. The quicker I escaped, the better.
“Morning,” Landon whispered, propping his head on the pillow.
“I didn’t mean to wake you.” I slid my foot into my sandal. Landon shook his head; the blanket was thin, covering his lower body, and his bulging morning wood was prominent. Instantly, I looked away, embarrassed that he’d caught me looking. My face burned and I couldn’t get my shoes on fast enough. “I should get going.”
“I’ll take you home.” He moved to stand, but I pushed off the couch.
“No.” I stood, pulling down my wrinkled top. “I can grab a cab.” I tossed my disheveled hair in a bun. “Thank you for yesterday.” I lifted my leg to move, but Landon stopped me, his hand on my knee. I reached down, coiling our fingers.
Landon brought the back of my hand to his lips. “Let me take you home.”
Crouching, I brushed his thick hazelnut hair back from his eyes and kissed his forehead. “No need. I’ll call you later.”
I looked into Landon’s eyes one last time before heading towards the front door. I needed to run a few errands before going home and I needed the extra time to process what Landon and I were becoming.
Walking out of my room with my bath towel in hand, I heard my front door slam shut. Gus must have been in a bad mood because I felt the vibration through the house. When I left Landon’s apartment, I needed to stop at the bank, and pick up a few things from the grocery store before coming home. The cab stopped right in front of my house and my body ached for a hot shower and a couple more hours of sleep. Sleeping on the couch had not been very restful. I was halfway down the hallway when I was graced with Haas’s towering body. His massive shoulders filled the shirt he wore, blocking my passage through the hallway. His eyes were closed half-mast, pain present on his face. His hands balled into fists at his sides.
“You’re seeing him!” He spat through his gritted teeth. He
was pissed. His rigid jaw didn’t move when he spoke, anger swam in his hazel eyes like the sun burning through space.
Shocked by his presence, I jumped back. My hands rushed to my chest, stopping my rapid heart rate from climbing higher. “Why are you in my house?” I spoke when the nerves began to simmer.
“It’s become a thing between you two, right?” he barked, looking at me intently then began to stride towards me. For every step he took forward, I took one back. “It’s all over the fucking Internet. You two kissing and holding each other.”
“How did you get into my house?” I asked, trembling with intensity.
“Is he good in bed, Lynn?” he asked when my back pressed against the wall. “Does he make you squirm like I do?” His scent wrapped around me, suffocating me. “Does he make your skin ignite?” Haas reached his hand up, pushing my hair behind my ear. “Make your breath catch? Do you come for him like you come for me?” He pressed his body against mine, my breath trapped in my lungs. His nose ran along my skin, inhaling my scent. “Do you submit to him like you do for me? Does he tie you up and whip your flawless skin until it’s red?”
And the asshole I knew lived inside Haas could turn me from being love struck to hating him. A war of emotion raged within me, and I pushed him away. “How the fuck did you get inside my house?” I asked again. Escaping his hold, I walked back down my hallway.
“Answer me, Lynn.” He marched behind me. Even his steps were angry. “Is he the one keeping your bed warm at night?” He tugged on my elbow, forcing my body to spin until I was facing him again. “Is his come as sweet as mine when you swallow it?”
Motherfucker, how could I love such an asshole!
“One!” I held my finger up. “What and whom I am doing, is none of your business. You chose to leave me, remember? Get that through your thick head.” I yanked my elbow from his grasp. “Two! What Landon and I are or do doesn’t concern you, Haas. I don’t belong to you anymore. I can screw him any way I want. Three! How he makes me feel or come should be the least of your worries. You have a fiancée. She is the only person you need to make sure is fully satisfied.”
I stomped my foot. “Four! In the past ten minutes, you’ve broken into my house, insulted me, and practically called me a whore. I don’t need to answer your questions. You are not my boyfriend, not my Dom, not my world. You are not mine, and I do not submit to you anymore.”
I walked into my kitchen. Tugging back the refrigerator door, I grabbed a bottle of water. My blood boiled with hatred. I slammed the door shut.
“But I’ll answer you this,” I barked at Haas, who stood a few feet away. My lips curled up in a smirk. I knew how to push him over the edge. “His come does taste sweeter than yours when I swallow.” His squared jaw tensed visibly. “And five! If you don’t get out of my house, I swear to God—”
“You finish that sentence and I swear to God I’ll take you right here in the kitchen and punish you for misbehaving.”
I swallowed my statement back. Suddenly I felt weak and vulnerable in the face of his anger. The cold water I held in my hand didn’t help cool my overheated body.
“I will always be your everything, Lynn.” He stalked towards me, and with each step he knocked down a part of the wall I had built to keep him out. “Don’t kid yourself and say I don’t own you because we both know that’s not true. You’re not mad that I’m here” His body was mere inches away from mine. “Tell me the truth, doll. Are you really fucking him? Because I want to believe that I know you and that you wouldn’t do it. You’ll always be mine and you know it.”
“I hate you.” I despised that he knew me so well. That he could read through the façade I had created.
“No, you don’t. You want me just as much as I want you. You want to play. Don’t you, Lynn?” His hands framed my face. Unlike Landon, things with Haas were never easy. They were intense, mind fucking and asphyxiating. It was a hot mess, but God . . .
I loved how screwed up our love had become.
“Don’t touch me, Haas.” My voice was barely audible. I went from screaming at the top of my lungs to being unable to speak. He had this control over me.
“Let me show you, love.” His lips kissed my jawline. Let me fuck you until all that anger you have built inside explodes when I make you come.
Like ice cream in the heat of August, I melted at his fingertips. Haas lifted me by my arms, placing me on the counter. His body encompassed the space between my legs. Pushing my back against the granite top, he tugged on the hem of my pants. His mouth trailed down my chest. Lifting my shirt, he kissed my stomach, his tongue twirled around my navel before moving to my hips. Haas brushed his teeth along my hipbone. I needed to stop him. I should have. But the dampness that grew between my legs had taken away my ability to speak.
Rising on elbows, I admired his lips and tongue. He teased his tongue around my lace panties. My head fell back, the ache and desire to have him was too intense.
Haas tugged on my pants, and I bolted up. Pushing him off my body I hopped off the counter.
“Stop! I can’t. We can’t.”
“Let me have you.”
“We have to stop doing this.” My head rested on his chest. Exhaustion had a new meaning in my book. While his lips were on me, or if his dick was shoved inside my body, I didn’t have a care in the world. There was no Landon, no Devon. There was only us. But when the sweat dried up, and the feelings in my legs returned, so did reality. It was the same every time. We had to stop doing this.
Haas tighten his arms around my body. “I told you—I can’t stop. I can’t leave you alone.”
His hand brushed back my hair, his lips pressed on my forehead and I swallowed the lump that was lodged in my throat. I hated what we were becoming. I despised that he was engaged to another woman while he was here with me.
I pushed off his chest to look deep into his eyes. Inhaling all the air my lungs could hold, I found the courage I needed. “It will take all I have to get over you.” I shook my head. “No, that’s not true. I can’t get over you. It’ll take me months to be able to breathe again, but it will take seconds for me to crumble. You hold all of the power.”
I leaned back on the counter. “I had hit rock bottom, and I thought I was never going to get out of the dark hole I lived in. But you forced me to get help. You saved me.”
Haas reached to wipe the tears that slid down my cheeks when I stopped him. “If we continue down this path, I don’t know if I can stay sober. You fuck with my emotions and I can’t say no to you. Sex has been what has driven us together. It’s how our love has learned to communicate. But if I can’t have all of it, the sex, the love, and your heart, this has to end. So this is the last time I’m asking you. If you don’t plan on coming back to me and leaving her, then let me go. Because I’m afraid that this twisted and fucked up mess that we are is going to send me back to popping pills.”
“Please don’t.” His hands framed my face and he placed a chaste kiss on my lips before pulling away. “I can’t lose you like that again.”
“Then pick me. Be with me,” I pleaded. “I don’t want to be the contingent plan if your marriage fails. I want to be your everything.”
Haas released me, his hands ran through his hair before he turned around and left me in the kitchen. It was his unspoken answer to my plea. I stayed in place, my head bowed before him as the tears of realization that he was leaving me began to set it.
Haas walked back to me his hand lifting my chin so he could look me in the eyes. His golden eyes were gloomy, the pain I felt reciprocated in his eyes. I felt my lips quiver, this was it, the last time we would do this.
His lips brushed against mine. “I will always love you,” he whispered.
I shut my tear-filled eyes. I couldn’t watch him leave. When he was no longer in my house, I whispered the painful truth.
“But you won’t leave her.”
Peyton
I left Braelynn’s house, distraught and angry from the pain I
was causing her. I had to stop seeing her. As much as it would kill me, I had to let her go. It wasn’t fair to string her along. I had dragged her into this mess. It was my fault Drew went after her, and it would be my burden if she resorted to pills again. I had witnessed first hand what those pills did to her. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t let that happen. Her safety had been my priority, and there was nothing more important to me than her happiness and well being.
I had let my eager dick get the best of me. Around her, I lost all of my rationality. Each time I knocked on her door, I knew I was putting her in harm’s way. If something happened to her again, I would never forgive myself.
I bolted down her front steps. Louis held the back car door opened for me. I instructed he bring me home as I climbed in. Drowning myself in alcohol was my top priority.
The elevator door slid open in the garage and I knew Devon was waiting for me upstairs. The wafting scent of her Chanel No 5 perfume was trapped in the elevator car, suffocating me. Dreading the fact that she was upstairs, most likely ready to talk about wedding crap, I flashed my key over the panel.
I ambled into my home and past the foyer. Devon stood in the living room with a wine glass in hand her hand. She twirled towards me, anger greeted her face. I’d known Devon all my life, so I knew when her lips were puckered and her eyebrows were arched high on her forehead, it meant she was pissed. Her eyes burned with hatred.
“You couldn’t stay away from her could you?” Her lips puckered as though she had sucked a lemon. Exhaling loudly, she headed towards me, her heels clicking against my wood floors. “I’m planning this wedding while you’re out screwing her.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose stopping the headache. “Devon—”
“Even after you met with Henry, you still chose to seek her out.”
“You know about Henry?” How did she know about Henry?
“Come on, Peyton.” She huffed. “Do you think I’m that naïve? You flew me out for a weekend. You’re obsessed with work. I knew there was something you weren’t telling me.” She strolled to the bar and poured more wine into her glass.
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