Love Is Louder (9 page)

Isn’t it always about a girl?

“Who is she, James?” I breathe out shakily.

“What are you talking about?” he whispers as he lightly brushes my cheek with his thumb. I blink, admiring my fiancé and cupping his cheek. This is not happening. He wouldn’t do this to me. We’re getting married in less than a month.

“I saw you talking to her in front of the coffee shop when we visited your family for Memorial Day weekend.” I stare at him. My chest rises and falls with uneven breaths, and my arms are hugging the pillow.

I witnessed the intimacy, the contact when she touched his arm, and how he smiled at her like she was the only one in the world that mattered to him at that moment. I didn’t know if I should have been angry, jealous, or just let it go. I’ve seen him talk and carry on with plenty of women through college and even now at the law firm. Women have always gravitated to him, just like I did. A moth to a flame.

“B, not this again.” He sighs as he lies back onto the pillow. “She’s nobody. Just an old friend. She means nothing.” He takes a deep breath and leans on his elbow, looking down at me.

Closing my eyes, I’m desperate to believe him. I’ve never been the jealous type. I saw him with her during the holidays, right before Christmas. She was stunning. I watched him hug her as I stood behind the Christmas tree where Santa was asking kids what they wanted for Christmas. I wanted James, and I got him. I was engaged to him two days later on Christmas Eve under the falling snow next to the lake. It was beautiful, but all I remember is him hugging her. It killed me inside, even though I knew he loved me, and he proved it to me.

So, why am I lying here in bed next to him acting insecure?

We’re going back for our wedding in less than two weeks. Closer to her. I nibble on my inner cheek as I allow my thoughts to run wild. Will he get in touch with her? Will she get in touch with him?

They always seem to find each other. Like two lost ships, but are they really, if the current is pulling them in the same direction?

I push him, my palms flat on his chest, but James clings to me, kissing my neck. His body is hot and hard against mine. Looking at him, I see the man whom I love, and here I am acting like an envious teenager, questioning him about a girl he knew before me.

What kind of woman am I?

I’m twenty-six years old, a college graduate with a career and a successful fiancé who just graduated from Harvard Law School. He is mine. He is here with me and not with her. My chest is tightening as if someone is reaching inside and gripping my fragile heart in their fist, halting its constant rhythm. I close my eyes.

Breathe. Slow. Deep breaths.

“Brie, listen to me,” he urges.” Look at me.”

I crack open my eyes and look at his. The blue eyes I love with everything in me. The blue eyes I’ve stared into for the past two years. The only eyes I want to see when I wake up every morning.

Our fingers lace together, and he tugs me close. My chest is crushed to his, and his face brushes my cheek. His hot breath caresses my ear as his lips travel down to my collarbone. He feels so good, that warmth radiates down my legs and hardens my nipples to painful peaks.

“I want you.” His features relax, and then he leans in closer. “I do.” He moistens his lips and plants a soft kiss on the corner of my lips. “I will prove it to you in two weeks, Brie. I need you. I want only you.” He takes my hand and holds it up so that the diamond sparkles in the morning sunlight. “I slipped this onto your finger for a reason. I don’t want anybody else.”

Jesus Christ. Mason Marks is popping up everywhere. I anticipated running into some old faces from the past when I moved back to town, but I’m not quite sure how I feel about running into him. Honestly, I wouldn’t feel this way if he didn’t know I was married to Brie and then caught me at his bar getting a little cozy with Lisa, but it’s not what it looks like. We work closely together. The long hours, the cases—it’s all taking a toll—and that night at the bar was a way to wind down.

What are the chances he would be the guy fixing that piece of shit washing machine, meet my wife, and then catch me out with another woman? I haven’t seen him in years, and here is he giving me shit. I didn’t need to justify my actions to him, but I do need to be smarter with whom I’m seen in public and avoid touching other women apart from my wife.

Lisa has a thing for me, and lately she has been more aggressive with her advances. I can’t avoid her or quit my job over this. She’s the damn deputy district attorney. She’s stunning, smart, and very single, but I’m not. She’s literally sitting on my lap everyday going over old and new cases and attending all the same meetings and functions at my side. Nothing has happened, but it is getting dangerously close. I’ve always liked to dance with the devil and play on the edge like this.

Restraint. I need to play it cool, but I’m strung so tight with work I’m about to snap. I’m slipping like a loose knot. Just a little tug and I’m going to unravel.

Then there’s Brie, who without a doubt is the most patient and understanding woman I know. Yet, here I am fucking it all up by shutting her out, and in the end, I know I’ll shatter her delicate character. This job is important to me. It’s the reason I took the position and moved back a year ago. I busted my ass in law school to get here. Dedicated my life to this. The lengthy hours are part of the job, but she didn’t anticipate this shit, and honestly, neither did I. It’s wearing on our marriage, but it has to get better and easier soon. There’s the honeymoon period, and then fucking real life takes over. This is the shit that really tests a marriage, and I’m failing at it.

Moving, I lean my elbows onto my desk and press my thumb and forefinger against my eyes. I witnessed Mason’s reaction to Brie.

He can’t have her.

Challenge was crystal clear in his eyes, and rage curled in my bones. Jealousy is not an emotion I enjoy wrestling with, especially when it comes to another man wanting my gorgeous wife. Mason is a different animal altogether.

We have a history. He’s despised me ever since his sister Meadow had a thing for me in high school. I couldn’t act on it since he knew my habits, but I tried hard to no avail. He was a fucking pit bull when it came to his sister. I didn’t blame him one bit. I’d do the same thing if I had a sister as gorgeous as Meadow.

I’m pretty sure Brie sensed the tension bristling between us the other night. I was so fucking close to punching the smug look off his face, but I couldn’t with her beside me. She’d ask questions. But, one more confrontation like that is going to push me over the edge.

She’s mine no matter how fucked up I am right now and the fact our marriage is dangling precariously because of me. I didn’t make time for her before, but now I need to make time. This urge to work on my marriage was all triggered by my encounter with Mason. His reaction to Brie and her reaction to him made me sit back and see what I have right in front of me. Admitting the fact it took another man coveting my wife to change my neglectful ways is fucking shameful. Everyone has obligations and priorities. I need to get my shit together.

I lean back in my chair, struggling to hold back the thousand thoughts that flood my psyche. Silence hangs in the air, filled with questions and the sense of letting go of the past that haunts me, too. Brie deserves better than this. Better than me. I know she loves me because she stands by me. She bends to me every time, and it empowers me. Instead of loving her like she should be loved, I take advantage of her. I have to stop acting entitled, but my instincts keep repeating the same pattern.

She can’t live without me.

Can I live without her?

I don’t know. I don’t fucking know anymore. The last thing I want is for everything I’ve worked for to go down in flames. Rubbing the back of my neck, I try to chase away the tension that has gathered there, to shake off the unease that hangs like decay. I can prove to her how much I love her.

Fix this.

“James.” A voice floats from behind my office doors, interrupting my internal berating of my appalling actions and decisions.

“Come in,” I say, clearing the tightness that sits in my throat as I push back from my desk.

Lisa opens the door and steps into my office, letting the door latch behind her with a soft click. She smiles, revealing a set of perfectly white teeth. Everything about her is flawless. I can’t deny that. I momentarily glance at my wedding picture standing on my desk, blow out a breath, and return my attention to Lisa.

She saunters across the room and bends over the desk, giving me an uninterrupted view of her ass as she sets some more files upon my desk. Her ivory suit hugs every fabulous curve of her body; her lips are full and pouty—perfect for sucking my cock. The fact the deputy DA happens to look like a
Playboy
centerfold doesn’t make my predicament easier. The sexual energy rolls off this woman in tidal waves.

“We have that meeting with the staff in fifteen minutes. Do you want to go over the items on the agenda to get up to speed?”

Her tone is light as I make my way around my desk to grab my suit coat. Turning to face me, she reaches out a hand to straighten the collar of my white button-up shirt, adjusts my tie, and strokes away a few pieces of lint before I have a chance to pull away. Brie hasn’t done that for me in a long time. She hasn’t been to the office in months since she’s so busy at the studio.

Mainly because you’re out the door before she even gets downstairs, asshole.

“Is everything okay?” She narrows her gaze a bit and smiles, and that’s when the scent of her perfume, something lightly spicy and expensive, infiltrates my heightened senses.

I shrug and start to back away, even though I can’t help staring at her lips. I’m aware my sense of control is directly proportionate to the distance between us. I pride myself on my self-control, my tenacity, and my ability to get the job done, but when it comes to a beautiful woman like the one standing in front of me, my control is nearly nonexistent.

“Yes.” I cringe a little, thinking about the amount of cases that has piled on my desk in the past few weeks. One in particular.

“I realize we have a ton of cases. Don’t think I don’t feel it too, James. We’re a team, remember?” She gives my forearm a little squeeze.

Irrationally, I want nothing more for her hands to squeeze another part of my body, which would do wonders in relieving some of the tension building in my neck and shoulders. I squirm a little, praying she hasn’t read my expression or my mind.

“Some of these cases are becoming tedious.” I scowl and focus on my framed Harvard degree hanging on my wall and not her and the way my body and my mind seem to go fucking haywire at her simple touch and smell. “A waste of time.”

“I’m here for you if you need anything.” I still for a moment. Her appeasing voice makes my body coil in anticipation. “As a friend,” she murmurs seductively with a hint of a smile.

I scratch the side of my jaw to mask my unease and tension that have gathered in my chest from the blind sexual energy she gives off. I glance away at the files to get my mind back on track.