Concern is etched in her eyes, and I hunger for her in this moment in a way I have never hungered for anyone before. My hand tangles in her hair and I drag her mouth to mine. “I am bad for you,” I say. “I’m—”
“Wrong for me. Using me. I know—and I don’t care. But use me to deal with the guilt—not to create more.”
“Why would you willingly do this?” I need to know that she’s in the right place, that I’m not going to hurt her, too.
Her hand settles on my chest, over my heart that I know is thundering. “Because,” she says, her voice even, confident, “sometimes what someone is going through speaks to you on a level you can’t ignore. And because of that, people who’re completely wrong for each other are completely right in a certain moment in time. Like us right now.”
I’m kissing her before she finishes her last words, my mouth slanting over hers, my tongue licking against hers in a hot stroke, followed by another. Turning her onto the couch, I lay her down, resting on top of her, and I’m no longer thinking about all the reasons this is wrong or the way it’s nothing like what I normally want or need. But I do need. I need this woman here, now, and with the kind of abandon I rarely allow myself. No amount of booze will stop how deep the burn runs. How intense the rush of desire.
This moment. This woman. It’s what I need. She is what I need.
Part Two
Lost
Mark
I all but tear off Crystal’s blouse, ready to have her naked, to be inside her. Impatiently, I shove down her bra, exposing her pretty pink nipples, stroking them with my thumbs. She moans and I feel that sound in the thickening of my cock, the heating of my blood. I caress her skirt up and over the lace of her thigh-highs, spreading her legs and ripping away her panties.
She gasps, her hands pressing to my shoulders with a reprimand. “I liked that pair, damn it. That’s twice you’ve done that to me. Stop it.”
“I’ll buy you a new pair,” I promise, settling my hips snugly between her thighs, my tongue lapping at her nipple, teasing it to a stiff peak. “I’ll buy you a hundred pairs.” I reach beneath her and work to free the clasp to her bra at her back, ready to be rid of anything that stands between her body and mine. I pull it down and away from her, cupping her breasts in my hands.
She, in turn, cups my face in her hands, leveling me in a stare. “I’ll buy my own,” she says, and the message in that declaration is clearly not about her panties. It’s about independence, about her unwillingness to belong to me. While I should revel in the freedom this gives me, some part of me rebels.
I answer her with a kiss, a hot, possessive claiming that says she is mine, right here, in “our moment” as she’d called it, and there is nothing else. She knows, too. I feel the way she stiffens, the way her fingers lift from my shoulders, but her palms stay. As if she can’t force her hands away from me, but her mind is screaming she should. Her resistance is fleeting, and with a low moan, she wraps her arms around my neck and clings to me. Her fingers find my hair, a soft touch that is enticing and erotic and when her leg wraps mine, hips lifting, pelvis pressing into my thick erection, the rise of desire in me is swift and intense. Everything else fades but her, and how she tastes and feels. I’m suddenly hotter, harder, out of my mind with need for this woman the same way I had been the night we were together in the club. This is not who I am, but I don’t care. This is exactly what she’d said—a moment in time when what’s normally wrong is right.
It’s all I can do to tear my mouth from hers to undress, and I intend to stand but only make it to my knees and she follows me, rising to hers as well. I pause, my gaze raking over her high, full breasts, fingers tugging on her nipples. She moans, biting her lip, and damn, I want to bite it, too. Tentatively, her delicate little fingers find my tie, and the very fact that I’m not grabbing it and using it to tie her up is a statement about where my head is, and that is nowhere familiar. She starts unbuttoning my shirt and I reach forward and unzip her skirt. A frenzied rush of movement follows as we both undress.
We’re quickly naked in that heated rush, and I stand above her where she sits on the couch, the thick jut of my erection between us, a condom in my hand. She closes one hand around the package, the other wrapping my shaft. Her heavy lidded stare meets mine, desire radiating from its depths, and she leans forward, delivering a seductive lick to the head of my cock, followed by a tantalizingly sensual swirl around the width. The sensation that follows rocks my body. It’s delicious. She’s delicious, but there is a coldness in my mind and body, an awakening that I don’t want to feel. A feeling that that I didn’t have when she was pressed close to me. I do not know what to make of that feeling, when avoiding that kind of intimacy has been a hard and fast rule for me. A way to ensure I do not foolishly expose weakness by falling for the façade of love and romance
She tears open the condom but doesn’t put it on me, instead drawing me into her mouth with a gentle suction that has me thickening, but there is simply no escaping the growing iciness in my body and mind that defies the heat in my blood, the fact that I want her close to me, next to me, touching me everywhere, anywhere. That’s when my mind shuts down. That’s when I’m free from the hell clawing at my chest.
My fingers close on her shoulders, holding her back before I lose myself in the primitive need that is orgasm. “Not now,” I command, leaving no room for negotiation. “Later.” Confusion flashes on her face, then is quickly banked. Before reassuring her that she pleases me, I first attend to the necessities, claiming the condom and rolling it down the thickness of my erection. Then, and only then, when I am safe to fully act on my words, do I pull her to her feet and against me. “I want you wet and hot and tight around me when I come.”
The rigidity of her body softens instantly, and she breathes out, “Yes,” as her hand flattens on my chest.
I tangle my fingers in her hair, craving a taste of her. I drag her mouth to mine, though kissing, like uncontrolled, untamed touching, is an intimacy that I rarely indulge. But I indulge now, claiming her mouth while one of my hands cups her backside. I lift her from the ground, and she reads my silent command, obediently wrapping her legs around my waist.
I let go of her hair, both hands splayed on the soft, naked expanse of her slender back. “Hold onto my neck,” I order, impatiently shifting our bodies and sliding my cock inside the slick, wet heat of her sex, pushing into her. Then I grit my teeth as she slowly eases down my length until she has all of me.
Our mouths are close, our breathing playing together in a soft even harmony, and what passes between us without words, without even looking at each other, is more unfamiliar ground. It crawls inside me, burrowing deep, raw and brutally demanding, cutting through my walls, ignoring my rejection of all that makes me feel things that I don’t want to understand. Ready to feel the sway of our bodies, I inch back enough to let her see my gaze rake over her naked breasts, her tight little nipples. But I make sure my gaze is locked with hers when I lift her and pull her down against me, savoring the way she gasps for me, the way she arches forward in a full body reaction. I shift us, my hands sliding under her backside, thrusting deeper, and she pants this time, her fingers digging into my shoulders, fingernails pressing into my skin in sweet, blissful cuts.
My arm shackles her waist, holding her close, and she buries her face in my neck, using me as the leverage to lift and push, lift and push against my pumping, the only sound in the room is the rasps of our breathing. And I revel in the way her weight is heavy on my body, burning my thighs, the way her soft curves meld to mine. My coldness is consumed by her heat. There’s no room for anything but her and me, and the craving for satisfaction. There is no guilt, no heartache, no thinking. Just her soft moans, her panting. Her pleasure.
We build into a faster pace, a frenzy of need, the thrum of desire turning into a pounding of our bodies against the other, an urgency that demands an answer. “Lean back,
” I command. “Ride me.”
She clings to my shoulders, her hair wild, her expression panicked. “I’ll fall.”
“Trust me,” I say. “I won’t let you fall.”
Our eyes collide on my words and my demand lingers between us. Trust me. “I won’t let you fall.”
She stares at me a moment longer and nods, leaning back, clasping my arms. I thrust hard into her, and her breasts sway erotically with the action. Over and over I pull her down against me, deeper, harder. I lose time, when I never lose time. There is just the pump and thrust, the need. And when her sex clenches my cock, spasming, milking me, she takes me over the edge with her. Holding her to me, I shudder with the release and she leans forward, sinking against my chest, pressing her full weight into me. My legs weaken and I turn, settling onto the couch but my hand stays on her back, telling her that I’m not ready to let her go. Not even close.
I’m about to declare as much, when the hotel room phone rings. She jumps as if startled and leans back. “Who can that be?”
I shift our weight, flattening her on her back on the couch, regretfully pulling out of her in the process of settling over her. Grabbing my cell phone from the coffee table, I confirm the midnight hour and the absence of any missed calls that I might have been too distracted to receive.
“Aren’t you going to get the phone?” she asks.
I set my phone back on the table, focusing fully on her. “The last time I did that, you ran out of the door while I was still naked.”
“I didn’t run.”
“No one escapes that fast without running. Both literally and figuratively.”
The phone stops ringing. “That could have been important.” She reaches for my phone where I set it down and looks at the time. “Mark, it’s the middle of the night. It has to be important.”
“Anything important would come to my cell phone.” I sit up and pull her with me. “I’m going to clean up. Why don’t you find the room service menu? I need to shake the scotch before we review the files and I can’t get out of my meeting in the morning.”
A meeting in which I sign the final papers on the sale of the club. I thought I’d never let go; now I can’t wait to get rid of it. I stand up and snatch Crystal’s skirt, announcing, “Insurance so you can’t run again.”
She crinkles her nose at me, curling her legs to her chest. “That’s not fair. It’s cold in here.”
Without thought, I reach for my shirt and offer it to her. Her lips part in surprise and she stares at it. I stare, too, not sure what made me make such an intimate gesture—or why it bothers me that she’s hesitating.
I toss it on the couch. “Or you can use the hotel robe in the closet. Your choice.” I sound hard. I feel out of control.
There’s a knock on the door and Crystal’s eyes go wide. “Something’s wrong.” She grabs the shirt and quickly shoves her arms inside, yanking her skirt from my hand.
I grab her arm. “Don’t even think about running off.”
She looks stunned by my hard insistence, but whatever just happened with my shirt wasn’t small. It was a big complication, and I need to deal with whatever this woman is doing to me. I need to get myself back in control. “We have business to finish.”
I’m not leaving,” she assures me. “Mark, get the door.”
I release her, reaching for my pants and making a path to the trashcan by the desk to dispose of the condom before I flip on a light, and pull on my pants. Another knock sounds and I cross the room, entering the narrow hallway. “Who is it?” I call out.
“Blake.”
The private eye Chris Merit convinced me to hire. His showing up at my door at midnight confirms Crystal’s words. Something’s wrong. I open the door to find Blake alone, his long hair half in and half out of the tie at the nape of his neck, his features drawn with exhaustion.
“The hotel was trying to warn you that the press found you. Most likely a staff leak.”
“Fuck,” I murmur, scrubbing the back of my neck.
“My exact sentiments,” Blake agrees, “but a leak is a risk at any hotel. We could move to a private residence, but it has its own share of security risks. I say hunker down and deal with this location.”
I give a sharp nod. “We’ll stay.”
“Good choice. The hotel rang Crystal’s room. She didn’t answer. We don’t want to risk her leaving the room early without warning. Do you want to wake her up, or me?”
“I’ll let her know.” I narrow my eyes at him, aware of the tension radiating off of him and crashing into me. “What else?”
He scrubs a hand down his face. “I should come inside.”
My jaw clenches. “Just tell me.”
This time, his eyes narrow. “Are you alone?”
“What the hell does that have to do with it?”
“That answers my question. Our security post is room 1010. Meet me there.” Shutting down the conversation, he starts down the hallway and it’s with supreme willpower that I don’t jerk him back and demand that he speak now.
Fingers curling into fists, I turn back to the room, fighting an out-of-character urge to punch the wall. Practiced control is the only thing that allows me to maintain a calm exterior as I shut the door and press two hands on the wall, my head dipping between my shoulders. This is the news that I’ve been waiting for—the answer to where Rebecca has been all these months, when I’d thought she’d turned her back on me and us. It’s not the answer that I want, but it’s the answer I’ve long expected.
She’s gone. Never to return. Every confused, uncertain emotion that I’ve had about her pushes to the surface, and threatens to erupt. A vise closes around my chest and throat and my eyes burn.
“Is everything okay?”
The sound of Crystal’s voice radiates through me, mixing with the pain and heartache tearing me up inside, and twists me further into knots. I have no idea what insanity made me invite her inside my hell for an up-close-and-personal look, but I did, and I have to face it and her. Inhaling, I push off the wall and find her standing at the end of the hallway, in my shirt, her long blond hair a tangled mess from my fingers and our fucking.
My shirt. That’s what stands out to me, and I know why giving it to her had affected me as it had. It’s more than a shirt. It’s an invitation into my life I’ve offered her, even before this night ever happened, with my actions. It’s why I’d tried so damn hard to find a reason not to call her tonight. Not to need her. Crystal is slipping under my once iron-clad surface where I’ve let no one in for ten years. Except Rebecca. Who will never know she did, because I never admitted it. But I was going to, damn it. When she got back. And that’s why she returned—and why she’s dead.
Acid forms in my throat and I suddenly have that coming out of my own skin sensation again. Needing any space I can get, I walk past Crystal without a word or a look and stop at the closet, yanking open the door to grab a black sweater from my suitcase and pull it over my head. The white noise in my head is the danger zone, a place that I once lived in for hellish months on end. I use an old trick I learned to control it, counting silently in my head. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. All the while, I dig for clean socks, then shut the suitcase. Six. Seven.
Socks in hand, I move to the couch to put on my shoes, aware of Crystal standing on the other side of the coffee table. Eight. Nine. I bend over and pay far too much attention to my shoes than they need.
“Mark,” she says softly, compelling me to look up.
Ten. Eleven. I flick her a barely there look by design, unsure if my composure is securely in place. “The press found us,” I tell her. “I’ll make sure someone escorts you when you leave the hotel, but I’d suggest you hide out here until Monday or until we find another location for you.”
“There’s more,” she insists. “What’s happening?”
I stand up. “Nothing
I’ve been told, but I’m headed to a meeting with my security team. I doubt I’ll be long.”
She studies me a long moment, before hugging herself and offering me a choppy nod. “I’ll look over the file while you’re gone.”
“Yes. Good. Do that.” I walk past her again and I can almost feel her need to reach out and touch me. And I not only want her to, but need her to.
But she doesn’t.
She does what she thinks I want, what I should want. She lets me go.
Crystal
I can’t watch him leave and I’m not sure why. I stand frozen in place, and I jump when the door slams shut. The Mark Compton who is a master of control would never let that door slam. He is not okay—not even close. I’m not so sure I am, either, right now.
I walk to the couch and sit down, curling my arms in front of me, the scent of him, all warm and wickedly male, clinging to the shirt and my skin. The torment I’d seen in his eyes in the hallway flashes in my mind, haunting me. Torment for a woman he’d loved, who I’m sure he’s about to hear he’s lost. And though I have feelings for Mark, I want him to find out that she’s alive. I want her back here and with him, safe and alive. . . . But I’m sure she’s not, and I can’t leave him to face it alone. Yet staying means I’ll likely end up crushed.
To occupy my mind, I pull the work that Mark’s left on the table forward. I set the folder to my left and open the accordion file, pulling out all the documents inside, which seem to include a contract of some sort and—I frown—a journal. Odd, but maybe Sara or someone took notes in it. Quickly, I scan the legal documents, shocked to see that he’s selling the club, even more shocked to see the astronomical figure he’s netting for it. Surely he didn’t mean for me to see this, did he? I shove it back into the accordion file and open the journal, then start to read.
Can love and submission co-exist? I wish I had that answer. Or maybe I don’t. Maybe it’s an answer that I won’t like. For now, I feel lost in a space somewhere between the two. If I were to believe him, there is no space to be lost inside. Love, he claims, is a façade, so love isn’t what I feel at all. But I believe it’s real and it’s what I feel for him. I still hope that one day he will, too.