Trust Me Forever (Forever Happens Series Book 2)

by Josie Bordeaux

  Twenty

  Alex

  Sure, it was stupid. What guy asks a woman to move in with him after only one week? Hell, I’d never thought I’d do that with any woman—not at all—but this wasn’t just any woman. This was Cory. She’d broken my heart when I believed the lies. Since I’d found out it was all a misunderstanding, that she never really cared for that boy at all and just needed a reason to escape her stepdad, I almost wanted to shake the guy’s hand for getting her out of that situation. Almost. I mean, when I closed my eyes, the anger coursed through me as to what he probably did to receive a thank you for taking her out of there. At the same time, she had been safe and that’s all I really cared about.

  No, Cory was back in my life and I wasn’t about to let her go. Nor would I let her break her back bending over working so hard. I was going to wait to tell her the rest of my plan I had for her. After talking with her all week and finding out she’d never finished high school in California, I wanted to help her finish and get her GED. I wasn’t sure what she was into or thinking she’d like to do, but I’d always remembered how much she loved to bake. Especially with Granny. She would watch her as if what Granny was doing was magical. Maybe it was: she was a damn good cook and baker, that’s for sure.

  “You’re thinking it’s a good idea, I can tell,” I taunted her, giving my best smile. I felt like a kid waiting for his Christmas presents. I was anxious for an answer.

  She shook her head and laughed. “I’ll think about it. I promise.”

  I faked a smile and squeezed her hand. “Okay.”

  After all, she’d only been back in my life for a short time. A very short time. I used to laugh at Cal that when he fell, he fell hard. Man, he was going to have a field day with this. Shit. Jay would probably try to hit me upside the head—especially since Carissa had been wanting to move on to the next step with him. It had taken them forever just for her to move in with him—and that wasn’t even because he’d asked.

  I pulled into a nearby parking spot and parked the car. I got out and tried to run around to open her door, but she was too fast. The corner of the door hit me smack in the forehead and I stumbled backward. “Ah,” I cried, temporarily blinded with pain.

  “What are you doing?” she asked as she stood and shut the door quickly, seeing me bent over holding my forehead. “Oh, God. Are you okay?” She put her hand on my shoulder, and I grabbed it as my other hand was still pressing against my injury. I was definitely going to have a welt, and wasn’t sure how that would look at the groundbreaking ceremony. I hoped by the end of the weekend it’d be gone, or at least not as red as I knew it probably was at the moment.

  “Come on, we’ll get some ice on it.” I let her guide me. I knew I was being a pussy, but letting her take care of me after all those years, well, let’s just say she played right into my hands. Who wouldn’t let a gorgeous blonde nurse him back to health? Her wearing a nurse’s outfit flashed through my mind. A slutty outfit, though, not the kind you really see at a hospital. One that was sure to be found on any Halloween night college campus party.

  She pulled the door open as I continued to stare at her ass. Her jeans fit her just right, and all I could think of was to reach down and grab her ass, bend her over the table, and—

  “What happened to you?” Cassie asked. I readjusted my line of vision to see her standing there staring at me with a tray full of beers. Cory squeezed my hand and left me standing there, my hard-on raging as I strained to shove those thoughts down for later. Definitely later.

  “A car door. I was trying to be a gentleman.”

  Cassie laughed. “You?”

  I shook my head as I spotted a table and pulled a chair out to sit when I heard my name called out. I looked toward the sound and saw Cal, Andi, Lana, and Kyle already seated at a corner table, waving me over. I looked over to behind the counter and saw Cory coming back with a bag full of ice. She smiled and waved, handing me the bag and giving me a swift kiss on my cheek before disappearing to the back. My eyes were zoned in on her ass again, and I was thinking about my face buried between her legs. I shook my head when I heard my name again, followed by some joke that escaped me. I could only imagine what they had said.

  Standing at the table, I grabbed a nearby empty chair and pulled it over. Sitting next to Kyle, I shook hands and said my hellos to everyone.

  “Whoa, you sure move quickly,” Lana said, throwing me a wink as she took a drink from her beer.

  “Looks like things progressed from the stalker stage fairly rapidly,” Cal joked.

  I shook my head as Andi began to inspect me. I wasn’t sure if she was preparing herself for being a mom, but her concerned expression hinted that she’d make a pretty good one. “How’d you get that?”

  “Opening the car door for her.” I nodded my head in Cory’s direction. She had just come out the back room, changed into her uniform, reminding me of another fantasy I still had. My list was adding up pretty fast.

  “Ah, being a gentleman isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” Andi joked.

  I shrugged, as Kyle seemed to be focusing on something. I followed where he was staring and noticed it was right at Cory. Or Sarah. I guess around everyone I still needed to remember to call her Sarah. That was going to be tough. She’d always be Cory in my mind.

  “Who’s that?” Kyle nodded his head at her.

  “Oh, I told you about that last week. She’s the girl Alex has a thing for. We were telling him he was becoming a stalker because he was staring at her so much,” Lana explained.

  Kind of like Kyle was doing right now is what I wanted to add as I knitted my brows, wondering what he was thinking. I knew he loved Lana, but I wasn’t sure what his interest was in Cory.

  “Hm, she looks familiar,” Kyle said, and took a drink from his beer. “What’s her name?” My gut told me he was asking for other reasons, but I couldn’t figure out why I’d feel that way.

  “Sarah,” I said quickly, although for the life of me I couldn’t remember her new made-up last name. Shit, this was going to be tougher than I thought. “What do you mean she looks familiar?”

  “I don’t know. She just does.”

  Normally that wouldn’t bother me too much. Except Kyle was a detective up in New York City. He came down to visit Lana every chance he could, and they were trying to carry on a long-distance relationship. I was pretty sure Lana was close to moving up there, but she hated the cold and made sure to make a point of it every chance she could.

  “Do I need to be worried?” Lana joked as she bumped him. I was thinking the same thing, and obviously, if she were asking that, I wasn’t the only one who noticed his interest in Cory.

  He smiled and shook his head, giving Cory one last glance. “No, baby, you never need to.” He threw his arm around her and gave her his full attention.

  Our conversation carried on, discussing normal things like how the work week had gone, how long Kyle was in town for that time, and our bets on when Andi would give birth—not to mention, who was closest to winning.

  Cory came over to the table on her break since we were sitting in Cassie’s section. I hadn’t taken my eyes off Cory all night, though. Even if it was tough, since I had to crane my neck to look at her from certain angles.

  “C—Sarah, I need you to meet Lana’s boyfriend, Kyle.” She waved demurely and squeezed my shoulder as I wrapped my arm around her waist. I would have pulled her onto my lap, but I knew that was inappropriate. Well, at least for the time being.

  “Wow, what happened to you?” I thought Kyle was talking to me, but he was directing his question at Cory, and when I looked up I had no idea how I’d missed it before. It was so obvious. Then I remembered the scarf she’d been wearing in the car. It was an odd shade of green and definitely didn’t match anything she wore. I’d assumed it was because she didn’t have anything else.

  “What—are you guys into kinky stuff or something? Alex has a bump on his forehead and you’ve got a red neck.” Lana joked, thinking s
he was cute, but immediately the table fell silent. Hell, if it weren’t for the noisy bar surrounding us, you could have heard a pin drop.

  “What happened, baby? I didn’t see that before. You okay?” I reached to get a better look but she pulled away.

  Feigning a smile, she said, “It’s nothing at all. Silly sweater was stuck and I tugged too hard on it. Cable knit,” she joked, and then pressed her lips together before saying, “I need to get back to my customers. I’ll be back in a bit.” She was nervous and I could tell. She did that thing with her lips and it triggered a memory for me. She used to do that when we were about to get in trouble for something—although I remembered noticing it more when she was around Stan.

  When I turned my attention back to the table, I noticed everyone was staring at me, their eyes wide. “What?”

  “Well, on the job we usually see that when someone’s been strangled or attempted to,” Kyle remarked as his eyes seemed to search mine. Was he interrogating me?

  My mouth fell open. “What—you think I choked her?”

  “You or someone else. It’s okay, man. If you like that kinky shit, just make sure you don’t push her too far with that asphyxiation stuff,” Kyle said.

  “I didn’t do that.”

  “Well, someone did,” Kyle said, his voice turning serious all of a sudden.

  I threw my right arm out toward Cory. “She said it was her sweater.”

  Kyle nodded as he shrugged. “Okay. Yeah, you’re right. Easy thing to do, right?” He took a pull from his beer while my mind tried to think of what had really caused those marks. How the hell? And when? I was only gone from her during the day. I tried to think back if she’d had it the night before and couldn’t. Flipping through my thoughts if I had done it while we had sex any of the past nights, I couldn’t come up with any moment where that would have happened.

  “It’s probably nothing. Must be the sweater, like she said,” Cal said. He knew me too well. I was going to obsess on it until I had an answer.

  “You think it’s from abuse?” She had been at Jeanine’s to grab her stuff, and all I could think of was who she might have had come by and what they had done to Cory. What else had they done besides that?

  My jaw clenched.

  “Your face is getting red,” Andi leaned over and whispered in my ear as she stood. “Ugh. I’ll be back,” she told everyone at the table. She patted my shoulder as she began her walk toward the bathroom.

  I swallowed as I tried to rein in my anger. Kyle, Cal, and Lana were getting into some discussion about baseball teams and the fact that Atlanta was too hot to watch a game during season, but was the place to be during spring training. I zoned out, not listening as I tried to figure out how I’d get an honest answer out of Cory.

  Maybe I didn’t really know her as well as I thought. She still hadn’t answered me about moving in, but now that I had seen the mark on her neck and how Kyle said it had to have happened, I might have to order her to move in with me—regardless if she wanted to or not.

  That didn’t seem like a stalker move at all.

  The night couldn’t come to an end quick enough. Andi announced she was exhausted shortly after Kyle and Lana had left. Cal had jumped to make sure Andi was cared for. I moved over to the bar area shortly after I said my goodbyes to Kyle and Lana.

  I watched Cory all night, probably like a stalker would do. That red mark on her neck was so obvious, and I berated myself for not noticing sooner during her shift. How could I have not seen it? It was red and you could clearly make out where fingers had been.

  Not being able to talk to her about it and having to wait was pure torture, but as the staff finished closing up I held back, knowing I’d have her in my arms soon. She wasn’t going back to Jeanine’s. Not at all. I’d keep her locked up at my place, if I had to.

  All thoughts I had been entertaining escaped as she came out of the back room and had changed back to worn, faded jeans and an off-the-shoulder sweater. The soft lilac of her sweater was an odd contrast to the scarf she had thrown around her neck again, making it even more obvious.

  With her purse slung over her shoulder, she smiled at me. Like a lovesick idiot, all anger dissipated. It wasn’t gone, but I wasn’t about to bring up the mark on her neck just yet.

  “Thanks for waiting for me,” she said as she leaned into me.

  My arms wrapped around her and I pulled her in for a kiss. Her lips tasted incredible, and I couldn’t help but think they tasted like the grape lip balm she used to wear when we were younger.

  When she pulled back, she wrapped her arm around my waist and we started toward the door after we waved goodbye to the rest of the staff.

  As we stepped outside, the air felt cool and refreshing. I couldn’t decide which answer I wanted more—whether she’d move in with me or how the hell she’d gotten the mark around her neck. She was obviously not telling me something. Did I want someone moving in with me who wasn’t being totally honest? Although, thinking back, she had said there were things she couldn’t tell me about. Things that happened that she didn’t want to discuss, and I had been okay with that at the time. Now I wanted answers.

  “Yes.”

  Her voice pulled me out of the thoughts—the same ones that I had argued for the past couple of hours, waiting for her to finish her shift.

  I pulled up a brow as I turned toward her. “Yes?” I asked, even though it finally dawned on me what she had just said yes to. She was going to move in with me. Seeing her expression, I was sure she was excited—just as I had been to see her earlier. I was still happy to see her, but my eyes skimmed down to her neck. Staring at the scarf, I wondered how she wouldn’t have seen it in the lady’s bathroom mirror.

  “I’m letting you know that I’d love to move in with you.” I wasn’t sure what my expression was, but her smile faded as her brows scrunched in. “If you still want me to, that is?”

  Quickly, I dropped my doubts and the apprehension I had and smiled. “Yes, of course, I still want you to move in with me.”

  She nodded, still looking at me with skepticism, and turned to walk down the sidewalk, grabbing my hand in the process. We strolled in silence to my car as I tried to think of a way, as I had the whole night waiting for her, to ask about the marks on her neck.

  At the bar, I had a whole slew of scenes fly through my mind on how she could have gotten it. Was she dating someone else? I answered it with no; she hadn’t been there that long. Was she fucking someone else? With everyone that probably came in and out of Jeanine’s apartment, that seemed more reasonable. But I doubted she would do that to me. Had someone been drunk and taken—

  The questions battled and we stopped at my car.

  “How’d you get the mark on your neck?” It came out more accusatory than I had intended it to be.

  Her smile dropped and her hand reached for her neck, running her fingers over the scarf and playing with the material. “Wh…I…The sweater. It—”

  “You’ve got finger marks where someone tried to strangle you.”

  Her eyes dropped along with her hand, and again her lips pressed together. It was as if what I had pointed out defeated her and completely contradicted what she wanted me to believe.

  “The only way this whole thing between us is going to work is if you’re honest with me.” Despite my anger, I took a step toward her, trying to remember the Cory I knew. Sweet. Innocent. So many years had passed between us, but I still believed we had something. I wanted to believe that.

  “One of Jeanine’s boyfriend’s friends came by and got aggressive with me. I didn't want to lie to you, but you have to understand that where I came from, snitching on someone leads to more trouble. You handle situations on your own.”

  A wall of anger thrashed through me and all I saw was red. Seeing that only Cory was in front of me, and she was the last person I’d ever want to hurt, I could only clutch my hands and grind my teeth. My next MMA training session would feel like a cleansing, since the guy who’d trie
d to choke her wasn’t there for me to beat the shit out of.

  A quick poke to my ribs helped the red from my vision pass a little. Cory was looking up at me with a bright look in her eye and a smirk. “I kneed him in the balls and ran.”

  A corner of my mouth turned up, glad that she was able to get out of the situation and thankful he hadn’t come after her. Which was what he would probably do at some point—come after her for revenge and try to take what he had originally wanted.

  I wrapped my arm around her and pulled her to my chest, kissing the top of her head. Holding her close I whispered, “No one will ever hurt you again.” I let out a breath. “I’m so glad you’re all right.” I pulled back and looked down at her. “Good job with your knee.” Even as I said it, I envisioned the event and wished I’d been there. I’d have probably gone to jail for killing him.

  “Thanks.” She tilted her head toward my car. “Think we can go back to your place and you can console me? My knee might need a massage after hitting him so hard there.”

  I laughed and perked up my brows. “Yeah? I’ll definitely give you a massage. There and everywhere else.” I opened the door for her and waved her in. “Let’s go home.” I stressed home, now that she was living with me; there was no need for her to call it my place anymore.

  Twenty-One

  Cory

  I’d lied to him, yes, but it was for a good reason. If he knew Tito was really blackmailing me, I wasn’t sure what he’d do. Not to mention he’d want to know the reason why. That would be like opening Pandora’s Box, and I wasn’t about to go there.

  Throughout my whole work shift, all my thoughts came back to Marco being in town. Every time I thought about it, my throat closed up—and that wasn’t because of the pain I’d felt earlier from Tito. While I didn’t have enough money saved up, I could certainly hitch a ride to another city and try to figure something else out. The thought made my stomach sour. Grabbing a ride was never something I’d do unless I absolutely had to. Taking a cab to the outskirts of Atlanta was another idea, but that might leave a trail if any of Cisco’s guys recognized me.