Devious Wingman: A Cocky Hero Club Novel

by Hagen, Casey

No exploration, no meaningful gazes, no words of affection—what I always wanted, but now it only pissed me off because somewhere deep inside, I craved the words.

  From her.

  I needed to see her heart, because once upon a time, she was the first place I’d always searched for the good in people.

  But I set the fuck ‘em and forget ‘em plan in motion and I’m to blame for the way she used me in this very moment.

  She cried out, tears rolling down her cheeks, but she never once stopped fucking me right back. With each thrust she put me in my place when I tried to take over.

  Rearing up, I kissed her.

  I ravaged her mouth and punished her with my teeth, swallowing every hiss that escaped from her bruised lips.

  My balls drew up tight, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold back this time.

  Grinding my teeth, I buried my face in her neck as I lost it. As this moment in time slipped through my fingers and we ended up one step closer to the end.

  Wrapping my hand around the back of her neck, I held her there, pulling her down on me harder and harder, sure I had to be hurting her, but she’d never show me.

  She took everything I dished out, like lashes from a whip, then and now, doing it with graceful strength, letting me turn into a merciless beast.

  The only person who fully embraced every part of me the way I was, my scars, my anger, my bitterness, and my self-loathing. She took it all, spinning my pain, smoothing the rough edges, giving me fucking soothing salvation.

  Slumping bonelessly against me, she panted out hot breaths against my neck before finding my mouth, calming me with soft, deep kisses as though she could hear my turbulent thoughts.

  Like a fucking balm to the ache in my heart at the way she also shut me out, I drank in each and every one.

  She’d won.

  Using her tenderness as a weapon, I surrendered to her. Wrapping my arms around her I pulled her so close as though I could tuck her right alongside my heart. Gone were the bites, the gnashing of teeth, and the way she clutched at my skin. No, she wouldn’t finish me off like that.

  Instead, she cupped my jaw, her thumb gliding over the stubble there soothing me.

  And the heavy silence…it turned into the first whispers of goodbye.

  Minutes ticked by, until finally, she slipped off my lap and nestled under the covers while I cleaned myself up and threw the condom away in her bathroom.

  When I got back, her breathing had already grown deep, sleep overtaking her in a matter of minutes.

  I crawled in beside her, reached for her, even as a hollow void filled my chest.

  She fucked me.

  She really fucked me.

  She shut me out and took.

  She locked her heart away from me, making me glad for the darkness so if she woke she wouldn’t see the look on my face, the one I imagined looked exactly like hers the day I walked out on her.

  My throat tight, I reached for anything to occupy my mind. I didn’t care what, just anything that would pull me from my own misery.

  Emory sighed and draped her leg over my thighs, her hands tightening on my ribs.

  And my heart cracked with how much I read into a gesture from her peaceful slumber.

  This would be enough. It had to be. I closed my eyes and let her scent wrap around me, each breath taking me deeper until I drifted right off with her.

  We found each other two more times in the night, but by four in the morning, all I could do was keep checking the clock. The thought of facing her in the light of day gutting me.

  The thought of leaving twisted me up, filling me with a familiar throb beating in time with my heart.

  I needed familiar.

  I crawled out from under the covers and reached for my jeans. Dragging them over my hips, I grabbed for my T-shirt, my gaze landing on my flannel shirt on the floor.

  I should take it. Break every last connection. Walk out the door and forget where she lived. Forget what it felt like to hear her scream for me…what it was like to come buried deep inside her.

  I looked back at the woman I loved—whatever love was when it came from a man like me. Pain rioted through me, emotional shrapnel tearing me to pieces from the inside out as the air squeezed from my lungs with the one simple word I’d fought acknowledging.

  I did the only thing I’d ever been good at doing.

  I walked away.

  13

  Air stuttered out of my lungs, my chest tight, my throat raw as I struggled to rein in my breathing. I’d never let him see what his leaving did to me.

  Not ever again.

  I’d die before he’d ever know how the chill replacing his heat plunged into my soul despite everything I did to protect myself from letting him back in. I knew from the moment the mattress shifted gently, he wasn’t only going to the bathroom or to get a drink. Not when the stifling air filled with the familiar despair of us.

  And the way he stopped to watch me sleep, I knew for sure I was right.

  His every movement screamed goodbye.

  For both of us.

  Until the next time.

  I’d shut him out over and over even as I took relentlessly from him. I punished us both for Ethan, for all the lost years, for the way Falcon held his shitty parentage in front of him like a goddamned shield so he wouldn’t have to admit to feeling anything for anyone and risk being hurt, for not being able to find a way back beyond this one stolen night.

  I persecuted us both for one moment in time that changed everything and robbed us of our future.

  The future I could see so clearly, and the future he didn’t dare admit he wanted.

  Each second he moved around the room echoed in my skull, his every faint sound magnified in the darkness. When the soft click of my bedroom door echoed through the room, I finally opened my eyes.

  He said I was done making tracks with my hot little mouth. He said I was his.

  He lied.

  Crawling out of bed I bit back a whimper, my tight muscles screaming in pure agony. A bone-deep ache took root inside me, making it hard to walk. All I wanted to do was scream at the unfairness of it all, but I had nothing. Just how he left me. How he always left me.

  Empty.

  I gingerly shuffled my way to the bathroom, lacking the energy to even pick up my feet, every last part of me wrecked, and turned on the light.

  Wincing, I waited for my eyes to adjust. With one last deep breath, I forced myself to look in the mirror.

  He’d left his mark.

  Everywhere.

  Patches of red from the scrape of his stubble, from his teeth, my swollen mouth—I’d be forced to see him every time I looked at my reflection.

  Each day, the evidence he’d been here would fade away until nothing was left.

  Nothing but my hollow heart.

  My chin trembled under the weight of trying to hold myself together. Grief and anguish won, and hot tears spilled over, racing in heavy tracks over my cheeks. I gripped the sink and hung my head, watching my hundredth, maybe thousandth round of spiraling pain splatter against the porcelain.

  Regret choked me until I struggled to suck in air.

  Why didn’t I take the chance?

  He was right there with me and I could have had him.

  All of him.

  He was telling me, but I wouldn’t listen. Couldn’t listen. Couldn’t lower my own shield, the one he’d taught me to wield so well by example.

  Now I’d never know what could have been.

  I swayed on my feet, slapping my palm against the door to brace myself as my heart threatened to explode in my chest. I wanted to scrub him from my skin in the shower as much as I wanted to hold on to every last bit of him lingering on me.

  A sob tore from my throat, the first sounds of my despair as I let him go.

  Again.

  Even as I knew, no matter how far I ran, no matter how much distance lay between us, we were tethered together. The tattered threads of our past never broke completely.
They stretched, grew so thin they were impossible to see, but they remained, binding us together, and when fate wanted to play another round, they snapped us together again.

  Each time, I’d wonder if it was the last time. There had to be a last time.

  Like with Ethan.

  My knees buckled under the panic and pain. Dropping to the cold tile, I slumped against my door and let it come. Minute after minute of grief choking me.

  Why couldn’t I stop loving him? What the hell was wrong with me that I couldn’t let this one damaged, stubborn, relentlessly punishing man go?

  I wanted a future. I deserved a future. One beyond my business. What kind of wife or mother could I be one day when he had this hold on me? Could I ever leave him in my past completely to move on or would I keep spinning in this hell over and over, the years slipping away, leaving a trail of regrets for the time I lost, loving someone who couldn’t love me the way I deserved.

  I told him he couldn’t have my heart. It wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t available because he already had it.

  He’d always had it.

  He had it carved into his forearm with a dagger sticking right through it.

  I never should have found him in Rigby’s.

  I should have told Hawk no from the beginning instead of playing with the fire.

  We’d never had a happily ever after.

  Only when my tears ran dry, my shoulder ached with the imprint of the panel edge from the door, and my ass fell asleep, did I finally get up. I wrapped my robe around me, huddling in the soft cotton, and trudged back to my bed only to catch sight of Falcon’s flannel shirt on the floor.

  The irony of being right back where I was before I ran into him nine days ago didn’t escape me. Only this time, I couldn’t banish his memory.

  He’d made sure of it.

  I’d made sure of it.

  Hating myself, hating him, I reached for the flannel and clutched it to my chest. Climbing into bed, onto the imprint of his body in my sheets, surrounded by his scent I’d barely be able to trace by morning, a fresh round of sobs racked me from the inside out, proving they really were never-ending.

  When the sun came up, I’d put myself together again, the same way I’d done time and time again.

  Knowing what I needed to do, I let go. I let the tears fall until my body gave in to total exhaustion and sleep rescued me from the pain.

  * * *

  “Are you ready to roll?” Soraya said when I opened the door eight hours later.

  “Yeah, just let me get—”

  She grabbed my forearm and pulled me back around to look at her. “Wait, what the hell happened to you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve been crying.”

  I rolled my eyes and blew a strand of hair out of my eyes. “I’m human, you know. We sometimes cry.”

  She looked up and down. “What happened?”

  “Nothing. Just a rough night, old memories,” I lied. I couldn’t crack open again. The balm of sleep had smoothed out my rough edges, and I’d promised myself I’d leave what happened here in this very condo to deal with when I got back, and that’s exactly what I intended to do.

  Her eyes narrowed as she studied me like a mother checking her daughter who came in a half hour after curfew. “You had sex.”

  “What the hell?” I don’t know what kind of radar Soraya had, but I knew damn well I’d covered all the marks. It took me a good half hour to get my concealer right, but dammit, I’d made it happen.

  “Ha!” she said, pointing at me. “You did have sex.”

  “Shhhh,” I said, glancing around for Graham. “I had a total lapse in judgment; that’s what I had, and no, I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Oh, we’re going to talk about the sex part when we have a few minutes alone, but first, did he hurt you?”

  “He always does,” I muttered, grabbing my light cardigan for the flight and hoisting my laptop bag over my shoulder.

  “Oh, honey.”

  She reached for me, but I took a step back. If she touched me right now with that tone, I didn’t know what I’d do, but the storm that ravaged me from the inside out still lingered, and I’d be damned if I’d put on a show for everyone. I’d hold it together. “Stop. It’s fine. I’m fine. I knew what I was getting into and I did it anyway. Totally my fault.”

  “You know, I had hope for you guys to maybe—”

  “Hope is dead.”

  “Tell me that’s not your motto,” Graham said, stepping into the doorway and taking the handle of my suitcase.

  “Not my motto.” I plastered a smile on my face and shot Soraya a warning glare that had her rolling her lips and making the gesture like she was zipping them shut.

  Meaning she would fill him in the minute I was out of earshot.

  Well, fine…if they were going to talk about how sad and pathetic the wedding planner was for not being able to hold a man, they could damn well do it out of said wedding planner’s earshot.

  I wrapped my arm around Graham’s shoulder and gave him a tug, kissing his stubbled cheek. “Thank you for doing this for me.”

  “Anytime. And I mean that.” He searched my eyes and tilted his head. “You okay?”

  “I’m great,” I said, squaring my shoulders and shaking back the ends of my low ponytail creeping over my shoulder. “A little tired, but I’ll rest on the plane. Nervous, but the nerves will be long gone by the time we land, and I’ll be ready to turn on the charm. I figure a couple overpriced drinks on the plane should help.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ve got you all hooked up. Go. I’ll get your bag.”

  “Thank you.”

  “How did Lorenzo handle mom and dad leaving?” I asked as we made our way downstairs.

  “Pshaw. Cole pulled a Hot Wheels collection out of his ass and Casper gave him an ice cream sandwich for breakfast. He’s fine with us being gone. Totally fine. He’s going to be a damn nightmare when we get back, but five days, I get five whole days with this man totally at my mercy and no threat of little feet bursting through the door asking if mommy is kissing a boo boo on Daddy’s pee pee.”

  “Oooooh, no, he didn’t.”

  “Oh yeah. My vagina died. Died I tell you.”

  “We’ll work on the resurrection in Arizona. Don’t you worry,” Graham said, waving off the driver and opening the door for us.

  “Mmmmm, my hero,” Soraya said with a laugh, giving him a seductive kiss right there on the sidewalk. The kind of kiss you don’t give at the altar.

  I wasn’t envious.

  Okay, I was so envious. And that was bad. After last night, I should be on a man moratorium.

  Falcon kissed me so thoroughly through the night I still tasted him on my tongue.

  “The one thing I can say, walking in on us, it’s all he can talk about now so he’s not so focused on what happened with Casper last month. The minute she wrapped those arms around him, he was all about not leaving Auntie Caspie. I’m thinking it’s a good sign.”

  “And they’re in New York, not Maine, so all of the other triggers have been effectively eliminated. I also hired security.”

  “You did think of everything,” Soraya said, giving him a watery smile.

  “Nothing’s happening to our son. Not on my watch. Last month was too damn close. I figured Casper and Cole would rest easier too. I sure as hell know I will…and that means I can focus on worshipping my hot wife.”

  “How’s Casper doing? Still healing well?” I asked, grasping for the change of subject. There was no better way to slow my roll on feeling sorry for myself than to think about Casper and Cole and the hell they’d been put through a month earlier.

  Dodging bullets and almost losing a pregnancy when Casper almost bled to death put every last piece of agony I’d been holding on to in perspective. Emotional pain was one thing…it hovered, it fluctuated, but I wouldn’t die from it.

  Even if at times it felt like it.

  “She’s thriving. She’s
made up of about ninety percent determination and ten percent the-fuck-you-will. She’s going to need it too since the dresses didn’t make it within the ten days. We have a small buffer in there before we start losing time the seamstress needs to make sure they all fit right. They’re supposed to let us know by the end of the week.”

  “Saturday. If they aren’t here by Saturday, tell me and we’ll go to plan B,” I said.

  “I don’t want you to think I offered the silent partnership to use you for—”

  “Stop that. I offered. I had some feelings about it before. About mixing business with friendship, but we’re not just friends, are we? We’re not just business partners. We’re family. You guys have been showing me in so many ways how I might as well be blood, only I—I didn’t see it until now is all.”

  Jesus, these people arranged all of this for me. They left their three-year-old son with family even after the horrible events of last month, for me. They believed in me so much they’d turned on a dime to lift me up at my lowest point.

  “Well, it’s about time you realized. We’re not letting you go, honey. You’re all ours,” Soraya said as she wrapped her arms around me.

  I held on, standing there on my front walk, the warm, later-summer sun hitting my face, giving me a sliver of hope. My mixed-up feelings from the night before disappeared farther and farther in the rearview, taking the very last qualm I had about getting involved in Casper and Cole’s wedding with them. I may not have a happily ever after in my near future—I may never have it—but I could make sure to give them one they never forgot. “You know what, if you have the information about the dresses, I’ll take it. I can fix this from the plane.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “I want to. Besides, it will get me in the groove by giving me something to focus on.”

  “Okay then,” she said, letting me go completely.

  Graham stood by the open car door. With a nod toward the back seat, he smiled. “Check out the cards. Tell me what you think.”

  Sliding onto the black leather, I grabbed the white box and flipped it open while Graham and Soraya got settled next to me.

  Velvet to the touch, the teal brush circle rose off the thick triple luxe cards. Forever embossed in a burnished gold shimmered as light danced over it, revealing a faint texture, nothing gaudy, just eye-catching enough to hold the eye.