“What do you want, Rafael?”
“Simple. I want to fuck you, Veronica. I want one night—that’s all.”
CHAPTER SIX
HE HADN’T MEANT to put that so baldly, so crudely, but he’d been caught up in a whirl of resentment at seeing her with Teague—a resentment that was both surprising and unfair.
It wasn’t jealousy—at least not of the usual variety; he knew Teague and Veronica had a brother/sister relationship. Actually he’d have resented their closeness less if it had been romantic, because he knew he could trump that the same way he could trump what she’d had with her husbands. No, it was their easy, uncomplicated familiarity that bugged him. Their otherness. The polished, gilded, old-money perfection they shared, which wordlessly proclaimed that the world had always been their oyster and they were definitely its pearls, whereas he... Well, to stretch the analogy, he’d been shucked too early and polished too late; his nacre would never match the luster of those two—those four if you included her matching set of husbands.
Well fuck it, he was past playing tenement slum to their penthouse view. He’d say what he wanted any way he wanted. He’d write the epilogue to their romance in his language, and enjoy the symmetry of earning a new fortune from Stomp off Veronica’s back. Then maybe he’d be free at last to find a new story to tell.
“Well?” he asked. “Are you going to answer me?”
Typically, Veronica refused to be intimidated by his coarse choice of words, opening her eyes innocent-wide. “Oh, that was a question! You’re not telling me you want to fuck me, you’re asking me if I’ll let you! I see.” She removed his jacket for the second time, held it out to him. “The answer is no. And don’t give this to me again. I don’t want it, and I don’t want the fuck.”
He took the jacket, shrugged into it. “Why not?”
“The jacket? Because my days of borrowing your clothes are over. The fuck?” She raised her chin, tried to look down her nose at him, but she lacked the height to do it effectively—and he’d just bet that pissed her the hell off. “I don’t have to give a reason. Now, I suggest you go back to Felicity and do whatever it is you normally do with wedding dates.”
“I told you, Felicity isn’t my girlfriend.”
“Whatever she is, she’s with you and I’m not, so if that’s all...”
He blocked her attempt to move past him. “She’s a friend. And if you really want to know why she’s with me—”
“I don’t.”
“—it’s for protection. She’s protecting me from you.”
“You can not be serious! What did you think I’d do? Throw myself at you if you wandered in on your own?”
“I just told you straight-out I want to fuck you, Veronica, so go ahead and throw yourself at me. You can take it as a given I won’t fight you off.”
“The only thing I’ll be throwing at you is a dagger after what you did to me. So, if you want to stay safe, let me pass.”
“Who said I wanted to stay safe?”
She shook her head, held up a hand to ward him off.
“Ah, I see,” he said, “you want to stay safe.”
She laughed—unconvincingly. “If you think you scare me—”
“I think I never used to...but I think I do now. Look at your hand, keeping me away even though I haven’t taken one step closer.”
She dropped her hand. “I’m not scared of you.”
“Really? ’Cuz that’s quite a fight-flight-freeze response you’ve got going on. Pupils dilated. Body quivering. Breaths fast and shallow.” He smiled. “Oh, wait, that’s not fight-flight-freeze! I’ve seen you like this before, haven’t I? Every night for three and a half years.”
She licked her lips and, God, he wanted to be the one licking them. “That was then, this is now,” she said.
“Say the word and I’ll be on my knees for you in a heartbeat, same as I always was.”
“What you want is for me to be on my knees for you.”
He took two steps back, putting some distance between them to make it harder to haul her in. “You used to be braver than this, Veronica. The night we met you said straight-out you wanted me and you were going to have me.”
“And look how that turned out!”
“That turned out the way you wanted it to!”
“I didn’t leave myself you know!”
He felt his hand clench. Fury. She knew what she’d done. “You left me as surely as I left you.”
“Bullshit!”
“After defying your parents to live with me.”
“Which didn’t get me very far, did it?”
“It got you as far as you wanted to go!” he said, hating the bitterness in his voice. “It got you three and a half years of slumming it. But in the end you had to go and stick one price tag too many on me.”
She tossed her head—actually tossed her damn head. “You put all those price tags on yourself!”
“You lost your nerve.”
“How dare you say that!”
“What happened to you after I left, Veronica, that you couldn’t even pick up the goddamn phone when I called? Did Mommy send you back to finishing school? Did they tame you after all?”
And there it was—the flare of wild heat, unmasked, as she closed the distance he’d put between them and shoved him in the chest. “You want to know what happened to me? You happened, you bastard!” Shove. “Not my mother. Not my father. Not my sister. They weren’t the ones who told you to leave me. You did that yourself!” Shove. “You stole whatever bravery I had when you made my money more important to you than I was.” Shove. “When you told me you’d love me forever then made a fool of me by leaving me five minutes later.” Shove. “When you trampled all over my pride by leaving Matt to tell me you’d gone.” Shove. “And now you expect me to fuck you just because you say so?” Shove. “I’ll get my fucks somewhere else thank you!”
“I stole your bravery? Okay, so be the old Veronica and come and get it back off me.”
“I don’t—”
“I made a fool of you? Come right at me and make me regret it. I trampled all over your pride? Get your steel-capped boots on and kick the shit out of me for it. Make me pay for leaving you. Make me suffer. Make me shake with lust for you the way I always did. Make me work for what I want to take from you. Make me want nothing more than to have you. You know you can do it, Veronica. You were so close to turning me into your slave last time.”
“Oh! Oh! You were too stubborn to be anyone’s slave, and you certainly were never mine.”
“No? Then maybe you should prove that to me, because right about now I think you could get me to do anything you asked with one kiss.”
“And if I kissed you and then asked for you to leave me the hell alone?”
“Then I will leave you the hell alone. Is it what you want? Look me in the eye and tell me.”
“What I want...” she said breathlessly. “What I want is...” Her eyes closed. He could feel the roiling, impotent anger rolling off her in waves. He knew it was going to break and he exulted in the anticipation of it. And then she threw back her head, pounded her fists on her pink-clad thighs. “Oh God,” she cried to the heavens. “What I want is not to want you!” Pound. “I don’t.” Pound. “Want.” Pound. “To want you!” Pound. “Don’t you get it?”
“Oh, I get it,” he said, and gave in at last to the need to touch her, reaching for her, dragging her into his arms. And, dear God, having her back like this was terrifyingly right. She had to be able to feel his heartbeat, maybe even hear it, galloping like a fucking horse, but he didn’t care. She could feel anything she wanted, do anything to him she wanted at that moment, and he’d let her—and wasn’t that a spiral back into the past! “I’m in that boat up to my ears in ballast so heavy I can’t catch a breeze.”
She shook her head against his c
hest but made no attempt to free herself. “This doesn’t make sense, what you’re asking for.”
“We never did make sense, you and I.”
“I hate you.”
“I’m not asking you to love me.”
“I mean hate. I hate you so much I made a voodoo doll of you using that lock of hair you gave me and a T-shirt you left in the laundry hamper.”
“Jesus!” He laughed—crowed with it—because this was peak Veronica. Unadulterated and feisty as hell. A voodoo doll! He didn’t know why he loved that so much but, God, he did. “With pins I suppose?”
“I stick them in every day.”
“That explains a lot.”
“Still want to fuck me?” she asked.
“Hell yes! But can you take a few pins out of its cock first?”
“No guarantees.”
“What about if I perform to your satisfaction tonight? Will you take it easy on Little Rafa after we go our separate ways tomorrow?”
She laughed, only it came out like a snorting snuffle because her face was pressed into his chest. “Little Rafa? Please tell me that’s not what you call your penis these days.”
“Little? How can you, of all people, suggest that?” He brushed a trembling hand across the back of her neck. “What if I told you what I want is to stop whatever it is that makes you want to hurt me, and makes me want to hurt you? Not that I’ve gone to your artistic lengths and made a voodoo doll, despite still having the lock of hair you gave me and the blue silk panties I found in the back seat of my car. Ha. Remember that night when we went stargazing...?”
“I remember,” she said. “And I remember that sex was never the problem, so if the goal of this proposal of yours is to fuck our way out of each other’s heads in one night when we didn’t manage it in three and a half years...?” She shook her head, “It’s insane, Rafael.”
“You’re right, it’s insane,” he said, “up to a point.”
“Up to a point?”
“We were in love then. Now we’re not. So I’m betting we’re going to find that sex between us will turn out to be not as special as we once thought it was, and the final goodbye will be easy.”
“And if it is as special?”
“Then you’ll have no trouble making me beg for more time—and it’ll be up to you whether you give it to me or not. Revenge served hot.”
“And there’s the catch!” She pulled out of his arms, stepped back.
“I know you want revenge, Veronica.”
“Oh, I do,” she assured him. “But it’s the begging I’m talking about. You don’t know how to beg.”
“What do you think I’m doing now?”
“It’s not begging, what you’re doing. It’s negotiating, to get what you want.”
Another laugh rumbled through him. “Oh...well, if you’re open to negotiation, lay out your terms and conditions,” he said.
She bit at her bottom lip, sucked it as though she could already taste him. “I only have one condition.”
“Name it, it’s yours.”
“I want your new book.”
He blinked.
“Stomp,” she said.
“Stomp?”
She smiled. “Say hello to your new editor, Rafael.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“SO...DO WE have a deal, Rafael?” she asked.
He looked out at the moors, as though seeking guidance, murmuring something that sounded like “symmetry” but could just as easily have been “irony.” And then something in Spanish. She’d surprised him, asking for the book. Well, she’d surprised herself, too. But she knew she’d need more than one night to take her revenge. She needed something of his that was permanent, something she could control, to make up for the parts of her he’d used in those other books, over which she’d had no say at all. A fair trade. One book for two.
“This can stop right now if you like,” she said coolly when the silence stretched too far. “You keep your book, we go back to the hall and forget we had this discussion.”
“Forget?” he said, huffing out a breath that was half a laugh before bringing his eyes back to her. “I haven’t forgotten anything, Veronica. Not one thing. But if we’re playing hardball, I have two conditions of my own. The first is that Bryan, my agent, has to be happy with the contract.”
“Of course—that’s a given.”
“The second? Well, we both know my book is worth more than one night, so I’ll take the whole two weeks you’re staying here.”
“How do you know how long I’m staying here?”
“The same way I know you’re on a working holiday, half the time sightseeing, the other half editing Tori Jayle’s new book. The way I know you’re staying in a two-bedroom cottage on the estate—I even know which one. The way I know you were intending to go on to London tomorrow and work out of Johnson/Charles’s Notting Hill office, but when you arrived yesterday you liked the coziness and seclusion of the cottage so much you abandoned the London plan and extended your booking here.” He smiled—very pleased with himself. “Because you told Phillip Castle.”
“Phillip? Did you—? What did you do?”
“Only suggested Felicity might like to keep him occupied between courses.”
She sucked in an outraged breath. “Felicity spied on me for you?”
“It’s innocuous stuff, Veronica. As innocuous as all the other things you took such delight in banning Matt, Teague and Romy from telling me. So get over it and tell me if we have a deal.”
“When do I get the book?”
“Three weeks—once you’re safely back in New York. Meanwhile, I’ll let Bryan know to expect a call from you.”
“Not me,” she said. “My boss.”
“You have a boss? A real boss?”
“Why wouldn’t I have a real boss?”
“I thought Daddy’s little girl would be the one in the corner office.”
“And I will be in the corner office—when I’ve earned that spot.”
“Then let’s hope Stomp gets you closer. That’ll be...poetic.”
A claw of apprehension scratched at her spine. Symmetry. Irony. Poetry. What didn’t she know? “What do you mean by ‘poetic’?”
“Don’t worry. Stomp isn’t a book of poetry.” He huffed out one more of those half laughs, half breaths. “My one attempt at poetry wasn’t exactly a roaring success.”
“Why three weeks? I thought it was finished?”
“I’ve decided it needs an epilogue. Just need to see if—how—that comes together. But once that’s done, it’ll be all systems go.”
She stared at him, that apprehension working its way through her entire body now.
He stared at her—implacable.
Long moments while she tried to think of questions she could ask that would settle her nerves and tell her she was doing the right thing.
“Veronica?” he prompted.
Oh for God’s sake! Two weeks—her body for a book. Not the most savory way of doing business but she’d come this far, she might as well go all the way. So, “Deal,” she said.
He smiled—triumph. Not reassuring.
“So here’s what has to happen,” he said. “You go back ahead of me and get your key slipped under the door of my room—303, third floor of the hall. I’ll make my farewells, check out, get myself over to the cottage, and expect you...when? How long do you need?”
“I think...an hour? Give or take ten minutes.”
“An hour?”
“It’s the last I’ll see of Romy and Matt this trip—they’re going straight to Spain in the morning. And I need to at least pretend to catch the bouquet.”
“If I have to wait that long, you’d better take off your underwear before you leave the reception.”
He said it so conversationally, it took a mo
ment for the words to sink in. And then she laughed in disbelief. “Negotiations are over, buddy.”
“O-kay—but I warn you that anything blocking my way when you get in the door is in danger of being ripped to shreds.”
Her heart kicked as the image of him ripping her underwear to shreds formed in her head. But she knew a way to make his heart kick right back. “Then how about I go one better?” she said and, keeping her eyes on his, she stepped back, reached a hand under her dress, gave a little wriggle, a tug, and within seconds had her panties down around her ankles. Such a tiny scrap of lace, a nondescript beige, but she might as well have worn that scrap especially for him because the crotch was soaking and she didn’t care that he’d know. She stepped out of her panties, scooped them up, held them out.
She saw his Adam’s apple bob viciously in his throat as he took them. For a moment he did nothing but hold them, and look at them, and breathe in slowly through nostrils flared wide. And then with another difficult swallow he put them in his pants’ pocket.
“So tell me,” he said, and nodded at her skirt, “do you still wax everything off?”
She understood from that one question that when Rafael said he wanted to fuck her, he meant he was going to fuck her good. And if he thought that was going to discompose her? Well, hold her beer. If this was to be a war of seduction, she was going to win it. “Yes,” she said boldly. “Want to see?”
He stepped closer. “Want to touch.”
Okay, she wasn’t winning the war just yet because that did discompose her. “We’re outside a mausoleum, you know that, right?”
“I know that. And I also know I’m a long way off dead.”
And so, she thought, was she. She felt more alive in this moment than she’d felt for seven years, two months, three weeks and five days—and God, it felt good. So, “Fine,” she said.
“Oh, Veronica, I’m going to need more than an easy ‘fine.’ You don’t want to want me, I don’t want to want you—but the want is there. If we’re going to exorcise it, we need to go hard, so don’t just acquiesce. Tell me you want me to touch you. Order me to do it.”
Getting Even Page 6