Love (Blind Vows #3) Page 4

  I caught her arm still mid stroke through her hair, taking in my nakedness. When her eyes caught mine staring at her while she stared at me in the mirror she averted her eyes and began running the comb through her hair more roughly. I walked up behind her and placed my hands on her bare shoulders.

  “See something you like?”

  She scoffed, “It’s nothing I haven’t seen.”

  Smiling, I rebuffed, “That’s not what I asked.”

  I dropped my lips to her exposed shoulder and began kissing and nipping at her skin. Feeling her body respond to my touch was one of the greatest rewards. A shiver ran up her spine as her body relaxed ever so slightly against mine. Her eyes had fluttered shut and the comb fell from her fingers. I don’t even think she was aware of it until she pressed her lower back against the evidence of my desire for her.

  “We have to stop.” Her words were breathy and labored.

  “Says who?” My arm circled around her and rested above her pounding heart.

  “What?” She was dazed and trying to regain her bearings. “Says me!” Pulling her ear into my mouth, she moaned and her arms searched for something to hold on to.

  “Let me take care of you. You need this as badly as I do.” My breath came hot and heavy against her skin as she turned her head to give me better access. Pressing her ass into me, my hand moved to her hair and gripped a handful. I could feel her still fighting it, her body not fully under my control.

  “I can’t say no to you.”

  “Then say yes,” I demanded.

  “Oh, I, Heath.” She was fighting herself, me, us and I understood, but I was going to try with all I had to get her to surrender. “You don’t understand.”

  “I understand completely. I can’t say no to you either.”

  Her body tensed as she pushed against me in rejection. “You left me!” My movements ceased as I met her eyes in the mirror. The minute my grip loosened on her, she turned to face me. “We still haven’t talked.”

  I was a coward and walked away, climbing into the shower. “What’s left to say?”

  She flung open the shower door and questioned me. “Is that how you really feel, that there’s nothing left to say?” Her eyes searched mine before I closed them and let the water wash over my face. “There’s everything left to say.” Her voice had become broken and soft, the fight in it gone.

  “This is why this can’t work. Not like this.” Her eyes scrunched together and she shook her head at me. “All you women want to do is talk.” I was being a jerk on purpose. Why did we have to talk when we both knew what our bodies wanted?

  “Why are you being so callous? If you wanted a doormat, someone who’d let you fuck her anytime you want, you married the wrong girl. Where’s the man I got to know on my honeymoon? The man who stayed up and talked all night getting to know me, because this man,” she waved her finger at me, “this man is an asshole and I don’t deserve it.”

  I didn’t even know what to say to her. As she turned and walked away, my hand reached for her too late. Fucking and fighting is what we were good at and I didn’t want to be fighting. I wanted to fuck. She wanted to talk.

  We needed to talk and lay our cards on the table, but it terrified me. What if I wasn’t what—who—she wanted? Part of me knew better. She was here, wasn’t she? What was I so afraid of? I never talked emotions with any other woman. She was the closest I’d ever been to a woman, besides my mother. I knew one thing for sure. I loved Lucy and hated her all at once because I knew she was the one person who had the potential to destroy me. As long as I didn’t destroy myself first.

  I took too long in the shower, letting the water beat at my body as I let myself become numb. When I climbed out and made my way to the bedroom for clothes, she wasn’t there. Once I dressed, I discovered she’d left the apartment too. Shit! I’d screwed it up all over again. Where could she have gone? Most places were closed since it was a holiday.

  ~ Chapter 7 ~

  ~ LUCY ~

  That evening when I got home, having spent most of the day with Stacey, I found our apartment empty. Our apartment. Was it really ours or was it still his? I pushed the thought aside. Stacey urged me to go home and talk to him, not fully understanding that Heath didn’t ‘talk’. He charmed, fucked, and possessed my body, but rarely did he talk. No other man had ever been able to get my body to react—or should I say submit—the way Heath was capable of.

  I fell asleep on the couch that night waiting for him. Will hadn’t been around all day either and I vaguely wondered where he was. I debated about going to the gym, but didn’t want to risk running into her. In a last ditch effort, I texted him as I lay on the couch under a blanket.

  Please come home.

  There was no response. I wasn’t above begging, but I wasn’t going to make a fool of myself either. I resumed the sound system which had his CDs playing on repeat. I’d found the CDs still in the front seat of my car—where I’d left them during the snowstorm—and wasn’t even sure if Heath had noticed them. They meant more to me than I thought he’d ever know.

  I cried myself to sleep that night and the next. Each morning I awoke in our bed, having been carried there by someone, but neither Heath nor Will were anywhere to be found. Our lives began this cycle of ships passing in the night. I’d go to bed alone and I’d wake in the morning alone, wondering if he’d really held me that night or if it’d just been a fleeting dream. This went on for longer than I cared to admit.

  I kept my routine—grateful I had that to distract me—but had no idea what his routine was. We’d never really discussed it and now I wondered if he’d been a figment of my imagination. The only evidence of his existence were the dirty clothes piling up that he discarded in the hamper.

  That evening, a couple weeks later, I ran into Will. It was all I could do to make eye contact and not break down. Will talked about O and his progress and let me know that Heath was spending all his spare time there. I guess I kind of assumed as much which is why I wasn’t entirely frantic. I became horribly upset with myself because I had yet to go visit O.

  “Do you think O would mind if I stopped in to see him?” Will nodded as guilt swept through me. “I should’ve gone to see him sooner, I just, I figured Heath would take me.”

  Will placed a hand on my shoulder and consoled me. “Go see O. He’d love to see you, especially since you’re his sister now.” He winked and headed to his bedroom.

  The next day I headed to O’s after work and walked up the flight of stairs to his apartment. As I climbed the stairs I immediately became sick to my stomach for O. He’d lost his leg and lived on the third floor in a building with no elevators. I took a few deep breaths before knocking on the door.

  It took a minute, but when the door swung open I wasn’t prepared for what I saw. Laughter and boisterous voices trickled out into the hallway where I stood. D’Artagnan stared back at me, a beer in his hand, as voices I didn’t recognize infiltrated my senses.

  “Who is it D?”

  D looked at me and waved me in. As he did, he announced, “Our sister.”

  My eyes took in the scene and I was both happy, livid, and relieved. O sat at a table playing cards with Heath and some guys I didn’t recognize. D took the empty seat as I bore my eyes into the back of Heath’s skull. He hadn’t even bothered to look at me.

  I became distracted when I realized O was hobbling his way up, pulling his crutches up to support him, making his way toward me. He wrapped his free arm around me and hugged me. I clung to him, but not as long as I wanted. He was alive and smiling when in all reality he shouldn’t have been.

  O sensed the tension in me and tried to make a joke. “Come to bring your husband home? He could probably use the ride.” He cupped his hand in the air and took a swig of the imaginary drink he held to let me know that Heath had been drinking.

  I was pissed. While I’d been sitting at home worrying for him for over a week, he’d been here, with O, getting drunk? “I’m sorry. I wasn’t a
ware I had a husband. If I had one I’d expect him to warm my bed at night and grace me with his presence occasionally.”

  O took a step back as I jumped at the sound of Heath’s hands slamming down on the table. Heath stood and walked toward me as everyone else pretended to ignore the fight that was about to happen. Staring over their beers and cards in our direction, they waited along with me for what Heath would say and do.

  Without waiting for my reply, gripping my forearm, he dragged me to the back of the apartment, bellowing, “Can I talk to you?”

  Making sure everyone could hear, I bit out, “Sure, I wasn’t aware talking was something you knew how to do.”

  He shoved me into a bedroom and slammed the door behind us. As I looked around the room I was well aware that it wasn’t O’s room. Items of Heaths were strewn across the room.

  “So, are you living here now?”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  I watched as he scrubbed his hands over his face before gliding them through his hair. My patience was growing thin. “You know you still haven’t told me why you left. I had to find out about O from Will.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  I rolled my eyes at his lackluster apology, “Please. You are not.” He moved past me and sat on the bed. I stood there with my arms crossed over my chest for far too long. After sighing, I headed for the door. “This is bullshit.”

  As my hand reached for the door I heard his broken voice beg me to stay. “Please don’t go, Lucy. I need you.” My heart broke a little at his plea. I closed my eyes, still facing the door, debating about what to do. “Will and I have been taking shifts, staying here, to make sure O’s ok. Fuck. He’s not ok.” I turned to face him. His hands covered his face as he propped them on his knees.

  “Heath?” His voice cracked as I looked closer at him. Was he crying?

  “My brother is a better man than any of us. He doesn’t deserve this. It should’ve been me. I should’ve gone with him.”

  I closed the space between us and got on my knees. Gently, I pulled his hands away and cupped his tear streaked face. “Heath, what happened to O isn’t your fault. There’s nothing you could’ve done.” His eyes looked to my face and I could smell the liquor on his breath. “He seems to be in good spirits. Why didn’t you tell me? I’ve been worried…”

  “About what?”

  “About you, us, O. Everything.” There was something else I needed to talk to him about, too. “Heath, we only have four weeks left to decide if we’re staying married.”

  Part of the terms of this whole experiment was to agree to eight weeks of marriage. At the end of eight weeks we had to decide if we were staying together or getting a divorce. It also meant that we’d been married for just over a month. A month anniversary that’d come and gone with no words of love from each other. I’d already dodged phone calls asking us to schedule our therapy appointments to see how things were going. I didn’t even know if they knew that Heath had taken Will’s place at the ceremony.

  His eyes looked back and forth between mine and then traveled to my lips as I licked them. I should’ve known better than to get so close to him. Kneeling between his legs, all I wanted to do was to curl into his warmth. He was clearly hurting and distraught about O and his new circumstance. What I didn’t know was if any of that hurt had to do with me or not?

  He pulled on a lock of my hair that’d dropped in front of my eyes and twisted it around his fingers. “God, I’ve missed you.”

  Before I could respond, his mouth covered mine. His whiskers were a welcome feeling against my skin, but the alcohol was overpowering. I clung to his wrists as he cupped my face. His tongue lapped at my upper lip as I opened my mouth for him. He tasted like pretzels and booze, bitter and salty all at once and I wanted, no needed, more. My hands moved up his forearms, enjoying every curve of every muscle and tendon.

  His arms moved down my body and yanked me onto the bed with him. His body hovered over mine, his hands frantically pulling my shirt up searching out my skin. Sucking on my neck, his hand was moving down my torso and was between my legs before I knew it.

  “Lucy,” he pressed his hand against my warmth and I closed my legs around it to keep him there, “I need you.” His fingers worked over my scrubs, through my panties and had me nearly begging for more.

  “I need you, too. I miss you, please come home. We can work this out, but I need you home.”

  “Take these off. I need to feel you, all of you.” He pressed his cock against my thigh, like I needed the reminder of his current state.

  “Heath, not here.”

  “Why not?”

  “They could hear.”

  “So what?” He began pulling at my scrub pants as I tried pulling away.

  “Heath, I said no. Not here. Please, take me home and I’ll be all yours.”

  Slow and thick he whispered in my ear, “I want you to be all mine here and now.”

  There was a knock on the door and some obscene comment from someone I didn’t recognize. I suddenly felt like I was back in college at some party and I didn’t like it. I took the opening and wiggled out of Heath’s grip, standing. As I pulled my shirt back down, Heath got up on his elbows and looked up at me.

  “They’re just messing around. Come back here.”

  Huffing, I gritted out. “Last chance to come home. Did you get my texts?”

  He glared at me, silently challenging me. “Maybe I am home.”

  My mouth fell open and I knew he was drunk and I wasn’t going to argue with a drunk man. I’d been there, done that. “You’re drunk and still an asshole.” I flung open the door and stopped. I didn’t want to leave things this way so I made one last ditch effort. “Your home is with me. I’m not going anywhere, but I won’t wait forever either, Heathcliff.”

  I marched out of the room and ignored the eyes staring at me as I walked out the front door. Slamming the door, the tears poured out of my eyes as I wrapped my arms around myself.

  “Lucy?” Looking up I found Will walking up the stairs toward me. “What’s wrong?”

  What I said I didn’t mean, but I couldn’t stop myself from saying it either. “You should’ve just left me at the altar if you didn’t want me. It would’ve been better!” He stared at me dumbfounded as I bit out, “Handing me to him…you just made everything worse.”

  “How did I make it worse?”

  Instead of saying, ‘Because now my heart’s involved’, I kept silent, pushing my way past him and left.

  I couldn’t think straight and thought for sure I was losing my shit. I didn’t even know where to go. Home was the only option, but it just reminded me of him, us. Stacey was at work and Jaime had a new baby. I couldn’t burden either of them. Cranking the volume, The Pretty Reckless was on. You drifted through the speakers with its soft acoustic sound. Didn’t he want me, need me? Maybe not in the same way I needed him. He told me he wanted me, but need was another beast that could take you down a slippery slope of regret. Need was a big burden only few could take on.

  I began to wonder if I’d ever been enough for him or if I ever would be. I couldn’t deal with the possibilities of the answer to that question. Then it dawned on me and the tears came faster. Had he even been spending his nights at O’s alone, his bed empty? Mistrust began to sink in and work its way through the cracks of my heart.

  ~ Chapter 8 ~

  ~ HEATH ~

  Did she say she’d texted me? I’d never received a text. Absently, I searched for my phone in my pocket but didn’t find it. Likely an excuse to try to make it look like she really gave a damn. If she did she’d know that I needed to get lost in her, her body, and the places we could go together. Once naked in each other’s arms we had a way of transporting ourselves to a new level. At least that’s how I felt.

  A couple more days passed with no interaction. That night she’d come to O’s, I hadn’t made it back to the poker game. My head was pounding and I let sleep take me. I missed her, clearly, but O
needed me. The only time I spent at the gym was when I had scheduled clients. I’d pop into the apartment when I knew she was at work or sleeping. More than once in those weeks, I’d found her asleep on the couch and I’d carry her to bed, holding her for a while before I’d leave again.

  I was sitting on O’s couch, staring off into space when his voice brought me back to reality. He’d been at a therapy appointment and D was bringing him home. I hadn’t even heard the door open.

  “Dude, what are you doing? Why are you still here? When are you going to fight for her?” I glared at O, taking offense but trying to reign my temper in. “So you’re just going to let her push you away and call it a day?”

  “You don’t know anything about this, about us.”

  He dared to laugh. “The hell I don’t. You love her, have since that summer and not ONCE have you fought for her. Not really.”

  He pulled up a chair and sat down in front of me—the space empty where his lower left leg should’ve been jutting out between us—he got nose to nose with me and poked me in the chest.

  “Back off, O.”

  “She needs you to prove to her that she’s worth the fight.” He grabbed my shirt and shook me. “Fight. For. Her.” Then he released me causing my back to thump against the back of the couch. “What I wouldn’t give to have a love like hers.”

  Standing again with the help of his crutches, he turned toward the hallway and I thought for sure he would leave without another word. Talking to the wall, I knew his words were meant for me. “You’re so damn stubborn, always have been. I’ve watched you go through losing her without a fight. I won’t do it again. Not like this. Will isn’t the only one who knows your secrets.” Then he left the room, making his way back to his bedroom.

  I sat there for close to thirty minutes before I made my way to the spare bedroom and packed my bag. He was right, though I’d never admit that to him. I needed to go home and fight for her.