“Most mistakes can be fixed, Gabriella.” He dropped the miss as he pulled up to the curb and looked into the mirror to meet my eyes. He knew he was crossing the line between professional and personal. “But it all depends on when you realize the mistake is there and how long you pretend the mistake isn’t really a mistake.”
I was shaking. “How…” My voice cracked. Clearing my throat, I tried again. “Why did you call Flynn?”
“I’ve been taking care of this family since I was twenty-two years old, Miss Gabriella. I know most of their secrets, and pretty much all of their flaws. I know the good things too. Flynn started to change around you. He became a better man. And I think he makes you better too. There’s only one reason for that.” He nodded at the door. “Maybe you should go talk to him.”
Maybe.
Maybe I owed it to myself.
It couldn’t hurt, right?
Twenty-Two
I was wrong.
As I walked towards the door, I remembered the woman with the beautiful golden skin. The woman I’d seen him with...this could hurt a lot.
I almost turned and bolted, but I knew if I didn’t do this, I’d regret it. I had enough regrets, enough things that I wished had never happened. I’d seen the accident as one of those because of Cody, but now I could see the silver lining in it. If I hadn’t been in it, I’d have been married now.
“Married to a man who thinks I should be wrapped up and coddled. That my safety is more important than me being happy,” I whispered. The idea hit me hard enough to steady my heart as I opened the studio door and found myself looking at Flynn.
He wasn’t alone.
That wasn’t a surprise.
If he’d been with some scantily dressed model, I wouldn’t have blinked twice. If he’d been naked and with a model, I’d have been devastated, but not surprised. But he was dressed more professionally than I’d ever seen him. A polo shirt, a pair of khaki pants and loafers that looked expensive enough to have pleased even his mother. And he wasn’t with a model. He was talking to two people, a man and a woman. One carried a bag that I recognized as a camera bag. The other carried a briefcase. They looked between us as I stared at Flynn.
Speak, I told myself.
“Gabriella.” Flynn inclined his head.
“Hey...um…hi, Flynn.” Looking over at the other two, I nodded stiffly. I should’ve called first. “Is this a bad time?”
“Oh, no.” The woman smiled easily and hooked her arm through the man’s. “We’re all done. Thanks for working us in so quickly, Flynn. We’ll take a look at our budget and get back to you as soon as we can.”
The easy, carefree smile I knew so well curved his lips as he shook hands. “Great. Just let me know.”
“Can you hold off showing it to anybody else? A week maybe?” The man flashed him a wide smile, heavily laden with charm.
Flynn shrugged and tucked his hands in his pockets. “I’ve already got a few appointments set up, but I won’t make any commitments until I hear back from you. That’s the best I can do.”
Confused, I looked back at them, but they disappeared through the doorway and left me watching Flynn without an answer. “Ah…” I bit my lip, telling myself to leave it alone. I couldn’t though. “What was that?”
“Business.” He rubbed at his stubbled jaw. He hadn’t shaved this morning. “You look exhausted.”
“I am.” Hesitantly, I smiled. “I went job hunting. Made some appointments.”
“Good for you.” His tone was sincere, but there was nothing else to it. He turned towards the back of the studio.
I took a step after him. “Can I…” Nerves unlike anything I’d ever known slammed into me and I paused just inside the door. “Flynn, can I come in?”
He’d only gone a few steps, so he was close enough that I could see his shoulders tense. I watched as they rose and fell, watched as some internal struggle took place inside him. Feeling like this had been a huge mistake, I started to back towards the door.
“Okay, I guess I’ll just…”
“Come on in,” he said shortly, cutting me off. “I’ve got stuff to do, but I guess I can talk and work at the same time.”
The terseness of his reply caught me off-guard, but as he motioned for me to enter, I came far enough inside for my eyes to adjust to the different lighting.
And then I had to stop and gape.
There were boxes.
Everywhere.
“Flynn?”
He cut around me, taking care not to brush against me. “What did you need, Gabriella?”
Staring at him as he strode off into the wide, open space of the studio, I looked from one box, to another, and another. He was most definitely packing up. “You’re moving.”
“Yeah. Time for a change of pace. I…” He stopped in front of a big box—more like a crate—and stared down into it. “I need to get out of New York for a while.”
Out of New York. “You’re leaving the city?” My voice cracked. A sudden spasm of pain ripped through me and I gripped the edge of a counter to keep him from seeing how much my hands were shaking.
“Yeah.” He glanced at me, his face unreadable. “I’ve got a studio out in L.A. I sublet it for the most part, but the tenant was offered an assignment that’ll have her traveling most of the year. Seems like good timing. I need a change, the place is open. Why the hell not?”
“Why the hell not?” I echoed woodenly.
Why did I feel like my heart had been cut out?
As I shifted my weight onto the stool next to the high counter, he levered a few pieces of equipment into the box. It occurred to me in a vague sort of way that he could pay men to do this, but then again, I knew Flynn. He treasured his photography equipment. He wouldn’t trust it to anyone else.
Several long moments passed as he worked and I tried to wrap my mind around the fact that he was leaving. He wouldn’t be here anymore. Wouldn’t be lurking in the shadows. Watching me. Tormenting me. He wouldn’t bother me for modeling sessions. Or for...anything else.
“What about the wedding?” I finally whispered a question that wouldn’t betray my internal turmoil.
A heavy light fell out of his hands and crashed to the floor. As glass shattered, Flynn just stood there and stared at it.
When he finally lifted his head to look at me, there was a look in his eyes that I’d never seen before. Raw, aching misery. But his voice was even, almost flat. “I can’t be there for the wedding, Gabriella. I’m sorry.”
He’d called me by my name. Again. Then the rest of his statement registered. “You can’t be there…”
I was still talking when he walked away, disappearing down the hall that led to the restroom. My brain struggled to catch up, was still struggling when he reappeared, carrying a broom and dustpan. Feeling stiff and useless, I slid from the stool and moved closer, as if I could help.
“Stay back,” he said, his tone clipped.
I twisted my engagement ring around and around. “You know, if there’s a job or something that you’ve got going on that weekend, I’m sure your employer would understand you needing the time off for your brother...”
He shot up to his feet and strode over to me, grabbing my arms. His hands gripped me tightly, although there was no cruelty to his touch. His eyes raked over my face as though memorizing every feature.
“You’re not hearing me,” he said roughly. “I can’t be there for the wedding, Tennessee.”
My heart clenched at the nickname.
His expression so full of pain that I could hardly look at him, and yet I couldn’t look away either.
“I can’t watch you marry my brother. Not in October. Not next week. Not next year and not in the next hundred years.”
Frozen, I stood there as he reached up. His hand cupped my cheek and when he slid his thumb over my lower lip, I trembled.
“I want…” he murmured. “More than anything else, I want for you to be happy. If I had to choose between my next breat
h and your happiness, then I’d take my last breath satisfied, all because I knew you were going to have the things you wanted in life. The writing career you wanted, a big house, some place where you can see green…you like the city, Tennessee, but your heart isn’t here. I’d die easy if I knew you had the things you wanted in life.”
It was like he’d somehow managed to reach inside me and wrap his hand around my heart, squeezing it. I couldn’t breathe and tears blurred my vision.
“Flynn?”
He pushed his hand into my hair and I shivered.
“One last time.” The rough, silken whisper made no sense.
But then his mouth was on mine and I groaned. He did too, sliding his tongue into my mouth. As he deepened the kiss, I found myself clinging to him and the only thing that kept me upright was the fact that he had curled one arm around my waist and the solid strength of him was there, steadying me.
This kiss was nothing like any I’d ever experienced. It was everything I’d ever hoped a kiss could be.
And it was a goodbye.
When he started to pull away, I clutched him tighter, my teeth nipping at his bottom lip. He tried to pull away again and I wrapped my arms around his neck, desperate to keep him there. I couldn’t let this go. I couldn’t explain it, but deep inside I knew a simple, hard truth. One that I’d tried to deny, but couldn’t anymore.
He’d talked about my happiness.
The best chance I had of it was standing right in front of me.
This time, I let him end the kiss, but I didn’t let him go. Instead, I caught his hand and guided it to my breast. His breath came out of him in a rush, eyes blazing with a desperation to match my own.
Then he caught my hand and, in a rush, he twisted off my ring and hurled it to the far corner of the room.
“Not when my hands are on you.”
Twenty-Three
The darkness of the hallway wrapped around us.
I’d never been back here before, but I didn’t care where he was taking me. Only the man in my arms mattered.
The studio had a private area in the back and I knew Flynn and I had half-stumbled, half-groped our way down here, pausing every few feet for him to push me back up against the wall and kiss his way down my neck, then back up to my mouth, all the while his fingers were busy underneath my skirt. My panties had met their end somewhere behind us.
He’d made me come twice already, but every time I’d reached for him, thoughts of reciprocation on my mind, he’d gripped my hands and tugged me further down the hall.
“In a bed,” he mumbled against my mouth. “In my bed.”
I liked the sound of that. Flynn’s bed…
It never occurred to me to think about the fact that his bed should have been at his apartment, but then again, with one hand between my thighs, talented fingers stroking my clitoris, I wasn’t exactly thinking very clearly.
When my knees started to give out during my third climax, he half-tossed me over his shoulder and we’d stumbled into a darkened room.
I caught sight of the bed and a big window, shaded by drapes. I didn’t notice anything else though, because Flynn was coming down over me, one knee on either side of my hips as he reached for the long series of buttons that ran up the front of my shirt.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said against my mouth. “I dream about you, having you with me. I feel your skin against mine. I smell the scent of you…”
Every word made me burn hotter. Every rasp of his calloused hands down my arms, my sides, my hips, my thighs, had me shivering and arching closer until I had my legs wrapped around his hips, grinding against him and hating the material that still separated us.
Neither one of us seemed willing to let the other go and he fumbled my skirt up over my hips while I worked and pulled at his belt, the button on his khakis. He untangled my legs from his hips and levered up on to his knees, staring down at me in a way no man had ever looked at me before. Breathless, I sat up and slowly tugged on the zipper of his trousers, his cock heavy and full under my fingers, pulsing with a rhythm that seemed to echo inside me. When my fingers wrapped around him, he swore softly, his eyes never leaving mine.
We removed nothing else. He drove inside me with one deep thrust and I caught my breath, arching up to take him while something inside me sighed out in completion. It felt like the missing pieces of me had finally been put back. I was slick and wet, gripping him tight as my body molded itself around him.
Our hands reached out, sought…connected. His fingers threaded between mine, fitting together perfectly, just like the rest of us.
Then he started to move.
I rose to meet him and shuddered. The sensations inside me weren’t like before. They weren’t lust. They weren’t even just desire. What I was feeling was like the kiss. This was everything and the feel of his stroking deeper, harder, driving me closer and closer to another orgasm was almost too much. Everything was too much and I could feel myself wanting to pull back, needing to pull back because if I didn’t, I was going to explode.
Flynn rolled onto his back and took me with him. He caught my hips and stared up at me with hungry eyes. “Tennessee...”
His whisper rolled through me, warming things I hadn’t realized had been cold, places I hadn’t known existed. Places that only he could speak to.
His hands sought out my breasts and I stopped bracing my weight on his chest long enough to reach up and fumble my buttons loose so I could feel his skin on mine. The memory of his hands, slathered in red pain, covering my breasts flashed through my mine, and heat washed through me, but not embarrassment or regret. Need.
It was raw and powerful and real, so real, it left me shaking.
“I need you.”
The words came out from him in a heartbreaking confession and I felt my own response echo inside of me. But before I could voice it, he arched and groaned, driving up inside me, the head of his cock passing over that spot deep inside and I cried up, rocking and twisting, the friction rubbing exactly where I needed it.
“Flynn!”
As I came, he twisted our position again, putting me flat on my back, staring up at him. Even as my body shook and convulsed around him, he drove into me, quick and hard, stealing away my scream with a deep bruising kiss. He swelled impossibly, and then I felt him come and it was my turn to swallow his cries.
He slumped down on me and I was left devastated by the force of what had just happened between us. By what I now knew.
He clutched me tight against him, pressing his face against my neck, and although I could barely force air in and out of my lungs, I clung to him just as tight, held him inside me.
The knowledge burned inside me, something I should have figured out long before now.
Squeezing my eyes closed, I buried my face against his heaving chest and tried to pretend I hadn’t just figured things out. If I’d thought I’d been a mess before, I knew I was really in trouble now.
He rolled off me and I felt the sudden pang of loss. Once again, I wasn’t whole. That piece of me was missing and now I knew what it was.
“We…” He paused and sucked in a deep breath, blew it out. He did it again and then managed to speak, “Tennessee, I need to tell you something.”
Ice flooded my veins and I tensed, stomach twisting. I should have known better, and it was my own fault this time. Forcing a smile, I sat up. “If you’re going to point me in the direction of the shower, I remember where it is.”
I’d be mature about this, no matter how badly I was hurting. I’d gone into this with my eyes open. I wouldn’t blame him.
Flynn sat up with me and before I could climb out of bed, he pulled me back onto his lap. I was too surprised to resist, but not nearly as surprised by what came next. He pushed my hair back from my face and then leaned down, pressing his forehead to mine. “I’m in love with you, Tennessee.”
Twenty-Four
“Don’t.” My voice shook as I fought to get free of him. He let me go and I ha
lf-fell in my haste. Stumbling away, I smoothed my skirt down in an attempt to regain my composure. “Don’t. You don’t get to do that.”
I shook my head, fighting tears. I’d been ready for things to end the same way they had before, with him treating me the same way he treated all of his conquests. The way he’d treated me before. Like I didn’t matter once he’d gotten off. I hadn’t been prepared for a new lie.
He was already out of the bed, zipping up his pants and looking ridiculously beautiful.
“I don’t get to do what? What, fall in love with you?” Flynn shrugged. His tone was casual. “I’m sorry, Tennessee. Nobody gave me the rule book. Wouldn’t have mattered anyway. I suck at following rules.”
“Stop it!” I glared at him. “Don’t be...” I made a noise of pure frustration.
“Don’t be what?” he asked. His eyes narrowed.
“Don’t talk to me like...” Like I matter to you. I couldn’t say that though. “Don’t stand there and look at me like you meant that.”
“I did. I do.” The dim light shadowed his face and he moved around me. I flinched a moment later as light came in in a harsh glare, all but blinding me. He continued before I could say anything else. “I think I started to fall for you the day you flipped me off.” He laughed. “It only got worse after that. Every time I saw you and couldn’t have...but it wasn’t until you were in the wreck that I really knew I was in trouble.”
I heard his sigh as I wrapped my arms around my middle and started to rock. I didn’t want to hear this. Didn’t want to dare to think about what it might mean.
“That’s why…” His words trailed off.
I told myself I didn’t want to know, but I couldn’t not know. “What?” I demanded, shaking inside.
“That’s why I’m leaving.”
I darted a look at him from the corner of my eye, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was staring at something on the far wall. “I can’t stay here day after day and see what I can’t have. It’s driving me crazy, Tennessee. It’s making me hate myself, hate my brother…”