Hopeless (Chestnut Springs, #5)

by Elsie Silver

Vitality courses through her and I want to soak it all up. Just being around her makes me want more for myself. I want to answer her question with the same kind of fervor and surety, but the only...

My eyes never leave her. Her hair shines, reflecting the flash of blue and purple lights from above. When she finds an open spot, her toned arms slide up over her head, her eyes flutter shut, and her hips sway in time with the sultry beat of the music. It’s a punch to the gut. She’s fucking stunning. And confident. I can’t peel my eyes away. I can’t believe this is my Bailey Jansen.

She’s someone else entirely and her transformation is something to behold. It feels like a gift to sit here and watch her be herself.

I’m out of my seat and moving across the dance floor toward my fiancée within seconds. We don’t drop eye contact even once. When I get to her, I skim my hands over her waist, that inch of skin, as though washing away the other man’s touch.

“I have no idea what I’m doing.” The dancing, my life, this deal with her—I mean all of it. I have no idea what I’m doing. And for a man who’s had a plan for so damn long, it terrifies me.

But this time, I don’t just hold her leg at red lights. I reach back and grip her thigh for the entire wordless drive back to Chestnut Springs. And I swear she holds me closer than she ever has before.

By the time we make it home, I’ve realized that I’ll probably give this girl anything she wants. A ring. Sex. Forever.

“Listen, you can’t just maul me all night on the dance floor and expect me not to have needs. I’m not a robot like you, apparently.”

But I’d never forgive myself. It bothers me that what we’re doing here can be filed away as fake when it’s the most real thing I’ve felt in my life. And Bailey’s been picking up the scraps of what she can find for far too long. No, when I take Bailey, there’s not going to be a single fake thing between us. She’s not going to need me to stay afloat to pay a bill—I won’t take advantage of her that way. I want her to need me for no other reason than she can’t stand the thought of not having me.

God. It would be so easy to just— No. I don’t want to be careless with her. It’s not just her body. Her first time. It’s her heart. It’s my heart. It’s my hang-up on faking it. It’s my control in question. Which is why I pull out and reach for the toy that’s lying forgotten on the mattress beside us.

She gasps as she shoves the toy in harder. “Yes, Beau. Fuck. Give it to me.” “Give what to you?” Our words are choppy. Breathless. So is every movement. Every muscle and tendon strung up tight. Everything about this moment is ready to snap and crumble down around us.

“You’re perfect,” I murmur as I kiss my way down the valley between her breasts. “Every inch. Every look. Every word.” Her hands move to my hair, fingers trailing over the shell of my ear. The back of my skull.

“I’m so fucking hung up on you, it’s not even funny,” I confess quietly, and then press a kiss to her belly button. She shivers, fingers gliding down the back of my neck. I don’t expect her to say anything. Or to feel the same way. I’m too old. She’s too young. Too good for me when it comes down to it. Which is why it sends me reeling when she whispers, “Wherever you’re hanging from … I think I’m on the same hook.”

“Oh shit.” “Oh shit, what?” “You’re into her.” Into her. That seems like it’s vastly understating whatever it is I feel for Bailey. Invested. Possessive. Obsessed.

“I thought you didn’t want to be tied down?” I grunt. “I don’t. Okay, I didn’t.” Jasper lets out a low whistle, like he’s impressed. He knows all the reasons why I haven’t wanted to tie myself to anyone. But now I’m not taking off at the drop of a hat. Now my chances of dying are significantly lower. Now I’m here to stay.

“Right. But it would have been worse to spend my life wondering what would have happened if I told her. Or wishing I had.” I swallow as the horizon line in front of us changes. Buildings crop up as downtown comes into view. As we draw closer to the bar. To Bailey. To the girl I might spend a lifetime wishing I’d told this thing isn’t fake to me anymore.

“You drink beer you don’t like because your wife does?” Jasper shrugs, offering me a knowing wink. “Yeah. Makes her happy. It’s our thing. I’ll sit around and drink watery Buddyz Best with Sloane for the rest of my damn life if it makes her happy.”

But not before Jasper whispers some parting words in his friend’s ear, squeezes his shoulder, and gives him a stern nod. “You need to tell her.” I don’t know if I hear it or if I read his lips. All I know is that one sentence lands in my gut like a boulder at the bottom of a lake. Tell me what?

“So help me, if this is some moment where you decide to admire my virginity again, I will walk out that front door.” “I’m not admiring it, Bailey. I’m telling you it means something to me. I’m telling you there are only so many firsts in your life before every day just turns into a blur of more of the same. I’m telling you that, whether or not you realize it, it might mean something to you one day. And I hate the thought of you living with any regrets.”

“I think we should stop.” Stop. That’s what my heart does. Stops right in its tracks. “I can’t do this anymore.”

“A secure one. You’ll be able to save up to get out of town, no problem.” “Mm-hmm,” is all I can manage to choke out. I’m certain that if I open my mouth to say something, only a sob will come out. Every word feels like he’s tearing away a piece of my heart I swore I wouldn’t give to him. I thought I hadn’t.

I’m so fucking hung up on you. I shake the words away, filing them under “things men must say when they’ve had an amazing orgasm”.

Beau’s forehead crinkles in concern, and he unfolds one thick arm, reaching for me. When the tips of his fingers trace my hip bone, I recoil and step back.

He just dumped me. Fake dumped me? Whatever the fuck you call this, I have enough self-respect to not want his hands on me.

In one smooth motion, I pull the diamond ring from my finger and drop it onto the marble between us. “No problem. Definitely don’t want to overstay my welcome. You take this—” “Bailey.” He pushes to stand, and I hate that I notice the way the muscles in his legs flex. The ...

The hand on my waist moves up, wiping away another tear before pushing back a lock of my carefully styled hair. “What I meant to say, Bailey … ” He emphasizes my name in a way that sends a shiver down my spine. His hand cups my head so I can’t look anywhere but straight at him. “What I meant to say is … will you go out with me?”

“You just broke up with me.” A boyish smile curves his sinful lips. He kisses my temple and goes back to staring me down. “If you had let me finish, I’d have told you I couldn’t keep doing it anymore because pretending this thing between us is fake is fucking killing me.” “What?” God, that’s what I blurt out? What? “The only reason you got this far is because I went back into the house for the ring.”

“I’m done pretending to be head over heels in love with you because I’m legitimately head over heels in love with you. And acting like I’m not tears me up.”

He doesn’t give me a chance to say any more before he’s pulling my hand down and sliding the engagement ring back onto my finger. “This belongs here,” he murmurs. “Maybe we should just date for a bit?” God, I’m not firing on all cylinders right now. I should tell him I love him back. I should kiss him. “Call it whatever you want, sugar. But the ring stays here.”

I hate myself. Why am I arguing with him and poking holes in his logic when this should be a dream come true? It’s because it doesn’t feel real. Good things like this don’t happen to Bailey Jansen. Not with men like him.

“Stop thinking what you’re thinking. Stop pretending this isn’t real.” He bends slightly and lifts me, picking me up easily and carrying me back toward the house. “Stop telling me what I intend to do,” he whispers against my ear. “Because I do intend to marry you. And I want you to wear that fucking ring while I show you that it’s true.”

“We’re not faking anymore.” “That’s right.” “Because we both want this?” “It seems that way.”

“I’m your real fiancée now?” “Yes.”

Finally!!!

“What if I told you I don’t want to be engaged to you?” I drop my lips closer drawn in by the heat from her skin. We breathe each other’s breath. “Then I’d call you a fucking liar, sugar.” I kiss her. I don’t give her a chance to run her smart mouth and test my patience with bratty jokes. I take her mouth to shut her up and to claim her.

And I confess my truth to her. “I’ve been doing impulsive shit, hoping one of those things might make me feel something. And not a single one of them did. Until you. So if this thing with you makes me insane? I’ll be happy to wear that badge.”

Do I love her? God. What a pedestrian question, one that feels like it doesn’t encompass all the feelings I have for her. It doesn’t seem like enough. But I’ll keep telling her, keep showing her, until I figure out better words to describe the way I feel about her.

“Bailey Jansen, I love you,”

“I don’t think anyone has ever loved me.” I freeze. The pain in my chest is sharp, instant, acute. She says it like it’s a fact.

Love is telling me I’m acting like an asshole when no one else will. Love is taking me shopping to find shoes that don’t rub my feet raw. It’s waking up every goddamn night for weeks to swim in the river with me, so I don’t have a nightmare.

My lips quirk as I work her underwear down her thighs. She’s still. Too still. “I like it when you’re so sweet and polite, Bailey.” A nervous laugh tumbles from her lips, and she breathes again. “Fuck you, Beau.” My cheek twitches. There’s the girl I know.

“Am I the first to do this to you?” I nod, tugging at his hair. Mindless for this man. “Yes.” “I’m going to be the only one to do this to you, Bailey. Mark my words.”

This girl has brought me back to life without even trying. All that time I searched for someone to make me feel something, and she was right fucking there.

“I love you,” I repeat to her, not caring I’ve said it multiple times tonight and she hasn’t.

You don’t tell a person you love them with the expectation they’ll say it back. You tell them because you want to. You tell them because it’s true.

“My pain disappears when I’m with you. I get to be a new version of myself when I’m with you. I sleep. I laugh. I have something—someone—to look forward to at the end of the day. I feel … ” I peer back up at her again, swallowing as I run my hands up the column of her spine. “I feel whole again with you.”

“Bailey doesn’t owe you shit. You got something to tell her? It goes through me. Something to give her? You give it to me. You want to so much as lay eyes on my fiancée? You better come crawling asking for my permission.”

“Come again?” I can see now that it’s the older brother as he takes an aggressive step toward my back deck. He’s too high to be properly afraid of me. I chuckle and scrub at my beard. “You heard me. Harass her again and I’ll paint my driveway with your brains. You won’t be the first man I’ve killed, but you could easily be the last.”

With a labored sigh, I stand and head inside. I check every door and window on the main floor and set my barely ever used alarm system before trudging upstairs to the girl who feels like she’s the part of me that’s been missing for too damn long.

“Paint your driveway with their brains?” A soft snort leaves her, and her shoulders shake on a laugh. “That is so romantic.” I pull her tighter against me and huff out an exasperated breath. “I meant it, Bailey. You asked me how I know I love you? That’s how. I’ve got anyone who wants to hurt you in my crosshairs, and I won’t feel bad about taking them down, either.”

“I want you to walk back in there knowing that you’re mine. No matter what happens. No matter what anyone says.” “What?” “I want you to walk back in there looking freshly fucked so that no one questions a single thing about us. Especially not you.”