“We’re never done, Beau.” He speaks calmly but looks anything but, his powerful, muscled frame shaking from the strain of keeping his cool.
I turn and walk away.
“We’re never done, Beau Hayley!” he roars. “Broken, fixed, happy, sad, we’re never fucking done!”
I turn calmly and come nose to chest with Fury. “I’m not his anymore, so you do not need to tail me.” I look up at him and get a hint of his mood. Furious. “Back off,” I order, but he says nothing, just moves aside, not because he’s backing off, but because he’s giving James access to me. “No,” I yell, my hands coming up and blocking James from seizing me. “Keep your fucking hands off me.” I turn to leave again, or I try to, but an arm snakes around my waist and lifts me from the floor. “Get off me,” I scream, my arms and legs flailing, throwing my head back, but he anticipates my move—the only move I have in this position—and gets his nose out of the way of my thrashing head.
“Stand fucking down,” he bellows, fighting to hold down my flailing arms. He carries me out of the club, and the looks coming at us are, expectedly, shocked.
I kick, I scream, I fight his hold with everything I have, my anger driving me. I can’t stop. I need this pressure to leave me. I need to be exhausted. But no matter how much I fight, I can still breathe easy.
I need to stop breathing easy.
Stop breathing altogether.
I’m carried across the road, and I hear the sound of brakes screeching, driver’s yelling for us to get out of their way. I think a missile could hit James now and he wouldn’t budge an inch. He stalks down an alleyway to where his car is parked and the headlights blink, the doors opening. He is not putting me in that car. “I said we are done,” I yell.
“Shut the fuck up, Beau.”
I am out of my fucking mind. Untamable. Uninhibited. And as if to prove it, I twist my arm and reach behind James’s back, pulling his gun from the waistband of his jeans, disengaging the safety. He stops just shy of his car, his body still but his chest pulsing wildly into my back. I turn the gun around and point it at both of us. “Put me down,” I say calmly, and he does because he knows. He knows I am fucking crazy, and he’s sent me further that way.
I turn the gun around in my hand and face him, and I look straight into his eyes. “We are done,” I assure him. He shakes his head, his expression incensed. “Yes,” I counter.
“No.” He moves fast, reaching for his back and before I can blink, I have a gun aimed at me. “As long as I live and breathe, Beau Hayley, we will never be done.”
“Then I guess you won’t be breathing for very long.”
“You’re the one who doesn’t want to marry me, so stop being all insecure. It doesn’t suit you.”
My free hand lashes out of its own volition, cracking him around the face, and my palm bursts into flames, his head snapping to the side where he holds it, his lip curling. “Been taking pointers from your best friend?” he hisses.
“Fuck you.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice?”
The pressure in my head bursts, and I scream like an unhinged mad woman, squeezing the trigger. I jolt, flying around and slamming into something. The back of my head collides with a wall, the rough bricks pulling at my dress. The gun is gone from my hand, and James is armed with both. He heaves and pants in front of me, and then he roars to the black sky and fires both guns, one after the other, over and over, the sound of bullets leaving the chamber piercing, echoing off the bricks of the dank alley.
Then . . . quiet.
Except for the last shell casing hitting the ground with a pretty ping.
“Would I like to let off some steam?” he asks, breathless. “Yes, fuck, I need that.” He comes closer and breathes down on me. “Will I take it elsewhere? No.” I hear the sound of the two guns hitting the concrete, then his hands are in my hair fisting it harshly. “I know only your pussy now, Beau.”
“This pussy doesn’t want you.”
“Taste only your lips. Ram my cock only into your cunt. Suck only your nipples.” He dips and licks the shell of my ear. “I will only ever restrain you. Fuck your arse.” Pulling away, he looks at me with wide, wild eyes, his hold of my hair unmoving. “My mind knows only you. My body knows only yours.” Slamming his mouth onto mine, he kisses me brutally, forcing me up onto my tiptoes. “My damn fucking black heart can only ever love you, Beau Hayley, so get your fucking head on straight and show me that all this anger and stress is worth it, because if you really mean it when you say we’re done, I’ll slip back into the shadows and pick up my life where I left off the day you walked into my apartment and watched me fuck that woman.”
Stunned, I stare at him. My anger hasn’t subsided from his words. It’s multiplied. This fucking world. Our fucking lives. Why? Why, why, why? When will the blows stop coming? To James, I am nothing but stress and helplessness. I don’t even let him fuck me how I know he likes to fuck anymore.
He turns his face away from me. “We’re fine,” he says, letting whoever’s come to check on us know that we’re still alive. And the second he’s facing me again, I let my anger out in another way. I’m on him like a starving wolf, kissing him like I might not ever again, gripping his hair harshly. And he accepts.
I climb his body, wrap my legs around his waist, pull him as close as I can get him, my hands fisting his hair, my mouth relentless on his. My tongue circles and whips, frenzied and fast, an unbearable throb hitting me between my legs.
“Are you hard?” I gasp over my words, releasing one hand and feeling around his crotch, hearing his moan as I stroke over his erection. “I want you to fuck me. Hard. Tie me up and fuck me.” I need that. Him. All over me. I need to be taken back to the beginning and reminded.
He pushes me into the wall, his tongue merciless in my mouth. “Everything was in my apartment.”
His apartment that was blown up. And he hasn’t replaced anything, because he’s either been too busy, out of the country, or he thinks dirty, filthy, debased fucking shouldn’t feature in our relationship anymore.
Well, I need it. Clearly. I need that sense of freedom, to be taken away from this life. “Fix it,” I order, and he nods as our kiss continues, not slowing, not softening. “I can’t wait.”
He breaks away and heaves in my face as he walks to the car, puts me down, and opens the passenger door of his Range Rover. He turns me around, bends me over the seat, and yanks up my dress, my panties aside, and I yelp, my fingers clawing into the leather seats. Two fingers sink into me on a groan from him and a moan from me.
“Drenched,” he growls, removing them, leveling up, and ramming into me.
“Shit!” The fullness sates me immediately. Calms the animal inside. Lightens the darkness. Cools the burn in my veins. I sigh and settle against the seat, eyes open, staring at the back of the chair. I already know this is going to be a ruthless fuck. Angry. I’m here for it.
I close my eyes, breath in deeply, relax further, and sink into myself, letting him pound into me like a man possessed, yelling, frantic, chaotic.
And me?
I’m at peace. Calm. I needed this more than I knew. Needed James. I am taken away from the world I’m struggling in, into a place I thrive.