Hate to Want You

by Alisha Rai

  He had to overcome those instincts. The questions in Livvy’s dark eyes demanded honesty. “My father made me do it. He made me break up with you.”

  “You mean he disapproved of us being together.”

  “It wasn’t only disapproval.” How could he explain a lifetime of dysfunction and resentment and emotional manipulation? “Brendan hated your dad. Despised him.”

  “For driving that night.”

  “Partially.”

  Livvy’s gaze was hooded. “Eve said there were rumors my dad and your mom were having an affair.”

  He jerked back. “Eve said that?” He hadn’t known Eve was aware of those rumors, though of course she wouldn’t have discussed them with him.

  “I assumed she was trying to hurt me . . . but that’s what people believe?”

  “Some people,” he admitted reluctantly.

  “That’s foolish. My father would never have cheated.”

  Nicholas wasn’t as certain about his mother. His parents had displayed a near-perfect image of marital bliss for the world, but he could remember the fights. He couldn’t blame Maria if she had gone elsewhere to find affection. “I don’t think my mom would’ve betrayed Tani like that. There were a million innocent reasons for them to be on that road, in that car together.” He’d believe them too, even if it did mean a lot of questions went unanswered.

  Sometimes all the questions couldn’t be answered.

  “Is that the other reason Brendan hated my dad? Was it the rumors?”

  Nicholas raised one shoulder. “He does hate any kind of negative gossip, but honestly, I think he despised Robert even before the accident. Your dad got promoted to co-CEO with John. My dad had to technically report to both of them.” Robert had been an outsider, neither Chandler nor Oka, yet he’d leapfrogged over Brendan, who had occupied Nicholas’s current subordinate position at the time. Nicholas had always sensed a barely hidden resentment in his father’s attitude toward Robert. “After Robert died, Brendan transferred that anger and resentment over to your whole family. He wanted you all gone. He got rid of Tani by taking the shares, but then there was us.”

  “When you said your father made you break up with me, what do you mean? Specifically?”

  “He put financial pressure on me.”

  “He threatened to disinherit you?”

  His jaw clenched. “Not me.”

  Her eyes went wide. “Eve?”

  He closed his eyes, only opening them when a small hand ghosted over his arm. “Livvy, she was thirteen. I felt like I had no choice.” On a practical level, even if Brendan cut Eve out, Nicholas would have taken care of her. But the damage would have been done. Young Nicholas hadn’t been able to bear the thought of Eve knowing Brendan viewed her as nothing more than a disposable pawn.

  Hell, he still couldn’t bear to see his sister’s pain every time Brendan ignored or dismissed her. But their father’s negligence toward her was a step up from outright disowning, or so he told himself.

  “Why didn’t you tell me then?”

  “I couldn’t.” A pleading tone had entered his voice, one he didn’t recognize. The Kanes had been as close to family as one could get, but Brendan had always been very careful about making sure no one but his wife and son saw the true extent of his coldness. “I didn’t know if you’d believe me and I didn’t want to make things harder than they had to be.”

  She slowly moved her head from side to side. “I would have wanted you to tell me. I was so hurt after.”

  She wanted to die. His heart thudded.

  “I would have loved having a villain. Someone I could fight.” Livvy’s smile was tremulous. “I would have made you fight.”

  “I don’t know if I could have fought,” he admitted, unable to hide the trace of shame in his words.

  “I know,” she said, surprising him. “I get why you kept it from me. In hindsight, you probably made the right call. Either way, your family would have been destroyed like mine was. Present me finds that thought really terrible.”

  “My family was destroyed anyway.” His voice was so guttural he could barely recognize it.

  A tear leaked out. “It would have been worse.”

  Her concern humbled him. Yes, this was the woman he’d fallen in love with all those years ago. Soft and sweet and considerate, hiding under multicolored hair and a layer of pure steel. Nicholas took another step closer, until they were standing toe-to-toe. He dipped his head and breathed in her sweet, delicate scent. Vanilla cream.

  He lowered his mouth to hers. The kiss was soft and sweet at first, only their lips brushing against each other. He ran his palm over her cheek and angled her so he could deepen the kiss. His tongue sank into her mouth and she stood on her tip-toes, rubbing up against him.

  Her mouth was criminally addictive. It always had been. He tilted her head back and kissed his way along the curve of her neck, finding the spot that revved her up. She writhed against him and he gripped her hips and backed her up against the tree, her hands falling to the rough bark. “Livvy,” he breathed.

  “Yes,” she whispered, both consent and appreciation. She shrugged off her jacket. He licked her lips and brushed his tongue against hers, pulling it into his mouth to suck and lick at it. His hands slid over her back and bottom, pulling her close so his cock nestled into the cleft between her legs.

  “I want to . . . right here.”

  “Yes,” she whispered again. With a jump he had her hoisted between him and the tree, her legs wrapped around him and interlocking at the base of his spine. His hand rested against the bark, the scrape a harsh reminder that her delicate skin would get messed up if they actually fucked here.

  He whirled around and fell to his knees with her still wrapped around him like a koala, and tumbled her down to the ground.

  He couldn’t begin to count the number of times they’d made love right here, their bodies straining together under the sky, back in the days when they’d been so hungry they could barely keep their hands away from each other. Each time they’d come together in some generic hotel room, part of his brain had been fantasizing that they were both right here.

  Where they belonged.

  He ripped at the buttons of his shirt, and she helped him before unbuckling his belt and unzipping his trousers. Her crop top—why wear half a top, he wasn’t sure—left her belly bared, but he shoved it up so he could get to her breasts, pulling her bra down so he could fondle her flesh.

  He kissed his way down her neck, biting and sucking at the flesh at the hollow of her throat, knowing he was skirting the edge of pain, that he’d leave a mark.

  Not caring.

  He paused to strip her jeans down her legs, then her panties. “Sorry,” he panted, when the fragile silk came apart in his hands. “Is this—?”

  “It’s fine. Just—yes. Yes, fuck me.”

  He stopped when he was poised on the edge of penetration. He didn’t push his way inside her, but waited, teasing her lips with the tip of his cock. “I love this. This moment, right before I get inside you,” he said in a gravelly voice.

  She ran her hands up his biceps and pulled at him, but he wasn’t budging. He dipped his cock inside, letting her wetness coat his flesh.

  “Stop teasing me.”

  Didn’t she get it? He wasn’t teasing her. Something momentous had shifted in his brain, some understanding that had taken ten years to get through his thick skull.

  He’d made a terrible mistake. Clouded by grief and fear and yes, anger. He’d quit and thrown away someone he should have fought for.

  Her legs tightened around his waist like a vise and she yanked him forward. Unable to resist the call of her body, he sank inside her with a deep groan, the shocking heat of her pussy making him shake. He raised himself on stiffened arms the second she froze beneath him.

  “No condom,” he rasped. It had been so long since he’d fucked her bare. Whenever they’d met, she’d flung a strip of rubbers at him, or he’d produced his own.

&
nbsp; Her nails stroked along his spine. “I’m on birth control. And I’m . . . I’m clean.”

  He shuddered. “I am too.”

  Those nails dragged down to his ass. “Just do it.”

  Oh, God. “Do what? Fill you up with my come?”

  “Yes.”

  “Say it.”

  “Fill me with—” He hit a particularly deep spot, and she shook. “Fill me with your come.”

  He fucked into her with slow strokes. He gazed down at her, mesmerized, as her head tipped back, and she moaned. The sun was almost gone, the hazy blue-gray sky turning her body into a dreamy portrait. Past and present and future melded together, forcing his body to move faster. He needed her to feel him inside her, in every inch.

  She communicated in breathy gasps, her hands coming up to encircle his neck. She arched below him, her thighs falling wide. He wanted to be tender. He wanted to be kind. But his lust took over, until he had nothing in his brain but the elemental, desperate need to fuck her until she couldn’t walk, until he couldn’t move.

  His hips snapped back and forth. Faster, and faster, until her body clenched all around his. Each contraction squeezed his throbbing cock like a vise.

  His balls drew up tight, and he thrust deep, spurting inside her. Each pulse simultaneously weakened him and filled him with strength. He locked his arms to keep from collapsing on top of her and hung his head, panting.

  They were both covered in sweat, but the cool air was working through his lust-induced warmth. Nicholas sat back, attention riveted on his still-hard cock withdrawing from her. He grasped his dick, his hand feeling too rough and unwelcome after the paradise of her pussy, and rubbed the wet tip against her slit.

  “Look at that,” he rumbled. “What a mess we made.”

  He stroked up to her clitoris. His heart stuttered when she breathed, “Nico . . .”

  He went still. No one had called him Nico since her.

  He batted the head of his cock against her pussy, then braced himself on one arm above her and pressed his lips to her neck. “You want more?” He rubbed her clit with his cock in a slow circle. “I can give you more. I can give you everything.”

  She stiffened beneath him then pressed her hands against his chest, straight-arming him away. Shit. Had he said the wrong thing?

  Nicholas moved back immediately, though with great reluctance. He didn’t want to separate their bodies. That meant they’d have to go back to thinking.

  She sat up and scrambled to her feet way faster than he would like. It took him a second to get his legs under him and stand without wobbling. “Hey.”

  She ignored him and scooped up her jeans, shoving them up over her legs.

  He adjusted his own clothes absently. “Hey,” he said again.

  “What?” she snapped.

  Uh-oh. He had said something wrong. “Listen, what if—?”

  “I don’t like that word.”

  “What word?”

  She readjusted her bra. “If.”

  “Then I won’t use it. But can we talk?”

  “I need to go. Take me back to my car.”

  He needed time to figure out what was happening between them, or, hell, what was happening in his own head. “Livvy—”

  She turned away and started walking, jerking her jacket over her breasts. Leaves clung to her hair. “Either take me back to my car, or I’m walking.”

  “Don’t be like this.”

  “Like what?”

  Poking and prodding. Overwhelmed from all the confessions he’d shared with her, her snotty tone rubbed him exactly the wrong way. “Dramatic,” he snapped, and then grimaced, a chill running through him at the way she spun around and glared at him.

  Maria, for God’s sake, stop acting so dramatic.

  Drama was cold Brendan’s sworn enemy. Like father, like son.

  Oh, fuck. Never.

  “That’s what I am.” Her shoulders were set and rigid. “A moody drama queen. Now take me back to my car.”

  Chapter 15

  LIVVY FLOPPED on her bed, face-down, like a proper drama queen.

  Dramatic.

  Well, fuck you too, Nicholas.

  She’d refused to speak with Nicholas in the car ride back to town. She’d held her emotions in admirable check on the drive home. She’d showered quickly and then smiled throughout the delicious steak and potatoes dinner her aunt had saved for her and ate every bite, though she wasn’t hungry. She’d gamely tried to engage her mom in conversation about the sitcom they watched after dinner, only to be rebuffed. She’d cleaned up the kitchen, thrown a load of laundry in the washing machine, and whistled while she did it, every ounce of energy being poured into appearing calm.

  Dramatic. Moody. Emotional. Temperamental. Artistic. There were so many adjectives she’d been tagged with from people who couldn’t and wouldn’t understand her.

  I can give you everything.

  She pressed her hand over her heart, the spike of hope and excitement coursing through her again. She hated him so much for giving her that high, because the truth was simple and stark.

  He couldn’t.

  She wasn’t a fool. She believed Nicholas when he said his father had made him end things with her. Brendan was totally capable of something so ruthless—hadn’t he cheated her mother out of her half of the company?

  Livvy believed he’d been reluctant to leave her and loved her then, and that did bring a measure of peace to her heart. But the second he’d started to talk about ifs, she’d reached her limit.

  He might still have feelings for her, but that didn’t mean he’d ever want or be able to give her more. She deserved more. She did.

  Keep saying that, squeaked the tiny defenseless part of herself that sometimes wondered if she deserved anything.

  Lethargy tugged at her body, the desire to crawl under the covers and not get up. Resolutely, she rolled to her feet instead. A few more things. She could manage a few simple tasks first. Opposite action.

  Livvy placed her phone on the nightstand. After she got under those covers, she knew she’d stare obsessively at the coordinates he’d sent her for the first time in forever, tracing every familiar number, but she’d put that off as long as humanly possible.

  She took off her clothes and popped them in the hamper in the corner. She grabbed a button-down flannel sleep shirt from a drawer and drew it on, pressing the fabric to her nose to inhale the comforting scent of laundry detergent and softener. It only marginally calmed the emotions twisting her insides into a knot.

  As she buttoned it up, she glanced around, wishing she’d left the place a mess so she could tidy it up and feel accomplished about something. She opened the closet door, but all her clothes had been neatly unpacked from her duffel and hung on hangers. Cursing past-her for her diligence, she started to pace, stopping when she realized how frenetic her motions were getting.

  She wrapped her arms around her waist and inhaled and exhaled deeply. Okay. Okay. She needed a breather. Boxes. Her feelings were too big and overwhelming, and they were leaking right out of her. Time to contain them.

  Livvy skirted the bed and plopped down on the floor, resting against the wall.

  She ran her hand against her leg and slowly, using her index finger, traced a box around the head of the dragon inked into her flesh.

  Look at you. You’re a disaster.

  Put the negative thoughts into the box. Find a counter thought. “I deserve compassion,” she whispered and moved to the pot of gold at her hip. A tiny box around that, her very first tattoo.

  You shouldn’t have come home. You’re not tough enough for this.

  “I’ve been through a lot of shit, and I survived. Life is worth living, even with the shit in it.” The vine now.

  He doesn’t love you.

  “I can love myself.” Another flower. “I’m a good person.” Her finger pressed deeper into her flesh. “I can keep figuring it out. I’m doing the best I can.”

  She arched her back and reac
hed behind her, though the twist was awkward. She bled her feelings into every design but the compass was her favorite tattoo, with its watercolor splash and blurred pigment, like a drawing left out in the rain.

  She couldn’t quite contort enough to draw a box here, so she stroked it. “I deserve compassion,” she repeated, and then kept repeating it until she could feel the knot inside her unravel.

  It was a tiny easing, but it was enough to stave off her panic spiral. She closed her eyes and rested her head against the wall, not releasing contact with her compass.

  She wasn’t sure if she fully believed the words her therapist had given her to keep in her arsenal, but they helped. And one day, if she said them enough times, maybe she could absolutely believe them.

  Her phone beeped, shattering the silence of the room. She wanted to ignore it, but it was late enough that it could be an emergency. Her movements were sluggish as she got her feet.

  Nicholas. A new message, right below those damn coordinates.

  I was going to throw a rock against your window, but I’m not sure if it’s yours.

  Her window?

  She texted back. ???

  His reply was immediate. Look outside.

  No. He couldn’t possibly be . . .

  She walked over to the window, brushed the curtain aside, and peered into the darkness. She was situated on the side of the house, a large lawn right below.

  And on that lawn stood Nicholas, looking up at her. The moon was full, gilding his dark hair and the sharp angles of his face. He’d changed out of his suit into a pair of worn jeans and a light-colored, long-sleeved sweater.

  What the hell?

  She tried to yank open the window. The damn thing was stuck, dried paint sealing the jambs.

  “What are you—?” she started to say loudly, but then realized she might wake up her mom and aunt by screaming through the glass. She typed into her phone instead. What are you doing??

  He glanced down at the phone in his hands and responded. I wanted to see you.

  So you’re lurking? I thought we established you’re shitty at that.

  His half-smile made her want to smile back. Instead, she scowled.