But I wasn’t. I wanted to talk to him. I wanted to find out why he was there. Look at him and wish he was more. To wish he was the guy in a fairytale. To wish all kinds of pointless things that I’d never have. That would never be.

  I didn’t though. I turned my attention back to Eli, where we were walking, the night sky, anything but Cruz. It wasn’t fair to leave Eli to talk to Cruz nor was I taking him back there with me. Cruz saw us. He knew Eli was here now. He also would know I chose Eli.

  Each step we took further away from Cruz my heart ached. It was all I could do to not turn and run to him. To beg him to be different.

  When Eli asked if I wanted an ice cream, I smiled up at him and said I did. Then I chanced a glance back. Cruz was still there.

  He needed to leave. I needed him to go somewhere else now.

  The Sugar Shack had a line out the door. It was the only ice cream place in town and it drew a crowd. We got in line and watched as kids begged for candy and other treats. Parents were on vacation and all smiles. The daily stress of the day gone. Many had a frozen adult beverage in their hands. I tried to focus on the scene around me and not look back.

  “This place seems popular,” Eli said.

  “It’s the only place for ice cream in town.”

  He looked surprised. “Someone needs to give them some competition.”

  I laughed at that, but took my chance to glance back at Cruz again.

  This time he was gone.

  The heaviness in my chest was there. My appetite for ice cream turned nonexistent. But I smiled anyway. I let myself be a part of the happiness around me. The sun kissed skin of the kids who had no worries, no heartbreak. If only life were still that easy.

  “Eli,” I said as I looked up at him.

  “Yes?”

  “I think I’m a waste of your time.”

  He looked sad for a moment, and then he put his thumb under my chin and cupped my face with his fingers. “You’ll never be a waste of anyone’s time.”

  “What if you’re wrong?”

  He gave me a small smirk. “Then I will have had an amazing memory of a girl who I was lucky enough to know.”

  If only his words made me feel better.

  Glancing back one more time, I looked for Cruz or any signs he would magically reappear.

  I heard Eli sigh softly. “He’s gone, Lila.”

  Eli Hardy

  EVERYTHING SEEMED BRIGHTER when you woke up to the smell of bacon. Last night hadn’t been what I had hoped it would be. Lila was hung up on Cruz Kerrington, and I did my best to ignore the fact she wasn’t completely with me last night. Her thoughts were somewhere else.

  But I liked bacon. Stretching, I yawned and sat up to see Lila in a pair of pink pajamas and her hair in a ponytail standing in the kitchen cooking. That was a view I could spend the rest of my life enjoying. However, the more time I spent with her, the more I realized she was going to be the one that got away. The girl I talked about years and years from now when reminiscing about old times.

  “Smells good,” I said my voice still thick from sleep.

  She lifted her head from whatever she was stirring in a bowl and grinned. “Nothing special. Pancakes and bacon. But I do have fresh blueberries and blueberry syrup to put on them. Even some whip cream if you’re feeling adventurous.”

  I chuckled and stood up. “I’m always feeling adventurous. Especially with pancakes.”

  Lila’s gaze traveled down my bare chest, so I took my time reaching for the shirt I’d discarded last night. Let her take her fill. I knew my chest was impressive. I worked hard to keep my body in shape. I watched her, and when she realized she’d been caught checking me out she looked away and blushed adorably. I considered staying shirtless but decided that was desperate.

  Tugging my shirt over my head, I walked over to the kitchen area and pulled out a stool across from where she was working. “I’d offer to help but you seem to have it under control and it looks like you’re almost finished.”

  “I am. Want some coffee?”

  I preferred tea, but I nodded. “Yeah, I’ll get it though.”

  She turned and grabbed a cup. “I got it. Stay seated.”

  I watched her fix my cup. “Cream or sugar?”

  “No thanks.”

  She handed it to me. “There you go.”

  I started to say more when banging on the door downstairs made us both pause. Lila frowned and we waited then. Soon after, it happened again. She moved the skillet off the eye of the stove. “I think someone is at the door.”

  “I’ll check,” I said standing up. “You’re in the middle of all that.”

  “Okay thank you,” she replied and went back to finishing the bacon.

  I was almost down the stairs when I realized who I was about to greet at the door. It was a gut thing. I should have expected him to return after last night. Lila had been so busy looking back at Cruz that she hadn’t realized I checked to see what had her attention. The guy stayed there awhile. Her not going to him was a bold move but I still thought she was weak. Him coming here this morning wasn’t good.

  But this wasn’t my decision to make.

  When I crossed the studio and got to the double doors of the entrance, there he was. Exactly who I expected. Looking like he’d drank a fifth of whiskey and hadn’t slept a wink.

  I wanted to leave his ass out there. Safely away from Lila. From hurting her even more. But then she could have a reason to be mad at me. I wasn’t here to protect her. At least not from this.

  “Cruz,” I said as I opened the door.

  He pushed by me and headed for the back door that led to the apartment. I’d been right about the whiskey—he reeked of it. This wasn’t what she needed. He didn’t seem to give a shit though.

  “Are you trying to crush her?” I asked still standing at the door wishing he’d walk back out of it. He stopped and waited a beat before glaring back at me.

  “You don’t know shit. She doesn’t love you. You’re the fucking bandage.” The hate in his tone was a bit alarming.

  I shrugged. I wasn’t affected by his hate and I wasn’t scared of him. He was built. Tall. But he was hung over, and I had the upper hand. “I know she’s hurting. She’s trying to heal. But you won’t let her. You keep ripping her open again and again.”

  He stared at me. Like he would like to murder me with his bare hands. I didn’t move. I didn’t want to fight the guy. Lila wouldn’t be happy about it.

  “I’m not good enough for her. Why can’t she see that?” He sounded pained. Less anger more regret.

  “I think she can. But can you?”

  His hate flared back to life. “I love her. I would die for her. Take a fucking bullet for her. Can you say that? You barely know her. I’ve known her all my life. Loved her most of it. I just didn’t want to.” As he said the words, I could see the shock in his eyes. He surprised himself. I doubted he’d ever admitted that out loud.

  “You have a funny way of showing love,” I told him.

  He ran his hands through his hair and the wild look in his eyes was a man that was wrecked. “She’s destroyed me. I am fucking ruined. I need her. I’m so damn addicted to her I can’t function. I can’t stand her being with you. That you or someone like you will be the right one. Good enough. That she’ll belong to another man. I can’t fucking stand it!” he ended that with a roar and pulled at his hair like a man possessed.

  “You’ve had too much to drink. Go home. Sleep it off. Think this through and if you still want to come back.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t leave. Not with you up there with her.”

  This was worse than I thought. She was in love with a psycho. Why was no one in her life concerned about this? The guy needed some mental help.

  “If you love her then be the man she deserves. This,” I said waving my hand at him. “Is not that man. You’re a fucking mess.”

  He glared at me and started toward me. His fists were clenched at his sides, so I prepare to defend myself. I hated to hit a drunk man, but I wasn’t going to let him kick my ass either.

  “Cruz!” Lila’s voice stopped him. I looked over his shoulder to see her standing there. So innocent and sweet. This madman she was in love with didn’t match up well at all.

  He paused then turned to her. “Lila.”

  The tears in her eyes weren’t falling yet, but they were there. Unshed.

  “What are you doing?” she asked sounding like a teacher put out with an unruly student.

  “I love you,” he said.

  Her tears broke free then. “I heard.”

  They stood there staring at each other. I walked around them and back upstairs to get my things. I didn’t belong here. Not now.

  Cruz Kerrington

  FIGHTING THIS WAS impossible. I’d tried. I had tried so damn hard. But I couldn’t. Was I good enough for Lila Kate? No. Did she know all my dark secrets? No. Would she love me if she knew? Probably not. She’d hate me. I didn’t want her to hate me.

  She turned and grabbed Eli’s arm as he came back downstairs with his bag. His staying the night here had been the last straw. I’d cracked. My chest exploding would have hurt less than seeing her with him last night. Eating fucking ice cream, walking around town like a couple. I couldn’t stomach it. I knew after that I had to do something.

  “Just let me talk to him. You don’t have to go,” she said to Eli.

  “Yeah, he does,” I argued.

  She frowned at me. “No, he doesn’t.”

  “Yes, I do,” he said saving me from having to argue with her. Because his ass needed to go back to fucking Alabama and stay there. “This,” he said pointing between Lila Kate and me. “This needs resolving. I’m in the way, and honestly, I don’t want to watch any more of the train wreck.”

  I took a step toward him my hands balling into fists. Lila Kate was in front of me before I could take two steps. Both her hands on my chest. “Cruz. Don’t. Just go upstairs. Please.”

  Her big beautiful eyes were telling me to go upstairs . . . to her apartment. That meant I wasn’t the one leaving. So I backed away and nodded.

  “Thank you,” she whispered as if he couldn’t hear her.

  “Don’t touch her,” I warned him making sure he understood I’d find his ass. I’d track him down and make sure neither of his hands worked again.

  “Cruz, please,” Lila Kate begged.

  I turned and walked to the back door only glancing back once.

  “I’m sorry about all this,” she told him. “I never expected him to come here.”

  “But you’re glad he did,” Eli replied.

  “Yes,” she said without hesitation.

  I left them. She wanted me. She wasn’t begging him to stay. Proclaiming she loved him. Crying over him. I hadn’t lost her yet. It wasn’t too late for us. I would worry about my secrets later. The shit I still had to end. Deal with. I’d handle it. For now, I just needed Lila Kate.

  The smell of bacon filled the apartment when I reached the top stair. The large area was a great space. Open, roomy, and Lila Kate had put her touch on it. I smiled at all the reds and yellows. She loved bright colors. Somehow, she made colors that I normally wouldn’t care for attractive.

  There were pancakes on the bar along with blueberries and bacon. She had made him breakfast. Jealousy ate at me. The only thing keeping me sane was the fact the sofa bed was out and used. They hadn’t slept together. The idea of them wrapped up together last night had been what sent me to drinking. At one point, I’d drunk enough that I’d passed out. Only slept three hours before I was awake again tortured over the idea of them together.

  I picked up a piece of bacon and ate it, then went to see if there was milk in the fridge. I was hungry. I hadn’t eaten all night, and the more I thought about Lila Kate cooking all this for Eli, the more I wanted to eat it. Take what he thought was his. It was mine first, dammit.

  “I can’t keep doing this with you, Cruz,” Lila Kate said the moment she entered the apartment. She wasn’t crying anymore. She was more intense. Serious. “This is messing with my head. I’m a wreck. That guy you just ran off is a good guy. He’s sweet and kind. He likes me. He doesn’t need women everywhere to fawn over him to make him feel like a man. He is perfect. Completely perfect. So why is it that the moment you show up I forget all that? Why can’t you see that this is ruining me? This back and forth.” Her hands were on her hips, and she was keeping her distance. I wanted her here with me. Eating this food. Smiling at me. Up on this bar with her legs spread while I fucked her. There was a lot I wanted from her. But only one thing was important.

  “Do you love me?” I asked her. It was simple. It was what I needed to know.

  She sighed and closed her eyes tightly. “Yes. You already know I do.”

  That was what I needed to hear. I walked around the bar and straight to her. She opened her eyes when she heard me approach. They were haunted with pain. Pain that I had caused. Pain that she didn’t deserve. I’d make that up to her. I would spend my life doing it.

  “Then forgive me. Please. Give me another chance. Because Lila Kate Carter, I’m completely in love with you. I can’t see my life without you in it. All I want when I open my eyes every morning is to see you there beside me. And at night to sleep with you in my arms. Just, let me show you I can be that guy. The one you thought you had found in Eli. I can be him. Just a little more fucking exciting because he is too damn structured and you’d soon be bored as hell.”

  “Why now? What changed?” she asked. Still cautious and unsure.

  “Because I can’t fight this anymore. I thought I was protecting you from me, but I can be the guy you deserve. I love you so fucking much there will never be a man that loves you more. That much I can guarantee you.”

  She smiled. It was small and soft then she shook her head in disbelief. “I’m a fool.”

  That wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

  “No, you’re not.”

  She tilted her head back. Her chin lifted. “Yes. I am. Because as I stand here and argue with you, I know that I am going to forgive you. I’ll do it again too if I have to. Why can’t I shake you, Cruz? Why? What is the insane hold you have on me?”

  My heart felt so damn full I wanted to do a fist pump and let out a shout of victory. “I’m pretty damn sweet,” I teased her.

  She smirked. “No, you’re not.”

  “Okay. fine. Maybe not sweet. But I can be. I’m going to be. I am going to be all you need me to be. I swear it.”

  “What happens when you get bored with me?”

  I reached for her then. “I’ve known you all my life. Never once have you bored me. Not even when you were so uptight you could barely walk,” I grinned as I said it.

  She laughed. That had been what I was trying for. “That’s not exactly smooth talking.”

  I held her back and pressed her up against me. “No? I’ll work on that then.”

  Bending down I kissed her lips softly. She leaned into me and kissed back. A soft, pleased moan came from her mouth, and I tasted deeper. Held her closer. This was all I was going to need. It made all the other times, all the other girls and women pale. They were forgettable. Lila Kate had claimed my soul.

  Lila Kate

  THE LAST OF the blueberry pancakes I’d made for Eli were finished off by Cruz as he sat beside me at the bar. His left hand was on my thigh while he used his right hand to eat. He’d kept me close. Even after our kiss, he hadn’t wanted to stop touching me. As if I were going to vanish.

  As unreal as this all was, I was dealing with guilt over the way Eli had left. I’d tried to talk to him and convince him to stay but he’d been right. He and I never stood a chance as long as Cruz was taking up so much space in my heart.

  “This was amazing. I was starving. A night full of regret and Jack Daniels will do that to you.”

  I smiled and started to move, but his hand clamped down on my leg. “Don’t go.”

  “I was just going to clean up.”

  He turned to face me and captured my legs between his thighs. “It will keep. You don’t have to clean it just yet.”

  The way he looked at me had me worried this was a dream and I was about to wake up. It was hard to accept. “You just want to sit here and look at each other then?” I asked him enjoying this. In case I did wake up soon and had to be heartbroken over it.

  “We could,” he said then his hands went to my pajama top and pulled it over my head. I hadn’t put on a bra this morning since my pajamas were baggy. My breasts were bared to him. His focus on those and nothing else. “Or I could continue to get you naked, carry you over to that sofa bed and sink my dick into that silky hot pussy of yours,” his voice had lowered to his sexy growl.

  “Oh,” I replied.

  He chuckled. “Yeah, oh,” he repeated and then I was in his arms and we were headed to the sofa bed.

  He nibbled on my ear causing me to squirm in his arms and started whispering exactly what he wanted to do to me. Just like in New Orleans he was focused on me. How he could make me feel. But when he put me down I didn’t lie back. I wasn’t nervous. Not now.

  I reached up and began to undo his jeans. He watched me. He didn’t speak or move. I got them undone and pulled them down his hips until they fell to the ground and he stepped out of them. I then jerked his boxer briefs down and his larger than I remembered thick penis of his sprang free.

  “You keep looking at my cock like that, and we aren’t gonna have any foreplay,” he warned.

  I got on my knees and ran my hands up the front of his thighs. The muscles under my hands tensed. His body went completely still as if frozen. When my right hand wrapped around his hard shaft he groaned. I didn’t give him time to react. My mouth covered the head, and I pulled as much into my mouth with one suck as possible.

  “Fuuuuck,” he groaned and his knees buckling. A hand was on my head, and his thighs were trembled. “Lila, Jesus.”

  As my mouth covered the smooth skin, my hand began to easily slide up and down it with a pump after each lick and pull of my mouth. Cruz began panting. His breath was uneven and hard. I could hear it, and I savored the way he was completely under my control.