by Marie Force
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“If you’re looking for white picket fences and two-point-two kids, I’m not your girl.”
“You are my girl. You’re absolutely my girl.”
“Because I sucked your dick once? That makes me your girl?”
He barked out a laugh that infuriated her. How dare he laugh when she was dead serious? “You’re a piece of work, Charlotte Abbott.”
“Don’t patronize me. How in the world have you made it so I’m your ‘girl’? I’m nobody’s girl but my own.”
“I want you to be mine. I want you in my life and in my bed.”
“I’m not the kind of girl you marry, Tyler.”
“Why in the world would you say such a thing? Of course you are.”
“No, I’m really not. Despite what you think you know about me, that much is true.”
“I don’t buy it. I think you tell yourself that so you won’t have to risk that carefully guarded heart of yours.”
“There you go again with the insight into Charley. Here’s a news flash for you—so we’re hot for each other. Big deal. That doesn’t mean there has to be hearts and flowers. Why can’t two people just have sex and call it what it is instead of making it into a big hairy deal?”
“No reason at all, I suppose. It’s just that if I hadn’t felt the evidence to the contrary, I’d wonder if you were the guy here.”
“Why? Because I don’t want what other women do? I don’t dream about the big white wedding and the Christmas cards with my cute little kids on them?”
“What’s wrong with cute little kids?”
“Not a thing, as long as they belong to someone else.”
His mouth opened and then closed as if he’d thought better of whatever he’d been about to say.
“Don’t know me as well as you think, do you?”
“Maybe not, but that doesn’t change anything.”
“You’ve been amazing to me, but you’re the kind of guy who needs a nice girl to marry and settle down with. I’m nowhere near ready for any of that, so we probably ought to take a step back before someone gets hurt.”
Rather than take a step back, he cupped her breast and tweaked her nipple, which was all it took to get her motor running again. How did he do that so easily? “I don’t want to take a step back. I want you any way I can get you. If you tell me all it can be is sex, I can live with that.”
“For how long?”
“For as long as you want to have sex with me.”
“And you aren’t going to start pressuring me for things I told you I don’t want?”
“When have I ever pressured you into anything?”
“I seem to recall a run up an icy mountain . . .”
“Pressuring is different than challenging.”
“I’m not going to change my mind about these things, Tyler.”
“Okay.”
She eyed him skeptically.
“What?”
“That means a month or two from now, when you’ve had your fill of me and I move on, you’re going to be fine with it.”
“Okay.”
“Just okay?”
He shrugged. “What else would you have me say?”
“You could repeat after me and say, ‘I, Tyler Westcott, have not only heard Charley Abbott say she doesn’t want a serious relationship, but I have listened to her when she says she means it.’”
Tyler looked her in the eye as he recited the words back to her. “Satisfied?”
“I’ll be more satisfied when my stupid leg works right again and we can do a hell of a lot more than we did tonight.”
Other than his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat, he had nothing to say to that.
CHAPTER 10
I believe that people make their own luck by great preparation and good strategy.
—Jack Canfield
Long after Charley had fallen asleep, Tyler lay awake staring up at the ceiling thinking about the way she’d come apart in his arms and then made him see stars when she returned the favor. He’d never come so hard in his life, and he was dying for more of her. She’d no sooner given an inch, however, when she took back the mile in progress he’d thought they’d made since her accident.
She didn’t want a husband and kids and a life committed to someone else, or so she said.
He’d said what she wanted to hear tonight, because he was nowhere near done with her or done trying to convince her that they could have something special. So he’d bought himself some time by saying what she wanted him to. He hadn’t lied so much as stretched the truth to accommodate her needs. That didn’t really count as a lie if his intentions were honorable, did it?
He was convinced—absolutely, positively convinced—that they could be magic together if only she allowed herself to at least try. And he wasn’t about to give up on her before they’d had a chance to see what might develop. In the back of his mind was the voice of his mother warning him to be careful to guard his heart, his siblings saying he could’ve chosen an “easier” woman, his friends teasing him about being a masochist. Those voices were drowned out, however, by the sound of her voice asking if she could touch him.
His body reacted predictably to that memory, hardening to the point of pain as he recalled the exquisite pleasure of her lips and hand wrapped around his cock as she sucked him to completion. It would be a very long time, if ever, until that memory didn’t rank at number one on the list of things he never wanted to forget.
The only thing that could top that memory was more of her. Despite her warnings, he was falling harder for her every day and night they spent together. And while she hated when he acted as if he knew her better than she knew herself, he suspected he’d hit a bull’s-eye with his comment about her well-protected heart. Her eyes had hardened and her lips had tightened with displeasure that told him he was spot on.
Someone had hurt his darling Charley—and hurt her badly enough that she’d convinced herself it was easier not to bother than it was to put herself on the line for a man. He was determined to show her how wrong she was about that. But he’d have to proceed carefully. He’d have to keep his own feelings hidden until she was ready for all the things he wanted to give her.
That might be the most difficult challenge of all, because he was definitely in love with her. He’d suspected he might be a long time ago, but the day she’d disappeared down the side of that ravine and he’d had all that time to wonder what he’d do if she was dead . . . Any doubt had been erased during those interminable hours. He loved her, he wanted her, he desired her—and only her.
As long as she was living in his house and sleeping in his bed—with him—he had a chance to convince her to let down her guard. He’d show her romance and affection and friendship and passion that would leave her dazzled. And if he went to all that trouble and still came up short?
Well, he’d cross that covered bridge when he came to it.
—
After taking his son back to Chloe’s in Burlington, Max Abbott returned to Butler feeling out of sorts, the way he did whenever he was separated from his son by a couple of hours. Chloe had very little to say to him when he picked up or dropped off Caden, which left Max wondering what she was thinking and constantly on edge whenever he was not with his son.
It wasn’t that he thought she would mistreat the baby, but her general apathy toward their son was worrisome. That worry had brought Max to his aunt Hannah’s house, where he let himself in through the mudroom door that was always unlocked. He took off his boots and hung up his coat before venturing into his aunt’s cozy kitchen, where she was sitting at the table with his cousin Grayson, who Max had come to see.
“Max!” Hannah jumped up to hug and kiss him. “What a nice surprise.”
He returned her embrace. “Sorry to barge in on you guys.”<
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“Not at all,” Hannah said. “Can I get you a cup of something warm?”
“I wouldn’t say no to that.”
“Have a seat, honey. I’ll get it for you.”
“Thank you.” He shook hands with Grayson, who eyed him shrewdly, already aware that this wasn’t a social call.
“How’s the baby?” Hannah asked.
“He’s great.” Like the proud father he was, Max whipped out his phone and showed them the new photos he’d taken during the last few days he and Caden had spent with Will and Cameron.
“He’s absolutely gorgeous,” Hannah declared.
“I think so, too.”
“He looks just like you did as a baby,” Grayson said.
“My mom says that, too.”
“Poor bastard,” Gray said with a sly grin that made Max laugh for the first time all day.
“Save it. My brothers have already said the same thing.”
“They’re all just jealous, Max,” Hannah said, putting a steaming cup of hot chocolate on the table in front of him. “The youngest cousin is the best looking out of all of you.”
“Gee, thanks a lot, Mom,” Gray said.
“You’re not ugly and you know it, Grayson.”
“I think he’s kind of ugly,” Max said with a smile for his cousin. “There, now we’re even.”
“What brings you out in this weather, Max?” Hannah asked as she continued to move about the kitchen.
“I was hoping to talk to Gray about a few things.”
“Sure,” his cousin said, all kidding aside now. “Whatever you need.”
“I’ll leave you two to talk,” Hannah said.
“You don’t have to, Aunt Hannah.”
She hugged Max from behind. “Talk to your cousin. I’ve got some work to catch up on. And bring me that baby to snuggle the next time he’s in town.”
“I will. Thanks for the hot chocolate.”
“Any time, honey.”
When they were alone, Gray looked at him expectantly. “What’s on your mind?”
“My son is on my mind twenty-four-seven.”
“As well he should be. I heard you and Chloe broke up.”
Max nodded and stared down at his hot chocolate. “We called it quits between us a couple of weeks before he was born. It just wasn’t working, and there was no sense in staying together for his sake when we’d only make each other miserable.”
“Sounds like you made the best decision for yourselves.”
“I guess.”
“Did you not want to break up with her?”
“No, I did. By the time she finally said she was done, I’d been done for a while. She turned into someone totally different after she got pregnant. She was really pissed off about it, and took most of it out on me, as if she hadn’t been a willing participant when it happened. I got tired of her crapping on me for something we did together.”
“From what I’ve heard and seen, you’ve done the best you could throughout this entire situation.”
“I’ve tried, but she isn’t making it easy.”
“How do you mean?”
“She’s being really weird about him. About Caden.”
“In what way?”
“She’s very . . . detached, I guess you could say. I worry about whether she’s taking proper care of him when I’m not there.”
Grayson sat up a little straighter in his chair. “Like you think she’s neglecting him?”
“Not technically, but if he has to cry for a while before his bottle, she doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with that, whereas I can’t stand to hear him cry. I feed him right away when he cries. She takes her own sweet time getting to him. Stuff like that. And I noticed he had diaper rash when I picked him up this time, which was new. That leads me to wonder how long she’s letting him sit in dirty diapers. It’s making me crazy, Gray. I know she has rights, but so does he and so do I.”
“Are you thinking about asking for full custody?”
“God, no. As much as I want to be with him every day, there’s no way I could do it on my own.”
“Yes, you could, Max. In our family, no one is ever alone. You’d be surrounded by help.”
“Still . . . He needs his mother, too.”
“Not if she doesn’t want him.”
“What do you think I should do?”
“We need to have a talk with her.”
“We do?”
“You and me as your lawyer. Since you two have broken up, your custody arrangement needs to be formalized.”
“We were just going to share custody.”
“Which you can still do, but you need to make it legal, Max. What if she were to get a wild idea about moving out of state or overseas and taking your son with her?”
The very thought of such a scenario sent Max into a panic. “She can’t do that!”
“If you don’t have a legal agreement in place that prohibits either of you from moving or taking him overseas, she can do it—and so can you.”
“Will you help me with this, Gray? I’ll pay you for your time. Whatever it takes—”
“Of course I’ll help you, and you won’t pay me.”
“You’ve just left your job to open a practice. You have to let people pay you.”
“I’ll let people pay me. I won’t let you pay me.”
His cousin’s generosity nearly reduced Max to tears. “Thanks, Gray. I really appreciate this.”
“Give me a couple of days to get my head around the details, and then we’ll go to Burlington and talk to Chloe, okay?”
The thought of having that conversation with her made Max feel sick. “Are you sure that’s the right thing to do?”
“I’m absolutely positive.”
—
On Sunday morning, Tyler shoveled the driveway so he could take Charley to Megan’s bridal shower at the Abbotts’ barn. All morning he waited for her to ask for his help packing up so she could stay at her parents’ place after the shower, but she didn’t ask, and he certainly didn’t offer.
She was getting around much better, and he’d be surprised if she wasn’t off the crutches within the next few days. While he celebrated her progress, each milestone brought them closer to the day when she would return to her life already in progress—most likely without him a part of it.
He helped her put the brace on over a pair of jeans that did miraculous things to her ass. Her face was flushed from the effort it took to shower and dry her hair and make herself presentable. She wore a gray turtleneck sweater that clung to curves he now knew were as generous as they looked. It took all he had to not let his thoughts stray in the direction of the hot make-out sessions they’d had every night this week. He couldn’t think about that or he’d be a walking, talking hard-on, and Charley would definitely notice.
So he thought about innocuous things like stock market fluctuations rather than the pale pink color of Charley Abbott’s nipples.
“Tyler?”
Oh damn it, had he zoned out on her? “Yeah?”
“I was just asking if you were ready.”
“Whenever you are.”
“Are you going skiing with the guys?”
Her brother Will had called to invite Tyler along on the ski trip the guys were taking to get Hunter out of the way for Megan’s shower. “I was planning to go. Is that all right with you?”
“Of course it is. Why wouldn’t it be?”
“I wasn’t sure if hanging out with your brothers counted as getting too involved with you.”
She gave him a disparaging look. “You’re more than welcome to be friends with my brothers.”
“Good to know.” Taking that as a positive sign, Tyler loaded up his skis, boots, poles and the clothes he needed for a day on the slopes and walked
the equipment out to the Range Rover. In truth, he had a million things he needed to do for work, but he wasn’t about to miss out on an opportunity to gather some more insight into Charley and what made her tick.
He went back to help Charley into her coat and to stand watch as she attempted to navigate the two steps that led into the garage. She bit her lip in concentration, which naturally led him to think about her biting his lip the night before. Running his tongue over the spot in question, he could still feel the pleasurable sting.
She reached the side of the SUV and looked up at the passenger seat the way a novice skier would eye the black diamonds.
“Give you a lift?”
“I suppose you’ll have to.” She sounded defeated, and he didn’t like that.
“You’ll be doing it by yourself in no time.” When she had her balance on her good leg, he took the crutches from her and stashed them in the backseat before returning to lift her into the passenger seat.
Once he had his hands on her, though, he didn’t want to let go.
“Tyler,” she said, sounding as breathless as he felt.
He was trying to give her the space she’d said she needed. But damn, it was tough now that he knew how sweet she tasted and the noises she made when she came. He didn’t think. He acted, capturing her mouth in another of the heated kisses that he could easily become addicted to.
At first, he didn’t think she was going to respond, but then she was kissing him back the way she did in bed every night lately. Tyler had no idea how long he stood there, kissing her as if kissing were about to go out of style or something equally awful. He wanted to pick her up and carry her back inside. He wanted to strip her bare and sink into her wet heat. He wanted to make love to her until day became night and night became morning. And then he wanted to do it all again.
A huge shudder traveled through his body as the salacious thoughts registered one on top of the other. Her hand on his neck calmed him and reminded him of where they needed to be. He withdrew slowly from the kiss. “Wow,” he whispered.
“Mmm.”
Tyler opened his eyes to find hers still closed, her lips damp and swollen from their kisses. She’d never looked more beautiful. “Charley . . .”
