On each other.
My hands wrapped around his neck to bring him even closer, as I was backed up into my car. His body pressed against mine, and with no place for me to run to, I melted. Our lips parted simultaneously, our tongues meeting together with mutual moans. His hands slipped around the small space behind me, gripping the fabric at the back of my uniform dress in his fists, before releasing and moving them up and down.
I tasted what was left of my cupcake creation on his tongue, the hint of bourbon and chocolate, and it made something move inside me.
All I could think was this wasn’t just a good kiss. This was an amazing kiss—a kiss that I’d remember. It wasn’t crazed or rushed, but it wasn’t tentative. It was desire and longing coming together in a movie-worthy kiss sequence.
He moved. I moved. Together. Perfectly.
Cars passed by, alarms went off, and the conversations from people walking down the street behind us, going about their lives like they had no idea the world was imploding, were all there.
But I heard nothing.
It was only his hands in my hair, his mouth on my neck, and his panting breath against my skin. My fingers dug into his hair, yanking him closer, but with no room for him to move, he nudged my legs open with his knee and stepped in between them.
He paused for a moment and I startled.
I asked, “Is this okay?” as I continued to stare at his lips.
We were out in the open, outside the bar, for all to see. Any of his employees or people who knew me could’ve seen.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
A question with a question, and there was no right answer. Logic and reason would bring me to one direction. His pleading eyes that my own had drifted to would lead me to another.
“Yes,” I whispered.
I wanted more. I wanted him.
All of him.
I wanted his words against my lips and his hands on my bare skin. I wanted to trace the tip of my tongue across every one of his tattoos and know their story. I wanted us to kiss all the bad memories away and remember how good it was to be wanted.
And as I looked at him straight on, feeling him hard against my leg, I knew he wanted the same.
His eyes were closed before our lips met again. Pushed and pulled and back and forth we went, and I didn’t want it to stop. My hand fumbled behind me to unlock the car door to get us inside, but as I grasped the handle, he pulled away once again.
He rested his head against my forehead, his chest heaving. “No. Don’t,” he said. “Not here.”
“What? Why?”
“Because I’m not going to fuck you in the bar parking lot, that’s why.”
I wanted to joke, to tell him I wasn’t going to and didn’t want to sleep with him, but I knew whatever bullshit line I gave him, he’d see right through. He was so good at that already.
This moment had crossed my mind more times than I could count, but I was still unprepared for where we were at. I needed to remind myself that this was me with Marshall, not Lexie with Aaron’s best friend.
Him. Me.
Together.
“Do you,” I said, turning my head and pressing a kiss to his neck, his stubble tickling my lips, “want to take me somewhere else to fuck me?”
He groaned as my tongue flicked against his skin before he sighed and pushed back. “Yes, I do, but—”
“But what?”
He shrugged and averted his eyes from me. Now it was obvious it was his turn to fight the angel and devil. It was easy to get swept away, to take hold of the moment and let nothing else matter. It was always fleeting, though. The spell broke as soon as reality hit. I didn’t blame him, though, because it would’ve come to me sooner or later. It just happened to him first.
“I get it,” I said without waiting for a response.
I shifted around and opened my car door, but Marshall’s arm reached across me as his hand slammed it shut.
“I don’t think you do,” he said. “Would you look at me?”
I glanced over my shoulder without turning completely. “Marshall. I get it. I do. And you’re right.”
“How do you even know what I was going to say?”
“Because I’m not stupid. We can’t. Ever. Or I don’t know, maybe we could, but could you imagine?”
“No, I can’t, but that is what fucks me up the most.”
“What do you mean?”
“I see you, and you look like her. You talk like her. You move like her. Hell, you even smell like her.”
I shook my head because while I understood what he was saying, it didn’t matter. He’d never be able to look at me and separate the girl who caused so much hurt to his best friend and the girl standing in front of him now.
“You’re not her anymore, Al. You’re not Lexie. Christ, will you turn around already?”
I complied, folding my arms in front of my chest. “I am still her. I always will be. I can change my name, move far away, get a job, whatever. But I’m still Aaron’s ex-wife. I’m still the person, the woman, the mother that did all the things you remember. It’s me.”
“That’s not what I meant,” he said, brushing his hand against my arm before tugging on one so I’d unfold. “Of course, it’s still you, but everything about you is different. You are different, and with that you’re new to me, but I don’t know how to fucking reconcile who you were. I don’t know how to separate the two.”
He was getting frustrated, kicking some dirt at his feet. I wanted to help him, tell him I understood, because it was the same way for me. I just wasn’t sure if I could.
“You know what?” I asked.
“Huh?”
“I haven’t dated anyone since I left Aaron.”
His eyes opened wide as he tried to conceal a smirk. “Bullshit.”
“I’m serious. No one.”
“You mean to tell me that you haven’t had sex in, I don’t know, six or more years?”
“I didn’t say sex, Marshall.”
His head tilted to the side, processing what I’d said. I knew I could go on to explain that the physical needs associated with loneliness is entirely different than romantic ones. I could help him to understand that sex didn’t have to equate love. I was sure he would get that. But I wasn’t sure he’d get why.
I patted his chest, willing to stop the moment. It was all so exhausting. “For the record, you’ve showed more self-restraint than I’m capable of. Thank you,” I said.
My car door was flung open, and I slid into the seat before he could say a word.
Chapter Nine
Marshall—
What
The
Fuck
Did
I
Do?
What the holy fucking shit did I do? I kissed her. She kissed me back. We kissed.
And it was so goddamn good. No, not good. It was off-the-charts amazing. There are few times in life when a kiss is so perfect, when the vibe, the flow between two people, is so perfectly in sync that it all comes together in a hot meeting of the lips. In our case, this happened, and it wasn’t just hot, it was a…fucking explosion of relentless hunger and desire. And what was left when the dust settled, and we could see what we’d done?
Total carnage.
There was no word strong enough for what an asshole I was. Not only did I let my dick take over for any reasoning my brain had in regards to how this would change the entire dynamic of the delicate relationship Al and I had, but also no doubt she had some sort of feelings for me, too. You can’t kiss someone like that, feel the heat rising and not be able to stop it, and not have something hiding behind it.
None of that held a fucking candle to the loathsome betrayal I inflicted on my best friend. I could justify it any way I wanted, but I let what I wanted take a front seat to what I knew was right, what I knew was the honorable thing, and dug a knife right into the back of Aaron. The worst part? He didn’t even know it. It was just yet another thing I was hiding from him.<
br />
His ex-wife. The mother of his daughter. The woman who left them with barely a word, didn’t look back, and nearly destroyed him. I had to watch someone who was like a brother to me crawl and claw his way through the wreckage of his life, while still being the best damn dad I’d ever seen. I saw it, and all I could do was watch. Delilah was pure sunshine. No one who knew the truth would ever be able to wrap their mind around the fact that she had a mother that would never know how kick-ass she was. She’d grow up wondering why her mom left her, and she’d have to grapple with it for her entire life. It was really fucking unfair because she didn’t deserve it. Neither she nor Aaron deserved any of the grief inflicted on them.
And Al was the one who did it. She was the one who hurt them, and I fucking kissed her.
I did more than kiss her.
I wanted her.
Given the chance again, I didn’t know if I could tell her no.
I almost fucked her right there. She was going to let it happen, and while there was doubt in my mind that it would’ve been insane, there was a part of me that was angry at her about it. Granted, I should’ve fucking known better. Hell, it never should’ve even been in my brain, either of them, the one in my head and the other in my pants. It didn’t matter what was happening between us or why, but it was a place I couldn’t go.
And she was so matter-of-fact when she left. It was odd and nothing like I’d ever known any other woman to do when she was rejected. Her face went neutral, almost cold, and she was gone after her remark about my self-restraint. I stood there, watching her car drive off, and then long after her car disappeared. I was so fucking torn up, so confused. Not only did I not know what happened, but I also didn’t know how it happened so damn fast. It was anger and bitterness one day and then a shift. I didn’t know if it was the night of the opening or if it started before then. Was there always something there? Even when she was with Aaron?
No. No, it wasn’t. She was my best friend’s girl. She was always hot. I noticed from the first day on the beach. But she was off-limits then.
She was off-limits now.
I ran my hands roughly through my hair in frustration, my fingers digging through the tangled ends.
Her hands were all in it, intertwining her fingers and tugging. I knew why girls got off on that shit when we did it because it felt fucking amazing.
Those same hands that I knew were capable of making delicious cupcakes and cookies were also capable of yanking me gently to her, both with purpose and caution, recalling my rib injury. Her fingers across my skin, the palm of her hand against the side of my face…all of it lit me the hell up, like she’d struck a match and dragged it across every area.
Her soft goddamn lips, the way she sighed against mine, it all seemed orchestrated. It was like it was something composed only for us, but it couldn’t have been.
And those fucking eyes. There was so much behind those eyes, even more so than I saw on a daily basis. There was desire and tragedy and so much hidden beneath the blue. I wanted to reach inside and pull it all out of her. I wanted to lay it in front of her so she could see all the things I did, all the wondrous things that rose above all the past bullshit. It was there. I just couldn’t reach it yet.
It can’t.
I slammed my laptop shut and slid away from my desk in frustration. “Son of a bitch,” I muttered.
“Hey,” Wells said, entering the office. “How are you feeling? Should you even be here?”
“It’s my goddamn bar so I can always be here,” I barked. “The real question is what are you doing here? I texted you this morning and told you not to come in until later since I know you were here all night covering for me on your own.”
I was being a dick. I knew it and also knew it was misplaced anger.
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
“And I can see you are feeling better, considering your cherry disposition is still firmly intact again.”
“Smart-ass.”
“Back at you,” he said. He leaned up against the door, taking a sip from his frosted coffee monstrosity with added chocolate sprinkles. “Seriously. You okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said with a sigh. “Thanks for everything last night.”
“Man, that was an ugly scene. Everyone was so freaked out, especially Alexis. She get you home all right?”
What did he just say?
“What did you just say?” I asked.
“Thattttt…it was an ugly scene? Did you get home all right?”
“No,” I said. “The other part. That everyone was so freaked out, especially Alexis.”
His straw made a slurping noise as he sucked the bottom of his drink. “Yeah. She flipped her shit,” he said, walking out of the office.
“Like what?” I shouted. “How did she flip her shit?”
“I don’t know,” he called back. “She just…freaked. When she saw it happen, I had to hold her back because she was trying to get to you. She was screaming your name and stuff.”
I didn’t remember any of that. I only started to get my bearings and my brain back in order when I got to the hospital. Bits and pieces would return to me about the incident, but mostly there was the recollection that there was no time for reaction, just action. There were vague glimpses of Al’s face in those memories, and somewhere inside my mind I could imagine the scared look on her face.
It made my fucking heart ache.
“I guess she doesn’t hate you after all,” he mumbled, his mouth clearly full of something.
I pushed back from my chair and stood up too quickly, my side reminding me it got kicked good last night. As I peeked around the corner, I saw Wells taking a bite of one of the cupcakes Al had brought.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I shouted. “No wonder we always run out! I’m always catching you sneaking.”
He was startled and swallowed what was in his mouth. “There was already one missing so I know you had one, too.”
“This is my bar. It’s important for me to maintain quality control.”
“Yeah, right,” he snorted, taking another bite. “Who dropped them off? Was it Phoebe?”
“Can you please wait to talk until after you’re done chewing? It’s like it’s raining chocolate cupcake crumbs in here, you gross bastard.”
He leaned over the side of the bar and retrieved a cocktail napkin. “It has to be Alexis,” he said, wiping his mouth.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because you’re cranky. You know, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you two had a thing for each other.”
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Be cool. Just play it cool. Avoid and deflect.
“Aren’t those cupcakes magic? So good,” I said while trying to disguise an automatic grin.
His eyes widened. “And now you’re making me wonder.”
“About?”
“You and Alexis. You’re completely avoiding my previous statement about you two having a thing for each other.”
Or I could meet it head-on and try to extinguish any thoughts from that angle.
“That’s fucking ridiculous,” I said with a fake laugh. “You know who she is to me. She’s Aaron’s ex-wife. Aaron, my best friend and business partner. That alone makes her the most undesirable woman to me.”
And the mother to his child. Their child. The one she left.
Fuck. Why was this so complicated? Why did it have to be her? The first time I’ve had feelings for a girl in ages, and it was her. I wasn’t sure what the hell was in my DNA or if all the drinking years caused brain damage, but I was finding it impossible to wrap my brain around the situation.
“Then why are you two always so…together?” he asked.
I couldn’t get into all the nuts and bolts of what went down years ago, even though that was part of it, but there was something more now. Things I wondered, and it irritated me that I didn’t know—that I couldn’t ask her more.
“I don’t know,” I said. “There’s a lot of history the
re and a lot I don’t know. I’m not sure what she’s been up to all these years.”
“That’s dumb,” he said.
“What’s so dumb?” I asked.
“I forget how old you are sometimes. You want to know what she’s been up to? Use something called the Internet. In-ter-net, boss.”
He was about to get an ass kicking worse than what I got last night if he didn’t change his tune. “I’m aware of what it is, Wells. What’s your point?”
“My point is you know her name. Google her. Find her social media. There is a wealth of knowledge out there just waiting for you to snoop through.”
“That seems so…” I trailed off, trying to find the right word.
He closed the cupcake box, trying to seal it back up. “I didn’t do this,” he said, pointing to the ripped box lip. “And yeah, it’s totally invasive, but everybody does it. You’ll hear chicks talking about it, and every guy will deny doing it, but we do.”
“I ripped the box, and this is just so weird. I mean, I’m not that much of an idiot that I didn’t know you check stuff out online, but I thought it was after you were dating and shit.”
“Oh no. As soon as you know you’re interested in someone,” he said, raising his eyebrows, a smirk pressing against the sides of his lips. “You start scoping out the situation. But of course, you aren’t interested in Alexis, so whatever.”
“No, I’m not,” I said with firmness. “But—”
“But you want to do it anyway, right? You want to see what she does in her spare time? What dudes she hangs out with look like? Is there a particular one in a lot of pictures and thus means they’re close, dating, or banging?”
I didn’t consider any of those things because I assumed she wasn’t. She said she hadn’t dated anyone since Aaron, but was intentionally vague when I asked her about sex.
Maybe there was more about her I didn’t know.
“Everybody does it,” he sang, walking past me and back into the office.
“Fuck off.”
* * *
I sat in my dark apartment, the only light coming from the screen of my laptop on top of my coffee table. The flashing cursor on the Google bar taunting me to enter the Stalker Zone.
So Wicked Page 11
