Toxic (38 page)

My mother huffed in her take-charge way. “Let’s get dinner on the table.” Her voice was stern and she directed her comment to Jamie, who now looked petrified.

While things carried on without us, I put my hands on Jeremy’s face and stared at his mouth.

Those lips.

I loved them.

I loved him.

I couldn’t wait another moment to feel his lips against mine. “I’m so sorry. I love you,” I breathed into his mouth.

He kicked the door closed behind us, and crashed his mouth to mine.

I stopped kissing him just long enough to manage “Lock the door.”

Jeremy set me down and reached behind him, pressing the button. He was breathing hard when he pulled away to look into my eyes. “I love you too.”

Music started to play from the other room and I was thankful to whoever was smart enough to turn it on.

But I wouldn’t have cared about them overhearing us enough to stop, not even my mother

Well, maybe her.

It’s just—I had missed him desperately.

And I wanted him.

All of him.

Right there.

Right now.

I needed to show him how much I loved him.

Pushing against each other, our bodies began to gravitate toward the bed. It was a painful few small steps at a time, as we were focused on other things, like never losing contact with one another’s mouths.

Every part of my body was pressed against his when he pulled away. “We should talk.”

I had a hard time finding my voice. “Yes, we should.”

Jeremy captured my mouth again, hard enough to bruise my lips.

I didn’t care.

I loved it.

My hands were on his chest and I could feel how fast his heart was racing. His hands were on my backside now, squeezing. Our attraction hadn’t been squelched by our weeks apart or the horrible things we’d done to each other. It was still between us, blazing hotter than ever. We were gasoline and fire, one touch and we went up in flames

Suddenly, Jeremy stopped, as if just realizing we weren’t actually talking. “Why didn’t you take the deal the Dawson offered you?” he asked.

His question stunned me. “Because it meant giving you up.”

Jeremy stared at me another moment before asking, “Did Dawson spend the night with you that night you were at your father’s penthouse?”

Air swooshed from my lungs and I found it hard to breathe. I was afraid. Afraid he’d come to see me, only to leave me when I told him the truth. Meekly, I took his face in my hands and answered, “He did but on a separate couch.”

Jeremy flinched. “Did you kiss him?”

With caressing hands, I found his face and cradled it. “He kissed me, but I didn’t want him to.”

His stance was filled with tension. “You’re certain?”

I stroked his cheek. “I am.”

His eyes closed. “And his face. That was you?”

“Yes.”

The tension eased from his body. “That’s all I need to know.”

Jeremy always made things so simple between us.

Why couldn’t I do the same?

I was going to work on that.

My mouth moved close to his again. “I only want you.”

His lips parted and a growl-like noise escaped from his throat. “That’s good to hear since you’re mine.”

That was fine by me.

I took in a deep breath.
My turn.
“What about Avery?”

He hesitated.

My stomach churned.

“You’re referring to that goddamned picture?”

I closed my eyes to brace myself.

His lips were at my ear. “I’m sorry for that. I stopped in the event to talk to Weinstein, and Weinstein only. She cornered me and dragged me in front of the press. I promise you it will be the last time she does that.”

Satisfaction raced through my veins and then his mouth slammed against mine and he took it with a possessiveness that made my stomach flutter. When we paused between kisses for air, I pushed his jacket off and removed his shirt, in a frantic need to let him claim me.

With his torso bare, Jeremy nudged his knee between my legs. Hardness assaulted me and I whimpered. Bemused, he tilted my chin to look at him. His smile was unabashed and his rakish good looks threw me off kilter. With his hands at my hips, I didn’t have to worry about falling though. He was there to keep me steady.

He always had been.

I wished I’d seen it.

The words weren’t meant to be spoken now, not in the heat of passion, but I had to know. “What changed your mind?”

Without hesitation, he answered, “Your mother.”

“Poppy?” I blinked in surprise.

He nodded. “And my mother too.”

“Your mother?” I said in even greater surprise.

“And myself.”

“You?”

Jeremy’s fingers drifted upward and lifted my sweatshirt over my head, letting it fall to the floor.

My heart was racing as I stared up into the intense blue pools of his eyes. “Tell me?”

His eyes were bright with emotion as he confessed, “Let’s just say I decided to break the cycle. I’m not proud of my own behavior pattern—turning my back and running isn’t how I want to live my life.”

I understood that. There was nothing I could say in response. I’d hurt him immensely. Full of emotion, I managed to ask, “What did my mother say? What did your mother say?”

His answer wasn’t immediate. His hands drifted to the elastic band of my sweatpants and he tugged them down without effort. I, in turn, stepped out of them so as not to trip. I was left wearing nothing special beneath my sloppy clothes but he looked at me with an appreciation that caused goose bumps to erupt up and down my arms.

It wasn’t until he lowered his head to sprinkle soft kisses up my neck that he answered, “A lot of things.”

Exhaling, I tried to ease the nervous tension this conversation had created.

His lips were at my ear. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”

I was torn between needing him and wanting to know what on earth my mother could have done to change Jeremy’s mind. “Later,” I panted at the same time my fingers crept down the muscles of his chest and found that V I loved so much.

He groaned ferociously in my ear and a riot of butterflies swarmed in my belly as desire pumped through me in even cycles, over and over, as I undid his fly.

“Hold on a second.” Jeremy stopped to toe his boots off and shake out of his jeans. He wore nothing beneath them and a rush of excitement raced through me.

Within moments, his lips were back on mine and then suddenly, the back of my legs hit the mattress and I fell to the bed.

He didn’t falter as his palms caged me in and he hovered above me.

And then, I swear I felt the earth move when he gave me that smile, the one that said just what I thought it did—that he really, really loved me. I couldn’t control my reaction. My heart went bang, bang in my chest. With trembling hands, I pressed at his chest lightly and said, “I need to know why you changed your mind. You were so set. You said we were finished.”

He gave me a sobering nod and dropped down beside me. Looking at each other, we both paused in the intimate moment. We had to. Grabbing a blanket I covered us and prepared for possibly the most important conversation we’d ever have.

Raised on one elbow, Jeremy started drawing heart shapes on top of it right over my stomach. He did that all the time and I realized then, it was subconscious. As his mouth opened, everything about him changed. Not in a bad way but in a way that opened him up, and I felt like, for the first time, he was going to let me see all of him. He looked down at me. “Unexpectedly, your mother was pounding at my door before the sun had even officially risen this morning.”

I gulped and gave him a sheepish look. She must have gone there as soon as we hung up this morning.

He winked, letting me know it was okay she had paid him a visit. “She thought it was important I know you never went home last week, which meant you never got my note.” His eyes shifted to somewhere over my head. “But honestly, I didn’t give a rat’s ass about that note anymore.”

The harshness in his tone caused me to shift and twist so we were facing each other. I wanted to look into his eyes, not up at him.

He watched me intently. “I’m sorry but I want to be honest with you.”

I nodded, ignoring the wave of emotion climbing up my throat.

“When that was clear, she moved on to inform me that Hunter had convinced you both that I was the one who purchased the shares because of a forged signature.”

I breathed him in and listened to what had led him back to me.

His eyes were on me, pinning me, making me even more anxious. “She wanted to make sure I knew that.”

“But knowing those things didn’t change your mind about us, did they?” I could barely speak through my nervousness.

He slowly shook his head. “No, they didn’t. I was still licking my wounds.”

I swallowed as I waited to hear what had brought him back to me.

“Your mother is a smart woman. No one should underestimate her.”

I nodded, in complete agreement. I’d learned a lot about her as of late.

“She knew what it was that had triggered my reaction. No one has ever really understood me and honestly, I don’t think I ever fully understood myself. And yet, this woman, who by all accounts I should have hated but at the same owed so much to, managed it.”

I bit my lip.

He shook his head in wonder. “She somehow knew that if I could only understand the truth, I’d believe more in myself and then I wouldn’t have this deep-rooted desperation for other people to believe in me.”

My heart was torn between anguish over my own recklessness of not identifying that need and swelling with pride over his admission of what he needed to be whole. I reached for him and squeezed his hand. “The truth?” I asked, not sure what that was.

He nodded. “I’ve wanted to know about my father, my mother, my parents since I found out about Justin. I never understood why my mother didn’t believe in me enough to tell me the truth about our family.”

Guilt tore through me. Believe in him. That’s what this was about. That’s what that night was about. And I failed, more than once.

He shook his head as if reading my mind. “Turns out, I needed to believe in myself. My mother’s choices weren’t mine. And whether or not she believed in me enough to know I could handle it, that was her burden, not mine.”

My hand let go of his to wipe away a tear sliding down my cheek but he did it for me and the tenderness was almost too much.

With a shaky breath, he continued, “Your mother talked to me about my parents and what they were like when I was a baby. No one had ever shared that with me. I was wanted. They loved me. I could see it in the photos I had never seen before.”

“Photos?”

Jeremy leaned forward and nudged my elbow. “I guess we’d met a few times before when we were three.”

My lips turned up. “I wonder if you looked at me then with those bedroom eyes.”

He huffed out a wicked laugh. “I’m certain I did. You rocked a onesie like no other baby I knew.”

Admiration rooted within me. In the midst of all this sadness, he could still find humor.

Only him.

Jeremy’s eyes seemed to cloud over with sadness and he went on. “Your mother wanted me to know how much my parents really loved each other and how sad she was that they were torn apart. I knew there was a message in there somewhere but honestly, I didn’t quite get it at the time. And after she left, I spent the rest of the morning analyzing what she’d said. And I was pretty sure she was trying to tell me not to give up on someone I loved like my mother had on my father.”

I swallowed. “My mother said those things?”

He gave me a knowing nod. “Yes.”

I was momentarily stunned while at the same time touched.

He went on. “That’s not all she did though. Early this afternoon, there was a knock on my door. Imagine my surprise when I opened it to see my mother standing there. Poppy had called her and asked her to come see me. I guess she told her”—he rolled his eyes—“that I was at a crossroads and it was time to open up to me. And so she did. I couldn’t believe it but she was standing there ready to tell me all the things she never could.”

My heart pricked. “That must have hurt.”

He leaned over and kissed my forehead. “Yeah, it wasn’t a walk in the park, especially when she admitted she wished she’d made different choices, which was why she finally told me about my father. As I listened to her tell me he was a good man who made a very poor choice, and in turn, so had she, it made me realize I didn’t want to wait twenty-five years to be with the one person who makes me feel complete. My mother abandoned my father because of his misdeeds and lived her life regretting it. I won’t make that mistake. Like I said, I’m breaking my own poor behavioral pattern. I decided to run after you, not away from you.”

Moved, I turned my head to sweetly brush my lips against his.

Jeremy took advantage of how close I was and rolled on top of me but he didn’t kiss me. Instead he gazed down at me and continued our conversation. “Look, I know Hunter was trying to manage things as best he could. But I also knew that Dawson was manipulating TSC’s financial situation. I just had no idea how far he was willing to go with you. I never thought he’d jeopardize his relationship with you just to try to extract me from your life.”

Obviously Jamie or my mother had fully filled him in. Thoughts of how Dawson had morphed into someone I didn’t even know began to surface, but I pushed them away and glanced up at Jeremy. “I still don’t understand how you managed to save the company.”

He gave a huff of laughter. “I spent the week buying your shares back. Traveling from company to company to convince them to sell the shares back they had purchased under Dawson’s advice.”

“How were you able to do that?”

His lips twisted. “It’s amazing how three little words will make anyone listen.”

I gave him a confused look.

He returned that look with a wicked grin. “
Pending SEC investigation
will make anyone pale.”

My jaw dropped. “You didn’t.”

“Yeah, I did. And if that didn’t work I was going to let it leak that there was an impending defamation legal suit on the horizon. Which I was more than happy to see through if I had to.”