Fixation (Magnetic Desires Book 3) (20 page)

Lola

"Coffee?" Leo asked as he lifted me onto the counter.

"Always. I’d marry coffee if I could."

"Well, you married me, and I think I remember the clause." He winked and leaned in to nibble my lips.

I swung my heels against the cupboard doors while he poured fresh coffee into mugs and doctored it with sugar. Thank small mercies for automatic coffee machines. He pressed a cup into my hands and centered himself between my legs, wrapping them around him as we both sipped our coffee.

Between each sip, he layered kisses on the spot between shoulder and neck where my collar left the skin bare. "I want to take you back to bed, and spend all morning remembering your body."

Putting my empty cup down, I stared over his shoulder at the coffee maker, already wanting my second for the morning. "We can’t. Tia’s going to be up soon. I’m not ready to drag her into this."

Grasping my chin in his fingers, he held my gaze. "Sweetheart, we’re going to have to tell her her parents are back together."

"I know." I dipped my shoulders. "But not yet. I'm not comfortable telling her until we can see if this will work out. We don't have a good track record, Leo."

"As long as you’re not second guessing." Eyes narrowed, his fingers tensed on my jaw.

"I’m being responsible."

The door opened and we jumped apart as Mellie stepped into the kitchen. I crossed my legs and gripped the edge of the counter, while she scowled at both of us. "Morning."

"Morning, Sis. Coffee?" Jumping down off the counter, I went to get another mug.

Her gaze shot daggers at Leo, while I doctored her cup, and I cringed inwardly at the intensity of her dislike. "Leo, what are you doing here?"

Pressing a kiss to my cheek, he took his cup to the sink. "I’m going to shower."

I nodded. I wasn’t surprised he’d want out of the kitchen. The tension was thick, smothering the easiness of earlier moments.  Left alone with Mellie, I finished fixing the coffee and handed her one, while I tried to work out what to say.

"What is he doing here?" Mellie cocked her hip and an eyebrow at the same time.

"I asked him to stay." Running my finger along the counter, I studied it. Of course, I knew I wouldn’t find dirt. It took her a surprisingly long time to come back at me.

"Of course you did," she sniped. "So, are you two getting back together?"

"I don’t know." Shaking my head, I took a seat, studying my almost empty coffee cup. I couldn't remember drinking it. "How come you’re here so early?"

"I wanted to take my niece out for the day. I haven’t had much chance to spend time with her recently. But, seriously, what are you doing with him?" Bracing her palms on the counter, she leaned over me, her head cocked toward the stairs.

I mulled over what to say to her while I gulped down the dregs in my cup. The tick of the clock filled the silence.

"Do you even have an answer?" She tossed her hands in the air.

"Honestly, Mellie, I don’t know. He wants to get back together, but what if we end up in a worse place than we are now?" I picked at invisible crumbs on the countertop.

"I can’t believe you’re even thinking about it."

I could handle Mellie’s opinion and couldn’t blame her for being offside when it came to men and me, but he wasn’t like those boys I had dated as a teenager.  "Why do you say that?"

"He knew about Brady, right?"

"Yes."

"How can you forgive him for leaving you to rot?"

"He didn’t. He searched for me." I jumped out of the chair and went to get more coffee.

"Not hard enough, Lolly." She stepped in front of me, halting me in my tracks. "No, he left you, and when you’re finally free he wants to punish you for disappearing?"

"It’s not black and white, Mellie." I stepped around her.

"Did he hurt you?" Gripping my wrists tightly, she brought my palms up between us and stared me down. "Did he fucking hurt you?"

"It was an accident."

"So tell me how it happened. You’ve been doing pole dancing for years. You’re a professional, so how come you didn’t stop it from happening? You must have known…"

Flinging my hand, she released me and paced the length of the counter. "Would you even call it consensual?"

"Mellie," I screeched. "Shut up. It wasn’t like that."

"Of course it wasn’t, because you were always unable to say no." She grabbed the papers I’d tucked away at the back of the mail file, opened but unsigned and pushed them across the counter. "Sign them. Finish this. You’ll be better off without—"

Leo entered the room. His dark hair beaded with water from the shower. "Lola, is what your sister’s saying…" He glanced from me to Mellie and down to the papers in front of me.  "What’s going on?" Hands clenched by his sides, his shoulders hunched as his lips formed a tight line. "You’re actually going to do this?"

"I—"

Mellie advanced on him. "I won’t let Lola allow you to run all over her. I don’t care if you’re used to getting whatever you want. It isn’t going to happen this time. You don’t deserve her."

"I don’t." He shuffled his hand through his hair. "And, I don’t know if she can forgive me, but I’m damn well going to try and be worth it."

"Leo, I don’t need—"

Mellie darted a glance over her shoulder at me and back at him. "She’s going to sign those papers. It’s bad enough you're Tia’s father. Lola doesn’t need you pushing her into a relationship that isn’t what she wants."

Unable to get a word in edgewise, I sat there with my mouth gaping.

Leo’s fist hit the countertop, and he turned on his heel and stalked out. Jumping from the stool, I scrambled after him. The back door banging as it shut behind me. From inside I heard Mike’s voice boom as he entered the kitchen, too. "Melanie Albrict, don’t be such a fucking bitch."

"He doesn’t deserve her."

"For fuck sake, Hurricane, they love each other. Don’t you think that maybe…"

I didn’t have time to ponder the nickname I’d never heard Mike use before, but it certainly seemed fitting. I sprinted after Leo. There’d be time to ask where ‘hurricane’ had come from later.

Leo was already straddling his bike as I rounded the corner of the house. "Don't go."

He stopped with his helmet lifted to his chest, and I skidded to a halt beside him. "I don’t want you to leave."

Resting the helmet on his lap, he pulled me in and cupped my cheek. "I have to."

"This is how this plays out?  Life pulls us apart and one of us always stays behind." Tears burned behind my eyes. "I knew it wouldn’t change."

"Sweetheart, don’t cry. I’m not leaving you."

"Then stay."

"I can’t. I have to go...but I’ll be back. I’m always coming back to you."

"Stay." I cupped the hand he held to my cheek.

He shook his head. "If I stay now, I’ll throttle that sister of yours."

"She’s out of line."

"She worries about you, and she’s not wrong."

"She is. Come back inside. I’ll tear up those stupid papers. I was never going to sign them anyway."

"You don’t know how glad I am to hear you say that.” He pressed his lips to mine, far too briefly. “I have to go, but trust me, I’m coming back. If you want me to come back, nothing will keep me away."

I stepped back and he shoved his helmet over his head. The bike howled as he gave it throttle and spun out of the driveway. Brushing at my eyes with the back of my palms, I raced back inside.

"Damn it, we all make mistakes. Keeping it all bottled up isn’t healthy. You have to learn to let go." Mike had Mellie by the shoulders, staring down at her, both of them breathing hard while they faced off, post screaming match.

I cleared my throat and they both started. Mike dropped his hands to his sides. "Are you okay, Lola?"

"Can I speak to my sister, alone?"

"Yep." He peered intently at her and then turned on his heel and stormed out of the kitchen.

"I get that I don’t have a good track record. I get that you’re worried about me, and even more about Tia, but you crossed the line." Shaking with anger, I pointed at her.

"He abandoned you, and what’s he doing now? Deserting you again?"

"He didn’t abandon me. He searched for me. Brady—"

"It’s an excuse. Can’t you see that, or are you blind? The man just walked out on you again." She glared at the door.

"He’s coming back."

"I’m just saying, he’s not the type of man you can depend on. He seems to adore Tia and that’s great, but when it comes to you, he looks at you like you’re his property." Grasping both my arms, her voice softened. "Do you really want to go through that again?"

"It’s not like that."

"I don’t want you to get hurt again." She gave my arms a light squeeze.

"I know, Sis."

"I’ll go wake up Tia, and give you a moment to yourself."

I leaned heavily against the counter after she left the room. She didn’t know him like I did. She could only jump to conclusions, and I could forgive her for that since it was borne out of worry for me, and for Tia, but still I was left with my own concerns over whether Leo and I could make any kind of relationship between us work.

He’d stalked out today, with a promise he was coming back, but maybe it wasn’t in the cards for us. Maybe, we were always going to make a mess of it. I squeezed my eyes shut and inhaled deeply. I wanted so badly to believe we might finally have our second chance, but once again I found myself falling into the habit of questioning whether we were destined to be together, or only get so close before we lost it all. Needing to be alone a little longer, I headed upstairs for a shower.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Leo

Her sweater stretched over her hands, she clutched tightly at the steaming mug. "I thought you weren’t coming back."

The frost covered grass crunched under my boots. My breath came out in a wisp of white. "I told you I would."

The door shut quietly behind her. "We’ve said a lot of things."

"We have."

"It’s been days." She sipped at the mug. "Tia’s been asking for you."

My frozen fingers, shoved in my pocket, gripped slim pieces of metal. "There were things I had to do."

"Things more important than your daughter?"

I mounted the steps and grasped her elbow. "You know that’s not the case."

"Do I? You ran out of here…"

"I walked out, and I told you I was coming back."

"Well, here you are." She put the cup down.

"I need to know something."

"Okay."

"Tell me..." I grasped her hand. “Would you have said… did you want to say... Shit, I’m making a mess of this." I tugged her down beside me to sit on the step. "It’s freezing out here."

"Do you want to go inside?"

"No, not until I get this out." I clasped my head in my hands. "Before, when we…your sister said that it was only consensual because… would you, did you want to say no that night? I was so angry back then—"

"Stop, Leo, stop it. You would have stopped if I told you to."

I disentangled my hand from hers. Could I be as certain of that as she was? "I hope so, otherwise I’m nothing more than scum. I don’t deserve—"

"I think you’re looking for forgiveness in places there isn’t any need for it."

"We’ve had a rocky past, and I only made it worse."

She slipped onto my lap, straddling me and holding my face up in her hands. "Let me tell you something about that night."

My nod was almost imperceptible.

"I knew you were saying goodbye and I would have done anything to not have you push me away. There was no way I would have stopped what happened between us. It was the words you used to end us, the same words he said the night I almost lost my life." She shuddered on my lap.

"Oh, God." I groaned. "I didn’t know."

"No, you didn’t."

"How do you forgive me for all my stupidity?" I hugged her to me.

"When do you realize we were never in control of our destiny?"

"What do you mean?"

"It wasn’t your fault Brady found me. It wasn’t my fault, either. It’s hard to fight against a universe that wants to keep us apart." She rested her head on my shoulder. "Tell me something, Leo. These last few days, did you think about not coming back?"

"No." I crushed her to me. "I was always coming back, even if it was only to hear you tell me we were over and I couldn't see my daughter anymore."

She moved to gaze into my eyes. "I’ve been thinking these past few days. We spent six years apart, neither of us able to let go of what we had. Both of us tried to put it behind us, but we failed. What we were, what we are, we’re us. We are never over, and I will never keep her from you."

"Never." Gripping her hips, I claimed her mouth. The taste of her sweetness punctuated by the richness of coffee and the clean fruity scent of her hair surrounded me. I groaned when she pulled back, not wanting to give her up for even a moment.
 

"I have something to show you." She stood and led me into the house.

The hum of the refrigerator filled the silence in the kitchen, not normally noticeable. "Where is Tia?"

"She stayed at Mellie’s last night." Pulling me up the stairs, past the room where we’d come together again, she paused in front of another door. Twisting the knob, she squeezed mine with her other hand and pushed the door open.

The streetscape hung on the butter yellow wall behind the king sized bed. "I sold it to some woman..." I crossed the room to stand beside the bed. "How do you have this?"

"Mira. She’s a friend of Mellie’s." Sticking her hands in her back pockets, she bounced on the balls of her feet. "When I saw you had it for sale, I had to buy it. I couldn’t let it go, couldn’t let us go."

"I made so many mistakes." Picking up the wooden figurine from beside her e-reader on the nightstand, I turned the simple carving of a man and woman locked in an embrace over in my hands.  

"Leo, stop blaming yourself." She touched my arm. "I don’t blame you. Circumstances… but they aren’t now. This is where we are, here, now."

"Always. I’m yours." Putting the statue down, I hauled her up, and she wound her arms around my neck.

"You are." She slanted her mouth across mine. "And I’m yours."

"Mine." My voice was throaty, thick with emotion. I covered her lips with mine, took pleasure in the way her tongue dipped into my mouth and swirled around mine. Her fingers crept into my hair, tugging and tangling as I deepened the kiss, until she whimpered in my arms her body stirred with desire.

Roving hands tugged at my T-shirt and I let go of her to whip it over my head and toss it behind me. There was no slow teasing with the desire to surround one another and give everything to each other. Lola had my belt free before I’d gotten the zipper on her jeans undone. She beamed at me while she cracked it against her palm, and I was reminded of how much of a douche I'd been, and how lucky I was that she'd forgiven me.  She let it fall to the floor as I reached for her, then sidestepped, twisting out of my grasp and slowly lifting her top to expose her belly and breasts.

"Holy fuck, Lola. Why haven’t I seen these before?" The pink lace barely covered her breasts, the nipples puckered, showed through the material. My semi-hard cock became rigid, pulsed with need to get her closer to naked.

With excruciating slowness, she shed the pants that covered the rest of her skin to reveal a matching thong. I groaned, my fingers itching to touch her barely covered slit where the lace was slightly darker, damp from her arousal. She kept me pinned in place with her gaze, moving lithely toward me to tug at the front of my pants and undo the buttons much slower than I wanted. I reached for her hands to speed up the process but she shook her head, the curtain of her hair not quite hiding the mischievous twitch of her lips. On her knees, she yanked them from me. The thick band of lace across the top of her ass begged to be ripped away, but, God, I wanted her in them more often. Hot breath through the cotton of my boxers brought my gaze back to her face. Her fingers settled inside the waistband and slid them down to free my erection. Luscious lips curved as her eyes danced before she grasped my shaft and wrapped them around it. I rocked on my feet, the pull of her mouth on my cock making me hiss. Lacing my fingers through her hair, I held her head to me as she cupped my balls, rolling them between her digits. The slide of her mouth and the little pop each time she tightened the seal caused me to buck into her. Hands wandered from my balls to my ass, pushing me into her when she took me to the back of her throat.  "Sweetheart, fuck, you’re going to make me cum."

I shut my eyes for a second, the temptation to give in to the draw of her lips almost too much, but I wanted more than her mouth. I wanted her sweet pussy surrounding me. Hauling her up, both hands on her ass, I squeezed the flesh and spread her so I could run my fingers against the lace barrier. She whimpered, her body shivering with my touch. "We’ll have lots of head, every day, me on my knees. You on yours. Whatever you want. But right now, I need to be deep inside you. I need your pussy wrapped around me, like I need to breathe."

A drawn out moan was her reply as she tangled her tongue with mine and we made our way to the bed. I threw her down before flipping her over. "I want… all of you."

Her arms braced against the bed, her feet on the floor, she glanced at me over her shoulder and I thought I might explode from the rush of heat to my cock. Gripping her hips, I pressed a trail of kisses along her spine, my fingers roaming over her slit, and tweaking her clit between them. She arched, her back dipping to jut out her hips for me to grip onto with the other hand. I dragged the sliver of lace from her wetness and plunged a finger into her swollen pussy lips, testing how ready she was for me, before sliding it up to press against the tight muscle of her ass.

"Leo," she whimpered, "I need you inside me."

Grasping my cock, I centered myself. The heat of her core around my erection as I pushed into her was exquisite, and almost enough to make me lose control. With shallow bucks of my hips, I stroked her inside, before pushing deep into her. Fully seated, I grasped her tits in my palms and flicked the nipples, causing her to buck and drag on my cock. I wanted to hammer into her, to pull all the way out and push in over and over until she screamed out my name, but I wanted it to last. She squirmed against me, pushing up to take me deeper. Wandering a hand down between her thighs, I rubbed against the sensitive kernel of nerves, while my other hand gripped her hip. "I want to take you hard, but if I do, I’m not going to last."

"Hard, Leo. Oh God, hard. Fuck me now. Fuck…"

Her words spurred me on, and I drove into her, using my hands to drag her up and down my cock over and over again. Fingers slipped along her pussy and against my balls as she played with herself, driving her orgasm closer. My cock twitched, jerked, a shudder running through me at her piercing scream. Her finger fell away from her clit as she sagged forward, but I dragged her back, pumping faster as her cry turned guttural and rough. Then I followed her over, felt the surge of cum as it shot inside her, before I collapsed on top of her.

"Holy hell." I rolled us onto our side. "You in that. Tell me you bought that for me."

Still panting, she stroked my chest. "I may have."

"You in that… the hottest thing I have ever seen."

"You don’t like the black?"

"I love you in anything."

"I love you in me."

I clasped her hand to my chest. "I have something for you."

"I have everything I want."

"No, I mean these belonged to you. I kept them all these years. I think you should have them back now." Finding my jeans on the floor, I rifled through the pocket with shaking fingers and plucked out the cold metal circles before turning back to her. "I told you so many times that I kept things as a reminder not to get involved again, and to not…" I trailed off, not wanting to sink into the past.

"Not to trust me," she murmured into my chest.

"But not everything. The tattoo was because you had my heart, and the rings were because despite my pride, despite my anger, I knew if you found your way home I would want to give them back to you." I placed them in her palm.

She squinted as she caught sight of the engraving. "We’re never over."

"Never." I took them back and slid them onto her finger where they belonged before pulling her tightly into my side. "Now are you moving home with me, or should I pack up a few things and move in here with you until you’re ready to come home?"

She chuckled. "I don’t know how Mike would feel about that."

"Well, then." I rolled her beneath me.

"Mommy." Tia slammed through the door, screeching. "Auntie Mellie is waiting downstairs."

Lola was on the other side of the bed, the sheet pulled up to her chin before I could blink.

"Daddy?" Tia’s eyes went huge in her small face. "What are you doing in mommy’s bed?"

Lola groaned and hid her face in her hands. I took one in mine and pulled it down. "This is… how do we explain?"

"Princess, go back downstairs. We’ll be down in a minute."

Tia raced out of the room, leaving the door wide open, and Lola scrambled to pull on her jumper and jeans as she went to shut the door.

"So how do we tell her?” I asked, shoving my head into my T-shirt and stretching it over my torso. “And your sister?"  

"Never mind my sister." She tossed her hair into a topknot. "Tia’s never seen a man in my bed."

"Good." I pulled her back against my chest, inhaling her scent. "And I’m the only man she’ll ever know about."

"No, I mean, there hasn’t been anyone. This is unchartered territory."

"You’ve never—"

"Can you not get stuck on that now?"

"Okay, but it makes me want to haul you back to bed and make up for lost time."

"You’re such a douche, Leo, trying to be all territorial."

"I am territorial, sweetheart. You’re mine and always will be. But, you know what’s hotter than knowing you haven’t been with anyone else?"

"What?"

"You haven’t sassed me like that since we first met."

She entangled our fingers as we descended the stairs side by side. Neither of us was sure how to tell our daughter that her parents were together for the first time in her life. Lola squeezed my hand and entered the kitchen first. Tia sat at the counter, Mellie beside her. I opened my mouth but one glance from Lola silenced me while the two in front of us continued their conversation.

"Your mommy and daddy love each other. Kind of like the way they love you, and when two adults feel like that about each other… well, you might find that mom and dad will be sharing a room from now on."