His dick grew hard against my ass.
Bingo.
Looking up at him, I saw his eyes were still closed but the color was rising in his cheeks and he was moving slightly, a little restless beneath me.
Feeling mischievous and wicked, I brushed my ass over his erection as I moved downward, and had to squeeze my eyes shut against the lust that shot through me at the feel of his hard-on between my legs. I fought for patience, resisting the urge to wake him, pull down his pajama bottoms, and slide him inside me. Instead I tugged down his bottoms and underwear so his cock sprang out. I took him into my mouth, growing increasingly wet at the groans it elicited from him.
For a few seconds I toyed with him, running my tongue down the underside before swirling it around the sensitive rim. Caine began to jerk his hips upward, forcing him farther into my mouth.
I sucked hard.
“Lexie,” I heard his surprised gasp, and looked up at him from under my lashes. Caine was awake now and straining against me. “Lex.” His sleepy, aroused voice was such a turn-on. “Baby …”
I continued to suck him as my fist pumped the base of his erection. His breathing grew ragged, his thighs were rigid, and I knew he was close. I took him almost to the edge and then released him before he got there.
“Lexie,” he groaned, his head flopping back on the pillow, “are you trying to kill me?”
“Not quite.” I grinned as I shifted back to pull down his bottoms. He helped and then quickly removed his shirt as I crawled back up his body.
“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” His eyes cut to the pink scar on my stomach. It wasn’t huge, but it was there. Reminding us. Caine’s arms came around me, drawing me up against his chest. His hands caressed my naked back, his eyes filled with desire and tenderness. “We can wait.”
I shook my head and leaned down to brush my lips over his. “I’m done waiting.” I kissed him with all the fierce love and need I had inside me. My tongue danced with his in a deep, drugging kiss as we crushed tight against each other.
Caine broke the kiss to follow a path down my throat with his mouth. I gasped for breath, my hips surging against his cock as he kissed his way down to my breasts. When he wrapped his lips around my nipple, I lost all control.
I pushed up on my knees, wrapped my hand around him, and guided him to my entrance. I lowered myself down and we panted as he slid inside me. The overwhelming thickness of him took my breath away for a moment and we both held still as my body eased into accepting him.
I sighed when I moved up on him slightly and back down. Pleasure rippled through me.
Caine grasped the back of my head and pulled my mouth back to his, kissing me with a voraciousness that seeped into me—I couldn’t get enough of him. I began to ride him hard.
“Easy, baby,” he attempted to coax through a groan, apparently still concerned for my injury.
“No,” I gasped, my arms wrapped tight around his shoulders as I fucked him with all the desperation that had been inside me for weeks.
We both came fast and hard, the pulsing clench of my climax around his cock wrenching his own orgasm from him.
I collapsed in his arms, my face buried against his neck. I somehow managed to move my languid legs so they were comfortably wrapped around his hips as I sat in his lap.
He twitched inside me at the movement and I smiled. “Round two?”
He kissed my shoulder. “I’ll need a minute or so,” he said, his voice filled with humor.
“And then round two?”
Caine shook with laughter. “Yes. And then round two.” He gently threaded his fingers through my hair to clasp the nape of my neck. He brought my head back and I stared into his handsome face, my gaze low-lidded with satisfaction. Something flared in his eyes at the sight of mine. “Fuck yeah, round two,” he said, “but this time I’m in charge.”
Not too long later Caine held me down, my hands at the sides of my head while he glided inside me, and it was all with tenderness that brought tears to my eyes. He held my gaze as he thrust gently, taking his time to stoke the flame. It was intense and moving and so much more than we’d had before. Now I knew as he gazed into my face while he made love to me … I knew what was working behind his eyes.
I knew it because, as he pushed me in nerve-tingling increments toward climax, he told me.
“I love you, Lex,” he said, his voice rough with passion. “Love you so much, baby.”
The tears escaped before I could stop them. “I love you too.”
He let go of one of my hands to brush his thumb across my temple where the tearstain tracked. The sight of my tears seemed to fan the flames of urgency inside him and he began to pump into me faster.
“Oh God.” I wanted to touch him, but Caine knew his control over my pleasure increased it. “Baby!” My cries filled the room, matching his groans as he fucked me harder. The tension inside me snapped and I cried out as the stunning orgasm ripped through me.
Quick on the heels of my orgasm, Caine’s hips stilled and then jerked as his own climax tore through him.
I stroked his back in leisurely wonder. “I’ve never been this happy,” I whispered, a little scared by it.
Caine must have heard the fear, because he kissed my neck, tightened his hold on me, and said, “Me neither. But we’ll get used to it.”
“Promise?”
He lifted his head to meet my gaze. “No, because on second thought I don’t want to get used to it. If you get used to it—”
“You forget to be thankful for it,” I finished.
He nodded slowly. “Yeah.”
I thought about our rough starts in life, Caine’s of course more so than mine. I thought about our rough last few weeks, mine more so than Caine’s.
I brushed my thumb over his lower lip. “I don’t think we’ll ever forget to be thankful.”
“No. I don’t suppose we will.”
Later that day while Caine was at work, I received a call from my father. It wasn’t the easiest conversation, and I wasn’t sure there ever would be easiness between us. My father was going to be in my life when my case against Matthew and Holts went to court because he was obviously a very important witness. But there were no promises from either of us that there would be a future in the cards. Honestly it seemed pretty impossible with Caine between us.
I had to wonder, even if I wanted my father back in my life, would I have tried to make a place for him in it? Or would I have chosen Caine over him? I wasn’t sure what the answer would be, but I was stunned and a little disconcerted by the little voice inside me that whispered I would always choose Caine.
And then I realized that wasn’t quite true.
I think that I would choose Caine over nearly anyone … but if we had children they would always come first. I also knew enough about the man I loved to know that he would feel the same way. So many adults hadn’t taken him into consideration when he was a child. In the past few weeks Caine had mentioned “our children” in this offhand manner that made me smile—like kids with me was a given now that he’d admitted he loved me.
He would never put a kid through anything like what he’d been through.
Neither would I.
That realization made me think of my mom. It made me think of what Caine had said to me all those months ago at Good Harbor Beach.
So I sat down to have one last conversation with my mother in the hopes of freeing myself of some that hurt.
CHAPTER 33
Dear Mom,
The greatest lesson you taught me is that parents’ actions and choices resonate into their child’s life, sometimes affecting them in a way it never should. I wish your greatest lesson to me could be more positive, because the truth is that’s who you were—an optimistic, warm, sweet woman. But you were also weak. And I have to forgive you for your weakness, because at the end of the day we all have our weaknesses. I wanted to tell you that you hurt me when you chose my father over me. I wanted to tell you that I’ll ne
ver understand how you could love him so deeply when he could never love anyone as much as he loved himself. And I wanted to tell you that I realize now that it was never up to me to understand.
I’m sorry for putting you in a position where you had to choose between us.
You can’t help whom you love.
Watching you waste your sweet heart on my father paralyzed me. For the longest time I deliberately avoided ever feeling about someone the way you felt about him. Because of that I sometimes felt like there were days that I was just sitting watching life pass me by. The hell of it all was that it never even occurred to me to flag it down and ask it for a ride.
Until Caine came along. And there was no choice in it for me. Just as I now realize there was probably no choice in it for you.
I forgive you for loving Dad.
I even forgive you for loving him more than me.
But I’ll never forget.
The greatest lesson I teach my kids won’t be the same you taught me.
It won’t be the lesson Caine’s parents taught him either.
I don’t know what it’ll be yet.
I just know there will never be a day that passes my kids by when they don’t know that there is no one in this world they can count on more than me.
I don’t mean to make you feel guilty, Mom. I just needed to finally tell you how I feel so I can move on. The past is the past and I’m letting go of it and all the anger that comes with it. I’m trying out this thing called peace, and I’m hoping that wherever you are you can find that peace too knowing that I’m letting the ugliness of the past go, and knowing that no matter what I loved you.
And I know you loved me.
Good-bye, Mom.
Yours,
Lexie
EPILOGUE
“You know, I think we need to lift the ban on showering together,” Caine grumbled as he sauntered down the stairs and into the kitchen.
I snorted and held out his mug of coffee before returning my attention to the notes I had spread all over the kitchen counter. “There was a reason we banned it. It was called being late for work,” I murmured absentmindedly.
The mug was removed from my hand and I narrowed my eyes on the list of boutiques Nadia had mentioned, wondering how on earth I was going to get around them all in a day.
“I didn’t mind.”
“You didn’t mind what?” I pulled out the map of Boston I’d printed off. I’d used the computer to place the boutiques on the map so I could work out the most efficient route for visiting them all.
“Being late.”
“You’re the boss,” I reminded him. “You can do what you like. I have a boss who wasn’t happy at my excuse for lateness.”
“That’s because Bree needs to get laid.”
“Caine.” I looked up at him in admonishment.
He gestured to my face. “Ah, there she is.”
Confused, I wrinkled my nose.
“I was wondering if you were ever going to look up from that thing.” He tapped the huge folder in front of me. “A ‘good morning’ would be nice.”
I winced. “Sorry. I’m just feeling the pressure with this one.” I cocked my head to the side and gave him a soft, flirtatious smile. “And was my good morning this morning in bed not satisfying enough?” I referred to the fact that I’d woken him up with my mouth.
Caine leaned across the counter so our noses were practically touching. “This morning was very nice, but I’d quite like it when I come down to get my coffee in the morning if my wife would look at me. Maybe even throw in a kiss or two.”
I smiled and lifted my left hand to cup his face, the three diamonds on my engagement ring sparkling in the light next to my wedding band. “I don’t mean to neglect you.” I brushed my lips over his apologetically. “And I promise when Nadia returns from the land of Bridezilla you will get me back.”
Caine pressed his mouth to mine, his kiss harder, searching. I moaned and melted into him, wishing with all my heart that Nadia’s wedding was over already.
Nadia had gone up in the world and was now a cohost on Boston’s most-watched breakfast show. In fact, a lot had changed in the thirty months since my whole world turned upside down and Caine finally admitted he loved me.
Not long after I started looking for a new job, I was approached by Henry’s friend Bree Stanton, a socialite turned professional career woman who had worked her ass off to create the most elite events management company in Boston. She offered me a job as an events planner and I’d fallen in love with the position almost instantly. We managed many of the biggest events on the social calendar, including weddings. And Nadia Ray’s wedding was a huge event, not only because of her celebrity status but because she’d managed to tame the untameable and wring a proposal out of Henry. A Lexington getting married was a big deal. A Lexington getting married to Boston’s favorite TV show host was an even bigger deal.
I can’t say I was surprised that Henry proposed to Nadia. I’d seen a difference in the way he interacted with her from the beginning. Despite her local fame, Nadia was down-to-earth, fun, and a real friend. I was over-the-moon for Henry and I was delighted for me because it meant I got to keep Nadia in my life too.
It also meant Nadia came to me to organize the wedding. Bree was ecstatic, and I had the promise of a very nice bonus if I pulled the wedding off without a hitch. So I had my friends’ happiness and a lovely bonus motivating me to get this day exactly the way Nadia wanted. Ever since Henry had proposed to her, she’d transformed into this crazy woman I barely recognized. I could forgive her for the crazy. My experience in wedding planning in the last two and a half years had shown that most brides (not all, though) transformed into hyper versions of themselves. I had every confidence Nadia would return to normal upon her departure for her honeymoon.
Thankfully I didn’t have the opportunity to become one of those brides, because Caine and I didn’t have a huge wedding. We invited our closest friends and family—Effie, Henry, Nadia, Rachel, and Jeff—to witness our very small, very private wedding at Caine’s (now our) summerhouse in Nantucket. I didn’t invite my grandfather, even though I wanted him there, because it was unfair to Caine. So I was shocked to discover Grandpa there on the morning of the wedding, ready to walk me down the aisle. Caine had surprised me by inviting him for me, and that just made me love my husband a million times more than I already did.
Three months after my attack Caine asked me to move in with him. Actually it was only a few weeks after. It took three months for me to agree. It was more about finally giving up my beautiful cozy apartment than not wanting to live with Caine. We were living together anyway. If I didn’t spend the night at his, he was at mine. Finally he got fed up of the back-and-forth and lack of permanency. A month after that he proposed, and two months after that we were married.
His apartment was now our apartment—it was also barely recognizable. Gone were the white leather kitchen stools and the stark black color scheme. In their place was comfortable and gender-neutral furniture with not-so-gender-neutral cushions and throws strewn on them to emulate the coziness of my old apartment.
Caine didn’t even say a word.
To be honest, I think he barely noticed.
He was used to my style now, and wasn’t a guy who was interested in soft furnishings.
“I don’t remember you being this crazy when it was our wedding.” Caine scowled down at the massive folder filled with Nadia’s wedding arrangements.
“That’s because I wasn’t. Moreover, Henry and Nadia’s wedding is for a hundred and fifty guests. We had six.”
“I liked ours better,” he murmured, sipping his coffee.
“Me too.” I laughed at his petulance, but I really couldn’t blame him. Nadia and Henry’s wedding seemed to be taking over my life at the moment.
“If they weren’t our friends.” He eyed the folder again.
“You can’t burn it,” I said.
Caine grinned at me. “Get out of m
y head.”
“I don’t want to.” It was my turn to grumble. “I want to dive into your head and take you to bed and have my wicked way with you.” I pushed the map away from me. “Instead I’m spending today hopping from one bridal boutique to the next trying to find the perfect bridesmaid dresses because Nadia has become obsessed with using homegrown designs.” I bugged my eyes out in frustration. “She’s not even from Boston.”
His lips twitched. “This is why you shouldn’t work with friends.”
“We did okay.”
“We were lovers. We were never friends.” To make his point he got up to put his mug in the sink and as he passed me he pressed a kiss to the side of my neck.
Three years on and he still made my toes tingle. “That’s not true. You’re my best friend.”
In answer Caine wrapped his arms around my waist and drew me back against his chest. “You’re mine too, baby. That’s why I’m asking you to put the folder of doom aside tonight so we can go out for a nice meal and spend some time together.”
There was nothing in this world I’d like to do more. “We can’t. We’re having dinner with Nadia and Henry.”
My husband dropped his forehead to my shoulder and groaned. “There’s such a thing as too much ‘friend time.’ ”
I shook with laughter. “We made these plans ages ago. We’re going to the opening of that new restaurant, Smoke.”
“Oh, that sounds appetizing,” he remarked dryly as he pulled up the stool beside me so our knees touched. “A restaurant opening. That means the media will be there.”
He looked weary just at the thought of it and I understood. From the moment Caine and I moved in together, the society papers went nuts. It was even worse when we were seen out and about with our friends. Caine, Henry, Nadia, and I would turn up to events together and the photographers would go mad trying to get pictures of us. Of course, it was a juicy story that Nadia was dating a Lexington. It was an even juicier story that the black sheep of the Holland family (that would be me) had accused her half brother of attempting to have her killed, and was now dating one of the wealthiest men in Boston.