“I ran,” I eventually answer, giving Mosley a rueful smile. “And I enjoyed every minute of that sprint, brother. I ran with the bulls in Spain and skied some of the best snow in Europe. I did everything you can ever imagine a guy doing, and I fucked my way through half the continent without one shred of guilt. I lived more life than I thought possible for a guy like me.”
Mosley starts removing the meat from the grill and shoving a platter piled high on the table, his brisk movements telling me all I need to know. The guys aren’t at all impressed by the high life I lived.
“And now I want something that I don’t think I can have. No scratch that, I want something I know I shouldn’t but will take because I’m a selfish bastard who won’t take no for an answer,” I say with a growl, thinking of Nic and her date with Leo last night.
Mosley laughs, his chuckle more of a boom coming from that six four block of muscle.
“Nic ain’t no push over, pretty boy. That woman’s been running your daddy’s company for so long I swear she’s got all the competition by the balls and drooling after her fine ass. Do me a favor. Be good to her, or let her the fuck alone. I like you, man, but I will put your ass in the ground for that girl, and you know I ain’t joking.”
“I hear ya, man. Believe me, I’m not playing games. She’s mine, and I intend to get her,” I say, following him to the table, as the others start shuffling forward and grabbing seats.
By the time we’re all situated and our plates are filled, I feel at peace and calm. I like this shit. It not Monte Carlo or the French Riviera, but for some reason that I can’t define it’s more. I like it. The only thing missing is Nic, my future kid, and maybe a baby bump if I can do something about her birth control.
Is she on a contraception?
That reminds me of the still as yet unopened envelope sitting in my desk, the one I’d had Cris put together but never bothered to look at since I had my girl and thought I’d be keeping her.
“So anyone wanna tell me why we’re even talking to this prick?” Pollock grumbles, getting everyone’s attention when his booming voice echoes across the table. “You wouldn’t even answer your phone when I called.”
I have the inclination to be embarrassed before I remember that I don’t give a shit on a good day. Levelling my patented stare at him, the one that says “Hey, I could give a rat’s ass” I shrug and throw him a smirk.
“Sorry to break it to you princess, but some of us have real jobs. I don’t get to fuck around on the ice all day. I actually have to use my brain. Next time you call I’ll remember to answer so I don’t hurt your girly sensibilities.”
The women all laugh while Pollock grins and points at me with the piece of barbecued rib hanging from his fingers. “Screw you, James.”
“No thank you, Polly. I like my girls with much less hair and a whole lot prettier than you, cupcake.”
The back and forth insults keep the table laughing and in a good mood that is easier to handle now that the ice is broken, and I feel like less of a douche.
“So you coming next weekend?” Pollock asks when the women start clearing the table, leaving us to finish of our beers and relax.
“Next weekend?” I ask.
“Yeah, we all get together at the rink every third weekend of the month and play a friendly game against each other. The women get babysitters for the kids and hole up in one of the boxes. You should bring-oomph! Hey, Leo man, that was almost my balls dude!”
Leo grins and turns back to the table, his eyes sparking at me.
“You should bring a date along. I already asked Nico to come as my date. You wouldn’t want to be the odd man out, pretty boy.”
It took a lot, but somehow I manage not to lunge across the table and show him that I’m not a pretty boy, and that I was captain of our college team for a reason.
Instead I give him a smile, the same shark smile I used to reserve for opponents, letting him know that I’m ready and well-armed for whatever game he’s playing with me.
Everyone at this table knows that Nic is mine. Always has been and always will be. I love Leo, but I will not hesitate to break his legs. And arms.
“Bring it on, motherfucker.”
Chapter Nineteen
Nico
I’m nervous as hell about this hockey game after Leo told me about the barbecue. I know Law, old or new, and the guy does not respond well to competition.
To be honest, it makes me antsy just thinking of that cold, ruthless glint that I know he got when Leo goaded him in front of everyone.
Damn Leo. The man is hell bent on unseating Law from his pedestal, and if I wasn’t so desperate to get my plans moving along, I would have kicked him in the sack and demanded he stop making my life so difficult.
As it is, it’s only Wednesday, and Law has had me working such late hours, right by his side that I haven’t had time to do anything but fall into bed for a few measly hours before starting a new day.
It’s not lack of sleep that’s getting to me; it’s the fact that I know his game. The less time I have, the more fatigued I am, the less likely it will be that I’ll go out with Leo again.
The jealousy makes me giddy with laughter, but it’s killing me to be this close to him for such long periods without jumping his bones and riding myself to fulfilment. Seems once I woke the sleeping dragon that is my sex drive, the idiot took it to mean that she could have him at all times.
Just yesterday I’d been in a meeting, and it had been all I could do to focus and not stay fixated on the memory of Law and his mouth. And what I desperately want that mouth of his to do.
I want him so badly that I kind of think I’ve built the sex up in my head. Don’t misunderstand me, Law is an animal in the sack, but I’ve made it into this shining dream that plagues me constantly.
I want him, and I can have him. I know I can, if I’m willing to settle for this him. I’m not, so I guess I need to keep Lusty Lucy on a leash a little longer or I’m in deep shit.
“Hey, Nic. We need to stay late tonight to go over those Anderson reports. They want the new marketing campaign to kick off, but Phil says he’s not satisfied with what the marketing department has come up with,” Law says easily, strolling into my office and making himself comfortable at the seating area.
I take a few precious seconds to observe him, as he reads the file in his hands, and I feel my resolve slip another inch. God have mercy, the man is all kinds of hot and I want, want, want him so bad I’m walking around in a constant state of simmering arousal.
My panties have been wet all week, all day long, and it’s definitely not helping that he’s decided to spend three quarters of his day in my office, sprawled across the sofa like some high-powered tycoon sex god.
I want to walk over, rip his clothes off, and lick him all over like a human Popsicle. When he sucks his bottom lip into his mouth and his tongue peeks out, I swear I feel it shoot straight between my legs where I’m already prepared and more than willing to give him a show.
“Nic?”
I come out of my sex trance and realize I’m staring and practically panting while he’s been trying to get my attention for I don’t know how long.
My cheeks stain with a fiery blush, and I swallow, not daring to meet his eyes.
“Hhmm?”
Be nonchalant, I tell myself, trying desperately to calm my breathing from the open mouthed pant that makes me feel like a dog, a very female one...in heat.
I succeed, but barely, and wait for him to answer. When he doesn’t, I force my eyes up to see him staring at me lazily, his blue eyes shooting sparks my way.
Our eyes hold for an eternity before he breaks away and runs them over me, stopping at my breasts. His lip sucks back in, and I moan beneath my breath at the thought of those lips closing around my nipples.
The picture in my head is so intense that for a second I actually feel his mouth and the rough suckling he seems to enjoy so much. God! Why can’t he just do what I want so I can tell him
everything? The waiting is killing me, and the longer this goes on, the more nervous I get. Time is not on my side—and I know it.
“I want you so bad, babe,” he says with a growl, his body tenses and coils to strike. “I’ve been working us both half to death just so I can fall into bed without thinking of you constantly. But then I dream of you, and I wake up with my dick so hard it hurts.”
I swallow, throttling the words about to tumble out of my mouth. I want to say yes and tell him that I feel the same, that I fall into bed in an exhausted heap but wake in the early hours a sweaty, aroused mess, feeling cold and aching with loneliness.
I miss our time on the liner when he’d wrap himself around me and cradle me with his heat, lulling me to sleep with his breath and muttered endearments.
“The worst part of it all is that I know you want me just as bad. Tell me you want me just as bad, Nic. I need to hear the words.”
I want to say them so badly that my tongue aches with the lie that tumbles out of my lips.
“No. I don’t want you,” I whisper, watching him flinch and rear back in shock.
I want to qualify and tell him that I want the him that I know he’s hiding, the good guy who loved his friends and wouldn’t have left his girlfriend sitting outside his apartment in the dead of winter.
Before a word can leave my lips, he’s across the room and pulling me up and into his body, his eyes hard, nostrils flared in what I can only say is fury, and a whole lot of hurt.
“You don’t want me, Nic?”
His voice is a silky rasp and so soft it belies the look on his face. That is until he spears a hand into my hair and jerks my head up, bringing my eyes to his.
“I think you’re lying, Nic. I think you want me so bad that you made do with a husband you didn’t want and waited ten years to have my hands back on you. I remember how desperate you were the first time I touched you,” he says with a growl, sliding a hand under the hem of my skirt to cup my sex.
“Law.”
“You were so hot for me you came on the first go, babe. And you’re hot for me now. I knew without having to feel how wet you are. I could smell your need all the way across the room, just like I have every day of this week.”
Oh God. Stay strong, Nico. Do not let him seduce you so easily, not again. But I want him so bad, and he’s not wrong.
“Law!”
“This is mine, Nic,” he says with a growl, caressing my sex with a hard hand. “Don’t ever give it to another man again, or I swear to God you’ll be responsible for his death.”
Instead of fear and revulsion, his possessive actions and words make me feel all swoony and melting. This is the Law I’ve been looking for. Once, when we’d been at a frat party and a guy had tried to rub up against me, he’d broken the guy’s nose and taken me home only to screw the living daylights out of me for hours. At the end, he’d pinned me beneath him and made it clear that if I ever got near another man again he’d lose his shit and spank me so bad I wouldn’t sit for a week.
It might make me sick to like that possessive, violent reaction, but who the hell cares. I like knowing that my man is so obsessed with me that he’s willing to be violent to stake his claim.
Except today. Today I need him to back the hell off before I do something to set us back.
“I belong to no one, Lawson, least of all a spoiled rich boy who treated me like crap and breezed back into my life, thinking I can be had as easily as his next cup of coffee. We had a fling, and now it’s done.”
“Done? Babe, we’ve only just started,” he says with a snarl, pulling my mouth to his for a brutal kiss that immediately sets my blood on fire.
His hand hasn’t left me, and I moan when he wiggles a finger beneath my underwear leg and starts rubbing me in maddeningly slow circles. The contact is light and only glances off where I need it the most.
He’s teasing me, punishing me, and I freaking love it enough that I kiss him back before I can stop myself, my own hands gripping at his hair to pull him closer.
After long minutes of torture, Law pulls back and drops his hands, his chest billowing with grumbled snarls. “Stop being so fucking stubborn, Nic.”
“I’m going to dinner with Leo tonight, so you’re going to have to handle the campaign by yourself.”
I flee after those breathless words and only catch my breath when I’ve hit the lobby and the doors to the building. I’m going home to get ready for my date and screw everyone if they don’t like it. No way can I go back in there and get any work done anyway.
My plan is hanging on by a hair’s breath.
Chapter Twenty
Nico
“You need to stop giving in so easily. Make the guy work for it, Nico,” Leo grumbles, signaling to the waiter for another bottle of wine as we sit over the main course.
I’d run out of work and ignored Law’s repeated calls, going home just after one. I’d spent a good three hours in a coma, catching up on some much needed sleep, and then I’d gotten ready for my date, something I hadn’t wanted to do, feeling as if I were betraying Law in some way.
Ridiculous, seeing as the man has dipped his wick in so many other troughs that I could probably sleep with a different man every night for the next two years and never come close to his numbers.
I’m the one who should feel betrayed, and mostly I do since he’d hit the nail on the head. I’d married Brody and foregone sex, choosing to focus myself on my son, work, and the friendship I had with my husband.
Even after Bro died, I hadn’t allowed myself to entertain thoughts for another man, never mind going out there and dating. I’ve been fooling myself, telling myself that I don’t have time or the energy when really I suspect that I’ve been saving it for him all these years. That rat bastard.
It would serve him right if I took Leo home and indulged in the experiment I’ve been contemplating all afternoon. Part of me insists that I’m only so fixated on the butthead because he’s the first tail I’ve had in years, so it stands to reason that a substitute should do.
And yeah, Leo is more than a good choice. The man is a hundred different types of gorgeous, and I bet he’d be wild between the sheets. Unfortunately for me, my vagina hasn’t received the memo and everything south of my collar is cold enough to rival a glacier.
“Stop lecturing me, Leo. I’m not in the mood to hear what a stupid asshole I am tonight,” I grump, taking a healthy sip of wine.
He sighs and keeps eating, giving me a look every now and again to let me know that he’s not done, just revising his approach. Is it any wonder I haven’t been in contact with the man for years?
I love him but still…
“Okay. Just spit it out,” I say over dessert, losing patience when he gives me another look beneath his lashes.
“Has it occurred to you that Law may never change, Nico? What if he’s come back to do his duty, but that’s all? What if he’s been this emotionless A-hole for so long that he won’t ever be the guy we knew and loved? Sure, the old Law was a little immature, but he wasn’t…cold. He cared about his friends.”
“But he does care. Mose called me yesterday and told me how great it was to reconnect. He said Law was his old self, and he even ribbed you and Polly about being girls who figure skate and wouldn’t know a hockey puck if it bit you in the ass.”
That has to mean something right?
Leo sighs again and shakes his head. I swear, if I have to hear that sound one more time I’m going to slap his teeth free of their moorings.
“Law has always enjoyed verbal sparring, and I don’t think this version of him is any different. But he was definitely not his old self. He stood and stared at the kids all afternoon as if they were aliens from outer space, and he hasn’t called anyone since. We don’t even know if he’s coming to the game on Saturday and Polly invited him.”
“Oh, he’ll be there. Don’t you worry about that,” I say darkly, finishing the last sip of wine and holding my glass out for a refill before focusi
ng on dessert.
“That’s the thing. I’m not worried about him, sweetheart. It’s you that’s got me sweating. I promised Bro that I would be here if you needed me, and darling, you need me. Law isn’t the guy for you anymore.”
I refuse to believe that and glare at him to let him know how much I disagree.
“He has to be. I have more than me to think about here, Leo,” I finally say, feeling the weight of my mistakes all crash down on me in that second. “I should have done things differently. If I’d been less of a coward…but I was terrified to see him again so soon after everything.”
“Brody told me. I was there. You made the only decision you could under the circumstances. Law was not ready, and babe…”—he pauses and his eyes look over my left shoulder going hard—“I’m not sure he’s ready now.”
I think I know what I’ll see when I turn, but for some reason, some really messed up reason I have myself convinced that everything will still be okay, that I’m not about to see something that will break my heart.
I turn slowly, feeling dizzy, knowing that the wine is not responsible for it. No, the reason that I want to puke my guts up and pass out is because Law has just strolled into the restaurant, a tall, extremely attractive blonde draped all over him.
And he’s looking straight at me with a cold smirk that tells me that he knows what he’s doing and he’s enjoying every second of it. I want to crawl into the ground and hide when I feel my face flush and the sting of tears assault my eyes.
This afternoon had been my one shining moment of hope, a hope that he’s not only dashed in one fell swoop, but that he’s purposefully shattered into a million pieces.
I’m that easily replaceable? As if what we shared meant nothing?
But you told him that it was just a fling, I remind myself, feeling all kinds of foolish for what I said and a hundred times worse because I’d assumed that saying it would only make him try that much harder to bag me.
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