Pleasure laced with pain arced through her and she welcomed it. She welcomed whatever dark and depraved thing this man had up his sleeve for her. One night. One night that would warm her and keep her for the rest of her Ian-free life.
Their eyes locked and it was the hottest thing she’d ever been a part of. His finger twitched and rubbed against her shorts, and her eyelids slid shut.
“No,” he said, an iron edge of command in his voice. “Watch. Watch what I do to you.”
Oh, it was thrilling. His eyes—so dark they were almost navy—bored into hers and she spread her legs and let him do what he wanted.
He yanked her shorts, a button popping off and rolling around in the dark, and his violence delighted her. She smiled and he growled. He ripped her underwear off and she laughed but suddenly his fingers were inside her. Lancing her, piercing right through to her heart and she sobbed once, breathless and wanting.
Lifting her leg, hooking it around his hips, she opened herself, waiting. Needy and mindless.
His thumb brushed her clitoris and she gasped, shaking as if on an electric wire.
“You like that?” he asked and she nodded, unable to speak.
He pulled away just long enough to roll a condom on, then he was back. Pressing, sliding, easing into her as if she were made for him.
Ian Greer made love to her like a man possessed. He held her against the wall, arching into her, whispering dark praise into her ear, urging her to new places. And when she thought she couldn’t take any more, he proved her wrong.
And finally, when his body, slick with sweat and shaking, reached the end of his control, she wrapped her arms around him and held on tight.
Wishing as hard as she could that things were different.
Ian, his back against the wall, his legs boneless and tired and stretched out in front of him, simply watched Jennifer. She sat in the office chair and tucked her torn underwear into the pocket of her shorts that no longer closed properly.
Thanks to him.
He would have apologized and meant it, but the secret womanly grin on her face and the light that gleamed in her eyes told him no apology was necessary.
The woman had a hidden appetite for dirty things and he loved it about her. Wished they had a week in this closet to see where her boundaries really lie.
“You’re so lovely,” he said, resting his head against the wall.
She laughed, the husky sound of it delighting him. “You say that to all the girls you screw against walls.” He couldn’t stand that she would even joke about that. He reached out and grabbed the rolling office chair and pulled her to him. Somehow he found the strength to get off his butt and cup her face in his hands.
“There has never been anyone like you,” he told her, honesty coming easy in this post-orgasmic state. He brushed the hair from her face, tucking it behind her pretty ears. Funny how he never noticed how pretty her ears were. “I am honored you even let me touch you.”
“I’m so glad you did,” she said, pressing a kiss to his nose. “And there has never been anyone like you,” she said and then laughed. “No one even close.”
He stroked her hair, kissing her forehead. He didn’t know how true that was, her brain was shorted out and she didn’t remember her husband as clearly. When she’d told him he felt alive, he’d felt her husband’s ghost, his own shortcomings. The truth was the years she spent alone had more to do with her having sex with Ian than he did.
But she was here and she was deluded and he was going to take advantage of that while he could.
He eased her off the chair, settling her in his lap, her legs curled around his hips. He was hard again and he knew she could feel it, but wasn’t sure what she’d want right now.
Were they back to business only? Was she going to tell him that this was a mistake? That it should never have happened?
Seemed the wrong way to end things.
So, he kissed her. He kissed her until she was putty in his hands, until she arched slightly into him, growing damp through her shorts.
“Ian,” she breathed, pulling away. She flipped her hair over her shoulders and ran her fingers across his face, slowly, carefully, like she were memorizing him.
“You look happy,” she breathed, smiling slightly.
“You make me happy,” he told her simply, cupping her bottom in his hands, flexing his fingers in that warm curve of flesh.
“This never happened,” she said, tracing the lines around his mouth. “If this got out, it would jeopardize everything. You understand that, right?”
“I do,” he murmured.
A certain shyness entered her eyes and she dropped her hands to her lap. “But when it’s over. When the story is out. Maybe—” She laughed, staring down at her hands. “I’m so bad at this.”
“Maybe what?” he asked, tipping her chin up to meet her eyes. And what he saw there eviscerated him—hope, loyalty and something that looked too much like love to be believed.
“Maybe we can try this again. Maybe we can try it for real.”
He was speechless. For real? She wanted something real with him?
“We could go on a date,” she said, trying to joke and he couldn’t respond. His heart was beating a mile a minute. “Or not,” she muttered and shifted as if to stand and he couldn’t have that.
Couldn’t have her leaving when she’d just gotten here, just found her way to him. He pressed his hands on her thighs, keeping her close, pulling her to him. He couldn’t look at her, afraid of what she’d see in his eyes, afraid she’d know how close to the edge he was.
She melted against him, catching fire in his hands, burning both of them right through the night.
Jennifer wasn’t sure if she slept, but when her eyes opened at dawn she was wide-awake, engaged in what could only be called a full body smile.
And it wasn’t just the sex. She was hopeful. Hopeful about Ian and a life that included him. A life with him.
She thought of Doug, like pressing a tentative finger against a bruise, and was relieved by the absence of pain. Her life came together—her past, her present, her potential future. Nothing was shut off. No part of her shut down.
She rolled to her side and laughed into her pillow, feeling like a teenager. Her body was sore, bruised and full in the best possible way, as if she were full of life.
But, before there could be any more Ian, there was the story.
Spence was still sound asleep in the single bed on the other side of the room and so she stood, grabbed her laptop and snuck out of the room, trying not to wake him.
There was a very good chance she had an e-mail from Waldo and she couldn’t wait to see her producer’s reaction to the story. Stepping into the kitchen she saw Daisy standing at the front door to the common room. Growling at the closed door.
“Daisy?” she called, but the dog only glanced backward. The ruff went up on the dog’s neck and she growled harder, throwing in a menacing bark.
There was probably an opossum hanging out on the front stoop and Jennifer stomped over to the front door and threw it open to scare the beast away.
An explosion of lights blinded her and a thousand voices screamed at her.
“Who are you?”
“Where is Ian Greer?”
“Is this an alcohol treatment facility?”
“Are you sleeping with Ian?”
Daisy was going berserk at her knee. Suddenly the door was yanked from her hands. It was Ian, she knew it before she saw him.
And the flashbulbs doubled in their intensity. Or course it didn’t help that he was standing beside her without his shirt on.
“Ian, where—”
“We’re calling the cops,” he said, his voice iron-plated. “You’ve got five minutes to clear the property.”
“Come on, Ian,” one of the men whined. “Tell us—”
“Who called you?” Ian barked.
“A woman at a bowling alley,” the guy said, snapping pictures. “Why don’t you smile, li
ttle lady—”
“Ian.” A fat man elbowed his way to the front of the group. “Any comment on your father’s announcement that he will be running your mother’s foundation and that he is going to cut funding to—”
“What?” Ian asked and Jennifer felt as if lightning had struck them, that’s how tense he was. How charged.
“Your father is taking over New Horizons—”
Ian slammed the door so hard the house rattled.
Shell-shocked, Jennifer blinked. “What was that?” she asked, trying not to stare at his chest, or the hard curve of his lips.
“My life,” he said, harder than she’d ever seen him. “Are you okay?” he asked. “I’m sorry if they scared you.”
“I’m fine. Ian?” she said. “Are you okay?”
Ian’s pocket began to ring and he pulled out his phone, looked at the call display and right in front of her eyes he changed. He became a different man. Cold. Callous. Made of stone. Her lover was gone. The vulnerable man-child—gone. The lawyer, the silent benefactor, the man who played video games with Spence—all gone.
He was a stranger to her.
He lifted his eyes and looked at her for a long time, as if studying her. Memorizing her.
“Ian?” she asked, feeling as if there was something happening, something pulling him away.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Ian tapped the screen on his phone and pressed it to his ear.
“Hello, Dad.”
18
“It’s about time you answered my calls,” Jackson Greer said, his cultured, modulated tone sounding like a snake hissing in Ian’s ears.
The rage, the anger he’d beaten back during these days at Serenity, surged through his veins. If he could have reached through the phone and strangled his father, he would have.
That Jennifer stood watching him, her mouth tense, her eyes worried, made it all worse.
So, he turned away, unable to look at her face and talk to his father at the same time.
“There’s no way you’re taking over Mom’s foundation. No way.”
“You’re in no position to make demands like that,” Jackson said, chuckling softly, and Ian felt a familiar madness coursing through his bloodstream.
Ian would do anything, anything to shut that man up.
“You’re all over the Internet,” Jackson said. “You and that woman.”
The photos taken minutes ago would be all over the world by now. That’s how the parasites worked. Their web was perfection, all-encompassing.
“She doesn’t look like your usual slut—”
“Not another word, Dad. Not another word.”
He nearly ran from the room. It wasn’t enough that he couldn’t see her, he didn’t want his father’s poison in the same room. The same building.
“Perhaps it’s time you came home,” Jackson said. “I wouldn’t have to take over New Horizons.”
“You won’t. You won’t get your hands on it. I will fight you every step of the way.”
“You should be in rehab. You are a drunk. You are incompetent and your mother deserves better than this, Ian. You should be at—”
Ian’s dams broke and fury burst through him, drowning good sense. “Do not talk about my mother,” he whispered, clenching the phone so hard his hand hurt.
Jackson laughed. “Is this your attempt to show the world you care about her? Getting drunk at her funeral and running off with some woman—”
“Don’t you recognize that woman?” he asked. And here he was, pulling Jennifer into the mud of this conversation. Into the mud of his father’s sickness. Because he was weak. Because he would do anything, anything to hurt his father. “She’s a journalist.”
“Right,” Jackson scoffed.
“She was the reporter you and Mom talked to two years ago. Your last interview as a couple. Camelot, the golden years, don’t you remember?”
There was a long silence. “What have you done, Ian?”
A sickening glee filled him. Satisfaction like a thick oil oozed down through him. “I told her the truth, Dad,” he said, nearly laughing. “Every bit of it. About the abuse and the rape and—”
“The rantings of an alcoholic,” he said, dismissing everything, like he always did. “No one will believe you.”
“She did,” he insisted, feeling like the teenager he’d been standing up against the most powerful man in the world.
“Because, no doubt, you’re screwing her.”
Ian braced his shoulder against the wall. It was too close to the truth not to sting and he suddenly realized what he’d done last night. The damage that he’d caused to himself, to the story, to Jennifer. All because he was exactly what his father thought he was. Weak.
But still Jackson kept talking and Ian kept taking the punches, his defense weakening. Always weakening. “You’ve spent years ruining your reputation. You are a disgrace, Ian. A shame. Your mother would loathe you for doing this. She’d—”
“I will destroy you,” Ian said and, shaking, he hung up.
His brain was imploding. Anger and pain, the past and present converging, and he turned, hurling the phone against the wall, where it cracked and split.
Somewhere Shonny started to cry.
“Ian?” Jennifer whispered, her hand a firm warmth against his arm.
“My father is right,” he said, broken somewhere deep inside. He couldn’t look at her. “No one will believe me. I’m a drunk throwing rocks at the former president of the United States. I’m a fool trying to ruin the great American marriage.”
“You’re telling the truth, Ian.” Jennifer tried to put her arms around him, but he shook her off.
“It won’t matter. I shouldn’t have pulled you into this,” he said.
“You want to give up?” she asked, her whiskey eyes hurt and worried.
There was a yell outside, laughter from the photographers, and Ian felt a new idea form. A new plan come together.
“It won’t matter what the truth is,” he said. “But, if I open the door and tell every one of those parasites out there what my father did, it will be all over the papers in minutes. It will be a scandal so huge that whether it’s true or not it won’t matter. The world will judge him. Damn him.”
“No, it won’t,” she said, holding on to him with a new fierceness. A new strength. Horror and disbelief dawned on her face. “The story will be dismissed in a matter of days. It will be what everyone expects of you.”
He ignored her, victory snowballed in him, destroying reason, and he stepped toward the door.
“Ian!” Jennifer cried and he had to ignore her. He knew what she was going to say. He knew how he was hurting her, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but revenge. He saw suddenly, his mother’s black-and-blue eye. The bruises the size of hands on her arms, the blood on a marriage bed’s sheets.
“Take a deep breath, Ian. Think about what you’re doing.” Jennifer grabbed his arms, throwing him off course.
Don’t look at her, he told himself. Do not look at her. But he couldn’t help it. Her eyes were swimming in tears.
“Please, don’t do this,” she whispered. “Please, let’s do this the right way. Don’t make it a rumor, make it a fact.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Ian told her. “He’s right, I have more power this way.”
“What about me?” she asked.
“You’re better off not getting involved.”
“Don’t you think it’s a little late for that?” she cried, heartbreak vivid in her eyes.
“The story—”
“This isn’t about the story! It’s about us. It’s about last night.”
“Last night never happened, remember?” He saw his cold words slide right through her. Watched her shrink. He saw her pain and anguish and he told himself to keep watching. That was his gift. That is what he had to give her. Not love. Not a life. Just pain.
“This isn’t you, Ian,” she breathed.
He grabbed her arms, lifti
ng her on to her toes. “I am not who you think I am,” he told her. “I’ve tried to make you see that. I am not Doug.”
Her eyes narrowed, anger burning in her cheeks. “This isn’t about Doug,” she said. “It’s about you. It’s about who you really are.”
“This is who I really am,” he said.
“No, it’s not. You’re a good man.” She kept trying, he had to give her that. Relentless, his Jennifer. Though she had never truly seen him for what he was. She’d been wearing rose-colored glasses all along. “You could have another life—”
“With you?” he asked, the words tripping over themselves. “You honestly think you would let me into your life?”
Tears spilled down her cheeks. “I would have let you in,” she whispered. “I would have let you all the way in.”
His foundations shook and rattled and he felt himself wavering. Trembling. Not for you, Ian, he told himself. You know that. It’s always been that way. This woman is not for you.
To prove it he thought of his father. Their blood that tied them. Their eyes and height. Their hair. Not so different, in the end.
“You deserve better than me,” he said. “You wanted me to be someone else so you wouldn’t feel so cheap when I touched you. Well, guess what? We’re both cheap. The only difference is I have always been that way.”
He grabbed the doorknob and Jennifer closed her eyes for one second and he watched, spellbound as she gathered herself up, picked up every piece he’d just ripped away from her.
She opened her eyes and she was reborn, made of steel and rock. Iron and earth. Implacable. Immovable. An enemy where moments ago she’d been a friend.
“Pack your bags and get out of my house,” she said.
“Right after—”
She shook her head. “No right after. You want to destroy your life and mine, you’re going to have to do it another time. Some other place. This is a women’s shelter, Ian. Respect that.”
“This has nothing to do with you,” he told her.
The breath she pulled in shook as if he’d sucker punched her. “You have twenty minutes,” she whispered.
And Then There Was You (Serenity House Book 2) Page 19