Chapter 145

He expected her to leave, but she stayed.

She stayed, and they fell face forward into one of those dreams Tyler knew all too well. The dream where Lexi lived here, with him. She slept in his bed and left her things cluttering up his countertop in the bathroom. Bizarre female things that he found fascinating, given the size of her collection and how little she used them. She started to hum again, tuneless little ditties beneath her breath as she moved around the place, and the big, heartbreakingly bright smile she gave him when he joined in made them both laugh.

Tyler knew it couldn’t last, that it wasn’t real. That was why he didn’t do anything truly foolish, like tell his office he would be unavailable for the foreseeable future. And while he thought that his daily forays into reality would make this stolen time with her better, it didn’t.

Because if he’d holed up with Lexi on a deserted island somewhere, it would have been a holiday for both of them. And he knew full well that holidays couldn’t last. They never did.

Instead, he just…had Lexi. In his life. The way he’d always wanted her.

Sometimes she met him out in the city, and he took her to his favorite restaurants. New flash bars and local dives. His club, when he couldn’t make it home without having her. Other nights, he met her back at his and cooked for her, if he had a mind to. Or sometimes, he came in to find her throwing a dinner together for the two of them.

It all made his heart do strange and terrible things inside his chest. Having Lexi in his bed made it far too easy to imagine what it would be like if this was real. Lexi, there in the mornings. All that texting they did, but with Lexi actually there to pop in for lunch. Or to walk the coastal path with him. Lexi to reach over and hold his hand while they talked, as if that was the most natural thing in the world.

And in between all those sweet, domestic moments he’d never wanted, and yet found he hungered for, he got his hands on her. His hands, his mouth, his cock. And he got to live out every last fantasy he’d ever had involving this woman. From cranky morning sex to long, slow, torture for them both. He got to experiment with tying her up to his bed, bending her over the furniture, and watching how melty and sweet she got when he ordered her about.

He kept waiting for a hitch. For something to change, and ruin this thing they had going on. He expected that sooner or later, the fire would dim a bit. But it only got stronger. The more he had her, inventive and mad, or intense and quiet, the more he wanted her. He didn’t see how he would ever be over it. The clutch of her pussy on his cock, the eagerness of her mouth. That body he’d claimed as his, and his alone.

One night, he came home after a particularly long day filled with irritating meetings and the kind of bad mood that even the thought of his Lexi couldn’t alleviate. That was what he thought, anyway, as he came in and saw her curled up in the chair in his bedroom, a book in her lap and her gaze on the sea outside. And she made his heart flip around inside his chest, but today that made his temper kick in.

Because the longer she stayed, the easier it was to forget that this was only temporary. Tyler couldn’t let himself get used to the lift he got when he walked in his house to find her there, because soon enough there would be nothing there but memories. For all the talk they’d had about proper fucking, he knew full well who it was who was getting well and truly fucked here.

“You don’t look happy,” she observed, quietly.

“I don’t want to talk,” he told her, his voice a low growl. “I want to fuck.”

Lexi stared at him a moment, but she didn’t snap back at him. Instead, she stood. And as he watched, peeled off the long-sleeved shirt and flowy pants she wore. Then, still holding his gaze, she walked over to the bed with all her natural elegance, and sat there on the foot of it.

Like the bloody queen.

That only made him angrier. Tyler stalked toward her, that raging thing in him a drumbeat against his ribs. When he got to the foot of the bed, he reached out and hauled her toward him. He tipped her back so that her legs were in the air, her head was back on the bed and he could pull her hips to the edge.

He reached down, yanked the zipper of his jeans open, and his cock was already hard. Ready. Because his cock was always hard and ready when Lexi was around. That was the problem. And she was already wet for him. Because she was always wet for him, and that was one more thing that wouldn’t matter when she left him.

Tyler slammed into her with no foreplay and no kind words, just her hips high and her legs splayed open. She screamed with that same bright joy that lanced through him, arching up off the bed. He gripped her hips and hammered into her, because she was coming already. She was coming over and over, her pussy milking him, hot and tight.

And when she opened her eyes, her gaze was steady. Adoring. Tyler reminded himself that was a lie, too. Or it wouldn’t last anyway, so it amounted to the same thing. He pulled out and flipped her over, so she was bent there over the bed. And he didn’t have to look at those beautiful brown eyes so filled with emotion and pretend he didn’t know what he saw there.

Tyler slammed back into her from behind. He watched her dig her fists into the bedclothes as he pounded into her, their bodies making a delirious sort of slapping sound every time he sank himself to the root. And he could feel it every time she constricted around him, shuddering and shuddering. He went harder. Deeper.