Danny blows out his cheeks and blinks, getting up from his chair and joining Rose by the glass wall. “We’re done,” he says over his shoulder, and the men disperse, leaving only us.
I look at James. “What happened?” I ask, seriously considering joining Otto with a strong, large drink.
“Did you have a nice day?” he asks, completely swerving my question. He’s not real.
“You tell me you nearly got blown up and then switch to chit-chat of the normal couple variety?”
“We’ll give you two some privacy,” Rose says, pulling on Danny’s arm and eyeing him.
“I don’t need privacy. I need answers.”
“You don’t need answers, Beau,” James says quietly. “You need peace.”
I inhale, and it’s long and deep. He is real. He’s going to send me out on girlie days while he gets caught up in explosions. I wince, hearing a door close behind us. The room is empty, except for us.
James reaches for my damaged arm and strokes down the sleeve of my shirt, his eyes harboring too much sympathy. “Don’t do that,” I warn, shrugging him off and walking to the window. “Stop looking at me like I’m broken.” I reach the glass. The club’s dance floor is clear, the bar quiet, and I see Danny leading Rose across the floor.
“You’ve been broken since the moment I found you, Beau,” he retorts, resentment rife in his words. “I’m not looking at you any differently.”
“That’s the fucking point,” I yell, whirling around. “Yes, I was broken, but I didn’t feel it when I was with you. When you obliterated everything, took me to that place you always do when we’re intimate, I wasn’t broken.” I suck back a sob, my voice infuriatingly wobbly. “Now I feel more broken than ever.” There’s so much more shit to add to the pile. So many more answers I need, and the most horrific thing is that in order to get those answers, I need to let James go out there and find them for us. I have to risk losing the one and only thing that’s given me any hope. I feel like I have my back pushed up against a wall.
“What do you want me to do, Beau?” he asks, his cheeks hollow from the force of his bite. “Tie you up? Stick things in your arse?”
“Yes,” I choke over a sob. “Do whatever it takes, but please stop treating me like glass.”
“You are glass,” he murmurs. “Because I know better than anything that if this breaks you, I won’t be able to put you back together again.”
I bite at my lip, my hands shake, and my arm feels like it’s on fire. His face pains me. The mix of anger and sorrow. And I’m not helping him. By being like this, hollow and sad, I’m making James’s mission harder, but I don’t know how to be any other way. “I think I need to see a therapist,” I murmur, trying to keep my words even and strong. “I think I need help.” I must be strong. I need to be more like Rose. “I’m sorry.”
James rakes a hand through his waves, cursing quietly, his blue eyes tortured. He stalks toward me with intent and yanks me into his chest far harder than he has in weeks. But it hurts way less than not having this part of him. The sure part. The dominant part. The part of him that I need the most. His chest, his solid arms around me, they’re home. “Whatever it takes,” he says, his mouth at my ear, and then he breaks away. Taking the front of my shirt, he rips it open on an animalistic grunt. Air leaves me on a rushed, shocked breath, along with my woes. The way he’s looking at me now is exactly how he looked at me the first time he tied me up. With intent. This. This is what I need. This is what he’s refused to give me because my broken body wouldn’t allow it.
Fuck my body.
The cups of my bra are tugged down. My shorts yanked open then pushed down to my knees, and he whirls me around fast, pushing me into the glass. My breasts, aching and heavy, squish against the cold pane, and my breath steams the window. I gasp, my eyes darting across the club. But I don’t stop him. No one can see us. This room is hidden, a secret space for mobsters, criminals, and assassins to conduct their business and spy on the people below. “More,” I mumble, giving him that one word that signals my state of mind. Not that he needs it.
My wrists are seized, and I hear the swift slide of his belt out of his jeans. “More?” he questions, looping the leather around my wrists. “You want more, Beau?” He shoves my panties down, his hand between my thighs, stroking me tenderly. It isn’t a sign of what’s to come. I close my eyes, resting my cheek on the cool glass, letting my body soften and soak up the feeling of him playing, stimulating, stroking. I’ve missed this. Missed him.
His palm wraps around my neck, his front pushing into my back, and the scratchy feel of his scruff rubs across my cheek. I remain in my darkness, just feeling him. “If you want me to stop, say my name,” he murmurs, licking up my cheek with his blazing hot tongue.
“Which name?” I whisper. “James? Kellen? The Enigma?”
“What do you think?” He tugs the bonds, testing them. The friction is instant. My healing wrist jars, and I inhale, soaking up the pain. “Don’t fight the bond.” It’s a message. One I hear loud and clear.
“I won’t,” I say, wriggling my hands, desperate to break my skin and achieve the luscious burn, the soreness, anything to mask the other pain. I’m at the start of that road to nothingness. “I love you.”
“Now’s not the time for that, Beau,” he says coldly, and then he rams into me with no warning or any scrap of mercy. I cry out, my eyes pinging open, my body tensing, trying to curb the brutal invasion. My mind instantly scrambles, and his name, all of his names, hang on the end of my tongue, waiting to be screamed. And it occurs to me that it’s what he wants. His name. For me to stop this.
The thought has me thrusting my ass back into him, egging him on, and he groans, holding the bonds around my wrists with one hand, his spare on my hip. “Fuck, Beau,” he breathes. He doesn’t want to enjoy this. He doesn’t want me to enjoy this.
My teeth grind, my hips roll, and I flex them forward, making him slip out of me, before I ram back again, absorbing the blow. But I need his power. His force. The ache, the burn, the deep, uncomfortable pain. “More,” I hiss, peeling my damp cheek away from the glass and stepping out wider. “Give me more.”
“No,” he gasps, shaking behind me.
“Yes!” I slam back onto him, yelling at the glass, fogging it completely.
“God damn you, Beau.”
“More,” I goad. “More.” Another desperate slam. “More, James.”
“Fuck!” he roars, crushing me into the window, his hips starting to piston back and forth wildly. “You want more?” he bellows, smashing on, his force brutal, his pace inconceivable. I’m helpless, and it’s exactly how I need to feel, because I’m helpless for the right reasons.
“More,” I exhale calmly, my body out of control, jerking, banging into the glass, my insides in chaos, but my mind so incredibly calm. I close my eyes and float away with James pounding into me like a rabid animal, his shouts primal, a mixture of pleasure and despair. “More,” I whisper, letting the ecstasy take me in their healing claws and indulge me. “More.”