by Faith Gibson
“I want you,” Lexie husks when she breaks the kiss.
She has me.
“Please, make me forget,” she adds.
I stand from the chair, never breaking the kiss. I carry her to the bed where I plan to erase her memories of Adam. I put her to her feet so I can remove her clothes. I don’t care that she smells like her salon. It’s part of what makes her who she is. It’s a scent I relish because it’s her scent. I call on the control I’ve so carefully mastered the last few years and take my time undressing her. I’ve yet to see her completely naked. It’s like unwrapping a present, so I do it slowly, anticipating the gift underneath. I already know her body is perfect. I’ve felt it with my hands. But seeing her bare flesh before me is almost my undoing. Her nipples are hard peaks waiting to be laved. Sucked. Pulled. The curve of her stomach gives me pause. I momentarily allow myself to imagine it full with a child. The child I should have had. I snap out of that delusion and continue my perusal farther south to where heaven awaits.
While she stands still waiting for what I have planned, I remove my clothes. Lexie’s eyes take in every inch of skin as I show her what she’s never seen. She bites her bottom lip, and that movement has my cock twitching with excitement. I want her full lips around my tip. I want to watch as my dick slides in and out of her luscious mouth. But I won’t ask that of her. If she offers, I won’t say no. But she has to want it.
I lift her hands in mine, bringing them to my mouth to place kisses on her knuckles. I then move her hands to my chest. Lexie traces the ink up my pecs and over my shoulders. She trails her fingers down my arms before moving lower. She bites her bottom lip again as she touches a finger to the tip of my leaking cock. When she lifts her finger to her mouth and sucks it clean, I have to grab the base of my dick to keep from coming. “Jesus, fuck,” I mutter and lift her off her feet, depositing her in the middle of the bed. I can’t wait any longer.
“I’ll make it up to you in a few minutes, but right now I have to be inside you. Tell me that’s what you want, too.”
“I want you, Eli.”
I have my dick buried to the hilt before she finishes saying my name.
When I was young and married to her, I naively thought I knew what I was doing. I thought I was giving my wife what she needed. I thought wrong. There’s no other reason… not now motherfucker. Don’t bring her into Lexie’s bed.
I focus all my attention on the woman below me, who has infiltrated every part of my being. I roll my hips, and her fingernails burrow into the skin of my thighs. Lexie keeps her eyes on me as she meets each slow entry with a curve of her own hips. She reaches a hand out for my face, so I lower my body and rest on my forearms. She runs one hand through my hair, gripping it tight enough for my scalp to burn, pushing my orgasm to the edge. I turn my head and nip at the inside of her wrist before pulling out.
I want nothing more than to fuck her hard. To shoot my seed so deep there’s no doubt who has been inside her body. Not yet. I’m too close to coming, so I slide down and dip my tongue into the sweetest nectar I’ve ever tasted. I lap at Lexie’s pussy alternating between her lips and her clit. She moans softly with each swipe of my tongue. When I bite down on her clit, she gasps and calls out, “Oh, god, Eli… Please…”
I don’t let up. I torment her in the best possible way until she’s coming apart. Pressing my face to her apex, I suck up as much of her orgasm as possible. Her body arches and bucks against my face, pulling away at the intensity then pushing back for more.
Now that my dick’s had a chance to calm the fuck down, I can take my time making love to her.
Yep, I said it. Making fucking love.
You’re a fool.
I place a kiss on Lexie’s clit, garnering another moan, before I get on my knees between her legs and sink deeply into her wet pussy. Her eyes are glazed over from her orgasm, and I give her a smile. I put that look in her eyes. Now I want to see what else I can do to her. I lean over her body and let her taste her juices I have no doubt are slicking my beard. Lexie doesn’t hesitate. She kisses me with a fervor I find extremely erotic.
I want her to come around my cock, and then I want her to suck her release off as she blows me. Later. I flip us over so she’s straddling me. I take both her tits in my hands, loving how heavy they are. “Ride me, baby. Show me how much you want my cock,” I instruct. My dirty words spur her on. Lexie begins moving, using her thighs to power her up and down my length. I’m so goddamn hard, harder than I’ve ever been. “Fuck, you’re beautiful,” I tell her. And she is. Lexie puts all those younger bitches to shame. She never takes her hooded eyes off of mine as she shows me how good it could be. How good it is. I want to freeze this moment. Something deep inside my chest twists, and just like that, I’m gone for this woman.
So fucking far gone I’ll never recover.
I flip Lexie to her back, and I use my body to say what I can’t with my mouth. I can’t give her the words because I won’t recover if she doesn’t give them back to me. I love Alexa Murdock one stroke of her pussy at a time. Lexie wraps her long legs around my ass, digging her heels into my thighs. Her moans are met with my grunts. Her breathing is getting shallow as she nears another orgasm. Thinking about her pussy clamping down on my cock has my balls getting tight. I want to prolong this moment. Ride it out for hours. I want Lexie writhing underneath me until she can’t move from exhaustion. I want to claim her more.
I reach between our bodies and find her clit. I won’t come without her. Lexie’s breathing hastens, and her fists grab at the comforter. She’s writhing against me, chasing her release. I hold out until she tosses her head back and squeezes her eyes closed as her pussy puts a chokehold on my cock. I let out a roar the neighbors are sure to hear as I pump my seed into her. I thrust until I’m spent, and then I slide in and out some more. I don’t want to pull out of her.
Ever.
I drop down and kiss her, long and hard. Lexie wraps her arms around me, holding on tight. When I pull back from the kiss so I can see her beautiful face, she pushes my hair away from my eyes.
“Ryan,” I tell her.
“What?” she asks, her eyebrows dipping down.
“Elijah’s my middle name. Call me Ryan.”
“Ryan,” she murmurs as she studies my face. I can see the wheels turning as she lets that sink in. I finally pull out and roll to the side, propping up on an elbow so I can memorize her face in this moment. I rest my hand on her stomach and draw circles around her belly button. Lexie’s face morphs as she goes through several emotions. She surprises me when she pushes me to my back and slides her body on top of mine. “Did you frame Adam?” Lexie asks, her long hair flowing down around my face.
“Yes.” I can’t lie to her. I won’t. If she walks away now, it’ll gut me, but I won’t lie to her. If there’s any chance of us being together, she has to know who she’s getting into bed with, figuratively. She’s already in my bed literally.
“Why?”
“He framed me first.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Adam and his buddies framed me. I spent thirteen years in hell for something I didn’t do.”
Lexie stares at my face. It’s hard to have a serious conversation with her tits pressed against my chest and her pussy hovering over my hard dick. We just got through fucking less than two minutes ago, and I’m ready to go again. I’ve been walking around with an erection ever since I first got a taste of this woman. “Oh, my god. I remember,” she whispers, rolling off of me. She continues moving until she’s standing beside the bed. This is not good. In more ways than one.
“Lexie, get back over here.”
“Your face…”
“Lexie,” I say with more force, but she has her back to me, her arms wrapped around herself. This won’t do, so I climb off the bed and go to her. “Lexie,” I repeat, softer this time with my hands covering hers. I don’t turn her around for fear of what I’ll see in her eyes. Call me a coward. I don’t give a fuc
k, but something has shifted, and I don’t know if it’s going to be in my favor or not.
“I remember you now. You were Adam’s rookie partner. I thought I recognized you that first night in the bedroom. It was your voice. It was deep, like I remembered, but the joy was gone from it. You were the one who killed…” Lexie’s body stiffens under my hands. She’s finally putting it all together.
“No, I didn’t,” I say harsher than I intended. I wrap my arms around her to keep her from running. “I loved my wife, Lexie. I loved her with everything I was. I found her when she was already… She was gone. Adam was my partner, so I called him, and when he showed up, everything went wrong. So terribly wrong. Instead of having my back as a partner should, he immediately arrested me. I knew something was off when Neil and Charlie showed up a few minutes later. I didn’t see it at the time, but looking back, it was all too well orchestrated. They were covering for someone, and I didn’t know who or why until a few nights ago.”
“Tell me,” she begs when I pause. Lexie turns in my arms, her eyes shining with tears. I’ve never known what to do with a woman crying, so my play is to shut it down as quickly as possible, but not this time. This time, I let Lex shed the tears I never could. All the times I wanted to cry for what I lost. All the times I wanted to shout to anyone who would listen about the pain I suffered. All the anguish I felt over my family’s betrayal. Her betrayal. Now, I let Lexie Murdock spill all the tears that abandoned me like everything else in life had.
“You don’t want to hear this, I promise you.”
“Yes, I do. I have to know. I have to know the kind of man I married. The kind of man I stayed married to after he hit me. After he slept with other women. After he framed you.”
I look into her eyes to see if she’s ready to hear the worst part. She knows the truth of her husband. What she doesn’t know is the other people she’s had in her life are even worse than Adam. I know how hard it is to hear the people in your life aren’t who you thought they were. I know the pain that comes with that. It’s not something I’ll get over anytime soon. I don’t want Lexie to feel the same pain I feel. “It’s not just about Adam. It’s about Neil and Amanda, too.”
“Amanda? What does she have to do with anything?” Lexie asks as a tear escapes the corner of her eye.
“Lexie, please, baby, don’t ask this of me.”
“Ryan.” She pauses and pulls my head down to press our lips together. I inhale her breath. I suck down her oxygen and use it to give me strength. After tonight, I’m going to need it. “Please,” she whispers. Fuck! I can’t deny her anything.
“Adam, Neil, and Charles covered up what really happened that night. Lexie, it was Amanda. She killed my wife.”
Chapter 28
Cass
“What?” Lexie backs up, shaking her head. “I don’t believe you. I know my best friend. She isn’t capable of murder.”
“People are capable of a lot when they’re pushed to their limits. When Amanda found Neil in bed with my wife, she waited until Neil left, and she confronted… Amanda confronted my wife with a knife she had taken from the kitchen. Not only did my wife admit to having an affair with Neil, she confessed to being pregnant with his baby. I don’t know if that part’s true or not. I never doubted the baby she was carrying was mine. Lexie, I heard these words come from Amanda’s mouth three nights ago. I set Neil up to get a confession out of him, but what I got was so much more. So much worse.
“In all the years I sat in prison planning what I would do to these men, I never once considered my wife cheated on me. I thought we were happy. I was such a goddamn fool. In my eyes, I had the perfect life. A wonderful wife who loved me. A great job. A house where we were going to raise our kids.” My voice breaks thinking about the children I’ll never have.
“The… the news reported Neil and Amanda’s deaths were murder-suicide. You… did you…? Lexie asks, wrapping her arms around herself.
“No, I didn’t. Lexie, I’m not a murderer. If I was, Adam and Neil would have died soon after I walked out of prison. That’s not who I am. I had hidden cameras in their room so I could watch and listen from the room next to it. After I got the confession, I was going to go to the police with it so Neil would go to jail. I never expected Amanda to confess. When I saw the gun, I closed the program on the laptop I was using to monitor their conversation. I didn’t want to know what happened next.”
That’s not exactly the truth, but the truth is something she can never know. I will protect Paul Bailey until my dying day.
“Lex, please look at me, baby.” I hold my arms open, and she hesitates only a few seconds before she comes to me. I wrap her in my embrace, needing to feel her skin. Hear her breathing. I clear my throat and ask her something that’s been bothering me. “Can I ask you something personal?” When Lexie nods against my chest, I continue, “Why don’t you and Adam have any kids?”
“He didn’t want any. He had a vasectomy before we were married.”
“Didn’t you want them either?”
She pulls back so she can look into my face when she answers. “Yes, I did. I was pretty sure I had mentioned that while we were dating, but he assured me I hadn’t. Him having a vasectomy never occurred to me since he never said I shouldn’t be taking birth control.”
“You would have made a beautiful mother,” I whisper.
I kiss her gently before I step away and pull on my clothes. I need time to gather my control. Hearing that my wife not only slept with another man but was possibly carrying his child has carved a hole in my chest, ripped my heart out, and tossed it out the goddamn window. What shred of faith in humanity I had is gone. Not even the beautiful woman who has captured my black soul can restore it. I shouldn’t drop this bomb on her and leave, but I have to get away. I need to be alone before I hurt her more than I already have.
“Where are you going?”
“I need some air.” When she puts her hand on my arm, I flinch. Pain flashes through her eyes, but if I don’t leave now, that pain will be permanently etched on her beautiful face. I don’t tell her I’ll call her. I don’t promise I’ll see her again. Honestly, I don’t know if I’m even staying in this goddamn town now. I give Lexie the softest kiss I can manage, pouring every ounce of regret into it before I leave her standing in her bedroom.
“Ryan.” Lexie’s voice stops me at the door. I foolishly turn and look at her one last time. “Were you only using me?” She holds deathly still waiting for my answer.
“In the beginning, yes. But then I…” I shake my head and let that thought drop as I rush to get away from her. But then I went and fell in love with you. I fooled myself into believing I would sweep in and make her forget all about Adam Murdock. That she would thank me for getting him out of her life. I know that won’t happen now. Like I said – beyond the point of saving.
As soon as I step outside, I inhale the night air deep into my lungs and make my way to my car where I parked it down the street. Once inside, I take off driving. I have no destination in mind; I just go.
I’ve never given any thought as to why people cheat. Now that I’ve been knee deep in nothing but deception and lies, I have to wonder why. I assumed with Amanda it was because she wasn’t getting what she needed from Neil. Neil wasn’t getting what he needed from Amanda, so he turned to Violet, among other women. I have no choice but to acknowledge that I wasn’t giving her everything she needed, not if she was seeking something else from someone else. I can’t ask her why she didn’t tell me what she needed. Neil took that away from me by sleeping with my wife, and Amanda took that away from me by killing her. I can’t wrap my head around the fact that someone so young would be into his kind of pain. Neither can I wrap my head around the fact that she was pregnant with his baby.
Not mine.
That cuts deeper than the cheating. If Amanda hadn’t found out, would I have been raising another man’s child? It seems my life has been nothing but false doctrines, false words, and false feelings. The
only feeling I know that’s real is the love I have for Lexie. Now that she knows the truth, I’ve lost her. I’ll get over Lexie the same way I did her. It’ll take time. I’ll bury myself in my work and continue to pay Jared back for everything he’s done for me. Other than that…
When I get home, my cousin’s waiting up for me. “I thought once this shit was over you’d be happy. So, you wanna tell me why you look like you just lost your best friend?”
I should have known he would be able to tell things still aren’t right. “Seeing as how you’re my best friend, that’s not going to happen. I just…” I lean against the doorjamb and gather my thoughts. I know Jared won’t judge me or call me a fool. “I conned myself into thinking I might have my cake and eat it too.”
“Are you talking about a woman?”
I nod. “Not just any woman, either. Lexie Murdock. I had every intention of ruining her life along with everyone else’s right up until the moment I touched her. She was supposed to be at a fundraiser with Adam, but for whatever reason, she came home early. They had obviously been fighting because she was crying. Instead of sneaking out of the house, I confronted her. Dried her tears. I held her. Goddammit, Jared. She’s so fucking beautiful. But the kicker was she told me no.”
“No? What was the question?”
If I didn’t hurt so bad, I might have smirked, but I do, so I shrug my shoulder and answer honestly, “I asked her to let me take the pain away for one night. She said no, because she was married. That motherfucker husband of hers cheated on her. He beat on her. He lied to her face day in and day out, and she still said no. I think that’s the moment I fell in love with her.”
