Page 31 of Reckless Hearts
Chapter 17
Present
The band didn’t winany awards tonight, but I did pick up Best Songwriter of the Year for the song I wrote for Chris Stapleton. That was more of a career highlight for me than anything else.
London and I also didn’t get married last night.
After attending three different after-parties at various hotels, hob-knobbing with other musicians and artists into the wee hours of the morning, we wound up chartering a private jet back home instead of staying overnight.
As we sit in the leather-clad airplane seats, I try to justify my reservations about getting married in Vegas. Maybe I was a fool not to take her up on the offer to just do it. And now I’m second-guessing my intentions.
London’s bare feet are my lap, as I massage the balls of her feet, her moans over my therapeutic touch sending bolts of electric desire to my cock.
“Oooh…my poor aching feet love you right now,” she purrs, the red-soled Louboutin’s kicked to the side of her seat, her dress hiked up to her knees. “You can do this all night.”
Digging my thumbs into the cushions of her feet, she relaxes, her lids close and a dreamy expression fixes across her face.
“I’m at your service, darlin’.”
An eyelid pops open suspiciously. “Hmm…what else would you do for me?”
I catch the suggestive innuendo in her tone and wiggle my eyebrows.
“Anything you want.” I lean over and teasingly touch the tip of my tongue to her lips as she giggles, shooing me away with her palm smooshed into my face.
“Everything but marry me, that is.”
She sticks out her lush bottom lip in a pout, batting her eyelashes at me.
I stop rubbing her feet and grab underneath her ass to scoot her up on my lap, cradling her in my arms.
“You understand why, right? God knows how much I want to marry you. I’ve waited for years to make you my wife, but I just can’t do it without Cam by our side. It would feel…”
“Incomplete,” she supplies, threading her fingers in my hair and kissing my neck. “I understand, Sage.”
Her warm breath in my ear sends shivers skittering down my spine. Her words hold so much meaning because we’ve been in this situation before when we’ve both been with other people. The wrong people. Partners that were simply placeholders for the right ones.
Our long history of on-and-off again has taught London and me heartbreaking lessons on fidelity and commitment.
I went off the rails the year after I was released from prison, knowing London was in another man’s bed and life. I used drugs, alcohol and loads of women to try and erase the ache inside my chest that felt like a crushing meteor.
It was too much for me to take knowing I pushed her away –threw her away– and into the arms of another man.
And when she returned to Nashville without Clay, I did what I could to hurt her. Punish her for the way my heart and soul still loved and needed her. I was cruel and heartless, yet her arms remained open to me every time I asked for her help.
I hated myself for the way I treated her.
Every time I knelt on my knees in front of her, begging to be taken back, to be forgiven, she would. I was a worthless user, but she still found the capacity to love me even at my worst.
Those were tough years that we’ve tried to forget and move past. If she were any other women, she might’ve left me without a backwards glance. Tossed me away like the garbage I was. It was only by the grace of her forgiveness and love that got us through that time in my life, until I finally realized I could never love another woman besides London.
Yet a portion of my heart was still carved out with the name of the man I still loved equally as much.
Cam.
Now, in this moment, I had to fess up to what I did. Confess to playing a part in Cam’s ten-year absence from our lives. And what I recently did to hopefully win him back.
“London, I need to tell you something.”
