Avoiding Temptation (37 page)

“Aren’t I supposed to be here to help you with
your
wedding?”

“Yes, but my wedding is planned. You just need to show up.”

“Then, what am I doing here?” Lexi asked, exasperated. She had gotten out of work for this.

“Because you needed to get away from Atlanta.”

Lexi opened her mouth to protest.

“Away from that divorce, by the looks of it. Maybe away from Ramsey for a bit, too.”

Lexi sighed heavily and rested her head back against the couch. “Isn’t this supposed to be the happiest time of my life?”

“I think a lot of people find wedding planning to be insanely stressful. And while the day of is supposed to be spectacular since it’s one big party…it’s usually pretty nerve-racking and stressful, too. I don’t think it’s strange that you’re freaked-out by this,” Chyna said thoughtfully. “I mean, especially because you freak out about everything.”

“You must have me confused with someone else.”

“Try and tell me that half of this anxiety doesn’t come from Jack’s imminent divorce.”

“Not half—”

“And the other half doesn’t come from shit with Ramsey—the past of lies, that Elisa bitch…what happened last summer.”

“Let’s not talk about that,” Lexi snapped.

“Okay, fine,” Chyna said, throwing up her hands. “Live in your delusional life right now, but one day, you are going to have to face up to all of these anxieties. Wouldn’t it be better to just tell me about them, so you can move on, rather than sitting in your head and obsessing over everything? I’m here for you. I know the stupid shit you’ve done. You know the stupid shit I’ve done. I’m not going to judge you. What do you want, Alexa? What makes you happy through all of this?”

“I don’t know.”

“Seriously?” Chyna asked. She planted her hands on her hips and practically glared at Lexi. “You don’t know what you want?”

“I mean…I know what I want.”

“Then, just forget all the other bullshit. Forget all the drama—Ramsey, Jack, Bekah, Parker, Elisa, John. Just forget it. Tell
me
.”

“I want Ramsey,” she said automatically.

“I told you to forget about the bullshit. Don’t feed me cookie-cutter answers. I know that you love him, and you agreed to marry him, but that doesn’t tell me what
you
want,” Chyna cried. “Why does this have to be so difficult? You know what I wanted most of my life?”

“One-night stands?”

Chyna gave her a stilted laugh. “I wanted my parents to leave me alone. I wanted to forget about how much they fucked me up when they got divorced. I wanted their memory not to taint every relationship…every thought of a relationship…even a friendship. And you know what? Then, I found you. They can’t touch you. So, I won at least part of that even if I have to fight the rest of it daily. I won. They didn’t. I got what I wanted. I found a best friend who didn’t treat me like they did, who treated me like a person. I’ve made mistakes…I mean, every once in a while,” she said, raising her eyebrows with a smirk on her perfect lips. “But I knew what I wanted, and I wasn’t going to settle for less than that.”

“While I appreciate the sentiment, are you going to tell me you didn’t settle for less than that all of those years you were sleeping around with half of Manhattan?”

“I wasn’t looking for a relationship then. I’m sure I wouldn’t have found one with the guys I was taking home. Aren’t you surprised I’m getting married?”

“A hundred percent,” Lexi said without skipping a beat.

“Bitch!” Chyna cried. “Anyway, this isn’t about me. I was stupid, and I didn’t go after what I wanted all the time either. I fucked it up with Adam twice, but once I realized that he was it, I haven’t looked back. I just
know
. It’s like after Marco blacklisted me for over a year. I just didn’t give in to his demands, but I still went after modeling. I never stopped. Then one day Corsa calls me back, says that Marco lifted the blacklist, and that she wants me for fashion week. I won. I got what
I
wanted. So, cut the bullshit and talk to me.”

Lexi took in a shuddering breath. Chyna wasn’t messing around, and Lexi couldn’t act like it was all a joke any longer. Just considering everything Chyna had said made Lexi want to burst into tears. Because the truth was that her head had been so fucked-up for so long that she didn’t even know what she wanted.

She thought that was Ramsey. She had certainly been saying it was Ramsey for long enough. He was perfect. He loved her fiercely. He wanted what was best for her. There was absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to be with a man like that.
How could she resist a man who treated her like that?

But then, there was that feeling…that moment…that ate away at her heart.
Doubt.
Chyna had hit the nail on the head. She had been with Ramsey for almost three-and-a-half years now, and she still couldn’t say whether or not she actually trusted him. It felt ridiculous—absolutely ridiculous.
How could she waver about someone when she had been with him that long?

But it still sat there—that seed of doubt—creeping up her spine, spreading out through her nerve endings, paralyzing her when she least expected it.

“I want to…stop feeling like I have to try so hard,” she finally whispered. “I feel like I’ve spent all this time just trying to hold in everything. I can’t be irritated about Parker because I’m friends with Jack. I have to just forget about Elisa because the company wants to forget about Elisa. I have to just accept the man who works a country-club life because he did it for me—when I never asked for any of it! I just have to accept that Ramsey did everything for me because he loves me. I just have to accept that Bekah is trying to tear Jack apart when all I want to do is make it right. I can’t seem to do anything without my past creeping up and smothering me. Above all else, I just want to forget about my past and live my present. Why is that so fucking hard?”

She hadn’t been able to hold in the tears.
God, she hated that.
But they came to her anyway, and she buried her head into her hands, trying to force them to stop.

Chyna sighed, and Lexi felt the couch dip in when Chyna sat down next to her. She rubbed Lexi’s back, and they let her tears run their course.

“I think the problem isn’t that you can’t forget your past. It’s that you don’t really want to,” Chyna spoke finally.

“What?” Lexi asked, swiping the back of her hand against her cheek.

“Your past shapes who you are as a person. It’s made you into the person you are today. Jack left his mark on you, and Ramsey left his mark on you. Scars can last forever.”

“I know that it shaped me, but that doesn’t mean I can’t change.”

“Of course you can change,” Chyna said, clearly trying to hold in her usual cattiness. “Everyone can change, and I think you have. I just think that the one thing you haven’t changed is running from the things you want. It’s like you think you’re not good enough, like you don’t deserve the world and more—but you do.”

Lexi brushed off Chyna and stood. She made a full circuit of the living room before making up her mind about what she wanted to say.

“You tell me all of this—you say that I run from what I want, that I deserve more, but I don’t know what else I could do to make that a reality. I’ve pushed myself completely into this relationship. I moved to Atlanta. We moved in together. We’ve gone through highs and lows, ups and downs, sideways and back ways—”

“I don’t need to hear about your sex life,” Chyna said, arching an eyebrow suggestively.

Lexi chuckled but continued on, “I’m just saying that I have tried everything and more to make this relationship work. Doesn’t that
prove
that’s what I want? Doesn’t that
prove
that I deserve to have some semblance of peace and happiness?”

“You’ve put everything into this relationship?” Chyna asked softly.

“Yes!” Lexi cried, exasperated.

“Then, just answer my one question,” Chyna said, moving to stand directly before Lexi. “Why haven’t you been able to let Jack go? Through all of this…he’s still here.”

“I’ve let him go. We’re just friends.”

“He told you he loved you and wanted to take you home with him. I don’t have friends like that.”

“Are you
trying
to push me toward Jack? He got married! He married Bitch Bekah!”

“And now, he’s divorcing her! I’m not saying that you have to run back to Jack…again. I’m just telling you to think about your life, Alexa. I’m telling you to be a grown-up and realize that some of what you’re going through might just be your own fucking fault! You might love Ramsey and have put everything into this relationship, but you’re only fooling yourself when you keep saying that you and Jack are just friends,” Chyna said, pushing Lexi’s shoulder in a rage. “I think that’s what pisses me off the most. You can have it, have all of it, what everyone searches for, but you do everything in your power to fight it!”

Lexi sagged visibly, feeling the weight of Chyna’s words. “I don’t know how to do anything else.”

Pushing open the door as quietly as possible, Lexi eased into the apartment she shared with Ramsey. She had bumped up her flight from New York and taken the red-eye back that night. Chyna had tried to get her to stay longer, but Lexi knew where she needed to be tonight. She had taken off the weekend to work with Chyna on wedding plans, but Lexi really needed to be here, working on things with Ramsey.

She needed to see him, to touch him, to hold him, to remember why she loved him so damn much. She didn’t normally need that reminder. She didn’t have to be around him at all times to feel those three-and-a-half years envelop her like a blanket. But tonight—well, tonight was different. Chyna had made her all topsy-turvy, and she wanted to be right-side up again. She wanted her initial gut reaction, the one she had been saying over and over again for three years, to be instinctual, to always be at the tip of her tongue. She didn’t want to think about anything else.
That
was what she wanted.

In that moment, she didn’t care if she was lying to herself about it.

She shut and locked the door behind her and then tiptoed upstairs through the darkened apartment. She had left her bags in her car since she didn’t want to have to haul them upstairs in the middle of the night. All she wanted was to see Ramsey.

Her feet carried her to the end of the hallway. She stood in front of the closed door to their bedroom and took a deep breath before pushing it open.

Ramsey was lying on his side of the bed, curled in, facing where her body normally lay next to him. He looked so calm with the covers falling half off his bare muscular torso. She smiled at the familiar picture—one that she had grown accustomed to and taken for granted. She got to sleep next to him every night. Even when she staggered into bed, exhausted, she still felt the warmth of his embrace and the acceptance between them. Those were the things that mattered.

Lexi easily stripped out of everything but her underwear and crawled into bed, next to him. He didn’t even stir as the bed dipped under her weight. Moving forward, she pressed her chest against him and then her whole body. Without even opening his eyes, his arm came around her, holding her gently in place against his body.

She trailed her hand up the definition in his six-pack, to his built chest, up his neck, and then to the strong jawline. At first, her lips landed on his lightly, but then her increasingly demanding kisses began rousing him from slumber.

His fingers digging into her back was the first indication that he had awoken, and then his lower half pressed into her before finally his lips parted to let her tongue inside his mouth. They kissed passionately, desperately, as she fed him every emotion locked away in her body. He didn’t hold back either as he began a slow grind against her. She could feel him stiffening through the thin layer of clothes separating them.

“Baby,” Ramsey growled against her mouth, rolling her over and pressing her firmly into the bed.

“Mmhmm…”

“You’re home early.”

“I needed you,” she said, giving him the most honest answer she had.

She needed the physical connection now more than ever before. She needed the reminder tonight that she was making the right choice.

“I love to hear that,” he groaned. He spread her thighs and eased down between them, continuing to grind against her.

“Make love to me,” she all but whimpered as his cock pushed against the thin material of her underwear.

Removing their last layer of clothes, Ramsey settled back down between her legs and took her for his own. She felt him pull back and meet her again and again, and she tried to keep her mind in the here and now.

This was what she wanted. She wanted to have this feeling, to know he was hers and she was his. To feel him and know that she was going to have this for the rest of her life…that this was what she wanted for longer than that.

She could feel him straining to release, and her walls were tightening around him, quaking at his measured thrusts.

She loved this man.