Abrupt

by Kathy Coopmans

  Seeing him here dressed in a black suit and pink tie that if I placed a bet, Lexi picked out is adding to all the turmoil having him back in my life is creating.

  God, the man is too gorgeous that it’s difficult to look away. It was always like that. He’d catch me staring in the high school hallways. Just the smallest glimpse was enough to get me through the rough days of keeping him a secret.

  My legs tremble as I advance into my office and shut the door behind me. My hand refusing to let go of the firm grip on the doorknob to avoid the temptation of reaching out and touching his skin. To plant my face into his chest, inhale his scent, and have him hold me.

  I don’t want him to tell me everything is alright. It might never be again. I could be one of those mothers who live the rest of her life, not knowing if her child is dead or alive. I’m not that far down the rabbit hole to hell to realize that. I just refuse to say it out loud.

  Comfort. That’s all I want—someone to ease the pain even if we’re both feeling it.

  I’d take all Lane’s away if I could. Bottle and store it in a place inside of me where it would never touch him, but I can’t.

  “Lane, is everything okay? Look, I know running out was wrong, I…” can’t seem to form the rest of the sentence. I was never this way. I used to be quick with my words, say whatever was on my mind, whether someone wanted to hear it or not. It goes to show how much I missed the woman I was. How much Joseph dragged her out of me.

  God, I hate him.

  “You what?” There’s so much affection and hurt, and hope and frustration in his gaze when he glances my way that I’m thankful I’m hanging onto something, or my wobbly legs would give out.

  “I’m sorry.”

  The man says nothing more as he continues to stare. Taking in every inch of my face.

  Needing to sit, I release my grip on the door as well as holding onto his gaze. I move past him to take a seat in my chair behind my desk.

  The sight a minute ago when I noticed him standing in the middle of the room unmoving as he stared down at the photo of Luca he’d taken, rooted me to my spot. I wasn’t sure if I couldn’t move out of fear that something happened to Luca or because a spark has been flickering in my mind since I saw him last as I laid in bed thinking of no one else, but this beautiful, protective man with a side order of danger and seeing him here again sends that ember with one look, one touch from him will throw my body up in flames if I let it.

  My throat dries, nerves rapidly firing when he lets out a breath and looks back at the photo. He’s aching.

  “That was taken on his birthday last year. He was born on September 10th.” He’ll be ten. His Golden birthday is less than a few months away. To some, that means nothing. To me, it’s everything now that Lane knows. Hope has to pull through and bring Luca back before then. Missing holidays are one thing. Missing his birthday will have me hitting rock bottom. And I’ve tried so hard not to fall into the depressed state I’ll never recover from.

  “He’ll be home by then.” There’s not much hope behind his words. Par for the course, I suppose when the man is right there beside me now—going through the worst nightmare of a parent’s life.

  That’s what this is. It’s a recurring daily nightmare you can’t escape from, no matter what.

  There’s more to Lane’s pain than Luca. It’s his pain when it comes to me. It’s inside of me too. I wish that spark would burn it away. I’ve hoped and wished for a lot of things when it comes to the mistakes I’ve made.

  Concern sets in when he still hasn’t told me why he’s here, so I go with what I planned on telling him the next time we saw each other.

  “Ellie came to see me the other day. She told me everything. I don’t deserve what you’re doing for me. In a matter of days, you made me feel like I’m worth something. You make me want to try to live again.” I know if I want to feel and breathe and live a life filled with happy emotions, I have to work for them. Without Luca, I don’t know if I have it in me to try, but I want to.

  I told my father the same thing last night while we cleaned the kitchen after dinner and got onto Lane as our subject. I’d been waiting for him to ask me about Lane and me. When he didn’t, I brought him up to clear the last bit of polluted air between us. I nearly stumbled when a smile lit up my father’s face. It wasn’t one of his best smiles, but it was much better than the spitting anger from the night in his office.

  He did wise me up as well as shock me with his sudden change of heart by placing his finger under my chin to force me to look at him. He apologized once again, before telling me true love has a way of finding its way back home. And when it does, it’s worth the fight to knock down the past that tore you apart.

  I do love Lane. I’m nowhere ready to fall head over heels into it. Someday I might. I have to work on letting go of my fear before anything else. I won’t drag him into my hole any farther than he is.

  “You deserve everything, Sienna. I’ll prove it to you if you let me. That’s all I ever wanted was to give you everything. I’m not talking materialistically. I mean a lifetime of happiness. To give you all of me and to get all of you in return.” Lifting his head, he studies me for a moment, with a determined stare, then expels a breath before looking away.

  Need twists in my stomach. My pulse is picking up speed, heart back to fluttering again. I have a feeling that the organ wants to kick-start back to life quicker than my mind does.

  Luca’s face flashes in front of my eyes. It blots me with reminders of guilt. No matter how much I try pushing it aside, it’s going to be there. It can’t be helped.

  “I’m starving for you. A hunger that won’t subside until I taste every inch of you. Even then, it won’t be enough. It’ll never be enough. Not with you, La Mia Vita. Not with you.” The last comes off his lips on a whisper as his firm, pain-filled gaze lifts to mine.

  “You scare me, Lane.”

  “I don’t scare you. Your guilty-fear-filled conscience does. You won’t shove it aside enough to let yourself feel, that’s why you ran out of my house. You are hanging on by a fine-thread. I understand that more than you think. I’m barely hanging on too, Sienna. While I’m happy to be stuck here with you, my mind wants to be searching for our son.” His throat bobs, words gruff.

  I’m glad he isn’t. There’s nothing more to say about that.

  “You want to protect Lexi and me from Joseph. I couldn’t care for you more because of it. I wasn’t born yesterday. I know if that rotten asshole called you right now, tomorrow, ten years from now, you’d do what he asks. No one would blame you for that, but I’m standing before you now telling you it won’t come to that. I won’t let it. Do you hear me? He doesn’t get to touch, come near or breathe your air again. You are not alone in this anymore. I mean that in every aspect of the word. I won’t give up on you and me. You get all that straight right now.” He punches those words out as if he’d been waiting to say them. As if he knew what I was going to say. He probably did as I’m sure it’s written all over my face.

  And it angers me.

  “I have a right to be scared of everything when it comes to Joseph. I have a right not to want to hurt you or Lexi.” Fear and frustration build. My voice is getting stronger by the second. “I have a right to be scared of losing someone else! I have a right to be terrified of putting someone else in danger!” Sorrow takes the driver’s seat. “Lane, he’s out there somewhere. He won’t let me be happy if he finds out I am.” I trip over my words because I want to take that leap and everything that comes with still caring about this man.

  “Joseph won’t have a goddamn choice. He comes within a mile of you, or he breathes too fucking loud in your general direction, we’ll know. If he shows in this city without Luca, his welcome committee will serve the kind of pain that would make the Devil himself confess. You are surrounded twenty-four hours of the day. You told me you knew you were safe. You weren’t born yesterday, Sienna. The men watching you, me, Lexi, and my family are professionals,
and you know it. Be fearful all you want, but be it with me.”

  His words collide head-on, knocking the wind out of me in every sense to every word.

  Long gone is the controlling tone from Lane, this plea to let him in is bordering on sweetness. A different man than the one who will turn into a wild animal if he crosses paths with Joseph. That’s what petrifies me. Two crazed men protecting what’s theirs. One has a right and has always owned my heart. The other is so demonically possessed that he thinks he does. Joseph is like a shark to blood. A psychopath with deadly, destructive intentions.

  “I would never take your rights away from you. You deserve to have a voice. You also have the right to live and love. I want you to share those with me. You deserve to have the man who goes through life with you worship the ground you walk on. I’m not the perfect man. I am the one for you.” He burrows one hand into his hair, long fingers tugging at the strands.

  God, everything that’s coming out of his beautiful mouth I’ve longed to hear.

  “I’ve always known you were the man for me, Lane, but—”

  “No. There are no more buts. Let go of them and the voice filling you with the ways you shouldn’t be happy. You’ve been beaten down, but you aren’t fractured, broken, or crushed. If you believe you are, then Joseph wins, and I’ll be damned if I let him take anything more from you than he already has. I want back the woman who wasn’t afraid to step out and take a chance, the woman who I promised to love until the day I die. The woman who I want to fall in love with all over again. The woman I want to hold and love and cherish. The woman I can kiss and fuck until all she sees is me. I want you, and by God, I’m going to have you. You can let that frightened voice try to convince you all it wants that you shouldn’t want me. It will never defeat me.” There’s his demanding tone, bigger, stronger, and willing to do anything to prove that it’s true. The one that’s going to control certain things in my life no matter how much I try to fight it.

  He’s like a light switch—just a flick, and it’s on or off. I wouldn’t want him any other way.

  My heart pounds, my breathing becomes ragged as I sweep my eyes to the floor. Everything in the name of love is standing close. All I’d have to do is walk into those arms and take it. It’s Joseph’s consequences that are stopping me from moving forward.

  Being frightened of one man, wanting to fall into life with another, is a toxic combination, I know, yet that part of me who has always loved Lane is begging to give in and say yes. By all he’s said, the way I can still feel he’s looking at me as if I were the most sought out woman in the world, and he’s the lucky man who has my heart, he’s going to bulldoze my walls and take back my soul that has always belonged to him.

  “Don’t do that. Don’t look away from me. This conversation needs to happen. I’m not about to let you go through life without me being the one to give you everything you deserve.”

  On a hard swallow, I meet his gaze, those deep green eyes that used to steal my breath trace every inch of my face, again lingering on the spots where my freckles are. I’ve never seen him look at me this way. As if he’d treasure me, love me, and fuck my brains out all at once.

  “You don’t think you have a right to be happy, and you do. I felt that way once. It was the day Lexi’s mother walked away. I peered down at my girl in my arms and made a promise that no woman would come between her and me. No woman would ever walk into my daughter’s life to where Lexi would become attached and then for whatever reason turn and walk away and leave Lexi broken-hearted. You are the only woman I’d break that promise for, and do you know why?”

  My heart stops beating as my brain tries to take in what he’s saying. I have a feeling there’s a lot more to what he means—answers to what had been driving me crazy as to what Lexi meant about him not dating.

  I’m at a loss for words. To try to construct a sentence would be hopeless when the only thing running through my head at this very moment is how much love Lane has for his daughter. How he put her first the way, a parent should their child, how he’d do the same for Luca. It places respect and admiration in my chest for the man who is catching me off guard in a way that hurts and heals.

  I knew he wouldn’t listen when I asked not to push me. What I didn’t expect was for him to tighten those binds, to let him pull me a little closer by confessing something that has my brain in a frenzy.

  “I don’t know how to answer you, Lane,” I whisper, searching for hope—wishing for strength to take hold of what he’s offering.

  “Well, I do. You are the only woman who would never walk away from my daughter if things went south between you and me. You are the only woman I ever talked to her about. I told her I knew this girl once. She was the prettiest redhead in New Orleans. One day she asked me if I loved this girl. I told her, yes, and I hoped one day you’d come back so I could prove it to you.” Pinching the bridge of his nose, he closes his eyes. All I can do is stare in shock, feeling his words down to the core of my soul.

  “I would never walk away from Lexi if you gave me the chance to get to know her, but Lane, I don’t know how to be happy without our son. I don’t know how to stop feeling guilty for wanting to be. I can’t stop it from spinning. It consumes me.”

  The same emotion stares back at me when he opens those mesmerizing eyes. They hold so much of it. It festers mine all the more, squeezing my lungs and tugging at my heart.

  “Guilt isn’t going to go away until you have Luca in your arms again. We can share our guilt by building on what we mean to each other. Luca needs stability when he comes back, and I want him to have it. I want to give him the whole damn world along with giving it to you and Lexi. Let me in so I can walk beside you. Let me take your hand when you need it. Let me hold you when your mind fills with too much. Let me share the pain and love you the way I messed up the chance to do years ago. Let me make you smile. Seeing one on you will put one on me.”

  Energy flies through the room. Surging and uncontrollable.

  “Lane, there are years between us.”

  “Fuck the years between us. I said before I didn’t expect us to start where we left off. I’m asking for a chance to show you I’m the man for you. Do I want to touch you, kiss you, fuck you? Yes. With every fiber in my body, I want to bend you over, place your palms on that desk, and slide inside of you. You can make all the excuses you want. I won’t buy any of them because that scared woman inside of you wants me as badly as I do her. Did you not listen when I said I want back what’s mine. Tell me you haven’t thought about me holding you this past week while you fall apart. Tell me you haven’t thought about me kissing you, touching you. I’ve thought about your arms wrapped around me so we could fall apart, try to cope, adjust, survive together. I thought about your lips, your body. You, I’ve thought about you.”

  I suck in a breath, mind entranced from his words.

  Overwhelmed and dazed.

  My chest heaves when he advances toward me, igniting his power as he places the picture down on my desk, adjusting it on an angle to face my chair.

  The chair that in a few quick strides he’s leaning into, gripping the sides, his hot, warm breath skimming my ear and sending a shiver down my spine. His scent is enveloping me in promises to make me happy. He smells like home—a unique combination of fresh soap, dominance, and man.

  “For now, the emotional part of our conversation is over. I want you to feel me, Sienna. Feel the presence of me over those heartbreaking emotions. Let me hold on to half of them. Every part of you deserves to feel. That includes your body and your heart,” he whispers—a heady threat and a beautiful promise.

  I whimper.

  He’s going to devour me like I knew he would.

  I clench my thighs together—the move has him drawing back with a seductive smirk on his face.

  “Do you still feel it, that connection between us, the heat on your skin whenever I’m near, that shockwave of desperation? The desire to be fucked until you go out of your mind? When
I do fuck you, all you’re going to feel is me when you stand on shaky legs, and I drip out of you. I have felt you in the middle of my chest every damn day for ten years. I missed you, and I am so damn sorry for hurting you. I’m going to push you whether you want me to or not. Don’t deny me to slide into your tight body, don’t deny me to grab hold of your beautiful heart and hold it in my palms. Don’t deny me what has been mine since the day I met you. You, Sienna, every part of you belongs to me the same as all of me is yours.”

  Need. It trembles through me.

  My breathing hitches as he moves his hands up to my face. I expect him to cup my cheeks the way he would when he’d kiss me. Instead, both hover close to my skin, ghosting around my neck, my shoulders, my breasts, and down my stomach.

  His tongue sweeping out to wet his lips as he watches himself.

  “You are stunning. I want to touch you, but I won’t place my hands on you until you ask me.”

  He drops his gaze to my lips, and I swear on the holy God I nearly come right here when he grips himself, unashamed to show his want.

  “That mouth of yours. I missed it, missed that wicked little tongue that fought for dominance when it tangled with mine.” When he brings his mouth toward mine, I part my lips. But his linger as he stares at my mouth for the longest time.

  “I won’t kiss you until you ask me. Trust me when I do, that tongue better be prepared to duel with mine until we have to stop to fill our lungs with air, and then I’m diving right back in.”

  His words hang in the thick air, his lips twitching as if he were waiting, daring me to deny it so he could prove it.

  This man is going to seduce me without laying a finger on me. It is the most erotic form of foreplay he has ever done to me.

  A tease that will have me begging.

  “This neck, fuck, La Mia Vita. I look forward to trailing kisses on every inch. I’d start here.” He blows out a hot tingling breath at the base of my ear. “Then here.” He blows out another and another as he moves down the slope of my neck. “I’d end here before moving along too.” Another one sweeps across my collarbone.