London Calling: BWWM New Adult Romance (Chase Brothers Book 2) (25 page)

"
I
mani
, thanks for meeting me."

She squared her shoulders. The last thing Imani wanted to do was meet this asshole. But she needed to do this. Everything that happened that night would forever control her if she didn't. "Ryan. Let's make this quick."

He flattened his lips. "Do you see what your boyfriend did to me?"

She refused to wince at the mention of Xander. This meeting wasn't about Xander. It was about
them.
It was about
her
. It was about something she should have taken care of years ago.

"Is that why you asked me here? To look at a black eye?"

"Two. That thug gave me
two
black eyes. I'm not going to work for a month thanks to him."

He deserved far worse. "Not my problem, Ryan. You did this to yourself. For starters, I wasn't there. I don't know who gave you those black eyes. And secondly, you likely deserved what you got."

"I'm going to sue him. But you can stop that from happening."

He really was a total slime ball. How had she ever even compared the two? While Xander was overbearing, he didn't really try to control who she was as a person. Ryan, on the other hand, only wanted to serve his own agenda. "You do whatever you think you need to do. But let me go ahead and tell you this. There is nothing I'm going to do to intervene."

"He has a lot of money and he'll need to pay. But you can stop that. If you just sign some papers stating you'll never slander me, then we can be done with this whole mess. We’ll never have to see each other or talk about it again."

She blinked at him in surprise. He looked completely self-assured of his request. It never mattered what he’d said at the time about being sorry. All he cared about was covering his own ass. She rolled her shoulders and met his gaze levelly. "I can’t do that, Ryan, especially since I'm pressing charges as soon as I leave here today."

The genial mask slipped and he looked thunderous, his brows snapping down. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"The best part about this country, Ryan, is the statute of limitations on rape never runs out. And you should probably know your attempts to intimidate me and now blackmail me will be noted."

He took a step toward her and she had never been happier that she'd insisted on the coffee shop right next to the police station. "No one will believe you."

She shook her head. "It doesn’t matter. I'll report it. And since you did it to me, I know you've done it to someone else. I'll tell the truth and you won't be able to hold it over my head. Threatening to tell the world. You told Xander and I didn't die."

"You’ll ruin my career."

"Well, you tried to ruin my life, so I guess we're even."

He reached a hand out and she avoided his touch. "Don't do this."

"I made a mistake believing you when you said you were sorry. I won't be listening to you again.”

T
hings used
to come easy for Xander. But none of those things mattered until he met Imani. For so long all he’d cared about was revenge, now all he wanted was her. But for the last three months, Xander inhaled the dry New England air. It smelled different here than in London. Late summer heralded a slight changing of leaves that he knew would be stunning. He'd photographed a shoot in Connecticut years ago. But he wasn’t here for work today. He was here for love.

He'd never been so nervous in his life, but he had to do this. If she still didn’t want him, that was fair enough, but at least he’d given it his best shot.

It was Imani who answered the door. She yanked it open with a half-smile, which contorted to shock when she saw him. "X-Xander. Are you okay?"

He shook his head. "No. I'm not okay. I'm a ridiculously fucked-up mess, and the woman I love has been away from me for three long months. But I couldn’t be without her anymore and I was hoping she'd be willing to talk to me." He also wanted to kiss her desperately.

"Xander," she breathed.

"I've missed you. When Abbie told me you'd left, I couldn’t believe it."

"I wanted to help Ebony pack and spend some quality time. Also help Dad out a little." She inclined her head toward the house. "I don’t think I ever said thank you, but he’s been going to counseling. Stayed sober for three months." She shrugged. “It’s a start.”

“That’s great, Imani. I’m happy to hear that.”

He cleared his throat. He needed to say his piece so he could run back to the safety of his city. "I know I made a huge mistake with you. And I can't change it. My heart was in the right place, but it was wrong. I had no right to move you around the chessboard and treat you like a pawn. It's a bad habit and I’m working on fixing it. I know I took away some of your strength and I’m sorry for that." He cleared his throat and kicked at the welcome mat. "I, uh, also started therapy with Lex. It's been helping. Fewer nightmares now."

She reached out her hand to him. "Oh, Xander."

He ached to have her touch him. But he understood she probably wouldn't want that. Her eyes shimmered and it nearly broke his heart. “I just want to say that I love you. It was real for me in more ways than I ever knew could be possible. For the first time I had someone besides Lex and I liked it. You challenged me, made me mad. You were in my space and I loved every minute of it. From the moment you asked if I was singularly an asshole or not, it's been impossible for me to get you out of my head. I love you so completely and I'm sorry I hurt you. It was never my intention."

"Xander."

"Sorry, if you could just let me finish. I only want to give you what you want, but if you saw fit to give me another—"

She interrupted him with a kiss, wrapping her arms around his neck and squeezing tight. The blood rushed in his head. She tasted of apples and cinnamon and her. He sank into it, holding her tight, not daring to believe this was real.

When she pulled back, he was reluctant to let her go. She licked her lips. "I missed you. I'm so sorry. I just needed some time to think where everything about my life wasn’t consumed by you. I was coming back in a few weeks and you were my first planned stop. I was a little worried you might have moved on."

Moved on? Was she mad? "I dream about you every night."

Imani blinked dark eyes up at him. "I want to tell you I filed charges against Ryan."

A spike of pain pierced his gut. She hadn’t called him for him to go with her. “I’m really proud of you.”

She nodded. “The prosecutor isn’t too optimistic, but it’s okay. He didn’t think I’d have the courage to do it. And thanks to you, I did.”

He nodded. “No, thanks to yourself. You’re strong. Always were. And I might be able to help the case if you’ll let me. The club is wired for sound. I might have gotten him on tape.”

She licked her lips. “Thank you for that.”

He was dying to hold her, but it had been so long. Would she still welcome his touch?

“Xander?”

“Yeah,” His heart dared to hope and he stood perfectly still.

“I love you.”

All the tension rolled off his shoulders and he breathed a deep sigh of relief. “I love you too. I plan on spending a lot of time showing you just how much.”

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ould
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S
omebody needed
to take his player card away. He was going soft. Maybe tonight would be better. Maybe he was just in a funk.
Or maybe you need to get laid
. His cock twitched inside his jeans as if to concur.

No
. That was the same shit that got him in this whole mess in the first place. Following his dick around. One night that had changed everything. Of all the decisions he'd made in his life, it was so rare that he could pinpoint the exact direction of his life from one event. He never should have flirted with Kallie Wintor. His life would be on track right now.

From the bedroom, he heard Kiss call out.

He turned off the water and grabbed a towel to dry his hands on the way. When he reached the bedroom, he said, "What's the matter, you want help picking your workout clothes for tomorrow, princess? Here's a hint. Pick something that you'll sweat in." But she wasn't in her room. "Kiss?"

"I'm in here," she called from the bathroom.

Oh hell. There was no way this was going to end well for him if he went in there. He swallowed hard. "What's the problem?"

"Can you come in here for a sec?"

Fuck yes
. But his rational brain stopped him from doing the stupid thing. "Are you sure about that?"

She hesitated a second. "Yes. Please, I need your help."

With an exhale, he knew how this was going to go down. If he touched a wet, slippery Kiss, he was going to want to touch more. Kiss, lick, fuck. But he opened the door anyway.

Steam filled the expansive bathroom. But through it he could see it was a larger version of the guest bath down the hall. The floor was a white marble and white and gray glass tile lined the shower. His gaze raked over her hungrily. From her delicate feet and strong calves to the lean strong thighs. But then her mauve towel stopped the progression of his exploration.
Damn
. "What's the problem?"

She sighed with relief as she turned, keeping just her head in the stream of the shower, trying to avoid getting the towel wet. She squinted up at him as the spray of water hit her face. "I managed to wash it okay, and even get conditioner in, but I'm dead exhausted and my shoulder started to talk to me. Normally I'd have just kneeled at the tub to wash it, and last time, Leah helped me, but I'm sort of desperate here."

She was wet, and slick. And he wanted his hands in her hair. He'd had a million dreams just like this one. In fact he wasn't entirely sure he wasn't dreaming right now. "Okay, what do you need?"

"If you could just help me make sure that the conditioner is out, I can do a quick detangle."

"Uh, okay." Except to do it, he was going to have to get into the shower.

First option was to take off his clothes and climb in with her. He liked that option. The idea of burying himself inside her had him biting back a groan.
Yeah no, no naked
. He'd have to go in clothed.

He removed his phone and put it on top of the toilet. When he opened the glass door, her eyes flared. "What are you doing?"

"To make this work properly, you need to be under the stream of water right?" She nodded. "Okay then, I'm getting wet."

"Oh, uh..." Her voice trailed.

"Do you want my help or not?"

"I do. Sorry. I guess I just didn’t think this all the way through."

He clamped his jaw together.
The sooner you help her, the sooner you can go back to your room and take a cold one
. Once in the stream of the shower, her scent surrounded him and he knew he was going to lose the battle and the war. He was already losing a grip on his control and he hadn't even touched her yet. "Uh, just stand in the stream and I'll rinse you out. While you're at it, give me the wide tooth comb."

"Oh, you don't have to do that. I'll manage."

"Don't be silly. I'm in here, I'm wet and I know how to detangle hair."

A light flush stained her cheeks. "While I believe you've probably done this before, I, uh, black hair is different."

He blinked at her, the laugh rushing out of him just like always. He never knew what was going to come out of her mouth. "I guess I should probably mentioned, four of my sisters are black, or half black anyway. Two of them with hair curlier than yours. I got this."

Her jaw unhinged and she did a guppy routine for a moment, then she handed over the wide-tooth comb. "Have at it."

"Turn around." Damn, why did his voice sound so hoarse? When she did, the water ran though her hair, rinsing out the conditioner and he massaged the rest out with the pads of his fingers. In front of him, Kiss groaned and let her head relax back into the scalp massage he was giving her. The towel she clutched was soaked and no doubt heavy by this point.

He forced his mind to go blank as he rinsed and massaged. Gently, he began to detangle her hair, starting in sections from the ends to the roots. Growing up, he'd had to help get Brooklyn and Max ready for school sometimes, so he knew what he was doing. When he was done, he couldn't keep his hand out of the softness of her hair and he kept finger detangling.

Slowly she turned into him, blinking up at him through wet, sooty lashes. "Th-thank you. I couldn't have done that myself and it went much faster."

The first step in dealing with a problem was admitting he had a problem. He was fighting the pull, but it had been an uphill battle from the minute he saw her. If he was Clark Kent, she was his Kryptonite. "Kiss, I—fuck it." He cupped the back of her head and pulled her into him. Before melding their lips together, he paused, giving her an out, but she didn't protest. Instead, her fingers dug into his soaked T-shirt and dragged him closer.