CHAPTER NINETEEN
RORKE
It’s hard to tell what song is stuck in her head today because she’s singing everything that comes on the radio. It doesn’t matter whether it’s on a country station, a rap station, or a Christian station. She knows them all.
One hand on the steering wheel, the other is holding hers. Think we’ve been this way for at least a hundred miles. She hasn’t told me what happened yesterday. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t scare the piss out of me, but if she thinks there’s any way I’ll let her go, she’s crazy. She seems fine today, though. Whatever happened, my words seemed to calm her down. My parents always told Levi and me to come from a place of love in everything you do. They loved to throw that one around when we were fighting. It’s still good advice.
Glancing over at her, she’s got her head leaned back, her eyes closed, humming. I made this drive too many times to count when I was in college. It’s a pretty easy, boring drive, except going through the George Wallace Tunnel in Mobile. My mom used to always insist we hold our breath as we passed through it. Sterling and I kept the tradition alive.
I’ve never made this drive with a woman other than my mom. And I don’t recall her needing to pee as much as Sterling. She’s had to stop twice already. In college, I never stopped to take a leak. Once, I even used a convenience store fountain drink cup to piss in to avoid stopping.
She opens her eyes and turns her head to me, and I give her a little wink. “Not too much longer.”
Her hand slides down to unbuckle her seatbelt. “Put that back on.”
But she slides her hand over, rubbing the inside of my thigh up to the bulge in my shorts. Christ, I’m going over seventy miles an hour on the interstate. She’s picking now to jerk me off? She glances around then leans over, yanking on the waistband of my athletic shorts. Nope, not a handjob.
Holy shit, this is a first. Yep, I’m a road head virgin. This probably breaks every public decency law in the books, but I don’t care. She’s sucking me like she’s been starving for my cock. I know he’s been craving her. He hasn’t had any attention except from me for days, since she got sick.
She looks up at me, the naughtiest look in her green eyes, her pink lips sliding me in and out until it feels like I’m touching the back of her throat. I grip the steering wheel with both hands. Dear God, please don’t let me crash.
“Fuck,” I groan, releasing into her mouth.
Amazed, I look down at her, unable to believe she did that. She plants a little kiss on my dick, adjusts my shorts, then simply sits back in her chair and re-buckles her seatbelt. If I didn’t know it before, I do now. She is the world’s most perfect woman.
*
STERLING
“It’s so pretty,” I say, nuzzling closer into his side as we wait to check in the hotel. I’ve got no idea how old the building is, but it’s kept its original charm. I’m sure the floors aren’t original, but they could be—white marble glistening as the sunlight comes in from the huge, floor-to-ceiling windows flanking the front entrance. The elevators are to the right, but there’s also a huge double staircase that leads to the second floor. A large table with a colossal flower arrangement centers the room, its aroma filling the air. I swear, it seems like they perfume the air conditioning vents in hotels sometimes.
Stepping up to the counter, I smile up at Rorke. I’ve never been on vacation with a man before, and I suspect this is a first for him, too. He lifts my hand, placing a soft kiss on the back of it.
“Congratulations,” the clerk says. “That’s a beautiful ring.”
This damn ring is not worth the trouble it causes. “Thank you,” Rorke says, looking straight ahead.
Why would he do that? The clerk continues to make small talk while checking us in, so I slip away to wander about the lobby. It’s a small hotel, so there’s one small boutique, but no tacky, touristy ones. I see a sign for a spa and salon down a hallway on a brochure stand. I head that way, stopping to pick up a brochure on a ghost tour of the city. There are all kinds of other activities advertised, too—everything from having your tea leaves read to horse drawn carriage rides to the zoo.
But not a single pamphlet on how to get this damn ring off my finger. “You’re coming off,” I whisper harshly as I twist and yank the small piece of metal. “I can’t spend the weekend with him with this on my finger.”
“Why? Your husband wouldn’t like it?” a deep voice asks, startling me.
I turn around, my eyes climbing up the suit standing before me, which is being filled out by muscles and rounded off by dark hair and piercing blue eyes. He’s the city version of Rorke. “I’m not married,” I say, unsure why I volunteered that information. “I have a boyfriend.”
His mouth slowly curves into a smile. I know that smile, his type. He doesn’t give two cents that I have a boyfriend. I’m a woman, so that makes me fair game in his book. “Does that mean you can’t have a drink with me?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what it means.”
“I won’t tell him.” The disgust rises to the back of my throat, and I turn to walk away. “At least tell me your name.”
I turn around, batting my eyelashes at him, like I’m playing hard to get. “Last name’s Weston.”
“Sterling?” Rorke calls out, heading for me. Oh shit, now the player knows my name. I walk towards Rorke, hoping to get out of here, but he simply takes my hand, whirls me around, and marches right for that asshole. “Pierce Kingston, you son of a bitch,” Rorke says, grinning. “Were you just hitting on my girlfriend?”
“Tried,” he says, “but she turned me down cold.”
“Of course she did,” Rorke says, pulling me to his side. “Sterling, this is the friend from college I was telling you about. The one that owns this place.”
“We met,” I say, not sharing their amusement.
“Mrs. Weston,” Pierce says, tipping his head to me.
Rorke’s eyes dart to me. I explain, “I told him that was my last name. Figured if he came looking for me, he’d find you instead—and maybe a punch in the face.”
Pierce extends his hand. “Sorry about before. I see a beautiful woman, and I can’t be responsible.”
“Uh, yeah, you can be. It’s called self-control.”
He and Rorke both bust out laughing. “Now I understand,” Pierce says. “All those drunken college nights you spent reminiscing about Sterling Jamison.”
Rorke turns twenty shades of red. “Once,” he says. “Maybe, if that.”
Pierce hooks his arm with mine, walking me down the hallway. I look back at Rorke following us, shaking his head, clearly amused. “The guy compared every fucking woman to you the entire four years we were in college. Their hair, their tits, the sound of their voices. No one ever measured up.”
“Really?” I ask, glancing back at Rorke, who shrugs.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Pierce says. “His bed had a pretty full rotation. Not like mine, but not half bad.”
“Yeah, that’s enough of that,” Rorke says, trying to slip my arm away from Pierce.
I firmly lock my arm, looking up at Pierce like he’s my new best friend. “No, I think I want to hear more about this. The shy farm boy routine . . .”
Pierce chuckles. “That was gone by junior year. Once he grieved Levi and you.”
“Did you know Levi?” I ask.
“No,” Pierce says. “But you and I met before. It was brief, a second really. At Levi’s funeral.”
I don’t remember that at all. Everything I remember about that day only involves Rorke. And considering Pierce was just hitting on me, I guess he didn’t remember me too well, either.
“Pierce drove me in when I found out about Levi,” Rorke says. “So we drove back together after the funeral, too.”
What he means is, after we slept together.
“See you guys later,” Pierce says. “Sterling, it was nice to meet you again.”
He turns away as Rorke and I step into the elevator. When the door closes, my emotions open. “Does he know about our night?”
“Baby,” Rorke says, stepping in front of me, “you know me better than that. That night is special to me. I never told a soul, I promise you. I think he probably assumes I was with you, only because he was staying at my parents’ house with me, and I didn’t come home. But he doesn’t know anything for certain, other than I was in love with you.”
We step off the elevator, and he pulls me to his chest. “I never told anyone, either,” I whisper. “My parents think I stayed at a friend’s house.”
“You did,” he says, teasing me.
He takes my hand, walking me down the hallway. Suddenly, my stomach flips. It’s not food poisoning this time. It’s flat-out nerves. “Where are our bags?” I ask.
“Bellboy brought them up already,” he says, stopping outside a door at the end of the hallway. He pulls out a key card, hands me an extra one, then opens the door.
Boom, the bed is the first thing you see. Upholstered headboard with a big, fluffy comforter, and the only thing I can think about is a news show I once saw about how many germs live in hotel rooms. I glance at Rorke from the corner of my eye. I bet he’s thinking something different. Probably that the bed doesn’t have any poles, so no tying me up!
The room is long and narrow, but that’s to accommodate the double balconies flanking it. One balcony overlooks the French Quarter; the other overlooks the hotel’s courtyard. Rorke starts moving our luggage around. “Hope it’s not too loud with the two balconies,” he says. “Pierce warned me there’s a wedding reception in the courtyard tonight. So rooms were limited.”
“It’s beautiful,” I say, wandering over to the balcony facing the courtyard, strings of twinkling lights crisscrossing the open area, a team of caterers and florists already setting up. His arms slip around my waist from behind, as we look down at the flurry of activity. “It’s kind of weird to have strangers able to watch your wedding reception.”
“You’d want something more private?” he asks, his warm breath tickling my neck.
“Intimate,” I whisper, turning around in his arms.
His fingers lightly stroke my face. “Then that’s what we’ll do,” he says, the corner of his mouth turning up.
“I wasn’t talking about us.” I stumble around for words. “It was a general statement.”
“Relax, I wasn’t asking, yet.”
“Yet?”
He nuzzles my nose with his. “Yes, yet.”
“You’re planning on asking me to marry you?” I ask.
*
RORKE
Her voice sounds so shocked, but she’s got this adorable little smile playing on her lips. I pull her to me. “As soon as I’m sure you’ll say yes.”
“Rorke,” she cries, playfully swatting me. “This is crazy. Why are we even talking about this?”
“I’m not going to be stupid enough to let you walk out of my life again.”
She says my name again, only this time her voice cracks, her eyes wet with tears. “You don’t want to marry me,” she whimpers. “You haven’t thought about what marrying me would mean.”
“It would mean I’d spend the rest of my life with the woman I love.”
“What about kids?”
“At some point.”
“You want to tell your kids their mother invents vibrators?” she asks, pulling away from me.
Fuck me! That’s not something I even considered. “Sterling, I think we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves.”
“That’s just the point. I plowed ahead with my idea, my company, and it wasn’t until it was too late that the side effects hit me. We’ve already talked about men, the creeps, and you know what’s it’s done to my parents. You think I’m going to have kids and let them be teased and ridiculed because of me?” She breaks down, sitting down on the bed, her face in her hands. “I didn’t think about that,” she says. “I guess I never thought I’d actually succeed, and when I did, it was too late.”
Kneeling in front of her, I place my hand on her knees. This is hardly what I thought we’d be doing our first time in a hotel together. “Does this have anything to do with why you were so upset yesterday?”
She nods. “I ran into that horrible Quaid woman at the drug store, and she said some things to me.”
That woman is on my shit list, for sure. But right now, I need to focus on Sterling. “Do you want to have kids?” I ask.
“I can’t do that to them.”
“Do you want them?” I ask, my voice firmer. Her face crinkles up as she nods. “Then we’ll have some.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Yes, I do. Look, we have no idea what life will be when we decide to have kids.” She gazes up at me, her eyes looking so weak. I know I’m shocking the shit out of her right now. “Maybe you’ll have sold your company. Maybe you’ll be inventing other things. Maybe the world won’t be full of such hypocritical prudes.”
“Still, at some point, they’ll have to know. And I wouldn’t want some other kid saying something to them.”
Fuck, I need to come up with something good right now, but I’m drawing a blank. “Then we’ll just tell them their mother is a pervert!”
She covers her face with her hands, probably so snot doesn’t shoot out at me from her giggling so hard. “And that their daddy likes perverts!”
“Exactly,” I say, pulling her into my lap on the floor. She rests her head on my shoulder, the laughter fading. Running my fingers through her hair, I whisper, “I love you. Our kids will love you.”
“They’ll be embarrassed.”
“Or maybe they’ll be more open and honest with us because of what you do.” I tilt her chin to me, looking into her green eyes. “I’ll set the example for them. They’ll see every day how proud I am of their mother.”
She shakes her head. “It’s crazy to be talking like this.”
“I think it would be crazy not to be talking about these things,” I say.
“We’re talking about kids and weddings, and we haven’t even talked about what will happen at the end of the summer when I go back to New York.”
“That one’s harder,” I say, leaning my forehead onto hers. “Any chance you can stay? You’re working from home now, and it seems to be fine.”
“It’s okay short-term. I’m not sure I can run a company long-term from over a thousand miles away.”
“Could you split your time? Two weeks here, two weeks there or something like that.”
“Maybe,” she whispers. “But there’s a lot of schools in New York. There’s got to be some still needing good teachers for next year.”
I never imagined myself living anywhere other than my family’s farm. The four years away at college, here in New Orleans, were great fun, but I always knew where I wanted to be. It’s who I am, but also my parents don’t have anyone else. And what about my plans for the farm? I also realize how unfair it is to put all the burdens on her. “I can check,” I say. “Maybe look at a few schools when we go to New York. But I know the school system is very competitive up there. I’m not sure how many opportunities there are.”
“It would need to be the right fit,” she says. “I wouldn’t want you taking just anything. You know, you could always just move up there and work on getting the camp up and running.”
“No, I won’t move without a job.”
“But isn’t the most important thing that we are together?”
Fuck, she’s playing hardball.
“Set aside your pride,” she says.
“What you don’t understand is that a man’s pride is part of what makes him a man,” I say. “I know what I can do and what I can’t do. You have to respect that.”
“I do. It’s selfish on my part,” she whispers. “I like having you around too much to think about it being any other way.”
“We’ll make it work,” I say.
“It’s not ideal,” she says. “But I could try commuting.”
“There’s a few other things I’d like to get you to try first,” I say, pouncing on top of her.
Her giggle fills up the room. “I think you promised me beignets.”