The Grand Duel (The Grand Men #4)

Chapter 37

THIRTY-SEVEN

Lissie

W e don’t end up painting. We eat on the porch as the first drops of rain start to fall for the night, the dogs curled up by the outdoor fire that’s been installed. Every idea I had for the porch has been implemented.

The fire and soft lighting.

The plants and rug he’s placed under the table that I showed him for inspiration.

The hammock he’s lying in as he watches me now.

I laughed at him for it all, that I was only trying to spark his own ideas, but he simply told me I have excellent taste.

“So, you didn’t want to be a solicitor?”

“No,” I tell him, stroking Daisy from my spot on the floor. “When I was in college, I planned to become a barrister. It was when Jovie told me she was pregnant and everything with Mum and Dad happened that I knew I’d have to rethink. There was no way I’d be able to get my degree and work a job alongside.”

“So you trained at FTR whilst you earned your honours.”

“Yep. It all worked out eventually.”

He frowns. “But you didn’t get to do what you planned.”

I shrug. “It’s the way it goes sometimes, isn’t it?”

He watches me with a pensive look on his face. “You could train now. Scarlet put her life on hold for years because of her dad’s health. It’s why she’s still training now. It’s been hard but it’s possible, she’s proof of it.”

“I could train now, and I love that Scarlet did that for herself, but right now, I’m making enough money to live, support Jovie, and save.” I shrug, feeling like I’m still in the middle of putting everything right in our lives. “I can’t pass up the security the two jobs give me for anything.”

“Not even your dream job?”

“No.” I can’t even comprehend doing something so selfish.

His brows lift in surprise and then he rests his arm behind his head. “I guess not everyone has the luxury of pulling their vocation out of a hat.”

“Exactly.” I smile. “You went to university with all of the guys—Mason, Elliot, and your friend Lance?”

“I did. Although Lance was younger, and we met him later. He is smarter than the lot of us.”

“Will you tell me about him?”

He smiles sadly up at the porch roof. “What do you want to know? It’s a heck of a story.”

“Well, what does he mean to you?”

He thinks on it for a minute and then blows out a breath. “I don’t really know, to be honest. It’s been years since I’ve seen him—the week after the trial when he was moved out to Thameside. I guess you could say I’m just angry at him right now. For the way he’s treating Scarlet and himself.”

“Not for what he did?”

He looks down at me. “Never. Do you know what he did?”

I shake my head. “After the way it seemed to upset you in Italy, I didn’t want to push you. I was hoping you’d talk to me about it when you were ready.”

He nods. “Nina and Mason were separated for a time when Ellis was born, it was around the time that they were figuring it all out when that happened. We’d been celebrating their engagement the night before and Nina and Scarlet got up early the next morning to start packing up Nina’s apartment so she could move into the penthouse. Lance arrived a little while later to find…a blood bath, honestly. He thought this guy, Joey—a good friend of Nina’s—had hurt Nina and was going to hurt Scarlet.”

“Oh my god.” I swallow, sitting up slightly. “Wait…Nina was hurt?” I shake my head, trying to process what he’s said. “What happened?”

“She’d been shot by accident after a scuffle between her mum and Joey. He was a good guy and just happened to be stopping in that morning to see Nina. When things went wrong, he tried to help her. It was Nina’s mum who was responsible, but she had already took off when Lance arrived, and Joey was frantic, not making any sense. All it took was a split second, and it was done. Lance shot Joey the second he believed he was a danger to Scarlet. He got eight years for manslaughter, and the best I’ve managed with any appeal is seven.”

I blink over and over, my eyes full with tears. “I had no idea…I’m so sorry. You’d never know that Nina has been through something like that.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” he mutters.

“He’s served two, hasn’t he? Lance. Eight years seems harsh given the complexity of the situation.”

“There were two paramedics working on Nina when it happened. They testified against him. Once the jury heard their account of things, it wasn’t good. I knew we were done. I saw the looks on their faces.”

“I’m sorry, Charlie. Truly. What happened is awful and not fair.”

He nods, as if it’s all he can manage. “He’s not good alone,” he says absentmindedly, as if the thought often plagues him. “Lance, I mean.”

My throat is thick with the emotion that sits with us on this porch, but I don’t speak. Not yet. I consider myself lucky, knowing not many people get this side of Charles. This broken man I’ve come to care so much about.

“I have people who watch out for him inside, but he’s the fucking worst man when he’s on his own.”

“Has he ever said why he doesn’t want to see any of you?”

He’s shaking his head before I can finish. “It’s Lance through and through. He thinks he’s a burden to us. To Scar mostly. He’ll want her to move on—not that I’d ever tell her that.”

“Would she?”

He looks at me and smiles. “Not in a million years. They’ll grow old together, those two.”

I smile back at him. “I’m sorry he won’t see you.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“You have good friends. I can’t imagine sharing so much of myself with so many people. It seems exhausting from the outside.”

“They can be. I told you they all come with their own mess.”

“Don’t we all?”

“We do,” he tells me, his eyes back on me and searing deep. “Sometimes I think they think I’m this saviour to them, always having the answers, but really, they saved me.”

I don’t move a muscle. “Saved you from what, Charles?”

“Myself.” I see the contemplation on his face as he battles telling me. “I’d be where Lance is if it wasn’t for him and Mason.”

I frown when he drops his gaze.

“You can talk to me. Tell me anything.”

“I know I can,” he replies. “I’m just not sure you’d think much of me after.”

“Try me.”

He looks across at me. “I planned to have my sister’s rapist beaten to within an inch of his life after she died. I called it off after Mason and Lance talked me out of it.”

I roll my lips, my heart bleeding out for him. For his pain. I can’t even begin to imagine how he must have felt at that time. How I’d feel if it was my sister.

“It still happened.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, confused. “He was beaten up?”

He nods. “Mason and Lance knew it was happening and let it go ahead. They never told me, not for years, too worried I’d lose everything and hate myself for it. They swore they’d take the blame if it ever came out, even now to this day.”

“Well, you’re not to blame. You didn’t even know it was happening.”

His eyes focus on me. “I should have been to blame. I wanted the blame. It was my sister. My mess.”

My heart aches for him. “They were trying to protect you.”

He sighs. “I know that, and they did. But I was angry. I felt enraged, like nothing I’d ever felt before, and it was taken by my friends completely. I love them for it, for the pedestal they all put me on, but…”

A tear slips down my cheek, catching me off guard, and I wipe it away. “You never had the opportunity to let it out. What with the death of Phoebe, and what that awful excuse of a human being did to her, you didn’t get to let out what that did to you.”

He looks across at me. “Come here.”

I smooth my hand over Daisy and stand, slipping into the side of the hammock when he makes room for me.

“I’m sorry, Lissie. I shouldn’t put something so heavy on you. It’s my burden to carry, nobody else’s.”

“Don’t be sorry,” I say, nestling under his arm with my head on his chest. “I’m glad you told me.”

That you trust me .

“I’m lucky to have them. I just wish Lance would let us be there for him like he’s always been there for us.”

I nod in understanding, appreciating the silence and the man lay beneath me.

“You do save them, you know,” I say after a while. “Your family and friends.”

“You think so?”

“I know. I see your schedule. Between Scarlet, Ave, Mason, and Elliot—and helping Nina with picking up Ellis. Visiting Lance. The way you check in with your mum and dad, too. And that’s just the things you write in your diary. You don’t stop, Charlie.”

He reaches out and brushes my nose with his finger. “I’m stopped right now.”

I prop my chin up on my hand, narrowing my eyes on him. “Are you?”

“I guess I am working hard to make you fall in love with me.”

I chuckle. “Is that what this is? Wine and dine her and tell her about all the things?”

His smile is wide. “Is it working?”

I shake my head at him as my cheeks flame. “Don’t ask me that.”

“Don’t look at me like that.”

I purse my lips as he shifts, feeling his body heating under my own. I roll over him, lying between his legs. When I feel his cock hardening against my belly, I dip my head and laugh.

He takes my chin and lifts my eyes back to his. “You’re mean, Lissie girl.”

“I’m mean if I don’t do anything about it,” I tease, keeping my eyes locked with his.

His throat works on a swallow.

“Can I?” I ask, my heart thumping. I reposition myself so I’m straddling him, and then palm his growing erection through his jeans.

My eyes close at the feel of him. The size. The memory.

“Talk to me,” he pleads.

I look down at him. “Tell me I can touch you.”

He nods, his hips pressing into my hand as I rub over the length of him. “I need you to touch me.”

My fingers work open the buttons on his jeans, the material tighter with the way he’s lying in the hammock and the size of his growing cock. He lifts his hips, helping me drag them down his thighs, letting himself free.

With my cheeks feeling like they’re on fire, I take his cock in my hand, the silky skin so soft compared to the hardness beneath.

He sucks in a breath as I palm him, shuffling further back so that I can lower my upper body.

I wanted him so badly in Italy, and he wouldn’t let himself be touched. I had no idea I’d already been with him at the club at that point, and I’ve been with him since. But this feels different.

He’s not done this with a woman since he was twenty-five years old.

“Tell me what you want,” I say, needing him to be okay. Praying he won’t stop me.

He looks down at the hand I have wrapped around him, his eyes hooded, hips tilting up slightly, as if he can’t wait. “You know, Lis.”

I work him from base to tip, my mouth so close I could lick him. My eyes lift to his, needing the words.

“Anything,” he says, and I flick my tongue out, teasing slowly over the tip. “Lissie…baby.”

I take my time to work him in my hand, his cock growing thicker and harder with each pull.

“Tell me if this is okay. Tell me what you need.” I lift my eyes and watch his face as I slowly take him to the back of my throat, dragging my tongue up the underside of him as I pull back.

His mouth parts as he watches, his hips lifting for more. Desperate.

When I sink back down again, I give him what he wants and go deeper.

Charlie moans and slides his hands into my hair, his legs tensing under me as he works his hips. “Yes, like that.”

My heart thuds at his praise, at the idea of what he’s letting me do to him and where we’re doing it. I cup his balls, giving them a gentle squeeze as I ease back.

“Lower.” He sighs, hardening.

My mouth waters, and I gather the spit in my mouth, letting it slip from between my lips and glide down over the head of his cock.

I watch, knowing he is too, as it runs over my fingers at the base and then down over his balls. His head tilts back as the spit disappears further, his body stiff.

“Anything,” I whisper against him, taking him into my mouth, working him slow and deep as I hollow my cheeks, worshipping every inch I can get.

His hands fall to his sides, as if what I’m doing is exactly what he needs, and it fuels me. I keep the pace, my tongue fluttering and twisting around his length as I suck, not letting up.

He moans. “Lis…baby…”

I hum, and a burst of precum fills my mouth.

I don’t swallow it, letting it coat him as it mixes with my saliva.

With my mouth wrapped around him, I run my hand up his body and push down on his chin until he understands what I want and opens his mouth. I slip my middle finger inside, relishing in the way he sucks on it, wetting it, whimpering when he bites on the pad.

I pull away as it stings, bringing it back to where I had it, close to where he wants it, cupping his balls.

I roll them, squeezing as I take him deep in my throat again.

And then I run my middle finger over his scrotum and lower, applying pressure to his asshole.

His cock feels like it turns to steel in my mouth, his body jerking as he lets out an animalistic sound.

He fists the sides of the hammock, my heart pounding as I witness his undoing.

“Lis,” he groans.

I swallow around him, spurred on by his thrusting hips.

“Yes, baby.”

I push against him again, and he grunts, making my stomach flutter. When I ease the tip of my finger inside slowly, he tenses, his body tremoring. I suck him harder, working him at the base with a tight grip.

When he lifts his hips, the motion different from before, I sense what he needs and sink my finger in further, curling it inside of him.

His legs tremble under me, his body wound taut, and then he’s coming in my mouth, his cock jerking against my tongue as he fucks my mouth.

He’s fighting for breath as he comes down, my hand gently working him slowly as I take every last drop and swallow.

I ease myself away and look up at him, finding his eyes hooded, body sated and sunken into the hammock.

He shakes his head at me and huffs a laugh in disbelief.

I feel my cheeks pink and give him room to reach down and pull up his trousers. Once he’s done, I move up the hammock to lie with him again.

Before I settle over him, I kiss his cheek. “You did so good, baby,” I whisper, smiling.

His lazy grin only widens as he wraps his arms around me. “You’re going to fucking kill me, Lissie girl.”