Loving Lawson (11 page)

              After he’d filled my basket with clothes, he didn’t lead me to the check out. He spun around and went into a different direction. I wondered if he was going to get himself something too when he abruptly stopped in the baby section. My throat thickened as he began sorting through tiny onesies on a rack.

              “Fuck, they’re small, huh?” he said, whistling in surprise, making other mothers lurking around whip their heads in his direction.

              I stepped next to him and looked at the unisex newborn clothes he was showing me. He started loading another basket up with some, never once checking the price tags.

              I watched the concentration on his face, the way his plump lips pressed down thoughtfully, how his eyes narrowed when he found something he liked… Overall, Heath didn’t look like he belonged in a baby section with his hard face and tattoos crawling all over his body, poking out of the neckline of his shirt. He was too big. Too raw. Too… rough. None of that fit into a delicate little area like this.

              “Some good deals here, Allie,” he muttered. “Go on, have a look.”

              I pretended to have a look, but my eyes were drawn strictly to him and his seemingly endless mission to spoil the shit out of me and… my baby. Warmth settled over me, and I quickly realized I was starting to really like Heath.

And the worst part was I was liking him in a way I should
not
be.

              Shit. This was bad.

              “You alright?” he then asked, looking at me with those piercing brown eyes.

              I realized I’d just been caught staring at him for the last who knows how long. I simply nodded and mumbled a yes as I turned my attention back to the clothes. After he was content with the amount we’d gathered, he paid and we left. Not wanting to go home right away, he grabbed us some take out and we ate it at a park near the apartment. There was a rundown basketball court too, and we settled ourselves on the grass just near to it.

              “We were meant to watch what we’re buying,” I said, contently eating my small basket of chicken salted fries. Oh, my God, pregnancy had me yearning for everything salty. And pickles. Lots and lots of pickles.

              Distracted by the game going on, he shrugged. “We came under budget on groceries. Just enjoy.”

              I took a healthy bite of my hotdog when I heard the giggles of a few girls. “Hey Lawson,” they called out to him as they walked past us in the direction of the basketball court. They couldn’t have been that much older than me, wearing their signature tight clothes, all dolled up and effortlessly beautiful.

              Heath gave them a friendly smile and a nod, returning his attention to the game between the local boys. I watched the girls closely as they stopped near to us and the court, laughing and whispering in each other’s ears. It took no mastermind to know who they were talking about judging by the glances in his direction.

              “They want you,” I said, and then I wanted to do a face palm because how random was that?

              “Hmm?” he said, taking a bite out of his burger, engrossed in the game. “Who wants me?”

              Now I just rolled my eyes. “You know who. Those girls there, staring holes into you.”

              It took a few seconds before he lazily slid his gaze from the game to the three girls. They caught the look and giggled again, louder than before. And this is why I was often excluded in girly cliques; you would sooner find me dead than giggle shamelessly for attention at a good looking dude.

              He chuckled at them. “They’re trying too hard, huh? Maybe I should wear a paper bag over my head or something.”

              “Or you can talk to them. You need to replace Tru, after all, right?”

              His body stiffened and he dragged those eyes over to me. That smile of his was gone, replaced by a bothered look that made me want to take back what I just said. God, I had no filter with him around. Ever since this getting comfortable with each other shit was happening, I’d loosened up remarkably. Even more so than when I was with Ryker. And that said something.

              “Sorry,” I quickly apologized, cringing. “You know… I didn’t mean it… It just… What I meant is…” My brain was running on empty. It was like it knew what I’d said was downright dumb, and I deserved his wrath.

              He stared at me hard, an unreadable look on his face, and then he leaned closer to me. I watched with knitted brows as his fingers came up to the corner of my mouth. “What you meant is…? Go on,” he whispered, the pad of his index brushing my lip. My being tingled at his touch, and it took me a moment to finally break from his gaze to look down at his finger. Sauce. He’d wiped sauce off me… and here I was thinking it was some kind of erotic moment –

              He licked the sauce off his finger and my breath really did leave my body. My mouth parted in surprise, and then I realized,
well, shit, that kinda
was
erotic.

              “Allie,” he prompted me softly, as if he hadn’t just wiped sauce off the corner of my mouth and licked it into his. Then, as if to torture me some more, he darted his tongue and licked at his finger again, like he was prying some more taste out of it. A familiar ache pooled at the bottom of my belly, and my cheeks heated when I knew it to be lust.

              He raised his brows, charming me with another heart stopping smile, and continued to wait. I blinked at him and then looked down at my hotdog, idly wondering if I should just smear some more sauce around the seam of my lips and hope for him to do it again. Maybe he’d do it with his tongue –

             
Enough!

              “Um, well,” I cleared my mouth and shrugged. “I don’t think sometimes. Ignore that remark. It’s none of my business who you lick – er, you know,
see
.”

              He chuckled lightly, like he knew exactly why I was bumbling like an idiot. It took me a moment to regain some equilibrium, and when I was me again – albeit still with that lustful fire brimming at the pit of me – I haughtily asked, “Why did you do that just now?”

              Heath was amused. Of course he was. He didn’t skip a beat when he motioned his head to the girls and said, “A little touchy-feely with you might steer them clear.”

              I glanced at the girls. They were watching, their interest in us growing, proving that his theory had actually the opposite effect. “A little heads up wouldn’t have killed.”

              “But then you wouldn’t have reacted the way you did.”

              “What way?”

              He tilted his head to the side and wiggled those brows. “You know, all breathless and… swept away.”

              I glared at him. “Is that what you think you did to me?”

              He grinned widely – I was sure I heard those girls sigh dreamily – and leaned further into me, until his face was inches away from mine. “Al, I’m a hundred percent sure that’s what I did to you. In fact, tell me your heart isn’t racing right this second.”

              “It isn’t.” It was.

              He knew I was lying.

“No butterflies in the pit of your stomach?” he asked softly.

“No.” Yes.

“Are you really that immune to me?”

“Yes.” No.

He studied me long and hard, at some points moving in the slightest bit closer to me, observing the way I reacted while I fought not to react at all. He did it until I could feel his breaths against my face. And like a deer in the headlights, I’d stilled completely and just watched him. My body was responding to his closeness; my fingers ached to bring him closer, my mouth begged to lean in just a little bit to brush my lips against his, my heart beat faster and my mind buzzed with images of his muscular torso wrapped around me.

I was alive everywhere.

I didn’t think. Didn’t even remember my name. I was absorbed by him. Stuck to the spot like I was a part of the earth. And I spent an awful amount of time wondering how it would feel to be kissed by him. Were his lips as soft as they looked? Would I come undone?

Would I kiss him back?

              He may have been cocky a second ago, but now he was just as trapped by our gaze as me. For a brief moment, I could see he wanted the same thing. Passion and lust pooled in those beautiful eyes, his lips parted, his breathing lightened and –

              “Hey, Lawson, just fucking kiss her already!” shouted a guy.

              Immediately I looked away and breathed in what felt like the first gulp of oxygen in a century. Laughter erupted from the court as the guys watched, no longer playing basketball. I heard Heath exhale loudly and from my peripheral he moved away, but I couldn’t dare look at him. Not for a few more moments. The awkwardness was stifling.

              “Oh, come on! No action?” shouted the guy again, bouncing the basketball with a lack of enthusiasm.

              “Yeah, very funny,” Heath replied, and he didn’t sound one bit amused. They cackled again and he grunted in annoyance before saying to me, “Let’s get out of here.”

              I stood up and walked by his side. It took only minutes – minutes that felt like hours – before he cleared away the strange moment by returning to what he was good at: making me laugh. And while he dissipated the awkward moment like a pro, he couldn’t shake what I felt for him out of me. It seeded itself in all of me and grew, and grew…

              …and grew.

              Lines were blurring, and I couldn’t tell where along the way I stopped caring.

Heath

Thank fuck I didn’t have to see her walking around in Ryker’s clothes anymore. It made my blood boil and my heart quicken with anger. It was irrational as hell, but I felt like she wasn’t properly looked after sitting around in another man’s clothes, even if it was someone she loved.

              And just thinking about her loving Ryker pissed me off. Fuck, I was insane. Maybe I was spending too much time with one girl and that was why I’d developed this kind of possessiveness over her. Maybe I needed to branch out, try and fuck someone soon and banish her from my thoughts. Because it was wrong. It was wrong as hell looking at Allison and feeling this weird as fuck ache deepen from within. I knew what was happening to me, yet I was subjecting myself to this torture with a goddamn smile on my face.

              Racing home from a shit day’s work knowing she’d be there.

              Talking about our days.

              Watching shit television until the early hours of the morning – which included some trash reality show about a girl with a gigantic ass that made me homicidal.

              Pretending to give a fuck about her subjects at school when she talked about them, when all I really liked hearing was the delicate sound of her voice.

              This was getting out of control, and while I was feeling total carnage from within, she knew nothing. I kept myself wound tight, not allowing her to see the affect she was having on me. But the more days that passed, the more that feeling grew, and my anger had escalated to a point of no return.

              I was only thankful I had a big fight.

              I was in the bathroom getting ready, taping my hands up as a means to pass the time. I didn’t want to be around Allie. She dizzied me with thoughts I ended up berating myself for having. I was feeling a little unbalanced. Sleeping hadn’t come easy lately, not when I was spending most of the night on a couch with a girl that I couldn’t touch. I hadn’t had a fucking release in ages – not since Tru – and it was really starting to mess with my head.

              Sex was a big thing for me; a quick, effective way to set me right again. While Tru had been a good fix, I hadn’t thought about her once since she smashed the muffin tray on the kitchen floor and took off. Not cool. But on that note, I hadn’t thought about touching anybody else at all… save for the one I couldn’t. Was I just torturing myself and enjoying the misery derived from it?

              “Another fight?”

              Her voice made me tense for a second. I looked up from my hands and at her standing in the doorway, wearing her little fucking shorts and pink top. An acute like pain in my groin erupted, and I thought,
yeah, I must be torturing myself
. For almost sixteen weeks along, her pregnant belly still wasn’t obvious, though I noticed its rounded shape every time she stretched and her shirt rode up. Most would think she was just bloated.

              “Yeah,” I simply said, looking back down at my hands. I didn’t want to talk. I needed to get this pent up anger out of my system. Needed to fight, needed to fuck, needed to go back to what my life was like before her. There was no reason I couldn’t. Especially when the girl I was pining for was forbidden fruit.

              Fuck, I was pathetic.

              “Do you know where?” she then asked.

              I sighed. “Warehouse again.”

              “Maybe I should come with you and cheer you on. Would be a fun way to spend my –”

              “No,” I cut in sharply, glaring up at her. “Not tonight.”

              At my tone, her frame shrunk back and her excitement washed away. She simply nodded at me and watched me walk out of the bathroom and into my room.

              “You can order pizza,” I curtly told her, opening the night table drawer beside my bed and grabbing a few condoms. I stuffed them in the pocket of my jeans and looked over my shoulder when I sensed her presence. She was standing in the doorway, and her eyes were on my pocket before they shot back up to mine. “I’m going to be a little late tonight,” I added tightly.

              Her gaze continued to flicker from my pocket back to my face a few times, and I could see the understanding there. And the hurt. I didn’t like the feeling it gave me that she knew what I was up to, but I swallowed it down. I was a grown man. Guilt wasn’t a feeling I deserved. I’d done nothing wrong. She wasn’t mine. I wasn’t hers. We had a line that separated us from ever coming together, and I’d nuke it if I could.

              But I couldn’t.

“Okay,” she said quietly, frowning now. Before I could say anything else, she turned around and took off down the hallway. I heard her bedroom door shut quietly.

              I exhaled and ran my hand through my hair. Fuck! I didn’t want to go anywhere. I wanted to spend tonight on the couch, wanted her close enough to feel her heat, listen to her laugh, watch her smile… Pretty much, I wanted to fuck her with my eyes because I couldn’t with my hands.

I’m a sick bastard.

I grabbed my keys and stormed out of there.

*

The fight was a joke. I went up against another steroid injector that was unable to hack a bit of a cardio workout. These meatheads were all the goddamn same, weren’t they? I couldn’t admire someone that took shortcuts looking ripped, so I let him have it.

              I painted his face good with blood, but it was over within minutes, and I was disappointed. My body was thrumming, that adrenaline so high I was tempted to run around a block, maybe jump the prowlers on the streets who were up to no good.

              Instead of storming out of there at the very end and going home like usual, I took Matt up on his offer to crash the bar. It wasn’t my scene since Allie, but I needed a way to exert my energy. I drank a bit with a few fighters and let my eyes wander the room. There were chicks everywhere, giving it up to any man that was up for a chase. I wouldn’t have to chase, and I wasn’t being arrogant by saying this. The girls loved me. I could snatch up two in one night at the same time if it was something I wanted to do.

Instead, I sought out the blue eyed brunettes, knowing damn well why that was. Surely there were prettier girls with that description than the one I was living with. Maybe if I found one, she’d snap me out of the clusterfuck I was in. Finding a girl that was single, not in love with my brother, and not pregnant by him would be gloriously easy…

              But on that note, Allie’s pregnancy was doing some wonders to her body. She was getting some curves in, and I could tell she wasn’t used to the way the clothes fit, hugging her widening hips. Yet she complained about them, and I should have been irritated every time she let her insecurity show, but I was strangely eager to please her and make her see how wrong she was.

             
And now you’re thinking about her AGAIN, you fucking douche.

              “Nice to see you out,” Matt suddenly said, eyeing me from behind his beer as he swallowed a mouth full. “Didn’t think you had it in you anymore.”

              I shrugged at his remark. Ever since the bar incident, Matt was odd to be around. He was always watching me curiously, like there was a baggage of thought behind those eyes.

              “It’s because of Allie, isn’t it?” he then asked.

              I shot him a glare and didn’t reply. He was back on my case about that? Why was he so obsessed?

              “Spending too much time with her, I think.”

              “She lives with me,” I retorted. “Kind of got no choice in the matter.”

              “Not sure Ryker would like it.”

              I bit my bottom lip hard and avoided his gaze. Was he asking for another punch to the face?

              “You trying to start trouble?” I growled out, eyeing him dangerously.

              The smug ass smirked at me. “Nah, man. I’m just saying –”

              “Mind your own fucking business, Matt.”

              “You’re my friend, and I just want to remind you. That’s all.”

              “Remind me of what?”

              He shrugged and looked away, pretending to be occupied by a group of girls in the corner of the bar. Quietly, he answered, “Of what belongs to you, and what doesn’t.”

              I didn’t respond. I was angry. He knew it too, because he got up and nodded once at me before making his way to a few girls. I mulled his words over for several minutes. Asshole was right.

              Fuck, I needed Allie out of my head.

I gulped down a bit of beer before I spotted a girl with long black hair and pale skin, drinking at a nearby table. She caught my gaze and smiled at me.

              And that was my cue.

              I stood up and headed for her.