by Zara Cox
The nightmare of nearly losing her to Clayton Getty still haunts me. But that’s just one of the many fucked-up battles raging in my head. It’s the reason I haven’t been able to meet Petra yet. Well, that and Dr. Fucking Freeman’s recommendation that meeting my lover’s sister wasn’t the best idea in the world right now.
In my better days, when a modicum of rationality shines through the dense fog of fuckery that is my mind, I even agree with his recommendation.
Elyse fought for a sister who is still alive. I fought to avenge a mother who was dead. I’m not sure why that difference grips me so hard. Maybe I’m jealous? Or maybe I don’t want to contaminate Petra with my filth. But the thought of meeting her terrifies me.
And I’m nowhere near “healed” enough to take on another relationship. Not when I’m already fucking up the only one I have.
“Tell me about Petra. How is she doing?”
Her face relaxes as the tension leaves her body. We’re nowhere near done talking about us, but I need something else to dilute the cold dread lodged in my stomach.
“She’s amazing. She’s gotten even better at horseback riding since I last saw her. Doris thinks she’s going to make an excellent show jumper one day. Paul is quietly terrified that she’ll fall and hurt herself. He’s trying to steer her toward becoming a vet.”
I can’t take my eyes off her beautifully animated face as she speaks of Petra’s adoptive parents. As she speaks of the love she has for another person besides me. I concluded I was a selfish asshole a long time ago. That conclusion hasn’t altered. Dr. Freeman wants me to work on that. It’s one of the many things that pisses me off about our shrink. “And you?” I force myself to ask. “What do you think?”
“I think she’ll be amazing at whatever she sets her mind to.”
“Hmm. Want me to buy her another horse?” I ask as I drop my head to nuzzle at the smooth valley between her breasts.
I shamelessly bought a horse for Petra last year when I was trying to win Elyse back after she discovered that I was both Quinn Blackwood and Q, the porn star. I didn’t start out to deceive her. It just turned out that both fucked-up personas ended up falling for this perfect creature in my arms.
“You bought her one at Christmas, Quinn,” she protests as her fingers slide into my hair.
“So what? Doesn’t she need a whole stable to try different horses or something to get really good at equestrianism?”
She uses her grip to pull me away from her breasts. “That’s weird. That’s exactly what she said to try and get me to buy her another horse. Have you been secretly boning up on equestrian training without tell me?”
“Not a secret. Keeping her happy makes you happy. I’m the bastard who will always want in on that action.”
“You say the nicest things.”
“Hmm. Also, speaking of boning…” I return my attention to her breasts, flicking the tip of my tongue over one nipple.
A delicate shudder runs through her. “Yes?”
“I need to fuck you again.”
Her eyes darken to that prefucking green I love, and her pussy spasms possessively around me. “Well I guess that’s a good thing, because I’d very much like to be fucked again.”
Satisfaction settles inside me as I rearrange her on top of me. For a while, I give her free rein, let her plant her knees on either side of my hips and bounce on top of me. The past year has seen her body blossom into the ultra-feminine fifties pinup frame her time on the run had eroded. The regular exercise regime I insist upon keeps her energy reserves at the optimum. I need that so I don’t have to worry about wearing her out. Fucking was a means to pass the time before I met Elyse. Now fucking Elyse has become as necessary to me as breathing.
The sight of her full, swaying breasts threatens to drive me over the edge mere minutes after she starts fucking me.
I cup the gorgeous mounds, brushing my thumbs over the hard peaks. “So sexy. So fucking perfect.” Her pussy tightens around my rigid cock. “Tell me you missed me.”
She throws her head back, fucks me faster. “I missed you. So much.”
“Look at me when you say that,” I command.
She curls her legs and settles on her knees. Hands planted on my chest, she stares into my eyes as she resumes a steady, languorous pumping. “The texts were nowhere near enough. I picked up the phone a hundred times to call you just so I could hear your voice. I may have watched a couple of clips of you on YouTube just to hear you talk. I have it bad for you, Quinn. So damn bad.”
I grip her wrists and tug her down to me. One hand on her hip and the other fisted in her hair keeps her immobilized as I take over the fucking from beneath her. Her pupils dilate and her breathing fractures.
“You wanna know what I did before I wrecked the fucking apartment?”
“Yes.”
“I chartered another plane to Vancouver,” I confess as I slide in and out of her.
“Oh my God.”
“I flew all the way across the fucking country, got to the airport, and turned and came back.”
“Oh, Quinn.” Her voice breaks.
“That’s what you do to me, Elyse. That’s what you’ll always do to me.”
I don’t give her a chance to respond. I don’t know if I’m ready for what she’ll say. I pull her down the last few inches and fuse my mouth to hers.
We stay like that, kissing and fucking each other hello again.
Half an hour later, she stirs on top of me.
“Quinn?”
I force myself not to stiffen. “Yeah?”
“Can I go take that shower now?”
I silently exhale and rise with her in my arms. I notice she avoids looking at the carnage as I walk her out of the living room and down the hallway to our bedroom. I don’t let her go until we’re inside the shower cubicle.
Her eyes meet mine as she gathers her long hair on top of her head. She opens her mouth, pauses, and then shakes her head.
“Spit it out, Elyse.”
“Tell me how it went with Dr. Freeman.”
It’s not a subject I particularly want to discuss. But the sex has settled me a little, so I give what I can. “He wants me to forgive him.”
“Your father?”
“The asshole whose sperm created me,” I amend. Maxwell Blackwood stopped being a father to me long before he and my stepmother orchestrated my mother’s suicide and sent me down a spiraling road to hell.
Elyse sighs and closes her eyes. For some reason, that pisses me off.
“What? You better not tell me you agree with that quack.”
“He’s not a quack or you’d have fired him a long time ago. But I’m guessing you told him no?”
I grab the shower gel and take my time in soaping her body. “I did more than that. I told him to go fuck himself.”
She shakes her head. “God, Quinn. What did he say to that?”
“He made a note of it and said he’ll see me next week.”
She laughs for the first time since walking in the door.
And I can’t help it. I fall even deeper under her spell.
Chapter Three
Elyse
New Wave
It’s 5:45 a.m.
From the living room window, I stare eastward and take in one of the many spectacular views from Quinn’s penthouse ninety-two floors up. I love watching New York City come to life in the mornings. Love watching the light on the Chrysler Building’s spire blend into the rising sun’s rays. Love the warmth of first morning light on my face. And having just come through my first, fierce NYC winter, I crave the sun with almost rabid zeal. It must be the native Californian in me.
New York City is fast becoming the center of my world, though. It’s where the love of my life, the reason for my existence, lives after all. I don’t doubt that Quinn’s presence in the city is what makes it extra special for me.
But it’s also become clear that while he lives in the most dynamic city in the world, this isn’t his
home. It was the stage where he plotted his father’s downfall. It became the place we crashed together and almost fell apart. Since then, it’s become the place we exist.
He doesn’t have a home, not after the debasement he witnessed his father commit on his mother in the place he was born. I don’t have a home either. After my mother’s death, I went from Trailer Trash Central to a brothel run by my biological father, where he made me his prized whore until I escaped.
Between Quinn and me, we’ve lost sight of what a true home means. I’ve tried to convince myself nothing else matters as long as we’re together. What happened last night no longer sustains that belief.
I turn my back on the view and survey the carnage before me. Another room destroyed in a fit of demon-charged rage. The third such outburst since we started seeing Dr. Freeman five months ago. I have no concerns that the outbursts would ever transfer to me. Quinn would cut off his own arm before he hurts me. I know that as surely as I know the color of my blood. But things are escalating. I wish I could say they were coming to a head. That there was a cathartic end in sight. But how can I when I have no idea what is causing it?
The one thing I do know is that the situation needs to be dealt with. It’s eroding our trust, fracturing our fragile love.
My heart clenches in fear at the thought of losing what we have. In a world of unlikely possibilities, Quinn and I ending up together was one in a million.
I didn’t fool myself into thinking the path to our future was going to be easy. Yes, finding out that Q, the masked stranger I whored myself out to for a million dollars to save Petra from my father’s vile clutches, was the same as Quinn, the mesmerizing billionaire boss I served lunch to at Blackwood Towers, devastated me. Enough to make me take out a restraining order when it became clear he’d deliberately deceived me but wasn’t about to let me go that easily.
I returned to him on my own terms, despite knowing from the beginning that taking on a man like Quinn Blackwood would be the challenge of a lifetime. I live that overwhelming reality every day. Even before I saw his face, I knew his power over me was borderline absolute and that he intended to own every last cell in my body the way he owns half of the city we live in.
Nothing about Quinn’s rabid possessiveness has changed. I’m twisted enough to not want it to. On some level, I crave it enough to worry Dr. Freeman. But I’m realizing that there are some things that will break us. Like the blackness inside him that he ignores for long stretches.
Until he can’t.
I move to the nearest damaged piece of furniture—a barely used signature Tiffany reading lamp I know cost an insane amount of money. I don’t necessarily mourn its demise. It was okay to look at but it reminded me a little too much of the fake one Clay kept in his study back at the whorehouse grandly named the Villa, where I was kept as his prisoner.
I move the lamp out of my way and walk to the far side of the room. My beloved baby grand piano has suffered too. The lid is still open, and several strings are broken by what looks like a shattered clay sculpture. I run my fingers over the smooth surface, mourning the death of the exquisite instrument.
I have fifteen minutes, tops, before Quinn wakes up and comes to find me. The fancy five-thousand-dollar coffee center that takes up a whole counter in our kitchen will start percolating in T-minus five minutes.
I’m torn as to whether to make the room livable again or leave things the way they are. We have a service that can make all of this disappear in under an hour. All I need to do is make a call to the concierge. But…do I want Quinn to confront what he’s done in the cold light of day? The alternative is to walk away from the chaos. Just as we walked away from the last two scenes of his outbursts in equally stunning apartments on the Upper East Side.
My mouth twists in a smile. Being a billionaire with endless square feet of real estate at your fingertips comes in handy after going berserk and destroying one apartment. After those incidents, we simply upped and moved to another penthouse.
But this property is beyond gorgeous. I’m not with Quinn for his money, but if I were, I’d slavishly fulfill his every desire for the chance to live in this stunning Park Avenue apartment every day for the rest of my life.
A few days after we moved in three months ago, we woke up to an overcast city below us and nothing but blue sky above us. The sensation of floating above the clouds was incredible. We spent the day in bed, staring at the view from our California king when we weren’t fucking in the heavens.
I want many more days like that.
I sigh. Turn around. And freeze.
He’s lounging against the wall in the hallway, wearing gray low-riding sweatpants and nothing else, with one knee propped behind him. My mouth goes dry as those penetrating eyes watch me in silence.
Quinn’s deathly stillness is one of the many unnerving things I noticed about him when we first met. Despite his towering six-foot-three height and his sleek but solid frame, he moves with a quiet, devastating elegance that literally stops my breath when he walks into a room. And that is even before the exquisite masculinity of his sharp cheekbones, square jaw, and sensual lips. The contrast between his startling silver blue eyes and dark hair never fails to trap and hold the attention of anyone he comes into contact with. I’ve literally seen grown women, and men, stop and stare when he walks on the street.
That dangerous attraction holds my total focus now.
His eyes search mine, the unnervingly direct gaze examining every corner of me. Probing for flaws I can’t hide and concerns I’m struggling to contain. But then that’s nothing new.
Despite my constant reassurances that I forgive him, he punishes himself for what he did to me a year ago. He blames himself for the lapse of security that led to Clayton capturing me and holding me prisoner for days as he tried to pry Petra’s whereabouts from me.
After we started seeing Dr. Freeman and it became clear he was more concerned about making amends with me than healing himself, Dr. Freeman and I agreed that, for now, we needed to attend therapy separately once a week.
That didn’t please Quinn.
Now, as I watch him from the middle of the wreckage he created last night, I wonder if that was the beginning of whatever spiral we’re currently twisted in.
“Tell me what you’re thinking about,” he commands from across the room in a low, sleep-rasped voice that makes my toes curl.
I want to start this day with a cleanish (snort) slate. But I know any attempt to evade him will be spotted a mile off. He sees too much. He always has. “Your money,” I reply, choosing the least volatile truth.
His eyes flare for a moment before he shakes his head. “No, you’re not. You go out of your fucking way to avoid anything to do with my money. Try again.”
I’m not touching that statement with a ten-foot pole, so I shrug inwardly and state another truth. “I love this apartment. I’m not moving.”
His unwavering eyes gleam the way they do when he’s debating the pros and cons of giving me what I want. His leg slowly straightens, and he moves toward me. “I said I was sorry. I believe I apologized quite comprehensively. All night long.”
The effect of it is stamped both inside and outside my body. “I know. I was there.”
One brow slowly rises. “But that’s not enough?”
I take a beat before I answer. “You said you were sorry the other times too. But we moved. I’m not moving again.”
He stops behind the wide sectional sofa he fucked me on last night. Strong, elegant fingers spread over the back of it as he angles his body toward me. “I see. Have I finally found something of mine that you love enough to claim for yourself, Elyse?” His voice is a speculative trap, intent on closing around me, wrapping me tighter in his web.
“I love loads of things you own, Quinn. This T-shirt for instance.” I pluck at the only item of clothing I’m wearing. “What’s not to love about a Springsteen T-shirt, especially when it’s covered in your smell?”
He doesn’t smi
le. Or blink. Or move. His eyes pin me into place. “It doesn’t count because you don’t love it enough not to take it off if you want me to fuck you.”
I chew on the inside of my cheek for a moment. “Okay, you got me there. I love you. I want to claim you completely. Does that count for something?”
His fingers sink viciously into the thick sofa fabric, and his eyes blaze with a fierce light I’m momentarily terrified will consume me. “Something? Try every fucking thing.”
Then why am I standing in the middle of a war zone? I want to scream.
He senses the silent question because his gaze returns to the broken space that was a beautifully appointed room when I left for Vancouver on Friday morning. A look crosses his face, as if he’s steeling himself to make a move he doesn’t want to. I hope with everything inside me that it’s not the need to brush this incident under the carpet and pretend it’s not happening the way he’s done before. The moment passes, and he’s once again under control. Once again the Quinn Blackwood in complete charge of his broken kingdom. In that moment, I decide to take matters into my own hands.
Dr. Freeman needs to start seeing both of us again. We can’t go on like this much longer, especially with the other problem looming over my head. Decision made, I breathe easier.
“So is that a promise that we’re staying put?” I press.
He doesn’t reply immediately. When he holds out his hand to me, I don’t even think of refusing. He guides me around the sofa, pulls me into his arms, and spears his fingers into my hair. Our lips meet in a hungry, thorough greeting. Then he nibbles at the corner of my mouth, my cheek, my jaw to my ear. “I’ll think about not moving us if you agree to spend the day with me.”
I frown and plead with my melting brain to function. “It’s Monday, Quinn.”
One hand trails down my body to squeeze my ass in silent rebuke. “I know what day it is. I’m taking the day off.”