“Do you have any shoes?” the nurse asks as she finishes up.
I peek down to my dangling feet. Then up my body to James’s shorts and T-shirt. “No.” I slip off the bed, my arm feeling like a kettlebell held against my chest.
“Then you’ll have to get that big, strong man to carry you.” She gives me an impish grin that I struggle to return. “I’ll let him know you’re ready.” She leaves, closing the door behind her, and I take a moment to build up the courage I need to face my uncle and James. I bet the tension outside this room is horrific. I also need to think about what the heck I’m going to do, because I know James will be expecting me to go home with him and Lawrence will be expecting otherwise.
I pad on my bare feet to the door, pensive, and pull it open. James is the first person I see. He’s sitting on a plastic chair, leaning forward, his forearms resting on his thighs. His face is a roadmap of angry lines. Then I clock Lawrence. Standing. His face is a roadmap of contempt. My eyes pass between the two, my mind giving me no heads-up of what to say.
“You’re coming home with me,” James says, breaking the uncomfortable silence, rising from the chair.
Lawrence snorts his thoughts on that. “She’s going nowhere with you.”
I inhale some patience. “I—”
The doors down the corridor burst open and Ollie appears, pacing determinedly. And with him, Dexter. I fold on the inside, sighing. Anyone else?
And like a fucked-up, sick omen, my father breezes in too. Who the hell called him?
Ollie’s expression is pure concern. Dexter looks plain wary. And my father, someone pinch me, looks genuinely troubled.
Another few elements just got added to the already prickly mix. I don’t need this. Not now, not ever.
Ollie spots me and rushes over, scanning me from top to toe. “Jesus, Beau, are you okay?” I’m hugged awkwardly around my cast, and there is nothing I can do to stop him. “Lawrence called me.”
I clench my teeth, closing my eyes to avoid whatever look might be getting tossed this way from James. I can’t imagine it’s pleasant. Lawrence needs to back the hell off. “I’m fine,” I whisper, leaving my good arm dangling by my side, unable and unwilling to return his embrace. I wriggle a little, breaking away. “You shouldn’t have come.” I risk a peek at James, and turn to ash where I stand. I can see he’s physically holding himself back, his eyes raging pits of fury.
“What on earth happened?” my father asks, his fine-suited form muscling Ollie out of the way, his big palms taking my shoulders and holding me in place. I look at him, blank. Devoid of feelings.
“I fell,” I say quietly. “I’m okay.” I move back, uncomfortable with my father fussing over me, which is plain backward after years of wondering why he finds it so hard to give me affection. And I can’t deny my fear that with one call from him, I could be sent back to a psychiatric hospital.
“Beau?” Dexter asks quietly, ever the pacifying, gentle soul. I look at him, and his expression alone, never mind his soft tone, makes my lip wobble.
“I’m fine,” I say for the thousandth time.
“I’ll take you home.” Ollie moves back in. “Why are you wearing a guy’s T-shirt and shorts?”
The sound of a throat being cleared fills the corridor, courtesy of James, and I watch, nervous as shit, as Ollie turns to find the source. “They’re mine,” James says clearly.
Fuck.
I don’t need this. Two men snarling, me between them. “Who the fuck are you?” my ex asks.
“Good question,” Dad pipes in, as if he has the right to that information. James doesn’t entertain their demands, remaining silent, so Ollie turns to Lawrence.
“Is this him?” he asks, motioning to James.
“Who?” Dad asks, his eyes swaying back and forth between James and Ollie. “Not the man she’s been seeing?” He turns a hostile look James way. “You? You did this to her?”
I stare at my father, flummoxed. Don’t tell me he’s choosing now to play the protective father?
“I’ll have you locked up,” he spits, as Ollie starts pacing toward James, his arm locking and loading. Oh no.
“Ollie!” I yell, going after him. “Ollie, stop.”
“You ever touch her again . . .” he snarls, throwing a punch.
“Ollie!”
He misses when James leans back, the force of his swing sending Ollie spinning, but he gathers himself quickly, heaving, and has another go. James’s hand flies up and catches Ollie’s fist in his palm, and he claws his fingers around my ex’s clenched hand, squeezing, holding it in place before his face. He says nothing, just stares at Ollie, who is a little wide-eyed, his eyes bouncing between James’s lethal expression and his seized fist.
I swallow and move in, separating them. “Are you done?” I ask Ollie.
“You’re not going home with him.” My ex discreetly flexes his wrist, his ego seriously bruised.
“Ollie, you know me,” I say, fighting for calm.
“Yeah, I know you,” he retorts, goading, making James bristle harder.
“Would I ever allow a man to physically hurt me?”
He looks at me, and I hate the pain I see past the anger. “But you’re not that woman anymore, are you, Beau?”
I step back, injured, despite him being right. No, I’m not the woman he knew. Carefree, happy, ambitious, stable. “Thank you for coming, but it wasn’t necessary.” I don’t know whether it’s insistence when James has no right to insist, or whether it’s my incessant need for some answers, but I turn to James. “I’m ready,” I say, before I sidestep his towering frame and pad on bare feet to the doors.
“Beau,” Lawrence calls, and it kills me, but I ignore him, my mind made, my focus set.
“Beau, sweetheart, come back,” Dad yells. “What the hell is going on here? Ollie, Dexter, stop him!”
I make it outside into the fresh air and look at my feet. “I’ll carry you,” James says from behind.
“No.” I look back over my shoulder, seeing Ollie glaring at us in utter disbelief and my father looking nothing short of furious. “No need to rile anyone further.” I’ve made a good enough job of that myself. I’m surprised by James’s restraint. I could see it was taking everything out of him not to flatten Ollie and my father. I know he’s capable. And while I’m thinking of capable, what else is he capable of? I look up at him. I shouldn’t be so attracted to a man who’s such an enigma. “I found a shell casing under the chair in your dressing room,” I say, straight up and with no emotion. “And I’m still coming home with you.”
He doesn’t flinch. He’s shows no surprise. Not a thing.
“That’s why I was up the ladder painting,” I go on. “That’s why I had the music blasting. I was trying to drown out the nagging, screaming questions.”
His gaze drops to my cast, and guilt grips me. I didn’t splurge all those words to point blame or to make him feel shitty. I simply needed him to know that I know. But I don’t know what the fuck I know, and it’s sending me to crazy town. Enough is enough.
“I want to know who you are. I want to know your other name. Why you think I’m in too deep.”
“I’m in too deep too.” He looks at me, and I back up, alarmed by the apologies in his eyes.
“Will I want to leave when you tell me?”
“Probably. But I won’t let you.”
“Why?”
He steps into me, taking my cheek, smoothing his palm down my face. “You’re not going anywhere because despite my better judgment, I’m mad for you.” He drops a kiss on my parted lips, and then each of my closed eyelids. Warmth seeps into me. A warmth I’m baffled by. “Let’s go home.” He lifts me from my feet, and my good arm goes around his neck, holding on.
Clinging.
James paces to his car, and I study his profile the whole way, wondering what he’s going to share and how I might feel once he has.
Despite my better judgment, I’m mad for you.
I’m mad f
or him too. So maybe now, it simply won’t matter what I learn.
50
JAMES
I carry her from the car to my apartment, and once inside, up to the bathroom. I place her on the loo and start drawing a bath, loading it with lavender. “Aren’t we going to talk?” she asks.
Talk. She suddenly wants all the words, and I’m now unsure if I can speak them. I crouch before her, taking her hand and placing it on my rough cheek, holding it there and closing my eyes, leaning into it. Feeling her. Just feeling her touch and hearing her breathe. She chose to come home with me. But still, I can’t talk until I’ve reinforced something. And it won’t be rough. It won’t be hard. “We need to do something else first.” I open my eyes and take in every bit of her.
“What?” she whispers. But she knows.
My hand goes to her thigh, and she instinctively clenches them together. She’s trying to halt the onslaught of desire from steaming forward. And I understand. It’s been too easy to bury herself in my touch. My attention. To ignore the constant red flags. Be ignorant to them all. She’s clever, observant, but it feels like she’s shut down that side of herself since she met me.
Because she’s scared. She has every reason to be.
“We need to fuck, Beau,” I breathe. “Every inch of me needs to touch every inch of you, my cock plunging, your moans drenching my apartment.”
“Talk,” she whispers, vehemently shaking her head. “We need to talk.”
My hands land on her knees and spread her legs, and she whimpers, somewhere between distress and desperation. “There’s something else I need to say first.” My fingertip draws a perfect line down the inside of her thigh to her knee. “And this is the only way.”
She convulses, her breathing becoming ragged. She wants to stop this. And yet she can’t.
“Kiss me, Beau,” I order, and she dives forward, her flaky restraint gone, and smashes her lips on mine, taking out her frustration at me with this kiss, whipping her tongue through my mouth.
“That’s it,” I growl, standing, dragging her up with me, returning her crazy pace. “Give me all you’ve got, baby.”
She whimpers, and I snake my arm around her waist, lifting her and walking to the vanity unit, placing her on the edge. I yank at the waist of the shorts, loosening them, before tugging them down her legs, her kiss never faltering, my actions blind but efficient.
“Spread,” I order against her mouth, and she immediately makes room for me as I undo my fly and pull out my cock. I break our kiss and pull back, panting, looking her in the eyes as I guide myself to her. “Don’t look away,” I warn, and she inhales, feeling the warm, wet head of my erection brush across her opening. “Never look away.” I slip in slowly, my face strained, my bite on my lip harsh. And the sensations, every inch of me buzzing, take me to where I need us to be.
Her dark eyes are magnets, hypnotizing, luring me further in. “Could you ever look away?” she asks quietly, her spine lengthening little by little with every inch I sink inside her.
As if to make my point, I let my forehead fall onto hers, our lashes now nearly touching. I advance a bit farther, and her inner walls clench, squeezing me. “Never,” I breathe, pushing forward the final few inches, hitting her deep. Her injured arm rests between us, her good hand behind her, supporting her weight, and I start to pump steady and slow, in and out, each drive smooth, each retreat measured, each grind slow. I’m burning up, the bathroom air becoming wet with condensation, the T-shirt she’s wearing starting to stick to her skin. And yet, despite us both being partially dressed, me more than her, it’s the most intimately I’ve ever taken her.
It’s her eyes.
Eyes full of the unknown.
Eyes she refuses to take off me.
This isn’t fucking. This is making love. It’s a form of manipulation. I know that.
There’s something else I need to say first.
I’m mad for you.
“You love me,” she whispers, and I still abruptly, swallowing. Shocked. But my eyes? They don’t break with Beau’s. “Is that what you’re trying to say now?” she asks.
“I don’t want to love you, Beau,” I admit, drawing a delicate line across her eyebrow. Beau is fierce, strong, despite what she thinks of herself. Her losses are great, but her determination, her fire, her bravery to find justice is formidable. Admirable. But love is dangerous, as I saw with my parents. My dad loved my mom to his death. He protected her. Worshipped her. I saw his devotion, how his eyes followed her because she was his light. Like my eyes have followed Beau since the first moment I saw her. Knew her. But like there was with my dad, there will be an enormous cost for loving Beau. And not only that . . . “There’s no place in my life for love.”
“Then what am I doing here?” she asks, not appearing at all hurt. She simply needs to know.
“You’re here because I can’t seem to leave you the fuck alone.”
“Try.”
I shake my head and take her hips, picking up my pace again, but this time I’m not as gentle, and Beau ups the ante too. She’s frustrated. With me. With herself.
I can relate.
I don’t want to love either.
And yet here I am, in love with her.
51
BEAU
For the first time since he demanded I shouldn’t, I look away from him. I can’t fall if I can’t see him. I have to stop myself. Stop this.
There’s no place in my life for love.
My jaw is grabbed, and my face forced to his. “I said, do not look away from me.”
“Fuck you.” I slam my eyes closed and yell when he punishes me with a hard buck of his hips, his cock filling me to the brim. “Fuck you, James.”
Bang!
No more making love. Because this isn’t love. It’s fucking.
Bang!
I yelp, gritting my teeth, enduring his brutal pounds.
“Beau,” he grates, and I turn my face, fighting his hold, further maddening him. And the pleasure just keeps on coming, strike after strike. My clammy skin burns, my insides burn, my brain burns. I will take this pleasure, this mind-numbing bliss. I will take everything he has to give. It’s the only thing I’ll allow between us.
“More,” I hiss, letting my head tilt back. “Give me more, you asshole.”
Bang!
“More!” I tense my arm, immune to the pain it spikes while he’s taking me so brutally.
“Fuck!” His body jacks, his groin rolls, and I’m taken out, screaming to the ceiling as my release tears through me like a destructive hurricane, ripping apart everything in its path. My mind. My heart. But our souls? They remain intact. Still joined. Still together. Still one.
The feeling of his hot essence filling me burns, and I open my eyes, finding his brow dripping with sweat, his eyes glazed, his lips parted. I gasp in his face, tingles riddling my body, electric and addictive.
“Are you done?” I ask.
“With you? Never.”
I flex my hips, and he groans, his torso folding forward. “So I just stay here, do I? Stay here and let you fuck me as you please. Tie me up. Restrain me. Shove things in my ass and record it all?”
“What else are you going to do?” he pants, his cock still pulsing within me.
“Live.”
“You don’t know how to live, Beau.” He drops a kiss on my forehead and pulls out on a hiss. “That’s the whole fucking reason you’re in my apartment.” He moves away, fastening his fly and turning the faucet off before leaving.
I close my legs. I can’t argue with him. Never has anything truer been said.
Slipping down off the vanity unit, I grab some tissue, wiping him away from between my legs. Could you be pregnant? My head feels ready to pop. With . . . everything.
I follow him into his bedroom, stopping at the door and eyeing the wooden frame. “Has anyone else been tied to that thing since you met me?” I ask, my question unstoppable.
“Are you asking me if I’m fu
cking other women?” he asks, going into his closet.
“Yes, I am.”
“Don’t insult me, Beau.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s a fucking answer,” he yells, appearing again, wrestling on a sweater and stomping to the door.
“Why is there a shell casing in your dressing room?”
“You’re not ready to know,” he says over his shoulder, not even having the decency to look at me.
“What?” I almost laugh. “You said we’d talk.”
He glances back at me when he gets to the door. “I’ve said what I wanted to say.” His eyes drop down my body, detached and cold. “Did I make myself clear?”
“Crystal.”
“And if you’re not here when I get back, I’ll hunt you down and bring you back.” He closes the door, and I stare at the glass, incredulous.
No.
He is not doing that. I march after him, swinging the door open, but before I can step out onto the landing, I hear the elevator doors, and then Goldie.
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” she asks.
“Definitely,” James grunts quietly.
“You can stop this.”
Silence follows, and I wait with bated breath. Stop what? And why? “I really can’t,” he replies, as the doors slide closed.
I creep to the top of the stairs and look down, seeing the space empty of life. And as I lower to the top step, trying to process everything, trying to decide what the fucking hell to do, something comes to me. I look up and around, searching for any signs. Nothing. No cameras. But he’ll be watching. Without a doubt, he’ll be watching.
That thought incenses me. I stand to get dressed and leave, but my cell ringing distracts me, and I shoot down the stairs, answering Dexter’s call. “Hey.”
“How are you doing?” he asks.
“Did you really call to ask that?”
“No, I called to beg you to come home. In an attempt to make himself feel better, he is now she, and Zinnea cries loudest of all.”
The Enigma: Unlawful Men Book 2 Page 28