Forsaking Gray (The Colloway Brothers Book 1) (18 page)

My heart stutters. “What is that?” I bend down in front of her and trace my fingers along the grey angel wings folded on top of each other that are inked just to the right of her bare mound. The light is too low to make out the details, so I turn her body toward the lamp, and now my heart stops.

Woven throughout the border of the wings, I can clearly see the scripted black letters:
I look up and Livvy’s watching my reaction, but I can’t decipher the emotions on her face.

Sadness?

Regret?

Torment?

Fear?

All of the above? Unwelcome tears well in my eyes, and I can do nothing but wrap my arms around her waist, burying my face in her warm, soft flesh. Her hands go to my head, holding me tightly to her.

The pain and confusion I’ve kept buried for the last five years comes rushing back hard and fast and stabs me just as fresh as the first day I truly accepted she was gone and, once again, I find myself asking
why
?

Why did she leave me?

Why won’t she tell me?

Why wasn’t I good enough?

Am I just kidding myself into believing this time around will end differently? And am I fooling myself into thinking that I can let her back into my life and simply accept her silence when she’s put me through ten kinds of hell?

Maybe it makes me weak, but I love her so fucking much, the answer is yes. I will let her back in because I love her. And true love is unconditional and unwavering and sometimes gut-wrenchingly hard. I would give anything and everything I own for her to love me like that in return.

And the bitch of it is, after seeing her tattoo I
know
she does. Who brands themselves permanently with the name of their former lover if they’ve voluntarily abandoned them? Not one fucking person I know would do that.

Not. One.

“How long?” I choke. I’m literally hanging onto my shit by a thin, fraying string, and the last thing I want to do is break down and bawl like a baby in front of her.

“Six months,” she replies so quietly I almost don’t hear.

Six fucking months?
She just got this tattoo six fucking months ago? She’s been pining away for me like I have been for her this entire time and yet she’s stayed away from me, leaving both of us to wallow in lonely agonizing misery?

I pull away, wiping the water from my eyes before I stand. “Why?” Now she looks uncomfortable and I don’t care. “Why, Livvy?”

“You know why,” she barely whispers.

“No. No, I don’t fucking know why!”

She bends down to grab her bra, but I rip it away and throw it across the room. I'm an ass, making her stand here bare in front of me while I’m fully clothed, but we all do things we regret in moments when we’re angry or hurt. For me, this will be one of those moments, but I can’t find it within myself to stop. The scab has been picked and it’s now bleeding profusely. And a Band-Aid just won’t fucking staunch the gush of anguish now seeping out of the open wound.

“Answer the question,” I grit, punctuating each syllable. She’s quiet for several beats and my fury rises by the second until I’m ready to explode.

“I should leave.”

Leave?
My derisive smirk causes her to take a step back. “I’m not surprised you would say that. You’ve been running ever since I’ve known you, Livvy, and you’ve clearly perfected it to a fine fucking art form. Except this time, you’re not only running from me, you’re running from yourself.”

She squares her shoulders and stands tall, regardless of the fact that she’s completely nude; except for the heels I’d envisioned her wearing. Against my wishes, my dick stirs. Clearly he didn’t get the little memo that our plans to worship her have taken a sharp left off the goddamn cliff into the cutting rocks below.

“You have no idea what I’ve been through,” she bites out.

Her indignation digs irritatingly under my skin. “Because you won’t fucking tell me!” I yell. She doesn’t even flinch, but she can’t hide the hurt my words inflict. Livvy could never hide anything from me. I can read her as easily as a Penthouse.

I let my eyes wander down to the place that now bears my name, and fierce possessiveness swells within me, easily crowding out the hurt. Easily overpowering the anger. I think back to the restaurant when that jackass looked like he was ready to eat her for dessert, and I know I’ll never let her walk out that door. No matter what. Thinking of her with another man makes me violent. But thinking of her without me just makes me bleed.

I need to convince her to stop running. I need to convince her to let me back into that place that I, and I alone, own. I must get her to trust me with her secrets, so they don’t eat us both alive. I have to make her understand that I do, and always will, love her.

I hold her eyes as I unbutton my dress shirt and take off my slacks. She skittishly watches every move I make and the intense lust I’d felt earlier returns with a vengeance.

She’s torn. She wants to run, but she wants to stay. My precious angel is in as much agony as I am, but for very different reasons. Reasons that she alone knows and won’t share, and it not only infuriates me, it breaks my fucking heart that she won’t trust me enough to tell me.

Once all of my clothes join hers, I grab her face and press our naked bodies together. I kiss her mouth, tasting the salty tears that have spilled. “I don’t care how fast and how far you run, I’ll run faster and farther. I’m not letting you go. Ever,” I say, between brushes of my mouth on hers. “Run
to
me, Livvy, not away. I can’t live without you again.”

I lay down on the bed, pulling her beside me so we’re lying side-by-side, flesh-to-flesh. We silently stare into each other’s eyes. I want to marry her. I want to have babies with her. I want to grow old with her. I just want to love her all the days of my life. She’s my downfall. Now that she’s back in my life, I can’t fathom a single day without her. I run my finger gently down her face. I know she doesn’t want to hear this, but I can’t keep it in any longer.

“I love you so goddamn much, Livia Kingsley.” Her eyes water again, but I take that as a good sign. “Tell me you love me,” I beg. I’m not above begging. I checked my ego at the door a long time ago with this woman. I need to know we’re in this together, that I’m not the only one feeling this almost unbearably throbbing intensity between us. Even though I see it in her eyes, I need to hear the words.

“So much I ache with it,” she whispers.

Our bodies and mouths meet in a fury of unrestrained desperation. Hands, lips, legs entwined as one. Soon I have her on top of me and am slipping inside her wet, hot heat without preamble. I wanted to take my time worshiping her, but right now I’m too frantic to do anything but make desperate love to the woman I adore. The woman I need to reclaim as mine.

Chapter 22

Our bodies move in perfect sync, like we’ve danced this erotic dance a thousand times. We have. Gray’s thumb strokes the outline of my wings and that one simple act has me vaulting over the edge into pure bliss. I close my eyes and let my head fall back as waves and waves of euphoria wash over and through me. I hear Gray’s low curse seconds before he follows, feeling his hot release bathe my womb.

I want to both laugh and cry. Laugh, because everything he’d described in sensual detail in the car earlier just came true. And cry for all that I’ve lost, because what I want most with Gray can never be.

“I love you,” he rasps, cocooning me in his safety and love.

“I love you, too.”

He sighs, holding me closer. It feels good to say it, like a confession. I feel lighter and happier. Light fingers whisper up and down my back and I can’t think of anything other than how happy I am. Maybe it’s the endorphins coursing through my bloodstream, but, no…it’s more than that. It feels incredibly amazing to be held and loved by this man again and the reality is far better than my dreams of it. It’s comfort, warmth, home.

“Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“That I’m happy for the first time in a very long time,” I answer softly. I don’t mean to confess something that I shouldn’t voice for fear of jinxing it, but it’s too late to take it back. Other than Alyse and more recently Addy, Gray was the only person that ever made me happy. My mother did, I think, until she left us. Now my faded memories of her are clouded with hurt and betrayal.

A finger hooks under my chin and he tilts my face up. “Me too,” he confesses, looking deeply into my eyes. Knowing that he’s missed me as much as I’ve missed him does funny things to my insides. I close the small distance between our lips and kiss him slowly, deeply, deliberately. Our tongues lazily duel. Then he palms my head and quickly takes control. Suddenly I’m on my back and being filled to the brim again.

“Stay,” he commands. Gray knows that anytime I’m in his arms I’m as pliable as hot glass.

“Okay.” I’d do anything he asked of me as long as he keeps moving…just…like…that.

Our lovemaking is frantic, but tender. Wild, but heartfelt. Desperate and full of passionate longing.

“Christ, Livvy, you feel like heaven,” he grates against the column of my neck. Teeth nip at my sensitive skin and another orgasm looms in the background, waiting for just the right pressure in just the right place. Which my talented lover delivers. Repeatedly.

An hour later, sated and exhausted, I snuggle into Gray’s side and let my heavy lids fall closed. Just as sleep is pulling me under, I hear, “Stay forever, Livvy.”

My last thought, as I succumb to the blackness, is
I hope you want me forever.

Chapter 23

I’ve only been home for two hours when my phone dings, indicating a text message. It’s just after nine p.m., but I’m already snuggled deep under the covers. After spending nearly all of Sunday in Gray’s bed, making love, I am dead-dog tired. And sore. The man is insatiable. I pick up my phone to read the message, not at all surprised to find it’s from Gray.

Gray: u belong in my bed. naked and wet for me. ur body begging for my cock

Tingles race like wildfire to that needy place between my thighs. I guess I’m insatiable too. Gray always had a way of making dirty words sound like the sweetest of music.
Cock
and
fuck
roll off his tongue like a melody that should win an American Music Award.

Me: i was…all day

His response was immediate.

Gray: i want more than a day

My heart flutters and his unspoken words shred me.
So do I,
I want to respond
.
I want forever. I want the fairytale. But I know that’s not in the cards for me and I don’t know how to respond, so, like the coward I am, I don’t. I know it’s a self-preservation mechanism because when the truth comes out, he’ll dump me faster than a bad habit and I’ll be back at square one in my recovery. Hell…I’ll be in a hole a mile deep, and I’ll have to figure out how to crawl my way
back
to square one. It won’t be pretty. It will be fucking ugly. And I’m not at all sure I’m strong enough to survive a second time.