“I’m going to run to the restroom,” I whispered into his ear, my tongue developing a mind of its own, flicking out to tickle his earlobe when I said “restroom.”
His eyes smoldered, ice meeting liquid amber, my body nearly melting from the heat. I pulled my bottom lip into my mouth, biting down on it so hard, I whimpered. Walking away, I felt his eyes trace every step I took, and nothing could wipe the ridiculous smile from my face.
After splashing my heated face with cool water, I walked out of the restroom. My thoughts were with the mysterious boy at the bar, the sensual curve of his lips. . . the things I could do with those lips. I was grabbed abruptly, shoved against the wall, and as I opened my mouth to shout for help, warm, pliable lips smashed onto mine. My eyes widened as I stared into Rory’s lust addled gaze, and I swallowed my words as I welcomed his warm, citrusy tongue into my mouth. My fingers wound into his hair, pulling him closer as he devoured my lips, grinding his hips into mine. The moment he moved his lips from mine, trailed them down my neck, I released a low and wanting moan.
“Let’s get out of here,” he rasped in my ear, causing goose flesh to rise across my skin.
“Where do you want to go?” I managed to mumble as his hand gripped my thigh, lifting and wrapping my leg around his waist. He ground into me, and I decided that my dress and his pants were a fucking nuisance and suddenly very unwelcome.
“Can I take you to my hotel?” he asked, his fingers pushing my dress up. “We’ll take a taxi.”
“Yes,” I answered without a second thought. I was warmed from the inside out. It was as if I’d spent my entire life submerged in ice until Rory O’Neill found me and put his hands on me. He melted each heavy layer, warmed me in places that had never felt warmth. And I wanted more.
“The moment you stepped out of that truck, that beautiful fucking truck,” he groaned, pushing my panties aside, teasing my heat with a finger. “And then I saw you walking toward me at that church, all that gorgeous ink. . .”
His words trailed off as he added a second finger and pressed deep inside my body. My head fell back against the wall, his lips working a torturous melody against my neck, a gasp leaving my parted lips as the sounds of the music and the laughing of the guests faded. He grabbed onto my chin forcing me to meet his gaze before crushing his lips to mine, his fingers moving at a fevered pace, his thumb circling delicately over my sensitive and throbbing bundle of nerves. I moaned into his mouth, on the cusp of coming undone.
That thought rattled me, brought me to my senses. This was my sister’s wedding, we were seconds from getting naked and screwing against the wall. . . next to the bathroom. . . in my winery. This was so not okay.
“Wait,” I whimpered, my own body protesting my words.
“Francesca,” he growled, my entire body convulsing from the powerful orgasm that took my breath. I held onto his shoulder, gasping for air, my body trembling. Rory removed his fingers from within and pressed a fevered kiss to my lips.
Thanks to the gallon of goddamn tequila coursing through my veins at break neck speed, I couldn’t remember walking from the winery, nor could I recall a taxi ride to a hotel. What I did remember made my body tremble and my skin crawl with the need to get far away as fast as possible.
Rory stood before me, bare to the world, his fingers trembling as he peeled off the remainder of my clothing. My dress lay in a heap on the floor, his shoes and belt lying beside it. His breath felt scorching on my already overheated flesh as he hovered above my breast, his tongue snaking out to dance wildly across my pierced nipple.
“You’re stunning, Bubbles.”
I smiled down at him, batted my eyes, and moaned.
“Just shut up and fuck me already, Mr. O’Neill.”
I stood from the bed, searched the room as silently and rapidly as I could, gathering my clothes. I stood inside the bathroom, refusing to use it or shut the door for fear that Rory would wake up. I looked in the mirror, my fingers attempting to smooth out my tangled curls and cleaned the mascara from under my eyes.
“You stupid, stupid girl,” I whispered to my reflection.
After walking back into the room for my Chucks, which I planned to slip into in the hall, I took a long and shame-filled look at Rory. He lay sprawled out on the bed, the sheet barely covering the bottom half of his body. He looked just as smooth and handsome as he had the night before. My lipstick marked the smooth and unflawed skin of his chest. My cheeks heated, my body trembled, and I snuck out the door.
“What the fuck were you thinking, Frankie?” I asked myself.
“You weren’t thinking, that’s the problem. You let tequila make your choices for you, fucking idiot,” I replied, covering my face as best I could as I did the walk of shame.
“You can’t deny that was the best sex of your life,” I admitted aloud to myself, earning a sharp look from a white-haired lady seated on the bench outside the hotel. I released a heavy sigh, smiling meekly at her. She shook her head in response.
I began a long walk home, deciding that I’d never use the number Rory O’Neill had given to me for the truck repairs. I’d fix it my damn self just to avoid the awkwardness of being in his presence again. Something told me another run-in would end much the same as the first. And fuck if I could face myself the morning after—again. Although I had to admit, he played my body like a finely tuned Gibson. And a very tortured part of me wanted him to pick me up and play another tune.
**
“You did what?!” Karleigh screeched, her eyes narrow slits as she nearly had steam pluming from her ears.
“I slept with the best man. . . and ran away the next morning.”
“What about Lukas? And what about not letting things get complicated?”
“Karls, I know it is hard for you to understand, but Lukas and I are not in a relationship. We have an arrangement—”
“One that was made to keep you from doing exactly what you did!”
“Tell me something I don’t know!” I shouted. Shame and guilt had been gnawing at me since the morning I woke next to Mr. O’Neill.
It had been seven days, nine hours, and forty-five minutes since I’d been with Rory. And with each new morsel of memory that returned, I wanted to seek him out to create new ones. I was such a blasted idiot.
“Have you told Lukas?”
“Not yet,” I answered, cutting the vegetables on the counter. That was a much easier task to wrestle.
“Are you going to?” she grilled. I could feel her eyes boring into my skin, leaving molten goo in their wake.
“I haven’t decided,” I sighed.
I could feel and hear the heavy sigh she released with those words. I suppose I even understood it; I would be just as protective of Geno. Then again, I’d never have to worry about anything like that. Geno was too damn smart to get involved in anything like me.
“I do feel honesty is in your best interest, as well as Luka’s,” she responded, her tone defeated. “I get that the two of you have a completely jacked up arrangement. I also get that it’s beneficial for the both of you. But, Franks, don’t hurt him.”
I met her gaze across the counter and fought long and hard against the intense eye roll that I wanted to give.
“Hey, don’t give me shit, Karls. Don’t you recall suggesting I do exactly what I did?”
“Yeah, but. . .” her words trailed off as she attempted to come up with an excuse. “I did that to make you think about your options. You know, options that don’t involve my brother being crushed? Besides, I never thought you’d actually do it.”
“I’d never do anything to hurt him. Besides, hurting him would be an implication that he has deep-rooted feelings and emotions for me. We don’t do emotions.”
“You may not, that doesn’t mean it’s the same for him.”
Lukas and I had been living that arrangement for a long time. Our relationship was effortless. I called, he came, we had our romp between the sheets, and he left. There was the occasional night we
’d have dinner, we even went to movies together. But we weren’t anything but friends that fit well together in bed. And I never had a desire to make anything more of it.
“Look, it was a onetime encounter, sponsored in large part by tequila. I don’t plan on venturing down that same road twice.”
Karleigh snagged a cucumber slice from the counter, taking a bite out of it. She chewed silently, staring up at the ceiling. I could nearly hear her thoughts as she stood there, contemplating her next question.
“You do realize you’re going to have to give me details, right? I mean, I want every last filthy detail. And I’m sure it gets totes filthy.”
I tossed veggies at her, popping a tomato into my own mouth. That same, all too familiar ache returned between my legs as I thought of that night. His lips, his tongue, his hands—it was all so impossibly good. And dangerous. He could easily and quickly become a drug.
I could become addicted to all the wrong things.
Chapter 7
The past three years of my life, I’ve been haunted. Every day, I became more of a shell of who I once was. I slipped further and further into a deep abyss that threatened to consume me whole at any moment. And at one point, I was content with that possibility. I didn’t have one goddamn thing to lose. But then, Francesca Winters strolled into my life. Or maybe a better phrasing was that I collided with hers. It didn’t even matter. We collided with one another, and I wanted more from her.
We had one night together, one day that changed me in the faintest of ways. I had a glimpse of what my life could be, what I could have; and fuck, I wanted it more than I’d ever wanted anything. I wanted her more than I’d ever wanted anyone. Within Francesca was something that I easily recognized and felt drawn to—like a fucking moth to a flame. She was damaged. I could see it in the depths of her eyes and in her closed and sheltered demeanor.
There was something about her—the way she smelled of violets and fresh rain, the simple way the waves of her chestnut hair fell across her shoulders, the unforgettable hue of her eyes—eyes that shone like amber in the sunlight. Her infectious laugh that brightened her entire face, lips that begged to be loved, and those legs—those sinfully long legs. I’d committed every inch of her delicate, inked body to memory.
Sure, I’d talked her into my bed, but I also wanted to keep her there. I’d lain awake all night, watching her sleep, watching the moon beams dance across her smooth skin, planning what would come next. Part of me feared falling asleep; I feared I’d wake up and realize she’d been little more than a figment of my imagination. I was gutted when I woke up that Sunday morning to a cold and empty bed, the only evidence that Francesca had been there was the smeared lipstick on my skin and her lingering scent on the pillow beside me.
“You are depressing as shit, O’Neill.”
My eyes crawled up from the pint of Guinness on the table in front of me, meeting Max’s gaze from the other side. He chuckled, running a thumb across his chin.
“If you don’t like the company, feel free to find another, Max,” I instructed. His gray colored eyes twinkled, his grin widening.
“It was a piece of tail, man. Move the fuck on, find another willing participant, and you’ll be cured.”
“That’s the thing,” I began, pausing to take a long pull of my beer, “she wasn’t just ‘a piece of tail.’ There’s something about her.”
“So she’s the best fuck you’ve had in months, she’s replaceable.”
“The very last thing Francesca will ever be is replaceable. It wasn’t just the fucking that was great. I could talk to her and feel like myself. She’s not like the other women I meet. She’s not a bimbo, for one.”
Max groaned, flagging down the waitress and ordering another round. I knew for a fact that I’d lost my mind. My past is littered with one-night stands with girls whose faces I could barely recall. And yet this girl, that I’d shared a handful of hours with, had managed to burrow under my skin, leaving me battered.
“You sound like a girl, Rory—a fucking whiny, soul-sucking girl.”
“It’s been seven days, eleven hours, and forty-five minutes since I was with her, Max. All I can think of is when I can see her again. I mean, fuck, I haven’t even returned my suit just because it smells like her. The late return fee will be astronomical.”
“Is that what the two grand you borrowed was for?” he asked.
“I told you, I had a bill to pay,” I replied. Although it wasn’t so much a bill as it was a major debt owed to a man that would start taking it out in blood if I didn’t pay him off. Max’s loan gave me the gift of keeping all of my body parts. “Fuck, I miss her.”
“You miss her? Did you ever think that even if you did hunt her down, she’d send you away? I mean, she walked out on you in the middle of the night. She has your number and license, hasn’t even bothered to call about the repairs of her truck—that she was pissed off that you damaged. Maybe it meant a whole lot more to you than it did to her,” Max suggested.
I’d considered that. A part of me even believed it. But there was this nagging voice in the back of my head, reminding me of just how mind-blowing the sex had been, of how she kissed me as if her life depended on it. We both might have been very watered down by the tequila, but I saw connective passion in her eyes when they locked on mine.
“I guess anything is possible, but I know what I felt.”
“You felt the bliss of a good lay. Nothing more, O’Neill,” he offered, slouching back in his chair. “Before you start having periods and growing tits from all the estrogen that seems to be bounding through your veins, find a new fuck buddy.”
I laughed in unison with Max, reminding myself that he was close to being the only friend I had so I wouldn’t knock his teeth down the back of his throat like fucking Chiclets. This time.
**
“Is something going on, Frank?”
I opened my door to Lukas, leaned against the frame, eyes assessing, measuring—not missing a God-blessed thing. I stepped back, opening the door wider to allow him entrance. He walked in, his boots leaving dried mud in their path. He slipped out of his coat, throwing it at the chair that sat in the corner of the living room.
“Spill it,” he ordered, turning around to face me with his arms crossed over his chest.
“Who says anything is going on?” I asked defensively.
“I do,” he answered, his face cool and relaxed. “It’s been at least three weeks since we’ve met up. Are you avoiding me?”
“That’s ridiculous,” I replied. I did my very best to be convincing.
“You’ve always been a terrible fucking liar, Frankie.” And apparently that wasn’t due to change anytime in the near future.
I blew out a heavy breath, my shoulders slumping. You know what they say, there’s no time like the present. I guess the time was presenting itself to me to be open and honest with him.
I’d rather eat nails.
“You want a beer or something?” I asked, walking toward the kitchen. “I just made dinner if you’re hungry.”
“I have a feeling I’ll need the beer,” Lukas replied, following close behind. He folded his arms and leaned against the counter. “What did you make?”
“Turkey meatloaf and veggies.”
“Just the beer then,” he smiled, quirking a brow. He hated my health food. In turn, I hated all his fried fat goodies. “Spill it, Winters.”
“I may have done something,” I admitted, handing him a bottle of local beer I kept stocked in the fridge for him.
“Something damaging or stupid?” His concern made the guilt I already felt triple.
“Maybe both. . .” I stared at my hands as if they’d have all the answers laid out within their peaks and valleys. They fucking didn’t. “I drank a lot of tequila at Elise’s wedding. And—”
“You’ve never made good decisions when blitzed,” he interrupted. “Fighting or fucking?”
Over the last two years, there has been one constant in my li
fe—Lukas Pope. He was there, the day I was released from the hospital, helping me mend all my fractured pieces. My time with him had taught me one thing: people come and go, but every so often you come across one diamond in the rough. You meet one person that sees all the flaws, all the cracks in your delicate surface, but will stand by you in spite of them. Lukas didn’t care about my history, my baggage. He cared for me and was there at times when I couldn’t even reach out to Karleigh. Lukas protected me—not just from the world, but from myself.
“The latter,” I replied, running a hand through my hair. I refused to meet his piercing gaze for fear of seeing hurt behind the light that burned in them.
“Anyone I know?”
“I doubt it, he’s old friends with Colin,” I answered, turning to the stove. “I’m sorry, Lukas. I let myself spiral and ended up waking with a raging hangover, next to a guy that had spent most of the evening pissing me off.”
“You don’t belong to me, Frankie. We have an arrangement, one that we decided on as a way to make sure you were safe. I understand that shit happens. You are an attractive, young woman. You’re bound to draw the attention of plenty of guys. You’re also bound to make atrocious decisions.”
I closed my eyes tight, absorbed every word along with any hidden meaning they contained.
“Karleigh feels that our ‘arrangement’ has the potential to get complicated and damaging to one or both of us,” I explained tightly, turning to finally meet his bright hazel eyes. “I don’t want to hold you back, Luka. Not now, not ever. You are an amazing man, one of the best friends I have ever had.”
“Do you not think I feel the same?” he asked, taking a tentative step toward me.
“I try not to think about what you feel. I try not to feel. All that ever does is complicate things.” If brutal honesty was what he wanted, it’s what he would get. Brutal honesty is admitting I’m shamefully selfish.
Madness Page 5