Saving Greyson [Men of McKenna Downs 5] (Siren Publishing LoveXtreme Forever) Read online

  She nodded.

  Greyson didn’t reply to this. He found her empathy remarkable, but also discouraging. He was seriously fucked up and her wounded person radar picked up on that. How would he ever know whether or not she really loved him or just pitied him for the pathetic creature he was?

  On a more carnal note, had a pair of female legs ever looked so good? Her thick, shapely thighs were tan and smooth from where they showed from her khaki shorts. Those babies were short. Not Spice Girls short, but the provocative roundness of her curvaceous ass probably made the shorts seem racier than they would have been on someone smaller.

  Her light blue frilly tank top hugged her buxom breasts and the cleavage was to die for. How could any top be chaste on her when those bouncy mounds were so enormous?

  Her elbows rested behind her on the railing she leaned against. Her meaty arms were plump but not flabby. He’d noticed traces of cellulite on the backs of her thighs before, but it was minimal.

  The soft roundness in her belly was subtle, but her waistline indented somewhat with the hourglass effect. She didn’t really have love handles to speak of. The imperfections seemed more focused on the front of her abdomen and backs of her thighs, but Christ, he found everything about her irresistible.

  Her face was breathtaking in its innocence. He’d seen her light doe eyes turn sultry when she was aroused, but there was never any question of the purity in her soul that always shone through.

  He knew there was sex appeal to be found in black lingerie with its darkness and deviance, and in red with its passion and animal lust.

  Melanie’s enticing quality was of a softer nature, but no less primal. She was the type of woman who was made to be in virginal white bridal lingerie, in the demure angelic shade of baby blue, and the flirty yet chaste seduction of baby pink. She was the type of docile, submissive angel that made a man feel like what he’d been designed to be—dominant, virile, and strong. She riled his primitive lusts as readily as she summoned the protector in him and the newfound desire to cherish and take care of the soft female in front of him.

  “I can be whatever you need me to be,” Melanie said quietly. Her eyes were pleading and her hushed voice sounded so inviting and sweet.

  He looked at her seriously. “I don’t need saving.”

  “Maybe I do.”

  Damn, she was good.

  He arched an accusing brow at her. “Now you’re trying the damsel-in-distress card?”

  A slow, guilty smile curved her full, kissable lips upward.

  He couldn’t help the crooked smile that emerged on his face. “Damn you.”

  Her beautiful smile broadened.

  “If four men can’t fix your problems, you’re fucked for life.”

  “Maybe I need five men for the job, or maybe no one is as capable and macho as you.”

  His eyes narrowed on her and the smile dimmed, but it didn’t diminish completely. She was just too damned adorable to send his smile packing completely.

  “Ass-kisser.”

  She giggled and he felt that seductive sound deep in his balls.

  Greyson couldn’t see her standing there without recalling the way she’d looked naked and tied up to that spiderweb of ropes that Diego had erected in the stable a while back. God, she was incredible.

  He’d seen his share of nude women. Some were a vague blur in his memory eroded over with time. Others were more memorable, but they all had one thing in common. They were replaceable. Someday some man or woman would look at those past women he’d been with and see what he saw when he looked at Melanie, clothed or naked.

  But that man wasn’t him and those women weren’t his. Those women’s bodies hadn’t been perfect. Even the most athletic of women had some flaws and insecurities about themselves. There was always something good and captivating to be found in the body of a naked woman, be she small, large, or a happy medium.

  The trick wasn’t finding the perfect body or the wildest lover. Physical perfection didn’t exist in anyone, not even himself, and a lot of people were good at sex or could be trained to be.

  Even Melanie wasn’t perfect for as much of a knockout as the fetching vision was. There was something more. Despite her killer curves and her exceptional submission, there was something quiet and striking in her spirit that made him keep coming back for more.

  If he walked away from her he could find plenty of other good looking women with hot bodies who were willing to submit and be fucked, but if he searched a thousand years he knew he would never find another soul like hers. The souls of the other women would complete someone, but with him they’d been puzzle pieces in the wrong box, so he’d chucked them and hopefully flung them toward the boxes they actually belonged in.

  With Melanie all he had to do was look into those stunning blue eyes of hers and he knew he’d found the missing piece. The ache he felt when she looked at him, the relief that washed over him when he saw that she was safe and happy, the joy that made his spirit glow whenever she laughed, and the deep, lingering burn in his loins when he smelled her gave him the satisfying sense of completion one might feel after staying up all night and finally putting the last piece into place and seeing that the puzzle was completed, whole.

  Greyson swallowed, uncertain about his next question. “Last week when you sucked my cock…why did you cry?”

  Melanie wet her lips with her tongue, making him instantly hard. She came closer to the chair he sat in and touched the wicker armrest without approaching him further. “I cried because it breaks my heart to think of anyone hurting you.”

  The comment moved him deeply, but to hell with her pity. He wanted her…everything. He wanted everything from her.

  “Why did you kiss the tattoo of Diego’s name on my leg?” He didn’t look at her. Somehow he couldn’t.

  She walked around the chair and then knelt on the deck between his spread legs. A spasm of arousal rippled in his stomach, causing his abs to clench briefly at the feel of her soft, delicate palms resting on his thighs just above his knees.

  “I figured that was where Saul left a scar years ago,” she finally said. Her voice cracked a little with the threat of tears.

  Saul had scarred him everywhere.

  Greyson met her sympathetic gaze, unsure of what to say. There were so many words, none that came to mind.

  Her hands slid up his jeans a couple of inches, but she was careful to avoid his recent injury. Her insidious touch never met his crotch directly, but she stimulated him there regardless.

  “I’m yours if you want me,” she whispered.

  He did want her, but not like this. Compassion was one thing. He didn’t want to be pitied, although he considered training her in submission anyway. Eventually he would claim to be—no, he would be fine—and then her true colors would show. If it was only pity she felt for him, she would abandon him or neglect him when he was whole again.

  If she truly cared for him as deeply as she implied, she would stay with him, adore him no matter what. Not a bad idea since he didn’t know where he stood with her yet.

  “Why did you break up with Saul?”

  Undoubtedly the stupidest question he’d ever asked. Of course she’d ended her disturbing relationship with the psychopath. Still, he was curious as to the specifics of the reason, namely whether or not Saul had hurt her in some way.

  Melanie stood slowly and then walked back over to the railing. This time he had a profile view of her as she collected her apparently troubling thoughts. “He said the voices told him that someone would hurt our baby, so he decided to perform an abortion on me with a kitchen knife.”

  “What?” Greyson flew to his feet and stormed toward her, absently noting that his reaction was a bit on the dramatic side. He grabbed her arm roughly and pulled her to him in a manhandling gesture he considered comfort. “Did he cut you open?”

  “No. I fled. When the police got there he was gone. He went missing, well, into hiding. I didn’t see him for years. He killed someone the
night after he ran off.” She trembled in Greyson’s arms. “I didn’t want to believe it, but I think he did it.”

  “Who was it?”

  She shrugged. “A preacher. Why would he kill a preacher?”

  “He’s fucked up.”

  She shook her head, eyes welling with tears. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t heal him. If I had, he wouldn’t have hurt you. I assume he did that to you during the years he was hiding from the police.”

  “Yeah, but it’s not your fault.”

  “Maybe there was something I could have done. I keep going back over it again and again in my mind, thinking there was something I might have done differently to keep all those awful things from happening.”

  Her words struck a nerve inside him. He’d relived countless times what he could have done, should have done to prevent what Saul had done to him. He’d scoured over the e-mails from him over the years, practically memorizing them in his quest for clues that this man would one day destroy him. He’d been so blinded by his conflicting feelings for Diego and his need to assuage both his depression and his thirst for fear that he’d been blindsided to the warning signs that had been staring him right in the face.

  “It’s not your fault,” Greyson told her. “You’re not allowed to blame yourself for this, or I’ll lick you good.”

  His mind immediately plummeted into the gutter and judging by the vixen smile on her lovely face, he figured her mind had jumped right down there with his to wallow.

  “You’ll lick me, huh?” she teased.

  He grinned and let go of her on his way back to plant his ass in the wicker chair again. “It’s an old-fashioned term my dad used to use when we were kids. I meant I’d pummel your ass if you disobeyed me.”

  “That’s fine, just please lubricate me first.” She bit her lip and her eyes were naughty and dancing with mischief.

  Greyson cracked a smile. “You’re a scandalous little thing. I think I’ll keep you around.”

  She smiled at this before sobering. “Can I ask you a really personal question?”

  “No, you may not.” He waited for a minute before sighing and sitting back in his chair. “What is it?”

  “How long have you been in love with Diego?”

  “Who knows?”

  “When did you guys first get intimate together?”

  He shot her a warning look and she shrank like a violet. The visible retreat and suddenly submissive air in her demeanor made his insides rise with want.

  “We first touched at eighteen. Would you like a detailed account of the incident and pictures?”

  “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to pry. I just wondered why you’ve been in love with him most of your life and never told anyone.”

  “It’s nobody’s business but ours. However, if you must know, a maid we used to have saw Diego and I kissing before. She tried to stab me to death in my sleep, ‘to purge me of my abominable lust,’ she said. I stopped her before she could take a stab at me. It would be a waste of breath to say that I fired her that same hour. Her ass is in jail.”

  “That’s awful. You never told anyone the reason why she tried to kill you, did you?”

  Damn, she was too probing. She read him almost as well as he read her. Damn her.

  “No.”

  “But the crazy woman is gone, and this town has a bunch of ménage relationships. Nobody would judge you for being with a man.”

  “Regardless, one of my brothers is a priest.”

  “So?”

  “So unlike you, wayward nun, some people in the church are religious and frown upon men fucking one another.”

  Melanie turned her body slightly and twiddled with her fingers while one elbow rested on the railing. “Hunter’s not like that. He loves you, and I know he would support you.”

  Greyson rolled his eyes. “Clearly you’ve missed his annoyance over Emmett’s past promiscuity.”

  “Well, of course bed-hopping and flings will make him shake his head, but commitment is sacred to him. He told me that when he gave me this.” She called his attention to the covenant bracelet she wore. “The standards in McKenna Downs are different, even for the priests. Why would he think any less of you?”

  Well, she had a point, but what if she was wrong? He ran his fingers through his hair and heaved a weighty exhale. “Either way it doesn’t matter because…”

  That was just what he needed to do—tell her that he’d avoided making his relationship with Diego known to others for fear that Saul would come back into his life someday and kill Diego like he’d threatened to if Greyson ever made any kind of commitment to him.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Can I ask you another personal question?”

  He rolled his eyes and turned his head briefly while lowering his folded hands and sitting up straight. “Christ, what?”

  “Can you explain your paraphilia to me? I want to understand it better.”

  “Why?”

  Her voice gentled to an entrancing hush. “Because I want to know you.”

  The rock in his chest crumbled and turned soft and gooey like pudding. “Who said I had a paraphilia?”

  “Diego did at the hospital.”

  “What did he tell you about it?”

  “He said that you had auto-something-or-other.”

  “Autassassinophilia.”

  “Yeah, that. He said it was where a person gets turned on by being afraid or the thought of dying.”

  He didn’t look at her, focused his attention instead on the wood surface of the sprawling deck. “What else is there to say about it?”

  She came over to him and sat next to him on the wicker loveseat. “Why does the thought of dying turn you on so much?”

  “It doesn’t, not anymore. It terrifies the shit out of me.”

  “Then why do you put yourself in dangerous situations? Why are you brave enough to flirt with death, but too afraid to commit to Diego?”

  All these probing questions stabbing him all over like a sharp knife—he felt raw and cut open by her prodding.

  “Have you ever lost someone you cared about?”

  “Not to death,” she said quietly.

  Greyson was silent for a moment. “Years ago my mother passed away. I was there by her bedside when she passed. She didn’t believe in any kind of afterlife. My dad has always been on the fence about it. She said good-bye to us and then closed her eyes, knowing that she would never see us again. I sat there and watched her draw her final breath, fearing that it was probably the last time I would ever see her.”

  Melanie took his hand in hers. Her skin felt warm and soft in his light grip. He nuzzled the top of her hand with his thumb, finding consolation in her delicate flesh while his mind went to places so dark and dismal.

  “I loved the hell out of my mother. Losing her messed me up for a long time after. What I feel for Diego…” He paused and gulped down the painful lump in his throat. Crying wasn’t something he was prone to, but the absence of tears didn’t dissolve the deep abiding ache in his chest and throat. “It’s so much stronger, so much deeper than what I felt for her. If I lose him, it’ll destroy me.”

  Melanie gave his hand a squeeze and he caressed hers again with his thumb.

  “I’m no good without him, just a shell. I know you’re supposed to find happiness within yourself, but I can’t. He’s everything to me.” Greyson ran his hand down his face, shaken by his own vulnerability at the moment and the haunting thought of losing Diego. “The only thing worse than seeing him die, would be if I were to go first. I know it sounds shitty to want the other guy to die first, but if he feels half as much for me as I do for him, I couldn’t put him through that kind of pain by dying before he does.”

  “That’s really sweet.”

  “At least if I saw him resting in his grave I would know that he was safe and at peace. There wouldn’t be another man for me. I would just sit home and drink, waiting to die.” His tone dropped, emp
hasizing the natural rasp in his voice even more. “If I had to close my eyes and breathe my last, knowing that he was still living and not knowing what would happen to him after I was gone, I’d go crazy. I need him safe and happy, but I need to be the only man he ever shares his life with.”

  “I’m sure he feels that way about you, too. You should talk to him.”

  Greyson shook his head. “I used to think celebrities were vain for getting facelifts, Botox, and whatnot, like they were trying to stay good looking forever. Maybe some of them are, but sometimes I think that maybe some of them look in the mirror and see their aged features and they’re reminded that one day they’re gonna die. I bet it scares the shit out of them, knowing that they’re gonna die alone. Even if you’re surrounded by the ones you care about, death is a journey you make alone. It’s cold and final.”

  Melanie fondled his hand with her thumb this time. She appeared saddened by his words and he felt bad for bringing her down.

  His crippled heart couldn’t seem to clot and he kept bleeding out his greatest fears and deepest anguish to her. “I don’t know if there’s anything after this or not, but the concept of hell has never scared me. It’s the idea of complete nothingness, the thought of not existing that haunts me.”

  The damned lump in his throat got bigger and began to hurt unbearably, but he maintained his manliness in the not-crying department at least.

  “If I love him just enough to make me a better man, but not enough to lose my soul to him, I just might survive if I ever lose him.”

  “Everyone has regrets on their deathbed,” she told him. “Don’t you think you would regret never having lived more than losing someone you love?”

  “Probably. I’m fucked no matter what I do.”

  “Greyson, you can’t live like that. No wonder you’re depressed. You have to find happiness while you’re alive.”

  “What’s the point when it’s gonna hurt worse in the end?” He stood to distance himself from the woman, who seemed to understand him almost as well as Diego did. Greyson rested his hands on the railing and looked out over the sparkling lake and windswept prairie. “It’s like that ‘Dust in the Wind’ song. It’s all pointless. When I die no one will remember me. It’ll be like I never existed.”