by Luma Rose
An older woman tells me that Isla’s in the library and directs me how to get there, although I already know. They are too fucking trusting in this house if she’s just gonna let me wander around and find her myself. That would never happen in the household I grew up in.
I make my way down the wide hallway, and when I get closer, I hear the sound of a piano being played. I round the corner to see Isla at the far end of the library with her back to me. She’s sitting at a black grand piano, sheet music in front of her and doing her best to play the song. It’s a basic one, something a kid in second grade might learn.
Isla turns when she hears me close the doors behind me.
She looks out of place here in this room that’s so masculine when she’s the epitome of femininity. She’s changed since I saw her earlier. Her hair is still down and wavy, but she’s wearing white-and-navy striped pajama pants with a matching tank top.
“Hey,” she says, appearing solemn.
“Hey,” I say and walk into the room, wishing I too had changed. I slip off my suit jacket and set it on the edge of the sofa as I pass, leaving me in my vest and dress shirt. “I didn’t know you play.”
Isla rolls her eyes. “Are you tone deaf?”
I break the distance between us. “I’ve heard worse.”
“Gee, thanks.” She spins back around to face the piano.
“Did you take lessons when you were younger?” I ask, stopping where I am.
“Only for a couple years. My mom plays and wanted me to learn, but it became apparent pretty quick that I wasn’t blessed with the musical gene.”
“May I?” She turns to look at me from over her shoulder and I nod to the piano.
“I guess.” She shrugs and slides to the far end of the bench when I take a seat at the center.
With a shaky breath, I let my fingers slide over the keys with expertise. The sad lonely notes of Chopin’s Prelude in E Minor fill the room. My eyes drift closed as I remember another time in my life, one when I used to play for a different woman and for very different reasons. I lose myself in the music, remembering how my mom would sit on the couch, asking me to play again. When I finish, I glance to my right. Isla’s looking at me with a mixture of agony and loss, awe and reverence. Her eyes glisten, and when she blinks, a single tear rolls down her cheek.
“I didn’t know you played.”
“My mother used to love to watch me play. She always loved music, so she signed both me and Harper up early in age. Some of my fondest memories are when she would sit and listen to me play. Even when I just learned Chopsticks, she was proud of me.” I look away from her, down at the keys, caressing them between my fingers. “I never felt more loved than when I was with her. After she died, I never felt that way again.”
Despite the bastard I was to her, Isla’s tender heart shows through when she reaches out and takes my hand, leaning her head on my shoulder. “It was beautiful.”
“Then why are you crying?” I give a sardonic chuckle.
“Because you make me feel everything. Always. Whatever you’re feeling, it always feels like it’s inside me… a part of me.”
My breath catches in my chest; that’s the only explanation for why I can’t breathe.
“I didn’t see a piano at your place, though.”
“There’s one, it’s just off in one of the rooms instead of out in the main area. I can’t look at a piano without feeling the loss of my mother. I only go in there to play when I’m having a crap day.”
She lifts her head. “So why did you play tonight?” she whispers.
“Because I deserve to be punished for hurting you. And you deserve to see it.” Reaching out, I take a chance and brush my thumb across her cheek.
Her eyes flutter closed and she squeezes them tight. “I want to forgive you,” she says.
“I was an asshole back then. We both know that. There’s a reason they called us the Classholes, but it’s no excuse. When I heard what had happened and saw the video, I hadn’t hurt that much since my mom died. Back then, there was no one to lash out at, and I had to be there to protect my sister. But when you hurt me, all I wanted to do was to cause you the same amount of pain I was feeling inside. I regretted it as soon as I did it. I know my apology won’t make up for what it did to your life.”
She shakes her head slowly. “No, it won’t.”
We stare into each other’s eyes for a few moments, each in our own heads.
“But you’re also the person who brought me back to life. And I don’t regret what happened between us because the end result is that I’m more myself now than I was when I arrived back here.”
I straddle the bench to face her and cup her face in my hands. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I can’t change the past, but I can tell you that I’ll never willingly hurt you again.”
Despite the circumstances, I mean it. Everything I’m trying to do is to protect her now.
“I can try. I don’t want to live in the past anymore. I want to live for the future. You just have to promise me that there won’t be any more secrets or lies.”
Dropping my forehead to hers, I inhale her addictive scent. “I’ll only protect you from now on, not hurt you.”
It’s the best I can give her, but it’s the truth. The fierce protectiveness I have for this woman should scare me, but it feels inevitable somehow and I’m tired of fighting it.
She pulls away and my stomach drops. I’m worried that she’s changed her mind. Instead, she looks into my eyes. “I believe you,” she whispers.
I shift one hand to the back of her head and bring her lips to meet mine, sliding my tongue into her mouth. Her taste turns my dick hard in my pants and it pushes against the fabric. Our kiss begins slow and languid but quickly becomes more frenetic and needy. The noises Isla makes in the back of her throat when my hand slides down and cups her breast through the thin fabric of her tank top are almost my undoing.
I brush her nipple with my thumb and she pushes her chest out, offering herself to me, so I squeeze a little harder. When I pinch her nipple between my thumb and forefinger, she sucks in a breath and lets her head fall back, ending our kiss.
“Garrin, I need you. I need you to make me feel something other than the sadness I’ve felt for the past few days.”
She doesn’t have to ask me twice. Without a word, I hook her under her armpits and hoist her so she’s sitting on top of the piano. At first her eyes are wide and questioning, but when I push her chest so she’ll lie down, her lids fall half-closed.
I waste no time pulling her ass to the edge of the piano and shimmying her pajama pants down her legs, tossing them carelessly behind me. Lifting her legs up, I set her feet on each of my shoulders.
Isla props herself up on her elbows and looks down her torso at me. “I’ve never…”
She’s never let a man go down on her.
Joy swells inside my chest. I’m going to be one of her firsts.
“Allow me to show you what you’ve been missing.”
Being gentle is probably a good idea, but I can’t wait any longer. Her bare pussy is open and waiting for me, already wet and I haven’t even touched her yet. Next time I’ll place sweet kisses up her thighs before diving in, but tonight I need to taste her and make her come on my tongue.
I hold her legs out to the side and lean in, swiping my tongue up her center. She practically lurches up of the piano.
“Hold your legs open.” I push her thighs toward her and she complies. “And don’t let them drop or I’ll stop. Understood?”
She nods enthusiastically and I commit the look of wild abandon on her face to my memory.
I delve in again, swiping bottom to top a few times, enjoying the sound of pleasure leaking from her. When I can tell she’s on the verge of letting her legs drop and trying to finish the job herself, I concentrate my efforts on her swollen bud, using my tongue to play with it until she’s a panting mess.
“Oh God, Garrin,” she moans.
“That’s rig
ht, sunshine, I am your God.” I move my face down and fuck her entrance with my tongue, her sweet and musky taste coating my tongue.
She’s close.
One of her hands reaches down to my head and grips my hair tight. I let it go that she let one of her legs drop, since she keeps it up by her chest.
Next I push two fingers into her and curl them so that I hit her G-spot. Her hips fly up off the piano, but I use my other hand to push her pelvis back down, taking my tongue and assaulting her clit. I keep going even as she thrashes, telling me it’s too much, she can’t stand it, until she explodes, crying out while her core clenches around my fingers. I move them up to her clit so I taste her release. Once I’m confident I’ve enjoyed every last bit of her, I stand and examine the goddess splayed across the piano.
Maybe I should move my piano out to my living area. I’ve created a new memory to associate with it now. One I wouldn’t mind revisiting over and over again.
31
Chapter Thirty-one
Isla
Since that night in the library, Garrin and I have spent time together when our schedules allow. Weeks have passed and it’s apparent to me that he’s trying not to push me, sensing that my forgiveness might be as fine a spider’s silk. It’s true—it is, but it’s also as strong as one.
I believe him when he says he’s remorseful. I’ve unwillingly held on to the shame for so many years that I made a conscious decision not to hold on to the anger at Garrin, even though it’d be easy to.
And so I find myself once again in his arms, naked in his bed after an intense round of sex that started in the gym while we were working out and ended on the floor of his bedroom. We dragged our sweaty selves up onto his bed and here we are.
No, I still can’t watch the man work out shirtless without all my female parts swooning and demanding attention. Garrin doesn’t seem to mind, though.
His hand drags lazily up and down my bare back, and my cheek rests on his hard chest.
“This might not be the best time to ask, but how is your dad doing?” His voice is a deep rumble under my ear.
The corners of my lips dip down. “In a lot of ways, he seems worse to me, but the doctors assure us it’s all part of the side effects of radiation. His breathing is shallow and he has difficulty swallowing. They’re going to do some more tests in a few weeks to see if it’s helping.”
“I’m sure the doctors know what they’re doing.” He squeezes my hip with his hand and kisses the top of my head.
“What was it like when your mom died?” I ask.
His breath hitches in his chest, and instantly, I’d like to take the question back. It’s just that he’s the only person I know who’s lost a parent. I can’t imagine how I’d ever get over it if Papi died.
“I used to sit by her bedside all the time. Harper was too young to really understand. She knew Mom was sick, but in her head, it was a cold or flu and she’d get better and then get back to being Mom again. I was old enough to see what the illness was doing to her. How it was slowly eating away at her and causing her to suffer. She fought so long to stick around for us kids. Looking back, I wish she hadn’t. She only prolonged her own suffering.”
I squeeze my arm wrapped around his waist. “You were so young. I’m having such a hard time dealing with what’s happening with my father, I can’t imagine doing it when I was a child.”
“My mom was my everything. She was the one bright spot in my life.” He pauses for a moment, but I don’t interrupt, sensing that he’s collecting his thoughts. “Growing up without her changed everything. It changed the person I would become.”
“Because you didn’t have a female influence?” I ask.
A dark chuckle sounds from his chest. “No, because my father is a sick bastard who tried to sink his claws into me.”
The venom in his voice causes me to lift up off his chest and look into his eyes. Pain and anger radiate from his black orbs.
“What do you mean?” I whisper.
“Even before my mom passed away, I knew what kind of man my father was—I could sense it. But my mom shielded Harper and me from the worst of it. After she passed, my shield was gone and I had to become the shield for Harper.” His jaw twitches.
“Did he… hit you?” I can barely get the words out, picturing a young Garrin cowering at the hands of an abusive father.
He shakes his head. “That would have been preferable in a lot of ways. My father’s go-to is to threaten the things I care about and take away the things I love. When I was twelve, I was into art. It was something my mother had introduced to me, so I tried to keep up with my drawing and painting after she was gone, even used her old supplies. Every time I’d sit down to paint with the same paintbrushes she had used for years, I felt closer to her, a little more at peace. But my dad thought that it was a stupid way to spend my time and wouldn’t further me in life.” He stops, and I patiently wait for him to continue.
“One day when I returned home from school, he called me to his office. I didn’t know why he wanted to see me, but he had me sit in the couch in front of the fireplace when I arrived and lectured me on my responsibility as the heir to his fortune and the Stone name. There was a fire going in the fireplace, which didn’t mean much when I first came in because there often was. But when his words started to drone into each other and my mind began to drift, they looked toward the fire and that’s when I noticed the edge of a canvas sticking out. I got up out of the chair and walked over to see that he’d burned everything. The few paintings I’d worked on, ones my mom had done herself and all her supplies. It felt like watching my mother’s body burn in front of me. I hadn’t cried that much since when I’d lost my mom, and my father told me that this would toughen me up, which was what I needed.”
I don’t even know what to say when he finishes talking. The cruelty of his father’s actions toward his own child makes my stomach roll.
“That’s awful,” I whisper as tears fill my eyes.
“That’s only one of many examples over the course of my childhood. I’m a cruel bastard because I was conditioned to be, but I assure you that my greatest fear is to become just like him.”
I sit up and straddle him so that I can cup his hands in my face. The hair from his five-o’clock shadow scratches my palms. “I don’t know your father, but I do know that you are not like him. If you were, you wouldn’t have told me about releasing the tape, and I never would have known. You’re a better man than him.” I lean in and press my lips to his.
His arms wrap around my waist and he deepens our kiss.
When I lean back, he tucks my hair behind my ears. “I want to be a better man, for you.”
“You already are,” I say, the words ringing true.
He still looks a little skeptical, but he’ll see for himself over time.
“I don’t know what I’ll do if I lose my dad,” I say, locking eyes with him.
Empathy shines through his dark irises. “You can’t think like that. You need to stay positive. But if the worst happens and you do, you’ll keep going. You’ll survive. You’re a survivor.”
There’s conviction in his words that I have yet to feel during this entire time.
“I don’t know.”
He grips me by the top of the shoulders, his gaze intense. “You will survive. I did and so will you.”
His words sound final, so I don’t argue. I don’t want to talk about this anymore anyway. I just want to curl up with him and watch some TV before his driver takes me home so that I can spend some time with my dad in the morning.
“Do you have any of that wine I like?” I ask him, changing the subject.
He takes the opportunity and runs with it. “I might be out up here, but I can grab some from the Titans’ Den. You wait here.”
I roll off him and scooch off the bed. “I’ll come with you.”
He gives me a curious look but doesn’t argue as we both get dressed. There’s something I’ve been wanting to do and I’m hop
ing this will provide me the opportunity.
Garrin takes my hand in his as we head toward the foyer to take the elevator down. “Fair warning, you never know what you’re gonna see when the elevator doors open on that level. Last month I had the distinct pleasure of walking in on Asher drilling some chick on the pool table.” He hits the button on the wall to call the elevator.
I scrunch my face up in distaste. “Well, let’s hope that’s not the case tonight.”
The elevator arrives and he chuckles as he steps inside. “No promises.”
A minute passes and the doors open on the Titans’ Den level. We step out, and thankfully there’s no sex happening, at least in the main area of the space. Asher, Lincoln, and Ryker are all seated on the couch, watching something on the television. Their heads swivel in our direction, and whoever has the remote pauses what’s on the screen.
“Don’t let us bother you. We’re just here for some wine.” Garrin drops my hand and walks past the seating area toward the large wine fridge that must hold more than a hundred bottles.
All three of the Classholes stand from the couch. None of them appear surprised to see me, but their expressions lead me to believe they might be a little curious as to what I’m doing here.
“Hey, Isla, how’s it going?” Lincoln says and steps toward me to give me a hug.
I return it.
“Thanks, good to see you again. I hear your cybersecurity firm has been quite successful. Congrats.”
“Like taking candy from a baby. Most of the corporations we work with wouldn’t know how to pen-test their shit if their children’s lives depended on it.” I look at him awkwardly because I have no idea what he’s talking about, and he chuckles.
“Sorry, I know nothing about cyber anything. Even back in high school, I always had to ask Everly for help when I had a problem with my computer.” I smile, but something passes over his face at the mention of Everly’s name, though I’m not sure exactly what.