Colorado 03 Lady Luck (48 page)

“Yeah, lived raw, the way a man lives when
he fucks up his own life and does it by hurting the woman he loves
in a way he cannot fix. A man like that lives raw and I was a man
like that.”

When he was done speaking he saw her lips
were parted again but she just stared at him, silent.

“What?” he asked.

Lexie kept staring at him so he gave her a
gentle shake.

“What?” he prompted.

“The woman he loves?” she breathed and it
was his turn to blink.

Then he confirmed, “Yeah.”

“You love me?” she asked like it was a
concept she’d never believe and her response shocked the shit out
of him.

“
Uh… yeah,” he answered. “Babe, a man like
me who got fucked like me doesn’t share, at all, unless he trusts
who he’s sharin’ with, unless their opinion matters, unless
they
matter and the way I got
fucked, no way a man got fucked that way would share with
pussy,
any
pussy and
you know that. But with you, I shared. You played me to distract me
but I wasn’t hard to distract because I
wanted
your distraction. Spent five years with
ninety-nine percent of my headspace taken up with my grand plan o’
vengeance, I get out, ready to take that on and a few days later
I’m tourin’ fucking Vegas then headin’ to Moab and then at the
fuckin’ garden center. I fuck up and lose you, I risk it all to go
to Dallas to track you down and see to the errand of makin’ sure
Shift gets where I’m at, will always be and I do it in a way he
won’t forget and I do that by further breaking my parole,
committing a crime and beatin’ the shit outta him
and
two of his crew. Two weeks
later, I find out where you are and I pick up a phone and call a
man who does not like me because, years ago, I took a fuckload of
his money at a table but I know he’s got more money, lots of it. I
also know he lives two hours away in Aspen and I know he’s got a
private jet, the only hope I got of flyin’ cross country without
getting tagged and sent back to California. Luck shines because
this man may not like me but I lay it out for him,
all
of it, mama, and I find this
fuckin’ guy is a fuckin’ romantic. He fuels up his jet, lies on
flight logs sayin’ Tate Jackson is his passenger and flies me to
fuckin’ Florida. This guy is so much of a fuckin’ romantic, I come
back to the airstrip without you, swear to fuckin’ God, he looks
near as devastated as me. Now, no man does all that for a woman he
doesn’t love and definitely not a man like me.”

He stopped speaking and saw her lips were
not parted.

Her mouth was hanging open and her eyes were
huge.

Then she snapped her mouth shut.

Then she asked, “You beat up Shift?”

“Bessie called me, told me he was dickin’
with you, got outta bed, hauled my ass to Dallas and, yeah, the one
word he spoke he had to spit out a mouthful of blood to speak
it.”

“You beat up Shift.” This time it was a
statement so Walker didn’t respond. Then she asked, “You arranged a
ride in a private jet to get to me?”

“Mama, you were in fuckin’ Florida. First, I
cannot take that time to drive it, too much of a risk someone
findin’ out I’m gone and where I went. I did not want to bring you
back only to be sent away. Second, I take that time to drive it and
find you’ve moved on, I lose that time. I had to catch a flight and
that was the only option open for me.”

Lexie didn’t speak, she just stared at
him.

So he started, “Lex –” but got no
further.

And he got no further because she whispered,
“You know, I love you too.”

That thing, that thing she gave him that
started to settle again, shifted and warmed, digging deep, taking
root.

“Lexie –” he whispered back, his arms
convulsing around her but he again got no further.

“Fell in love with you when I opened my eyes
in Vegas, turned in bed and saw you put my bouquet in a vase.”

Fuck him.

Fuck…
him.

“Shut it, mama.” He was still
whispering.

“At the pool, when you showed, my day
started.”

His arms now gave her a warning squeeze.

“Shut it,” he growled.

“Sitting at the breakfast table, seeing your
wedding ring, being able to really look at it on your finger up
close for the first time, I had to touch it so I could remind
myself I was the one who got to put it there.”

Fuck.

Him.

“Shut it.” This time, it was a rumble.

“
The next morning, when you
didn’t
show at the pool, I had to find
you so I could start my day.”

He rolled and shifted until he was on top of
her and he repeated, “Shut it.”

“Six weeks without you, I’d wake up and
hours later go to sleep and not once did my day dawn.”

“
Baby, shut…
it.
”

“You took the shadow off my world.”

All right, his woman wasn’t going to shut
it; he was going to shut it for her.

So he set about doing that.

And when she was reduced to making nothing
but those sexy-as-hell noises in the back of her throat each time
his slowly slid his cock in and filled her then whimpered when he
slowly slid it out, he was again ready to talk.

But he was going to be doing the
talking.

“Look at me,” he ordered after filling his
wife with him, his voice thick and her closed eyes instantly
opened, the small arch she had in her neck righting and he had her
attention. “I don’t give a fuck we’re both still raw. I don’t give
a fuck, even without that, we’re still new. I don’t give a fuck we
got shit out there pressing in; I wanna plant my baby in you.”

One of her feet was in the couch, the other
leg wrapped around the back of his thigh, both arms were around
him, hands roaming but at his words, both legs curved around his
hips and both arms went tight.

And he had his answer.

“Ty,” she breathed.

“We both know we got no time to waste.”

One of her hands slid up to wrap around the
back of his head.

Then, pure Lexie, no bullshit, no
hesitation, she gave even though he already knew he had what he
wanted, but even if she said no, he was lying on top of the only
thing in the world he every truly wanted and she was filled with
his cock.

“Okay,” she whispered.

“You go off the pill tomorrow,” he ordered
and she instantly nodded.

Pure Lexie, no bullshit, no hesitation, she
gave.

Instantly.

He grinned at her. His woman grinned
back.

Then he slowly pulled out and slid back in
again as he watched her eyes drift closed.

Then he dropped his head and kept going
slow, but, lips to her ear, he asked, “How many you want?”

“Four,” she answered immediately and he quit
moving, luckily on an inward glide and his head came up.

“Four?” he asked.

“Four,” Lexie answered.

“Four kids?” he added detail in order to
confirm.

She grinned again. “Four kids.”

“Shit, mama, good thing we’re gettin’
started tomorrow.”

She giggled.

Walker didn’t watch. He dropped his head so
he could feel her laughter on his tongue.

Then he felt her laughter on his tongue.

Then her laughter stopped because he again
got busy.

Official Steel Magnolia’s Rulebook

Ty

Ty was still brushing his teeth when Lexie
finished, spit, rinsed, reached and shoved her toothbrush back in
the holder affixed to the wall between their two basins. Then she
took a side step closer to him and he watched in the mirror as her
head bent and she dug into some flowered bag that was sitting on
the counter between their sinks. She pulled out a pale pink, round
case, turned and walked into the little room with the toilet. He
heard something small splash into the toilet and again and again
and again and this went on awhile. Then she turned, walked out of
that little room, dropped the case in the small trash bin and her
eyes slid to his in the mirror.

Then she grinned.

Then she reached into the shower stall and
turned on the water, tugged off his tee she wore to bed and
shimmied out of her panties. Then she stepped in.

He bent his neck, spit, rinsed, reached and
shoved his toothbrush opposite Lexie’s in the holder.

Then he moved to the shower.

* * * * *

Ty was standing with a hip against the
counter, bowl of sliced bananas, cut strawberries and yogurt held
up in front of him, spoon in his other hand shoveling the food into
his mouth.

His eyes were on his woman who was back in
his tee and a clean pair of panties, hair wet, combed back but
drying fast and wavy in the Colorado air. She was filling a travel
mug of coffee for him at the same time eyeing the dirty dishes, the
stains and crumbs on the countertops and the piles of mail all the
while looking like she wished she could stop eyeing them.

Before she left, there was a time or two
when he came home when their bed wasn’t made but this was rare; a
time or two when she’d done a half-assed job of it, yanking up the
covers, fluffing pillows and tossing them wherever they’d land but
this last was more than he’d ever do. A couple of days would go by
where their clothes would remain on the floor where they’d
discarded them or tossed them in the preliminaries to fucking. A
week might go by where she’d let mail stack up on the side kitchen
counter. A few times, she’d leave the dishes in the sink and do
them the next morning.

But under all that was always clean and
eventually she’d get to tidying.

Clearly, six weeks of build up was about
five and a half weeks too much.

He chewed, he swallowed then he spoke. “Fill
the dishwasher, mama, and I’ll empty it. I’ll take out the trash. I
will not vacuum. I will not clean a fuckin’ toilet. And, on the
inside, I had enough of sweepin’ and moppin’ for a lifetime. So, I
will kick in in the ways I just said. Other than that, it’s up to
you to decide if you can hack it or if we gotta find a cleaning
lady.”

The first words he spoke, her eyes came to
him.

When he was done she asked, “You’ll fill
the dishwasher and empty it, did you actually
do
that while I was away?”

Even though he sensed she was teasing him,
his gut tightened at her tone.

He’d just got finished fucking her in the
shower. Before that, she made a show that she was taking them
forward, with him all the way to their next step of building a
family. And after she did that, she’d grinned at him.

But, since their shower, he got that tone
and that tone matched the set of her frame. Quiet, pensive,
borderline uncertain.

He’d bought that, being a dumb fuck,
treating her like a dick, saying shit to her he shouldn’t have
said, comparing her to Misty, a woman he hated
and
she hated and, it was arguable, but he got the
sense his wife hated Misty at least as much as he did. On some
level, it could be worse, seeing as Misty was a sister and Misty
strapped the sisterhood with the shit he piled on Lexie, shit she
didn’t deserve. Misty perpetrated a betrayal to that sisterhood, an
unforgiveable one.

But Lexie was treading cautiously, probably
not even knowing she was doing it. Twice, he fucked up, twice he
was a dick, twice he lashed out and mouthed off. The first time,
she didn’t do shit to deserve it, the second time, she did but his
response was way the fuck over the line. Now, he could see, she was
going to do everything she could so she didn’t buy a third
time.

Ty would take that tone over the one she
spoke to him with when she was on the beach, her voice void, dead,
remote. He never wanted to hear her talk like that again, feel the
darkness that shrouded her, experience her being so far gone, he
knew he could run flat out every day for the rest of his life and
never reach her. He never wanted that back, for him or for her,
that was so agonizing, he’d take anything else from her, even
this.

That said, he still didn’t like it.

So he put his spoon in the bowl, set it
aside and ordered gently, “Mama, come here.”

Lexie, being Lexie, came direct to him.

He wound an arm around her waist, pulling
her body to his and her hands came up, flat on his chest, not to
hold him back, just to rest them there as her head tipped way back
to look at him and his other hand wrapped around her neck, his
thumb moving on her jaw.

“It’s gonna take time for you to trust me
again –” he started but she cut him off swiftly.

“I trust you.”

His thumb stopped stroking and his fingers
gave her a light squeeze as he dipped his face closer. “Baby, you
don’t.”

“I do.”

He shook his head and asked quietly, “Can
you shut up a minute so I can talk?”

She pressed her lips together but her eyes
flared.

Now
that
,
he liked.

He beat back a grin and talked. “Drama over,
we’re back to us and I didn’t just fuck up, I did it huge, I said
nasty shit that shouldn’t have been said and I can’t take that
back. The wounds I inflicted went deep and I can only hope to
Christ one day they heal over. Until that day, mama, all I can
promise you is that I’ll do all I can do to beat that shit back and
never do that to you again. But we got a rocky road ahead of us and
I don’t know where it’s gonna lead before we get to the other side.
The only thing I can give you is, that shit comes outta my mouth
and cuts you, you gotta understand that shit was planted in me and
I gotta get it out. I’ll try to do it in a way that doesn’t harm
you but I obviously am not battin’ a thousand with that so I can
make no promises except I’ll try. What you need to give me is to
know it is not about you, it’s about me, you gotta suck it up and
stand by me, you gotta know, in the end, I’ll work my ass off to
make it all worth it to you and you gotta always remember I love
you and I have never, not once, said those words to any breathing
soul so you also gotta know what that means.”