His pupils dilate when they meet mine, and in two steps, he’s by my side pulling me off the bed and into his arms. He slams his lips onto mine in a punishing kiss, making me dizzy. He pecks me once more after he stops. Looking at me seriously, he says with so much worry in his voice, “If you want time, then say you want time. Just don’t ever scare me like you did today. I won’t live through that again.”
I nod my head, but after that kiss, I would nod my head to anything he asked.
Alizon smiles widely, looking at us. “Are you staying with her tonight, Lawrence, or do I need to stay?”
Sputtering, I ask, “Why does anyone need to stay?”
“Do we have to go over this again, Rosalyn?” she questions. “You were just hurt. You’re not staying alone tonight. In my opinion, Lawrence should stay.”
There’s my sister, the matchmaker. She’d be happy if I was sleeping with every single guy at court, as long as I wasn’t with Xavier.
Over my head, they have a conversation. “I’ll stay with her tonight, just give me a second to get something to sleep in,” he tells her.
“Okay, I’ll wait until you get back,” she says excitedly.
“I’ll be right back, amare.” He kisses my forehead and makes his way out of my room, softly closing the door.
I’m hoping Lawrence doesn’t take long because I don’t want to spend an eternity having a conversation with my sister. I’m not in the mood to deal with her.
“You there, Rosalyn? Or have you passed out on me again?” she asks sarcastically passing her hand in front of my face.
Pushing her hand away, I growl at her, “What do you want, Allie?”
“Wow, you’re in a bad mood. You’re in a bad mood a lot lately. What’s your problem?” she questions, crowding my personal space.
She’ll be thrown across the room if she doesn’t back up soon. “Would you back the hell up?” I bark before softening my voice a little. “I’m sick of everyone thinking it’s okay to keep everything from me, so I’m not dealing with it anymore. I’m sorry if you think that puts me in a bad mood, I just don’t want to deal with anyone’s crap.” Throwing my hair over my shoulder, I study her, wondering what she’s going to say next.
Alizon sighs. “You realize all we’re trying to do is protect you.”
“I’m almost eighteen, Allie. I think I can handle whatever you’re keeping from me,” I state, frustration ringing through my voice. What she doesn’t realize is I already know, so let’s just see how long we’re going to play this game.
The door opens in the background, so I guess we’re going to play it out a little longer. Looking toward the door, I see Lawrence holding something. He walks toward me quickly and drops a kiss at the crown of my hair.
Automatically, my arms wrap around him as he says to my sister, “I’ve got her now if you want to go.”
My sister slyly smiles. The next words out of her mouth surprise me. “Okay, just don’t make me an aunt tonight. Make sure you’re safe.”
“Alizon!” I scream, my neck and cheeks warming. She laughs as she makes her way out of my chamber. Lawrence chuckles as he holds me.
“Lawrence, it isn’t funny,” I say, pushing him away from me.
He picks me up and places me under the blankets. “Oh, amare, it is.” He shakes his head. “I’m not going to go there. You’re nowhere near ready. Your sister knows the type of man I am, that’s why she said it.” He kisses me softly.
When Lawrence turns around to walk into the bathroom, he slowly lifts his shirt over his head, and I swear drool seeps out of my mouth. His shoulders are broad and well developed. He loosens his pants as he closes the door to the bathroom, and I get a glimpse of his tight ass.
Not long after, the door opens back up. I look up, and hot damn! All he is wearing are black cotton pants that leave very little to the imagination. He has a smattering of black and gray hair on his well-developed chest, and nipple rings. As I follow the line of hair down his eight-pack, I see it leads right underneath his pants.
“Rosalyn, my eyes are up here.” Amusement colors his tone.
That gets my attention. My head snaps up to his green eyes, and I can’t believe I was just caught staring at him. I’m probably turning bright red. My hands cover my face in mortification.
He struggles to pry my hands away from my face. “Amare, I’m not upset that you were looking. I want you to look.” When he successfully uncovers my face, I turn over so I’m looking away from him. I don’t want to face him right now.
He climbs into bed so I’m looking him straight in the eye. “Rosalyn, talk to me. What’s wrong?”
My voice is a whisper as I talk to him. “I’m just embarrassed, that’s all. It’s one thing to look at you and not be caught. It’s another thing to get caught in the act. It’s not appropriate for a princess to look at a man like that.”
Lawrence kisses my forehead. “Rosalyn, I want to catch you looking at me like that. If you don’t, we might have issues.”
I lean closer to him. “What are we, Lawrence?”
He brushes some hair behind my ear. “What do you want us to be, Rosalyn? You’re the only one who can answer that question.” He taps on my chest. “I know you’re someone I could see myself being with for a very long time, but your heart’s still stuck on Xavier. I may get mad when you say his name, but that’s because I know you’re the only one who can change that. And you’re the only one who knows what’s going on inside of here.” He taps my head and then my chest. “I want to have a relationship with you, but if he’s who you want, I’ll step aside. On the other hand, if he’s not what you want, let’s start down a path together.”
It’s amazing that months ago, this man couldn’t stand me and now he wants to have a relationship with me. My heart and head are a mess. With Xavier in a deep sleep, and Alaric gone, I can’t tell him I’m okay being with him. There’s no way I can enter into a relationship and not give my whole heart to that person.
So, I give him the best answer I can give. “I like you, Lawrence, I’m even developing feelings for you. Everything is a mess inside here.” I tap my head. “And here.” I tap my heart. “I definitely want to see where things go between us because I never thought the man who sent me into a fight with Scarlett months ago would be the man lying next to me. The thing is, I really like the man lying next to me.” Leaning forward, I kiss him.
He quickly breaks the kiss off and dazzles me with a smile. “Then I’m going to fight for your heart. You have a heart of gold, and I don’t want to give you up. Plus, we’re perfectly made for each other.” Lawrence pulls me so I’m lying half-way on top of him. “I’m not going anywhere, amare. Even if you pick him over me, I’ll still be here. I promise you that.” He kisses my neck, and for the first time in a long while, I feel comfortable and safe with his warmth and smell surrounding me. He gathers me up and lays me completely on top of him. “Go to sleep, amare. I’ll be here protecting you and holding you while you sleep.”
Chapter Seventeen
Rosalyn
“Rosalyn.”
Raising my hand in front of me, I realize I can’t see it. It’s pitch black everywhere. There’s no way this is a vision because I’ve never had one like this before. My heart gallops in my chest.
“Rosalyn, talk to me,” a voice says, and I’m pretty sure it’s the deep timbre of Xavier’s voice.
Relief spreads through me, and I deflate. “Xavier?” A questioning tone rings in my voice. “Where are we?”
He chuckles somewhere to the side of me. “Somewhere I knew we would be alone. I brought you here, Addy, I’ve been trying to do it for some time.”
For a minute, all I hear is the heaviness of our breathing. My eyes widen in astonishment as I think about all the time he’s been in a deep sleep. That whole time he’s been trying to bring me here so we can talk. I don’t like how dark it is, though.
“Is there a way you can turn some lights on in here? I don’t feel comfortable with how dark it is.” The h
air on my arms stands on end, and I shiver. I’ve always hated the dark, and he knows that.
Hands touch my shoulders, and I jump. He whispers quietly, “If I could turn on some light, I would, but since we’re in your head, that’s up to you.”
A shudder rolls through my body. Now, all I want is to be awake. My thoughts stray to Lawrence, asleep in bed with me curled up on his chest. My heart pulls in two directions, but my disgust pushes me closer to Lawrence. I don’t care if I haven’t seen Xavier in weeks, he should have never invaded my privacy.
A snarl sounds in the darkness. “What do you mean you’re asleep on Lawrence’s chest?” His hands grab my cheeks, and I feel his breath on my face.
My hands push against his chest, but he doesn’t budge. “Xavier, move,” I demand. “I don’t want you anywhere near me.”
He leans his forehead against mine and forcefully says, “Answer my question, Rosalyn. What do you mean you’re asleep on Lawrence’s chest?”
A bitter laugh bursts out as I pull my head away from his. “Like you deserve any answers, Xavier. You invaded my mind. I’m not giving you anything. Now, let go of me and get out of my head.”
Under his breath, he counts to ten and steps away from me. If I could see him, I bet he would be pacing back and forth. In an exasperated breath, he says, “Addy, I deserve an answer. You’ve been everything to me since the day you were brought into this world. I don’t want to lose you to him.”
Cocking my head to the side, I tap my finger to my lip. “Then answer a question for me. If I mean everything to you, why did you kiss my mother and break my heart? I think I deserve that answer.” My tone raises at the end in disbelief. He has no right to demand anything of me.
In a rush he explains, “You’re not old enough to understand why I did that yet, but I promise when you are, I’ll tell you. Just trust me for now. There are reasons why I do what I do.”
Throwing my hands up in frustration, I follow the sounds of his breath until I’m right next to him. “Wow. I’m too young to understand, but I’m old enough for you to mess around with, and have a relationship with.” Laughing maniacally, I poke him in the chest. “I’d be absolutely insane to stay with someone who treated me this way and refused to give me any explanations. The sad part is you’ve hidden so much of yourself from me for so long. You may have had my heart, but it takes more than that. I need to be in love with you.” A part of my heart cracks at my declaration.
Xavier grabs my finger and then the back of my head, slamming his lips against mine. I lean into him for a second—when fireworks go off inside my body, and it feels like coming home—before my knee comes up and hits him right where it counts. He collapses, groaning.
Standing over him, I venomously say, “Ask before you do something like that, Xavier. I didn’t want you to kiss me, especially since everything that comes out of your mouth is a lie. You ruined us. There’s a crater big enough for this castle to fall through, and I’m not ruining things with Lawrence.”
Xavier laughs from the ground. “You’re ruining us for Lawrence, a man you hated. Everything I did, I did to save our relationship.”
No matter what I say, he isn’t getting it. When your heart beats for someone your whole life, they can destroy you with just a few actions. It only took a matter of days for Xavier to leave a gaping hole, and he didn’t even stay to watch everything seep out of me. I’m done trying. I can’t keep going in circles with him.
He gets off the ground. “Is that what you want, Rosalyn? Do you want me to slash myself open and spill myself on the ground for you? Do you know that I’ve never done that for anyone? Why should I do that with you?” he asks furiously.
“This conversation is over,” I growl. “Get the hell out of my head, Xavier!”
Pushing with my mind, I feel him leave my head, and I put up a strong ward. My powers feel weakened, and I know it worked. Safe in the knowledge that he’s gone, I fall into a peaceful sleep.
When I wake up on Lawrence’s chest, I feel refreshed. Everything I said to Xavier flashes through my head. Lying on Lawrence, I realize my heart is completely split. My mind knows I made the right choice, but it doesn’t mean I’m not still heartbroken about saying goodbye to a man who consumed my waking days for years. Underneath me, I have a man willing to fight for me and protect me. The other man, deep asleep somewhere in the castle, is a man I’ve loved my whole life but who completely crushed me multiple times. It’s time to let Xavier go. If it wasn’t for everything that Xavier’s done, I know he’d still have my heart completely. What he said is true, Lawrence is coming between us. I also told him the truth. He made that possible. Feelings and love are complicated, but when two men are involved, you feel ripped in two.
Lawrence moves, and my legs shift so I’m straddling his body. I feel all of him, and boy does he have a huge cock. My nightgown has shifted up to where I’m pretty much naked on top of his pants. It feels really good. Sliding up, I put my hands on his chest and kiss him to slowly thrust my tongue into the warmth of his mouth. Two hands raise up and grab my head, and his tongue tangles with mine.
Roughly, he flips me over onto my back and settles himself between my thighs, pushing my nightgown up. His teeth nip at my chin, and he slowly kisses down my neck and bites softly.
“You make me crazy.” His voice is rough from sleep.
He thrusts his cock against my underwear before slamming his mouth against mine roughly. As our tongues tangle, my hands make their way down to his butt, and I push his dick harder against my pussy. He starts making long movements, and when the tip of his wide penis spreads my lips and something hard hits my clit, my nails bite into his ass.
Moaning, I ask, “What is that?”
He stops kissing me and, with a devilish smile, he pulls his pants down farther. At the end of his long, swollen dick is a silver bar. Oh my god, he has a pierced cock.
A loud moan comes from my lips as I reach out to grab it, but all of a sudden, pain shoots up and down my side, and I hear a wolf whine in my head. Softly, I whisper, “Alaric.”
Lawrence jumps off me and pulls up his pants furiously. “Who the hell is Alaric?” he asks, outraged.
Grabbing my side, I curl up in a ball. Alaric, what’s wrong? A whine breaks through my head, and then there’s complete silence. The pain in my side disappears as suddenly as it appeared, and I have no clue what’s going on.
When Lawrence leans down and puts his hands on either side of me, I look up at him. He sneers and says quietly with contempt, “Who’s Alaric, Rosalyn?” The vein in his neck throbs.
I realize I have no idea how to answer this question. There’s no way I can tell him what Alaric has said about us, so I lie. “He’s someone I’ve had a vision about. I just had another vision about him.”
He looks at me, unconvinced, and shakes his head. Standing up, he finds his shirt and throws it on. Looking back at me one last time, he says, “When you decide to tell me the truth, we can continue this conversation. Until then, I’m leaving.”
Flying out of bed, I grab his arm. “What do you mean you’re leaving?” Panic laces my voice.
Lawrence looks down at me, sadness in his eyes. “I never thought you would tell me half-truths like Xavier. You’re better than that, Rosalyn.”
I sigh and am about to answer him when it feels like teeth have bitten through my ankle. Looking down, I see there’s blood, and I collapse. My leg hurts so much. Alaric! There’s no answer.
Grabbing my hair, I pull at it, and arms wrap around me. “I’m not stupid, amare,” Lawrence murmurs to me. “Something’s going on, and I’m getting to the bottom of it. You refuse to talk to me about it. Until you do, there’s no trust.”
Lawrence places me on the bed and pushes up my nightgown, but there’s no blood. My mouth drops in astonishment. I swear I saw blood.
He clucks his tongue, and I look at him. He tells me just what I’m thinking. “No blood means there’s more to the story. You’re connected to somebody becau
se the only way you feel their pain is by being bonded to them. I’m not pursuing a relationship with you until you come clean with me about what’s going on, Rosalyn.”
Not only is worry going through me for Alaric, but now Lawrence is breaking up with me?
“Don’t do this, Lawrence.” Begging him, I grab his hand. “Losing you would break me.” My voice cracks at the end of my confession. Everyone is disappearing, and I can’t handle it if he does, too.
He squeezes my hand. “You won’t completely lose me. I’ll still be around as your friend. We just won’t have a romantic relationship. I already told you I won’t compete with other men. I have to protect myself, too, Rosalyn.”
Abruptly, I let go of his hand, and bury my face to sob. “Don’t do this to me, Lawrence,” I cry between hiccups.
Lawrence picks me up and gathers me in his lap, rocking me back and forth. “I’m here when you’re ready to tell me everything, amare.” He kisses my forehead and sets me down in my bed. Between sobs, I hear the door latch.
Footsteps hurry across the room.
“I’m going to kill him.”
When I hear Alizon say that, I snap out of it for a second. Looking up, through blurry eyes, I see her climbing into bed with me.
Gasping through my sobs, I say, “It’s not what you think.”
She scoffs. “My sister is sobbing in bed after spending the night with a man. You don’t want to know what I’m thinking right now, because what I’m thinking is he had sex with my sister and then broke her heart.”
More cries leave my mouth as I hiccup. She’s not even close to the truth. I wish my heart was broken because of that. At this point, I’ll remain a virgin the rest of my life.
If I survive this, you won’t stay a virgin, sweetheart.
Alaric! There’s no answer because he placed a wall between us. My fists slam down against the bed. What the hell is going on over there?!
Taking a deep breath, I look over at my sister. “Alizon . . . we didn’t have sex. I promise you we just messed around, and I started it. I’m still pure.” Pleading with her, I say, “Please understand, this has nothing to do with him leaving because he got what he wanted. He left because of me.” I sob at this admission.
Decadence (Tree of Life Series Book 1) Page 13
