“What’s the reason? I really am here only because I’ve lost my mind.”
“I lost that years ago.” He smiles, his eyes shining again. For a moment I believe he’ll tell me something tender, about our past. He doesn’t. “I’m here because you give me a hard-on the kind I’ve never had in my fucking life. And I enjoy my hard-ons.” He smiles, and then looks at me. “You look sexy like this.”
“Thank you. Seeing as I don’t have a mirror to check how I look, I’ll have to trust you on that.”
“You’ll have to trust me with many things by the time we’re through.”
He bends his head, seizing me by the cheeks, looking into my eyes. “What’s the rule on kissing.”
“Kissing is…” I hesitate. “A must.”
He’s laughing at me with his eyes. “I thought so.”
My attention falls to his lips even as I feel his attention drift down to my lips too. I start salivating at the mere idea—my pulse skipping in anticipation of his kisses. His delicious kisses.
He holds my jaw, and now that my arms and ankles are fastened, he has his hands free to run them down along the inside of my arm, caress the sides of my breasts.
I’m breathing hard, my breasts suddenly in his hands, his breath touching the peaks of my nipples as he tugs my shirt down and pops them out of my bra.
I watch his dirty-blond head as he ducks, and I feel so full of wanting and waiting.
“I’m falling for you, Christos,” I gasp.
He stops, his lips parting for a second as he raises his head.
The flash of raw emotion in his eyes nearly unravels me. I suppose it’s a good thing I’m tied up, all around him, because that’s all that keeps me in place as he strokes his knuckles down my cheek and curls one hand around the back of my neck, bending to tease my lips with a languorous brush of his.
“I could not be happier about that. What I feel for you is so fucking real and true, bit.” He holds the back of my neck in his warm hand, meeting my eyes for a long moment.
He unfastens his pants, sheaths himself, and fills me, and as he does, he growls against my lips. I let go a noise, part hum, part groan, against his fiercely hot kisses as he holds me tied and wrapped around him. “Finally, I got you, girl. Finally, every intoxicating bit of you is mine…”
The heated possessiveness and the blatant tenderness shining in his eyes takes me to the edge—and his next thrusts takes me over it. He thrusts again, as if he knows exactly how to move, how to take me, fill me, so that there’s no other thought but him, so that it’s hard to believe he wasn’t made to fill me…made just for me.
Bryn
Mrs. Ford wants to go to Central Park with Milly on Saturday. It’s a sunny but windy day, and we take a car up to the lake, then spend the afternoon by a bench, playing with Milly. She asks if I don’t mind if her grandson meets us here. “It’s such a lovely afternoon, I don’t want to go home yet and he’s visiting.”
“Sure.” I glance at the time. “Though it’s getting late, do you mind if Sara joins you to help with Milly? I have a date tonight.” I flush.
“A date. Oh goodness, go!”
“I will, once Sara’s here to help you.” I text Sara our location, all while Mrs. Ford grills me about my date.
“Who is he? Is it serious?”
“He’s a boy I knew in high school. We recently met again and we’ve been going out for two weeks.” I pause a moment, then admit, “It’s serious. It’s the most serious relationship I’ve ever had.”
Her hand feels warm as she gives me a gentle pat on the cheek. “Don’t let that one go, if he’s the One. You hear?”
“I won’t. I won’t let him go,” I promise.
I’m smiling, but then I shift in my seat, because all of a sudden it’s embarrassing to admit that out loud—I suppose we’re not used to expressing the feelings we feel deep inside. Not in a way that’s comfortable. “You have a grandson?” I then say, switching subjects.
Her gaze instantly acquires a new, dreamlike warmth. “Yes, I do. But I really never see him. He’s been in the middle of an ugly divorce and you know how those things are. Though you’re very, very young, so maybe you don’t?” she asks me, then rambles on with a growing frown on her face. “He stays away from the city as much as possible, and goes out on business to avoid seeing her.” She says “her” like she’d say the most loathed word in the dictionary, and I instantly feel bad for her grandson.
“So he lives in Manhattan?”
“Yes, but he’s currently quite homeless, dear,” she says, sighing sadly, still looking angry and worried. “I asked him to move in with me, but he likes his space and stays at a hotel when he’s in town. Seems unfair he’s stuck in a hotel when his soon-to-be ex-wife has his gorgeous apartment up in West End.” She purses her lips tightly and reaches down to stroke Milly in a move that seems more like petting Milly gives Mrs. Ford more comfort, almost, than the pet gives Milly.
“You know,” she says, straightening slowly, “as you age, you realize how much you wish your offspring to have it better than you did, and it’s rather frustrating when they don’t.” A new little glower wrinkles her face and sparks up her eyes. “I’m an old-fashioned woman, I was born in Kansas! I’d have liked to see him happily married before I go.”
“You’re not going anywhere yet, Mrs. Ford,” I warn her, serious about this—she’s too much a sweetheart and she wears her years so wonderfully well. The world would be a sadder place without her, that’s for sure. She just smiles and chuckles a low, raspy sound, as if glad that I want her to hang around here longer.
I’m opening my water bottle and refilling Milly’s plate when I see, out of the corner of my eye, Mrs. Ford wave to someone in the distance.
“Oh, my Ian,” she says under her breath, obviously excited.
I follow her line of vision to a tall, dark-haired man of around thirty heading toward us. He’s quite…well, quite attractive. He’s wearing a white dress shirt and formal black slacks, and he’s got a serious, rather handsome face, and shiny black hair that gets ruffled by the breeze. He looks straight out of a Suits episode—he’s even got that untouchable, workaholic air stamped all over him.
Milly’s barking and leaping at him before he even reaches us, which draws out a smile from the guy.
“Bryn, this is Ian, my grandson,” Mrs. Ford introduces.
He gives me a brief nod. “Bryn,” he greets a little formally, then he smiles at his grandma. “Gran. How’s my favorite girl doing?” he asks her in a very nice, appreciative voice, and she giggles.
“Oh, you cad. Sit down.” She pulls him in next to her. I’m glad to spot Sara walking over, and I leap to my feet, too eager to head home and change for my date. “Looks like my replacement is here. I’ll see you next weekend, Mrs. Ford?”
“Yes, Brynny,” she says.
That’s when I realize Ian is rising to full height, his dark stare fixed on Sara. Sara stops walking and gapes.
The silence becomes so awkward that I feel compelled to help Sara, for some reason, even though I have no idea what exactly it is I’m helping her with. She just seems…pale. Like she’s seeing a ghost, or worse.
“Um. Ian, this is…” I begin to introduce, but he cuts me off. His tone a little different. Surprised, I think. Low, and a little questioning maybe.
“Sara. We’ve met.” He looks at her with a brief, stiff smile, and Sara just stands there with her jaw open. That’s when it hits me—I think she’s found her one-night-stand man.
I hurry into the apartment to get showered and dressed, then stress about what to wear. I slip into a comfortable pair of dress pants and blouse, with a thick belt, and a long gold necklace. I check the time, and once I’ve spent 20 minutes waiting, I text him.
Are we still on for tonight?
No reply.
I grab my sketch board and try to make some drawings, then call his number and get voicemail. “Hi. Is everything okay? Call me, please, I’m worried.”
r />
Two hours pass. I stiffen every time I hear an ambulance outside, and I keep replaying the time I got a phone call to let me know my parents had passed. The news is on to ease my paranoia.
He’s all right, I tell myself, fighting my subconscious fears from surfacing.
I fall asleep with my sketchpad in my hand, still dressed, with my heels on.
Sara doesn’t come home until the next day.
“What happened? Did the whole city get lost last night?” I rant, worried about her too.
“We got a hotel room. We fucked, okay? End of story. He’s gone again.”
Wha—?
“Sara!” I say as she heads to her room, lightening up with the news. “You have his name now. Ian Ford.”
“Yes. He’s some mogul/magnate I couldn’t resist, but it’s done with.” She then notices my attire. “Where are you going?”
“Was. I got…I got stood up. God, I can’t believe he stood me up.” I bite my lip and shake my head. “Something is wrong. I can feel it.” I clutch my stomach.
“You’re just paranoid. He’ll call.”
But he doesn’t.
On Monday morning, I call his office. By the afternoon, when there is still no word, I head over to Christos and Co.
Bryn
I cross the lobby and go directly upstairs, where his assistant is hustling to get shit done, as always.
“Is he alone?” I ask.
“Sorry. He’s not.” Click, click, click, I hear the keyboard.
“Did you tell him I called?”
She nods. Click, click, click.
“Why hasn’t he called back?”
Click click…” He doesn’t report to me, dear.” Click, click. “I’m sure he’ll call when he wants to.”
God. That’s it? “Will you stop typing and look at me.”
Robertha stops typing and looks at me, her eyes wide in surprise over my outburst.
“Will he see me or not?” I demand.
Alarmed, she slowly picks up the phone, but I’ve had it with waiting for an ounce of his attention. The least he could have done was call—text. Send a courier. Fucking answer my dozen calls worrying about him. Obviously nothing happened to him. Obviously he hasn’t crashed, gotten robbed, kidnapped, or killed. The man is fine. He’s at work, isn’t he? I start for the doors.
“He’s in a meeting—” she says.
I ignore her and head straight to the double doors leading to Christos’s office. I push them open.
Christos is at the long table at the far end of his office, wearing a white shirt and slacks, his jaw shadowed with three days’ growth of beard—while two men stand with him, reviewing some sort of paperwork.
The relief I feel when seeing him—and confirming that yes, he is fine!!—is nearly knee-buckling. But the feeling is quickly replaced by confusion. He looks raw, a little filthy, as if he hasn’t showered at all.
His eyes lift to mine when he hears me walk in—and all my hope that we could maybe work it out vanishes when I meet his eyes. They aren’t cold. They aren’t hot. They are simply…sunken.
Turbulent.
The opposite of Christos’s eyes.
For the first time since I’ve known him, Christos looks absolutely lost. Like a man living a nightmare.
My stomach roils with my sudden concern. What happened? It’s all I can think. What happened, what happened, what’s wrong?
“I need to talk to you,” I rasp out.
He glances sharply at the men, who look back at him expectantly. “Give us a minute,” he tells the men after a moment.
Even his voice is different, low and toneless. He sounds numb.
It takes forever for the men to depart. I wait until they shut the door behind them, and then we’re alone.
Aaric Christos and I.
His posture is defeated as he rakes a hand through his hair restlessly, pacing as I stand in the middle of the room, stand there like a fool who just barged into his meeting, feeling uncertain about everything.
Something is wrong. He doesn’t love me. I’m so sure I start to tremble. But I want him to tell it to my face. I want him to tell me how stupid I was—how right I was in the beginning. In not wanting to get involved. Wanting to be careful.
Hell, even if I’m wrong, even a broken clock hits the right hour once a day.
He’s lost interest.
I was a challenge. He’s had me. Now we’re done.
After pacing a restless circle, Christos stops at his window and his shoulders look stiff and rigid—acting like a wall between us.
It pisses me off, his silence. Seeing his hard, chiseled profile as I stress to know what he’s thinking and why the fuck he’s pulling away from me.
“Look at me, you son of a bitch,” I say.
He turns around, one brow raised in surprise over my bad mouth. But the moment our eyes meet, the way his eyes blaze at me—as if he’s living in the pits of hell—strikes me once more.
“I waited for two hours Saturday night! Then I fell asleep, still dressed, to wake up and see you hadn’t bothered to call. What the fuck is wrong with you? I left you like 15 messages. You could have died! You could have been kidnapped! There could have been a fire somewhere and you could have been in it,” I demand. My voice breaks, and an unnamable emotion etches across his face as my words register.
“God, I’m sorry, Bryn,” he says. He raises his hands in the air and then he pulls them back, fisting them at his sides.
“Tell me, Aaric. Please.” My voice breaks.
“Miranda’s pregnant.”
One second, two seconds, three seconds…
“What?”
I blink several times, but he still has that look on his face. The look that says he bit out the words that I just heard.
“Miranda.” He drags a hand over his face, the little muscle at the back of his jaw about to break from exertion. “She’s pregnant.”
His ex-girlfriend is pregnant.
Aaric is going to be a father.
Aaric is going to be a father of a baby that is not mine.
My eyes begin to sting. “It’s yours? I…of course it’s yours, you were dating still.”
I speak then. After a long, long moment. “She’s pregnant with your baby.”
Envy.
Jealousy.
All of those emotions that I don’t like to feel, that make me feel low and worthless, are in me now.
I clutch my stomach.
“Bit.”
“Don’t bit me. Don’t…don’t come any closer.”
Christos starts walking forward. I back away three steps and then stop. He stops two feet in front of me. “I never touched her after you came back. You’ve got to believe me,” he hisses under his breath.
I meet his gaze, my chin up at an angle that belies the way I feel. Like crumpling into a stupid goddamned ball. “You know as well as I do you’re not the asshole they say you are,” I say. “You won’t leave your child fatherless like your father did. That’s not who you are.”
He looks at me fiercely, as if he needs me to understand. “I wanted it to be you,” he whispers.
“Well, it’s not me. It won’t be, Aaric.”
I stare at his eyes and quietly beg him, please, I love you, don’t torture me anymore…
We stay there, in silence. Both of us grappling with the news. This is nothing we planned for our future, nothing we could see coming.
“You could’ve at least come and talked to me. Not give me the silence treatment as if I don’t deserve to know…” I whisper.
“I wanted to deal with it before I talked to you.” Again, that tiny muscle flexes angrily as his fingers plunge into his hair. “What am I supposed to do, huh?” He grits out as he grabs the doctor’s paper from his desk and shows me.
I think my face is wet but I don’t know, all I know is the man I want to be with is having a baby with someone else.
My heart breaks when he takes my face in his hands.
&nb
sp; He wipes my tears with his thumb.
It’s something Aaric the boy would do.
A lover would do.
But he’s not a boy and he’s not my lover—he’s nothing of mine now.
I never got to say I love you. I wish I’d said it. I wish I could now say the words leaping in my mind. Don’t leave me, choose me, have a baby with me…
Selfish words I have no right to speak.
“Talk to me, bit,” he gruffly demands, clearly fighting his own demons.
My eyes are blurry. I can hardly see him as I press my face into his warm hands. He looks at his palm, wet from my tears, and keeps drying my tears for me.
“I meant every word I told you, Bryn,” he says, softly. Too softly.
“Stop. Please. I can’t.” I step back.
He clenches his jaw, as if I’ve just given him the hardest blow of all.
Rejection of his touch.
“There’s no other woman for me like you. I’ve always known you were the girl after my heart, Bryn Kelly. Even when you didn’t want to sleep with me. When you didn’t want to kiss me. Even when I knew I wasn’t good enough for you.” He looks at me then, gold eyes like lasers, branding me. “I meant every word I told you,” he hisses.
“I wish you hadn’t. It would be easier. I hate you…”
I drop my face to the floor.
“I hate you, Aaric.”
When he touches my chin between his thumb and index finger to force me to look at him, the touch singes a path straight to the tight little knot on the left side of my chest.
I try to breathe but I can’t.
“Don’t be tender,” I beg, my throat tight.
“I’m in hell here,” he says, eyes murdering me with love.
The confession makes my eyes prickle behind my eyelids. It takes me a second to sob out loud, then react and push back from him.
“Congratulations, Aaric,” I say softly. “Really,” I say, trying to gather my composure.
This isn’t fair to him.
This isn’t fair, period.
He grinds his jaw, visibly tortured, his eyes glazed as if he’s been sleepless, drinking, or simply…like he said. In hell.