Beautiful Mistakes: Contemporary Romance Boxset Books 1-4 Read online

  “Or what?”

  She was so serious when she looked at me again that it made me hold my breath. “Or you open up in a way you never have before and see if you can let yourself love him like you so clearly want to.”

  “Oh, is that all?”

  She didn’t smile at my shaky quip. “I love you both, so much, and with all my heart. But if it comes down to a choice, I want you to know who’s camp I am very firmly in.

  We sat in silence as I ate my sandwich and Michelle toyed with the remaining sugary pancakes that were still on her plate.

  “Why are you doing this?” I asked finally.

  Michelle frowned, her fingers fiddling with the neckline of her shirt.

  “Because I want you both to be happy… And from what you’ve just told me and what I’ve seen since you two split - I think you might be able to help each other.”

  “You really think so?”

  She nodded, leaning forward and looking at me with all the love and trust that came from more than a decade of friendship. “I really do. And you know me, Amber. I’m rarely ever wrong about these things.”

  I took a deep breath, sitting back and considering everything that she had told me. It was so much. Mind blowing. World inverting. And yet the answer was sitting right there in my mind, complicated, confusing, scary, but most definitely there. “In that case, I’d like to see.”

  She pointed her fork at me, a slow smile growing across her features. “I think that can be arranged.”

  17

  Mickey

  I putzed around my place, having nothing in particular to do and the pain in my face making me restless. I supposed that I could work out, but I didn’t want to. I could make something to eat, but I didn’t want to do that either.

  No, I didn’t want to do much of anything.

  It was like the whole world had been painted in shades of melancholy, everything muted in shades of monochrome. It didn’t make sense. I had won my fight and people were more interested in ever. My agent said he was anticipating several new offers every week and to prepare myself for a real intense media circuit once I was recovered.

  I should have been happy.

  But mostly I just felt empty.

  I had let that emptiness effect my work too. I’d let far too many blows sneak through my defenses. It wasn’t the worst that I had ever been messed up, but it was definitely more than I should have.

  Maybe… maybe it was because the physical pain was easier to deal with than whatever was going on inside of me. Ever since the whole thing went down with Amber, I felt like I was shuttling rapidly between rage and depression.

  It wasn’t like me. While no one would ever exactly call me chipper, I was a generally easy-going guy. I liked going with the flow of things, focusing on enjoying positives rather than focusing on things that brought me down.

  But I couldn’t now. The only thing I could do was replay that last night with Amber, and it just made me more and more grumpy.

  Ugh. Grumpy. That made me sound like some discontented cat, or a toddler. I was neither of those things. I was a full-grown man and I needed to act like it.

  But that was easier said than done.

  “This is pathetic,” I groused to myself, burying my hands in the pockets of my hoody. Well, if I was going to be miserable, I could at least be miserable and drunk.

  I crossed over to my bar, pulling some bourbon from one of the higher shelves and grabbing a glass from below. Crossing over to my comfiest armchair, I flopped down and poured the thing full.

  But before I could take a single sip, a sharp knock surprised me. I nearly spilled the drink on myself and swore up and down before going to the front door.

  “I thought we discussed this,” I said once I was close enough that my agent could hear me. Because who else would be showing up at my door so late at night? Michelle would have at least texted me first that she was on her way. “I don’t really want to talk about projects for a couple of days, no matter how big the paycheck is.”

  I opened the door, but instead of my agent, or my trainer or even Michelle, there was Amber, looking up at me with so much in her eye that I was dumbstruck.

  “Needed a break, huh? I can help with that.”

  I stared at her, absolutely gobsmacked, and she just pushed past me, walking into my home like she belonged there.

  “Amber?” I croaked once I came back to life. “Amber, you shouldn’t be here.”

  Sure, I had plenty of fantasies about her all over my place. Naked except for an apron as I fucked her over one of the counters in my massive kitchen. Legs spread and hands in my hair as I ate her out on the dining room table I never used. Oh, so many in the shower.

  But those were fantasies, ones that I wasn’t supposed to have now that she was over. I had come to terms that I wasn’t content with us just being about sex, but that was all that she wanted to give.

  “Have you eaten today?” she asked, exiting from the narrow hallway that lead to my door and stepping out into the more open part of the floor plan. “It’s important for recovery.”

  What? She wanted to know when I ate last? I answered her more out of surprise than anything else. “Yeah, I had some oatmeal.”

  “When?”

  “I’m not going to sleep with you just because you showed up here in the middle of the night.”

  When she looked to me, her face was so many things. Hurt. Guilty. Determined. The mix of it all had my body responding but I beat it back. I wasn’t going to take table scraps from her and be satisfied. I wanted more, and I wouldn’t settle just because I was in love with her.

  Oh God. There it was, right out in the open space of my mind.

  I loved her, really and truly did, but her being right in front of me just reminded me that she didn’t feel the same in return.

  “That’s fine,” she said softly. “I didn’t come here for that.”

  I doubted that very much. “Then what did you come here?”

  “I…” she looked so uncertain for a moment, the defiant set of her shoulders flagging, but it lasted less than a breath. The next thing I knew she had one of her arms around my waist and was leading me back to my overstuffed, reclining chair. I could have stopped her at any moment. She was an Amazon, mighty and powerful and talented, but I was still stronger and bigger than her. But I didn’t stop her. I let her maneuver me into the chair and set me down.

  “I’ll go see what you have in the fridge. Are you thirsty?” She eyed the drink beside me and frowned. “Alcohol isn’t good for healing,” she remarked, grabbing the bottle of bourbon but leaving me the glass.

  “What, are you my mom?” I snapped mulishly.

  “No. But I am taking care of you for once.”

  “Wait, what?”

  Her words startled me, and I blinked owlishly at her, trying to figure out if I had fallen asleep and was having some sort of terrible nightmare. But instead of answering my question, she went to my kitchen. I heard her rummage around for a bit before she returned, pushing a glass of ice water into my hand, complete with a straw.

  “You have no food besides protein shakes,” she remarked, her tone indicating what she thought of that.

  “Yeah, I was going to order groceries today. I was just…” How did I admit to her that I was so hung up on her that the thought that I could never have her had be stuck in a mire of self-pity? That was not attractive.

  “Distracted,” she supplied for me instead. “Understood. I’ll order you something. What are you in the mood for?”

  I was staring up at her again like she was crazy, but how could I not? “What are you doing?”

  “I told you, I’m going to take care of you.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t understand why.” What kind of ploy was she getting at? I’d never really thought of Amber as being one for manipulation, so that was off the table. Did she pity me? I didn’t need that. I had chosen to walk away from her. I wanted either all or nothing, and I didn’t need to be patronized f
or that.

  But her face softened, more open than I had seen in years. “You’ve taken care of me so many times. All you do is take care of everyone around you. You need someone to be here for you now, so please, let me do at least that much.”

  Oh. Shit. That sounded very real to me. But if it was real… what did it mean? “I wouldn’t say no to some Italian.”

  She brightened at that and her smile was so gorgeous I almost choked on the water I sipped. “Alright. I’ll see what’s around. I trust you want your favorite?”

  I couldn’t help it as my chest rumbled happily. “You remember my favorite pasta?”

  “Mickey, you only pledged your undying love to cannelloni in your graduation speech.”

  I chuckled at that, the memory returning to me fondly. “Ah yes, I do remember that. It was a great speech.”

  “Your mom wasn’t too pleased about it, if I recall right.”

  “Well yeah, but that’s probably because three of my jokes revolved around her being a terrible cook.”

  “Well, to be fair, she was.”

  “Yeah, she really was.”

  We shared a small, quiet laugh, but then Amber was all business again. “I put a couple of sports drinks in your freezer for you to get cool fast. Where is your bathroom? We’re going to take care of that face of yours.”

  “My face is fine.” I wasn’t used to being babied. I’d been beaten up plenty of times before and I knew eventually everything would fade on its own.

  “Please?”

  It was just a single word, but damn if it wasn’t the most tender thing as it slid from between her lips, just a simple, earnest plea.

  “Hallway past the fridge, second door on your left. First aid stuff is all behind the mirror.”

  “Thank you.”

  She hurried off and I sipped at my water, liquor forgotten beside me. I still couldn’t help but wonder if I was in some sort of strange dream, or if I had actually been knocked out in the ring and I was hallucinating. That would explain the complete impossibleness of everything that was happening.

  I loved Amber, that was true, but I also knew how she was. Having her single mother die when she was a kid had traumatized her in ways I could never understand. They apparently had been close, real close, and she rarely ever talked about the kind woman.

  Then she had been shipped off to her father who maybe sorta tried to be there for her but bungled that pretty badly. I never got specifics, but he basically tried to continue living his life as if nothing had changed, never really making time or providing for Amber in the way she had needed as a grieving teen who had to move to an entirely different country and leave behind everything she knew.

  Then there was Trisha. Loving, fiercely protective, but still so busy with the fight to provide for Amber and give her anything she needed to flourish that she was often completely exhausted. I remembered when we were teens that Amber had confided in me that it made her feel guilty. Like she was using the older woman. She wanted to get a part time job after school to help, but Trisha only wanted her to think about her education.

  All of that horribleness, that stress and tension packed into her formative years made Amber play her cards close to her chest. She was slow to trust. Slow to love. For the longest time we all thought she might actually be asexual, because she showed absolutely no interest in anyone.

  So, for her to be here, looking openly worried, hopeful and so many other things… well, it just didn’t seem like something that could really be happening.

  And yet she returned with her arms full of supplies, setting it all on the little end table beside my chair before kneeling between my legs.

  My body responded automatically, my dick starting to perk up in my grey sweats. If she noticed, she didn’t say anything. She just gently gripped one of my hands and started there.

  The gloves I had had protected me from most of the damage that could happen to knuckles, but I still had a few scrapes. She cleaned them dutifully with a swab dipped in what I assumed was witch hazel. As a stunt worker who probably got banged up from time to time, she probably knew that hydrogen peroxide was really only for cleaning messy wounds and could actually kill new, healing cells. Granted, witch hazel was still an astringent and could be a bit harsh, but it was the better of the two.

  Once those few scrapes were done, she then poured lotion into her palms, rubbing them together. I wasn’t quite sure what was happening until she began massaging one of my hands, careful to avoid the scrapes she’d just tended to.

  Oh… oh man.

  I’d been to plenty of messages since I had become financially secure, but none of them were by Amber. Her eyes were half-closed and contented as she worked my hand over, her tongue coming out to occasionally wet her lips. It was something, alright, seeing someone so headstrong and smart kneeling there between my legs, tending to me like I was some sort of king.

  That rumble made its way through my chest again and her eyelashes fluttered ever so slightly before she methodically moved on to my other big paw. I sat back, practically melting into the chair, and let her just… take care of me, as she said.

  I was struck again by how small she looked down there, kneeling between my legs and tending to my every need. I knew from experience how bountiful her figure was. How sturdy and beautiful and perfect it felt against mine. Funny, how she could shift from impassive warrior queen to… whatever the hell this was.

  Surely, she didn’t do this for everyone. It hardly made sense that she was doing it for me. And yet there she was, finishing with my other hand then pushing my sweatshirt up to look at my ribs.

  She clicked her tongue as she looked at the deep purples and blues spreading across my ribs. Ricky had landed some really good blows there and I wasn’t surprised considering how much it ached. He hadn’t broken anything though, and that was what mattered.

  But Amber seemed to think differently, busing herself with rubbing witch hazel gently over it, her touches feather light, yet still sending electricity zinging through me.

  The sound of tape drew me out of the contented cloud I had sunk into, and I looked down to see Amber ripping off a few pieces of medical tape with her teeth. Wondering what exactly she was going to do with that, she pulled a thin ice pack off the table beside me and wrapped it in paper towels before taping it right over the worst of the bruise.

  “You know heat is bad for bruises, right?” she asked, her eyes never leaving my torso until she was gently pulling my hoody back down.

  “Yeah,” I croaked, so caught up in everything that she was doing. Was this how she felt whenever I took care of her? If was certainly a heady feeling. I could feel myself getting warm and syrupy, a bit drunk off her attention as she tended to all of my wounds.

  “Good. No super-hot showers, or baths, or even jacuzzi visits until this is yellow. You can restart the bleeding that way.”

  “Huh,” was all I could say.

  Finally, she moved to my face, and I didn’t think it was possible, but she grew even more tender. Her fingers glided oh-so-gently over my features, so soft that I could barely feel it. If I wasn’t feeling so boneless and contented, I might have shuttered at the open display of affection.

  “It really scared me, watching you get hurt like that,” she whispered, almost as if she was afraid to admit it, before cleaning the split in my eyebrow and dabbing witch hazel all around my swollen cheek. I noticed she left a wide berth around my eye, which I was grateful for, choosing instead to rub some sort of cream gently against the puffiness that cut off the bottom part of my vision on the side I’d been decked.

  “Did it?” was all I could say. I felt like I was under some sort of spell, all strung out and drawn up in her and her care.

  She nodded. “I know that it’s a necessary part of your job. I know that you’ve probably had way worse. But none of that mattered. Seeing you being harmed, well… I knew I had to come see you. I knew that I needed to make sure that you were okay.”

  I thought of he
r work and imagined how I would feel if she ever got hurt on set. Even though we were on the outs, I knew I would have rushed to find her, to make sure that she was okay. To protect her and give her everything she could possibly need as she healed. “I understand what you mean,” I said, swallowing thickly.

  “Do you?” she asked, that telltale sound of relief creeping into her tone again.

  “At least that part. Maybe not all of this.”

  “All of this?”

  I reached out tentatively, as if I was afraid movement would cause her to burst like a bubble and everything would fade away as some sort of insane day-dream. She didn’t move, however, and my hands found her soft, perfect waist to hold onto.

  “You being here. Kneeling in front of me right now. Being so sweet to me.”

  “You deserve it.”

  I shrugged. “That still doesn’t explain it though.”

  “No, I suppose it doesn’t.”

  She fell quiet again as she finished cleaning my face. When she was done with that and placing a little butterfly band aid on my split eyebrow, I thought that might be it, but then she was putting more lotion into her hands and gently massaging my neck and shoulders.

  Oh man, a guy could get used to that. I really could.

  We sat there in the quiet for a long while, just letting her tend to me however she saw fit. When she eventually stopped and sat back, she looked much more at ease.

  “I’ll go get you a new glass of water,” she said, looking towards my already drained one.

  But I tightened my grip on her waist, pulling her closer to me. I felt so raw, so open in the moment and I didn’t want to be alone.

  “Don’t go,” I said quietly, afraid to admit just how much I wanted her to stay with me.