“Have you given any more thought to my offer?”
He glances in my direction. “What offer?”
Seeing as how there is only one offer on the table, I remind him. “The offer to see another doctor. I’m going to do some research into who is the best cardiologist in the state. I’ll convince them to make time for you.”
“No need.” He turns back to scan a row of books.
“I see a need,” I press. “It can’t hurt to get a second opinion.”
“Reach that one up there for me.” Lloyd points a finger to a shelf just out of his reach. “The book with the pale blue spine.”
Frustrated that he’s ignoring my suggestion, I take a few steps until I’m next to him. I slide the thick book free, taking note of the title.
A Fool’s Grace.
Judging by the moody, dark cover image, I doubt this classifies as light-hearted reading.
I hand it off to him.
“I’ve read it twice,” he confesses. “The charm in the prose is unrivaled. I get swept into the story every damn time even though I know how it ends.”
I drop my gaze from his face to the book. “Maybe I should consider giving it a read when you’re done.”
His face beams with a wide-mouth smile. “You should, Bull. You should take advantage of all of this.”
He arcs his hand in the air, and I follow its path with my eyes.
I almost huff out a laugh when I catch sight of something odd perched on a shelf near the corner.
“This room is full of treasures,” he goes on. “Reading can sweep you into another world. One where everything is exactly as you want it to be.”
I’m feeling that now and it has nothing to do with any of the thousands of books lining the shelves.
I stalk toward the shelf holding the item I can’t take my eyes off of. I point at it. “How long has this been here?”
Lloyd approaches me. “For as long as I can remember. It was here the day you moved in when you gave me a grand tour of the place.”
Well, fuck.
Grinning from ear-to-ear, I shake my head.
“I’m heading to my room now.” I feel Lloyd’s hand land on my shoulder. “Tell your wife I adore her. You’re a lucky man, Graham. Don’t forget it.”
“I won’t ever forget it,” I say because he’s right. I may just be the goddamn luckiest man on this planet.
Chapter Forty-Two
Trina
I bark out a laugh as soon as I exit the bathroom wearing only a white tank top and a pair of pink lace panties.
While I was busy getting out of the bath, Graham decided to strip and set himself in the middle of the bed. He’s flat on his back.
That’s not what has brought on my non-stop laughter.
It’s the thing that’s sitting atop his bare chest. He must have seen it in the library when he was in there with Lloyd.
“Trina.” My name snaps off his lips with a groan. “You went for a drink with me that night because you wanted to.”
I’m busted, and I don’t even care.
“I told you that you had a pelican statue.” I motion to where the ceramic statue is perched on his chest. “How could you not know that you owned that work of art?”
He reaches down to circle his hard cock with his hand. “I’m the only one who has ever referred to this as a work of art. I’m happy to know you see it the same way I do.”
Still laughing, I sit my ass on the bed next to him. “I almost went to the library to get that pelican so I could win the bet, but a martini sounded too good to pass up.”
Keeping his eyes pinned on my face, he gives his cock a slow stroke. “You didn’t do it just for the drink. You wanted to go to that bar with me.”
“Maybe,” I say softly.
“You liked me even then.”
“Don’t push your luck.” I move to grab the statue before I place it carefully on the nightstand next to the bed.
It’s not large. It can’t be more than eight or nine inches tall, but it’s charming in an abstract way.
Once it’s set down, I crawl back onto the bed and onto my husband. I straddle him, settling so I can feel his cock pressing against my core.
He grips my thighs with his hands. “You like it, don’t you?”
“Your work of art?” I perch a brow. “Or that pelican?”
“Both,” he snaps the word from his tongue with a smile.
“The statue reminds me of one I saw a long time ago.”
“When?” he asks instantly as his thumbs circle my inner thighs.
I rest a hand in the center of his chest to feel the steady beat of his heart. “I was eight.”
His eyes travel over my face. “Eight-year-old Trina must have been an amazing kid.”
Reaching for the bottom hem of my top, I tug it over my head to reveal my breasts. “I was a typical eight-year-old who had never been outside of New York City.”
He watches me intently as I toss my top on the bed next to us.
“One of the regular customers at the bakery offered my parents their beach house on Long Island for a weekend.”
“Complete with pelican statue?” Graham’s hands move closer to my panties.
“One almost identical to that one was in the living room.” I smile at the memory of the trip. “We only stayed a few hours. My folks couldn’t leave the bakery for an entire weekend, so we made a late Sunday afternoon trip there.”
Graham studies my face. “Those few hours meant the world to you, didn’t they?”
“They meant everything,” I whisper to control my emotions. “We ran in the sand and ate hot dogs we cooked over an open fire. We dipped our toes in the water. It was the best trip of my life.”
“Because you were all together?” His voice has a tremor in it I’ve never heard before.
“Because we were all together,” I repeat as I lean forward to brush his lips over mine.
He kisses me deeply, his tongue parting my lips softly. That draws a low moan from somewhere inside of me.
“Make love to me tonight,” I say against his mouth as soon as the kiss breaks. “I want you to make love to me.”
With effortless ease, he flips me over until I’m on my back, and he’s staring down at me.
His hand moves to grip the side of my panties. “I’m going to ruin these, dear.”
“Why am I not surprised, darling?” I ask with a smile.
“I’ll buy you a few dozen new pairs,” he promises with a soft kiss on my forehead.
I cup his face in my hands so I can gaze into his eyes. “Let me take the pelican statue with me when I move back home, and we’ll call it even.”
His brow furrows, but not a word escapes him. With a heavy exhale, he buries his face in my neck before he rips my panties from my body.
Chapter Forty-Three
Graham
“You show up empty-handed and expect me to let you in?” Kavan stands in the doorway of his home.
He’s a penthouse dweller as well, but his is on Fifth Avenue in a building that has always been, and will always be, well out of my price range.
“I need to talk to you.” I push past him, which isn’t an easy task.
Kavan has a couple of inches on me and at least twenty pounds. He’s in the best shape of his life. I am too, but still I wouldn’t challenge him to a fistfight.
“C’mon in,” he says with a sarcastic bite in his tone. “It’s late. What the hell are you doing here?”
“I need a drink,” I blurt out. “Something strong and…”
“Expensive?” he asks as he rounds me to head straight for a bar cart that sits near a bank of windows. “I’m giving you the cheap stuff since you showed up without warning. What if I had company?”
It’s a rhetorical question.
Kavan doesn’t invite people into his home or his world.
There are three people he tolerates. I’m one, and there’s Sean and Harrison. Beyond that, his world consists of business ass
ociates and lawyers. He does his best to interact with all of them as infrequently as possible.
He pours me two fingers of Macallan 15.
I greedily take it and down it all in one gulp.
“Well, then.” His arms cross his bare chest.
It’s obvious I got him out of bed with my incessant knocking on his door. I bribed the doorman to let me up. It took five hundred dollars, but it was worth it because Kavan had ignored the three calls I made on my way over here. As soon as Trina fell asleep, I got up, put my clothes back on, and left.
Panic drove me over here.
“What do you want, Graham?”
“It’s Trina,” I say and then stop.
How the fuck am I going to explain what’s going on to Bane when I can’t make sense of it myself?
“You fucked her,” he deduces the way he always does.
Nodding, I head toward the bar cart for a refill. “More than once.”
I have no goddamn idea why I add that on. It hardly matters how many times I’ve taken my wife. I was lost to her the moment she agreed to marry me. My heart became hers when we kissed.
Now, she owns me through and through.
“Help yourself,” Bane says as I fill my glass halfway.
I take another mouthful and savor it this time. The burn on my throat is exactly what I need.
“You’re in love with her,” he states as he walks toward me. “You’ve fallen in love with your fake wife.”
I finish the drink before I turn to face him. “I don’t know. I’m feeling things.”
“Things?” His hands drop to his hips. He tugs on the waistband of the black pajama pants he’s wearing. “That’s vague. Is she feeling things for you too?”
I shake my head. “I have no fucking idea.”
“Wrong answer.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” I spit out the words at him.
He points a finger at me. “Your feelings scared the hell out of you, so you ran over here to hear me tell you to go back home and confess what you’re feeling to your wife.”
“I can’t tell her,” I argue. “If I do that, I’ll have to tell her about my past. I can’t start a real relationship with her until I tell her everything.”
His chin lifts, his jaw tensing. “Your sins amount to nothing, Locke. Nothing.”
He won’t admit it, but I know that in his mind, he’s comparing his sins to mine. He always does when I jump into a discussion about my past. Kavan often reminds me that I walked away from the person I used to be unscathed.
“Tell her what you did. You’ll see forgiveness there,” he says matter-of-factly.
“You don’t know that,” I bite back.
He steps closer to me. His eyes bore into mine. “I know that you think you did unforgivable things, but you didn’t. You were a messed up kid doing screwed-up shit. Forgive yourself already. It’s time.”
I want to toss those words back at him, but I won’t.
Kavan’s past will trail him until the day he dies.
He’ll never allow another person to get close to him. Any woman who enters his life is barred from it in a few hours. He fucks for release. That’s who he has become. It’s how he’ll remain.
“Go home, Graham.” He gestures to the door.
“What if she feels nothing for me?”
He taps me on the side of my head. “You’re an idiot. Do you think she screwed you because you’re that goddamn irresistible? There are a lot of men in this city. She didn’t jump into bed with any of them. Your wife chose you.”
He’s right. She did choose me. She wanted me as desperately as I wanted her, but it’s a leap to go from wanting a fuck to falling in love.
“She might laugh in my face if I confess what I’m feeling.”
He looks me over. “She might, but you won’t know until you talk to her.”
“This advice you’re dishing out is surprisingly decent,” I quip as I pour myself another drink.
Kavan snatches the bottle from my hand and grabs a glass of his own. “It’s common sense. That’s something you’ve always lacked.”
I wait until he’s finished pouring his drink before I raise mine in the air. “Fuck you, Bane.”
He ignores the gesture and instead swallows what’s in his glass. “And a big fuck you to you. Now, finish that drink and get the hell out of here.”
Chapter Forty-Four
Trina
“What’s on your schedule for today?” Graham asks from where he’s standing near the door to the washroom.
He’s freshly showered with a towel wrapped around his waist.
I could stare at him like this for hours, but I need to be somewhere soon even though I want to stay in this room with him all day.
I’ve been asleep the past two nights when he’s gotten home from work. His days have been extra long since he’s been immersed in negotiations with a new manufacturer.
Our mornings have consisted of a kiss between waking up and getting ready for the day.
Today, I made a point of getting up early to have a few extra moments with Graham before we both have to leave.
“I have a date in an hour,” I toss that out so that I can see his reaction.
His arms cross his chest. “A date?”
Nodding, I adjust the front of the dark blue blouse I’m wearing. “A hot date.”
He drops the towel to the floor, sending my jaw with it.
I stare because my husband is gorgeous. Every naked inch of him is a treat for the eyes.
He takes a step toward me. “I could fire you if you’re late for work, Trina.”
I tug on the zipper of my white skirt. “You won’t.”
A smile slides over his lips. “I may consider overlooking your tardiness if you tell me who the date is with.”
“If I blow you, will you drop it?”
His deep laughter fills our bedroom. “You’re going to blow me before you go on a date?”
I glance down at my watch. “I have time.”
“On your knees,” he orders as he nears me.
I reach out for his hand so he can help me lower myself to the floor.
As soon as I’m down, he fists his hard cock and trails the crown over my bottom lip. His eyes lock on mine. “Take it, Trina. Take it deep.”
I close my eyes and slide my tongue over the plush head as I hear him hiss out my name.
Thirty minutes later, I watch Graham put on a pair of gray pants. His skin is flushed, but he looks satisfied.
He should be.
He came with force. I swallowed every drop of his release before I stood and planted a kiss on his lips.
“What’s your hot date’s name?”
Laughter bubbles out of me. “I thought if I sucked your cock that I wouldn’t have to divulge the details of my date.”
Sliding on a white button-down shirt, he flashes me a smile. “I never agreed to that.”
I stomp my foot on the floor. “You were too eager to get off.”
“Your mouth does things to me, Trina.” He straightens as he makes quick work of the buttons on the shirt. “I’m going to return the favor after our date tonight.”
“We have a date tonight?” I ask with surprise edging my tone. “Did I miss the electronic invite?”
He disappears into the adjoining bedroom but returns seconds later with a dark blue tie in his hand. “I’m inviting you to have dinner with me tonight. There’s a French restaurant called Sérénité that I think you’ll like. They have a private dining room.”
“A private dining room?” I repeat back. “That’s fancy as fuck.”
Shaking his head, he laughs. “It’s perfect for what I have in mind.”
I move toward him, taking the tie in my hands. “What do you have in mind? Sex in a restaurant? I’ve never indulged, but I could be persuaded.”
He watches intently as I take control of the tie and slide it around his neck under the collar of his shirt. “I want to talk, Trina.”
/>
Suddenly, my hands start shaking. I busy them by knotting the tie.
“Do you want to talk about the new manufacturing facility?” I tilt my head. “I’m glad you finally hammered out a deal last night.”
“Early this morning,” he gently corrects me. “I didn’t get in bed with you until almost three a.m., but that’s not what I want to talk to you about.”
“What is it then?”
His hands jump up to stall mine as I fumble with the tie. He holds them close to his chest. “Us. I want to talk about us.”
My gaze trails from our joined hands to his face.
I look into his blue eyes. “Just us? Lloyd won’t be there?”
He leans forward to brush his lips softly over mine. “I want my wife all to myself tonight.”
“You’ll have me all to yourself.”
A smile tugs on the corners of his mouth. “Now, tell me about this hot date you have before work.”
I finish with his tie, adjusting it until it’s perfectly centered. “I’m having a cup of hot coffee with the best barista in the city. She’s my neighbor and a friend.”
His smile widens. “Take your time. My assistant has me out of the office for most of the day again. She works me to the bone.”
I tug on his tie to bring his face closer to mine. “Your assistant knows what you’re capable of. She knows how important work is to you.”
His hand moves to my face. With the pad of his thumb, he traces my bottom lip. “It used to be the most important thing to me. It’s not anymore.”
Hope blooms inside of me that I’m the most important thing to him now. I want to be. He’s quickly becoming the most important person in my life.
Chapter Forty-Five
Trina
Aurora settles herself on the chair across from me.
It’s been a hectic morning at the café, so her break was pushed back twice.
I used the time to respond to several work emails.
I may not be at the office right now, but that doesn’t mean I can’t keep on top of my work.
BULL (The Buck Boys Heroes Book 1) Page 16
