As if to make my point, I let my forehead fall onto hers, our lashes now nearly touching. I advance a bit farther, and her inner walls clench, squeezing me. “Never,” I breathe, pushing forward the final few inches, hitting her deep. Her injured arm rests between us, her good hand behind her, supporting her weight, and I start to pump steady and slow, in and out, each drive smooth, each retreat measured, each grind slow. I’m burning up, the bathroom air becoming wet with condensation, the T-shirt she’s wearing starting to stick to her skin. And yet, despite us both being partially dressed, me more than her, it’s the most intimately I’ve ever taken her.
It’s her eyes.
Eyes full of the unknown.
Eyes she refuses to take off me.
This isn’t fucking. This is making love. It’s a form of manipulation. I know that.
There’s something else I need to say first.
I’m mad for you.
“You love me,” she whispers, and I still abruptly, swallowing. Shocked. But my eyes? They don’t break with Beau’s. “Is that what you’re trying to say now?” she asks.
“I don’t want to love you, Beau,” I admit, drawing a delicate line across her eyebrow. Beau is fierce, strong, despite what she thinks of herself. Her losses are great, but her determination, her fire, her bravery to find justice is formidable. Admirable. But love is dangerous, as I saw with my parents. My dad loved my mom to his death. He protected her. Worshipped her. I saw his devotion, how his eyes followed her because she was his light. Like my eyes have followed Beau since the first moment I saw her. Knew her. But like there was with my dad, there will be an enormous cost for loving Beau. And not only that . . . “There’s no place in my life for love.”
“Then what am I doing here?” she asks, not appearing at all hurt. She simply needs to know.
“You’re here because I can’t seem to leave you the fuck alone.”
“Try.”
I shake my head and take her hips, picking up my pace again, but this time I’m not as gentle, and Beau ups the ante too. She’s frustrated. With me. With herself.
I can relate.
I don’t want to love either.
And yet here I am, in love with her.
51
BEAU
For the first time since he demanded I shouldn’t, I look away from him. I can’t fall if I can’t see him. I have to stop myself. Stop this.
There’s no place in my life for love.
My jaw is grabbed, and my face forced to his. “I said, do not look away from me.”
“Fuck you.” I slam my eyes closed and yell when he punishes me with a hard buck of his hips, his cock filling me to the brim. “Fuck you, James.”
Bang!
No more making love. Because this isn’t love. It’s fucking.
Bang!
I yelp, gritting my teeth, enduring his brutal pounds.
“Beau,” he grates, and I turn my face, fighting his hold, further maddening him. And the pleasure just keeps on coming, strike after strike. My clammy skin burns, my insides burn, my brain burns. I will take this pleasure, this mind-numbing bliss. I will take everything he has to give. It’s the only thing I’ll allow between us.
“More,” I hiss, letting my head tilt back. “Give me more, you asshole.”
Bang!
“More!” I tense my arm, immune to the pain it spikes while he’s taking me so brutally.
“Fuck!” His body jacks, his groin rolls, and I’m taken out, screaming to the ceiling as my release tears through me like a destructive hurricane, ripping apart everything in its path. My mind. My heart. But our souls? They remain intact. Still joined. Still together. Still one.
The feeling of his hot essence filling me burns, and I open my eyes, finding his brow dripping with sweat, his eyes glazed, his lips parted. I gasp in his face, tingles riddling my body, electric and addictive.
“Are you done?” I ask.
“With you? Never.”
I flex my hips, and he groans, his torso folding forward. “So I just stay here, do I? Stay here and let you fuck me as you please. Tie me up. Restrain me. Shove things in my ass and record it all?”
“What else are you going to do?” he pants, his cock still pulsing within me.
“Live.”
“You don’t know how to live, Beau.” He drops a kiss on my forehead and pulls out on a hiss. “That’s the whole fucking reason you’re in my apartment.” He moves away, fastening his fly and turning the faucet off before leaving.
I close my legs. I can’t argue with him. Never has anything truer been said.
Slipping down off the vanity unit, I grab some tissue, wiping him away from between my legs. Could you be pregnant? My head feels ready to pop. With . . . everything.
I follow him into his bedroom, stopping at the door and eyeing the wooden frame. “Has anyone else been tied to that thing since you met me?” I ask, my question unstoppable.
“Are you asking me if I’m fucking other women?” he asks, going into his closet.
“Yes, I am.”
“Don’t insult me, Beau.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s a fucking answer,” he yells, appearing again, wrestling on a sweater and stomping to the door.
“Why is there a shell casing in your dressing room?”
“You’re not ready to know,” he says over his shoulder, not even having the decency to look at me.
“What?” I almost laugh. “You said we’d talk.”
He glances back at me when he gets to the door. “I’ve said what I wanted to say.” His eyes drop down my body, detached and cold. “Did I make myself clear?”
“Crystal.”
“And if you’re not here when I get back, I’ll hunt you down and bring you back.” He closes the door, and I stare at the glass, incredulous.
No.
He is not doing that. I march after him, swinging the door open, but before I can step out onto the landing, I hear the elevator doors, and then Goldie.
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” she asks.
“Definitely,” James grunts quietly.
“You can stop this.”
Silence follows, and I wait with bated breath. Stop what? And why? “I really can’t,” he replies, as the doors slide closed.
I creep to the top of the stairs and look down, seeing the space empty of life. And as I lower to the top step, trying to process everything, trying to decide what the fucking hell to do, something comes to me. I look up and around, searching for any signs. Nothing. No cameras. But he’ll be watching. Without a doubt, he’ll be watching.
That thought incenses me. I stand to get dressed and leave, but my cell ringing distracts me, and I shoot down the stairs, answering Dexter’s call. “Hey.”
“How are you doing?” he asks.
“Did you really call to ask that?”
“No, I called to beg you to come home. In an attempt to make himself feel better, he is now she, and Zinnea cries loudest of all.”
My heart squeezes. I take no pleasure in Lawrence’s despair. Or Dexter’s exasperation. “How were things after I left the hospital?” I ask, wincing as I do.