The Grand Duel (The Grand Men #4)

Chapter 42

FORTY-TWO

Charlie

N ina follows us home in the Bentley and not to the penthouse. I’m not sure how Mason knows without asking where to take me, but I appreciate it.

We don’t speak on the drive, a silence settling between us that I need to sit in.

Even my head is quiet.

When we pull up to the cottage, I turn to him, finding his eyes assessing, maybe not as certain as I am that I’m okay.

“Tell Ellis and Ave that I’ll be out to see them tomorrow.”

He nods, and I climb from the car. Before my door can click shut, another one slams and then two arms wrap around my body.

Nina.

When she pulls back, her eyes scouring every inch of me like a mother would their child, she sighs, shaking her head. “Don’t you ever do anything so stupid again, Charlie Aldridge. You’ll put me in an early grave.”

“I’m sorry.” I look down at her swollen stomach. “I wasn’t thinking when I called.”

She frowns. “I’m not mad at you for calling, you stupid idiot. I’m mad at you for putting yourself and your career in danger.” She looks at me, exasperated. “You think I’m mad you called us?”

I gaze past her shoulder when Mason steps up beside her, a small smile on his lips. “Angel, he knows.”

She turns, her shoulders dropping when she meets her husband’s gaze.

“Come watch the sunrise with me,” he tells her.

She looks back over her shoulder, her worried stare plaguing her. “You’re bleeding.” She points to my hand. “Do you need help?”

I shake my head. “I can sort it.” I lean in and kiss her head. “Thank you,” I mutter against her hair, meaning my every word.

Because Nina was only ever meant to be a girl in the club to us—Elliot, Mase, and me—but she’s not that at all. Not anymore. Time has made her essential to every single one of us.

I value her friendship as much as I do Mason’s.

As much as I would a sister.

I walk to the front door as they disappear from the driveway, knowing that when I step over the threshold, I’m going to have some explaining to do.

Lissie is still asleep when I walk into the lounge, the fire burnt down but glowing red, kicking out just enough heat.

With my hand a bloody mess and my shin on fire, I quietly take the stairs and slip into the shower, washing the night from my body.

I’ve sat across tables from men like me. Men who have broken and destroyed things in a way to cope with what they deem unjust.

It’s not right.

It’s not okay or the answer.

But I get it.

I’ve always tried to get it. It’s why I’ve always tried to lead with no judgement and then tried to help.

Tonight, I felt it.

I knew I had strong feelings for Lissie, but the uncontrollable rage I felt when she told me what they’d done to her wasn’t something I’d ever felt in my life.

The idea she was ever alone with no one to fend for her, no one having her back or standing up to say it’s wrong, makes no sense to me. It makes me furious. This woman, who very clearly gives without asking for a thing in return, being treated like her existence doesn’t matter.

I can’t comprehend it.

I switch off the shower and wrap a towel around my hips. I make my way downstairs, hating the idea that she could wake up and feel alone. I wasn’t thinking earlier when I left, but the one thing this woman hates is not knowing where I am. It’s why she panicked on the plane that morning, and it’s why I knew I needed to set up the calendar.

Which all makes sense now having learned her past.

She’s lay on her side, the fire the only light in the room, setting a soft glow across her face.

I pull back the covers, needing to hold her, to feel her, desperate to show her how important her existence in this world is to me.

Lissie

The feel of a hand smoothing over my hip and up under my hoodie rouses me from a deep sleep. I roll over onto my back, my eyes softly drifting open, but before I can catch a look at the man, at his body that stretches out above me, his lips dip down to take mine in a feather-light kiss.

“I’m catching up,” he whispers, his heavy eyes easing open as mine do.

I frown. “Charles?”

I reach for him, my hand running through his hair.

It’s wet.

He twists his head, kissing my palm and down my exposed arm where the sleeve of my hoodie has dropped. “You’ve showered,” I say, my body fighting against my mind as I try to wake up. “What’s?—”

“I need you.” He dips back down and takes my lips, his hands roaming from my hips to my waist and back down to my thighs. “I need you, Lis. More than I’ve ever needed anything in my life. More than I’ll ever need anything else.” His lips dust mine, his body hard and perfect above me. “You, baby. I caught up.”

He caught up?

“You run, I run.”

My heart flares in my chest, but I don’t get a chance to fully acknowledge it because my hoodie is lifted from my body. I sit up slightly, helping him. His lips meet mine again the minute it’s free of my head.

I reach out my hands, smoothing them up his long, muscled back, and it’s then that I find that he’s naked.

I fall back to the mattress with him, our mouths one, the soft whimpers mine.

His hands roam from my face to my shoulders, over my breasts, past my ribs and waist, down my stomach, and then hook into my leggings and underwear. He drags them down my legs as I suck on his bottom lip, dragging and pulling at it.

He comes back to me twice as hungry, frustratingly gentle.

An ache grows between my legs, and it’s when I think he’s about to dip his hand between my thighs as he pulls back, his eyes heavy and filled with a desire I’ve never witnessed before, that his hand comes up and palms my cheek, his thumb brushing so gently over my lips it tickles, his eyes lost. Lost on me. The act is so intimate, so perfect, tears burn in my eyes.

I smile through them, lifting my head off the mattress to kiss him. “You can touch me, Charlie,” I whisper.

His head drops to mine, our bodies becoming one under the covers as he lowers on top of me.

“Anything,” I pant.

His shaky breath fans across my lips, his eyes never leaving mine. “Anything, baby.”

I nod, running my hands up his back, revelling in his warmth. “Anything.”

He eases back, his chest and abs flexing and rolling in the firelight, his cock hard and big. I stare at him, and he lets me, and I wonder if he feels as wanted. If he feels as special when I look at him as I do when I’m in his arms.

I hope he does.

I hope he knows.

He eases open my legs, and I don’t blink. Don’t look away from his stare for a second. I can’t. He can’t.

When he settles back over me, our noses meet, his body restrained by his arms. “You’re perfect to me, Lissie girl.”

A tear falls from the corner of my eye.

“The world doesn’t have to see it for it to be true.”

His knees stretch out against my thighs, spreading them slightly wider. I move with him, angling my hips as he readjusts. His cock grazes over my pussy, and a wave of pleasure rolls through me, the anticipation of what’s about to happen making me heady.

When the first inch of his cock pushes inside of me, his eyes close, his breath leaving him.

“You’re a good man, Charlie,” I whisper, kissing his closed mouth. I smooth my hand over his chin. “I see you.”

His eyes open, strong, sure, certain.

He shifts forward slowly, rolling his hips into me until our bodies are one, our hearts thudding against one another in an uncontrolled, out of rhythm beat.

The groan that leaves him once he’s fully inside of me makes my cheeks flame.

I lift my knees slightly, knowing it will put him deeper, needing him as deep and as lost inside of me as he can get.

“Lis,” he mutters, before taking my lips.

He rolls his hips, and we both shudder.

His hands fall from my face, smoothing down my arms, holding me, worshipping me as they brush over my hips, the backs of my thighs. He lifts one to my waist and thrusts forward, grunting into my mouth.

“Yes!” I cry, his tongue fluttering down my throat.

“I’m not going to last. You’re…” He thrusts hard, pinning me to the mattress, and we both moan. “You’re everything,” he whispers against my skin, breath ragged. “You’re everything to me, baby.”

I take his face and pull him back to my level, kissing him with everything I have within me. Giving him everything.

He finds us a rhythm, a route home, a place to take our beating hearts to safety. With our hands linked, our heads braced, our souls tied, our bodies give way. And together, we let ourselves come undone.

I’m staring at the cuts on Charlie’s hand, his naked body wrapped around mine on the mattress.

We fell asleep after having sex, seeing out the remainder of our first night together in each other’s arms.

I’m not sure I’ve ever felt safer.

“I’m sorry,” he tells me, my thumb tracing the torn skin. “I’ll put it right.”

I swallow and look up at him, his blue eyes piercing, full of promise.

I lean back and lift my head, kissing him. “You don’t have to apologise.”

He searches my gaze as if looking for a lie.

I blink, searching for the right words. “I probably feel as guilty as you do. The idea of it seems terrifying—you showing up like that. But I can promise you that they haven’t felt such a feeling, a feeling of guilt or remorse or concern, in their entire lives. Maybe on a level, maybe in passing late at night when they arrived home, but not enough to do anything about it and change.” I smooth a hand over his jaw. “I don’t share your guilt, it’s different, I have my own. Because I should care that you did it, but I don’t. I can only sit here feeling like the luckiest girl in the world to know a man like you, a man who wants to be in my life, who will care about me enough to go after the things that hurt me.” I kiss his cut up, bruised knuckles. “I’m guilty of being selfish.”

He kisses the top of my head, his lips lingering. “I’ll make it right,” he promises again.

I smile, my mind wrapped up so fully in him, in the way he adored my body only hours ago, that I must miss the knock at the door.

We both look back over our shoulders at the front door, the new archway blocking part of the entrance, making it hard to see who’s walked into the house.

Charlie pulls the blanket up over me, right to my chin.

“Lowell,” he greets, clearly not expecting him.

Mason’s lips curl as he looks down at us on the mattress. “I can come back in a bit.”

“No,” I tell him. “It’s fine.” After hearing that he was the one to come and get Charlie in the night, I’m not about to kick him out.

He steps into the room and looks around the open plan lounge and kitchen, the new archway and hallway that have been started. “It looks good.”

“You should see the upstairs,” I tell him.

He grins, flicking his eyes to Charlie.

He tips his chin up at him. “I phoned Edna early and told her you won’t be in today. Neither of you. Nina is going to visit The Nightingale and speak to whoever she needs to about requesting a couple days off, Lissie.” He holds up a hand to me when I frown, sitting up. “I can assure you I tried to talk her out of it, but she’s in the city, and I’m not arguing with the over-tired, over-emotional pregnant woman. Trust me, it’s a battle you won’t win.”

I look up at Charlie, but he simply smiles and nods his head.

It’s the smile that gets me.

“She also told me to invite you both to dinner this evening.”

I feel Charlie nodding behind me. “We’ll be there.”

“Good,” Mason says, openly watching us with a lingering smile on his face. “Anything I can do?” he asks Charlie.

“I’ve already messaged Tom this morning and sent him to Elton House.”

He dips his head in answer. “Well, I saw the paint at the bottom of the stairs. It’s about time you did some actual work, Aldridge.”

I smile as I watch him walk back through the archway.

“I can assure you that painting is the last thing on my mind today,” Charlie calls after him.

“Yeah, I can see that,” comes back, the trace of his smile littered in the words. “See you tonight.”

My smile doesn’t leave my face, and as Charlie shifts out from my side, moving to lie over me, it only grows. “I can help you paint. I’m good at it.”

His brow flickers, his body flexing. “Yeah?”

I nod, serious.

“Open your legs.”

I do, and he smirks down at me, slipping beneath the blanket and settling between my thighs.

Charlie

“Everything else is fixed up, boss. Just the windows left to be replaced, but I boarded them up for now in case they don’t get delivered today.”

I tighten my hold on the steering wheel. “Thank you, Tom.”

“You want us back at your place in the morning? The kitchen is ready to be fitted, and if you’re happy with the front doors I’ll get them up.”

I see Lissie looking up at me and peer down at her.

“If you could, that would be great.”

“Yep, no worries. Cheers.”

Tom ends the call before I can say goodbye, his “get on with it” attitude one of the main reasons I employed him to work on the house. “You picked out doors?”

“No. I told Tom to have a look at the doors you showed me, and he agreed they’d look good.”

“The green?”

I nod, watching as her face lights up. “You’ve not steered me wrong yet.”

“Yet,” she repeats. “You put too much trust in me.”

I give her a gentle wink.

“I can’t believe my parents let you put the house straight.”

“I’m not sure they would have had I been the one to knock on the door this morning.”

“That’s true. I had a missed call from Jovie this morning, so either they told her, or she actually wants to talk.”

“Do you want to talk to her?”

She shrugs. “I want to. But if she can’t wrap her head around the fact I have no interest of mending things with Mum and Dad, I don’t know if there’s much of a conversation to have.” She looks out through the windscreen, her face taking on a sadness. “I think it’s a time thing. She hurt me, and deep down I know that it will hurt her that I’ve reacted the way I have. That I couldn’t just be happy for her.”

With the blanks in Lissie’s childhood mostly filled in, I gently push against her walls in the hope she’ll let me all the way in. “You said that you think the reason she hasn’t come home is because of Willow. Do you really believe that?”

“Hmm,” she says, sighing. “She’s blamed money, and work, and time, but I know my sister. I know how much she loves me.” She huffs a laugh, but I know without looking that she’s getting emotional. “We’ll FaceTime, and she’ll leave the room. Or if I do get to speak to Will, it will be quick because they’re heading out somewhere.” When I look down at her, she’s biting her lip. “It probably sounds like I’m overthinking it and am being pathetic, but I know in my gut that it’s the reason she stayed in Australia.”

“Do you think it would hurt in the way she thinks? If you got to meet Willow?”

She meets my eyes. “It would kill me inside. It would tear away at a barely healed wound and magnify exactly what I can’t have. And it would fill me with absolute joy. It would make me overcome with a pride I already hold for my sister.” She smiles. “I think it would heal me in a way.”

I reach over and link her fingers with mine, resting our hands in her lap. “I hope you get to meet her one day.”

“I will.” She squeezes my hand in hers. “We really do just need some time. This was always going to happen. I can’t let my emotions rule her life, no matter how much the control freak within me wants to.”

“You’re not a control freak, Lis. You care and love your sister and niece. After everything I’ve learnt and am learning, I can promise you that you’re a better person than I am to handle everything the way you have.”

She goes quiet on me, and like always, it rattles me.

I turn onto the back road to the estate and then look down at her.

“What?” I ask, my smile instant when I see hers.

“I’m just not sure I can take advice from a man who I think might fancy me a little bit.”

I chuckle, smoothing my hand over her thigh. “More than a little bit, Lissie girl.”

She grins. “I remember you telling me that I wasn’t allowed to become infatuated.”

“We’re all liars.”