Because I Can (Montgomery Manor)

by Tamara Morgan

  Every head in the restaurant turned toward the table where he and Adam sat eating an unhealthy amount of red meat for the middle of the day. They’d been headed toward a sandwich shop near Adam’s office when Monty mentioned his willingness to pay for the meal, which somehow translated itself to a steakhouse with dim lighting and several rows of scotch that were older than the pair of them combined.

  “Yes, I remember, and now so does everyone else inside the restaurant, thanks.”

  “Ha-ha.” Adam’s voice didn’t lower at all. “Well, I take it back. You don’t have an impressive set of reproductive organs. You have a desire to be murdered in your sleep.”

  “She can’t kill me.”

  “She can.” Adam took an enormous bite of his rare prime rib to prove it. “And don’t expect anyone to find the body. She’ll cover you in cement and lay you down as part of the next house’s sidewalk.”

  “You’re alarmingly well-informed on the subject.”

  “Which is why you should take my advice,” he said. “It’s a bad idea. Not only has she expressly prohibited you from getting involved with her Homeward Bound project, but she hates surprises. See where I had to get my radius pinned?”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Monty tried not to let the other man’s lack of enthusiasm derail him. He’d known this would be an uphill battle—his promise to scale Mount Everest coming truer sooner than he’d anticipated—but he wouldn’t back down on this. He was learning he had quite a stubborn streak in him. “It was a surprise birthday party gone wrong. I heard.”

  Adam ran his finger along the scars on his forearm. “You heard, yet you think this plan of yours is going to end in anything but disaster?”

  “Oh, it’ll be a disaster. I have no doubt about that.”

  “This is the worst sales pitch I’ve ever heard.”

  It was probably the worst one Monty had ever given, but that didn’t stop him from pressing on. “I know you guys think you’re doing the right thing by not undermining Georgia’s authority when it comes to her work, but you’re not. You’re only feeding her mistaken belief that she has to do this alone.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I’m not afraid of Georgia, and I’m not afraid of you, so you can put the steak knife down.” Monty sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. This plan of his would only work if he could get Georgia’s brothers to back him up—a truth he didn’t like but was forced to acknowledge all the same. Arguing wouldn’t work. Pleading was useless. Georgia responded to only one kind of pressure—the fraternal kind.

  Goddamned pack mentality. Next time he fell in love, he was picking an only child.

  “I’m right about this,” he said firmly. “Georgia struggles over things for no reason other than that she thinks she has to, as if it’s a source of personal triumph to have to overcome great odds. You set the bar in a weird place, you and your brothers.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “Exactly what it sounds like.” Since it was clear some kind of elaboration would be required, Monty eased up and took a different approach. “Of all the men you and your brothers set Georgia up on dates with, how many would you say were willing to take her out a second or third time?”

  Adam paused, his fork halfway to his mouth. “How do you know about that?”

  “She told me.”

  “Oh.” He lowered the fork. “I don’t know. Most of them? Georgia never really took to any of our friends, though Lord knows we tried. She always treated them more like drinking buddies than dates. She has terrible taste in men, in case you were wondering—present company included.”

  Monty laughed, but only for a second. There really wasn’t much about this conversation to laugh about. “To hear her tell the story, they were the ones who weren’t interested in romance. She wasn’t good enough, she wasn’t feminine enough, she wasn’t desirable enough.”

  “She’s wrong.”

  “I know that, but she doesn’t. It’s like she has this mental block that prevents her from realizing how incredible she is.” He took a deep breath. “I’m not saying it’s your fault, but...it’s kind of your fault. All of you.”

  “You’re treading on thin ice here,” Adam warned.

  “Of course I am. Man up and join me, would you? I’m getting tired of being the only one brave enough to venture out here.”

  Adam leaned over the table, the yellow ring in his eyes lit into flame. “What the hell are you getting at?”

  “I need your help.” There. That had to be something no one had admitted to a Lennox before. “The four of you put a ridiculous amount of stock in fighting and challenging and waging a war of constant one-upmanship. I’m not saying it’s necessarily bad, but I don’t think Georgia ever learned that it’s okay to accept her value without having to prove it first. She’s afraid that if she stops fighting—if love is offered without question, or if she accepts the easy solution to her staffing problems—then she’s doing things wrong. She’s afraid she won’t be one of you anymore.”

  He pulled out a closing argument worthy of a three-sixty on the Bar. “You know as well as I do that nothing is more important to that woman than the three of you. Nothing. Not even me.”

  Adam’s mouth fell open before he clamped it shut again, uncharacteristically quiet, and Monty knew he’d broken through. It was a triumph unlike any other he’d experienced before. He’d cracked the ranks. He’d challenged the Alpha and won. He’d made Adam like him.

  “I hate you, Montgomery. I hope you realize that.”

  Monty grinned. “The feeling is mutual. Does that mean you’re in?”

  “Fuck.” Adam threw his knife to the table in defeat. “I’m in.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “What did you do to her?” Monty rushed to the car to help extract the strange woman who’d taken up a seat next to Jenna. It wasn’t the appearance of her that frightened him so much as the fact that she was smiling—and that she was smiling through lips painted a soft shell pink.

  The Georgia he’d seen walk out that door wouldn’t smile through a lipstick-covered mouth. The Georgia he’d seen walk out that door would wipe the makeup off on the sleeve of her coveralls and tell Jenna from which orifice she could extract the lipstick if she wanted it back.

  “Hullo, John,” Georgia said, smiling even wider. “I bought shoelaces.”

  Oh, no. He cast an accusing glare at his sister. “Did you get her drunk? That’s how you forced her into complicity? You shoved liquor down her throat?”

  “Aren’t you going to comment on how nice her hair looks?”

  Monty was forced to step back and take a better look at Georgia, though he kept his hands propped under her arms to hold her aloft. He’d seen this woman drink entire pitchers full of beer, washed down with shots of whisky, without stopping for air.

  “I didn’t realize the champagne would go to her head so fast,” Jenna said by way of apology. “I thought it might relax her.”

  Monty barely grunted a reply. He was too busy marveling at the changes a shorn head wrought on this woman he thought he knew so well. It would have been unfair to accuse Jenna of having taken drastic measures to alter Georgia, since the amount of makeup she wore was minor and there didn’t seem to be any permanent changes to her hair color. And, if anything, this shorter hair, worn close to the head, was more Georgia’s style. But he hadn’t been prepared for the curls...

  He reached up and tugged one of the short strands, watching in wonder as it bounced back into place, satiny to the touch. He wanted to dig his hands in her hair, run his fingers through those locks, kiss the long, elegant neck now bared to the sky.

  “Isn’t it cute?” Georgia asked, her voice loud in a mock-whisper sort of way. “Don’t tell Jenna, because I don’t want her to think I approve of all this needless vanity, but I love my hair
. The stylist gave me this special shampoo so I don’t have to do anything to it in the morning. Not even brush it. Did you know not brushing your hair was an option?”

  “I like your hair no matter how it looks,” he said, determined to remain neutral. But this suited her. It softened her. It gave her an almost impish quality that was highlighted by her sparkling eyes. “If it makes you happy, it makes me happy.”

  “They also did horrific things to the hair on other parts of my body, but I think maybe we should wait until your sister leaves to look at those ones.”

  “So help me, Jenna—”

  His sister’s eyes flew open, and she clapped a hand over her mouth. “Okay, maybe it’s better if you take her inside now. It’s the champagne talking, I swear. They didn’t do anything against her will.”

  “Jenna...”

  “Oh, calm your tits, Monty. The makeup washes off. Hair grows back. And you heard her—she bought shoelaces. That is literally all she purchased. I’ve never seen that kind of restraint in real life before.”

  “Georgia doesn’t believe in materialism,” he said with a glare, but it was pointless. Glares didn’t work on Jenna. Nothing did. “It’s one of the things I love about her.”

  “Oh, really? Do tell. What else do you love?”

  He ignored the gleam in his sister’s eyes and led Georgia inside instead. The champagne made her giggly, the makeup made her a stranger, and the hair made him want to do inappropriate things. It was better for all of them if they escaped from the public eye.

  Apparently, he wasn’t the only one who felt that way. No sooner had they made it through the front door than Georgia was on top of him. All the way on top of him, pushing him toward the bed and pouncing as though she were a predatory cat and he was about to be devoured alive.

  He let her. It wasn’t the gentlemanly thing to do when she was intoxicated, and it was probably a good idea to have a discussion about his sister’s sudden interest in Georgia’s grooming habits first, but Georgia’s body was so warm and soft and strong. He might have been able to wrestle her into submission if he really put his mind to it, but his mind was otherwise occupied at the moment.

  It was reeling with the confused sensations of wrong and oh-so-very-right. She tasted of champagne and lipstick—a cocktail he knew well and wasn’t averse to, but which felt vaguely wrong coming from her. She also smelled of the chemical residue that came from hair salons, and her skin was more slick than usual, his hands moving over her body so quickly he had to dig his fingers in lest she get away.

  “Georgia, is this—are you—did you get a massage?”

  “I got half of a massage.” She sat up, her legs straddling his waist, and lifted the T-shirt from over her head. He was relieved to find that she was still the same Georgia from the waist up, her bra a familiar and comforting tan, her stomach its customary ripple of muscle and skin. “Maybe it was closer to a quarter of a massage. I couldn’t do it. I tried, but it felt so weird to have some lady rubbing me down like I was a piece of tenderloin. It was so slippery.”

  “It still is slippery,” he commented, his hands running smoothly up and down her sides in a way he wasn’t sure he approved of. It was too foreign, even more than the champagne kisses. His fingers hit her waistband, and he tugged at the button, too curious about the hair situation to wait any longer. “But if you couldn’t handle the massage, how on earth did you make it through the—Aha. I see.”

  He rolled Georgia underneath him, angling her for a better look.

  “I refuse to let you mock me for that,” she said. “One side was all I could stand. I can take pain, Monty—you know I can—but what that woman was trying to do to me was indecent.”

  “She and I have something in common, it would seem.” He pressed a kiss on the soft curve of her belly before shucking her jeans the rest of the way off. So far, every time he’d gotten his mouth this close to her lower half, she managed to kick and scream him back up where he belonged.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked, though with a lazy kind of acquiescence he could only attribute to the champagne.

  He grinned up at her as he continued plying her stomach with the soft press of his lips. Over belly button, along the jutting prow of her hips, lower until he reached the patch of brown curls, now halfway groomed into a neat vee. “This,” he said, and pulled her legs open. “This is what I’m doing.”

  A warning in the back of Georgia’s mind told her it was a bad idea to let Monty continue pressing those warm, wet kisses between her legs. Not only was there a high likelihood he’d end up exhausted and she’d end up disappointed, but this wasn’t part of the plan. She was supposed to be encouraging him to go back home, not rolling around on the bed hoping he’d stay.

  “I’m not so sure this is a good idea,” she managed.

  “I figure if you were willing to let a complete stranger down here, it’s only fair I get a shot at it too.”

  She flopped her head against the pillow, too drunk to protest further. This was what rich, attractive people did—indulged in midday alcohol consumption, pampered themselves with haircuts and no-brushing shampoo and ungodly hair removal processes—and then went home to be ravaged by a persistent, golden-tipped tongue.

  “I can stop if you don’t like it,” Monty said, that familiar anxious note in his tone.

  “No, it’s okay.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.” And why the hell not? Today was a day of make-believe. Her whole life had become make-believe as of late. She was going to spas and having lunch with Jenna. She was getting haircuts that literally cost the same as her truck payment. She’d been cast into the role of Lady of the Manor even though it was the last place she belonged.

  If she was going to play at being a Montgomery, she might as well play at this too.

  She relaxed and took the exact same steps required of her at the spa. With her eyes closed and a deep, calming breath, she gave herself permission to walk through this world of theirs, if only for a moment.

  And what a world it was.

  Monty gave no indication that he was anything but happy to be between her legs, and she couldn’t help but remember his previous words—that he could be happy there for hours, if only she’d let him in. It had been a lie, of course, part of the education in dirty talking he’d mastered after just a few interludes, but for right now, she believed him. There were too many sensations—kissing and tongue, and oh, were those his teeth?—for her to do anything but feel.

  “I hate to admit it, Georgia, but I think you might have been right in keeping me away from this for so long.”

  “What?” Georgia felt the familiar tension entering her body, tightening her muscles from the inside out, filling her with an overwhelming urge to cover up and run away. No matter how many times she lay with this man, that tension always reared its ugly head. “Am I doing something wrong?”

  “No,” he said, and resumed his attention to her clit. “I’m just not sure I’ll ever be able to stop now.”

  She came. It was embarrassingly swift and wholly unexpected. One second, she was considering rolling off the bed and hiding underneath it in an attempt to get away, and the next, she was crying out and clamping her legs so hard around poor Monty’s face he probably couldn’t breathe.

  But he didn’t care, and neither did she. She was far too busy reeling in the sensation—not of pleasure, but of wonder. She’d experienced an orgasm wrought entirely by someone else’s efforts. She’d experienced an orgasm she didn’t have to manually elicit herself.

  Yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as gratification that requires nothing in return.

  “Holy hell, Monty.” Her voice sounded as if from the end of a long tunnel. “You did it. You actually did it.”

  He pressed a soft kiss on her inner thigh before moving up the bed to hold he
r tight, an action so ingrained in him she wasn’t sure he even knew he did it anymore. He pressed his erection against her ass, but other than a growl of contentment, he didn’t make any efforts to turn the attention back on himself. “You don’t have to sound so surprised. I’m not that inept.”

  No, but she was. Or so she’d always thought.

  “By the way, I like your hair,” he said, nuzzling the exposed back of her neck.

  “Thank you,” was inadequate, but she wasn’t sure what else to say. It was cute, but it was just hair. “Oh, dammit. I left my ponytail at the salon.”

  He kept his focus on the nape of her neck, eliciting permanent liquidity. “You kept your ponytail?”

  “I was growing it out so I could donate it to one of those charities that makes wigs for kids with cancer. Jenna thinks I should start a drive. She says I could talk to local salons, and she’ll see if any of the women at your family’s country club might be willing to drive interest. I’m kind of excited about it. It never occurred to me to try and do more than just build houses.”

  The kissing stopped, sending a shiver down her spine—though this one felt more ominous than sensual. “Jenna’s introducing you to the country club ladies?”

  “Well, um. Maybe?” Between the orgasm and the alcohol, Georgia was beginning to feel fuzzy. “Not directly. She made a lunch reservation there tomorrow, though. I’m going to learn forks.”

  “Forks?” Based on Monty’s expression, Georgia thought maybe he wanted her to eat with only her hands from now on. “I thought you and I were having lunch tomorrow.”

  “Oh, dammit. I forgot. Would you mind if we rescheduled?”

  “Yes, actually. I do mind.” He rolled out of the bed and away from her, his sudden return to a cold, careful Monty clearing her head in an instant. “The people at that country club are snobs, and Jenna hates it there almost as much as I do. Whatever reason she has for dragging you to lunch with her isn’t a good one, I promise.”

  Georgia’s first instinct was to agree with Monty. She didn’t want to go to some stuffy two-hour meal when she should be working, and she didn’t want to try on any more clothes, and she definitely didn’t want to waste her day hobnobbing around the Manor when she could be here with Monty.