- ONE -
LANE -
Our heavy breaths were loud in the quiet of the sleeping house. Her fingers continued to tug and pull at my shirt until she had it fully removed from my waistband. As soon as it was allowed, she frantically slipped buttons from their holes and, in her frenzy, shoved the shirt from my shoulders, letting it flutter leisurely to the stairs. All I could feel were wild, desperate hands and our hot mouths colliding.
My liquor-filled brain didn’t function quite as fast as hers did, but I managed to pin her to the wall with one of my legs on a higher stair, stopping her from moving any closer to the top. From what I could tell through my double vision, she was pretty. Long, blonde hair. Nice rack. Tight skirt that was about to be on the floor. Shit, that worked for me.
I returned to the arduous task of unbuttoning her shirt. My fumbling fingers weren’t cooperating though so her blouse ended up being a ripped mess, causing buttons to fly every which way. My mouth had instant access to her bare chest. No bra. But let’s be honest, that was one of the reasons she was here right now. Everyone in that bar knew she hadn’t been wearing much under her barely-there clothes.
“Ethan...” she gasped, as my lips touched her breasts. I suppressed the chuckle as best as I could, because I had forgotten she thought that was my name. Ethan and I were being jackasses and decided to trade for the hell of it. Shit, maybe some girl was calling out my name at Ethan’s place tonight.
When my fingers slid up the inside of her thigh, she moaned forcefully. My hand instantly clamped down over her lips to stop the loud noise erupting from between them.
“Shh...we need to get to my room before you wake everyone up.”
“Who else is here?” she asked, panting breathlessly. I ignored her question and pulled her up the rest of the stairs. Her hands continued to paw and bat at me as we staggered down the hall. She walked backward, clinging to my burning skin until I finally found the right door.
She strutted around topless inside the room while checking out her surroundings and running her fingertips across the edge of the bedspread.
“Huh... it’s kind of small. I thought with a house this size...”
“It’s a guest room,” I replied. I stalked toward her and attempted to remove my shoes and unbutton my pants in the same beat.
“Do you always take girls to your guest room? Show me your master, gorgeous,” she tried to whisper seductively.
Towering over her, I placed my hands on her hips and moved her back onto the bed. My fingers grazed across her flat stomach and I found the clasp that held her scrap of a skirt together. The fabric released, drifted down her fake-tanned legs, and she kicked it aside.
“I want to...” My hand was over her mouth before she could even finish that maddening request.
“You’re talking way too damn much, baby girl.” I flipped on my back and scooted until I met the headboard. With my pants unbuttoned, I extended my hands out on each side of me in a welcoming gesture. “This is where you get me. Your call.”
She smirked and turned fully toward me. Her fingers pulled each of my socks off and she tossed them to the floor. She grabbed the hem of my pants and worked them down my legs. Those quickly joined the socks on the hardwood. Her eyes were immediately fixated between my legs and I knew what her decision would be. With a grin, I put my hands behind my head and rested against the headboard, watching as she crawled up my body.
“You’re just going to lay back and let me do all the work?” she asked with a perfectly arched eyebrow.
“Sweetheart, you’re the one that went home with a guy who drank half the bar.” I could feel my lids beginning to droop, the alcohol swimming wildly through my veins. She shrugged her shoulder casually and bent forward.
Her hot mouth began to go to town and it felt f*cking great. In my experience, only the girls who wore see-through clothes or skirts that barely covered their asses could do that kind of work with their mouths.
When I felt more than a hot mouth wrap around my dick, my eyes shot open and I looked up to find her smiling face above me. In a panic, I sat up ramrod straight and thankfully saw she had put a condom on for me. Close call.
What the hell just happened? Two seconds ago she was sucking me off and now she was riding me?
“You were enjoying that,” she whispered into my ear.
“Yeah...” Although I was pretty sure I had just fallen asleep. Hey, point for me that I kept it up while I took a little nap. At least she didn’t catch me.
“You feel so good,” she called out excitedly. I didn’t like the sound of her voice anymore. It was too loud…too nasally. Had it been like that at the bar? Surely Ethan would have told me if it was. Then again, he was probably more concerned with whether she was about to have a wardrobe malfunction—we all were. “Ethan!”
My hands grabbed a hold of her ass and I flipped her over onto her stomach, entering back in from behind. Much better.
As I pumped into her, I started questioning why guys felt the need to have sex all the time. It felt good, that was obvious. It was fun and it shook up an otherwise boring day. But in that moment, I wondered why I bothered with this girl. It would feel good and then she would go home. Thank God. There wouldn't be any lingering feelings for her, and no need to do it again. There would just be... nothing.
Shit, I needed to tell Ethan no more whiskey. It made me a f*cking sap.
I heard her cry out into the pillow and I assumed she had reached her release, so I let myself finish as well. With one last shuddering pulse, I fell to the side and closed my eyes while catching my breath.
The feeling that always came after every time I finished began to creep up on me. I didn’t know why I always seemed to forget how it felt—the feeling that I shouldn’t have been with yet another random chick. The sex definitely hadn't been worth it, but when I saw a pretty face and whiskey joined the party, I couldn’t seem to talk myself out of it.
My phone startled me with a resounding ring. With a foggy brain, I tried to decipher what the hell was going on. The blonde chick was lightly snoring next to me. Seriously, whiskey was not allowed on my bar menu anymore—it f*cked with my head. I thought that I needed something harder tonight, something to help the memories fade, but all it had done was make my brain muddled and confused. The beep of my phone reminded me that I had a message awaiting my attention.
“Hey, wake up,” I tried to whisper nicely. She stirred and swatted away my hand that was trying to gently rouse her. “Sugar, it’s time to go.”
“Stop, I’m trying to sleep, Ethan,” her voice grumbled.
I pulled the covers off of her naked body and tapped her ass. “Nope, it’s time to move it along. I have things to do.”
She glared up at me from her pillow and slowly pushed up onto her elbow. “You have things to do at...” She grabbed her phone off the nightstand and checked the illuminated screen. “At three-thirty in the morning? No...wake me when it’s at least eight.”
She searched for the covers again and I kicked them off the bed. I knew my phone was still in my pants, but I had to rack my brain to remember where those could be. Standing, I spotted them across the room, close to the bathroom door. I could see the alert light blinking through the dark fabric.
“Quit playing around!” she screeched.
Once my phone was in my hand, I noticed it was from Charlie and immediately put it up to my ear so I could hear his message. He rarely called in the middle of the night, and I shouldn’t have f*cking let it go to voicemail. I could hear my late-night visitor huffing and puffing behind me, but her concerns meant nothing to me in that moment.
Charlie’s gruff voice whispered in my ear, causing my whole body to lock up with each word spoken. “Tijuana. Tonight at seven. I got you a spot. Meet up with Mateo. Call me back tomorrow.”
I had been listening to Charlie’s cryptic messages for the past four years, yet I was never prepared for them. I couldn’t predict what kind of news he was going to deliver, and every day I felt as if I were waiting for the one that would knock me in the gut so hard I would never recover. However, this one gave me hope because another day had gone by that he wasn’t calling to tell she was gone…forever.
When I knew I had a job to do, it got my blood pumping. The adrenaline shot through my veins, and I could already feel my feet bouncing. This time, however, insecurities began to float in and out of my head. I should have been training harder since moving to Texas. I should have been perfecting my right hook or strengthening my footwork.
But then I remembered that winning didn’t matter. My presence did. If Charlie got me a spot tonight, that meant he would be there. And if he was there, then maybe it could lead me to her.
“What’s your name again?” I pointed at the girl, who was trying hard to look sexy sprawled out naked on my bed. Any other night, I would have gone another round because obviously I was a glutton for punishment, but it was time I hit the road.
“You’re joking, right?” she yelled, way too damn loud for three in the morning.
“Hush, will you? I don’t need you waking everyone up,” I hissed while throwing on my pants.
“Who the hell are these other people, Ethan?” Her voice was getting extremely loud. “Am I really just another notch on your headboard?” I shrugged my shoulders, because what the hell did she think? She went home with a drunken idiot in the middle of the night and I hadn’t even asked her name. “F*ckING BASTARD!” she screeched.
Almost immediately, I heard the loud wail of a baby cry blast down the hallway. Shit... Her face froze and she gave me a glare that could melt all of Antarctica.
“Please, don’t tell me you have a family,” she growled.
“It’s time to go, sweetheart...” I started to say when my door slammed open, the hinges barely containing the forceful blow. There stood a drowsy-eyed and extremely pissed-off Jace in my doorway. He was only wearing boxers and his chest was heaving as if ready for a fight.
I f*cked up. “Dude, I’m so—“
He quickly interrupted my apology. “Do you know how long Audrey and I spent getting Jocelyn down? No, of course you don’t, because you don’t give a f*ck!”
“Of course I care, don’t say that. How was I supposed to know she would start screaming like a damn five-year-old?” I pointed to the guilty party still sitting on my bed.
Jace glanced over as if he hadn’t known there was someone else in the room. I knew the instant he realized she was lounging seductively in her birthday suit because he immediately looked away.
“Seriously! You have about ten seconds before Audrey comes down here and kicks your ass. Get dressed and get her out of here,” he growled.
“I think I need to talk to Ethan in private,” my obnoxious visitor addressed Jace, even though he wouldn’t even look in her direction.
Jace threw his head back and laughed, “Oh boy! You have been an a*shole tonight. His name is Lane, by the way,” he added, right before he stepped out into the hallway.
I heard her gasp of breath as she scurried off the bed and scooped up her skirt. In a huff, she pulled it up her legs and secured it around her waist.
“Look...” I paused, realizing I still didn’t know the girl’s name. Shit!
“Gemma. My name is Gemma and it seems that yours is Lane. I’m glad we finally introduced ourselves.” She rolled her eyes in annoyance.
“Look Gemma, it was a good time,” I tried to backtrack. I’d been even more of an a*shole than usual.
“You’re a riot,” she laughed incredulously and searched for her shirt.
I cleared my throat and hesitantly said, “I think it’s on the stairs.” Where I had ripped it off of her. “Here, just take my shirt,” I tried to say before she walked out the door but she waved me off and strutted out of my room—topless. F*cking great.
“Oh, this must be some kind of joke, Lane Parker!” I heard Audrey shout from the hall. I rushed out and tried to block off a naked Gemma, but she just didn’t seem to care who saw her. “You!” Audrey said to me while holding little Jocelyn. “You wake up the baby that we just spent two hours trying to get down, and now you have her strutting around naked in front of my husband. Jace, so help me God, if I see you even trying to look at her!”
Jace had his back completely facing Gemma now and he held his hands up in surrender. I could tell Audrey was level-ten-pissed-off because she never yelled at either of us. Jace’s eyes burned into me, threatening pain in the near future.
“Please, leave my house,” she said to Gemma without even looking her in the eye.
Gemma descended the staircase and scooped up her shirt. She lazily pulled it over her shoulders and turned to face us. I cringed when I saw her breasts were still exposed, since I had torn all of her buttons off in my haste.
“Hey, Jace,” she called up to him, and instinctively he turned at his name. She licked her lips and winked at him with enough seduction to light the room on fire. Jace groaned in annoyance as she slipped out the front door.
“I’ll kill you,” Audrey whispered to me with menace while still trying to bounce an uncomfortable and tired baby.
“I’m so damn sorry, Audrey. Seriously, I didn’t mean for any of that to happen.” I made my way toward her slowly, hoping that the baby in her arms would protect me from harm.
“I can’t do it again tonight, Lane. I just can’t. I’m too tired,” she said as she started to cry. “I need you to put her back to sleep.” She pushed Jocelyn toward me and Jace jumped forward quickly to stop her.
“Don’t! Don’t touch her, not when you still have alcohol on your breath.” He quickly scooped his daughter into his arms and held her close. With the baby quieting down, he turned to Audrey and swiped a thumb under her wet eyes. “Babe, it’s okay, please don’t cry.” I flinched as I watched him comfort and kiss her. I knew Audrey was still highly hormonal, but I never wanted to be the one responsible for making her cry. “I’ll take her, you go back to bed and rest.”
With a kiss, they parted ways. Jace bounced on his toes, trying to get Jocelyn back to sleep, and Audrey trudged down the hall toward their room. I stood there, feeling terrible for interrupting their somewhat peaceful night. Then my feet followed Audrey into the bedroom, hoping she wouldn’t kick me out... or in the balls.
I heard her sniffles as she climbed into their king-size bed and threw the covers on top of herself.
“I’m coming in behind you, doll,” I whispered.
“No, Lane,” she replied harshly.
“Too late.” I lay down on the bed close to the edge so I wasn’t anywhere near Jace’s side. That would have been like breaking some kind of man-code, even though I was already crawling into his bed. I pulled her in close and kissed the back of her head. “I’m sorry, don’t hate me.” She groaned in frustration, but she didn’t swat me away.
For years, Audrey had been the closest thing I had to... anything. To family. To friends. I had parents, but I’d pretty much pushed them away. Audrey had helped me wake up every day and continue living.
When I escaped to California four years ago, I was a man on a mission, bound and determined to find the girl I loved. I’d decided to go back to college, so I wasn’t being a complete slacker. I’d already earned my bachelor’s degree in criminal justice, the one I got immediately after high school, finishing it within three years. But when I moved to California, I switched things up and went for a second bachelor’s in Accounting. I realized that those two degrees were miles apart, but who says you can’t change your mind?
I ran into little Audrey in our college community center, looking for a roommate. She was surprisingly in the same program as I was, and I just so happened to have a spare room. She was beyond damaged and because I wasn’t much better off, we were two peas in a pod.
Every day I told myself that I let her move in because she looked so wounded… that she needed my comfort. I told myself that I was doing a good deed by helping her. In the end, I realized she was actually helping me. I thought I was protecting her, but she was silently doing the same for me. Together, we took life a day at a time and protected one another from drowning.
Last year, I turned twenty-eight and we walked across the stage together with our master’s degrees. I knew I had her to thank for helping me get there as well.
I knew everything about her. I knew that her biggest fear was being alone. I knew that her hair got outrageously frizzy with even a small amount of humidity. I knew that her friends were everything to her because the family she left behind all those years ago meant nothing to her—at least she tried to make me think they meant nothing. I knew that she loved to sneak peanut butter in the middle of the night and that she had to keep two cups of water by her bedside because she always woke up thirsty. And I knew she was in love with Jace Riley the very first time she spoke about him, even if it was to tell me how much she hated him.
I could only hope the next time I fell in love I would know the girl half as well as I knew Audrey. She was my sister, maybe not by blood, but in every way it counted. She was my best friend and I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep until I’d made amends with her, no matter how small the divide was between us.
Audrey knew me better than anyone, but she didn’t know everything. I’ve kept some of my biggest secrets from her and if she were to ever find out, it would kill her. I understood her heart though. If she knew all of my secrets, she wouldn’t rest until everything was resolved. And that was not her job—it wasn’t her burden to take on. It was mine. I had made those promises, and I was doing everything in my power to make things right.
“Doll, you have to know how sorry I am. I realize how tired you’ve been lately with a newborn. I’m sorry a thousand times over. Good news is I’ll be out of your hair soon. My landlord said that the house should be done any day now and I need to head out of town tonight, so you and Jace will be Lane-free in a matter of hours.”
“No!” she cried and then shifted so we were facing one another. “You can stay here, please don’t leave. I hate when you go out-of-town… you never come back happy.” Tears began to well up in her eyes and I had to remind myself Audrey was on hormone overload--every little thing could bring on the waterworks. Tread lightly, buddy.
Audrey was used to my out-of-town trips, as I’ve been taking them since she met me. I never came back happy because I never got the result I was hoping for, which was having her back in my arms. Going on those trips was the only thing that made me feel as if I were actually getting closer to her.
“Trust me, you could do without me for a few days. I think Jace will like having his girls all to himself again,” I teased her. The mention of Jace brought a small smile to her face, but it was fleeting. I had a house in town that I rented, but while my landlord had been fixing a burst pipe, I’d been hopping between three of my buddies’ homes.
“I wish you would just stay here.”
“Doll, half of my job involves travel, so there will always be times that I have to go. Don’t forget your husband is my boss. It’s his orders. Besides, we can’t all afford big estates on our own piece of land.” I may have omitted that this trip was not on her husband’s orders.
She rolled her eyes. “Why would you bring a girl home? You have never, and I mean never, done that. And why her? Is there something special about her?” she asked, grimacing.
“I just learned her name when Jace barged in the room. Trust me, doll, it wasn’t the girl. I messed up. I drank too much and she gave me a ride home. Before I knew it, she was following me up the stairs and... well...”
“Yeah, I don’t need to know the rest,” she replied in a flat tone. Then she sighed deeply, and I could sense her heavy thoughts.
“Spit it out...” I coaxed.
“I just hate...”
“Come on, I won’t leave until you tell me and it might get weird when your husband comes back to bed.”
“I hate that Jace saw her body. It was so perfect. Perfect breasts. Perfect ass. Not a stretch mark on her. While I’m... well, I can’t even talk about it.”
My mouth dropped open and I had no words. I knew she wouldn’t be happy seeing a trampy bar girl parade around her house, but I never thought she would compare herself. Maybe she forgot that she just had a baby. Or maybe she forgot how her husband worshipped the ground she walked on. The idea that Jace would give even a second thought to Gemma made me laugh hard.
“Don’t laugh! This is serious,” she scolded.
“Shit, I’m sorry. I tried to hold it in.” I continued to laugh. “Man, I wish Jace had heard you say that.”
“I don’t,” she groaned.
“Too bad, babe. I could have heard that ridiculous comment on the other side of the house,” Jace interrupted.
Audrey’s body locked up underneath the covers at the sound of her husband’s voice. I quickly leaned in so only she could hear. “I saw his face when he first saw her and if I had seen anything other than annoyance, you know I would have knocked his lights out. Trust me, the way he looks at you, even with bags under your eyes, messy hair, stretch marks, and... ouch!” I yelped when she pinched the shit out of my stomach. “You said it first!”
“That doesn’t mean you get to list it all!” she whisper-shouted back.
“Fine, fine. But there is no comparison. He looks at you like you’re his whole world and his only reason to breathe. A random topless girl is not going to pull his attention. Besides, so what if he looks at naked tits? The day he stops looking at tits is the day you should start worrying.” She laughed quietly but gave me one more hard pinch under the covers. “Cut that shit out, Audrey!” I chuckled.
“Alright, play time’s over. Outta my bed and hands off my girl, Parker,” Jace grumbled while climbing in on the opposite side of Audrey. He immediately pulled her across the bed toward him in his typical possessive fashion.
I began to climb out from under the covers and said, “This kind of feels like that one time we almost slept together, doll. Remember during your freshman year?” I could barely contain my cheesy-ass grin because I couldn’t help but f*ck with Jace on a daily basis.
“Lane, he doesn’t fall for your terrible lies anymore. Go to bed,” Audrey giggled. And that was all I needed to feel better. If she was happy, we were all happy.
Jace glared at me on my way out but didn’t say anything. As soon as I hit the hallway, I heard him softly ask her, “That didn’t really happen, did it?”
I silently chuckled, so I wouldn’t wake up the baby again. It never failed with that guy—he was way too easy to rile up. Right before I stepped into my room, Jace jogged down the hall toward me.
“It was a joke, dude. I couldn’t resist.”
“Nah,” he whispered. “I know that. It’s just that she told me you’re heading out of town again?”
I sobered and told him, “Yeah, I got a call a little while ago. I have to go.”
“What about the Nolan job?”
Jace and Jaxon Riley were twin brothers who came into a lot of money when their father passed away. Immediately after they graduated college in California, they took ownership of his security company, The Riley Group. Their best friend, Cole, had family money as well so all three of them and their wives built houses on a big plot of land here in Texas, which is where they are originally from.
After graduation, Jace and Jax hired Cole and me to join them in Dallas, and we all left the Golden State behind. It was a hard choice, considering my original reasons for being there in the first place. But I couldn’t imagine being away from Audrey and I knew I would make decent money and be able to make my random trips whenever I was called.
My job title was a little more unconventional compared to the others. I oversaw a lot of the financing, because that’s what I was good at and I had recently acquired Texas CPA license. But I also flew out to meet potential clients that were considering using The Riley Group for security purposes when they came to Dallas. Most of our customers lately had been high-profile, so they expected a face-to-face consultation before they trusted us to safeguard them. I couldn’t seem to stay in one place for too long, and didn’t have anyone to come home to, so taking on that responsibility just made sense.
“I’ll hand the Nolan case off to the rookie,” I answered his question.
“You’re going to trust Ethan with a quarter-of-a-million-dollar job?”
“We gotta loosen the reins at some point. I’ll be in touch with him throughout the entire deal. Look, I have to go. He’s going to be there.” I tried to hide the pleading in my voice.
Jace’s type-A personality required him to keep a close eye on his employees, and even more so on his family. Audrey was like my sister, so when he married her he gained a brother at the same time. He didn’t spy on me, but he started asking all the right questions and one day I had to break down and spill before I lost my job. He knew everything now. It wasn’t something I enjoyed keeping from Audrey, but Jace had agreed with me that she didn’t need that stress put upon her, especially now with the baby.
His voice turned stoic and he asked, “You’re sure he’ll be there?”
“As sure as I can be. Charlie got me a spot in the ring and says he’ll be there.”
“Where?” he whispered.
“Tijuana. The usual.”
“Let me transfer some money over for you,” he stated nonchalantly.
“No, seriously I’m good. I can take care of this myself.”
“I’m sure you can. But I also know that these trips come close to wiping you out. You don’t want to be broke once you actually get her back, do you?”
I knew that this was why Audrey fell for Jace. He was completely selfless and would help any of his friends or family, even to the point of hurting himself. I could always count on him when I was in a bind, regardless if I’d asked for help or not.
“I’ll pay you back. With interest,” I replied brusquely.
“You just make sure Ethan gets Nolan to sign on the dotted line and that’ll be payback enough,” he said with a grin. He reached his hand out so I could shake it but then promptly pulled me in and we swiftly patted backs.
“Thanks, man.”
Before he made it to his room, he turned and said, “Bring her back here, okay? I want to meet her.”
I nodded but didn’t reply. I tried to never go into these trips with my hopes up anymore. Years of returning home empty-handed had taught me that, in order to guard my heart, I always had to expect the worst.