I’m glad I didn’t see him at first because the second verse of this particular song is fitting for him. I move to stand directly in front of him and sing every word to him. I even point to him to let him know that I will fight him with every fiber of my being. During the chorus, I point to myself and tell him that I am the one who is indestructible – not him. He is the enemy and he will be destroyed in the end. Saying this to him feels fucking fantastic, liberating and empowering. He damn well knows it, too.
His face loses a little of the cockiness and smugness it originally had. He must have thought I’d cower in the corner and beg for mercy. Not a chance – I’ve been through too much to give him one ounce of satisfaction from seeing any apprehension in me. I suddenly realize I have been blatantly staring a hole through the bastard when Luke’s movement catches my eye. He’s turning around to see who I’m looking at.
I’ve never been so relieved to finish a song before now. I have to get to Luke before he either recognizes Jackson or thinks he’s someone I’m interested in and makes a scene. Even if Luke wants to protect me, he doesn’t need to go looking for trouble before we’re ready for it. I jump off the stage from the front instead of going down the steps at the back. I reach our table and sit across from Luke so his wide shoulders and back will shield me from Jackson’s view.
I immediately see the hurt in Luke’s eyes – he didn’t see Jackson or didn’t recognize him – but he knows something is up. I take my cell phone back from Katie and discreetly show it to him. He nods in understanding and pulls his phone out. I hold it in my lap, under the table and out of view, and send him a text.
The bastard is here. Behind u. Don’t look!!!
Luke looks up at me and he is visibly furious. He takes a few seconds to pound out a response on his phone.
L: Y r u not sitting w/ME?
My eyes implore him before I send my response.
He’s threatening. I don’t want u 2 b a target.
Luke’s blue eyes are almost black with fury now. He pins me with a look of steel and I know exactly what he’s thinking – that I’m not letting him protect me. So I send another quick text.
Element of surprise. He may not no abt u yet. Trust me. PLS!
Luke’s staring down at his phone that’s in his lap. His jaw is working again – grinding his teeth, clenching the muscles and muttering swear words under his breath. He hasn’t answered my text or even looked at me.
My phone vibrates in my hand.
L: I’m leaving.
While I’m reading it over and over again, and feeling positive that there will be more to the message that will come through my phone any second now, Luke gets up and walks out of the club. Not another word. No more messages. Nothing to indicate he understood what I meant or that he would even just trust me until we were out of sight so I could explain my reasoning to him. He just got up and walked away.
I’m now visible to Jackson and he’s intently watching me. Somehow I mask the emotions that are threatening to take full control of all my faculties. I can’t let him know I’m affected by Luke. To keep at least some semblance of sanity, I have to hold to the notion that he doesn’t know about us yet. I’m also desperately hoping that Luke is actually waiting for me in his truck outside. I’m praying that he understood my message and is just putting some space between us so it will appear I’m here alone.
I wait a few minutes before I get up to leave. I keep my eyes trained on Jackson’s but I let how much he disgusts me burn through my glare at him. He takes a deep breath as I pass by him – he thought I was going to cause a big scene and get him busted for being in the club tonight. I thought about it, actually, but I feel an urgent need to get to Luke right now. I keep my pace casual until I get to the door and out of the bastard’s line of sight, then I run to the area where Luke parked.
No!
Oh God, please don’t let this be true.
He. Left. Me.
Again.
I walk around the parking lot for a few minutes to double check that he’s not really out here somewhere. I just can’t believe that he would really do this after everything we just went through to get back together. After everything he said to me. After the way he made love to me.
He wouldn’t really do this, would he?
Would he?
LUKE
“Why the hell are you walking around out here in that?” Has she lost her mind? I’m really trying to not be mad. She’s still in her costume from her song earlier and it doesn’t cover nearly enough of her. We’ve already had that one run in with douche-Brad in the parking lot and I don’t want anyone else getting any ideas about her. I’m concerned about her safety with the bastard being here tonight and she’s running around alone and half-naked.
She turns and looks at me and her eyes grow wide. Note to self: she may be small, but she is strong! Andi just flew through the air and plastered herself to me. Thankfully, I caught her under her ass just in time because her legs are now wrapped around my waist and her arms are around my neck. And she’s squeezing the breath out of me. Her reaction to seeing me is just now sinking in and my first concern is who hurt her?
“Baby, tell me what happened. Did someone hurt you?” I keep my voice calm to try to calm her but inside my blood is hitting the temperature of the sun right about now.
She shakes her head no but she’s still holding on to me with all her might. She turns her face and buries it in my neck. I rub her back with one hand while holding her up with the other. “Sweetheart, tell me what’s wrong. Why didn’t you meet me behind the club like I said? What happened?”
She raises her head and I realize my neck is now wet. I draw my head back to look at her and cup her face with one hand while holding her up with the other. “Andi, tell me what’s wrong,” I demand a little stronger this time.
“I couldn’t find you….I thought….I-,” her words are clipped and she’s trying to speak between gasps of breath. “I thought you’d left.”
“What? Why? I sent you a text – told you to come out the back door after you changed clothes.”
“I don’t have a text from you – other than when you said you were leaving,” she says as she buries her face back into my neck and squeezes my neck tighter.
I remove my phone from my pocket and pull up my text messages. Failure to send. Son of a bitch!
“Andi, look at my phone, baby,” I coax her as tenderly as possible. She doesn’t budge. “Please, baby, just look for me.”
She reluctantly takes the phone from my hand with one hand but the other hand grips my neck tighter, as her legs constrict tighter around my waist. We need to settle this before I pass out from oxygen deprivation.
I can’t help but laugh – a little – when I see my phone disappear behind my neck. She’s looking at it over my shoulder so she can still hold on with both hands. I love her so fucking much.
“You thought I left you, Andi?” I ask softly. I know she does – I know her mind went back to the worst thing I’ve ever done, the day I left her at my parents when she needed me the most.
“I’m sorry I thought that,” she whispers, “I didn’t at first. But then I couldn’t find you. I’ve been walking around looking for you.”
I squeeze her to me even tighter now and I really didn’t think that was even possible. My arms are wrapped around her, supporting her and holding her to me, as I walk back to my truck parked behind the club. After I open the passenger door, I place her on the edge of the seat but she’s still facing me so I can lean into her, between her legs, and talk to her. She hasn’t loosened the hold she has on me with her legs yet, giving me no choice but to stay close.
Holding her face in my hands, I give her gentle kisses on her lips, nose, eyes and then all along her jaw. “You have nothing to be sorry about, baby. I will never leave you. Never. It was an honest mistake – I didn’t check the text and I was mad when I left the club. But not at you, baby.”
She finally looks up at me and my chest squee
zes like a vice is wrapped around me when I see her red-rimmed eyes, bloodshot and puffy from crying. I still can’t believe how someone so completely beautiful inside and out could love me as much as she so obviously does. How could I have ever doubted her?
“I was so afraid I’d….that I’d lost you again. When I saw you, I was just so relieved and happy that you were really here.” Her voice is so soft and I can see that scared, lost young girl behind the strong, independent woman she’s become.
“You will never lose me, Andi. If you ever try to leave me, I will follow you. Every day, Andi – every single day – I think to myself that there’s no way I could be any more in love with you. And every day, I’m proven wrong.”
She lays her head on my chest as I draw her in my arms again and hold her tight for several more minutes. We both just need this right now – the comfort of each other’s touch, the reassurance that neither of us is alone, and the warmth of our intense love. This feels so right and so natural that it doesn’t even scare me anymore. The I’m-not-a-relationship-kind-of-guy just found the one person in the world who could make him want to change that.
“You ready to tell me why I couldn’t just drag the bastard out of the club and save us all a lot of trouble?” I ask as I nestle my face into her neck, just below her ear.
She takes a deep, calming breath and looks up to give me a faint smile. “Maybe he doesn’t know about us yet. He was here as a threat to me, I know that much. We could have an ace in the hole if you don’t drag him out here and beat the crap out of him.”
“So I could be like a 007-type of undercover spy?” I ask with a snort. This earns me her award-winning smile.
“Something like that, tough guy,” she quips.
“To be honest, I’d rather just drag the bastard out here and be done with him. But I’m willing to try it your way first,” and I mean it. I would rather fucking drag the bastard out here, stomp his ass and ship him off in a freight container where he can be a love slave to his eternally horny, male gorilla cellmate.
“Baby,” I add with a kiss, “as much as I love having your legs wrapped around me, think you can let go now so I can breathe?”
She smiles ruefully and releases her legs from around me. I make a big show of exaggerated breaths and broken ribs until I have her laughing again. Music to my ears.
I’m not willing to risk her safety by going back in to get her clothes so I’ll just have to suffer the view on the ride home. Now if I can talk her into torturing me with this view for a little while longer in her bedroom, I’ll pass out from exhaustion a very happy man tonight. Knowing that tomorrow morning will bring a world of hurt back to her, tonight I will bring her every bit of pleasure I can muster from my considerable arsenal.
We step into her house and I lock the door behind me, set the alarm and stalk after her as she makes her way to her bedroom. Her taut ass swings side to side as she walks, unaware that I’m completely entranced by her. She’s about to start undressing when I wrap my arms around her from behind and still her hands. “Have I told you how hot you look in this outfit?”
She sighs in pleasure as I run my tongue up and down her neck, stopping to nip and kiss along the way. My hands love the feel of her body, moving up from her stomach to cup her breasts. She moans out loud when I rub the pads of my thumbs across her nipples, causing them to pebble under my touch. I move my hands under her barely-there shirt, “You’re not wearing a bra under this flimsy thread?”
“No,” she moans and tilts her head back as I continue rubbing her sensitive buds.
“If I’d known that….,” I can’t even finish the thought. I would’ve already taken her. I would’ve snatched her off that stage and away from all those eyes. I rip what’s left of the shirt off of her, fully revealing her beautiful breasts. She gasps in response.
My hands flatten against her stomach and glide over her soft, supple skin until they reach her barely-there shorts and the V between her legs. One hand slides between her legs and I rub her from nub to ass and back again. I growl when I feel the wetness through her shorts and press my growing erection into the middle of her exquisite ass. Moving the fabric aside, I push one finger deep into her wetness. “No panties either?”
She shakes her head no. Fuck!
I grab one side of the shorts and completely rip them from her body, too. She cries out in ecstasy and I grab a fist full of her hair to pull her face back to me. My mouth covers hers and my tongue pushes lightly on the part of her lips, urging her to give it passage. She obeys and I completely overtake her mouth, invading it with my tongue and owning her with it. She responds with full fury and need.
I walk her to the bed and gently push her head forward until she’s bending over at the waist with her hands on the bed. “Stay there, just like that.”
“But-“
“Stay. There.”
“OK.”
I step back and shed all my clothes in an instant. I am so damn hard now I could cut diamonds and still shatter a Ginsu knife with it. I gently thrust my hips to rub along the crease in her ass. She’s panting and writhing in anticipation and it turns me on even more. I reposition myself to her soft folds and gently rub it back and forth, barely penetrating as my hips surge forward. With each thrust, her eagerness increases and she pushes her hips back in an attempt to take me in her.
I pull back and she groans in frustration. I run my hands across the small of her back and one finger gently trails her from the top of the crease in her ass, along her rosebud, across her wetness to her waiting, swollen nub. She sucks in a sharp breath and her whole body tenses and her back arches. She’s so fucking ready for me. Using my middle finger to apply circular pressure on her nub, my thumb plunges in and she immediately clenches around it. I move my thumb slowly in and out of her, hooking it and hitting her sweet spot with each movement.
When I feel she is so close to her first orgasm, I stop and she growls loudly at me, “Ugh! Don’t stop!” I smile widely even though she can’t see me. I drop to my knees and start again with my tongue. She cries out as I take it in my mouth and suck on it, then lightly graze it with my teeth. Then I plunge two fingers deep into her, moving fast and hard. She screams my name with her first full blown orgasm and her knees start to buckle below her.
Using my hands on her hips to steady her, I tell her to lean over and put her weight on the bed again. I stand and run my hands over the sexy, muscular globes of her ass. “Are you ready for me?”
“Fuck, yes, Luke!” My sexy little vixen.
“Hold tight, baby.” I see her hands grab the comforter tightly, waiting for me. I crave the wet, velvety feel of her wrapped around me. She always stretches to take me in and fits me like a glove. I can’t wait any longer to be inside her.
I push in slowly the first time so I don’t hurt her, “Oh God, Luke!” My hips rock back and forth, faster and faster, as she takes all of me into her.
“You like that?”
“I love it,” she purrs back at me over her shoulder. She’s so responsive to every touch and word tonight and the sounds she makes drives me wild. I feel her shudder as she tightens around me over and over again until she tells me she can’t take anymore. We finish together, with Andi screaming my name as my fingers dig into the perfect skin on her hips until I’m completely spent inside her. I gently pull back and watch as her arms give out and she falls flat on her stomach. She has the most beautiful smile on her face.
She’s just dozing off and jumps when water drops from the wet washcloth in my hand falls on her back. Raising her head from the bed, she looks over her shoulder at me and I give her a sheepish smile. I really didn’t mean to do that but since she’s awake, I roll her over to her back and gently rub the cloth between her legs to clean her up. She rubs her hand along my jaw and quietly whispers, “I love you.”
“I love you, too, baby.” I take my place beside her and she rolls over to face me. I am mesmerized by the love shining in her eyes and I’m struck by how lucky I am to
have her in my life.
“I’ve been thinking,” she whispers.
“Uh-oh,” I tease.
She smiles before she continues, “I don’t want you to play 007 with Rhoades. He always has security around him. I can’t believe he didn’t have it in the club. But when he’s in political mode, you won’t be able to get close to him. Maybe I should just do a press conference….let them ask their questions and get it all out there.”
“Why do you want to do that?” I can’t keep the concern from my voice.
“Because the parents are trying to keep the kids away from me at the center now. They think I’m some psychotic monster.” Her voice is filled with pain and it makes me want to jerk Jackson Rhoades up by the balls even more.
“If you decide to do the press conference, I will stand by you. We need to think through all the backlash you could get though.” She suddenly has a thoughtful, concerned look on her face and I know she’s not thinking of how the backlash will hit her. She’s thinking of how it will hit everyone except her.
“Maybe we should go see your parents tomorrow.” She’s looking off over my shoulder in deep thought as she makes her statement.
Well……that came out of the damn blue.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
ANDI
Once everything I’ve gone through comes out into the open, I think Sam and Linda will feel guilty and have a really hard time with their part in it. Even though Sam betrayed me, he did it for the sake of his family. While it still hurt like hell, I can’t completely blame him for wanting to protect his family and his business. I want to be the one to explain it all to them before I talk to the press. I don’t want anyone in Luke’s family to be blindsided by this whole mess.
Luke was surprised when I said we should go to his parents’ house. I know he hasn’t spent much time with them since Sam admitted what he did to us. I don’t want to be the cause of a family fight so I want to put this behind me as much as I want Luke to put it behind him. He’s never known what being orphaned really feels like, or what having no family really does to you. I don’t wish that on anyone. So, I talked him into going for a visit today. He doesn’t look thrilled.
Crazy Maybe Page 19
