Chapter Eleven
Lillith
“That was amazing,” the deep voice grumbled from beside me, his rugged pants rising into the air as night took hold of the hotel room.
I struggled to find my own breath. My body blissfully spent.
But it was my heart pulsing full of an overwhelming satisfaction and joy that shivered through my senses. The feelings pressed and pulsed and thrummed, demanding to make themselves known.
Affection.
Fondness.
Care.
Stripped of my anger, they were right there, taunting me with the fact I’d rather be in his arms than anywhere else.
I knew those feelings put me in greater danger with this man than I’d ever been.
I rolled onto my side and propped up on my elbow. “What is happening here?” I whispered.
Broderick lay on his back in the middle of the massive bed we’d spent the entire day utilizing to its fullest potential.
I couldn’t resist tracing a fingertip down the sheer strength of his bare chest and over his ripped abdomen. As if I hadn’t spent the last eight hours exploring every inch of him while he’d consumed every inch of me.
No place in me had been left unattended. He’d taken me hard and fast and rough, again and again. Until the last time when his touch had turned tender and slow as he’d stared down at me through the descending night.
He grinned. “I thought we were seeing where this goes.”
“But now that you have things settled here, you’ll be going back to New York.”
“Will I be?”
Quickly, I shifted up farther so I could get a better look at him. “What?”
He raised a hand and threaded his fingers through my hair. “Maybe you were entirely wrong about my view back in Manhattan, Lillith. Maybe I have the best view right here.”
Tingles spread like sparking matches to my spirit.
Stunned, I blinked down at him. “You want to stay here…because of me?” It almost came across as an accusation.
“You think I wouldn’t?”
My head shook. “You don’t even know me.”
His smile was easy. “You keep saying that.”
He seemed completely unperturbed by my sudden questioning, while my whole world felt as if it’d spun off its axis.
I was a realist.
A planner.
Cautious to the ninth degree.
I didn’t carelessly fall in love. To me, love was a decision that was made only by choice, given after every consequence had been taken into consideration.
Otherwise, you were left stung. Bitten. Broken.
I also didn’t fall recklessly into someone’s bed.
Yet, there I was.
“I keep saying that because it’s true.”
“What are you so afraid of?” he asked as he ran gentle fingers through my hair, a frown denting between his eyes.
I had the sudden urge to slip from his bed and cover myself, hide, the impulse stronger than it’d been in a long, long time.
His brow furrowed, the man so intent as he ran the knuckles of one hand down my cheek and under my jaw. Tingles lifted. Warmth and comfort and a stroke of that fire. “Who hurt you, Lillith?”
“The people who were supposed to love me most.”
I had no idea what had come over me, because the urge to tell him was suddenly so much greater than the need to run. The pain I’d kept hidden for so long begging to be released. He watched me, silently coaxing me to continue.
I swallowed around the lump in my throat before I forced out the confession. “I was fifteen…”
I blinked through the memory, my voice going soft as I got lost in it. “It was just like any other day. I went to school. My momma had been more scattered …flustered. Depressed maybe, I don’t know.”
My tongue felt as if it might freeze up, but the words kept flooding out when Broderick tightened his hold in my hair. “I let myself into the house after school that day, and they just…were gone. She and her boyfriend. I kept calling for her, thinking it was some kind of joke. I ran to her room and all the drawers were open. Empty. She’d left me this letter…telling me she was sorry and that everything would be okay. That I was a big girl.”
Something that looked like anger took hold of his expression before awareness settled into its place. Slowly, he nodded in understanding. “And Addelaine took you in.”
“Yeah. I answered a call for a help wanted ad, naïve enough to think I’d make enough money to keep paying rent on the house. But Addelaine and that store…they became my home. I lived with her until I graduated from college.”
He smiled. “I knew she was an amazing woman.”
“She is.”
“Like you,” he murmured, brushing his lips across mine.
Butterflies tumbled. My heart full. The rigid pieces splintering beneath the weight of his care. And suddenly I was wanting things I hadn’t dreamed of wanting in so long. Maybe Nikki was right. I needed a little shredding. But it was my distrust and skepticism that this man was shaving away.
Silence hovered in the air. “I should probably go.”
“Oh no, Ms. Redd. You aren’t going anywhere.”
My brows lifted as my mouth pulled into a smile. “Is that so?”
He grinned. “I thought we already established you don’t need to be afraid.”
My fingertips raked across the strength of his chest, and I peeked up at him. “But I am. I’m afraid of this. It’s insane that I’m here. You’re the last person I should fall for.”
His big hand cupped the side of my face. “Don’t you know all great love stories never should have been? That’s what makes them great.”
“Is that what you think this is…the start to a great love story?”
“Do you want it to be?” There was a tease behind his words, but a softness, too.
Heat flashed across my skin, warming me inside and out. “That’s…crazy. Just last night, I hated you.”
But there I was, smiling down at him like a lovestruck fool while I said it with something powerful and wonderful threatening to burst, the weight inside of me so much lighter since I’d admitted to him the root of so many of my fears.
A low chuckle rumbled from his chest. “You didn’t hate me, Lillith. You were afraid of me because I made you feel things you didn’t want to let yourself feel. You wanted me, and you hated that I had that effect on you.”
His hand cinched down tighter. He yanked my face down close to his. “You hated that you couldn’t say no.”
It was a tease.
It was the truth.
That attraction flashed.
A wildfire.
Broderick guided me over him, his cock already hard as he aligned himself with me. “I told you that I always get what I want. And what I want is you, and that’s not ever going to change.”
What I couldn’t comprehend was how this man who’d been my enemy for five months had made me want him in less than three days.
Because there was nothing I could do when I slid down onto his length but give him all of me.
My body. My heart. My trust.
* * *
Disoriented, I blinked into the shadows of the darkened room. Slowly, I came to awareness. Broderick’s big, warm body was next to mine where he was lost in the contentment of sleep, his breaths deep and slow.
I sank back into the comfort of him, nestling closer as I let my eyes drift closed. Seconds later, they popped back open when I realized what had originally pulled me from sleep.
His phone lit up on the nightstand on his side of the bed and vibrated against the glass.
Telling myself to ignore it, I forced myself to close my eyes and go back to sleep, only for the offending noise to recur.
Leave it, I silently told myself. But I couldn’t escape the tingle of worry that buzzed at the back of my brain.
Apprehension twisted through my nerves. Prodding and pinching and warning.
I sucked in a breath, trying to convince myself I was only this way because this relationship was new and it’d started on bad terms. I’d just come to recognize the side of the man that was good and honest.
We’d been a whirlwind.
Caught up. Shot to the highest high before I’d even realized I’d been swept off my feet.
That was why I felt unsettled.
It had to be.
I heard the vibration of his phone again.
Would it be so wrong to peek? Maybe it was an emergency. It was the middle of the night, after all.
I sat up, holding a decadent sheet to my bare chest, feeling like such an asshole for doing this but unable to stop as I peered through the darkness to the nightstand. I hesitated and then finally gave in.
I reached over him and glided a shaking finger over the screen to find the series of texts that screamed back from Broderick’s phone.
All of them from Rex Gunner, the owner of the most successful construction company in Gingham Lakes. A man I knew well. A man I trusted and admired.
A heavy lump grew in my throat as I skimmed through his words.
If you think I’m going to bulldoze those buildings two weeks from tomorrow, you are insane.
Do you think I don’t know it’s impossible to get permits that quickly? Someone got paid off to make that happen.
I told you I work on the up and up.
Gut told me something was off the second you walked into my office.
Deal is off.
Dread slicked my skin in a hot sheen of sweat and nausea rolled in my stomach.
I pressed my hand to my chest to try to stop the ache blossoming there as tears sprang to my eyes.
I should have known. I should have known.
You fool. You stupid fool. He played you. He played you just like they all do.
Knees weak, I slipped off the bed, trying to stand. Moisture blurred by sight as I fumbled with my clothing, trying to be as quiet as possible as I slipped out of the bedroom and into the main area of the suite.
I dressed in the dark, piecing my exterior back together while everything inside shattered.
I grabbed my purse from where I’d left it on the entryway table, fumbled with the knob, and slipped out into the hall. My breaths were shallow, my mind racing with how I could possibly fix this. Panic took hold of my spirit, and my feet moved faster and faster as I made my way down the hall and to the elevator.
I didn’t even have my car.
But I didn’t care.
I would do whatever it took to fix my mistake.
* * *
I jerked to a stop in front of the modest house on the outskirts of town. A light blazed from the porch, Rex Gunner visible through the sheer curtains as he ambled around his kitchen, obviously a prisoner to his own woes.
Or maybe tonight our worries were one in the same.
I’d taken a cab the two miles back to my house, grabbed my car, and drove straight here.
I figured if anyone had the down-low on the details, it was Rex Gunner. He had connections in this town.
I’d also known him my whole life and trusted him implicitly. It was no secret he hadn’t been the same since his wife had left two years ago, but the one thing that hadn’t changed was his company’s character. He saw to it that it stayed that way. And judging by the texts I saw, that hadn’t changed.
I clicked open the door to my car and stumbled out, still reeling from my foolishness, barely able to stand beneath the crack in my heart. I’d allowed myself to be played. Hunted down like prey and ripped to shreds.
And God, those wounds burned and hurt and ached.
Because when I opened up, I opened all the way.
Reservations incinerated.
And that vile monster had gone straight for the kill.
I rushed up the walkway and quietly knocked at Rex’s door so I wouldn’t wake his daughter. It took only a second for me to hear heavy footsteps thudding on the other side, the twist of the lock, and the squeak of his door.
Rex jerked back when he saw me, blinking through his shock. “Lily. What are you doing here?” He widened the door. “Come inside where it’s warm.”
“Thank you,” I managed, not realizing I was freezing, my bones chilled, my skin brittle as I rubbed my hands together.
“What’s going on?”
Rex Gunner was every bit as powerful as Broderick Wolfe. But where Broderick went straight for what he wanted, disregarding anyone who got in his way, Rex kept himself barricaded by the hard scowl on his blatantly beautiful face, life hardening him to sharp edges and bitterness.
“I…were you working with Wolfe Industries on the Fairview Street project?”
Awareness dawned on his expression. “‘Was’ is the key word.”
“I saw the texts you sent to Broderick,” I admitted, lifting my chin, knowing full well what I was revealing. How else would I have seen them in the middle of the night? But I’d suffer any humiliation to gain the proof I needed to set my mistake right.
He looked to his feet, before forcing himself to look back at me. “You get yourself in some trouble, Lillith?”
“Only my heart.”
With his hands on his hips, he gave me a tight nod, fully understanding.
“I need to know what you know so I can stop this. Addelaine Tindall was promised six months to relocate and one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars to compensate her for the transition.”
He huffed in anger. “I was told the same until I got word Addelaine signed a contract agreeing to a quick sale. Premises are to be vacated by the thirtieth and demolition begins on the first. RG Construction was supposed to have the bid, but I pulled it as soon as I got word. No question they have the city big dogs in their pocket because things just don’t move that fast. Someone got paid off, and as soon as those types of dealings start goin’ down, I’m out.”
Anger and hurt billowed in my chest. “I can’t believe he’d do this.”
Rex eyed me. “Can’t you?”
I pressed my hand to my mouth, trying to quiet the cry that slipped up my throat without my permission.
“Lillith,” Rex murmured in sympathy.
I shook my head at him. “Just…tell me everything you know.”