“Do you know why that is, pretty girl?” I whispered against her ear.
I felt her shake her head against me.
“It’s because you’re mine. I’ve been waiting for you, Ellerslie Rush. You are mine. Nobody else sees me like I know you do either. I’m yours,” I growled at her possessively.
It was heavy, but I didn’t give a shit anymore. Starting now, I was putting it all on the line. She was mine, only mine. The sooner she understood that I wasn’t going anywhere, the better.
Game on, Ells.
***
Ellerslie looked over at me for about the one hundredth time since dinner was finished. I met her eyes and this time rather than a blush and a coy smile she raised one eyebrow at me in question and nodded towards the door. I could practically hear her saying ‘you wanna get out of here, cowboy?’
Oh hell yes.
“Well if you’ll excuse me, I have to ensure this beautiful woman makes it safely to her room.” I stood and prowled towards Ells as I spoke. “The cook never cleans, so go ahead and make yourselves useful.” Being the gentleman that I am, I offered El my arm as she stood. “Goodnight, everyone.”
We got a chorus of goodbyes and giggles as we left.
Ellerslie giggled at my speech.
“What are you laughing about, pretty girl?” I whispered against her ear. As soon as we cleared the doorway, I scooped her up into my arms and took off up the stairs. Ellerslie shrieked as I bounded up the stairs with her cradled delicately against my chest. I didn’t stop as we made it on to the landing and headed in the direction of my room.
“Sweet baby Jesus you are strong.” She chuckled against the side of my neck. “You can put me down now, cowboy. I get it. You Tarzan, me Jane.” She laughed.
God it felt good to make her laugh. It was the most beautiful sound in the world. I flipped her over my shoulder and smacked her ass. “Quit wiggling, Jane. I’ll put you down when I’m good and ready, woman,” I bellowed.
She shrieked again and her whole body shook with laughter.
We reached my door, and I realized suddenly that I hadn’t actually asked her if she wanted to come in. I set her gently to her feet and rubbed the back of my neck awkwardly. “Sorry, honey, I got caught up and didn’t even ask you if you wanted to come in and talk with me?”
She tapped my nose with her finger and shook her head in disbelief at me. “You are so strange sometimes. You’re fine with throwing me around like a caveman, but you apologize for assuming I’d want to talk to you?” she asked with one eyebrow raised in question.
I just shrugged at her, still waiting for an answer.
“There’s nowhere I’d rather be,” El told me and placed a sweet kiss on my cheek.
I opened the door for her. “Well then, after you, pretty girl.”
36. Ellerslie
“What?” Lawson asked with a smirk.
Dammit! Snapped eye-fucking him... again.
He’d caught me ogling him several times already. I hadn’t spent much time with Lawson in such a relaxed atmosphere. He was always easy going when he visited me at the office, but this was different. Seeing him in sweats and bare feet was doing strange things to me. It was a constant physical effort not to reach out and trace his firm muscles through his fitted t-shirt, not to run my hands through his shaggy hair, or to scratch my fingers through his rough stubble. The man was a walking orgasm.
“I’m just not used to seeing you like this. I’ve grown familiar with Lawson Pierce, sexy suit-wearing businessman. This is nice. I like seeing you so relaxed.”
He chuckled deeply and tilted his head down slightly, causing his hair to flop forward over his forehead. God he looked so sexy, lying on his bed like this – not a care in the world. He still completely dominated the entire space, Lawson could fill a room all on his own, but it was different here – he had let his guard down entirely.
“Sexy, huh?” He grinned.
I lightly smacked his shoulder. “Oh come on. Like you don’t know how sexy you are,” I told him with a raised eyebrow.
He growled deep in his throat and in one swift move was pressed on top of me, pinning me down onto the mattress.
“Why don’t you tell me?”
I swallowed deeply, suddenly nervous, as I looked up to meet his deep-green eyes.
Oh god... here come the truths.
“Your eyes,” I blurted out. “You see right through me and my defenses. It’s sexy as hell... your just-fucked hair, those lips.” I squirmed beneath the weight of his body. “Your body is perfection. These arms...” I ran my fingers lightly over his muscles and shuddered at their firmness. “They are perfection. God don’t even get me started on that tattoo. I want to explore every line of it.”
It was his turn to shudder.
I opened my mouth to carry on, but he silenced me. “Enough. I won’t be able to hold back if you carry on talking like that.” He blew out a deep breath. “Jesus Christ, Ells.” He rolled his body off mine and I instantly missed the warmth and weight of him. “I asked you here to talk, and I swear I’m not going to touch you. At least not until we’ve done just that.”
I couldn’t help the pout that appeared on my face. I knew there was little point in arguing with him – once Lawson set his mind to something, it may as well be considered done.
I rolled over to face him. “What do you want to talk about?”
His green eyes searched my face. “I don’t want anything to come between us, pretty girl. So I need to know... everything. About Baxter.”
I cringed at the sound of that prick’s name coming from his perfect mouth. But he carried on without acknowledging my reaction.
“And I need to tell you about what happened to me back home.” He ran a finger lightly down the side of my face. “What you’ve pulled me out of.”
My whole body warmed at his statement.
Is it possible this is all real?
“Can I go first?” I murmured. Lawson just gave me a small nod, indicating I should go ahead.
Deep breath.
“I met Baxter at a café not far from where I worked. He was charming, smart, and handsome. It was about two and a half years ago. We were a couple for a few months before we moved in together, soon after that we were engaged. Then married. Big wedding, white dress, the whole shooting box.”
What a waste of money that was.
“Baxter wanted to make a career move over to Rush communications, but my father and I were both against the idea. His skills weren’t an asset to the company, and his qualifications weren’t relevant. I actually considered just creating a position for him, since he was my husband. But something just didn’t feel right, so I held off.”
Thank god.
“Looking back now, I know my father never would have allowed it anyway. I think he always saw Baxter for what he really was, but he never said anything, in fear of upsetting me.” I took a deep breath.
Lawson squeezed my leg in support. His intense green eyes hadn’t left my face for a second.
“So anyway, life went on. But something wasn’t right. I could feel it. I mean we were still newlyweds, we should have still been in that honeymoon phase, right? It worsened as the weeks went by. He would still tell me he loved me, kiss me, but he wasn’t really there. I tried everything I could think of – I spent more time at home, bought new lingerie, made more of an effort with my appearance. But he barely noticed. When he ended it with me, we hadn’t had sex for months.”
I couldn’t help but notice the slightly smug smile I got from Lawson with that last bit and I rolled my eyes.
“Sorry, carry on.” He held up his hands in surrender.
“I knew he was hiding something from me – he never was much of a liar. He eventually confessed to cheating on me – he told me it just wasn’t working for him anymore. But I’m not stupid, I know that it all fell apart after I denied him a job with the company. I think that was all he ever wanted from me. I saw him out holding hands with Amelia not long af
ter that.”
Lawson tensed – he was angry.
“I never asked who he cheated with, it didn’t matter – it was done, he made it clear he didn’t want to fix things. But when I found out it was her? Stupid bitch was meant to be my friend. She was in our wedding party for God’s sake. Well, I’m guessing you know the rest? The extent of the cheating? The baby?” I asked him.
“Yeah, honey, I know about that bit,” Lawson told me softly.
“He made me feel worthless. Like I wasn’t enough. I worried he didn’t want me because I wasn’t pretty enough, or skinny enough, or smart enough. If it weren’t for Quinn, I don’t know how I would have gotten through even one day of that pain. She reminded me every day that it was him – not me. He was the screwed-up one.”
Lawson’s hand found mine and he tugged it up to his mouth. I watched as he placed soft kisses to each of my knuckles. “Look at me, Ellerslie.”
I felt goosebumps cover my skin. I forced my eyes up to meet his. “You... you are the most amazing woman I have ever met. You are so much more than enough. You are everything.”
“Lawson,” I whispered – pleading with him to stop, but begging him to continue.
He carried on. “You are the sexiest woman I have ever laid eyes on, Ells. God, you’re so god damn beautiful. But your real beauty is in the way you think, the way you talk. The way you crinkle your nose or cock your head to the side. You’re beautiful when you look straight into my eyes and lay your soul bare to me. Your smile is the most precious thing about you and your laugh sounds like coming home.” He kissed my hand again. “You. Are. Everything.”
I gasped at his words – tears building in my eyes.. This couldn’t be real. Those words couldn’t be meant for me. I wanted to look around the room to see who he was talking to, because it couldn’t be me...
Could it?
I couldn’t bring myself to look away from his possessive stare, his eyes were screaming at me to believe him – that he was speaking nothing but the truth.
“I... thank you,” I whispered, a single tear falling from my eye.
He didn’t say a word, just wiped the tear away with his thumb and pressed it to his lips.
He stared into my eyes for what seemed like an eternity. “I’ll spend as long as it takes making you believe every word.”
I couldn’t fight the urge I had to be in his arms, he must have sensed it too. I scrambled towards his body at the same time that he pulled me in. I broke down in huge sobs. My body wracked with each wave of tears.
Lawson held me tight, allowing me to get it all out.
I didn’t let myself feel like this very often, but I needed it now. I needed to get it all out of my system and move on. I had an amazing man here with me who said words meant for movie scripts, who treated me like I was the world to him.
I vowed right there and then that I would never let Baxter Dent come between us like this ever again.
The tears and sobs finally subsided and I let out an embarrassed giggle.
“Holy shit, honey,” he murmured quietly against my hair.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“Don’t be sorry. You’ve been strong for so long.” He stroked my hair gently. “Are you okay now?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I am. Thanks for letting me get that out. I feel better. He’s gone now,” I hiccupped.
“He’s gone, pretty girl. I’m here now. I won’t ever let that piece of shit hurt you again.”
“I know,” I whispered as I snuggled back into his broad chest – and I did know. It was getting more and more difficult to deny Lawson’s feelings for me. He was about as subtle as a freight train.
The next question was, could I let myself feel that way about him?
“You deserve the kind of love you would give someone else.”
- Author unknown
37. Lawson
Jesus Christ. If that prick ever so much as set eyes on Ells again I was going to knock his fuckin’ block off. I’d stayed as calm as I possibly could while she told me the whole story.
For her sake.
I’d held her while she cried her eyes out and her whole body shook. It had ripped me wide open. I was never going to be the source of pain like that for Ellerslie. She would never doubt how much I cared for her, how special she was. I’d poured my heart out to her and comforted her as she rid that bastard from her heart. I’d felt a weight lift off the both of us, and I used that freeing feeling to man-up and tell her my secrets.
“I was about twenty years old, my grandmother had recently passed away and my grandfather wasn’t doing so great... that’s when I met Piper. She was younger than me, but only by a couple of years. She was the sweetest girl I had ever met. She was pure and fragile and innocent. I fell in love with her within a day – she was everything to me within a week.” I chuckled to myself.
I guess when I fall, I fall hard.
“Anyway, we had been together for about six months, living together for about three months or so when I started to notice things about her that I’d never seen before. She suddenly didn’t seem so innocent. But I had my rose-tinted glasses on and I brushed it off as nothing.” I took a deep breath. “My Pop passed away around then too. It was a shitty time for me, Q and my Mom. We all took it really hard, especially with having just lost Nana.”
My grandparents were incredible. Their love for one another had never wavered, never faded into the background of their lives. I knew when my Nana passed that we wouldn’t have long with Pop. You could see it in his eyes, his main reason for living was gone. I’ve always believed he died of a broken heart.
Ells was still in my arms and sensing my emotions on the subject, she had begun tracing light patterns up and down my arm. The repetitiveness was soothing – calming.
“Piper knew how close I was to my grandparents, and I didn’t hesitate to tell her when I received my inheritance. It was probably only a few weeks later when she began asking me for money for various things. It wasn’t much, hell I could afford it... and I loved her. I told her my password for my online banking and told her to go ahead and pay the latest bill she owed.”
I focused again on Ells’ delicate fingers lightly rubbing my skin. She was setting me on fire.
Does she feel that too?
“I came home from work that day... and she was gone. She’d emptied my account, taken about forty thousand in total.”
Ellerslie gasped.
“It could have been a lot worse. My grandparents left Quinn and I both a small fortune. Thankfully, I’d invested the bulk of mine. What she took was just the amount I’d left for cash flow.”
“Did she get caught?”
I shook my head. “No. She didn’t. I found her though. Her name is Jessie. She’s a pro. A lot older than I thought she was too – apparently she’s been scamming for years. When the private investigator I’d hired found her she was working on her next victim, and I had chewed through a solid whack of my inheritance paying him for his time.”
“Did you confront her?”
I knew she would want to know about that. It was a huge part of the reason I’d told hardly anyone about Piper – well... Jessie. I could have done something to make her pay, and I didn’t. It was weak of me.
I shook my head again.
“You still loved her.” It wasn’t a question. She was right – I had still loved her.
“I checked out the guy she was playing with. He was an old guy and absolutely loaded. I was all set to air her dirty laundry to him when I discovered he had a wife and kids at home – Piper was his mistress. I decided they deserved each other and left it at that. I checked in a few years later and found she was in jail. She’d finally got caught.”
“I’m glad,” El replied softly.
“Me too. It doesn’t get me my grandparents’ money back or make the betrayal any less painful, but it does help – knowing that she’s not scamming anybody else. And it was never about the money. Not really.”
“I’m
so sorry that it wasn’t real, Lawson. That you loved someone who didn’t love you back.” Ellerslie saw right through what I was saying and saw the truth. She could see it was loving Piper that had screwed me up – loving her and not being loved in return.
“I guess we have that in common, pretty girl.” I stroked my hand down her silky hair and soaked in the warmth of her. “From that moment on, I decided love was a load of shit. Commitment? Ridiculous. Feelings? Unnecessary. I became a heartless bastard who wanted nothing more than casual encounters with plenty of women.” I felt El flinch, but I carried on, she needed to hear it. “For the past ten years, I haven’t had anything other than a series of meaningless fucks. I’ve never developed any feelings towards a single woman I’ve been with. There was never any difference between any of them.”
Ellerslie’s body had tensed in my arms. “I get it okay. You’re a man whore.”
I shrugged. “I was. I can’t change who I was. But I can change who I am now. I already have changed. I don’t think I’ve so much as looked at another woman since some punchy blonde bird handed me my balls in a parking garage.”
I felt her relax as she laughed lightly at the memory.
“You are the difference, Ellerslie. The only difference.”
Jesus Christ, I’m a sap.
“Do you write part-time for Hallmark or something?” I laughed at her joke – Ells and I were on exactly the same wavelength.
“It’s you. You’re making me soft. It’s not going to be good for my reputation, you know?”
Ellerslie rolled into me and lifted her head to look at my face. She settled with her face in her hands – elbows resting on my chest, the entire rest of her body pressed against mine. I was so hard for her. There was no way in hell she wouldn’t notice.
“Making you soft, am I?” she teased. Wiggling her hips a little, she feigned confusion. “But you don’t feel soft...”
Love like Yours Series Box Set: Books 1 - 4 Page 16
