Page 46 of Ly to Me (Devils of Alliston Springs #1)

Carver

The Defense

I stroked the armrests while my vision tunneled on the brown hair catching rays from the midday sun, fanning over my pillows and covering parts of my wife’s back. The coarse fabric numbed the pads of my fingers, but it wasn’t nearly as grating as the fact that my mind refused to shut off.

Not until I knew why she really left me.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, and to give myself something else to focus on, I pulled it out and glanced at the time—3:12—before opening my messages.

Turns out, I’d missed quite a few things.

Jamie: I take it you found your wife.

Jamie: I’m headin’ to the facility. We need to talk numbers.

Jamie: Unless you want to reconsider.

I snorted a laugh. Fuck that.

Jamie: Actually, I forgot some kitchen things. Comin’ by in a bit.

I read the last one, and my fist curled.

Jamie: I’m here. I’ve got a key still, so I’ll just let myself in.

Like hell you—

The faint sound of clicking coming from the front door forced me from my seat and into the living room, where the doorknob was starting to turn.

I was ready with my hand out by the time the door opened and Jamie tried to step in.

“I’ll be takin’ that,” I said through gritted teeth.

Jamie’s hands, one still holding the key, went up in the air beside his head. “I’m not tryin’ to cause any harm, now,” he said, yet the twitch of his lips told me otherwise.

I flexed my outstretched fingers. “Keys,” I repeated the demand, eyeing my wife’s new key to her house. “Now.”

“Jesus, you’re more uptight than usual.” He slid the key into my hand, then glanced behind him at the front yard. “Have anythin’ to do with that bonfire you didn’t invite me to?” Jamie’s attention drifted to the dining room and his grin spread. “Where’s the chairs?”

“You said you were here for shit, not to talk it.”

His lips puckered like he was about to let out a whistle, but thought better of it with one look at my face. “Alright, then.”

“Well, go on.” I stepped back and gestured toward the kitchen.

Jamie was silent until his head was in a cupboard, scoping out appliances I was sure didn’t belong to him. “Where’s the wife?”

“Sleeping.”

“It’s only a few hours past noon,” he said with as much judgement as he usually backed his words with—too fucking much of it.

“Sure is.” The sudden urge to grip his blonde, slicked-back hair and slam it forward into the cabinet became strong as I moved to sit on a barstool to watch him more closely. “I assume that number you had on your phone and the location are no longer on it?”

“Sure can be.” He turned his head over his shoulder, brows lifted in response to what the murderous rage was doing to my facial features. “I’m still not so sure you didn’t force her to marry you.”

My fist curled along the countertop. “You said it yourself—she was savin’ herself for marriage. Pretty sure I told you she might be carrying my child. That should tell you enough.”

“Right.” He snorted and turned back to the cupboard, muttering something about how I’d forced her to do that, too.

I’d lost my shit only a handful of times in my life, red filling my vision, my pulse skyrocketing—the whole nine-yards. Each of those times was over Lyra. It was no surprise to me that comment had been enough to do me in.

One minute I was sitting there, dreamin’ it up, the next, Jamie’s head was cracking the wooden cabinet door. The same door I pulled him from, then closed, just to slam his rotten head into as many times as I could.

I released him when the hazy red of my vision subsided. He laughed as he spat blood on my floor. “You’re psychotic, you know that?”

“And you’re spewin’ words that have no backing,” I countered, dragging the back of my hand over my upper lip. “Get whatever it is you think you own in this kitchen and leave my wife and I alone.”

His chest expanded as he leaned against the counter, wiping the blood from his face with the bottom of his shirt. “The thing about your wife is…” Jamie’s words trailed off as his attention shot past me.

“What is the thing about his wife , exactly?” Lyra’s voice was calm as she stepped up beside me and folded her arms over another borrowed t-shirt. The same one she slipped on before I fed her and made her rest. Her not having pants hadn’t bothered me until now.

“This shit ain’t over.” Jamie sneered as he looked her over, his finger bouncing between us. “Y’all are hiding somethin’, and when I find out what it is—”

“You threaten my wife”—I crowded his space, and Jamie—the stupid, smug, son of a bitch he was—grinned, but couldn’t find it in his weak little body to not flinch—“and those will be your last words.”

“You—” Jamie’s face twisted, his shaky fingers ripping through his hair as he homed in on Lyra. “Whatever he said to get you into this mess is on you now. Don’t come cryin’ to me when this all’s finished.”

“Why on earth would I ever come cryin’ to you, Jamie?” Her tone was sweet and full of that Southern drawl of hers that came out more when she was angry. It was sexy as all hell.

Jamie quickly shifted gears and started grabbing what he could.

Fast. “She’s using you. She never had a rental house or movers or probably even a remote job—” I arched a brow at her over my shoulder.

Lyra shrugged, her lips kicked up into a faint smile.

“She was flirtin’ with Grant that night, and teasing Aubrey, and then, with what happened with Sabrina—”

“Sabrina had no business being in my bar, looking to taunt Lyra, which I gather she got the grand idea to do so from you.” Jamie froze with his back to me, fingers turning pale around a mug. “Took me a hot minute to realize you’d gleaned our date night whereabouts from Leo.”

Leo, who had been out sick that day, had done no such thing.

Jamie must’ve been watching the cameras, and had heard me calling my bar, letting the manager on duty know that I’d be making a rare appearance so I didn’t spook anyone thinking I was inspecting their work.

But if I mentioned the cameras, then he’d fuck with them.

And I had a feeling they’d come in handy with the shady shit he was trying to pull.

“Is there a reason you didn’t want to show up and check on us for yourself?”

Jamie’s head dipped beneath his shaking shoulders. When he turned, he was still laughing, but couldn’t quite hide the level of fear I’d invoked. “What sane man would go into his enemy’s bar?”

“What sane man would make me his enemy?” I flashed a wide grin as I sauntered backward, barely passing Lyra. Her body melted into mine as I wrapped my arms around her waist from behind, the edging doing its job at making her wildly responsive to even the slightest touch.

Jamie’s jaw twitched as my palm flattened over Lyra’s stomach. I hoped he was picturing my baby growing there. “I bet she’ll be gone once the facility is yours. I know it’s all connected, and when I find out how, I’ll—”

“Blackmail me?” My head cocked. “That’s a—what do you call that, again?”

“A felony,” Lyra provided smoothly.

“How right you are, sweetheart.”

She’d been gone when Jamie and I discussed felonies earlier that morning, and unbeknownst to her, it made it seem like we’d talked it out.

Like Lyra and I had some kind of civil conversation that we didn’t actually have.

Instead, I’d had her tied up in my barn while I fucked her virgin ass, then edged her more in the bathtub.

Jamie’s face turned red as I kissed the top of Lyra’s head. “You won’t be seein’ me go anywhere. So grab whatever it is you came to disturb my husband with and get the fuck out of my house.”

Pride welled deep, my cock thickening instantly, but then I noticed Jamie glancing at her ring finger for the dozenth time and the desire to slam his head back into the cabinet came wriggling back into my head.

“This is all fucked,” Jamie said, raising his voice a little too much for my liking.

Lyra didn’t miss a beat. “Bless your heart, and your mouth, with that tone.”

Jamie started rummaging faster, hauling up a blender and a few pans like they were his saving grace. At least he had the mental capacity to keep his trap shut until he reached the front door. “I will figure all this out, and when I do, I’ll be keeping my half of the facility and its profits.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Lyra said cooly. “You keep on trying for that one. When Carver makes a bet, he sees it through.”

Ice slid through my veins at the hollowness of those words, the depth at which they sought to prove how ruthless I could be.

The pain I’d caused her all from a stupid fucking bet.

The house turned silent, only the sound of Jamie’s truck starting back up and haulin’ ass from the driveway filling in some of the quiet.

Pushing back some of Lyra’s hair from her shoulder, I pressed my lips to her neck. Her skin flooded with goosebumps, but the moan I was waiting for came out muffled, and when she let out a heavy sigh, I knew it wouldn’t be long before she’d tell me to stop or to go fuck myself.

“Carver, you have to explain somethin’ to me if this—if me defending you—is goin’ to uphold and be believable.”

I swept my lips down and murmured against her skin, “Thank you for that.” My fingers shifted down, teasing the hem of her shirt. Her back arched, forcing her ass against my cock. “I’ll have to reconsider the duration of your edging session.”

“Car, I’m serious.” She pried my fingers from her body and turned to lean against the counter, facing me. Teeth worried her bottom lip, her brows pinched together pensively. “I don’t get it,” she finally got out.

“Don’t get…what?”

“I don’t get how you own a bar that seemed pretty busy, and a facility—one of the top in the state—”

“Oak Heart is the top in the state,” I clarified. “But, as you were.”

Her head cocked ever so slightly. “Why’d you need to get married to get more money? Don’t you have enough to buy Jamie out? You don’t exactly live frivolously. I thought maybe you had another…obligation?”

“Obligation?”

“Yeah, you know.” She fiddled with her cuticles, then forced her hands to her sides. “Like, maybe you owe an enormous debt to someone from gambling, or have another woman you’re floating. I don’t know, but…you grinnin’ like that at me isn’t making me feel any better about this.”

I crooked a finger over my lips. “And how do all those ideas floatin’ in your head make you feel?”

Her eyes darkened. “If I had a man I was sendin’ money to, fucking on the side, when our agreement clearly said we couldn’t, then, I’d be…” Her cheeks turned pink and she fixated on her toes. “I reckon I’d be mad.”

I let her sit with that for a second until she met my eyes. When she did—when those fiery chestnut eyes held mine, I caved. “There’s no one else, Ly.”

“Are you really that bad at business, then? Cause—”

I choked on my laughter. “It’s not that, either. Jamie was kept on because of my disinterest in the finances, but he only does that for the facility.”

“So…the bar? Where’s the profit in keepin’ it if you needed your parent’s—” She paused, a hint of sadness drifting through her eyes.

“If you needed the funds from that will, like you said,” she amended.

My throat worked as I tried hard not to think about the night they’d died and how I’d spent years blaming her for it.

“C’mon. I wanna show you somethin’.” I stretched my hand out in the space between us.

She did a half-eye roll. “If it’s more of your edging shit, then no.”

I smirked. “Right now, I just want to show my wife what I do with the funds I get from the bar.”

“You can’t just tell me?”

“Nah. Think this is best to see yourself.”

“Is it a strip club?” she teased as she took my hand, threading our fingers together.

“Or a ridiculous assortment of other barn animals? I think your rooster is lonely, and if he finds out you’re keepin’ some friends from him, he’s going to start pecking on the windows instead of just screechin’ through ’em. ”

“Dick has Bee and the other horse. They’re like three peas in a pod. And I have other animals, you just haven’t seen them much. They spend a lot of time out in the pasture.”

“Wait.” She froze. “You named your rooster Dick?”

“Sure did. Cock felt too formal.”

Lyra giggled. “What are you hiding, Mr. Roland?” I led her to the front door, then I dropped her hand to hold it open for her.

“Not much is hidden, sweetheart. You just aren’t looking in the right places.”