At least I’m not falling on her like an untried youth. Although, for a moment there, I’d been bleeding close to saying to hell with this gentlemanly farce I’m playing and doing just that.
I’m hard as a pike and ravenous after seven years of lusting after a ghost. I want in Ashley so badly I ache with it. Shite, walking away last night after I’d undressed her and seen the curvy perfection of her body had been a testament to my willpower.
But, sap that I am, I’ve decided to let her have at least a day to get her situation squared before I take what’s mine.
I’m a gentleman.
Sometimes.
Chapter Five
After an hour and a half of nonstop talking, something I’d not wanted to do in front of Lucian, but apparently had no choice about, I’m slumped in the backseat of his car, doing everything in my power not to cry and make my already pale face look worse.
The therapist had been honest to the point of pain and laid it all out for me. Ben needed a shit load of help, as well as more stability than I could currently offer him.
I want to cry just knowing that I’ve messed things up this badly with him, but most of all I wanna find my old man and beat him half to death before murdering him stone dead.
“Shh, love, everything will be fine. I swear.”
I’m shocked to find that I’ve been weeping silent tears, and even more flabbergasted when the big, cold Brit beside me shifts me onto his lap and strokes reassuringly at my hair, something I haven’t felt since Mom died.
“But she said—”
“She said we have to get him to her tomorrow and rearrange your life a little, love. That’s all,” he murmurs, rubbing a soothing hand down my hair.
“But—but there’s nothing that I can do about any of the stuff she was saying, Lucian,” I wail, shoving my face into his neck. “I mean, sure I do need to spend more time with Ben, and yeah, maybe refusing to talk about Wesley wasn’t my brightest moment, but I can’t just do it all. I need to work. I have to make enough money to keep us in a house and…and the shitty discount food Ben hates so much.”
Okay, I know I’m being a total shlub and that yes, although I totally despise Lucian for past crimes, I need him right now. I have no one, absolutely no one to help me or even just to talk to about this, since Randy walked out last night, and I’m just so tired of doing all of this shit alone.
I know, because I’m not stupid, that whatever hand Lucian is playing here, I’m going to end up either screwed or heartbroken or both, but right now, at this moment in time, I can’t make myself give a damn.
I need him, and if he’s willing to help me I will pay whatever price I have to. Ben needs it, and I… Well, I need it too, if I’m being honest.
“Shh, love, don’t cry,” I hear him murmur sweetly as that stroking never stops.
His body is rock hard and tense beneath me though, so I figure whatever I’ve just said has pissed him off a bit.
“You’ve done the best with a really shite situation, love. Don’t ever feel bad about giving everything you have.”
Ah, so he’s still tripping off Ben’s insults about my ability to provide. Well, I can’t say I blame him. After getting myself together this afternoon I’d finally allowed my temper loose, and know what? I take umbrage to the little brat’s insults.
Sure, some of the stuff I buy isn’t anywhere close to gourmet, but in my book, if your belly’s full and you’re not living in a cardboard box, you’re better off than most.
“What am I gonna do, Lucian?” I ask, pulling myself together enough to slide back to the seat and fix my hair and face. “I can’t afford any of this, and if I drop one of my jobs I’ll have to let the house go. It’s the only place Ben has left where he remembers Mom and Dad together.”
“Well, he’s going to have to adjust when you move in with me, and that’s that. There’s no use holding onto it anymore.”
That floors me a little and I pull back, ready to blast him. No way in hell am I moving in with—
Didn’t you say you were willing to pay the price?
“What…what do you want, Lucian?” I ask tremulously, only barely managing to curtail a shiver when he leans in and plants a feather light kiss on my trembling lips.
Arousal, fierce and swift, hits me, and I gasp, giving him the opening his tongue needs to thrust in for a leisurely taste. When I don’t pull back, because honestly, how can I when his mouth is so wet and tasty, he takes it as encouragement and goes deeper.
When I come to my senses, many minutes later, I’m straddling his lap and grinding into him with an urgency that leaves me wet and so needy I groan when he pulls away and lowers me back to the seat.