And I don’t get nervous.
I don’t feel off.
But I knew.
Goddamn, I knew.
But not just tonight. I’ve known for some time. Known since we first started, actually. I knew this day would come.
When she’d leave for good.
For real.
She was always too smart.
Always too brave.
She was on borrowed time with me. I never had her for always. I just wanted to believe the opposite.
Wanted desperately to believe we’d do this together, we’d own this city, we’d laugh like rich fat cats rolling in dough.
I wanted to believe we could control the city, just like I wanted to believe I could stop my father from taking off when I was a teenager. Taking off and leaving my mother with all the debts to pay. I couldn’t, of course. So I found my control in other ways. And I hate when it slips away.
Right now, it’s falling through my fingers as Harley tells me no, and I am not happy. Not at all. Stomping my foot, I curse loudly. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”
I turn around, grab my hair in my hands, and yank hard. The foot stomping, the hair pulling—this is not my finest moment. I probably remind her of an angry leprechaun.
And I don’t care.
Because I am fuming.
I whirl back to her, grit my teeth, and blow out steam. I decide to call her bluff. She has to be bluffing. “No. Really? You’re messing with me, aren’t you?”
“No, I’m not,” she says, standing her ground, shaking her head. “This is my choice. I have to do this. I need to be accountable. I need to own my choices. I don’t know if I’m doing it right, but I’d like to think I’m starting to figure it out. I’m stumbling and bumbling and messing it up, but at least I’m starting to speak the truth. This is my truth, Cam. I need to say it. I need you to hear it.”
I breathe out hard, grinding my jaw. “I don’t want to say goodbye.” I sound like I’m whining and I don’t like it. I’m the guy who’s cool-as-a-cucumber, but with Harley, I have chinks in my armor.
“I know. But I have to try. I have to do this,” she says.
And I’m not ready. I can’t let her go. One last try.
I grab her shoulders, gripping her tight. “No. You don’t have to do this,” I say. I can still feel the burn of the vodka I just downed. I’m going to need a full gallon tonight. She’s slipping away from me.
“Cam.” She stares sharply at my hands that pin her. “I do. I do have to do this.”
I moan angrily and narrow my eyes. But I loosen my grip. I can’t hurt her. I won’t hurt her. I care about her too much. That’s always been my Achilles’ heel—caring too much about her rather than our business endeavors. I let go of my hold on her shoulders, pleading with words now. “I just got you back, baby doll. Don’t do this to me.”
“Cam, I’m sorry.”
But I haven’t pulled out all the tricks in my arsenal. My lips curve up in a sneaky grin. “Then I’ll beg. I told you when you came to my office that I’d beg you, and I’m not above begging.” I drop to my knees instantly, raise my face, and bat my baby blues. Big puppy-dog eyes. My last chance. My Hail Mary. I clasp my hands together. “Please, don’t go.”
“Cam,” she says softly. “You have to know this isn’t easy.”
“Damn straight it’s not. It isn’t easy for me either. And it isn’t fair. You leave me. You come back. You leave me again,” I say, shaking my clasped hands to emphasize my point. “And I don’t like it. I don’t like being jerked around.”
“I never meant to hurt you, and I’m sorry I jerked you around, Cam. But there’s nothing you can do to change my mind. This is my life, and I have to move on.”
“You belong with me.” I pound a fist against the floor. “You’re mine. You’re my Layla,” I say, grasping at anything to keep her.
“Cam,” she says softly, but firmly. “You had Layla. But that’s not me anymore. I have to be Harley now. Only Harley.”
Sighing heavily, I bang my forehead once, twice, three times against the cool hardwood floor of the bar. It hurts like hell.
It hurts worse than hell.
But when I look up, I see something brand-new in her eyes.
I see strength.
I see certainty.
And I see her stepping into her future.
There is nothing I can do to keep her.
It’s written on her face. It’s clear as day in her eyes.
All I can do now is let her go.
And be a man about it.
She offers me a hand.
I take it.
23
Harley
All my instincts tell me to fall to my knees too, to hug him, to say I’m sorry I disappointed him. But I keep my body still. I can’t give in to him. And I can’t give in to my past. It was a knee-jerk reaction out of hurt to agree to step back into this again, to do this job tonight. But I want my future. I want to make the better choice now.
When he raises his head, I can see the start of an angry red bump, but also the resignation in his eyes.
He stares at me, studying me, and then draws a deep breath.
Acceptance.
I offer him a hand. “Come on. Get up. Let me say a proper goodbye.”
“Dammit to hell,” he mutters as he stands up from his plaintive position.
Then I look him in the eyes, and I speak from the heart. “I want you to know you gave me something that mattered deeply to me, that I needed desperately at that time in my life. You gave me choices, you gave me control, and you gave me a place to belong. And I don’t regret anything I did, because everything I did brought me to where I am today. And I will never regret you. You were there for me more than my own mother ever was.”
I watch him, saying nothing, trying to gauge his reaction, predict his next move. He’s still, as his eyes glass over, then he abandons the begging and pleading. “I’m going to miss you. Like, miss you for real, Harley,” he says, and I don’t blanch when he uses my real name. Because that’s who I am to him now. I am shedding Layla, right here, right now, leaving her behind for good.
I hug him one last time. I want to tell him I will see him again, that we’ll grab a cup of coffee and catch up, but we won’t and we shouldn’t and that’s okay too. Some people come into your life for a little while to help you through. Some stay a lifetime. Cam and I had our moment, and now the moment is gone, but it won’t be forgotten. I won’t forget him. I won’t forget how he took care of me when nobody else would.
That’s when it hits me. In some warped way, Cam was like family to me too. Only better than my flesh and blood parents.
He groans and flubs air through his lips like he’s letting out a long train of steam. “I’m not going to say I want this, but if this is what you need, baby doll, then I’m not going to stand in your way. Mr. Stewart is going to pitch some kind of fit, but I’ll take my lumps like a big boy,” he says, nodding, and I can see the gears in his sneaky brain kicking in when he adds, “I’m just going to go up there, tell him you ate something nasty, you threw up something fierce, and you got sick to your stomach and had to go home, because that’s about the only reason that won’t have him slicing off my neck.”
I laugh once, but hope he’s joking. “I don’t want your neck sliced off.”
“Believe you me, nor do I. I like what’s above the neck and below it. Now get the hell out of here before I try to steal you back.”
I hug him, and I’m betting Trey is quaking in his boots, and if he is, then that boy will just have to deal, because I need to say goodbye to this man who loved me too.
We leave the bar together, and Cam stops when he sees Trey, shakes a finger at him, and huffs out through his nostrils. For a fleeting moment, I can see the worst unfolding. But instead, Cam takes Trey’s hand in his, then places his other hand on Trey’s shoulder. “Now, listen, you better take care of her, because I am about to endure a shitstorm up there for her. I’m letting her go,
and this better be real, and you better love her and treat her like a queen. Because she deserves everything good in the world. Got it?”
Trey is stunned speechless. His jaw hangs open, then he quickly recovers and nods. “Yes, sir.”
Then Cam marches upstairs to fix the mess I made for him.
Forget the myth of the hooker with a heart of gold. He’s the pimp with one.
I turn to Trey. “I’m yours now, and you’re mine.”
“You better believe it,” he says.
He grabs my hand, and we run like hell out of the Parker New York and into the night to a new beginning.
24
Harley
Breathless.
I am breathless from running, from the night, from being kissed senseless on the cab ride downtown. From the anticipation that this is it.
Trey shuts the door behind him, and we are back where we were several nights ago. His apartment.
And now this is the unknown. This is all blind trust and faith. The leap off the dock into the dark waters, with the hope that the current won’t pull me down.
I hope.
I have so much hope now, so much more than I had mere hours ago, and it’s amazing how hope can be replenished like a geyser and overflow. I have hope for the future, for love, for happiness, for the end to my empty, aching need for a fix.
This is more than a fix. This is real.
Because he is not Twenty-Five for me. This is the other side, all the way on the other side. Trey is Number One on a list I will never keep again. And I am so in love with Trey I can barely stand it, I can barely hold the words inside myself any longer. I want to tell him, to shout it, to sing it. “I’m so in love with you,” I say, because I can.
All this honesty, all this openness, without guise, without tricks—it’s like the sky is expanding, spreading. As it stretches, I stretch. It feels good and it hurts at the same time.
We stumble into the entryway, all hands and arms tangled up together.
“I am so in love with you,” he says hungrily, and he loops his arms around my neck, tucks his face in my hair, and breathes me in as if I’m his oxygen. I’ve never known what it’s like to be cherished, but I’m starting to get a sense, and it’s a heady feeling. I’m no longer a prize, but a treasure. His treasure.
Somehow we manage to move to the futon, because it’s clear this night is going horizontal.
“So, what now?” I ask as he touches my arms, my hair, my waist. He can’t keep his hands off me, and I’m pretty sure I want them all over me.
“I guess that’s up to you.”
I run my finger along the hem of his T-shirt, my thumb grazing the hard planes of his belly. He’s mine. This man is mine, and I’m terrified but certain at the same time. “I know what I want.”
“What do you want?” he asks, his lips quirking up.
“I want my first.”
“Are you sure?”
I nod. “So sure. I want to know what sex feels like. I want to know what it’s like with someone I’m in love with.”
He swallows, then breathes out hard. “Harley, you know this is going to be like a first time for me too.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve never had sex with someone I love,” he says, running his hands through my hair, letting it fall through his fingers. All the while, he never takes his eyes off mine. “Sex has always been separate. I’ve never been in love before, so this is like the first time for both of us in a way.”
The moment curls in on itself, and I am sure time and space have narrowed to only the two of us, here on his couch. There are no cars outside, no sounds, no noise, no buildings, no night, no day. It is Trey and me, only us, only now, only this. He takes the pad of his thumb, brings it to his tongue, and licks it. Then he presses his thumb against my shoulder and rubs off some of the tattoo concealer. “I’m giving you a new one soon. But I still like to see it on you because it reminds me of the night we met. And you were different than anyone I’d ever known, and I wanted to know you, and then you came back into my life. Like it was fate.”
I watch him rub his thumb across my shoulder, wetting and rewetting it, like a restorer returning a work of art to its original glory. I don’t know that my red ribbon is glorious, and I don’t even know that it’s what I want anymore, but it’s a part of me, and it’s going to become a better part of me.
When he’s done, he pushes the strap of my dress off with one finger, letting it fall to my elbow. He bends his head to kiss my shoulder blade, and I shiver at his touch. He stands, then reaches for my hands and pulls me up.
“I want to undress you,” he says in a hot, hoarse voice, as his fingers reach around my back for the fastening of my dress and he unhooks it.
He starts to slide down the zipper, but I can feel his hands shaking.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“Yeah. Just nervous, I guess.”
“You are? I never pictured you being nervous.”
“I am,” he says. “Because I want it to be perfect for you.”
“It doesn’t have to be perfect. We can keep practicing if it’s not,” I tell him, running my index finger softly against his cheek, tracing his scar.
“Sign me up for lots of practice, then,” he says, and returns to the zipper, easing it open, then gently pushing the dress down past my shoulders, over my breasts, to my waist. He lets go, and the fabric falls into a silky pile on the floor. I step out of it, still wearing my heels. His hands follow the path of the dress, down my hips and thighs, brushing my skin, and I melt into his touch. It all feels so natural and so right. He kneels at my feet, then slips off one shoe, and I’m back in time, picturing the night on my stoop when he took off my socks after I’d seen Cam. So much is similar, but so much is different. Here he is again and we still want each other, but we want so much more, and we’ve let ourselves not only voice it, but feel it. We have finally given ourselves permission to let in that thing we barely understand.
He runs his hand along the arch of my foot, and there’s something so tender and caring about the way he’s undressing me, as he removes my other pump and I stand barefoot now. Every move, every touch is like the sweetest caress. Everything he does, he does with care, and I feel like a new girl with him. Because I’m here with him, not for him. I haven’t been ordered, I haven’t been bought, and there are no step-by-step instructions given in advance. We are living each moment, seeing how each moment feels.
Picking up my dress and my shoes, he brings them over to a chair, laying them down neatly. It’s a small gesture, but the little things matter, and I kind of love that the dress isn’t wadded up or thrown across the room.
When he returns, he looks me over, and there is something like reverence, like wonder, in his green eyes, as if he can’t believe he’s here with me.
“Will you take off the rest of my clothes?” I ask in a nervous voice. I know he will, but I don’t want to take anything for granted, and I want to let him know what I want.
He groans, and it’s both an appreciative and terribly needy sound as he loops his arms around my back and unhooks my strapless bra. I grab it and toss it on the chair. In seconds, his hands are on my breasts. “They’re so fucking perfect. I can’t stop touching them,” he says as he cups my breasts. “I know I’m supposed to be fighting any kind of addiction, but screw that. I want to be addicted to your breasts. They deserve a shrine, Harley. I want to build a temple and dedicate it to your breasts.”
“What will you call your temple?” I ask, playing along, grateful for a moment of levity in the midst of this intensity.
“My favorite Ds.”
I laugh. “You wish. They’re not Ds. Cs though.”
“C, D, E, F, G. Whatever they are, I love”—he emphasizes that last word—“having my hands on them.” Then he squeezes them. Hard. “Sorry, I’m supposed to be gentle.”
“It’s okay. I like the way you touch me.”
“You do?”
“
Yes,” I say. “You make me feel incredible.”
“You are incredible,” he says.
He kneads them roughly once more, brushing his thumbs over my nipples. He moans and I sigh at the same time, and we both laugh.
“You forgot to take off one more item,” I tease.
“I didn’t forget. I just want to savor it.” Then he slides his hand between my legs. His eyes widen when he feels the cotton panel of my panties and learns how turned on I am. I rock into his hand. “Okay, forget savoring. I need to get these off.”
Then he is no longer slow or lingering. He is frenzied and fevered as he pushes them over my hips and down my legs. I am naked before him, and I love being naked with him.
He eyes me greedily, drinking me in as if he’s desperate for what’s next.
“I want you, Harley. I want to sleep with you. I want to make love to you,” he says, breathing out hard as he starts tugging off his own shirt. “And I’ve never said those words before because I think those words are cheesy and ridiculous, but they’re not cheesy and ridiculous with you. Because I’m so in love with you that I will say things I’ve never said. I’m dying for our first time.”
Sparks of electricity zoom through me, and every single inch of my skin, of my body, of my heart is reaching for him, needing him, wanting him. I am longing for something I’ve never had before and now I can’t imagine being without. I am hot all over and tingling everywhere. My veins, my blood, my bones—everything is singing out to be touched.
I grab at his waistband, fumble at the zipper, and tug down his pants, all while he’s kicking off his shoes, trying not to trip over his clothes. Somehow he manages to step out of his jeans and is now only in his boxer briefs, and we are both panting and frantic.
“Condom,” I say. “Do you have a condom?”
“Yeah.” He steps away from me to reach for a foil packet in the nightstand next to his futon.
Then he pushes off his underwear, and he’s naked and gorgeous and throbbing. I draw in a deep breath and bite my lip briefly. This is going to happen. This is real. I’m going to say goodbye to my virginity, and I’m going to have him inside of me, and I honestly don’t know how there’s room for him in me.
The Thrill of It (No Regrets Book 2) Page 11
