“She needs to know that she can’t eye fuck a man when he’s out with another woman.”
The jealousy she displayed was magnificent.
I loved hearing that she’d noticed it, that she was envious of another woman showing an interest in me. Unfortunately, it escalated things, and not wanting to come alone, I slapped her ass, relishing the color her skin immediately turned. With one hand still over her mouth I was able to contain Bailey’s scream, and as her orgasm hit, so did mine and we were both breathing heavily as I heard the salesgirl call for us. “You go deal with her, while I get myself straight,” Bailey ordered.
“No problem.” I stepped back and zipped myself away and when I looked back at her she was still eyeballing me in the mirror. “What?”
“You were right, you did your job, we both came.”
With a smile, I stepped out and stared the salesgirl down, forcing her to acknowledge that I had indeed just had sex in her changing cubicle.
“Sir, you’ve dropped your bags.”
I pushed back a laugh and watched as she avoided my gaze and gathered Bailey’s purchases instead.
“Here take this and put all the items in the cubicle on my card, when she’s… ready, you can go in and package them all up.”
The girl took it from me and scuttled off as Bailey, innocent incarnate, came to join me at the cash register.
After taking the purchases back to the car, and her howling with laughter about Bishop’s Hawaii Five-O joke when he rented it for me, we wandered to a small bistro on a side street. It served homemade Italian food and was delicious. Every time she looked at me, I smiled, wanting her to know just how much I enjoyed being with her. Bailey had a little more wine than me and I loved how free she was when she was like this. This was the life I could see the two of us having together. Carefree and easy. Sensual and passionate. I’d always known that once I got my hands on her, being able to keep them off her would be a serious challenge. As I was paying the bill, a loud clang from a church bell rang.
“Come on, I want to go and see the church.”
“Really?” I questioned. I couldn’t remember the last time I stepped foot in a church, with the shit I did, I actively avoided them. People judged me enough, I didn’t need that judgment coming from a supposed higher power, someone I couldn’t even see.
“Yes,” she said, taking the lead and pulling me up from our table.
We continued to follow the sound of the bells as Bailey wound us down street after street. When we finally burst out onto a square, we were met with the most beautiful church, that was more of a mini cathedral. How it was tucked away in the back of beyond was anyone’s guess. The sun bounced off the windows and stone monuments that stood proudly in the outer walls. It was an amazing place, all the little scenes of religion carved into the stone tried to make you feel at ease mixed with ugly gargoyles to keep the bad spirits out.
“Let’s go in.” She tugged on my hand and pulled me behind her.
“I don’t think you can just wander into a church, Bay?”
“Of course, you can.” Bailey smirked. “Are you afraid?”
The challenge was there, just like we were ten years of age again, only this time she was testing my mettle to see if the things she knew I did caused me or my soul any sort or grief.
“After you, pretty lady.”
When we stepped into the cool, covered doorway, the silence swallowed us up. The pews were old and dark, but polished to perfection, you could smell the beeswax mingled in with the wood and it battled with the lingering scent of incense. It was an assault on the senses, but down to your last breath you knew someone had taken great care of this place.
“Well that was a letdown,” she mumbled.
“What was?” I asked.
“I figured bringing the antichrist into the house of God, I might at least see some flames.”
I laughed and pulled her to me for a hug. “It seems even the devil is welcome.”
“Churches are strange,” she whispered.
“I think someone may strike you down though. You don’t come into his house and diss him, Bay.”
“I mean, it’s just a building, but it’s beautiful. The ideas of centuries ago are still relevant today, they’re still believable and you can’t help but feel the calm sink into your soul.”
There was only one thing that calmed my soul and quelled my rage and she was in my arms. No higher power, no unseen myth had that much power over me, only Bailey Roach.
And in my world, I was God.
Bailey started to lead the way towards the altar. In another life, I’d be waiting for her at that altar as she walked down the aisle to me, and I wanted that more and more with every second I spent with her. I’d marry her here and now if I thought she would. Go for it.
“Have you ever lit a candle for someone?” She pointed at the small tiered stand of red glass and flickering flames.
“Only when I was forced to as a kid.”
It was something my mom used to make us do whenever she dragged us to church, looking back now, I think she was repenting on his behalf. Yet more proof that evil people didn’t burst into flames in a church. Even my father made it in and out of them without so much as a scorching.
“Did you ever go to confession?”
The snort I made echoed off the walls. “Shit no, they didn’t offer block bookings and I’d have needed a whole day. I do remember tricking Sally Harper into one though.”
Bailey led us to sit down in the pews at the front by the altar. “Dare I ask what you did?”
“I knew the Father was out, so I watched her go in the confessional box and snuck in the other side. I was fifteen and tricked her into telling me that she wanted to do sinful things with me.” I looked at her with pretend horror and then smiled.
Bailey gasped mockingly. “Your first sinful act.”
“Not by a long shot, baby. But as a reward afterwards, I did help her commit her first sinful act.”
“Did you have your wicked way with her?”
“Oh yeah. In the fucking confessional.”
Bailey giggled. “I knew there was a reason I didn’t like her.” I listened to her laugh and besides the peace and quiet and sunlight bouncing off the stained glass windows, it was the next best thing.
God, I wanted her. I couldn’t bat away those words that poked and prodded to be let free from my mind.
This wasn’t like when I was a kid and forced to come to church, when my mom would scowl at me for not bending my head at the same time as everyone else and pretending to pray. This was me, in here voluntarily, following Bailey Roach and throwing up a silent prayer to the big guy while I sat in his fucking living room, asking him to make the impossible come true.
Please, God, make this happen for me. Let me have her in my life. Let her goodness wash away some of my sins and the light she brings ease my sinful soul. Okay, that would probably be impossible for any man, especially a Teague in the family business. But at a least make it all mean something.
I didn’t finish it off with the words Amen. That was a step too far and felt hypocritical.
“What are you thinking about?” she interrupted.
“Nothing.” I panicked, not wanting to lie while I was here, before quickly fumbling, “everything.” Bailey glanced at me, her eyes shining bright with hope. And I gave it to her. “You.”
As expected, in a flash she shut down her own hope, and brushed it off. “You do enough thinking about me.”
I took her hand in mine, not ready to have my words brushed off just yet. “You’re worth thinking about.”
“You’re easily led, Zane Teague,” she smiled, “and a push over.”
“For you. Definitely.”
“I always saw myself having an over the top wedding in a place like this,” She had her head tilted back and was looking at the intricate artwork on the ceiling.
“I’m down with that plan, just tell me when to meet you here.”
Without
thinking and filtering her words, she replied, “You’ll know when I’m ready.”
We were having a moment. I knew it and she knew it, so when she decided that things were getting too intense, she ended it by pulling me up and leading me out of the church. I looked up to the power my mom and dad believed in so truly and prayed that that time would come, that I would be back here to marry the love of my life.
Maybe her plan had backfired, she wanted to see me burst into flames, but it was her who was on the verge of finally setting alight. Whatever this was between us, it was something and definitely more than a holiday fling between two lifelong friends just exorcising some demons. I was working hard to make her see that when she was with me, my ocean of rage was just a mill pond.
I only hoped I was finally succeeding.
Bailey Roach was finally dealing with the thoughts that she too had been working hard to ignore.
There was an us.
And down to me, there would be an us when we left Hawaii and I couldn’t be fucking happier.
Maybe God had already delivered on my prayer.
Chapter Twelve
As the next few days rolled over, I began to think more about the reality that we could be something together. The days and nights were perfect, we spent them lounging about in my yard overlooking the sea. Bailey had her Kindle and was happy to just be connected to me, by just the random touch of our hands as we lay next to each other. It was starting to feel comfortable, I was starting to feel calmer, like someone new. In all honesty, I did not want to go back to the real world. I didn’t want to threaten the harmony I’d found in being with her.
“I love this house,” she mumbled.
“Hmm.”
“It’s so close to the sea, like a hundred quick and easy steps or something.”
“Sixty-seven,” I corrected, running my fingers through her hair.
“Sixty-seven steps to heaven. It rhymes.”
I adored that she felt the same about where we were. It was heaven and made even more so because she was here with me.
“What’s going to happen when we go back to normality?” The question slipped out before I could stop it and I felt her body stiffen as the words permeated. Bailey had been avoiding the real world as much as me and kept slipping away every now and then to take calls from her work or family.
“The real world doesn’t exist.”
“But it will do soon.”
“Soon isn’t yet,” she countered and climbed on my lap.
I tried to convince myself that I wasn’t being played, but every time I tried to talk about what came next, she pulled out the sexy eyes and let me ravish her. I pushed down the ill feeling and convinced myself that I was grateful that she’d taken a chance and come here to be with me.
As Bailey continued to grind on my rock-solid cock, my cell rang on the table next to us. “Roxy,” I answered.
“You didn’t call to say goodbye, so I figured you were still here. Graham and I are heading out for dinner later,” Roxanne hesitated, “I think maybe you two should meet.”
I didn’t. That sounded like a complete disaster.
Bailey ignored that I was on the phone and slowly began to run a fingernail along the family tattoo dominating my skin.
Suddenly, I felt like my old self, and the disruption rumbling deep in my gut wanted to push it, do something different to get her to accept us. Seeing that I had a normal relationship with one of my employees might just do that. It would also be good to see whether Roxy had lied, and her husband knew what she did. “Sounds great, make it a table for four.”
Roxy gasped in shock at the same time Bailey did, pretty much halting the nail teasing massage she was giving me.
“Now I am intrigued. Eight at the usual place?” I heard the smile inflected in Roxy’s voice down the line.
“See you then.” I dropped my cell on the glass-blocked, art deco table with a clatter and felt satisfied knowing I’d pulled it off; I’d disrupted both of them.
“What did you do?” Bailey asked, looking back at me.
“We’re going out to dinner. The fearsome Zane Teague is going to double date.”
I was laughing until Bailey replied with, “I notice how you didn’t ask whether I wanted to.” Her face was completely serious.
“Why wouldn’t you?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “I thought we were trying to figure out what this was, what happens next, and you’ve catapulted us straight to coupledom without so much as a, ‘Hey, Bailey, you up for it?’”
Her words stung. I knew everything wasn’t completely rosy, but someone had to bring about the change to get us there. “Are you not?”
“I don’t know. I thought we agreed this was complicated.”
Bailey moved away from me and went to sit facing the thrashing waves with her elbows on her knees. I left her to her thoughts desperately hoping she’d come through and say something that calmed the raging monster that she’d shook by the shoulder and awakened from his slumber. Every so often, her shoulders would rise with a deep inhale of breath and her head would slump, and just as I was expecting her to say something, she’d remain quiet. My knee was so close to her side that I could practically feel the electricity spark between us in an effort to reconnect and get us past this. This was the most removed I’d felt from her since she’d shown up.
And I fucking hated it.
I’d had enough. “So, that’s where we’re at? The awkward silent treatment. I take it you’re done talking?”
I hated myself for being the first to break it, but Bailey brought out a weakness in me that no one had ever seen. She brought on vulnerabilities that I’d worked hard to cover up during my rise to the top and reminding myself of this did not sit well right now.
Bailey stood up. “Yes.” Her eyes never strayed from the ocean and I waited, praying I was wrong and that she’d break her usual pattern and actually clue me in on what she was thinking. “I need…” She shook her head “Forget it, I’m going for a soak in your big-ass tub and then I guess I’m getting ready to go out.”
“Fuck! Bay, don’t force yourself. It’s a fucking meal with an employee who looks after one of my operations out here,” I jabbed back.
She’d only stormed away a few paces before she stopped and turned around, finally looking at me. “What if someone sees us?”
I wanted someone to see us.
I was so fucking proud to have her on my arm that I was having a hard time not ordering a sky writer. It was only the trouble it would cause that kept me on my toes.
“If it bothers you that much, don’t fucking bother,” I snarled, doing what she’d just done and turning to look out over the ocean.
Bailey didn’t counter argue or agree, she just left me, and I carried on, trying to calm myself down.
Angry as I was, I was going to meet Roxanne. I had a point to prove to Bailey, and if I didn’t go, I knew Rox would show up at the house. Plus, deep down I was still hopeful that I’d be able to take Bay and show her off.
I’d sat outside all afternoon, literally flipping between fuming, disappointed, and worried since she’d left to take a soak in the tub. I kidded myself that I was taking the time to calm down, because I was nowhere fucking near calm. I wanted to punish and guilt trip her to make her come to her senses about us, but the longer I sat there the more pissed off I got that she didn’t come back. That was Bailey Roach though, she was as stubborn as a mule. In all the years I’d known her, I’d never managed to bend her to my will and win an argument.
In the end, I came to terms that I was going alone.
Getting ready in the guest bathroom, I found myself stilling every so often to listen for sounds of her and that just pissed me off more. Bailey had always affected me, but this, right here and right now in my private home, the place where I went to seek sanctuary from the madness of my life, was beyond ridiculous. Loudly, I descended the stairs, knowing I wanted her to hear me stomping about, just to remind her I was stil
l there and poured myself a quick scotch while I pulled up the Uber app.
What the fuck was wrong with me? I was Zane Fucking Teague. People did what I wanted them to do, what I told them to do, when I demanded it. They bent to my will and that was the end of it.
She had ten minutes until the cab arrived.
Ten minutes to come to her senses, get her shit together, and come to me.
With a minute to spare, I heard the distinctive and seductive sound of heels getting closer to the top of the marble stairs. The pace of her walk told me she was either still in a mood and could change her mind at any time or, was swaying her hips and ass with purpose. The scent of her bath crème, or body lotion or some other girl shit hit me next, and it became a battle of willpower not to be sucked in to turn around and watch her descend. She smelled like coconut and vanilla and it made my mouth water.
I could fuck her now, I should fuck her now and punish her for what she’d done to me, but then that was what she expected.
“Refill?” Came her sweet voice from behind me, closely followed by the sound of ice cubes hitting a glass.
I downed the last dregs of my drink quickly and slammed the crystal tumbler on the top just as aggressively, I wanted her to be under no illusion of just how pissed off I was, how far she’d pushed me. Nobody pushed Zane Teague’s buttons like that. Ever.
“Uber is due. You going somewhere?” My voice was calm and measured.
This was another part of my personality that unsettled people, my actions and tone of voice didn’t always meet up. When I looked ready to fight, I could be as sweet as a nut and when I talked calmly and rationally, I could flip instantly and squeeze your throat until you were gasping for air. The problem at the moment was, that it had never taken so long to kick in. Bailey Roach was definitely testing everything about me.
When I turned and saw what she was wearing, I had to school every reaction to keep my lust for her hidden. She was fucking stunning. Her dress was so tight, I could see every curve and there was no way she was wearing underwear. Her nipples protruded through the material, begging me to bite them and if I was in a better mood later, I might. Normally, I’d make a girl I was taking out dress a little less provocatively, but that shit wouldn’t fly with her and we both knew she was doing this to get a reaction from me.
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