Maybe I was just like all the rest. I could tell myself that, no, it was just him that I’d fallen for. But maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was the lustre of his fame that had been the biggest drawcard.
Shame curled through me.
He’d known all along that I was just the same as the others. No wonder he’d cut me out of his life.
I shifted, shrugging off his hand, making for the edge of the bed, needing some space away from him. But his arms suddenly came down on either side of my shoulders, the heat of his big, hard body at my back.
‘What’s wrong?’ he growled.
‘Nothing.’ I swallowed. ‘Need to pee.’
‘Bullshit.’ One hand came underneath me and he flipped me over onto my back with astonishing ease. His hazel eyes burned into mine, amber and green. He was so different, no longer golden. No longer the carefree, easy-going man with hundreds of women in his bed.
He was darker, more dangerous, somehow. More intense. As if the brush with death had left its mark, smudged and sooty fingerprints on a golden statue.
I liked it. I liked it so much better.
‘Tell me what the matter is, Vee.’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Elias
SHE STARED BACK at me, that stubborn look on her face again, the spark of challenge. All pointy angles and sharp prickles.
She hadn’t liked what I’d said, and no wonder. The unvarnished truth was always bitter to hear. I probably shouldn’t have told her in the first place and I didn’t know why I had. I’d always sworn I wasn’t going to justify or explain my choices to anyone ever again.
But here I was, doing both for her. Because of the way she’d talked about what she’d been doing the past few years. Her dropping out of high school and going to art college, her business, the slight edge to her voice as she told me she didn’t want to be beholden to her family.
That edge had sounded more like pain than anger when she’d said, ‘They didn’t do anything.’
They’d given up on her, hadn’t they? They’d fucking paid my hospital bills—mine, someone who wasn’t even related to them—yet they’d basically cut their own daughter loose. And all because she didn’t meet their rigid, narrow standards of success.
Of course I’d had to tell her my secrets. It seemed only fair.
After you basically cut her loose too? Yeah, fair seems relative.
The thought ate at me, guilt sitting in my gut like a stone. I’d told myself that I was selfish, that I’d embraced it, that I didn’t care about her feelings. Told myself that she likely wouldn’t care, either.
But she did and, deep down, I’d always known that. Underneath the prickly armour she wore now, she was still that sensitive, caring girl whose tender heart had been kicked around and bruised by the parents who’d never accepted her for who she was.
And now, here was I, doing the same thing.
The guilt became glass, cutting into me. I wanted to tell her I was sorry again, that I’d never meant to hurt her, but that was a lie. I had meant to hurt her. I’d meant to drive her away. Except she hadn’t gone.
She turned her head to the side, her lashes veiling her gaze, silent for a moment.
‘You were right not to tell me,’ she said at last, huskily. ‘You were tired of people’s expectations of you and I... I was just one more.’
And now here she was, trying to excuse my own shitty behaviour...
Christ. This was what I hadn’t wanted—guilt, pain and regret. Emotions colouring everything, making everything complicated. I’d wanted it to be simple. But it was too late for simple now. We’d both complicated things immeasurably and I wasn’t sure it would ever be simple again.
‘No, you weren’t,’ I said gruffly. ‘You weren’t—’
‘I was.’ Her lashes rose and she looked up at me, blue eyes so dark they looked black. ‘My sixteenth birthday and you turned up. Everyone was there for you, not me, and I knew that. And I didn’t care. Because, for a couple of hours, I got to feel popular. I got to feel accepted. I got to feel what it was like to be you.’ The look on her face was challenging, as if daring me to say something. ‘It wasn’t you I was grateful for then, Eli. I was grateful for what you represented. And for what you gave to me.’
I stared at her. ‘What? And you felt guilty for that?’
‘Shouldn’t I? Aren’t I like all the rest? Wanting you for what you could give them, not for who you were?’
‘No,’ I said fiercely, because she wasn’t like all the rest. She never had been. ‘You know what I thought that day? I thought, fucking finally, I can really do something for you. That was the only time I was ever actually glad I was famous. That all I needed to do to make you happy was smile and pay you attention.’ I took a breath, the realisation flooding through me. ‘I didn’t have to play my best, pay attention to my diet, train every goddamned day. All I had to do was smile at you. It was the easiest thing in the whole world. And I was glad they were all looking at you, wondering what it was about you that caught my attention. I wanted them to. I wanted them to see what I saw.’
She was very still beneath me, warm and pale in the dim light, her skin breathing candy floss and musk. Her eyes had gone the same liquid midnight as her nail polish and she was staring at me as though I was that man again. Her superhero.
‘And what did you see, Eli?’ she asked.
I shouldn’t say it. It would be a mistake. But I couldn’t stay quiet.
‘I saw a lovely, special person. Caring and interesting. Who smiled at me like a sunrise every time she saw me. Who asked me questions no one else ever did, and who was interested in the answer. Who taught me about tenacity and being stubborn. She was all heart, that girl.’ I lifted a hand and brushed a lock of hair from her cheek before I could stop myself. ‘She was precious.’
Her throat moved as she swallowed, her eyes nothing but black, the look in them oddly...almost devastated. As if I was telling her something painful instead of reassuring.
‘Precious, huh? So precious you cut me out of your life for nine years.’
Ah, fuck.
Little Vee, with her heart on her sleeve...
‘I’m sorry,’ I said again, and this time it came out harsher than it had before. ‘I thought you had your own life. I didn’t think it would matter.’
‘Of course it mattered.’ She blinked hard, something glittering in the corner of her eye. ‘You were the only one who ever saw me, Eli. The only one who ever even liked me. The only one who didn’t tell me what I was doing wrong, only what I was doing right.’ Her voice had got thicker. ‘You were the only one who ever made me feel special and you think I wouldn’t even notice you disappearing for nearly a whole decade?’
You fucking asshole.
Anger boiled inside me, but not at her. At the lies I’d told myself so I could feel better about what I was doing. So I hadn’t had her coming into the hospital and looking down at me with those beautiful midnight-blue eyes and see pity there.
Yeah, I’d been afraid. Afraid of what she would think of me. Afraid of what she would say. Afraid of what I’d see in her gaze. That she’d realise just what kind of man I was—a man who’d squandered the gifts he’d been given for his own selfish reasons.
‘I didn’t want you to see me like that,’ I said, the deeper truth tumbling out before I could stop it. ‘I didn’t want you to see me lying in a fucking hospital bed, just one hideous weeping wound. Unable to do anything. I couldn’t walk, couldn’t do one single fucking thing for myself. I...couldn’t bear it. I thought...’ I stopped, my heart pumping in my chest, every muscle in my body stiff.
She didn’t say a word, just stared straight up at me, waiting.
I couldn’t ignore the truth. I fucking owed her.
‘I thought you’d never look at me the same way again.’ My voice sounded like the bottom of a dry river bed, no
thing but dust and gravel. ‘That you’d find out the truth about what happened and you’d know that I wasn’t...a hero.’
She blinked at me. ‘A hero?’
It sounded ridiculous. It sounded like some stupid, fucking childish delusion. And yet...when things had got bad, when the pressure had felt overwhelming, when it had felt as if everyone in the entire world wanted me to be the NFL’s next big thing, it was Vee’s simple pleasure in my company that had kept me going. Vee, for whom I didn’t have to be anyone but myself.
‘The way you used to look at me,’ I forced out. ‘Like I was Superman or something. And then later, when you were older, you looked at me like I was your friend. I didn’t have to be anyone with you. I didn’t have to do anything. I could just be...me and you would look at me the same way.’ I stopped, bizarrely feeling the way I had back in hospital when the bandages from the latest skin graft had come off and my skin had felt every molecule of air on it. I’d become aware of how fragile the human body was. How fragile I was...
I couldn’t look at her. That gaze of hers was worse than a debridement sloughing off old skin and scar tissue, leaving me exposed. Leaving me vulnerable.
There was a touch on my cheek, the warmth of her hand against my skin exerting some pressure, so I had to turn my head to look at her.
The expression in her eyes was piercing and full of something I didn’t understand. ‘You never had to be anyone with me but yourself, Eli. I never cared about what you could do on the football field. The only thing I cared about was how you smiled at me. How you encouraged me. How you listened when everyone else ignored me. You were the brightest thing in my life and, yes, you were my hero. Why would some scars ever change that?’
My chest was so tight I could barely breathe. I didn’t want sit there looking into her lovely face, into those beautiful eyes, seeing her soul laid bare for me. I wanted to tell her to protect that soul of hers. That if she wasn’t careful life would burn it as it had burned mine, leaving it covered in scar tissue, unable to feel a thing.
But I didn’t.
‘Why wouldn’t it change that?’ I asked instead. ‘It did for my parents. When all you are to them is the failure of their hopes for a better future, not even their son who nearly fucking died—’ I broke off, aware that my voice had risen, that the anger inside me was getting hotter, bubbling and burning like lava inside a volcano. Anger that I’d never put behind me the way I thought I had.
‘They were wrong.’ There was now fire in Vesta’s eyes too. A vivid blue flame. And I could hear the fierce ring of it in her voice. ‘And you didn’t fail them—’
‘Didn’t I, though?’ I interrupted. ‘I should have had my knee looked at. I should have had the team’s doctor make sure it was okay, since it was an important game. But I didn’t. I told myself it would be fine, that it had held up fine the past few years, so why not now? But deep down I knew it wouldn’t be fine. And I still did nothing.’
I took a breath, everything in me tight. ‘I didn’t want to play any more, Vee. I didn’t want to be Dad’s hope for a better future. I didn’t want to be his ticket out of poverty.’ I could feel the tension in my shoulders. Feel it crawl all over me. ‘You asked me once, when you were a kid, what I wanted to be when I grew up and I couldn’t think. All I ever knew was football. But the day my knee gave out I sat on the bench and all I felt was relief. Because what I wanted, what I really fucking wanted, was just a life of my own.’
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Vesta
THE GREEN IN his eyes blazed hot, anger written all over his perfect features. No, not just mere anger. It was rage. And I could understand it. The life he’d had, the promise of a future, had all led to a hospital bed, agony and scars covering forty percent of his body.
It wouldn’t have happened if he’d been left to follow his own path. If he hadn’t been forced to carry other people’s dreams. Not his. He’d never been allowed to have any, had he?
If he’d been given time to decide his own future, what would that have looked like? What could he have been?
My heart hurt for him. For the pain he’d gone through and what he was still going through. And I was angry too, at what had been taken from him, and all because he’d chosen to save his father from a burning house. A father who’d then abandoned him.
It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. It was what had happened to me, and it was lonely.
It made you feel shitty, and worthless, and for him, battling terrible injuries, to then be abandoned...
No wonder he was so angry.
My own anger at him, at the way he’d cut me loose, was still there, but it seemed petty compared to what had happened to him. And all because he’d been afraid of what I would think of him...
A tear slipped down my cheek.
‘You should have had that,’ I whispered. ‘You should have had that life of your own.’
His eyes glittered. ‘Yeah, well, I didn’t. And perhaps it was karma. For being a selfish asshole.’
‘You’re not selfish.’ I slid my hand along the side of his jaw, up into the short strands of his hair. It was thick and soft, and I gripped on tight. ‘You weren’t given a choice, and that’s not right.’
‘They worked hard for me, Mom and Dad. To get me where I was. They sacrificed a lot.’
‘Who are you trying to convince? Me or yourself?’
A muscle leapt in the side of his perfect jaw. ‘I don’t know. It doesn’t seem fair to get angry with them when all they wanted was a way out.’
‘You weren’t a way out, Eli. You were their son.’
He said nothing for a long minute, staring down at me, the green glitter in his eyes sharp. His beautiful face was so grim, as if he hadn’t done much smiling in the past few years. As though he didn’t even know how.
‘And you were my hero,’ I went on, wanting to take his anger away, see him smile. ‘I remember once when I was quite young, and you were playing computer games with Traj, I went and had a look inside your school bag to see if you had a superhero costume in there.’
Something faded and shifted in his eyes, and there was a silence.
‘No way,’ he said eventually.
‘Yes way. I was very disappointed when I couldn’t find one. I thought you probably wore it under your clothes.’
‘I wasn’t any kind of hero, Vee.’
‘You were to me. You were my friend, Eli Hart. And that’s pretty much the same thing.’
He still didn’t smile, but his expression had changed, moving from anger to something else, something intent and hot. A fierce look sent fire licking all over my skin.
And abruptly I was sick of talking, so I pulled him down, his beautiful mouth on mine. But I didn’t want it fast and desperate, I wanted it slow and sweet. I wanted to show him what he meant to me, so this time it was me who showed him what I wanted. I touched his lips with my tongue, getting him to open for me, and then began to explore, hot and slick. Got to savour the flavour of him, rich and delicious, like the truffles he’d fed me just before.
He went still, letting me kiss him. Letting me nip at his lower lip and bite. Letting me kiss him deeper, harder, dragging a growl from the back of his throat.
I’d been angry with him for so long, but I wasn’t angry now. How could I be angry with him when he was so obviously angry at himself?
I put my hands on his broad shoulders and I pushed hard, breaking the kiss so I could shove him onto his back. He let me—because there was no way I was strong enough to have pushed him if he hadn’t wanted to be pushed—then I straddled him, my thighs spread over his narrow hips, the hard ridge of his cock nudging the soft, sensitive skin of my pussy.
He reached for me, but I grabbed his wrists and pushed them back up on the pillow on either side of his head. ‘No touching,’ I ordered, watching his face to see if he’d allow this too.
Th
at hard mouth quirked and satisfaction filled me at getting an almost-smile from him. ‘If you don’t want me touching, you’d better get working,’ he said.
For an answer, I covered his mouth with mine, holding his wrists down on the pillow and leaning forward so my weight increased the pressure. Then I kissed him deeper, harder, more demanding.
I could feel him tense, and I broke the kiss again, but only so I could kiss his jaw and the strong column of his neck, paying extra attention to the lick of the burn, using my tongue to trace the edges of it. And then down further, over the patchwork of scar tissue across his chest. He wouldn’t be able to feel it, but he could certainly see my mouth on his skin, kissing him. Adoring him.
He nearly died. You nearly lost him.
I put my hand on his hips, holding on to him as if he might slip away, trailing kisses all over him, closing my eyes against the threat of tears.
But he hadn’t died. And he was here with me. Vital and warm and alive. And just for tonight everything was allowed, surely?
Will one night be enough?
Of course it wouldn’t be. But it was all I had right now, so I’d take it.
I kissed right down his body to the hard and proud length of his cock, and I kissed along that too, worshipping him.
He growled a low, deep rumble and, before I could do anything more, he shifted beneath me and suddenly I found myself on my back with him above me, our positions reversed.
‘Hey,’ I said breathlessly. ‘You promised no touching.’
‘I didn’t promise. And rules are made to be broken.’
He bent and took my mouth the way I’d taken his, feverish, hot and slick.
I arched up beneath him, wrapping my legs around his hips, his cock sliding against my bare sex, hitting my clit and sending showers of sparks cascading through me.
In the Dark--A Sexy Billionaire Romance Page 14