“Thank you, Susan,” Georgia said as the housekeeper placed her eggs Benedict in front of her on the oversized round table. She knew better, though, than to pick up her cutlery to start eating until her father and brothers had been served.
The five of them, excluding Randall who wasn’t expected to fly in from Atlanta, had gathered for their monthly traditional “immediate family only” brunch. It was ridiculous that her brothers’ girlfriends, wives, and children were left at home because her parents wanted a child-free catchup with their progeny.
She looked around the wood-paneled dining room she’d grown up in, resisting the urge to dive in and scoop up the sublime Hollandaise sauce their chef always made. The same large tapestry still hung on the far wall, one she’d stared at while completing her homework in the very chair she was sitting in now. It depicted some battle during the crusades that her father was adamant his ancestors had taken part in. A rare first-period Worcester blue and white fan-paneled plate, dated to the late seventeen hundreds, sat on a mid-eighteenth century French chestnut dresser. The plate had been one of a pair until she’d gotten a little carried away pretending to be King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. The parry with her cardboard sword had been meant to defend her from her brother Winston’s strike, but she’d mistimed it and sent the plate shattering to the ground.
She’d lost two months of Saturdays with her grandfather and gained five hours of extra weekly tutoring as punishment. The additional classes had been a breeze, but missing out on jazz concerts and Knicks games and hugs from the only person who ever returned them had hurt on a way more primal level—not that she’d ever let her father know.
Susan and Antoine, the family chef of twenty-two years, reappeared with the rest of the meals. “Bon appétit,” Antoine said as they left the room.
“So, let’s hear it then,” her father said as he tucked into his scrambled eggs and gravlax with a side of fresh-baked sourdough bread.
Her mother shook her head as she scooped some of her Greek yogurt and summer berries onto her spoon. Her mother lived in fear of getting fat, lest the New York riche ridicule her behind her back. “William, let the girl alone. She’s barely been here ten minutes.”
“Shh,” her father said. It was among his most annoying habits—shushing her mother—and while she often wanted to defend her from her father’s condescension, it was futile. Her mother would always side with him. “If she’d gotten here on time,” he continued, “we could have talked about this properly in my study.”
Garran nodded, equally annoying as always. She was five years younger than Garran, but they were on equal footing as far as their careers went, which made him the most threatened by her career successes. Plus, in Garran’s mind, she’d cost him this home. With Ezra having been already established in one of the family’s finest brownstones, and Randall living in Atlanta, he’d been promised the family home by their father when their grandfather had died. Her father had assumed that he and her mother would move into the duplex penthouse, which he’d expected to be willed to him, but when her grandfather had instead left it to Georgia with enough money to ensure she’d never have to worry about fees, all their housing plans had been thrown into disarray.
She looked over to Winston, who was head down, tucking into his stack of pancakes, the breakfast he had been requesting whenever he was home for the last thirty-plus years. He was closest to her in age, and she saw the occasional flicker of conflict in his eyes when their father was in one of his moods, but when battle lines were drawn, he would ultimately side with his father. How could her brothers be so spineless when it came to him?
“We need to debrief,” her father continued. “Go through the steps. Despite your claims of success in the multi-surgery approach to separation, I remain unconvinced. Yes, you have a lower mortality rate than the traditional approach, but we need to see the impact on their development over the next few years before you gloat. This path of yours has the power to ruin the Starr name if it backfires five years from now. What you do affects us all.”
She chewed her food thoroughly and deliberately before answering. They never did this with any of their surgeries, not that her father was conducting as many these days. They never dissected them or polled the table on whether something was the right call. She was strongly beginning to doubt their motives, which they had always declared to be about learning and improvement.
Why couldn’t he just be proud of her?
Hadn’t she done enough yet?
Hadn’t she graduated with a GPA higher than any of her siblings?
What on earth was it going to take for him to tell her she’d done good work?
“I’m not going through a multi-operation, multi-hour surgery with you,” she said, even though she’d love nothing more than to tell him how it felt to be in that room ready to attempt something that was still so new. “Not over the brunch table. Not in your office. Not ever. I’m not breaking patient confidentiality so you can dissect whether my already successful surgery could have been executed better. The girls are doing great and responding to stimuli appropriate for their age.”
Her father’s knife clattered to the plate. “For now. But who knows what ongoing challenges might arise? They’re too young for the extent of their brain functions to be fully assessed. You may have done damage as yet unknown.” His voice rose at the end of the sentence, and her mom jumped.
Georgia quickly cut some more food and forked it into her mouth to quell her urge to respond. To fight. To defend. Maybe it was maturity, maybe it was an awareness of how misogynistic the men in her family were, but she’d spent the last year learning how to unapologetically say her piece and move on.
“Anyway, not peer-reviewing is not exactly how we improve as surgeons,” her father replied, suddenly calm again. Their family was well used to his outbursts. “You need to share your techniques, write papers so others can learn.”
“Father’s right,” said Garran. “It’s pretty selfish of you. And if you don’t get on and write the paper straightaway, one of your peers will and you won’t get any credit. You can bet that Robert Woo will be quick to get one out. He’s hungry for recognition. You could let one of us assist you in writing the paper. Coauthored by more than one Starr, it would have more impact. Perhaps Father and I could help.”
Credit. Recognition. Self-importance. Legacy. That was all it ever boiled down to.
Georgia couldn’t decide if the mansplaining or the patronizing bothered her more. She swallowed and took a sip of perfectly brewed coffee. Antoine had put the little pot of fresh cream next to her cup, calories be damned. Growing up in the non-existent shadow of a size-zero mother had left some scars, but not enough to keep her from enjoying her brunch treat. “First, Robert Woo is a fantastic plastic surgeon, and the procedure would not have been as successful as it was without his input. Second, unlike you, I am willing to share credit when it is due. Robert, myself, and two other surgeons will be writing a paper on it so that it can be shared, but not until the children pass certain markers. And third, what happens here, in this house, is not sharing best practice. As soon as I tell you about the very first incision, the type of scalpel I used, whether the damn bed was lying north-south in the OR or east-west, you’ll critique what I say and pull it apart in an attempt to demonstrate your brilliance and my ignorance.” Georgia stood and threw her napkin onto the table. “You’ll try to make me question my judgment instead of help me celebrate the incredible thing I did in that OR.”
“Georgia, please sit down,” her mother hissed through clenched teeth. “You are making a scene.”
Out of habit, she returned to her chair, although she no longer felt like eating. She added a little more cream to her coffee, having no aspirations to be like her mother or any of the other New York maven vipers in her social circle.
Despite the tension—or perhaps to escape it—her thoughts drifted back to Lennon. She wondered if he’d like fresh cream in his coffee. He’d drunk the latte she taken to the hospital, but fresh cream was a whole other level of indulgence. Or maybe he’d prefer marshmallows and hot chocolate. Perhaps she could pick some up in the way home and make it for him. Lennon hadn’t texted her to cancel their appointment to change his dressing. In fact, he hadn’t texted her at all.
“So I suppose you won’t be telling us what happened with the consult you did in Mexico.”
She shook her head. “It’s confidential information.”
Georgia picked up her cutlery and began to eat again even though she wasn’t particularly hungry anymore because comfort eating was a thing and she didn’t have a giant bar of chocolate or a bag of Sour Patch Kids on hand.
Her father dabbed at his mouth with his napkin. “I have to say, Georgia, I am most disappointed with your attitude. The abject lack of gratitude in your tone after the years your brothers and I have put into your education and ongoing training is most beneath you.”
“Father, what’s disappointing is that you don’t see me as an equal. I’m thirty-six years old. I stand on my own two feet. You paid for my education well over a decade ago because you didn’t want your wealthy friends looking down on you otherwise, but we both know that I wanted to pay for it myself. If that’s still an issue for you after all this time, I can transfer the cost of it to your bank account as soon as I get home—with interest. But the things I know, the things I have learned, have come from the incredible doctors I have worked with in the field. They have truly wanted to share their knowledge to help me grow and become better. All you do with your knowledge is attempt to prove how little I actually know. You diminish me and my achievements. Who does that to his own daughter?”
Her words hung heavy in the air. Garran looked to their father, waiting for his response like a ridiculous salivating dog.
Nobody answered.
Her mother stirred her sugarless tea.
Winston finished the last of his pancakes.
And Georgia politely pushed her chair away from the table and left the dining room.
She wandered into the kitchen, where Antoine was loading the dishwasher.
“Mon caneton,” he said as she entered. “My duckling,” the endearment he had called her since he had come from France to work for the family when he was only twenty-eight and she was ten. “What can I do for you?”
“Nothing,” she said with a sigh. “Breakfast was wonderful as always, but I have to go. I just wanted to say thank you.”
Antoine tipped his head to the left in salute. As a young girl, she’d often find herself wandering into the kitchen to talk to Antoine, and he had humored her childish questions until her mother had become aware of where she was spending her time. Her mother had made it clear that she would not tolerate the daughter of the house and the hired help becoming friends, threatening to fire Antoine if Georgia continued to visit the kitchen. But Georgia had always found a way to thank Antoine, a way to show her respect and thanks for the way he looked after them. Hand-written notes of thanks as a child at Christmas, and birthday gifts delivered to his home address as an adult.
Susan rushed to grab her jacket and was waiting by the front door by the time Georgia made it to the hallway. “How is your mom, Susan?” Georgia whispered as Susan helped her put on her jacket.
“Stable,” Susan replied quietly as she looked in the direction of the dining room. “Thank you for helping me navigate the insurance paperwork.”
Georgia smiled sadly. It had cost her nothing to pull some strings with people she knew to help Susan’s mother with her dementia. “Any time. You have my cell-phone number. Use it when you need to.”
Susan squeezed Georgia’s arm in a pretense of straightening her sleeve. “I will. Thank you.”
As Georgia jogged down the steps onto the busy sidewalk, she realized she had the rarity of unexpected free time awaiting her. She’d originally planned to spend at least another couple of hours with her family—not because she really wanted to, but they were all she had. The pretense of a family had to better than no family, right? Even if they judged her for taking the subway when they thought she should hire a town car or for wearing the same dress twice during that summer wedding season four years earlier.
With the unexpected hours, she could get caught up on her reports, spend some time reading a couple of papers she’d not gotten around to.
Late April, and it was finally hitting the low sixties. Periodically, the sun would break out of the clouds and warm her face. As she walked toward the subway, her thought drifted away from work. Perhaps she’d grab the fixings to make a truly indulgent hot chocolate for Lennon. An image of consuming the treats in a far more erotic way flashed into her mind, and she allowed herself a moment to consider eating them from his naked body. Or him eating from hers. Damn, and now she felt flustered. Maybe she should start with smaller steps. After she changed his compression bandage, maybe they could go sit in her rooftop garden and talk.
He’d seemed torn when she’d left him. Confused. Depressed. With everything going on in his life right now, she wasn’t a hundred percent sure which of his emotions were aimed at her . . . at them . . . and which purely had to do with his life. She didn’t want to be the source of any discomfort.
So, she’d invite him up to her place.
And figure out which was which.
* * *
Motherfucker.
Next time he decided to stay up and binge-watch the last season of The Walking Dead while downing a bottle of vodka and a few painkillers, he needed to close his fucking bedroom curtains first. Lennon’s head sloshed when he turned over, and so did his stomach, leaving him pissed off at the blinding sunshine pouring through the window but too fucking ill to do anything about it.
Water would be a good idea, if he could keep it down. It felt as though something had curled up and died in his mouth. And he was too fucking hot.
This is miserable.
The site of his surgery itched, and the dressing was due to be changed. He should have made other arrangements, have someone else come in and change it for him. But he couldn’t make himself do it, no matter how many times he’d picked up his phone to text Georgia’s number to cancel. As much as he wanted to stop thinking about her, the idea of anyone else touching his arm, touching him period, left him feeling queasy. He’d tolerated the nurses, tolerated having the stitches taken out. But fuck, he needed a break.
He’d spent half of the last four days thinking about the way her lips had tasted, about the way those tits of hers had felt pressed up against his chest, about the way she’d let out a little moan that had turned his dick to granite. It had left him hard, edgy, aroused, and fucking grateful that he could still jerk off with his right hand.
The other half he’d spent questioning all his decisions. The one to stay in New York, the one to never return home, the one to kiss a woman he would crush if he followed through on what he was considering.
He vacillated.
His notebook was open on the side table. He’d had a pack of five new ones delivered to the apartment, and had a new Meisterstück Skeleton pen couriered from a store in the city. He didn’t remember writing last night, but hell, he couldn’t remember what had happened in the last two episodes of The Walking Dead either.
Slowly, he began the process of unraveling himself from the white sheet that had gotten tangled up around his legs. When he reached the side of the bed and placed his feet firmly on the floor, the room listed. Or maybe he did. Fuck, he needed some coffee. He reached for the notebook.
If I had everything, it still wouldn’t be half of what she is worth.
What she’s worth can’t be measured in dollars and cents, just moments and kisses and drunken laments.
A life filled with nothing for a moment of bliss. How do you measure the weight of one kiss?
The lines went on and on. Pages of scribbles.
Lennon flopped back onto the bed. He’d never been a sloppy romantic drunk, but somehow New York and Georgia Starr had turned him into one.
His phone rang, and he sat back up, head spinning. Seeing Jordan’s face fill the screen, he debated ignoring the call, like he had from everyone else. But his chest tightened at the sight of his beard, the one he’d seen Jordan start to grow as soon as he was able. And maybe it was a dose of nostalgia mixed with a pinch of hungover self-pity, but for some reason he felt compelled to answer. He put the phone on speaker.
“If you make me get on a fucking plane from London to kick your ass, I’m going to be fucking pissed,” Jordan said before Lennon had the chance to get a word in.
Lennon cursed under his breath. “I’m good, thanks for asking. How are you, Jordan? I hope the UK is treating you well.”
There was a pause on the end of the line. “Don’t talk like a fucking infomercial when you’ve been ignoring the shit out of everybody. Where the fuck are you?”
The panic in Jordan’s voice was like an elastic band snapping around his heart. For as long as he’d known him, Jordan had been afraid of not knowing where they all were at night. He feared being without them. And now he was in London, thousands of miles away from his brothers for the first time. “I’m still in New York. In an apartment near Central Park.”
“I’ve left messages,” Jordan hissed. “Two, sometimes five a day.” He exhaled loudly. “For eleven fucking days.”
“Jordan, I’m sorry.”
There was no reply, but he could tell from Jordan’s breathing that the big guy was still there.
“I told you not to fear the worst,” Lennon heard Lexi whisper in a voice so fucking reassuring that his heart broke a little.
Lennon got up and wandered into the kitchen. Coffee. That was what he needed to help him through this. He tipped a Nespresso pod out of the packet and grabbed the last clean cup before silently cursing the lack of water in the reservoir. Dirty dishes piled up in the sink made it impossible to reach the tap. Takeout cartons were stacked on the counter, the remains of last night’s Chinese food still laid out on the glass coffee table next to the sofa he’d barely left the previous day.
Fuck it. He couldn’t be bothered dealing with it. He’d hire a cleaning service to come in and dig him out of the clusterfuck.
“Don’t,” Jordan said quietly. “Don’t ignore my messages, Lennon. I know you fucking hurt right now. Even if you won’t admit it. Even if you never admit it. Even if you pretend like always that life is one fucking joke. I. Know. You. Fucking. Hurt.”
Lennon swallowed hard, his throat feeling like it was filled with glass, the block between his heart and head solidly in place. The jokes came to mind.
The only fucking thing that hurts is my ass from this chewing out.
You’ve watched The Notebook one too many times there, loser.
With lines like that, you should write a romance novel.
But somehow, he couldn’t get the words out.
“Yeah” was all he could choke out.
“You need me on that plane, brother?” Jordan asked.
Lennon knew he would, knew Jordan would do it in a heartbeat. But he deserved to be where he was, with the woman who’d managed to drag him once and for all out of the god-awful attic in which for years he’d banished himself.
“I’m doing okay,” he said as he stepped over the growing pile of laundry he’d been dumping in the hallway when he undressed for bed every night. “How are the others doing?”
“Fine. You’d know that if you fucking called them. Or texted. How are you?”
“Good.” He caught sight of his reflection in the bathroom mirror. Facial hair that was well beyond the scruff he usually wore called him out as a liar. “I’ve had some physio, seen a guy about some custom prosthetics, even made out with the lovely Dr. Starr.”
The lies burned in his throat as he said the words about his rehab, but he had to make sure Jordan stayed in a place that was best for him.
“So, ignoring us was you just being a dick then?”
No. I’m dying inside.
I don’t know how to tell you.
You attempted this once—you of all people know how fucking desperate a man can be.
Get on the plane.
Come help me.
Come save me from my fucking self.
“I just needed to try this on my own,” he whispered, the words sounding hollow in his ears.
“I’m only staying away because you asked us to. But you ignore one more fucking message, one more . . . I swear to God I’m going to rain down on your fucking ass.” Jordan paused, and Lennon was grateful it was a call rather than a video chat because tears were stinging the corner of his eyes. “And listen to the rest of your messages, dipshit.”
“I will. I . . . I . . .”
“Yeah, I love you too, Lennon.”
And with that Jordan hung up the phone.
The call left him feeling raw inside. He rubbed his hand over his face and flopped back down on the bed. The sheets smelled of sweat after less than a week of sleeping in them. No amount of drugs were stopping the night terrors that jolted him awake with the sensation of being thrown into the air, the sensation of flipping and sliding.
He stood and ripped the sheets off the bed, dumping them by the washing machine before he stepped into the shower. The hot water did little to ease his mood as he scrubbed himself clean.
With more effort and exertion than he was used to, he dried himself off and pulled on a clean pair of shorts.
Listen to the rest of your messages, dipshit.
Lennon’s finger hovered over the screen of his phone before he finally built up to dialing his voice mail.
You have forty-seven new messages. Message one . . .
Yo, L, it’s Dred. The plane just landed and . . . fuck . . . It’s not the same without you with us. I wanna come back and get you when Pixie is settled and I have the kids taken care of . . .
Dude, it’s Elliott. I just called the hospital and they said you checked out. Where the fuck are you?
Lennon, it’s El . . . shit . . . (cough) . . . Kendalee just broke her fucking heart crying about what happened. About what would have happened to Daniel if she’d died and shit. And I guess I realized that, and I know this is easy for me to say, but . . . fuck, man. You’re alive. We’re all alive. And for now we have to make that enough, and work from there. So call me . . .
Mr. McCartney, this is Doctor Almasi. I understand you haven’t attended all of your follow-up visits. There are significant risks involved in your approach. Please can you give me a call?
Lennon, it’s Nik . . . I don’t like it at all that you are there and we’re here. This isn’t how we work. Call me, man. Maisey and Ellen are willing to move in here for a while to take care of Jenny when they aren’t working so I can come back.
Lennon, it’s Elliott . . . again . . . Dude . . . you are freaking me the crap out. Can you just give me a call?
. . . Give me a call.
. . . Let me know you are okay.
. . . Missed appointment.
. . . I love you, man.
. . . You are scaring us.
. . . Where to find you?
. . . Missed appointment.
. . . Missed appointment.
. . . Where the fuck are you?
Hey. It’s Jordan . . . Just . . . Don’t do anything stupid. I know what it feels like to feel like there’s no way out. However dark and small that fucking tunnel feels like right now, I promise you that the light at the end of it is going to blind the fucking shit out of you. Let it, brother, because when it does, it’s a thing of beauty.
He couldn’t listen to any more. With Jordan’s words ringing in his ear, he hung up.
There was a knock on the door and he wondered who the hell it could be as he walked to open it. His head still spun from all the alcohol and he needed to sleep it off. Through the peephole, he saw her.
Georgia.
In pale denim and Timberland boots. And a cream-colored sweater with a huge collar that looked so freaking soft.
I promise you that the light at the end of it is going to blind the fucking shit out of you. Let it, brother, because when it does, it’s a thing of beauty.
For the briefest moment, Lennon wondered if Georgia was what Jordan had meant.
* * *
“Your apartment smells a little stale,” Georgia said, wrinkling her nose.
“You don’t,” Lennon replied. She was pleased to see he was showered, but his eyes were dark, and his shoulders sagged as if he were deflating before her eyes. He needed a hug, but she wasn’t certain of where they stood. Until she did, she’d keep her distance.
One of the living room curtains was closed, the other open. Piles of clothes and towels lay on the floor in the hallway, and delivery cartons from just about every restaurant littered most surfaces. Lennon was existing, but he wasn’t living.
“Considering you’ve only been here four days, you’ve certainly made the place or own.” An empty bottle sat on the side table in the living room next to a bottle of pills with the lid off, tablets spilling out onto the surface. It was hard to swallow the part of her that wanted to rail against him for being so irresponsible. For not taking his recovery seriously. He’d had a major surgery. One with life-changing effects. And while she’d heard the occasional success stories about people who had such massive epiphanies as to the purposes of their lives after such an event that they found themselves quickly up and functioning as if nothing had happened, that wasn’t the norm.
Lennon came to a stop behind her. “I’m sorry I don’t look my best right now. If you’d called, I could have . . . Wait, no. I’d still be in bed sleeping off this hangover.”
Many people went through something like this. And there were so many programs, and medical options, and therapies. She turned to face him. “Shouldn’t you have seen your surgeon again by now?”
“Why are you here, Georgia?” He reached out and slipped his hand around the back of her neck, the move making her shiver.
“I was going to ask you if you wanted to come up to my place and talk. You know, hang out or something.”
The corner of Lennon’s mouth twitched. “Is that a euphemism?”
She rolled her eyes and shook her head.
“Fine,” Lennon said, raising his hand in surrender. “Do I look like the kind of guy who spends his weekends talking?”
Georgia looked down at the coffee table and the stacked-up cans of Red Bull. “No, but then you also didn’t strike me as the kind of guy who would wallow.”
His hazel eyes went wide. “Wallow? Seriously, Georgia? Don’t overdo it on the bedside manner.”
“You want me to sugarcoat stuff for you? Because I’m a doctor and I can do a great sugarcoating if that’s what you want. But what you need is a dollop of truth. It has been three weeks today since your accident and four days since I gave you the keys to this place. No one is expecting you to be over this. It’s too big a thing to wake up one morning and be cool with. But you need to make a start. Being alone was a choice you made. You sent away the people who love you. So, seeing as I am the only person you have in New York, I’m going to lay it out straight. This,” she said, circling her finger in the air around the apartment, “this isn’t working through anything. This is avoiding it.”
Lennon huffed and sat down on the sofa. “I don’t need another lecture today, Gia. I got my ass kicked once already, and it’s still sore.”
“Well, it obviously wasn’t hard enough. Alcohol, and not treating your pain meds properly, doesn’t help. Losing yourself in this doesn’t help.” Georgia sat down on the other end of the sofa and watched as Lennon pinched his lower lip between two fingers. “I have faith in you, Lennon. In my career, I’ve seen a lot of patients. Young and old.”
Lennon looked at her. “I thought you worked with kids.”
Georgia nodded. “I do. That’s my specialty, but through my training I did many different rotations. Anyway . . . what I was going to say was you’ll get out of your recovery what you put into it. And two-day-old chow mein washed down with caffeine shots isn’t going to get you much. Staying in all day and watching crap TV won’t get you much. Shutting yourself away from friends who could help you won’t get you much.” She should try to get hold of the rest of the band. She wasn’t sure what kind of a face he was putting on for them, but they should know exactly where he was at. So what if he’d be pissed at her for interfering?
Lennon sighed and ran his hand through his hair.
“And it’s not just your food, your home, and your family, Lennon. There’s taking care of your residual limb. Desensitizing it. Seeing your CPO and getting your shrinker fitted.”
He looked at her like she was speaking a different language.
“Your certified prosthetist. . . . And the shrinker is a compression garment, kind of like what we’ve been doing with the bandages, that they put over your limb to manage swelling so it will fit your prosthetic properly.”
Lennon’s head dropped back onto the sofa. “Sounds fucking delightful.”
“Plus, you should have occupational therapy because you need to strengthen your sound arm. And mental health. . . . You can always talk to a therapist as well if you find you can’t—”
“I don’t need a therapist. I’ve got you.” Lennon opened one eye and looked across at her.
“Yes, you do. I’ll be here. But I’m no mental health specialist. I fix the mechanics of the brain, not what goes on inside it. I’ll help you clean up,” she said and gestured toward the kitchen. “Hell, you might continue to be the first and only guy I ever do laundry for. But you have to do the work, Lennon. You have to work at this harder than you ever played those drums of yours. You have to fight for this as much you fought for that.”
“You need a therapist more than I do. If I’m doing nothing, you’re doing the opposite. Don’t you think there’s something off about a woman who does nothing but work and meet family obligations? Who wakes up at three a.m. to speak to people in Japan and then hops a flight to Mexico for three days to work? You’re going to have a stress ulcer or a heart attack. What goals do you have outside of work? When did you last kick back and do nothing? Haven’t you ever wished for a rainy day and a good book? Have you ever checked into a hotel in a foreign city and just lay in bed listening to the sounds outside of your bedroom window?” His hand reached across and trailed a lazy line along her thigh. “Or stayed in bed and made love all day?”
Georgia placed her hand on top of his, savoring how strong it felt, before gripping it and tossing it back at him playfully. “I know how to relax.”
“No, you don’t. I bet there is a pile of work up in your office and you have plans to spend today plowing through it.”
She smiled. “Okay, so maybe I was. But I came here because I was thinking of playing hooky for a couple of hours.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Believe it. And you’ll be leaving the condo for me to prove this, so clothes would be helpful. New Yorkers have seen most things, but you without clothes is something that even the most hardened New Yorker could live without.”
Lennon reached for his residual limb, and she wondered whether he realized he was squeezing his bicep, even as his smiled at her. “Fine,” he said. “It’s worth the struggle to get dressed to see this.” He sucked in a breath as he stood.
She watched his muscled shoulders walk away and when she heard the bedroom door close, she let out a whoosh of air. She had a feeling that if she ever did end up in bed with Lennon, it might just kill her. The urge to follow him was so great that she decided to make a start on tidying up the living room to keep from doing so. Quickly grabbing some garbage bags from under the sink, she began to clear up all the food and takeout containers. It took a little while to get it organized, and when she was done, he still hadn’t come out of his room.
She loaded and started the dishwasher. There was more than one load of dirty dishes, but Lennon would have to deal with that later. She was just about to wipe down the counters when Lennon walked into the kitchen.
“This better be worth it,” he said, slipping his arm around her waist and kissing the side of her neck tenderly. “Because it was a fucking ball-ache to pull jeans on.”
She placed one hand over the arm around her waist. She lifted her other hand and placed it on his residual limb . . . on his arm. Residual limb was beginning to sound too impersonal for the man currently turning her world upside down. It felt important that he know it didn’t matter to her. Not when he looked at her like he wanted to eat her alive. Feeling bolder than she normally did, she said the first thing that came into her mind. “Play your cards right, and you’ll have help taking them off.” She found herself laughing. Full-on belly giggling.
“If you were trying to seduce me, you did a really crap job of it,” he said, turning her to face him. His smile was back, but it stopped a fraction away from his eyes.
“I know, but I’m not really good at the whole flirty thing. You need surgery, I’m all over it. You need something of a more—”
“Sexual?”
“Yeah, nature. I’m more of a get-down-to-it kinda gal.”
Lennon laughed. “You have no idea how down with that plan I could be.”
He brushed his lips along hers. A whisper of a kiss, one that was soft, and sweet and . . . minty. “You brushed your teeth,” she murmured against his lips.
“You’d be surprised what I’d do for you if you asked nicely,” he replied, and kissed her more deeply.
She shivered as his hand slid along her ribs, tickling slightly, until he brushed his thumb across her nipple, the lace of her bra unusually sensitive against her skin.
Georgia opened her mouth and stepped up onto her toes, wrapping her arms around his neck, kissing him in a way she hoped showed him that she really was there for him. She could feel his length grow hard against her, and she had to hold back the urge to moan as his tongue met hers.
As quickly as the flames sparked, Lennon slowed the kiss. He studied her with hooded eyes. “Your eyes reveal so much about you,” he murmured. “There’s an . . . honesty about you I can’t stay away from.”
“So, don’t,” Georgia said as he placed his hand on her hip and stepped away.
He smiled, but this time it wasn’t a cheesy grin or a self-satisfied smirk. It was a genuine slow smile. “You want to show me why you made me put on jeans that are currently cutting my dick in half?”
With a smile that matched his, she took his hand and led him to the hallway where they put on their coats, at which point he took her hand and led them out of the apartment.