I Choose You (The Billionaire Brothers Series) (39 page)

Angrier than a drug lord whose million dollar shipment just got inauspiciously busted, I pivoted and bolted down the aisle. Before I could get to the exit, one strong arm snaked around my waist, pulling me back.

I swung wildly with my handbag, screaming obscenities, trying to fight him off, but he held me tight, and I kept fighting until we tripped over and stumbled to the floor.

Trevillo’s grip on me grew tighter, making it impossible for me to move. I wriggled until I grew breathless.

When Trevillo brought his lips to my ear, the desperation in his voice made me stop fighting. “Krissy, please, please stop. Don’t leave me. Please. I love you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I said that.” He paused and inhaled. “You’re right. I open my mouth, and bullshit comes out. I shouldn’t have said what I just did. Please, please don’t go. I’m sorry. I just … keep saying and doing all the wrong things. I can’t get it right.” He buried his face in the crook of my neck and begged my skin, “Please,
stay
. Stay with me.”

Even though I made up my mind to stay the minute he started begging, I kept my mouth shut and my body stiff.

It was in that very inappropriate moment I came to understand why Marsha continued to take Jahleel’s shit. She did it because of love, a love she couldn’t fight off. A love she didn’t want to fight off. A love she wanted to hold on to even though it was one-sided and full of bullshit.

Trevillo was full of bullshit, too. I knew it was idiotic to want to stay with him, because he was unpredictable and clueless about preserving a woman’s heart. He wasn’t intentionally pushing me away, he wanted me. He just didn’t know how to keep me. And I understood that. All of it.

This relationship was hazardous, because he wasn’t normal, he was different. He would break me, and then break me further as he tried to mend me, because he was just what Sarah said he was: a destroyer. His hands were just as he said they were: destructible.

I should be running in the other direction right now, but I was willing to stay with him and be the dummy he practiced with until he got it right. Because I loved him that much.

Trevillo loosened his hold so he could turn me around to face him, but promptly tightened his grip again as if he was afraid I’d bolt.

“Remember when you told me you didn’t have the time to deal with a fucked-up man?”

I didn’t answer, but he continued. “Well, I’m pretty fucked-up right now. Badly. And luckily, I’m your boss. So, maybe if I cleared your schedule to give you all the time in the world, fire you even … ” I started to smile, but he was as serious as a plane crash, “ … you would, I dunno, deal with my fuckedupness?”

When I tried to lift my hand to touch his face and couldn’t, he loosened his grip. I trailed my fingertips along his sharp jaw line which had a light shadow of stubble, then I traced the outline of his lips as he sighed and leaned into my touch.

Letting out a sigh of my own, I responded, “You have to promise me you’ll stop running when things get hard. Because every time you do, it breaks me, Trev. And I don’t know how many times I can get broken and still remain whole.”

A hint of a hopeful smile whispered across his lips. “Babe … promise.”

I leaned in and kissed him, relishing the warmth I’d missed so much.

“Swear to God, Krissy, this is
not
how I saw the day going,” he said with a light chortle. “I was so sure I was ready to face you … ” He moved his hand up to the back of my neck, pulled me in, and kissed me again. A softer, more passionate kiss than he was known for. “Just … stay. I promise, I won’t ever let you regret it.”

As if I would’ve said any other words, “I will.”

Then I added, “
But
, only if we redo the last fifteen minutes, starting with you telling me we’re going to the Caribbean in a more ecstatic voice so I can have the proper reaction to such
amazing
news — that’s squealing like a teenager and running around with my hands flailing in the air.”

Hugging me tighter, Trevillo shook his head and laughed. “Really, Krissan?”

“Yes,
really
.”

With a slight roll of his eyes, he cleared his throat and said, “Babe, we’re going to the Caribbean!”

Grinning, I told him, “Now, cover your ears.”

Before he could even complete the action, I tore my mouth wide open and squealed.

As soon as the seatbelt sign went off, I unbuckled the restriction from around my waist and crossed over to Trevillo’s seat where he sat with his eyes closed and his head tossed back.

When he felt me sit down on his lap, his eyes flicked open. We hadn’t done much talking since our little tiff earlier, because even though I agreed to stay, Trevillo was still a bit off. Anxiousness emanated from him, which prompted me to question if that night had
that
hard of an impact on him. I ignored it and settled back for a while, deciding to give him some time to himself as the crew prepared for takeoff. But now I was past impatient. It felt like forever since I’d had him, and I wanted him to reclaim me.

When his eyes flickered to mine, I smiled. “Hi, Hopeless.”

He reached down to unlatch his seatbelt then pulled me closer, his stare stinging me just as it used to. Fire was back in those blues.

“You’re beautiful, Krissan. Have I ever told you that?”

“In a different, more poetic way. Rather than using the trite word ‘beautiful’. It’s what got me hooked on you.”

Trevillo laughed out, “Me, poetic? I think you’re confusing me with someone else.”

“Nope,” I grinned, wagging my head. “I most definitely remember you calling me an ‘angel’s feather’.”

“That’s because you are,” he mused. “An angel’s feather might be the rarest form of beauty to ever be found, more so than raw diamonds.”

His tenseness and agitation was starting to melt. That was a good thing, so I pushed the conversation. “How so?”

“Because, chances are, one might never find an angel’s feather. People know where to search for diamonds. They can even be bought — both raw and adulterated. But where,
where
do you search for an angel’s feather?”

I wrinkled my nose. “On angels’ wings?”

“Yes. But angels are perfect, aren’t they? Perfect. You think a feather would ever
fall
from an angel’s wing?”

I pondered for a moment, and then shrugged. “I guess not. Unless an angel deliberately plucked one of her feathers and left it for a specific person to find it?” I couldn’t quite read into what he was getting at. “Explain it to me.”

A smile crawled onto his face as he reached one big palm around to cup my nape, urged me in, and kissed me deep. He wasn’t going to explain it to me, I realized. It was for him alone to understand. His secret to keep.

“Yet you say you’re not poetic,” I mumbled against his lips.

“I’m not,” he whispered. “I’m just in love with what an imperfect angel had left behind, for a perfectly flawed
me
to find.”

By that time, I was lost. He could deny it as much as he wanted, but he was lyrically poetic. End of.

Not wanting to break our kiss, I awkwardly shifted around on his lap until I achieved the goal of straddling him. “I’ve missed you, Trev.”

He stilled, ended the kiss, then held my shoulders and pushed me back a bit so he could find my eyes. Chest rising and falling, lips parted, I gazed back at him, wondering,
what now
?

“I need to request something … something selfish … ” he trailed off, then let go of my shoulders and raked his fingers through his hair. “I know this is gonna make me a major asshole, but … can we never talk about what happened that night?
None
of what happened.”

Leaning into his face, I spoke in a voice laced with bitter sarcasm. “Why? Because you want to pretend
none
of it happened? That I didn’t
fuck
on you. That I didn’t almost
die
? Because of
you
?”

Facing contorted in pain, his eyes slammed shut and his hands fisted between us. “Jesus, Krissy.”

“Yes, Trev, I almost died. Died.
Died
!”

As I made to get up from his lap, his hands reached up and gripped my shoulders again, keeping me planted where I was.

I narrowed my eyes and spat, “Oh, I had shit loads of welts, too. And toes that were so battered and swollen, I had to hop around on one foot for days. But what, you abandoned me because you didn’t want to look at them. You wanted to shut your eyes to the truth. You wanted to pretend it never happened. Fine. Whatever heals you. But now you’re asking
me
to do that?”

“Because it’s too fucking much!” he yelled in my face, and I flinched. “Yes, I want to pretend it didn’t happen. That you didn’t suffer brutally and almost died because of
me
!! All I want is a little peace of fucking mind. To not feel guilty and worthless each time I look at you. To not feel like I should’ve turned the gun at my own goddamn head!”

On a harsh breath, he rubbed a palm down his face. “Christ, Krissy, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what happened. I’m sorry for the danger I put you in. I’m sorry I didn’t protect you. But please, stop looking at me with those eyes of anger and resentment. Look at me like you used to, with raw lust, carnal desire, and awe. You used to look up at me with those rare blue eyes like I was a god. I
need
that back, please. With that, it’ll be so much easier to pretend none of the awful shit happened.”

It was unknown to me that my eyes had been showcasing anger and resentment, because, in my mind, I had done a great, altruistic job of pushing aside the anger I felt over the past couple of weeks. Plus I’d been positive whatever resentment I’d harbored over the weeks past, had died a brutal death the minute I walked into the jet and laid eyes on him.

I sighed. The body could be such a traitor. I thought I was over it, but apparently, if he could read anger and resentment in my eyes, I wasn’t.

Of course, I didn’t want to keep punishing him with memories of what happened. Truth be told, I wish I could pretend none of it happened, too. But, how long would that pretense last? Could we just sweep something like this under the rug, and it’ll be forever forgotten?

Guess we’d have to wait and see.

Deciding to put an end to our bitter conversation, I grasped the hem of my skirt and dragged it up until it bunched up around my hips. I rocked against his erection which had been present since I first came to sit on his lap. “Can I have you?”

“You already do,” he whispered. “Through and through.”

Reaching a hand down between us, I undid his pants and freed him while I explained, “I mean, can I have you? You alone. Nothing between us.”

Trevillo’s blue eyes heated with that insatiable hunger I saw the first time I met him in his office. Lips hung lax, he said nothing, but his hands crept down my sides.

“You’d be the first to … ” I trailed off on moan when he lifted my tank top above my breasts and covered one aching nipple with his hot mouth. His tongue did that skillful flicking thing only he could do, while one hand slid up between my thighs and found I was bare and wet.

Moaning around my captured nipple while his fingers glided through my slickness, he dragged his lips to kiss between my breasts, then, “Krissan?”

“Hmm?”

“Why aren’t you wearing any underwear?” A finger slid inside me just as he asked that question.

“Because … ah … I was hoping for this?”

He made a sound akin to a groan as he moved his lips up my neck, over my chin and settled on my lips, urging me into a kiss while his fingers worked inside me.

Emitting soft moans between his kisses, I asked again, panting, “Please, Trev. Can I have you?”

His teeth raked along my jaw, and in the same tone as before, he said, “Krissan?”

“Hmm?”

“You do understand that you own me, right?”

The answer to my desperate plea was clear as crystal. Melding our lips back together, I raised my hips and slowly eased down onto his length.

It was heaven.

Trevillo’s audible sound of pleasure seemed to agree, as his hands landed on my hips and began guiding the movement. Our kiss remained unbroken as we patched our hearts back together and made ourselves forget.

Time
,
No Friend of Mine

Time plays,
Time assays,
Time frays,
But time never delays.

Time makes,
Time breaks,
Time deflates,
But time never waits.

Time steals,
Time heals,
Time reveals,
But time never stills.

Have you time in this short life?
Seize it!

Love, and let love.
Fight, and make up.
Resist, and give in.
Steal, and don’t return.

Because Time is no friend —
We laugh to cry,
We live to die.
Seize the day!

S
even hours later, my Trevillo fascination was pushed in the background as my attention was riveted out the window of the SUV that picked us up once we landed in Montego Bay on the beautiful island of Jamaica.

To no avail, Trevillo was trying to get me to pull my head back in the car, lest it got smacked off by speeding vehicles. But I was too caught up in the otherness of the island vibe to hear.