Every Little Piece of Me: Orchid Valley, Book 1

by Ryan, Lexi

  “In some ways, it was,” she says softly, and when her eyes meet mine, there’s something like shame there. “I went to Vegas knowing I needed to make a decision about Julian.”

  “But the woman I spent that night with wasn’t in love with another man. I don’t know why, exactly, you decided to marry me, but I know you weren’t in love with anyone else.”

  “No,” she says, and her voice is so low it’s as if she wants to keep her secrets from all the strangers in this restaurant. “I wasn’t in love. Not in the way you mean.”

  “So why did you agree to marry him?”

  She looks around, and something like shame pulls at her features. “Can we get out of here?”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Marston

  Twilight has descended when we leave the restaurant, and the streetlamps cast the streets in a soft glow. “Want to walk or go to the car?”

  “Walk, if that’s okay?”

  I nod. The restaurant is tucked in a charming little residential neighborhood. The two-lane street’s lined with colorful craftsman homes, and the light breeze makes it the perfect temperature for a stroll.

  We’re two blocks down before she speaks again. “The spa,” she says, turning to look at me as if those two words explain everything and she expects me to react to this somehow. “The owner retired years ago after training me, and now her kids are pushing her to sell. She doesn’t do much with the place anymore. She would’ve sold sooner, but she was trying to give me a chance to be able to buy it from her. But . . . I’m not.”

  This surprises me, but then I remember that her father cut her off when she left the family company.

  “If you’re thinking of my sizable trust,” she says, catching my expression, “you should know that my grandfather was as much of a misogynist as my father is—maybe even more. He never forgave me for getting pregnant—and worse, for keeping Cami when I could’ve gone to my grave with this shameful secret instead. After Grandma passed, he changed his will to read that I didn’t get the money in my trust until I turned thirty or was married—and not just married, but married to a man my father approves of.”

  I bow my head. Part of me wanted it to be something like this, but I understand why she’s so ashamed. I’ve been the one who needed to work the system before. But damn her grandfather for being a spiteful old man and who thought he needed to punish Brinley for getting pregnant. “Who’s to say the man you marry will even be good with money?”

  “I know, right? God forbid a woman have access to that much money without a man to manage it for her.” She rolls her shoulders back as if she’s trying to shrug off tension. “And I’ve gone to the bank to see about a business loan, but they can’t offer me anything close to what I need. I screwed up my credit when I was younger, and now it’s biting me in the ass. And I won’t necessarily be out of a job if they sell to someone else, but . . .”

  I get it. The place is important to her, and she doesn’t trust it in anyone else’s hands. In her parents’ emotional absence, she’s made a new family of her best friends, and they all work there and depend on their jobs. “You want to maintain control.”

  “I do. My parents love Julian—probably more than they love me, if we’re being real here. Before I saw you in Vegas, I joked with him that I should just marry him so I could have access to my trust and buy The Orchid before it sold to someone who might change everything or fire me and my friends. Or both. He shrugged and said he was up for it, but of course I laughed it off. I told him that wasn’t fair to him and I’d find another way.” She sighs and does nothing but breathe for a few long moments as the sidewalk leads us up a steep hill.

  At the top, we stop to wait for the light to change. Cars whiz by as I turn to her. “What changed your mind?”

  “A few weeks later, he had an opportunity to buy an apartment building, but the owner wanted to sell to a married couple. She’d owned it with her husband and he’d passed, but she believed a married couple would care more about the families in the units. That a single guy would be more likely to price-gouge and run them off, that kind of thing.”

  I gape. “Wow. People do business like that?”

  “Small town.” She shrugs. “So, suddenly I wasn’t the only person who was going to benefit from this arrangement. He proposed we get married. I’d get The Orchid, and he’d get his new real-estate investment, and in the meantime we could both enjoy having a partner in life. Someone to talk to at the end of the day and take to business dinners.”

  “And someone to warm his bed,” I say, my words too hard.

  She cuts me a look and frowns. “That was a given. Julian and I had been sleeping together for years. Not regularly, but on and off. His plan made sense.”

  I want to tell her it was a terrible plan, but I know what it’s like to fight loneliness. And I know what it’s like to desperately want to create something of your own—and that’s what The Orchid is for her. The only difference is, she’s already built it, but now she might lose it anyway. “Where does Vegas fit in all this?”

  The signal changes, indicating we should walk, and we cross the busy street before she speaks again. “I think I knew I was going to say yes when I came looking for you.” She swallows. “I needed to see you one last time, maybe convince myself that whatever we had once was gone.”

  What we had will never be gone. Not as long as I draw breath. “And you were convinced? What you remembered of our night was enough to make you believe you could be happy with him?”

  “Nothing was that simple.” She stares off into the distance. “That night was enough to remind me that I forget myself when I’m with you. When I woke up with that ring on my finger, I realized I’d almost thrown away everything.” She shakes her head, and a tear spills down her face. “There are so many people at The Orchid and in the OV who rely on me. I love what I’ve built. I have a good life here, and Cami goes to a great school. I didn’t want passion that swept me away and made me as reckless as it did when we were kids. I wanted to keep my feet under me and do what’s right for everyone who will be affected by my decisions.”

  The blow of these words knocks me off balance. I stop walking, and she turns soft, apologetic eyes on me.

  If she’d told me she didn’t feel anything for me, it wouldn’t have hurt because I’d know she was lying. But hearing her say she’s been avoiding the kind of intensity we had? “You’d rather live a life without passion?” I ask. She didn’t want what she felt with me. She didn’t want to be reckless like she’d been with me. Reckless like she’d been the night her sister died. She still blames herself.

  She turns her palms up. “I thought so, but look at me. I’m here.”

  Yes. She is. “And what do you want now?”

  She searches my face. “I want the water and the desert, the night and the day. I want things that can’t exist together.” She grimaces. “Rich-bitch problems, right?”

  I stare at her for a long beat. “I’ve never thought your problems were trivial, Brinley.” Leaning forward, I brush my lips against hers. “And if you want things you’re not allowed to have, then we change the rules.”

  * * *

  Brinley

  Slowly, he lowers his mouth to mine and flicks his tongue across my lips. I open to him instinctively. I know we’re in the middle of the sidewalk and everyone who walks by is looking at us, but I want his kiss more than I want to avoid their notice.

  I slide one hand into his hair and clutch his forearm with the other. It’s not like starting over. It’s like picking up where we left off in the foyer Friday night, and I’m as turned on as I was when he let himself out the door. Tonight, I don’t want him to walk away. If I’m honest, I didn’t want him to before, either. It’s everything I crave in his kisses—warmth, affection, hunger, lust, and emotion shaken together in a cocktail I’ve never found with anyone else.

  He breaks away before I want him to, and I instinctively cling to his arm. “Ready to go?” he asks, and there are so
many more questions tucked inside that innocuous one that my nod feels like a promise.

  We hold hands on the walk back to the car and the whole drive home. It takes every bit of my restraint not to lean over the console and kiss his neck, rub my tight nipples against his arm. Maybe this is going too fast, or maybe he’s my husband and I don’t have to worry about slowing down. The truth is, I’m no closer to guessing what tomorrow will bring than I was before he asked me on this date.

  “Then we change the rules.”

  It sounds too good to be true, and I’m not sure I even want to see if it’s possible. The only thing I’m sure of is what I want tonight—those big hands on my thighs, those dark, greedy eyes all over me.

  “Fuck me, Brinley, but I can practically smell your thoughts over here.”

  I shift in my seat, the pulsing ache between my legs growing more insistent.

  The second he pulls off the interstate, I can’t resist anymore. I pull my hand from his and press it against his thigh, stretching across the console until I’m palming his dick through his jeans.

  A little moan escapes my mouth when I feel how hard he is. He lifts his hips off the seat, pressing into my touch. “Not yet, baby,” he murmurs. “Just give me another minute.”

  “I need to feel you.” I lean toward him, frustrated when my seatbelt stops me short. “I’m dying over here.”

  “I’ve got you.” He takes my hand off his crotch and moves it back to my side of the console. I push my head back against the headrest. “Shh.” He inches the hem of my skirt higher and higher, and I shift forward on the seat, desperate to get that hand where I need it. When he finally cups me between my legs, he curses. “You’re so fucking wet. Goddamn, I want to feel this all over me.”

  He strokes me through my underwear, the gentle friction of the lace against my clit making me writhe in the seat. I need him inside me—if not his cock, then his fingers—and I’m about to beg when Marston takes a sudden turn into the parking lot at Lake Blackledge. He pulls the brake on the car, and I don’t waste any time getting unbuckled and climbing over the console to straddle him.

  “I’ve never felt like this with anyone but you,” he says, his words husky and a little shaky. He’s as desperate for this as I am.

  His hands are on my thighs, sliding up and under my skirt, and mine are on his belt, clumsy and fumbling as I try to free him from his pants. He helps me, lifting his hips and helping me slide his jeans down just enough to free his cock.

  I keep a hand between our bodies, stroking him, and he goes thicker and harder in the palm of my hand. I grip him tightly, and the wetness that’s already gathered at the head slicks the path. He lifts his hips, jacking up into my hand.

  “Christ, that feels good,” he groans. “I need to touch you.” He peels down my dress and my bra in one rough tug, freeing my breast. He’s wild. Tongue, lips, teeth—flicking, kissing, nipping and sucking until I’m grinding myself on his thigh, desperate for release.

  “Condom?” The word comes out breathless.

  “Glovebox.” He’s already leaning over to open it. The box is unopened, and he tears it in his impatience to get inside. I take the condom from him, pull it from the foil package, then grip him at the base of his shaft as I slide it down his cock. I don’t let go until I’ve shifted my hips over him, his dick notched at my entrance.

  Slowly, I lower onto him, letting him fill me and stretch me. I don’t breathe again until he’s fully inside me, and then it’s in an inhale so ragged my entire body shakes. He shifts under me, and we start to move together. “Marston.” His name’s a gasp, a prayer, a revelation. My body’s clenched tight, and I’m barely holding off the release it so desperately wants. “I’ve missed you.”

  Maybe the words don’t make sense. Maybe I’m drunk on pleasure, but his face softens like he understands. “Every fucking day,” he whispers. His eyes are dark and heavy-lidded, but he holds my face in one big hand and locks his gaze on mine. “Promise me you’ll remember this tomorrow. I can’t have you forgetting this one.”

  My heart squeezes. “Yes,” I whisper, arching as I rock on him. “I promise I’ll remember.”

  My body ratchets tighter, even as my shoulders fall and the tension from my need drains away. He doesn’t release my face, doesn’t stop looking into my eyes, and I continue moving on him like that—his hand on my hip as I rock in tiny circles, gazes locked.

  “So beautiful,” he whispers. “I never stopped dreaming of this face. Never stopped—” He cuts himself off with a curse and a powerful upward thrust of his hips.

  Pleasure spirals. Builds. Tightens. Crests.

  I collapse forward, resting my head on his shoulder and rocking in desperate, jerky motions. The pleasure is too much and not enough. I want to slow down and make this last, but at the same time I want more skin, more friction, more time. A sob rips from me at the unwelcome reminder that this is temporary, but he presses his mouth to mine and swallows the sound, taking away the fear and grief with the slide of his tongue and nip of his teeth.

  When he releases my hip, it’s to slide between our bodies. His thumb finds my clit and he strokes. All the tension coils and loosens in a powerful spasm that has me muffling my moan in his chest.

  With one more forceful thrust of his hips, he bites my shoulder and buries himself deep inside me, his cock swelling with his release.

  I don’t know how many minutes we sit there, half-dressed, a sheen of sweat on our skin, clinging to each other as we catch our breath. When I straighten, he looks at me and chuckles, shaking his head.

  “What?” I smile. “You’re not supposed to laugh right after sex. You’ll give a girl a complex.” I’m not really offended, though. I couldn’t be with the joy I see in his eyes.

  “I’ve been looking forward to tonight for a hundred reasons, not the least of which was having you in my bed. You deserve better than a quick fuck in my car or a finger fuck under the table. And here we are, ten minutes from either of our beds, and I’ve taken you like a horny teenager.”

  I press a kiss to his neck. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  He skims his hands up and down my back, soothing, gentle strokes. “Oh, it was very fucking good, but I want more with you. I want skin and space to spread your legs. I want you completely nude while I taste every inch of you, and I want the whole night to do it.” My body clenches around him at those words, and he groans. “Come home with me. I need you out of this dress.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Brinley

  I nearly whimper when I walk into Marston’s rental. This isn’t a typical vacation property or temporary rental. This is an event property. The kind of place that’s rented out for a hefty price tag to people who plan to have on-site destination weddings and want to provide their guests with a place to stay.

  If I didn’t know how filthy rich Marston’s become in recent years, I’d think he was flexing by choosing this place, but the truth is he can afford it. He’s become accustomed to a lifestyle of only the best. It’s part of his brand. I used to live that life before I decided I wanted to prove to myself and my parents that I could do it on my own.

  Our steps echo through the massive foyer as he leads me inside and into the massive kitchen. I shake my head as I look around. “Do I even want to know how much you’re paying to rent this place?”

  He takes my purse and sets it on the marble breakfast bar. “It doesn’t matter.”

  I’m not sure if his evasion makes me feel better or worse, but I struggle to ignore the niggling in my gut that’s trying to ring the alarm at the inequity between us. We’re not at the point where it matters yet. If we get there, I’ll figure out a way to move forward and maintain my independence. “Show me around?”

  He quirks a brow. “To be clear, that’s not code for fuck me on the kitchen table?”

  I cackle and wink at him. “Not this time.”

  He blows out a breath. “Okay, the tour it is.”

  I have to
walk quickly to keep up with Marston’s long strides as he takes me through the living room with its wooden beam ceilings and massive stone fireplace, then up a gorgeous, winding staircase that overlooks the living room below. The sight reminds me so much of the room where we first kissed that my stomach pitches, but Marston isn’t so affected. He strides toward a dark hall, and the overhead lights flick on as he enters. Fancy.

  “There are five bedrooms,” he says. “All have en suites, but mine has the best view.”

  Marston opens a door and waves me inside. Unlike in the hall, he uses the switch on the wall to control these lights, but a sigh slips from my lips when I catch sight of the wall of windows and the view of the lake beyond. The Orchid sits on the opposite side of the lake, the landscaping lights around it giving it a beautiful and regal air.

  The bed and breakfast where we first made love had a view of the lake. I wonder if Marston remembers that. Remembers the way his hands shook as he positioned himself over me the first time and how scared he was that he’d hurt me. How it felt like our souls were connected that night . . . until the pounding on the door tore our love in half.

  I press my hand to my chest and swallow hard.

  “Are you okay?”

  I nod to the view. “It’s beautiful.”

  He studies me for a long beat, as if he’s trying to decide if he should share something with me. “I’m glad you like it,” he says softly.

  My brain is going a hundred miles an hour. What would’ve happened if I hadn’t spent that night with him? Has he truly forgiven me for the way I acted afterward? Could he be happy here if he could live in a place like this? Would I ever feel truly independent if I was married to someone who brought so much wealth to the table? Would he be willing to live a simpler life if I wasn’t comfortable with taking so much?

  “What’s going on in that mind of yours?” he asks softly.