by Kim Karr
Light at the end of the tunnel or my doom, though, I’m not sure.
Staring at the brown craft paper that once covered the pieces of art that are now in Enrique’s possession, I try to picture the end but I just can’t see it.
The road has been dark, and I fear the ending will be just as dark.
The door opens.
My heart gallops at the thought that Caleb might be back. I whirl around, ready to run into arms.
It’s insane.
Crazy.
And I know I shouldn’t.
It’s not Caleb though, and I freeze midstep.
“Gemma, angel, I must be leaving.”
“Okay. Will I see you tomorrow?” I pray to God I won’t.
Enrique shakes his head no. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to return until Saturday.”
I force a frown on my face. “Okay. I’ll miss you,” I lie.
With a smile he says, “It will go quickly. You’ll be busy.”
My smile is real. “Are you letting me go back to work?”
“We already discussed this.”
“I just thought—”
He cuts me off. “Tomorrow you’ll go to the museum to meet with Penelope. There are less than thirty days before the benefit and she thinks there’s too much to get done.”
The benefit planning is a no-brainer. I got that. It really is complete. Penelope is just being a controlling bitch, but it’s not like I can tell him that. “Will I be driving myself?” I ask, trying to figure out what Caleb’s fate is without asking.
He looks bored. “Smith will be taking you the rest of the week.”
I stare at him in question. Smith is his personal bodyguard. “But what about you?”
“I’ll be with Lamar on a retreat, so I won’t need him. He’ll keep you safe, I promise. And after the museum tomorrow, I’ve instructed him to take you to see your father.”
“Has something happened?” I ask, suddenly alarmed.
“No, don’t fret, angel. I just thought you’d like to see him before he’s transferred to The Cove.”
The Cove.
Very expensive.
Private.
Far away.
Something else to hold over my head.
The best place for my father.
Another reason that when he says jump—I ask how high.
The Cove.
A specialized convalescent home located in Los Angeles for patients in a catatonic state. A condition my father will more than likely never recover from. The condition he suffers from because of Enrique.
“Don’t you want to see him?” Enrique asks.
“Yes, of course,” I answer, unable to muster any emotion but the sheer sadness I truly feel.
Still at a distance, he says, “I thought so. I’ll phone you with the details of my next visit. I’ve left a box on the table for you. I’d like you ready this time.”
I start toward him, unbeckoned. “Yes, of course,” I tell him once again, like the robot I am.
He gives me a nod. “And Gemma, while I’m away, I’d like you to clean out your closet and discard anything unsuitable.”
He doesn’t wait for me to respond before he closes the door in my face.
The hot and cold treatment is getting worse. Lately I anger him more than I please him. Even after everything I went through to get the paintings, his appreciation was short-lived.
That only tells me one thing . . . time is running out.
Chapter 28
Make Me Feel
Gemma
EVERY DAY HAS seemed like the last.
Infinite.
Long.
Never-ending.
Unable to sleep, I find myself staring into the pitch dark. This solitary time is nothing more than an unsubtle power play on Enrique’s part.
Shape up or you’ll be alone.
What he doesn’t know is that I prefer being alone to having him in my company. Still, I feel like I might climb the walls. There’s been no word about Caleb. I prefer to assume he’s been fired and not killed.
After spending days with Enrique’s wife at the museum going over and over the details for the benefit that have already been checked and tripled checked, I’ve spent the weekend alone.
My punishment or my reward, I’m not sure anymore. The lines are growing thinner by the day.
Locked up in my glass house, I spent the days sketching hearts, hearts, and more hearts. Like always, I couldn’t complete a single one. Something inside me feels more than broken. It feels ruined. And I don’t think it can ever be fixed.
A noise in the living room has me jumping out of bed. Nerves stiffen my spine. Smith and another bodyguard have been rotating shifts, but neither ever makes a sound.
There’s another noise, and it sounds like the clinking of ice cubes. This causes my heart to nearly stop.
Is it Enrique this late?
If so, I have no doubt he’s come to claim me.
I want to run.
To escape.
To give up, but then I remember what he did, and I know I won’t go down without a fight.
It’s just my body.
Not my soul.
Unfortunately, I’m wearing a T-shirt I know he’ll hate and in no way is suitable to honor his presence in, but I don’t have time to change.
Besides, I’m not even sure it’s him.
Fear-ridden and panicked, I open the door and tip-toe into the darkness. There is nowhere for me to go, nothing I can do, I either accept this sick fate or I kill him where he stands and in turn be killed by his bodyguards.
I’m not ready to die.
I have vengeance to live for.
Stopping in the entranceway, I can’t believe my eyes. There’s a dark figure in my living room pouring himself a drink. My pulse starts to race at the sight. Tall, broad, and muscular, it isn’t Enrique. It’s Caleb. He wasn’t fired or killed after all, and he’s back.
I want to run into his arms, but I don’t.
After tossing back a scotch, he sets his glass down and then flips on a light before meeting my gaze. Even from here, I can see his emerald-green eyes. Bottomless, expressive, and misleadingly cold. He looks tired, taunt, and restless. His hair is tousled and his expression dark.
“What the hell were you thinking scaring me like that?” I ask, nerves stiffening my spine and my heart thrumming wildly in my chest at the same time.
He doesn’t answer.
Doesn’t move.
Maybe doesn’t even breathe.
I draw in a breath to lay into him, let him have it for acting this way, but then he stalks toward me and I start to feel like I can’t breathe.
I avert my eyes and stare at the picture in my dining room. The place that someday I will return to and be happy.
Caleb’s movements are calm and easy. A predator on the prowl. He stops in front of me and bends down to whisper, “Hello, Gemma. We have a lot to talk about.”
A bolt of hot lust shoots through me when his gorgeous raspy voice, laced with rough need, tumbles into my ear.
Stepping back, I argue, “We have nothing to talk about.”
“We can talk later if you prefer,” he tells me, stepping forward.
I take another step back and another, until I’m flush to the hallway wall. “What are you doing?” I ask, my voice trembling.
“Finishing what we started.”
Need coils deep in my belly. “What if I don’t want to?”
There’s a playful grin on his face, and it’s quite possibly the ‘nicest’ look I’ve received from him yet. I flush, just barely able to keep myself from launching at him.
His mouth is at my ear again. “I know you do. I can see your body quivering with the very thought. But I’ll stop if you want me to. Just say the word.”
Feeling crazed and out of control, I give in to my insane need and throw my arms around his neck to bring his mouth to mine. “I don’t want you to stop. I want you to fuck me,” I tell him.
I shake my head no. “We can’t. The windows.”
Sucking in a breath, there’s a hot need in his eyes that tells me he’ll figure out another way.
Both of us are parched.
Needy.
Out of Control.
“You sure you want this?” he asks.
I nod.
“Say it.”
“I want you, Caleb, more than I’ve wanted anyone in my life.”
God, just looking at him makes my heart jump to life. It’s beating harder. Faster. I can practically feel life flooding my veins and sweet air filling my lungs.
Suddenly, he turns me around and slaps my hands up against the wall. “Then here it is.”
Trembling, I stand still for him as he pushes my panties down my thighs and then goes to work on the buttons of his cargo pants.
Sensations ripple through me as his rough knuckles brush against the soft, rounded flesh of my ass. Spreading my feet with his boots, he makes room for himself between my thighs. Raging desire streams along every nerve in my body.
His lips find my ear again and his cock is hot and hard against my ass. “I want to know what you’re up to,” he growls. “But that can wait. I’ve been outcast for days and during all those lonely hours the only thing I could do was think about you.”
I jump when he nips the sensitive rim of my lobe. My response is real and flows easily from my parted lips. “I’ve been thinking about you, too,” I whisper and feel his breath hitch in response.
The height difference doesn’t deter him. He simply bends his knees, wraps one arm around my waist to hold me up on my toes and braces the other arm next to my face.
I hear the tear of a condom wrapper, and then his thick cock parts my sensitive flesh.
Even though I’m already wet with arousal, I still jump at the delicious invasion.
“You okay?” he asks, his voice strained.
I nod. “Fuck me, Caleb. Now!”
And he does. When he drives in, I can’t help but wince. My reaction makes him go still. “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asks, his voice barely audible.
No . . . Maybe . . .”I . . . Yes, it’s just been a while,” I admit. “I’m fine. Keep moving.”
A soft, almost unwilling groan eases out of him, then he begins to thrust, deep and hard.
The uncomfortable feeling eases into mindless pleasure almost instantly. In and out. Deep and deeper. He moves fast and furious.
In this moment, he’s a man taking what he wants and I’m a woman giving it to him willingly.
Not a kept woman and her bodyguard.
Not strangers with an odd attraction.
Just a man and a woman making each other feel good.
Riding the waves of an adrenaline rush, I think I could come from the intensity of this act alone.
He takes me hard and fast with a possessiveness I love. His mouth is on my shoulder and the sting of his teeth along with the possessive grip of his hand on my hip makes me feel alive. Even straining up on my tiptoes with my forearms braced in front of my face, I haven’t felt this good in a very long time.
“Oh, God,” I call out.
His responding growl is low and deep in his throat.
Then, with a gentleness I don’t expect, his fingers gather my hair and he turns my head to look at him.
My eyelids flutter as desire soars through me with each slick stroke in and out. I catch a strange and unwanted tenseness flashing in his green eyes, and for a brief moment I surface from the whirlpool of erotic sensations running through me.
I don’t want to know what he’s thinking, so I look away. He angles his hips forward, stroking over a spot deep inside me that sends hot, electric pulses zinging through me.
I give in to the pleasure.
I need this.
Want this.
Want him.
When his free hand slides across my rib cage to cup the top of my sex, I push against him, but when he uses one fingertip to circle my taut, slick nub, I throw my head back, giving myself to him completely.
Somehow, through all of the noise and movement I’m making, he’s able to maintain his fast and hard pace.
Just as he’s grinding his hips against my bare flesh, my orgasm slams into me. I can feel pleasure soaring through me from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. I shout out, “Oh, God, that’s it.”
In response, he gives a stuttering groan and then mouths my ear, my jaw, my neck. Through slow, jerky orgasmic strokes, his cock swells and pulses inside me. He comes in a rush. “Fuck, Gemma, oh fuck.” When he’s spent, he exhales against my shoulder, letting his weight slump against my body.
As the waves of pleasure we’re both riding wane, I fall into his grip, waiting for my boneless body to gain the strength to hold myself up.
When I can feel my toes again, I toss a languid smile over my shoulder. His responding smile does something funny to my heart. Something I don’t want to think about, so I glance away.
That was beyond the heat of a get-to-know-you fuck.
It was hot.
Intense.
Amazing.
“We need to talk.”
Still panting, I stare at the wall trying to catch my breath. “I don’t regret what we did, so don’t worry about it.”
“That’s not what I wanted to talk about, but thanks for letting me know.” He withdraws as he speaks.
I glance over my shoulder. “I don’t know anything more about Mexico.” My breathing is short and fast with untamed happiness running rampant within me.
His smile is gone. “I went inside your bunker.”
“My bunker?”
“Yeah, the storage unit.”
“How dare you!”
His laughter is dark. “Tell me what you’re doing with him. I know you’re not with him for love. Not with a place like that.”
Given the hint of steel under his soft tone, I don’t want to be naked for this conversation, so I push myself upright and pull up my panties. “You can’t possibly know that by looking at a bunch of junk.”
“Yeah, I can. I hear it in your voice when you talk to him.”
“You’re delusional.”
“Why doesn’t he fuck you?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“What’s the significance of the painting?” he asks, pointing to my very favorite one.
“There isn’t any.”
“Liar,” he hisses. “Is it worth a lot of money?"
I laugh. “No, I painted it. It’s just a place I visited a long time ago and hope to return."
Hope.
Glaring at me, he seems to accept that as the truth, which it is, and then starts walking down the hall. “Stay there.”
Orders are one thing I’m not going to take from him. Turning around, I’m about to march after him, but he’s already coming back toward me. His black cargo pants are zipped and he has a washcloth in his hand.
Crossing my arms over my chest to hide my perky nipples, I wait for him to get closer before saying a word.
He approaches me with measured strides. A distracting heat licks at my skin with each slow step he takes. More. I want more of him. It’s been so long since I’ve had anything like that, one fast fuck isn’t nearly enough.
He hands me the washcloth. “After what we just did, it is my business.”
I sigh. “Fine. Enrique believes in The Powers of the Higher Mind. That wanting something isn’t a reason to take it. You have to earn it.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t understand. He just took those pieces of artwork.”
I use the washcloth and wipe the inside of my thighs. “No, he paid for them. Besides, it’s not the same as cheating.”
His dry chuckle doesn’t hide his disdain. “You’re kidding me, right? He’s worried about the sanctity of his marriage, yet he keeps you here and taunts himself with you? How does that even make
sense?”
“It has to do with purity. It’s hard to understand.”
He tucks a piece of hair behind my ear. “Fine, whatever. That’s his reason for your relationship, but what’s your reason?”
Whirling, soft sparks settle low in my belly. “Who says I have one?”
His brow rises. “Oh, you have one.”
“Maybe I’m needy, alone, or just greedy,” I tell him, hating that I cast myself in that light. “You pick. Either way I wouldn’t know where to start.”
He ignores my feeble attempt to put an end to the questioning. “How about we start from the beginning, Cleo.”
Cleo.
The headiness I was feeling disappears immediately.
Cleo.
My heart starts to hammer for an entirely different reason.
Cleo.
How does he know?
I’ve covered my tracks. If he found out, can Enrique find out? Where did I go wrong?
I meet his eyes without expression and know there’s no use in denying it. “How did you figure it out?”
“The boots you hid in your hamper were covered with neon paint.”
Well, at least those are gone, and besides, Enrique wouldn’t have a clue where the paint came from. “Tell me what you want from Cleo.”
He places his arms on either side of me. “You’re in no position to be the one asking the questions.”
I take a moment to slow my pounding heart. “I know it was you who tried to kidnap me at the warehouse.”
Cards on the table.
Time to come clean.
The biceps in his deceptively lean arms bulge as he leans against the wall, getting closer to me. “I wasn’t trying to kidnap you, I was trying to convince you to talk to me.”
“Who are you?”
He licks a delicate path along the rim of my ear. “I think you already know who I am.”
I glance up at him. “Stop it, Caleb. Stop the games right now.”
Surprised at my candor, he eases back. “I can’t tell you who I am, Gemma, but you need to tell me what your game is because if you don’t, I’m not sure I can save you.”
Pushing at his chest, I toss the damp cloth to the ground. “I’m not looking to be saved,” I tell him, and rush past him toward my room.
“Gemma,” he calls. “What if I want to save you?”
I stop and turn around. “Then you’re in just as much trouble as I am,” I tell him, and keep walking.