“Is that when you took my parents’ money? Was that a good enough excuse to take it? Did it soothe your conscience? ‘My husband left out one detail about his life. That’s the perfect reason to take half a million dollars and run’.”
“You asshole.” She went after him with both fists but he caught her this time. “I didn’t take their money. I wouldn’t take their money. I loved you. I love you.” She struggled against his tight hold, but he just pulled her closer. “Get out of my house, Carter. Get out. I hate you.”
“No,” he barked at her. “No.” He slammed his mouth on hers. It shocked her because it was nothing like their last kiss. This kiss was too hard. Too angry. Too consuming and she fought it. She fought him. Because when he kissed her it made her forget herself. It had the power to make her forget that their marriage had only really ever been about this. About kissing and touching and their extreme attraction for each other. It had been just about sex. For him at least. She was the stupid one. She’s the one who didn’t have sense enough not to fall in love.
He lifted his lips for a moment only to look into her eyes. She thought she almost saw regret cross his face for a moment, but it passed quickly and then his lips were on hers again. She bit down on his lower lip hard. He winced, lifted his head again, but he didn’t move away. Instead he dug his fingers into her hips and pulled her closer. He was hard. She was surprised to find his erection prodding in between her legs and even more surprised at her reaction to it. Her nipples tightened painfully as the rest of her became aware. Every inch of her body was pressed against his. There was no space between them, no way she could escape him.
“Don’t do it again,” he warned. She had never heard his voice so raw. It scared her. It sent shivers through her entire body, and she involuntarily shuddered against him. He smiled. Cold. Brutal. Triumphant. And then he kissed her again. This time his tongue slid deep into her mouth. The kiss overwhelmed her. It was hotter, softer, wetter. It was more intense than before and for a moment she could do nothing but let him kiss her, let herself wonder at the sensation of being kissed by him, a man who at one time she thought she would never see again.
He curled one hand over her behind, under her dress, and pulled her even closer. She rubbed against his erection unable to stop herself from moving. He shoved one hand into her hair, pulling her face closer to his. He licked across her lips, squeezed her flesh, and then he looked into her eyes. “Kiss me,” he ordered. “Kiss me back.”
She did, and as soon as she slid her tongue into his mouth she knew what was going to happen. She knew she was powerless to stop it. And so was he. Their first date had been like this. A kiss that had too quickly turned to fire.
He was pulling down her underwear before she even had time to process it. His hands seemed to be everywhere on her body and yet not enough places at once. He cupped her behind, ran his hands over her hips, stroked her belly in some kind of too-sensual frenzied motion. It wasn’t until his fingers gently probed between her legs that she understood what was happening and by then it was too late. The rough pads of his fingers caressed her too-sensitive clitoris, and it jolted her. She looked up at him. Her mouth opened to ask him to stop but her brain simply wouldn’t allow her to.
“Undress me,” he said, but it sounded more like begging.
She didn’t know why she did it. Especially when she knew that this was wrong. That they were wrong, but her fingers went to his shirt and unbuttoned each button. The whole time he watched her. His expression never changing. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Part of her didn’t want to know. She revealed his hard chest. The tattoo was still there. A black dragon. She had been so surprised the first time she had seen it. It seemed so out of place on Carter Lancaster, a man she thought to be overly serious and too straitlaced, but there was a naughty side to him, a rebellious side, and she was reminded of that every time she saw his tattoos during their short marriage.
She simply touched the dragon at first. Then she nipped it with her teeth, eliciting a grunt from him. His fingers tightened in her hair but that didn’t stop her. She nipped him again and then soothed the bite with the tip of her tongue. He groaned. She found his nipple, and licked across it while she loosened his pants. Her hands slid inside, not to free him, only to feel the heavy hard length in her hands.
“Enough,” he barked. He pushed himself away from her, only to come at her and yank her dress off her shoulders. He pulled at the clasp on her bra. Her breasts came free in moments, and when she was bare to him he stood and stared at her. He looked so long she almost came to her senses. Her hands moved to cover her body. He was the only man she had ever made love to with the lights on. In the daylight with no covers or no shields. He never allowed her insecurities when they were together, and now was no different. He grabbed for her, pulling her so hard against him. Their bodies slapped when they met.
It felt good. Hard body. Hot skin. Spicy smell. Carter.
“I need you,” he panted and half lifted her off the floor. Her couch was the closest place they could land, and before she felt her back hit the soft fabric he was pushing inside her. She was ready for him, more than ready for him, and he let out a deep guttural cry that she felt in her chest.
She almost came. She felt herself tighten around him, but he grabbed her hips and stopped moving. “Not yet, baby.” He looked into her eyes. “Please not yet.”
She didn’t know if she could grant his wish even as she nodded. It was too much. He was too much. The way his heavy body felt on top of her. The way his manhood felt inside her. His smell. His skin. Him. It was too much for one woman to take. Especially because there hadn’t been another man since she’d walked out on him four years ago. Especially because she’d foolishly carried him around in her heart for so long.
He slid into her hard. His rhythm set to drive her out of her mind. She couldn’t hold on any longer. Her body wouldn’t let her and she came harder than she ever had before.
He cursed and looked down at her for a moment before his face twisted. It looked like extreme pain and pleasure all wrapped up in one moment. And then she felt it. The hotness that ran out of him and into her. She felt incredibly fragile then—breakable, raw, stupid—and when he lifted his head to look into her eyes the tears came. And before long a sob ripped from her throat.
*
He was horrified when he looked down at her and saw her tears. And he felt powerless. There were only three times in his life when he’d truly felt powerless. When his parents forced him to marry Bethany. When he sat beside a gravely injured Ruby in the hospital, and when he realized the depth of his feelings for Belinda. And now he was there again. He’d hurt her. Not physically. The sex between them was how it always was. Explosive. Exciting. Frenzied. Hot. He had hurt her heart and he had done it on purpose. He knew she hadn’t taken his parents’ money. She said she didn’t leave because of Ruby and now he believed her. He had lashed out at her because even after all these years he felt bewildered by her abandonment. And even though he now understood the reasons behind it, he was still hurt by it. The first time he had ever taken a chance on a woman and she smashed his heart.
“Oh, Carter. Why did you do that?”
“Hush.” He rolled them so that her weight was on him and stroked his hand down her back. It was a good question. He didn’t know why he’d done it. Maybe because it had been four years since he’d had sex. Maybe it was that she looked so sexy when her temper sparked. Or maybe it was that she told him she loved him.
I loved you. I love you.
She had said it in the heat of the moment but it unfolded something inside him. For weeks after she had left he’d wondered if she had ever really loved him. He wondered if he had been too blinded by the way she made him feel to see her true feelings.
“Don’t cry. Please, Bell.” He kissed her forehead. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
She pulled away from him and sat up, her breasts still exposed, her dress bunched at her waist. Immediately regr
et settled in his chest. He hadn’t made love to her like she deserved to be made love to, like he wanted to.
“I think you should go.”
And now he was being kicked out of her house. But he didn’t want to go. He didn’t want to walk away just yet.
“We need to talk, Bell.” He reached over to touch her shoulder, but she pulled away. He didn’t let that discourage him: He inched closer to her, pulling her dress into place, covering up her beautiful, nearly naked body. She let him this time, all the fight seeming to have left her. “We didn’t use protection,” he said quietly as he wiped the still-flowing tears from her face.
Her eyes sharpened on him. “You don’t have to worry, Carter. I’m clean.”
“It’s not that. It’s…”
“You’re worried about me having your baby? Don’t. I’m still on birth control and I know your family would hate it if I sullied your bloodlines with my dirty blood.”
“Bell.” He rested his forehead against hers, shutting his eyes to her hurt. “I wanted a family with you.”
“And I wanted to be happy. Please go. I need you to go.”
This time he couldn’t deny her request. There was too much hurt between them to settle this in one day. His relationship with Belinda was far from over.
A few minutes later he walked back into his office, passing Molly in the hallway without even acknowledging her smile. He was too preoccupied with Belinda, with the enormity of what they had just done.
He sat at his desk feeling weary. He had to pick Ruby up from school in an hour. He would have to pull himself together. His little girl always knew when something wasn’t right in his life, and he didn’t want her to see it today. He didn’t want her to know how fucked up he was.
“What the hell happened to you?” he heard Steven say, but he didn’t bother to turn his head.
Belinda had happened to him.
Steven walked closer. He could feel his friend’s eyes on his face. “If I didn’t know any better, I would say that somebody beat the hell out of you. I know you got in your fair share of scrapes when we were in college but I thought you grew out of that shit. You’re thirty-five, man. You don’t have to prove yourself anymore.”
He looked up at Steven then, remembering their shared past. Carter had been a fighter when he was a kid, but he was pissed off and powerless then. Under the weight of his parents’ expectations and unable to express himself in any other way, he used his fists to communicate. First on the boys at his boarding school, and then on anybody who got in his way at college. But he wasn’t like that anymore.
“Why the hell do you think I got into a fight? Last time I hit anybody I was twenty-two.”
“Your clothes are wrinkled and your cheek is bruised.”
He reached up to touch his face, gingerly feeling the place where Belinda’s hand had landed.
“Belinda,” he mumbled.
“Belinda did that?”
“Yeah.”
Steven blinked at him. “You’re telling me Belinda, the woman you secretly married and didn’t bother to tell me about until two years after it happened, hit you?”
He nodded once. He hadn’t told Steven about Belinda until long after she’d left. He had planned to. He had planned to introduce his friend to her when they came to Durant to visit her parents, but that trip never happened and he couldn’t bring himself to tell his friend that he had failed at another marriage so soon after Bethany. So he kept Belinda a secret from Steven until his old friend told him about his own broken engagement.
“She hit you hard enough to leave a mark.”
“I might have deserved it.”
“You probably did, man.” He came closer, studying him and shaking his head. “You never were very smooth with women. You should have paid closer attention to how I worked when we went out all those years ago.”
“Oh, yes,” he said drily. “How could I not have learned from the master of the shitty pickup line? Gems like, ‘Are you a parking ticket? Because you’ve got fine written all over you.’ And my favorite: ‘If beauty were time, you would be eternity.’ A lot of good those did you. You’re still single.”
“By choice and I’ll have you know I do okay, but you would know that if you ever hung out with me.”
Steven was right—he always did okay with women. He looked like a young Harry Belafonte. He was tall, good-looking, successful. It always surprised Carter that his friend had never settled down.
“Hey, I’m working with you now. We hang out every day.”
“No we don’t. We need to hang out at night with women and have drinks, and not talk about work or your kid.”
“I thought you liked my kid.”
“I do, cutest damn kid on the planet, but she’s all you talk about or think about.”
“No, she’s not,” he said, not even believing himself.
“Yeah, that’s right. You think about Belinda now, too.”
“Why didn’t you tell me she was back in town?”
Steven shrugged. “It never came up and I thought you already knew she lived here. Besides we haven’t talked much since Ruby came around. The last thing I wanted to do is talk about your ex-wife.”
“She’s not my ex. She’s my current.”
“What?” He shook his head. “Shit, man. Do you mean you’re still married? Why haven’t you divorced her yet?”
“I don’t know,” he said truthfully. She could have been gone from his life long ago, but he could never bring himself to end things.
“You slept with her today, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, I did.”
“She’s beautiful”—Steven patted him on the shoulder—“and her ass is amazing. I understand why you slept with her. Hell, I applaud you for actually getting a woman that hot to sleep with you, but I never understood why you married her. She … She doesn’t fit with you.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Belinda grew up here. She went to school with my sister. Her dad may have been a pro ballplayer and her mother a model, but they are decent folks with humble beginnings. They raised Belinda to be humble to work hard for what she’s got.”
“And you’re saying my parents raised me to be a rich asshole?”
“Well … kind of. You aren’t, but if they’d had their way you wouldn’t be the man you are now. You would have still been married to Bethany, living in San Francisco, and working for your father. We would have never been friends.” He shook his head as if trying to make sense of it all. “I’ve been to your parents’ house, I visited you in San Francisco, and I know I couldn’t hack it in your world. I knew this black kid from Durant, New York, with a bus driver father and a scholarship was never going to be good enough.”
The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. “Were my parents unkind to you?”
“Not openly. But I knew if they had their choice they wouldn’t have chosen me to be your best friend.” He shook his head again. “Never mind. I didn’t mean to get into this.”
“No. I want to know. Belinda said they were nasty to her. I never knew. I guess I just didn’t pay enough attention.”
“I don’t want to speak poorly about your parents, but I can believe they treated her like shit. She’s the last girl they would have ever picked for you, especially after Bethany.”
“Is that why you never came to visit me in San Francisco? Because of my parents?”
“It wasn’t just your parents. It was you, too. You were different there. You were uptight and unhappy and I didn’t want that shit rubbing off on me. I’m much better looking when I’m happy and relaxed.”
“Thanks. Your support overwhelms me.”
Steven grinned at him briefly. “I don’t know what went down between you and Belinda exactly, but I’m on your side. Just think about what it was like for her to live in your world. Think about what it must’ve felt like for her to come face-to-face with a kid you had with another woman.”
“I— Are you her lawyer or someth
ing?”
“No. But I can tell that you still got something for her. It’s not like with Bethany. There’s a reason you never divorced her.”
“And that reason is that I’m stupid and was too preoccupied with my kid and my job to get it done.”
Steven shrugged and began to walk away. “Keep telling yourself that but you should know that she’s been single since she’s been back,” he said over his shoulder. “And you have been single since she left you. If you don’t get her soon, some other man will, and instead of you getting to spend some more quality time with that amazing ass some other man will. Just saying.”
He left then, and Carter sat there unable to form coherent thoughts for a moment. Get Belinda back? He wasn’t sure that was possible. There was too much hurt between them.
CHAPTER 7
All I ever wanted …
Belinda sat on the couch in a daze. She couldn’t make herself move. Her body wouldn’t let her. She could still feel him. His mouth on hers. His body between her legs. His hands all over her. She should have stopped him. She should have kicked him out. She should have never let him in. But she didn’t do any of that.
Her phone rang and she blindly reached over to her side table. “Hello?” She felt shaky. Her voice didn’t sound like her own.
“Belinda?” It was Ellis. “Are you … I’m coming over right now. Don’t go anywhere.”
Ellis hung up and Belinda finally dragged herself off the couch and into her bathroom. She had to at least wash Carter off her before she faced her friend. But she was afraid there wasn’t enough water in the world.
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