5

Tyler certainly had met Lord Fuckface, who had sneered down the length of his nose at the likes of Tyler Connelly, trash, anywhere near his precious daughter.

Or that was how Tyler assumed the man had felt. It was how he imagined he’d feel if he had a daughter—especially a daughter like Lexi.

“Sure, and he’s a real peach.”

“It’s just that once I get married, that’s it,” Lexi said, ignoring his comment on her father. Having lectured him more than once on how shit it was to dislike people simply because they were richer than him—not an issue he had much any longer. “It will be however it is with Victor, and I’ve already made my peace with that. We’ll have children and a good life.

I’m sure of it.”

“As long as you’re sure.” He didn’t point out that her presence on his deck suggested otherwise.

She glared at him. “It’s something Lily said. It’s something she’s always said, actually. But I guess it feels a little more urgent these days.”

“I’m not sure I would take advice from the likes of Lily,” Tyler said mildly. “Unless you have a hankering to go clubbing. For a year.”

He had no quarrel with Lily. She was a gorgeous little mess and always had been. The only reason Tyler hadn’t tried it on with her back in the University was because she’d been so close with Lexi. And Tyler was never going to do anything that might create a wedge between him and Lily —especially her friend.

“She settled down,” Lexi told him. “Quite seriously, actually.”

Tyler laughed. “Are we talking about the same Lily?”

“I know.” Lexi grinned. “But yes. She’s even going back to the university to finish her degree.”

“Is she now.” Tyler laughed, and it wasn’t forced. “I’ll be damned. I wouldn’t think it would matter to a trust fund princess if she finished a degree or not.”

“I told you. She’s turned over a new leaf.”

“I can’t abide people with every advantage in the world pissing it away.

Good on her.” He eyed Lexi more closely. “Do you feel you need to turn over a new leaf too? I don’t even know what that would look like. Saint Alexia, queen of good works, got a first, as I recall.”

“I understand academics,” she was saying, with that passion in her voice that made his cock ache, though it was never directed where he wanted it. “And I love the charity. It makes me feel good to help, if I can. To be honest, I still love the role I played for my father. We’re all we have.”

The way she said that tore at him, and kept him quiet. He didn’t understand the bargains she made with her father. Tyler's contact with his own relatives was limited to their semiannual attempts to extort money from him, which they’d started during his time at the University, so he could only assume that having a family member he loved would be a transformative experience that could possibly lead to arranged marriages. Or something.

But they’d spent years comparing and contrasting their families and upbringings without Lexi turning up in Olkfield. This didn’t quite seem like the time to continue that conversation.

“It’s beginning to feel like you’re leading up to something here.” And it was harder to keep his voice mildly lazy. To produce that friendly grin. “Better get to it. The suspense is killing me.”

“Sex,” she said.

For a curious moment, Tyler thought something must have plummeted from the sky above and hit him in the head.

His ears rung. He was almost light-headed. But no. He wasn’t imagining it. His Lexi, forever his friend and decidedly off-limits, was sitting opposite him talking about sex.

Not having a laugh about his revolving bedroom door. Not rolling her eyes at his conquests. She was staring at him with what looked like naked sincerity in her eyes, and…blowing his mind.

“Did you just say sex?” he asked, because he had to make sure.

He expected her to laugh. To roll her eyes at him and call him a pervert for hearing sex everywhere. But instead, she nodded, her eyes big. “Lily says I’ve never been fucked properly.”

Very seriously, God help him. And Tyler would never know how it was that he stayed where he was. Lounging back in a chair on his deck on a lovely Saturday morning, while joggers ran heedlessly by on the coastal walk, seabirds careened about in the air and Lexi Graham had flown all the way down to Olkfield to talk to him about fucking. He would never know how he remained calm.

“Well?” he asked, casually. As if this entire conversation didn’t feel, suddenly, as if he’d sustained a series of knockout blows and was reeling about blind. And wanting things he couldn’t have. “Have you?”

________

There was something about that intent look on Tyler's face, the patience in his green eyes. The way he asked her a question and then waited. Like he could wait forever, if that was what it took.

It made Lexi feel safe. But then, he always did. She could tell Tyler anything.

Even things she was afraid to tell herself.

“I think maybe I’m bad at it,” she confessed.

Something flashed over his face then, some dark gleam, that reminded her of that moment out in front of his house. When she’d stared at his familiar face and hadn’t recognized him at all.

Deep inside her, something clicked. Then flared into life, but she ignored it. Because she was here, in his house. With him. And wherever Tyler was, she could depend on him to keep them inside his bubble. Where everything was always okay. And if it wasn’t, he would fight it off.

“Not possible,” he told her, a strange note in his voice.

“You don’t know that it’s not possible,” Lexi argued. “Because here’s the thing. I’ve never staggered off after having sex with someone giddy and filled with joy the way that girl did today. And I certainly don’t leave anyone in that state.”

She expected him to leap in, to contradict her, but he didn’t. Because Tyler let her tell her own story. How had she forgotten how freeing that was? How he allowed to her relax and really, truly say what she felt? Then again, she was here. Maybe she hadn’t forgotten.

“Everyone talks about sex like it’s a compulsion. Passion and desire.

Need. This hunger that takes them over.”