Legacy (29 page)

“I’ll just be a minute.”

“Take your time,” Wes said, pushing himself to his feet with an agonizing hiss. He grabbed the foam roller. “This isn’t going to be pretty.”

In the bathroom, Corinne stripped off her clothes while the shower warmed. She desperately wanted to be clean in case…In case. But she pushed that thought from her mind because there was the chance, too, that Wes might not stay after all. And he might stay only to once again be her roommate. Nothing was certain. Her hands shook as she raced through her shower routine, scrubbing her hair with extra force and shaving with an almost masochistic haste.

Once she was done and wrapped up in a towel turban and her robe, Corinne found the salts and filled the tub for Wes, her heart beating with so much insistent speed that there was no way she could forget her nerves.

The closer she drew to laying herself bare, the more terrified she became.

Corinne opened the bathroom door and found Wes standing on the other side.

“I don’t think anyone’s drawn a bath for me in 20 years,” he said. Corinne thought that he was trying to appear amused, but she saw something else beneath the look. A kind of confused innocence. She held herself back, but that look made her want to touch his face. It was unguarded, so open and fragile. So beautiful. She wanted to promise to protect that part of him for the rest of her life.

“I think it’s time someone did,” she told him, wrapping the ties of her robe around her hands to keep from reaching for him. Her words meant more than the sum of their parts, but she needed to wait a little longer before she could say as much. Corinne could see the way Wes’s sore muscles seemed to cinch him in with an ache that was visible. He needed to sink down into the warm water and relax.

And she needed to try to keep her mind off the image of him doing just that.

Chapter 34

W
es stretched out his legs in Corinne’s cast iron tub. He’d soaked for a good 15 minutes, and the tightness that had clamped along his back and down his legs was finally easing. He’d scrubbed the salt and sweat from his body and out of his hair, and as the bath water cooled, Wes was keenly aware of the quiet of the house.

What was Corinne doing?

Had she dressed? Or was she still wrapped in that white robe that tortured him with the glimpse of skin below her throat, the bareness of her legs, the possibility of nothing on underneath.

God almighty.

Wes stood, and water ran down his thighs. He ignored the sensation and the ache of his erection and wrapped himself in a towel. He felt more put together than he had at the finish—when his emotions threatened to get the better of him—but only just.

As he stepped into some drawstring shorts and shrugged on a T-shirt, Wes tried to tell himself that he was ready for whatever happened next. The way he saw it, there were three possible outcomes. 1) Corinne wanted him to move back and live as roommates as they had before. 2) Corinne wanted him to kiss and caress and curl up against at night, but she wasn’t ready for anything more. 3) Corinne wanted him the way he wanted her.

He knew that the third option was the least likely because how could she? How could she want him the way he wanted her? He loved her. He loved Corinne with his body. With his breath. With his fear. With his shame. He loved her with his soul. With his suffering. With his joy.

He couldn’t expect that from her. He wouldn’t. Which meant that whatever she wanted, he’d have to accept—with the hope that one day there might be more. If she wanted him to move back—as she’d clearly said again and again—he’d move back and watch over her and make her laugh and love her with as much control as he could.

And Wes would know—with certainty now—that it was better than living without her. The weeks at Chad’s had taught him that. Living with her was better than anything he’d ever known.

And if she wanted him because she needed a warm body at night—and this would hurt the most, he knew—he would give her what she needed. Holding her and kissing her would mean something else for him than it would for her, but wouldn’t this be better, too, than not holding? Not kissing?

Still, the thought of it made his eyes burn. He knew it would be the worst kind of rejection. And if there were any justice or karma in the universe, it was the very kind he deserved. How many times had he accepted a woman’s body but rejected her heart? Maybe this was the penance he must pay before he was worthy of her.

Wes combed his fingers through his wet hair and tried to shake off such heavy thoughts. He faced the bathroom door, put his hand on the knob, and steadied his breath.

He found Corinne curled up in her usual corner of the couch. She still wore her robe, her damp hair falling over her shoulders, and she clutched one of the couch’s throw pillows in her lap. To his surprise, she looked nervous, even afraid. As if she didn’t know that he was hers to command, that she would get whatever she wanted. Nothing more. Nothing less.

It was the look of fear—and his wish to erase it—that gave Wes the courage to cross the room and sit opposite her on the couch. Quite purposefully, he arranged himself as a mirror image of her, grabbing the other throw pillow and hugging it to himself as she did.

And it worked. Corinne smiled. It was shy and unsure, but she didn’t look quite so unnerved.

He waited for her to speak because there was no way he could take the lead on this. Wes had to know what she wanted, what he would have to accept. He couldn’t be the first to show his cards because he was all in.

Instead, he met her gaze and refused to look away. Corinne’s eyes held all of the colors of a summer holiday. Sparklers. Green grass. Sunsets. But the look she gave him was anything but carefree. She was still so hesitant.

Wes let go the breath he was holding and reached across their laps for her hand. If Corinne needed to be reassured, he would reassure her.

As if she understood him, Corinne’s hand squeezed back in his own, but her eyes went liquid and her breath stammered, and Wes realized that she was fighting tears.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, finally, startling him with the emotion in her voice. He tossed the pillow he still held to the floor and edged closer to her.

“You don’t have anything to be sorry about, Corinne,” he promised, but she was shaking her head before the words were out.

“I do, Wes. I do,” she cleared her throat and seemed to will herself to find composure. “I made a terrible mistake in denying you—in denying what I felt for you, and I’ve been trying to make up for it ever since.”

Everything in the room went still except Wes’s heart. That organ threatened to deafen him and drown out the rest of what Corinne was saying.

“—such a fool. I was
such
a fool,” she said, gripping his hand with so much force. “I kept ignoring what I felt because if I let myself love again, then I could be hurt again, and the thought of losing you, too—”

“Losing me?!?” Wes blurted in confusion. Had she just said the word
love
in reference to him? Or was this about Michael?

“Yes, you! In a way, I feel like I’m cursed because I’ve lost the people in my life whom I’ve loved the most—my mom and Michael—and if I let myself love you, then I might lose you, too,” Corinne poured out in a rush, her eyes wide with remembered terror. “And I thought that I couldn’t handle taking that chance because if I lost you, I wouldn’t survive it—”

“Corinne—” he started, the shock of understanding so great he couldn’t keep still.

“No, wait!” she urged him, grabbing both of his hands now in both of hers, looking desperate to finish. “But it wasn’t until after I hurt you that I realized that I’d lost you anyway, and nothing made sense anymore.”

It was Wes’s turn to shake his head.

“Corinne, you haven’t lost me,” he swore. “I’m completely yours.”

Her words had shredded whatever self-restraint he’d managed to maintain around her. In an instant the pillow she’d held was on the floor, and he pulled her onto his lap. His lips claimed hers without warning or permission, just like they had the first time, kissing her on his terms. But this time was better. So much better. Because it was Corinne who opened her mouth and sought his tongue with hers, and it was Corinne whose hands snaked into his hair and grabbed on for dear life.

“I’m yours,” he murmured again, against her lips, the whole universe in orbit around their joined mouths. Corinne moaned as his arms tightened around her, cradling her against him.

“Good,” she panted, reaching for breath and crushing her breasts against him. “Because I love you, Wes...so much.”

The words were like a baptism, purifying and welcoming him at once, allowing him to be part of a race of two. He had never belonged to anyone or anything like this, and Corinne’s love was a kind of sacred claiming.

He belonged.

Wes gently pulled her away so he could look into her eyes and claim her right back.

“Corinne, I love you. I’ve never loved anyone else like this, and I never will. You’re the only one.”

Corinne reached up and touched his cheek. A mischievous light glinted in her hazel eyes.

“So I’m forgiven?” she asked.

Wes threw his head back with laughter that shook the windows and woke Buck who snoozed by the front door. Corinne giggled, a delightful sound.

“Woman, you were always forgiven. Will you believe me now?” he asked, pressing a quick kiss to her lips.

She looked up at him without answering, wearing an expression that was both daring and timid.

Wes frowned, confused, but when she stood up from his lap and held out her hand to him, he didn’t hesitate. The soreness in his feet and legs were all but forgotten as Corinne led him out of the living room.

She stopped in the hall between their two bedrooms and stared up at him, looking beautiful and determined.

“Wes, I want you to move back in, but not as my roommate,” Corinne said, clearly, with just the slightest tremor in her voice.

Could she possibly think he would refuse? Even now? The absurdity made him smile.

“I want you...i-in my bed,” she said. This time her voice shook even more. He saw that it had taken everything for her to be so brave. To own her fear. To declare her love. To speak her desire. She’d been so bold, and it was fucking sexy, but he wanted to show her that she didn’t have to work so hard. Not with him.

Wes grabbed her hands, lifted them above her head, and backed her against the wall outside his bedroom. He heard her suck in a breath when he pressed himself into the softness of her belly.

“I can’t do that...” he whispered, his lips grazing over hers as she panted. “Because I want you in
my
bed.”

A sigh escaped her throat before her claimed her again with his kiss. Her skin was on fire, and he had to taste every inch of it. Her mouth, her jaw line, the slope of her neck.

“Yes...yours...of course,” she whispered between the return of each kiss. His bed. It was where he’d first held her, first slept beside her, but it would be so different now.

Everything was different now.

Wes drew her with him into his room, never letting her leave his embrace. He walked her blindly until the back of her legs reached his bed, and he laid her gently on the mattress, following her down.

“Corinne…” he whispered, overcome by the sight of her beneath him, the press of his body against hers. One of her legs tangled between his, maddening him, and he took his weight on his knees and elbows so he wouldn’t crush her.

He wanted too many things at once. He wanted to lose himself in her, and he wanted to take his time. He needed to reassure himself that all of this was real and it wouldn’t evaporate with the sunset.

And she had to understand what she meant to him.

“This is really happening, right?” he asked, tracing his thumbs over her cheeks and staring into her eyes as though he could fall into them.

“God, I hope so,” Corinne answered, a smile lighting her whole face. “I know I want it to.”

He watched as she tamed her smile and studied his eyes.

“And you?” she asked, softly, reaching up and touching his face with a tenderness Wes didn’t think he’d ever felt in his life.

He didn’t blink, didn’t let his gaze falter when he answered.

“I want you now and always,” he said, conviction gathering in his chest around his heart, calming him.

Alpha and Omega.

He thought the words, a memory coming with them, and he smiled. He would save those words for later, and his smile grew because there would be a later.

Wes pressed his lips to the base of Corinne’s throat and kissed along the neckline of her robe, the damp silk of her hair tickling his nose. She tasted of honeysuckles and warmth. His breath caught when he felt her hands slip under his t-shirt to stroke his abs.

“I’ve ached to touch you,” she whispered into his ear, her fingers tracing against his skin. He went from hard to leaden, her words affecting him as much as her touch, and he stifled a moan.

“If I don’t touch you now,” he breathed, running his hands along the tie of her robe. “I’ll have an aneurysm.”

Corinne buried her laugh into his shoulder.

“Well, we don’t want that,” she said, sliding a hand from under his shirt. She gave him one end of the tie, and locked eyes with him as he pulled.

The knot came undone in his grasp, and Wes settled his hand on the fabric of her robe, the only thing keeping him from the sight of her body. He didn’t take his eyes from hers as he pushed the garment aside, fingers brushing over skin, yet unseen.

“I love you, Corinne.”

“I love you, W—”

But his name was lost in a gasp. Because he’d found the most perfect breast in his hand and took the nipple in his mouth like it was made for him. She went hard against his tongue, and he could feel the joy of sucking her all the way to his cock. Soft. Hard. Smooth. Puckered. And before he could catalogue all of the other wonders it offered, his left hand found its twin, and he had to worship that one just as well.

Corinne wasn’t making it easy for him, either, because she bucked under each squeeze and arched her back with each suckle, panting his name now and trying to yank his shirt over his head.