Flawed (Triple Canopy Book 2)

by Riley Edwards

  But I hadn’t started planning for my future.

  Trey had.

  The evidence of that was a brick mansion in a gated community.

  “This house has five bedrooms, four and a half baths, a pool, and an HOA board that should be BUD/s instructors they’re so quick to jump on your shit. If I so much as leave my trashcan at the curb past eight a.m., there’s a letter in my mailbox. I’m not an HOA kinda guy. As I said, I got this place so cheap I actually bought the seller a five-hundred-dollar bottle of scotch I felt so bad. But the seller had retired. He and his wife wanted to move to Missouri where their daughter, son-in-law, and five grandchildren lived. They wanted to downsize and didn’t want the hassle of moving all their shit. They also didn’t want to wait for the market to go up. They bought this place at a good price, so even giving it to me for what they did they still made a whack. And even if they didn’t, Leon and his wife were far from hurting.”

  When I remained silent, Trey prompted, “Does that explain the house?”

  Being as it did, but it didn’t take the sting out of how I’d squandered the blessings my parents had given me, I only nodded.

  “Good. Now, would you like a tour of the house?”

  I wasn’t sure I wanted a tour. I wasn’t even sure how I’d ended up here.

  Jake.

  That was why I was standing in Trey’s fabulous living room.

  I glanced over his shoulder and my eyes caught on the fireplace. It really was too bad he wasn’t an HOA kind of guy, because that fireplace rocked. It might not get super-cold in Georgia but it still got chilly. And I’d bet sitting on that huge, gray suede couch with a fire roaring, cuddled under a blanket with Trey, would be awesome. So awesome, I’d never want to get up. So awesome, I could probably drag my backside out of bed on whatever day the trashcans had to be pulled in and do that at the butt-crack of dawn so there wouldn’t be a letter left in the mailbox.

  “Yeah, I’d like that,” I answered.

  “You gonna go silent on me again when I show you the sauna?”

  “You have a sauna?”

  “Yep. There’s also a Jacuzzi, a wine cellar—though it’s more like a big closet with racks, something called a butler’s pantry, and a library.”

  My gaze skidded back to his and my stomach clenched. I’d known Trey awhile, I’d seen a whole lot of different expressions pass over his handsome face, but I’d never seen him wary.

  “I’m sorry,” I grumbled. “You have a beautiful home.”

  “House,” he corrected. “This is just a house. A home is where you raise a family.”

  Something flashed across his face and I wondered if he wanted a family.

  “It’s beautiful nonetheless.”

  Trey dipped his chin, tagged my hand, and pulled me through the huge, formal dining room. Then he took me for a tour of his mansion and I’d found I was right—it was a mansion. Nearly six-thousand square feet. Way too much for one person. I found out his definition of a “big closet” and mine were two different things. The wine cellar was the size of my childhood bedroom. The walls were painted a deep maroon, the racks were mahogany, and in the middle of the room, three round, high-top tables sat four each. Presumably for tastings or entertaining. I wasn’t a wine person, nor was I into formal entertaining, however even I could appreciate the beauty of the cellar.

  The sauna was, well, a sauna. The Jacuzzi was to-die-for with a Japanese-style pergola surrounding it. One side had an intricate privacy screen, the other sides had curtains that were right then tied open. You could sit in the warm bubbling water and either have complete privacy or a view of the beautiful backyard.

  Trey completed the tour in the master bedroom. If you could call a room so large it had a king-sized bed, two nightstands, an armoire, a twelve-drawer dresser, a couch, two chairs, and an accent table a bedroom. Maybe it was called the master suite. Maybe it was simply called insanely huge, over-the-top, and unnecessary. Then again, I grew up in a home. Not big, not small, but there were six of us packed in and there was no such thing as personal space. Mom and Dad didn’t allow it, they wanted us close—physically and mentally. Even after Dad left the Army and started Triple Canopy and my parents could afford to scale up, they didn’t. They kept our family home.

  “You’ve gone silent again,” Trey teased.

  “It’s a lot to take in. Especially this.” I lifted my hand and swept the room. “This room alone is half the size of my condo.”

  Again Trey’s expression settled on wary.

  Crap.

  “I don’t know why you’re looking at me like that,” I said. “I don’t mean to be offensive. I’m just surprised. And not because I thought you would live in a crappy bachelor pad full of empty pizza boxes and beer cans. It’s just…this isn’t you. I don’t know how to explain it, but I promise I’m not doggin’ where you live. It’s beautiful.”

  His lips twitched and he stepped closer to me, forcing my head to tip back so I could continue to look at him. But when that lip twitch turned into a full-fledged smile, I was glad I’d tipped my head back. And when his mouth lowered to mine, I was doubly glad. I wouldn’t call what he did a kiss so much as a lip touch. The sweetness of it so earnest, I quivered.

  “What’s happening?” I whispered.

  “You know what’s happening, Adalynn.”

  “I don’t think I do.”

  “I made myself pretty damn clear what I wanted to happen.”

  He had made himself clear—crystal clear. But then he’d left with Brady and when he came back he didn’t look like a man who wanted to ‘take a chance and ride this out.’ He looked like a man who’d changed his mind and wanted to find a way to extradite himself from the situation as quickly as possible.

  “You said we’d talk later,” I reminded him.

  “Are you ready for that talk now?”

  No. No, I was not ready. I was standing in Trey’s master suite in his huge house with a thousand troubling thoughts running through my mind, stupefied why I’d brought up the talk he’d said we’d have in the first place. Maybe I’d thought he’d blow me off. Maybe that was what I secretly wanted. And suddenly I figured out what my problem was. I was not embarrassed about my small condo with no personality. I wasn’t shocked Trey lived in a showstopper in a gated community. I didn’t even really care he seemed to have his life together and investments and I absolutely did not.

  I was scared.

  Utterly terrified.

  And not of Jake. I thought everyone, most especially Trey, was making way too big of a deal about nothing.

  No, I was petrified that Trey had changed his mind.

  12

  I should’ve let Addy off the hook. She thought she’d offended me, when she’d done the opposite. I wasn’t insulted at her surprise I lived in a big house. I was ecstatic she noted it wasn’t my style. I was pleased as fuck it didn’t impress her. It didn’t change her opinion of me. It absolutely didn’t change her. If anything, it made her withdraw, and even that made me happy.

  Addy was who she was. She was nothing like any other woman I’d ever met. It wasn’t lost on me I was good-looking. I had a mirror, and even if I didn’t like the way women had thrown themselves at me—going back as far as I could remember—I didn’t have to work very hard—actually I didn’t have to work at all—to get a warm body in my bed. In high school, that worked for me. In my early twenties, that seriously worked for me.

  Then it got old. Then it got annoying. Then it became annoying as fuck I couldn’t sit in a bar with my friends without being approached. That was when my dislike for aggressive women started. There was no challenge, no chase, and for a man like me who needed both, I took little to no pleasure knowing all I needed to do was jerk my head to the exit sign and women would follow.

  That was not Adalynn. First, she wouldn’t catch that play. She’d be utterly clueless even if I’d pointed directly at her, then the door—she wouldn’t understand the meaning. And if by some miracle she’d caug
ht on, she would not wordlessly follow me out the door. She would not get in her car and let me follow her home. And she unequivocally would not fuck a man never having spoken to him. All of that was refreshing in a way that made what we’d shared earlier even sweeter.

  I was not a man she thought was hot and wanted to fuck. I was Trey. Now that she’d seen my house, which was so in-your-face and screamed money, she couldn’t miss I had some, and not a little, but a lot. Yet, she didn’t give the first fuck. She was still shy, unsure, sweet, innocent Addy. If anything, she didn’t like knowing I could afford a house like this. And that turned me the fuck on. I was still just Trey.

  I’d been a lot of things to a lot of women, but never had a single one of them just seen me.

  But Addy did.

  So, Addy looking around my house with curiosity, trying her best to disguise her mild distaste, wasn’t refreshing, it wasn’t a turn-on, it was everything. Which was going to make the conversation we needed to have, suck.

  “Bathroom’s through there.” I pointed to the door. “I’m gonna go down and get your bag. You can change. After that, your choice, we can talk up here, on the couch, or out by the pool.”

  “You should’ve told me you had a pool. I would’ve brought a suit.”

  Visions of Addy in the yellow bikini I saw her wear last summer assaulted my mind. The image so vivid, I remembered down to the minutest of details how the bottoms had sat low on her hips, how the triangle top had teased me all afternoon. I felt my cock stiffen the same way it had that day when I fought the need to take her somewhere private and slide the material to the side while leaving it tied around her neck.

  “Trey?”

  “The yellow one,” I demanded.

  “Huh?”

  “Tomorrow, we’re going to your house so you can get your yellow bikini.”

  “Yellow—”

  “The one you wore at your Uncle Lenox’s.”

  “You remember what color my bathing suit was?” Her pretty eyes widened.

  “Baby, that suit is burned into my memory. I hope to God I don’t lose my mind when I’m an old man because I want you in that yellow bikini to be the last thing I see while I slip from this life.”

  With that, I turned and left a gawking Addy standing in my room. We had things to talk about, and if I didn’t hurry and wrangle my cock into submission, there would be no discussions. I’d have her bent over my bed, balls deep, not thinking about bathing suits, what her father would do to me when he found out I was in love with his daughter, or Jake Belview—the motherfucker wouldn’t be a thought. And that would be a mistake. I had to stay sharp and keep Addy safe.

  I checked the doors, set the alarm in case Addy wanted to have our talk in my bed and I wouldn’t have to leave her again to come back down and arm it. I grabbed her heavy-ass bag and started the trek back through a monstrous house that was not a home. I used this time—and there was a lot of it—to get my head straight. She needed to understand where I was at, where I knew her family would be at, and how we were going to proceed.

  How I was going to accomplish all of that with Addy in my bed, I wasn’t sure.

  Heaven and hell.

  I wasn’t sure how I could be in both at the same time but I was. After Addy changed, she couldn’t hide her yawn so I made the decision for her and opted for our talk to happen in my bed. With her in a pair of cotton sleep shorts and a tight tank-top thing that I was sure had a specific name, but since I had a dick I didn’t have the first clue and truthfully didn’t care to know what it was called. I had two eyes and 20/20 vision so even if she wasn’t cuddled to my side, I wouldn’t have missed she’d taken off her bra, and the thin elastic digging into the flesh of her shoulders was working overtime keeping her full breasts contained. The color was pinkish, though Addy would likely call the shade some specific name that, again, me having a dick prevented me from knowing. Though, the way the hue complemented her skin tone was not missed.

  So, I was in heaven and hell at the same time and I’d put myself there. And the fuck of it was, I’d take this kind of hell every day of the week and twice on Sunday if it meant I had Addy at my side. Just like this. Her tucked to my side, her head resting on my shoulder, our legs tangled together, and her arm heavy across my stomach. She was stiff as a board, unsure, uncoordinated, and I would absolutely, without a doubt, take this over some overtly sexed-up woman making a grab for my cock. Addy was hesitant about what to do, where to put her hands, her legs, and I’d had to arrange her to the position we were currently in or she would’ve been on the other side of the bed making sure no inch of her body touched mine.

  “Know you’re tired, babe, but we hafta talk about a few things that are gonna happen tomorrow.”

  “Oh-kay,” she said on an exhale. And if it was possible, her body grew stiffer.

  “Relax.”

  “Not sure I can. You’re scaring me.”

  “You’ve got no reason to be scared. You’re not the one in danger of losing body parts.”

  “What?” She started to sit up but I tightened my arm around her and held tight.

  “I’m kidding.”

  I wasn’t, but I didn’t want to get into all the ways a human body could be dismembered—Jasper knowing all of those ways and how he wouldn’t hesitate.

  “Before I start, was there something in particular you wanted to talk about?” I offered, sensing her discord.

  There were a few beats of silence before I gave her a squeeze and told her, “You can be straight with me, Addy. Anything you have to say I want to hear. Especially if it’s scaring you.”

  I let the quiet stretch and finally she relaxed—not much, but I’d take it.

  “Why’d you look upset when you got back from The Station?”

  I blew out a breath and didn’t hesitate. The only way to get Addy to fully trust me was to earn it. She would give me some trust to start with, but the rest—the real trust, I’d have to work to get. And I planned on having all of Adalynn. Top to toe. Heart and soul. Unbreakable trust. I needed that from her.

  “Brady pointed out your dad was gonna have an issue with us.”

  “My dad?” Gone was any minuscule amount of tension she’d released.

  Fuck.

  “I’ve got mad respect for your dad. It has nothing to do with him owning the company I work for, his time in the Army, or him being your father, and everything to do with the kind of man he is. I respect he loves his family, he’s protective of his girls, that he’d lay down his life for his wife. He treats the people around him the way a man should, with care and understanding. With all that said, I get why he’s gonna have a problem. I just don’t care.”

  “Maybe you should explain that,” she said and jerked out of my arms. This time I let her go but only because I wanted to be able to look at her when I did as she asked.

  But I didn’t allow her to get far and I communicated this by trapping her hand on my chest and tightened my grip on her hip. She was sitting up, mostly on her side, looking down at me. Her hair was pulled up into a ponytail and honest to God, I had to use every inch of concentration I had to not let my attention wander to the graceful slope of her neck. Her pretty exposed throat, collarbone, and chest had me at a whole new level of alert. A place where my body was very aware of hers, but deeper still to a place where I was simply cognizant of her. Of all that she was, all that I had close, all that I wanted to have, keep, and hold for a lifetime.

  Ultimately, my need for her trust and understanding won out over my desire to greedily drink her in before I did very filthy things to her. So I was able to hold her gaze as I explained.

  “Jasper knows me. He knows as much as he can know about my military service, he knows I fucked up and almost killed his niece, he knows I just plain fucked up, but he also knows my reputation. And that I figure is going to be the black mark he hones in on. He wants better for you because you deserve better. I know that, too. I know you deserve the best, and I fall short of that in every way, but
I don’t care about that either. I know I should’ve continued to protect you from me and kept my distance. I didn’t do that, but I can’t say I regret giving in to what I’ve wanted since I first saw you because that would be a fucking lie.”

  I squeezed her hand resting on my chest. “I also wish I could blame what happened on something stupid like my control snapped, but it didn’t. I went to your house with the intent to make you mine. I did it willfully and fully aware it wasn’t right, but I didn’t care because I’m selfish as fuck and I know—knew it the very second I laid eyes on you—that you were the woman who was going to challenge me, frustrate me, push me, and I was gonna love every minute of it.”

  She shifted, but I wasn’t done. “I knew, Adalynn, just by one single look that you were what I’d been missing. So, I don’t care your dad’s gonna have a shit hemorrhage. I’m not gonna waste his time or mine trying to talk him around, because the man he is, that will not work. He’ll need proof you are who you are to me and that’s gonna take time. That I intend to give him. That’s the respect I’m going to extend to him. I’ll show him with time and deed what my intentions are.

  “But, baby, Brady was right, and we both better brace, because the wrath of Jasper Walker is gonna scorch the earth. And he’ll be coming at me with an assault team. Your uncles will take his back and I’ll feel the full weight of your family.”

  “Trey—”

  “Let me finish,” I cut her off. “I welcome it.”

  “Welcome it?”

  “Yep. Not only do I welcome it. You need it. And I’m fully prepared to give you everything you need including time, deed, and proving to your family I’m exactly what you’ve been missing.”

  “I don’t think I need that,” she whispered.