The Perfect Life (31 page)

“But . . . but he’s sorry,” I argued, my heart breaking for both of them, “and you know he lov—”

“Did he ask me to come?” he interrupted. “Does he want me to be by his side to support him as his lover?

I sighed. “No, but—”

“But nothing, Roe. I’m tired of being his dirty secret. I deserve more, just like you do.”

Swallowing hard, I resisted the desire to tell him about Oliver and the night before. If Colin found out I told Seth first, it would hurt his feelings, and with everything else going on, I didn’t need to pile it on. So instead, I replied, “I understand. Sorry I woke you up.”

“No need to apologize, baby girl.” Seth’s voice softened. “If
you
need me, call any time. You’re still my number one girl.”

“’Kay, I will.”

“Bye Roe. I love you.”

“I love you, too. Bye, Seth.”

The remainder of the drive, I tried to not think about what Colin’s reaction would be when I relayed Seth’s message by losing myself in terribly off-key singing to Top 40 songs on the radio. But when I found him in the medical wing of the team’s training facility and conveyed his ex-lover’s message, I watched the giant of a man who I loved crumble in front of me, destroyed by physical and emotional pain. Wanting to comfort him in any way possible, I went to him and held him in my arms for a long while as he sobbed into my chest.

After he got out whatever it was he needed to get out, he pulled away from me, kissed my cheek, and then spoke. “Doc says I really did a number on the shoulder. In addition to the separation, I have a partial tear in one of the ligaments, and I’m gonna need surgery to reset, repair, and tighten the surrounding tendons, in hopes it’ll prevent future instability. He says I’m looking at eight to twelve weeks normally, but is recommending this brand new rehab place down in Miami. He thinks with whatever cutting-edge treatments they’re doing, I could maybe be back in five or six.”

Disappointment washed over me, though I tried not to let it show. This decision wasn’t about me.

“Is that what you’re gonna do?” I asked.

He nodded hesitantly. “If you think you’ll be okay here by yourself? You know you’ve got my parents, Seth and Effie, and now Oliver around if you need anything. Plus, I’m only a short plane ride away.”

I forced a smile and ran my fingers through his short hair. “Don’t worry about me, babe. All I want is for you to get fixed up the best way possible.”

“I love you, Roe,” he said with a sad smile.

“Love you too, big guy.”

Later that day, Colin underwent successful surgery to repair his shoulder, and the next morning, he was on the team plane bound for Miami, Florida for a minimum of four weeks.

Four weeks I had alone.

With Oliver.

“We laid in bed

and watched the clocks

around us dance

until time to us,

was only the rise

and fall of our

ruptured heartbeats.

We kissed and we kissed

until we knew no other taste

and we no longer understood

the pattern of a day as

we fell in love with the

colors and the world

between each other’s

eyelids.”

–Christopher Poindexter

Oliver

“I’M REALLY GLAD
you let the beard grow back out,” Monroe quipped as she melted into the mountain of pillows beneath her head, eyes squeezing shut and chest heaving in her post-orgasmic state.

As I looked up at her naked body from my vantage point between her legs, a deep laugh rumbled up through my chest into the back of my throat. “Is that so?” I smirked, licking the sticky, sweet taste of her release that coated my lips.

“Mhmmm,” she moaned while sifting her fingers through my hair. “And I’m glad you haven’t cut this either. I like to pull on it when
it
happens.” Her grip tightened near the roots as she said the words, triggering my dick to jump in response.

After over three straight weeks of spending almost every non-working moment in that bed with her, I knew damn well she liked to pull my hair when she came. And even more than that, I knew I fucking loved every single time she did it. Even from the beginning, when I was careful to move slowly with Monroe, wanting her to feel in control and not pressured, she would twist her fingers in my mop of waves and yank hard each time she climaxed, regardless if it was on my hand, my mouth, or my cock. Which was often. Really often.

With Colin being out of town for at least the entire month of November, and Monroe and me in the full swing of the honeymoon phase of our relationship, we rarely left my apartment. When we weren’t working, we were in my bed, naked, either exploring each other’s bodies or watching movies on Netflix. Occasionally, we ate, showered, and slept, and all of that we did together too. The only time we spent apart was on Thursday nights when I played at Riff’s and she’d have dinner at the children’s home. We didn’t want to take a chance of someone associating her being there only on nights I performed, so she utilized those evenings for some quality time with the kids.

Effie had started showing up more frequently during the work week as we neared the December first closing date on the house, and even though I hated when she was there, because I couldn’t touch or kiss or break for a quickie when I wanted with Monroe, she actually proved to be a pretty good employee, and I was happy Monroe had her working for her. Her persistent, unrelenting personality annoyed the shit out of me when she was coming on to me, but it paid off big in the business world. Plus, I kind of liked it when Monroe would get jealous while Effie flirted. On those days, she’d damn near attack me the moment the poor girl walked out the door and the lock was turned. Her carnal need to mark me inflated both my ego and my shaft, which usually led to some pretty off-the-fucking-reservation, oh-my-God-she’s-the-thing-dreams-are-made-of sex. So yeah, maybe I didn’t mind Effie all that much.

“Well, beautiful girl,” I pushed up on my hands and knees, pausing to feather my lips over her sweet spot one last time before crawling up the length of her frame, “as much as I’d love for you to pull my hair again right now, we need to jump in the shower and get ready to head to the airport. I don’t want to be late for Callie’s flight to arrive.”

“Ugh,” she complained, scrunching up her nose in the cutest way. “I don’t want to sleep without you for a week. This sucks.”

Chuckling, I stole a kiss from her pouting lips and rolled off the mattress before I allowed myself to get lost in her again. “I’m not arguing that with you, but it is what it is. My niece will be here for three nights, and then I’ll be at my parents’ house for four. But I’ll be back before you know it, and then I can show you how much I missed you.”

Her lids fluttered open and she looked over at where I was standing next to the bed. “You’re not getting tired of me yet?”

“Of course I’m not, weirdo,” I scoffed, throwing her a don’t-be-ridiculous look. “I think I’ve made it pretty damn clear how I feel about you. You’ve been in my bed every night for twenty-one straight nights, and it’ll take another twenty-one hundred before I could even think of getting tired of.”

The instant her forehead dipped into a low V, I knew I’d screwed up the math. “That’s like six years,” she confirmed my fuck-up.

“Well, I meant twenty-one thousand. I can’t math when you’re laying there all naked, looking warm and inviting in my sheets, and Iron Chef is controlling ninety-eight percent of my brain activity,” I contended.

Monroe grinned impishly as she scooted her body toward the edge of the mattress and locked her ankles around my ass. “Are we at a hundred percent yet?”

“Almost,” I grunted, unable to resist her.

Slightly tilting her hips, she rubbed her wet center up and down the length of my throbbing shaft. Her daring green eyes never left mine, and finding her inner vixen, she cupped her own breasts and began rolling her nipples between her fingers. “How ‘bout now?”

With a feral growl emitting from my chest, I scooped her off the bed and carried her to the shower, where I gave her every damn percent I had in me before we washed up and got dressed. It was with ten minutes to spare that Monroe parked her blue Volvo in the VIP lot at the airport, and the two of us put our romance on a temporary hold as we walked inside to pick up Callie—together, but not together like I wished we could be.

“I still can’t believe you didn’t tell me you know Monroe Cassidy!” my seventeen-year-old niece exclaimed for at least the fourth time that day as her gaze bounced back and forth between me and Monroe, who was sitting next to me in the corner booth at the Lobster House, where we were finishing up our early dinner. “And I still can’t believe I’ve been hanging out with her all day!”

Callie glanced over at the younger teenage girl next to her as she shoved a French fry in her mouth. “And you’re basically gonna live with her! How bad-ass is that?”

JoJo smiled wide and nodded. “It’s really cool when she brings Clutch around too. They’re both awesome.”

“Oh, my God, he is sooo dreamy,” Callie swooned. “Do you have anything signed by him?”

As the girls dove into a lengthy discussion filled with giggles and squeals about how amazing Colin Cassidy was, I glanced over at Monroe and smiled like an idiot, unable to contain my happiness over how well the day had gone so far. After we scooped Callie up from the airport, we drove to the Suffolk County home to pick up Heather and JoJo to join us on our day of sightseeing around the city, but unfortunately, Heather had come down with a nasty cold the night before and couldn’t come.

So the four of us had ventured out into the crisp, sunny November Sunday afternoon, first taking the Boston Movie Mile Walking Tour, where a local actor guided us around by foot for a couple of hours, pointing out prominent landmarks and well-known neighborhoods that have been a part of major motion pictures and network TV shows. Monroe had quietly pointed out her house to me when we passed it during the portion of the tour that led us through the winding, tree-lined streets of the historic Beacon Hill neighborhood. I wasn’t expecting the pang of jealousy that shot through me at the sight of the house she shared with Colin, but it was there nonetheless. Even if he didn’t know her in the intimate sense that I did, he was still legally her spouse, and together they owned a house, cars, and who knew what else. Her heart and body may have belonged to me, but she was his wife.

That fleeting twinge of self-pity had been the only snafu in the entire day, and thankfully, no one but I knew anything about it. I’d known exactly who Monroe was and what I was signing up for when she and I began our relationship. Admittedly, I’d felt infinitely better about my sealing the deal with the whole adultery thing once I knew that Colin and Monroe weren’t husband and wife in that sense of the word. Even if I wasn’t aware of that fact until after I made the decision to take her as mine, I chose to ignore that minor detail. After all, it was just semantics. The important thing was that I was the only man on the planet who had experienced the heavenly sensation of being buried deep inside her, and if I had it my way, that’s the way it would stay.

“Are you about ready to meet some ghosts?” I teased Monroe when the girls excused themselves to the restroom, alluding to the Haunted Boston Ghost Tour we were getting ready to leave the restaurant and head to.