“Nah,” he told her, not even thinking about it. “I’m not a dad.”
“That wasn’t the question I asked,” she clarified.
“It wasn’t?” he asked, genuinely confused.
“The question wasn’t whether or not you’d be a good dad, which you would be. If anyone knows that, it’s me. You always made sure we had food and protected me when I needed it. If that’s not the basics of parenting, I don’t know what is. But regardless, the question was if you want a family?”
He met her eyes, an eyebrow lifted at her insistence. “Then no, I don’t want a family.”
She waved her spoon to encompass his vast penthouse fit for someone transient. “So you just want to live here in this hotel penthouse forever? You don’t want to settle into an actual home where some faceless person hasn’t touched and made sure your toilet paper is shaped into a diamond point before you use it?”
His eyes lighted with sardonic humor, but he otherwise ignored her toilet-paper comment. “I have other hotels—I thought about living there, as well.”
“You know what I mean,” she insisted. “This is a lonely life here.”
His entire body stiffened and she felt the tension suddenly grow in the room, and regretted overstepping. She’d pushed too hard at the sensitive bits.
“Yeah, well, I worked damn hard for this lonely life, so if it’s okay with you I think I’ll enjoy it the way I want to.”
Yep, totally whiffed. Good job, Edwards, way to make him feel like a complete loser because he didn’t have a bowl of potpourri and a wreath on his door. Projecting much? But her dream had always been to make a home and family, to give her children the security and warmth she’d been deprived of for so long, and she couldn’t imagine a future without that. But now that she’d found Will again, she also couldn’t imagine a future without him.
“I’m sorry, Will, that’s not what I meant,” she said, laying a hand on his thick forearm, thankful that she could at least touch him now. “I just mean that maybe someday you’ll want to find someone and make a home, that’s all. I’m so proud of everything you’ve done. More than proud. I’m astonished, impressed, in awe, and yet, not at all surprised because to me you were always a star.”
Their eyes met and he was clearly still annoyed, but her honesty had taken the sting off her insinuation.
“I just hate thinking of you alone,” she continued in clarification. “You deserve someone special in your life.”
He held her eyes, his expression serious as the moment stretched.
But then he shook his head and looked away and they busied themselves with the task of putting the rest of the lasagna together. She noticed the deft way he took over placing the hot noodles for her, not even flinching as he took them straight from the pot of boiling water and arranged them in the pan as if he’d been doing it his entire life.
The silence grew tense and his body was so close to hers that she could smell the remnants of their afternoon in bed on him and it came flooding back to her in all its racy detail, simmering heat dancing along her skin. She’d never felt this kind of insistent ache and need for someone before, but it made sense that it would happen with Will.
After finally sliding the lasagna into the hot oven, she leaned against the kitchen island, meeting his eyes.
“Do you want to take your pants off now or would you like me to do it?”
Both his eyebrows shot up in surprise, but a little smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.
“I’d love for you to do it.”
“Your wish is my command,” she teased. She pushed away from the counter and stopped in front of him, running a hand down his chest, the fabric of his thermal soft under her fingers. “I’d like to return the favor from earlier.”
“I’m not standing in your way,” he told her still not touching her.
Laura hooked her fingers into the waistband of his gray joggers, and pushed them down his lean hips, but was still holding his eyes.
When she finally looked down she saw that he wasn’t wearing any underwear, and his thick cock sprang out, already semihard.
“Italian food really does it for you, huh?”
“Nah,” he shook his head, refusing to play, “you.”
A thrill of power went through the circuit of her veins like hot oil, her entire body heating from the inside out from his words. He was just so sexy, his mouth opened just slightly as he regarded her, his eyes focused, clear and hooded the tiniest bit, the dark pools intent on her.
His pants fell to the wood floor with a soft whoosh and she reached out a hand, almost afraid to touch him without the heat and urgency of their first time. That had been a temporary stay of sanity, an anomaly, something they could chalk up to combustible passion out of their control, but standing before him now was a different thing entirely. She was about to touch him and that would be a choice made with a clear head, with deliberation and thought.
In some weird way, she still felt like she needed to atone for leaving him all alone, and all alone on Christmas to boot. A vision of the messy-haired boy who tried so hard to care for her rose up in her head and her entire chest clutched with the guilt she’d so long ago put away in a box, never to be examined. But there was no choice now, so she sank to her knees in front of him.
“I’m sorry,” she told him, laying her head on his upper thigh, breathing him in like he was oxygen, life-giving and necessary. And maybe he was becoming that for her. Maybe he always was that. The only person who knew her when. There was something powerful in that. She didn’t like remembering the girl she’d been, but that scrappy, foul-mouthed teenager was a fighter and that was something Laura had never left behind. And she should have fought harder to find Will, she understood that now, looking around at how empty his life was and acknowledging her own ineptitude at opening up in relationships.
His long fingers threaded through her hair. “Don’t apologize to me, Laura.”
She shook her head, unable to stop the tears from forming behind her eyes. Blinking furiously, she wouldn’t let them fall, but the agony of all of it was swarming her, of how much he’d meant to her then and how much he already meant to her now. How much time they’d been lost to each other.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” she commanded, kissing a line of soft kisses across the ridged sections of his abdomen. Her tongue darted out, tasting the salty skin, the smooth, warm expanse and drowning in the blissful intimacy. It’d been a long time since she’d wanted to give someone a blow job, but when her hand wrapped around Will’s cock, fully hard now after her exploration, she could feast on him for days.
Her hand crept down, exerting pressure when she felt like it, but otherwise content to feel him, to show him with tenderness and desire that she wanted him like no other. She wanted to know him, every piece of skin, every strand of hair she considered under her purview. Then maybe she could scale his walls and make him believe in his future, one that wasn’t simply buying more hotels and living alone in them. Or maybe that was what she was afraid her life would be if she didn’t slow down and let someone else in for real. All her relationships ended before they’d really begun because she was looking for someone who would stick, who she wanted to build a family with and no one was ever special enough to fit the bill.
But this, giving Will pleasure, making him happy, that she could do. What she desperately needed to do to atone.
Drawing a thumb down the underside of his pulsing vein, excitement poured through her and she adjusted her legs wider to ease the friction. Her tongue followed the same line of her finger, tasting and testing as he remained rigid and seemingly unaffected by her. When she came to the top of him, her other hand traveled farther back as she took the head of him into her mouth and sucked gently, reverently. Her finger found that sensitive skin just beyond his balls and rubbed gently as she ran her tongue over his tip tasting the salty drop o
f him.
She took more of the rigid length, driving him deeper into her mouth inch by delicious inch. When she got to the bottom, he finally touched her, tilting up her chin so he could see her eyes. He held her there, the moment stretching, taut with meaning and lust and the complications that came with being the two of them. Unlike other men, he didn’t try to nudge her. When she swallowed, his eyes closed, opening again with a fire and pure heat in them, sending chills up her spine. He wasn’t sexy, he was sensuous, his rough-hewn body wound tight as a drum. She wanted his fingers in her hair, guiding her like she was used to, but he just held her chin there until eventually she moved with him, the erotic control of it thrilling.
He still followed her pace and when she accepted that he wanted her eyes on his, she sped up, her tongue flying over the velvet skin of his cock, feeling his cum mix with her own saliva, reveling in just how much she liked this. She was in control, totally and absolutely, of Will Walker, the man who owned the very structure they were standing in. The man who had built an empire on dreams and determination alone, his jaw clenched and fists white at his sides as he took his pleasure.
But he didn’t make noise, didn’t show her that he was enjoying it, their eyes locked as she slid him in and out of her mouth, her hand coming to grip the root of him. Taking a moment to swirl her tongue around the smooth bulbous head, a small sigh of pleasure escaped her throat as she took him all the way in again. In response, he caressed a hand down her hair, cupping her chin again, his thumb coming to rest on the corner of her lips as she worked him over.
She hummed again as she tasted and applied pressure to him, not caring if it lasted forever. She loved having him under her spell.
The only inkling she got that he was close to exploding was that he broke their eye contact to twist his head to the side, the stiff columns of muscles in this neck straining with his own pleasure as he grunted out his release.
She took all of him, satisfied that she’d pleased him, satisfied that she’d atoned just a little bit.
He helped her stand, drawing her into his arms, his hand lazily caressing her back.
I’m sorry, she wanted to say again, knowing it was the exact wrong thing to say, but not being able to think of anything else. She was looking for absolution and it wasn’t fair to him to provide it if he was still hurting. Which, looking around at his life, he was. Just like part of her always would, thinking that she didn’t deserve the kind of happiness other people took for granted.
He drew back, his eyes boring into hers. “You’re really good at that, but just so we’re clear, Laura, I don’t ever want a pity fuck. You get me?”
She nodded, but it only made her feel worse. Because while that hadn’t been what this was for her, she did need forgiveness from him. And she knew there was no way she was ever leaving this penthouse until she got it.
CHAPTER EIGHT
WILL COULDN’T REMEMBER how he’d spent any of his previous Christmas Eves, but he assumed that he’d been alone. And honestly, that had been just fine. But eating lasagna in front of the television with Laura was a new level of good that he hadn’t experienced yet.
Hell, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a home-cooked meal period, let alone a friend he wanted to share it with. In fact, he’d never truly had a home, which made the whole meal thing kind of impossible. His mom had tried her best, but she’d been an addict. He’d known even as a ten-year-old boy that something wasn’t right. Having been let down by every adult in his life, jaded didn’t even begin to describe how little faith and trust Will put into other people.
That was, until a scared twelve-year-old Laura had moved in next door and reminded him that some people were worth going out on a limb for. Now that he thought about it, the food she’d cooked tonight had been made in his hotel, which meant that it was as close to that home-cooked meal he’d coveted as a kid. Plus, he had the girl he’d once loved by his side, which made definitely made it his best Christmas Eve in memory. Add in the blow job she’d given him earlier and he was feeling as jolly as Santa Claus himself.
“Why are you staring at me?” Laura asked, fork full of cheesy lasagna poised to enter her mouth.
“The entire left side of your face is covered with sauce,” he lied.
She rolled her eyes, not falling for his dumb jokes. She never had really, which was why he’d liked her. Laura was never gullible, always quick and sharp, but still always the first to laugh. He’d missed that on his own. He’d missed a lot of things on his own if he was being honest with himself, which he usually was. He didn’t have time for anything else. He knew he was too scarred from his childhood for a relationship, would never expect someone to understand how it felt to feel worthless for so long and know that the entire world agreed. He had a lot of money now and things were different, but he didn’t expect any woman to stick around in a relationship he didn’t know how to have.
He reached down, discreetly dragging a finger through the red sauce on his plate before wiping it on the side of her face. Brown eyes bulging, she stared at him in utter shock. “Did you just wipe sauce on my face?”
“Yeah,” he confirmed. “You should thank me—I almost chose the butter.”
Holding his eyes as she wiped her face off, her expression tight with incredulity, he couldn’t help but grin. Christ, it’d been a long damn time since he’d just had fun.
“Are you twelve?” she asked, tossing the napkin on the wide glass coffee table.
“Maybe,” he told her. “By the way, this lasagna might be the best thing I’ve ever eaten. Thank you very much for making it.”
She let out an exaggerated huff of irritation that had him smiling again, biting the inside of his mouth to stop himself from laughing. He’d always loved to goad her, to tease and prod until they were in a fake fight and she’d shove or push him, which had always been what he’d wanted. For her to touch him in any way. He’d been a crafty kid and was now even a craftier adult.
“You know, I’m not going to keep falling for this thing where you’re kind of a jerk and then you say something super lovely. Can’t you just be nice to me without the rest?”
“Tomatoes have lots of antioxidants,” he told her. “I was doing you a favor. Getting rid of all those free radicals that dull the skin. What’s nicer than that?”
Her face screwed up into a comical confused state, lips twisting and eyes narrowing. “What the hell are you even talking about?”
He shrugged. “A man has to take care of his skin. I’ve learned things.”
She tried to flick him in the shoulder, a move he definitely remembered from their youth. So he caught her finger before she could actually inflict any pain on him. “Hey, I’m serious. I really appreciate you making the lasagna, the goofy tree, everything. You didn’t have to do any of it, but it means a lot that you did.”
Her eyes got soft then and the hand he held in his grew slack as he released it, but she leaned forward to give him a soft kiss on the cheek. “You’re welcome. I’m happy to cook for you and thank you for letting me. It’s my Christmas tradition, so it’s nice to have it even if I can’t be home.”
“No need to thank me,” he told her, picking up the remote for the television. “I’ll give you the choice of movie to show you with actions my immense gratitude.”
She took the remote from his hand, looking at him speculatively. “You’re really laying it on thick, aren’t you? I’m not going down on you again tonight if that’s what you’re angling for.”
He laughed, his chest vibrating with mirth. “Well, while I’d love that, I understand you have your limits.”
“You’re cracked,” she muttered, flipping on the television.
“Do you remember the Christmas that we had to borrow the neighbor’s car get to the mall and see a movie? We snuck into three different ones because we didn’t have any money?”
She snorted. “Ye
s, and we lifted snacks from the 7-Eleven first and I nearly got caught by that mean old cashier who hated me so much because I knocked over the chip stand that one time and he never forgave me.”
“Well, in his defense, you knocked down the chips to distract him while I smuggled half of the cookie shelf out,” Will pointed out dryly.
Laura laughed, the dimples appearing in her pale cheeks, warming him from the inside out. “How dare you take his side!”
“I would never,” he told her, holding her gaze as they both grinned. “If I recall, we nearly got thrown out of the movies because of those contraband snacks in the first place.”
She nodded. “Yeah, they were jerks. But we managed to get through all three movies.”
“And never got caught taking the car either.”
Laura sighed, forking off another piece of messy lasagna. “I’m glad we didn’t have to go into professional crime together, but we were clearly naturals.”
He laughed. “Yeah, I put my life of crime behind me as soon as I possibly could. Nothing on my rap sheet after I turned eighteen. That stuff stays with you.”
“Probably for the best, but we could have been like Bonnie and Clyde, you know,” she teased, glancing over at him, eyes twinkling with mischief. “Who knows what adventures we could have gotten up to?”
“We would have gotten ourselves an adventure in jail,” he said, his chest clenching involuntarily even as he joked around. Because no matter how crappy it might have been, he had wanted it to be just the two of them back then. He’d had a plan to get them to a better life, would have taken care of her then, too, just like he’d taken care of himself. That she hadn’t needed him was fine, but opening just a small door to the past was dredging a whole bunch of other shit up too. Like the devastation of being left again without a word, just like his mom, just like the foster parents who barely paid him any attention. At least his mom had promised him that she’d be right back. Laura hadn’t even bothered to lie before she’d left him.
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