by Claire Kent
Her chest hurt at the words, at the reality of how deep Drayton’s feelings went. He’d always held back his heart, kept his heart free, and she understood now why that was. He had to be prepared to walk away from everything, if necessary. But that didn’t mean he was unfeeling.
She glanced over at the six candles across the room, a visible symbol of the way Drayton’s father had shaped his life. A kind of sacrament of fellowship, every time the candles were lit.
“So you don’t think you’re going to retire from a life of crime any time soon?” she asked, feeling close to him and impossibly distant—both at the same time.
Drayton shook his head. “I wouldn’t hold out hope in that direction. I’m not a man who can be redeemed. I was raised to be a certain person, and it suits my nature. But I’m not a criminal mastermind or a megalomaniac from a comic book or thriller. I’m the same man you’ve always known.”
“Are you?” She scanned his face desperately. It was the same as it had always been—wide forehead, aristocratic nose, elegant jaw—but she wasn’t sure she even recognized him.
He smiled and reached out to take her hand, stroking the back of her hand with his thumb. “What do you know about me?”
“You’re a criminal.”
With a warm chuckle, he clarified, “Tell me what you’ve always known about me. Before you found out this last detail.”
She made a face and was about to complain, but she could see he was serious so she figured she’d play along. Closing her eyes, she tried to find words to describe Drayton. “You’re sexy.”
Her eyes flew open as she realized what she’d said, and she almost blushed when she saw his pleased smile.
Hurrying on, she added, “And obnoxiously smug. And really smart. With a quick mind—one that always challenges me.”
As she sorted through the characteristics through which she’d always understood Drayton, she stopped being self-conscious and just told him the truth. “You’re sophisticated and experienced—beyond what I’ve known before.” As she spoke the words, they were strangely reassuring. She knew them as true. “You’re exciting—making even everyday things come alive. You appreciate the finer things in life. You’re artistic. Driven.”
The last word gave her pause. And she frowned as she asked him, “Driven to do what?”
Drayton was listening intently, but at this he smiled and murmured, “You tell me.”
Julia reflected in silence. He wasn’t driven for material possessions. Or for fame or popularity. Finally, she said, without really thinking the words through, “You’re driven to make your space in the world exactly as you want it.”
She was vaguely surprised by her own observation, and she could tell by Drayton’s expression that he was a little surprised too. “I guess you could say that. Interesting.”
They sat on the bed in silence for a while, just looking at each other.
She was tied to this man in a very real way, and it just wasn’t in her nature to release those ties, to loosen her grip.
Finally, Drayton asked, “Now, does any of what you just said not match up with what you know about me now?”
Julia realized there was nothing out of place. The pieces fit together even more perfectly now than they had before she’d known the whole story.
She knew him now. Completely. Truly. When she hadn’t before.
“No,” she admitted, “It all fits.”
“Have your feelings for me changed?”
“I don’t know.”
“I can help you work it out. I can tell you anything you want to know.”
“Maybe. I’m still not sure what I want.” She wanted this confusion, this unfamiliarity, this fear to go away. She didn’t know what else to say, so she asked the most essential question. “What do you want? It seems so strange that you’re not just taking off, given what you do. I mean, you’re some sort of master thief.”
“Do you think anyone, even thieves, want to be completely alone?”
Of course, they didn’t. Of course, Drayton didn’t want to leave town, leave everything he had, start over some place new—even if that was the smartest thing for him to do.
“So what do you want?” she asked again.
Drayton leaned forward, like he might kiss her. “What I had before.”
“But Mike—”
“Mike left.” His green eyes held hers in a mesmerizing vice. “I want what I had before—with or without him.”
She understood. Everything. Why Drayton still wanted her and what he hoped to find in the remnants of their relationship.
The same thing she wanted. What she couldn’t seem to let go.
Ties that were so hard to break.
She felt a bond between them—stronger than she had the moment before. She scooted over to lightly touch his chest, to feel him as she always had before.
His heart beat under her hand. Real. Natural. Faster than usual. Just like hers.
He covered her hand on her chest with one of his warm ones, but he made no further moves.
Despite the fact that they were fully dressed and just lightly touching, Julia felt her body responding to her emotions.
It was so reassuring, so familiar—that she was reacting the way she always had before. Her pulse was starting to race. Excitement rushed through her consciousness. And the pressure of arousal started to build between her legs.
Breathless and flushed, she asked, “You want us to stay together, without Mike?”
She felt an odd pang as she spoke his name, but she ignored it since it hurt too much.
Thinking about Mike would mean acknowledging the extent of her loss. This was different…this was holding something together with tenuous threads.
Drayton met her eyes, and she felt like she was looking all the way into him. “I want to hold onto what we can,” he said, his voice rich with an emotion she couldn’t quite identify. “Don’t you?”
Her lips parted as she stared up at his face, and a force of feeling washed over her, submerging her. “Yes,” she admitted in a whisper.
Drayton took that as her answer.
Leaning down, he pressed his lips against hers—lightly at first as if he were experimenting with her responses.
Her lips clung to his instinctively, and she made a little moan in the back her throat. His mouth was skillful, knowing, overwhelming her with a vast sense of experience. Just as it always had. But more.
In response to her eagerness, he deepened the kiss, teasing her lips apart with his tongue and then sliding in to explore her mouth. Her arm wrapped around his neck of its own accord, and she arched her spine to press her breasts against his chest.
“How many women have you kissed before?” she asked, when he’d pulled his lips away to mouth his way down her neck. She’d never asked him that question before, but he seemed like a different man now. And she wanted to know.
“Too many,” he murmured against the pulse in her throat. “And none of them were like you.”
It was exactly the right thing to say. A flood of warmth spread out from her belly to overtake her body.
He’d pushed her down onto her back during their embrace, and she gasped with pleasure as he bit at a sensitive spot on her neck. The ceiling started to blur before her eyes, as her mind whirled with a dizzying excitement.
It felt unreal—that Drayton was who he was, that she was with him right now.
He pulled his head up so he could better stroke her body over her clothes, skillfully and purposefully caressing her arms, her sides, her breasts, her hips, her thighs. His eyes followed his hands, and Julia felt both exposed and strangely naughty as the pleasure intensified at her pussy and shivers ran down her arms, neck, and spine.
She let him tease her into deeper arousal, unable to do much more than feel, than experience the deep sensations.
“How many women have you touched before?” she asked hoarsely, squirming a little as her arousal became too strong.
“Too many.” Drayton sl
id his hands up to cup her breasts, squeezing them possessively. “Way too many. They blend together. Until you.”
Julia arched up in helpless pleasure—more from her emotional response to his words than from the delicious feel of his fingers on her tight nipples, which were now poking out shamelessly through her t-shirt as he fondled them.
The room, his face, the world kept blurring in front of her eyes. She whimpered as he expertly caressed her, knowing exactly what made her gasp and exactly what made her pelvis buck and squirm.
She reached up to cling to the headboard, feeling like she would be swept away entirely by the sensations.
Purely physicality. Sensations disconnected from the depth and pain of her emotions.
Just beyond the buzzing of arousal, she could hear in her mind the voice of Alexander Darrington when she’d talked to him in the antique-shop. “Six is never-ending.” Repeated endlessly. Six. A step away from completion. Never having to end. Never having to change.
Maybe it was true for her too. With Drayton, she could hold onto it forever.
He gently unclasped her hands from the headboard so he could pull her t-shirt off over her head. She fell back to the bed limply, hotly aroused and desperate for more of his touch.
He stroked over her satin bra, teasing her erect nipples and making her cry out before she bit her bottom lip. Then he unfastened her jeans and pulled them off too, leaving her naked except for her bra and panties.
He cupped her groin, and she knew the fabric was warm and damp beneath his hands.
“How many women have you undressed before?” she asked, panting audibly, her skin covered with goosebumps.
“Too many. For too many years.” He rubbed her pussy, and she mewled with pleasure at the rhythmic pressure.
Her mind blurred with an even deeper excitement.
“Do you want me?” Drayton asked huskily, holding his hand still between her legs.
She squirmed wantonly against his fingers, desperate for more stimulation. “Yes!”
“Tell me.”
“I want you, Drayton,” she gasped. “I want you.”
He moved over her, tense and hot and still fully dressed in his trousers and crewneck shirt. She whimpered and eagerly splayed her legs wide apart as he unfastened his trousers and freed his cock.
When he moved aside her panties and aligned himself at her entrance, she said, holding onto the last vestiges of her common sense, “This doesn’t mean I’ve made a decision.”
“It doesn’t have to.” Then he thrust home, the penetration of his cock filling her, stretching her. “It’s just sex.”
“Oh God!” she cried, arching up as the jolts of pleasure were so intense she almost came on the first stroke.
Drayton’s breath was warm and damp on her face, and his body beneath his clothes was burning up. “So hot,” he murmured, pulling back for another long thrust. “So wet. So eager.”
He pitched his hips forward again, his stroke harder than she’d expected. Her knees bent up as she tossed her head on the pillow, bombarded by sensations she couldn’t control.
“Wrap your legs around me, baby.”
She obeyed automatically, lifting her legs to hook her ankles around his butt, even as one part of her mind tried to process what was wrong with what he’d just said.
Her adjustments caused his cock to sink even deeper inside her, and she couldn’t stifle her moan in response.
Trying to grind her clit against his pubic bone, she gasped and pleaded, “More. Drayton, more.”
“Try to get your legs higher, baby,” he said, erotic authority in his voice.
She clawed at his back and edged her legs even higher up his body, digging her heels into the small of his back.
“Good girl.” He was flushed and panting himself, and he thrust again, his cock sliding easily in her slippery pussy, stroking and stimulating her clinging inner walls. “So good.”
“Oh, oh, God!” Her body rocked and squirmed beneath him, chasing the orgasm that was coiling so tightly she felt like screaming. “Please, Drayton, faster, harder.”
He built up a steady rhythm, not fast but hard and pleasing. Soon her panting changed to constant whimpering, and then to sobs of pleasure and frustration.
His eyes never left her face as he fucked her. “You’re going to come soon, aren’t you?” he asked hoarsely.
“Uh-huh.” She couldn’t concentrate enough to form anything but monosyllables.
“You’re already close.”
“Yeah. Close. Please.”
She came on his next hard thrust, the tight pressure at her center releasing itself in intense spasms. She cried out in helpless abandon as her body shook and convulsed beneath him.
She could feel his eyes on her the whole time and could hear him murmuring husky encouragement. “Good girl. So hot. Let go.”
Julia was still whimpering a little when she finally came down, and in place of the intense arousal was a heavy weight of recognition in her gut.
She clung to him, but she couldn’t look up at his face. He was still hard and substantial inside her, and her sensitive pussy was wet and clinging.
“That was lovely,” Drayton said, in the same voice he’d always used in bed with her. For some reason, she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear it right now. “I think you deserve at least one more.”
He pulled back and started thrusting again, and she knew it wouldn’t take long for her body to start responding once more.
But she tightened her hands on his neck. “Drayton.”
He must have recognized the new note in her voice because he pulled to a stop and stared down at her.
She met his eyes and opened her mouth. Then realized she had no idea what she wanted to say.
She had no idea what she wanted.
But she was pretty sure she didn’t want this.
She hadn’t been entirely content in their relationship—even when it had been stable and Mike had been a part of it.
She didn’t want it at all without Mike.
Julia didn’t know exactly why, but for some reason she turned her head and looked toward the opened doorway of the room.
She gasped and stiffened, the shock slamming into her first, before she could process the significance of what she saw.
Mike was standing in the door, a bag slung over one shoulder.
His expression was blank. Passive. Revealing nothing.
But she didn’t need his expression to know what he was feeling.
“Mike,” she gasped, squirming in Drayton’s arms, this time to get out of his embrace. “Mike.”
With a brief shake of his head, he turned and walked back down the hall.
“Damn it,” Drayton muttered, pulling up a bit. “Julia, don’t get upset. You weren’t doing anything wrong.”
“Let me up,” she said, pushing at his chest. “Get off.”
Drayton pulled his still hard cock from her pussy with a sloppy, wet sound. “I mean it, Julia. He has no call to pout. He’s the one who left.”
She ignored him, scrambling up off the bed, adjusting her panties and running into the hall.
“Mike!” she called.
He was already in the entryway.
“Mike, wait!” She moved down the hall at a dead run when she saw him opening the front door.
“I’ll talk to you later, Julia,” Mike said, leaving the apartment. His voice was almost normal, but he hadn’t really looked at her.
And she wasn’t fooled for a minute.
She’d crushed him. Without even trying to.
She ran out the apartment after him and might have caught up with him before he got to the stairs if their middle-aged neighbor hadn’t walked out and given a little squeal at the sight of Julia in her underwear.
“Mike!” Julia wailed.
He didn’t stop. Didn’t turn around. And she couldn’t possibly follow him undressed.
So she ran back into their apartment, on the verge of tears.
T
hings had been a mess before.
But now they might be beyond saving.
And this time it was her fault.
Eleven
Julia slammed the door of their apartment behind her, but it did nothing to break the surge of her chaotic emotions. She hurried into Drayton’s room and grabbed her t-shirt from the rumpled bed.
When she’d pulled it over her head, she noticed Drayton was standing next to the bed, looking rather uncomfortable.
“You’re going after him,” he said—more a statement than a question.
She felt sloppy between her legs and wanted to rub at her pussy, but instead she searched for her jeans. “Yes. Of course.”
“Should that have been obvious? We were in the middle of something.”
Julia straightened up and looked at him more closely. He was flushed, his skin damp, his pants unfastened. Obviously still aroused.
“Sorry, Drayton,” she said, with a little pang of guilt in her throat. “Really, I am. I just got so upset about Mike.”
“I saw that. But I’m not convinced there’s any reason for it. We’re in a relationship. He’s the one who chose to leave.”
Julia found her jeans on the far side of the bed. “I know. But you must understand how he’d feel. Like…”
“Like what? Betrayed?” Drayton’s voice snapped sharply in the quiet room. “I assure you I can empathize.”
This was startling enough for Julia to pause in yanking up her jeans and stare at him open-mouthed. “I betrayed you?”
“No, not you,” Drayton said, his voice sharpening. “I was referring to the feeling of being abandoned—and then having the one who abandons you try to take what’s left to you away.”
Despite the indirect, slightly obscure wording, Julia knew immediately what he meant. And, despite her distraction about Mike’s abrupt departure, she froze in shock and dismay—registering the implications.
It was the closest Drayton had ever come to admitting feeling betrayed by Mike.
“Drayton.”
He raised his eyebrows and shifted from foot to foot stiffly, an uncharacteristically awkward gesture for him.
“Oh, Drayton,” she said, her face twisting a little. “I’m sorry about the interrupted fuck. We moved too fast. I wasn’t ready.”