Page 83 of Crossing the Line
Who Is Garnet?
Hercules Lord
The deal is, Paisley looks and smells pretty tempting today. I’m trying to exercise self-control. Frankly, I don’t understand why she’s holding out. When the Earth collides with the sun, that will be the day I marry Lauren Mueller. I said that from the beginning and meant it.
Last night, after I hung up with Paisley, I finally rang Lauren back. She actually bragged about ruining my relationship with Paisley at the bar. She said she was prepared to lie and say I had fucked her, too, if that was what it would take to be rid of Paisley for good.
The woman’s crazy. It’s the sort of streak that runs through Lord women.
“Is that so?” I said, remaining cool, calm, and collected. I was finally ready to show my hand.
“Yes,” she hissed like the snake that she was.
“Here’s the thing, Lauren. When your great-grandfather—the one with all the money—was as misogynistic as ours was, you have to be very careful. I wouldn’t call him a prick, though. He was just a man of his era.” Then I sent her the video of her blowing Orion in the hot tub.
I could hear her listening to it because I captured the sound of water shifting, Orion sucking air, Lauren sucking cock, and me whispering, “I’ve got you. I’ve got you where I want you.” The next thing I knew, Lauren had ended the call without another word.
She’s been handled. I’ll send the video to Achilles and my mother after I learn how this day will end. The power’s in my hands now. If I send the same video to the board of the Lord Trust, Lauren will be ineligible to marry me. As a result, we will not receive the benefit for keeping it in the family. She’s no longer “pure.” What a load of crap. But still, the rules are what they are. And I don’t care about the money. As I said, I have a hand to play. If I play that hand right, we will never have to demean ourselves to stay wealthy.
Paisley is still looking at me with shock. Her lips are parted and form an O. I want to suck them into my mouth, taste them. She’s a sensual kisser.
“Wait. Are you saying that your grandfather is Garnet?” she finally asks.
I swallow and make room for my boner in my pants. “I think so.” Actually, I know he is. I’ve thought about it a lot. It makes sense that a woman came between our grandfathers, which caused the rift between them.
Eyes closed like she wants to avoid seeing the truth, PG shakes her head. “Did you mention the letters to your grandfather?” she whispers, her voice thick with worry.
“No.”
Her eyebrows ruffle. If she’s relieved by my answer, I can’t tell. She sure isn’t happy about it.
“Are you going to tell him?”
I shake my head slowly. “I’ll leave that up to you.”
* * *
PG saysshe wants to rest her eyes, and I don’t object. I study every angle, line, and curve of her beautiful face as she closes her eyes to think. I know that’s what she’s doing. Like me, she’s too wired to sleep.
The time has come. This is it. After all the years we've been wanting to know how the feud began between our families, we will now have the answer. For the longest time, I thought the bad blood resulted from TRANSPOT. But that’s not it.
PG’s eyebrows furrow just a bit. She must be tortured by her thoughts. She’s always been a thinker. It’s one of the many reasons why she’s never left my thoughts. I always wanted to know what’s going on inside her head. There aren’t many people like her in the world. I know this because I’ve traveled to a lot of places, and met a lot of people. Her brain must work nonstop as she ponders everything she sees as if it’s a thing to be taken apart, studied, and then put back together differently.
One day, I’ll tell her about that New Year’s Eve night when I made love to her. I was supposed to get together with a girl I met two days before. I forget her name—Mandy or Andy— but she’d come up to me at a coffee shop downtown and asked for my number. I had to admit, her approach was bold. Also, she was pretty hot, but she didn’t arouse me the way PG does.
“I can be your New Year’s Eve date and kiss you when the clock strikes twelve,” she’d said, all smiles and batting her eyelashes. “Like Cinderella.”
I said, “Okay,” and then gave her the address to the party I planned to attend.
The girl must have been playing coy or something, planning to arrive just before midnight. But by eleven o’clock, I’d run into PG at the bar.
Goodness, that intense feeling.I hadn’t experienced it since the first time I saw her in high school. I bet she doesn’t know she was the talk of the town before she even arrived at our school. Another Grove would be attending DMA. That meant the students were sharpening their swords, getting ready to take her down.
I could’ve stopped the campaign against her before the school year started, but—I’m embarrassed to admit—I was okay with another Grove biting the dust. Until I laid eyes on Paisley. I could tell that half the male student body was pretending that they weren’t infatuated by her too.
Paisley Grove was a thing of pure perfection, a male fantasy, a sexy vision in nerd garb. One look was it all it took. I used to picture her whenever I beat off. I was obsessed. And then I got to know her, and I fell for her. I knew we could never be with each other, though. I couldn’t stick my cock into her either. Well, I could’ve if I tried. But I didn’t want to tarnish anything genuine that could ever happen between us. I guess deep down I knew we would be like this—on an airplane together and clearly in love.
But when I saw her the night of the New Year’s Eve party, we were no longer in high school. College was almost done. Paisley Grove had breasts, the best ass a man could grab, and the face of an angel. Forget being reverent. I had to have her.
