Finding London (Flawed Heart #1) (26 page)

It was a jerk move. I realize that, but I’m the first to disclose that I’m not always going to handle things the right way—probably ever.

London starts to move beside me. I can tell the moment she realizes that I’m here. A serene smile crosses her face, and her body instinctually moves into mine. She wraps her arms around my back and snuggles her face into my chest.

God, I adore this woman.

I never thought I’d be here, in a place where I feel so much love and happiness. Truly, I didn’t. I’ve fallen hard for London. Now that I’ve found her…I just hope I can keep her.

I return her embrace, dropping my face into her hair, smelling her sweetness. I pull her tighter against me, and my hands roam across her back.

Something shifts. London’s body goes rigid. The languid caresses from moments ago have ceased. If I’m not mistaken, she’s holding her breath, her back no longer rising and falling in contentment.

“London?” I ask cautiously.

Maybe she doesn’t feel well.

Suddenly, she pushes away from me. Her eyes are dark with fury. “What are you doing here? Why are you in my bed?” She looks down to her bare legs before pulling the sheet over herself. “What am I wearing?”

I decide to first respond to the question with the most straightforward answer. “After our shower, I put you in the most comfortable attire I could find.”

“Our shower?” she shrieks. “You got me naked?”

“We were covered in your vomit. I didn’t think you’d mind,” I answer dryly. “I’ve seen you naked before, London,” I say, stating the obvious.

“But”—her voice is a high-pitched shrill—“you got me naked!”

I realize that I’m missing something. London and I are most definitely not on the same page.

“Are you still mad?” I ask.

“Am I still mad?” she yells. “You must be joking!”

“Listen, I said I was sorry. I knew it was wrong. You know I’m not good at this relationship stuff, London. You need to be a little more patient with me. Let me explain.”

“I need to be more patient with you?” she screams.

I have an incredible desire to tell her to keep her voice down. She’s giving me a headache. I might suck at relationships, but I have a feeling that wouldn’t be a wise move. I’ve never seen her so mad.

She continues in her obnoxious tone, “So, I should just be patient with you while you stick your dick in some tramp? I should be understanding of that because you’re”—she holds her fingers up in air quotations—“‘not good at this relationship stuff.’” She ends the quote in a bitchy tone.

“Hold on, wait a minute,” I stop her rant. “What are you talking about?” I ask, completely baffled.

“I’m talking about you cheating on me,” she huffs. “What do you think I’m talking about?”

“Cheating on you?” I question. “I thought we were talking about me not coming over here when I got back last night, for telling you that I had a headache when I didn’t.”

“Well, that’s how it started, but then it ended with you fucking some whore.”

I shake my head. “I…what?”

London pulls the sheet up to her chest and crosses her arms. “Don’t act confused. Please show me a little respect, and stop lying. I deserve that much.”

“I didn’t cheat on you, London.”

“I saw you, Loïc! I saw you with her!”

“What are you talking about?”

“I knew you were lying about the headache. I thought there must be something wrong. I was worried about you. Around midnight, I decided to go over to your house to comfort you. And that’s when I saw you walking into the house…with her.”

Walking into the house with a girl?

I think back to yesterday, and that’s when it hits me. I can’t stop the laugh that erupts from my throat. Now, it all makes sense. “I didn’t cheat on you, London,” I say with a chuckle. “That was my roommate Maggie. You know, my best friend’s girlfriend? She’s like a sister to me.”

“Do you always carry around friends’ girlfriends while groping their asses and letting them kiss your neck?”

“She wasn’t kissing my neck, and I wasn’t groping her!”

“Could’ve fooled me,” she snaps. “Your hand was splayed across her ass, and her lips were on your neck.”

“If my hand was on her, it was simply to help me hold her, and she was just resting her head on my shoulder because she was too drunk to keep it up.”

“Or walk?” London huffs out.

“Yeah, or walk. Cooper and Maggie had a little too much fun a little too quickly at the bar and called me to go pick them up. I did, and I brought them back to our house. Then, I came over here and waited for over an hour for you to come back. That’s all.”

“Why couldn’t Cooper carry her? I didn’t see him anywhere.”

“He was just as drunk and probably stumbled into the house right before you drove by. London, nothing happened with Maggie. I don’t have any desire to do anything like that with her. She’s family.”

“You were laughing.” Her voice is soft.

“Probably. Maggie says some hilarious stuff when she’s wasted.” I shrug.

“In your body language, I could tell that you were very comfortable with her.”

“I am,” I agree. “I love her, London…like a sister,” I repeat slowly. “I would never cheat on you. Ever. That’s not who I am.”

“So, you didn’t have sex with anyone last night?” she questions.

“No.” I shake my head.

“You didn’t kiss anyone last night?”

“Unfortunately, no. The girl I wanted to kiss had vomit spewing from her mouth, and that’s a hard limit for me.”

She starts to smile, and I can see the tension leaving her body.

“You didn’t inappropriately grope anyone last night, especially on the ass region?”

“Maggie? No, not at all. But, in full disclosure, I might have washed your ass slightly longer than it needed, but I just wanted to make sure it was good and clean. It was purely unselfish on my end…for the most part.” I smirk.

“Oh my God,” London says before her shoulders sag. She wraps her arms around her bent knees, lets her face fall to her legs, and starts to cry with full-on shaking body sobs.

I sit up and wrap my arm around her shoulder and hold her as she cries. Her tears go on for a long time, and I continue to hold her and kiss the top of her head. I feel horrible that she thought I cheated.

“I thought I’d lost you,” she eventually chokes out.

“You didn’t.”

“I was a mess. I just…it was horrible, feeling that way.”

“I’m so sorry that you had to go through that.”

“I almost kissed another guy to get back at you,” she cries.

Wait, what?

My entire body stiffens. I have to focus on my breathing because I feel like I’m going to lose all control.

“I mean, I didn’t,” she continues. “But I wanted to. I wanted to hurt you. I went to the bar with every intention of making out with someone else. I thought I’d lost you.”

“What happened with this other guy?” I say slowly, my words measured.

“Oh, nothing. I couldn’t. Even shitfaced and brokenhearted, I just wanted you. I didn’t kiss him. I think we danced. Or I might have just been standing there, and the room was moving. I can’t be certain.” She sniffs and wipes her eyes on the sheet.

I close my eyes and lean my head back against the wooden headboard. She was hurt and confused. I can’t be mad, but, God, I’m so furious. She almost kissed some other guy, which would have most likely led to more. Okay,
almost
is a stretch, but she thought about it…and that’s bad enough.

I’m trying to compose my thoughts when she jumps up and runs to the bathroom.

“I’ll be right back,” she says with extreme cheerfulness.

I hear the buzz of her toothbrush.

Despite my confused state, I can’t help but smile. She has a thing about morning breath. So, the fact that she’s in there, brushing, means that all is forgiven on her end, and she’s ready to make up. Normally, I would be all about it, but I’m having a hard time getting over the reality that she just admitted that she had gone out with the intention of hooking up with someone else less than an hour after I supposedly cheated on her. It doesn’t sit well with me or help my never-ending trust issues.

I understand why she did it and what she must have been going through. Logically, I can rationalize her confession. But, deep down, where my dark issues lie, I’m having a hard time, an extremely difficult time, letting it go. I don’t want to fight with her. I definitely want intense, sweaty make-up sex, but I wish she had kept that confession to herself.

She comes bouncing out of the bathroom without a care in the world. She’s so gorgeous. She jumps onto the bed and straddles me. “I can’t believe you put me in these granny panties. I only wear these when Aunt Flo comes to town. I’m a little embarrassed.”

I want to tell her that I find them extremely sexy on her, but before I get a chance, her hands take my face between them, and she slides her lips across mine. She holds my face and bites my bottom lip before pulling it into her mouth.

And with that, I’m completely ready for her. I’m ready to forget about the past twenty-four hours and fuck her so hard that neither of us will remember that we were fighting in the first place, let alone why.

But I can’t.

I pull my mouth from hers. “London?”

“Yeah?” she says sweetly. Her lips burn a trail down my neck.

Blood pumps through my body at rapid speeds, fueling me with nothing but want and pure desire.

Focus.

“London,” I breathe heavily. “I need to say something.”

“Mmhmm…” she responds as her lips move down my chest.

“London, take your lips off of me.”

She complies with a sexy grin. “But I like my lips on you.”

“I do, too.” I smile. “But, listen, I need to say something, and I can’t concentrate with your lips doing that, okay?”

She nods.

“I understand what you must have been going through last night after you saw me with Maggie. But we are going to have other misunderstandings along the way, and it doesn’t sit well with me that the first thing you wanted to do was hook up with someone else.”

She opens her mouth to protest, but I put my finger on her lips.

“Let me finish. I know you didn’t want to make out with someone else, but you thought about it. You know I have major trust issues. You know that this is all very new to me, but I promised you that I would try. I can’t risk giving you my heart if I know that, at the first sign of trouble, you’re going to destroy me with your actions. I can somewhat understand your reasons for wanting revenge, but I can’t stomach it. The thought of you with someone else makes me sick. It sets fire to the part of me that can’t trust others, the part that puts up walls. I don’t give power to those who might hurt me. I can never be in a real relationship with you if I build walls. You and I both know that. I can’t love you if I don’t let you in, but I’m so afraid to let you in. You have the power to destroy me, London.”

She does. With a few words, she could leave me in ruins, like an ancient city that can never be rebuilt.

“Oh, Loïc,” she says on a whisper. Her eyes glisten with fresh tears. She holds my face between her hands and peppers soft kisses across the skin on my face, paying extra attention to my lips. She pulls back and captures me with her brown eyes. The gold specks that weave through her irises shine brighter through her tears.

She continues to cradle my face as she speaks, “So, we’ve established that I have another flaw, another one of many.” She laughs lightly. “I will work on my communication. I promise you that, no matter how dire the circumstance or how awful it appears on my end, I will talk with you before I jump to conclusions. I promise you this, Loïc,” she says the last sentence with so much conviction that I believe it.

“You have to know that I would never cheat on you,” she continues. “Even when I was certain that you were screwing someone else and that I would never have you again…I couldn’t. At my lowest point, with my heart completely shattered, I couldn’t be with someone other than you. You have to believe me.”

I nod because I do.

“And since we’re talking about flaws, you, Loïc Berkeley, need to work on being honest with me. I know you’re not telling me something. I know something is worrying you. I didn’t believe your headache story for a minute. You promised me, no more running. You have to work on your communication, too. I realize that this is all new to you, so I’m being patient. But I can’t be an open book for you when you’re barely opening up a chapter of yourself for me. You have to trust me enough to tell me your fears and worries. Let me be there for you. I want to be there for you, too.”

She kisses me again. Her lips caress mine, and right when I’m about to deepen the kiss, she pulls back one more time. Her face is a breath away.

“Do you know why I was going to your house last night? I was going to tell you that I loved you, Loïc. I. Love. You. You can trust me with your heart because I’m not going anywhere.”

Hearing those three words fall from London’s lips helps me more than years of therapy ever could.

This time, I crash my mouth to hers. As my tongue swirls in her mouth, something that she said a minute ago confuses me, and I pull back.

“London, why do you only where these panties when your aunt visits?”

London starts to laugh hysterically and falls off of my legs onto the bed.

“What?”

“Loïc, Aunt Flo is another name for a girl’s period.” She giggles.

“It is?” I ask in astonishment.

“Yes! I thought you lived with a girl. You’ve never heard that before?”

“I don’t talk to her about her period or whether or not she wears special underwear for it. How was I supposed to know that cotton panties are only for that?”

“You’re so cute and naive.” She laughs. “Don’t worry. I don’t let my real aunt see me in my underwear.”

“I thought that was weird.” I scrunch up my nose in disgust.

She just laughs. “Nothing like a conversation about good ole Aunt Flo to kill the mood.”

“I know how to get the mood back. Tell me those three words again.” I quirk up an eyebrow.

“Which ones?”

“You know which ones,” I growl, pulling her hips toward mine.