Landon's Obsession: An Endless Series: Book 3 (Series 3) (33 page)

     “Oh god!” He cried, and the next instant he shocked me
by hauling me back into his chest, arms tight around my waist. “I swear when I
get a hold of that motherfucker he’s dead.”

     I stiffened at the abrupt intimacy, but it wasn’t
because it was unwanted. It was the opposite. I
shouldn’t
want to be in
his arms, or feel so at ease being held by him after everything that had
happened, and four years of separation, but I did, and it was more than being
at ease, it felt good. It was what I had craved back then; his warm comforting
chest, and his strong arms supporting me so I wouldn’t fall apart. I was insane
for wanting to soak it in before it was ripped away…all over again.

     It was a bitter-sweet embrace.  

     “Maya, if you don’t want me holding you you’re going to
have to pull away because I can’t let go.” His arms loosened slightly and I
could feel the tension in his frame as he waited for me to extricate myself,
but I couldn’t seem to make my feet move no matter how insane this moment was. He
responded by tightening his arms. “Maya, I can hear the shame in your voice and
you have nothing to be ashamed of. That cocksucking, son of a bitch, asshole
will get everything he deserves.” He vowed.

     He almost had me laughing at his description, but all I
did was sigh. “Your language is still atrocious.”

     He didn’t seem to be in a laughing mood either. “What
did he do after getting you there, Maya?”

      I jerked in his embrace, but he held on rubbing my
arms. “Not the details, Maya. Never the details. Just…Hell, I don’t even know
what I could handle hearing. Just forget it. I’m sorry, I never should have
asked.” He growled.

     The confliction of rage and anguish in his voice was
palpable. Even though I hated talking about it I had to give him something. I recognized
that it would have tormented him worse if I didn’t.

     “Landon, I couldn’t tell you any details anyway. I
arrived at the house at one o’clock and your brother said that he was working
on the plans to everything in the pool house. I asked where your mother was and
he said she was running errands with my mom for the party. At the pool house he
offered me an alcoholic drink but I said I only wanted some water. He didn’t
seem happy about that and tried pushing me to drink but I was firm on no
alcohol. He finally relented and got me a water, but set a mixed drink next to
it. I didn’t drink it though.”

     I took a breath wishing I had a drink now. “We didn’t
get to work right away. He asked me questions about us, how we got together and
other things. Then he started flirting with me and it got uncomfortable. I told
him to give me a task because I couldn’t stay long, and he gave me a list of
caterer’s to call to see if they were available. I don’t know how much time
passed when I started to feel woozy. I think I said something about how I was
feeling, and that I needed to go, and tried standing up…I don’t remember
anything after that.”

     Landon inhaled and his arms tightened, but he stayed
silent so I continued after a deep breath of my own. “The next thing I knew I
was waking up naked in the bed. I felt terrible, both my head and body. Kris
was sitting there next to me equally naked, watching television and drinking.”

     I stopped for a moment to collect myself. Landon’s
chest and arms were warm against me, but it couldn’t stop the coldness running
through my blood. “Waking up like that and not knowing what had happened was
awful. It didn’t make sense, but it was obvious. I mean, we were both naked…in
bed. He leered down at me and said, ‘It was no wonder Landon like me so much
because I was a really good…fuck.” I inhaled shakily while Landon gritted out ‘
That
fucker is so dead’
.

     “I stumbled from the bed, looking for my clothes.” I
omitted that I had been crying at this point. “I noticed the vomit on the floor
and Kris chuckled and told me that I needed to increase my tolerance for
alcohol. I ran to the bathroom and got dressed as fast as I could and ran.”

     I’d run to my car and tore out of there as quickly as I
could, but I had to pull over about a mile down the road because I’d been near
hysterical and crying so hard. I may not remember being violated, but just the
thought of it was traumatic. Lying there passed out while someone did what ever
they wanted with my body.

     I was now quaking from the coldness. I couldn’t stop
it. Landon rubbed at my arms furiously but it didn’t help. “God, Maya. I’m so
sorry, so fucking sorry.” He declared shakily.

     “It’s not your fault, Landon.” I retorted sadly. I
didn’t in anyway hold Landon responsible for what his brother had done, but he
had added his own brand of pain to the circumstances and it made it difficult
to disconnect the two sometimes.

     Recalling the pain he’d wreaked upon me had me
stiffening slightly.  

     “Maybe not, but it feels like it is.” He replied
disconsolately. “You are shaking so bad, honey. Let me make you some tea.”

     “I don’t like tea.” I almost added ‘remember’, but why
would he.

     “But you do drink it when you’re sick and you need
something hot to stop these tremors.” He responded, surprising me that he did
remember.

     Landon led me back to the couch and after seating me,
and wrapping me in a blanket, he strode toward the kitchen. I watched him go
and when he was out of sight I found myself rising to follow…the look in his hazel
eyes, it had been so empty. Halting at the archway I peaked around the corner
to see Landon in front of the stove, bent over at the waist, fisting the edge with
white knuckles. The muscles under his shirt strained against the material
showing how tense he was. He looked to be barely holding himself together.

     I stared at him with an ache in my chest. Three months
ago I’d hated him and would have wanted a front seat to his suffering, but now,
after learning what he’d seen and how it had affected him…well, my feelings
were confused, but I knew I didn’t want this.

     I stepped into the room. “Landon.”

     He spun around and I saw that the empty look was gone, replaced
by that blazing fire of rage and torment. “Maya…please, go sit down. I’ll be
right there.” His voice came out rough.

     I walked to the kitchen island. “Landon, I’ve come to
terms with what happened to me. It’s still an unpleasant subject, but I don’t
dwell on, it doesn’t define me, and I don’t let it affect my life. I’m okay.”

     His face contorted, turning he picked up the tea pot.
“I’m not, and you may have come to terms with what happened, but I bet you wish
you had never met me. I put you in his sights.”

     I sighed and sat down on one of the bar stools. “If I
had never met you I wouldn’t have Nola, and because of her I don’t think I
would change a thing.”

     He bent forward again clutching the counter. “Maya, we
always wore protection. She can’t be mine.” His voice was a hoarse whisper.

     “The doctor didn’t find any semen, Landon. Kris wore
protection as well, but someone’s sperm made it through somehow so she could be
yours.”

     He twisted and the look of hope on his face surprised
me. Did he want Nola to be his? But if she wasn’t how would he take it. No
matter what they were related and I couldn’t help thinking that Nola would
benefit having him in her life as…whatever.   

     “We need to find out.” He proclaimed.

     My chest constricted at his fervor. I stood and walked
back to the living room.

     “Maya!?” He followed me. “Don’t you want to know?”

      I sat down on the couch and looked up at him. He
strode forward with a frown. “I do and I don’t.” I said with a sigh.

     His frown deepened in confusion. “Why wouldn’t you?” 

     A resurgence of past anger shot through me. “I was so
incredibly hurt when you broke up with me, with the way you broke up with me.”

     Surprise crossed his face at my out of the blue
statement, and then miserable remorsefulness replaced it. “Maya…”

     I held up my hand, because I wasn’t finished. This was
something I needed to get off my chest no matter how it hurt him. “After months
of wallowing in that, anger took its place…god, I was so angry…and then hate
moved in. Just like you, the hate was easier to handle. What Kris did to me…it
felt like someone had punched me in the chest over and over, but what you did
Landon…it felt like someone opened my chest up and took out my heart. ”

     Landon’s face was white. “I’m so sorry, Maya.” He croaked.
 

     I blinked quickly trying to hold back my tears. “But
even then I wanted Nola to be yours. I’d loved you…” I hadn’t meant to say that
word, but at least I’d said it in the past tense. “So at least I could tell her
when she was older that I had feelings for the man who fathered her. But if
Kris is her father I will have to tell her that she was conceived during rape.
I didn’t want that for her. I
don’t
want that for her.”

     Landon slumped into the chair and his fatigued
expression was back with a vengeance. A gloomy silence settled between us until
he eventually broke it. “I know I don’t deserve any kind of benevolence from
you, Maya, but I have to know if she’s mine.”

     “I know.” I admitted with a sigh. Landon did deserve to
know if Nola was his child.

     His eyes took on a glint of hope. “Thank you.” 

     I nodded, gratified by his keenness, but also scared to
death.

     “When can I meet her?”

     And the scared the death part reared its head. “Landon,
until we find out what you are to her I think we should wait. I don’t want to
introduce you to her as a friend and then something else later, it would
confuse her.”

     “We will introduce me as her father and it will stay
that way no matter what the results are.” He stated categorically.

     I stared at him in shock. “What!”

     Standing, he moved to sit on the coffee table in front
of me taking my hands in his. I watched him wide-eyed.

     “I already told you I’m not letting Kris anywhere near
you or Nola. We can tell her I am her father.”   

     My chest constricted…with astonishment…optimism? “And
when the test results come back and it says otherwise?”

     His eyes were fervent. “No matter what she will be mine.”

     I gaped. “Landon!?” He would do that if she wasn’t his?

     “I mean it, Maya, even if she turns out to not be…mine;
I want to claim her as mine.” He faltered over that like he didn’t even want to
say it, or think it. “It would be like an adoption, and if you thought she
needed to know later, when she’s older, then we could tell her.”

     I so wanted to jump on his offer. I wanted Nola to have
a father in her life. I hadn’t had one and no matter how much I told myself and
others, especially my mother, I’d felt a hole in my heart knowing my father
wanted nothing to do with me. As the years passed the hole had diminished
somewhat, but it had never completely healed. I didn’t want Nola to live with
that unwanted feeling for the rest of her life.

     Landon would be a good father. Yes, he’d treated me
awfully four years ago, but he’d thought he had cause, and knowing the reasons
brought back the good memories of how well he’d treated me. He had his issues,
but seeing how he was beating himself up over what his brother had done, and
how he had reacted, it revealed the admirable nature I’d discerned in him all
those years ago, before it had all gone to hell.

     But was it fair to him…and he could change his mind.

     His hands squeezed mine. “I see your doubt, but I’m
speaking with certainty…and from my heart, Maya. Let Nola me mine.”

     God, he sounded like he truly meant it, but this wasn’t
a decision I could make spur of the moment. This was huge. And I was also all
over the place with my feelings for him; I understood his side of things, but I
still held resentment towards him.

     “I have to think about this, Landon.” His face fell
slightly in disappointment. It tugged at my heart. “Just a day or two, okay? I
need you to think about it more, too”

     He nodded. “I understand. I won’t change my mind, but
you are correct that it’s not a decision to make lightly.” He continued to hold
my hands, circling his thumbs over my skin. His touch still had the ability to
make my heart beat out of control. From the first moment I saw him, standing in
his bedroom door, he’d affected me.  

     I pulled my hands away because the sensations were too
disconcerting. I shouldn’t be feeling this way after all this time, and after only
hours of seeing him again. His face contorted and I was speculating on the
reason when my phone beeped. We both looked down at as it was resting next to
his butt on the table.

     Landon grimaced slightly at seeing the name on the
screen. “Your mom…How does she feel about me being back in the picture?”

     My lip tugged. “She’s not thrilled.” I answered
honestly.

     “Yeah, I don’t blame her. I’m not too thrilled with me
either.”

     His dejection had me taking his hands this time.
“Landon, while I’m not thrilled with how you broke up with me, I do understand
why you did what you did.” I remembered how suspicious Landon had been toward
women, all starting with the first girl who’d betrayed him.  

     He gave me a confused frown touched with sadness. “How
can you be so understanding after what I did, after what my brother did. I believed
what I saw without question and dumped you in the most contemptible way.”

     “Yeah, that hurt,” I sighed, but I left it at that not
wanting to dig any deeper. “But your brother’s actions have no bearing on our
relationship…” That word sounded really intimate, and I saw his eyes darken as
I said it. “…I mean our association. I can tell you that if we were having this
discussion three months ago I wouldn’t have been so understanding. After learning
that you’d discovered me in bed with your brother I understood more why you did
what you did. It took three months, but I was able to put myself in your
shoes.”