Desire Me More

by Tiffany Clare

  “You play a hard game, Riley. Does this have anything to do with a certain secretary who’s caught your eye?”

  Nick downed his whiskey and pointed at Hart. “I’ll ask you not to repeat that anywhere.”

  His friend wore a grin like a Cheshire cat. “Just stating the obvious.”

  After visiting a few more people who could help root out a few of Shauley’s secrets, Nick arrived home after midnight.

  He slipped into Amelia’s room and climbed into bed behind her. Wrapping his arms around her and holding her close, he fell into the first deep sleep he’d had in weeks. But that sleep was short-lived, and he woke with a start, covered in sweat, sometime around two in the morning.

  Sitting on the edge of the bed, he gathered his wits. He shouldn’t have come to Amelia when his dreams were always just out of reach from his control. He wondered if they would ever subside. They were always the same. He was back in the school, waking up to the vicar over him.

  He wasted no time in dressing, hating to leave Amelia’s side at all, but he couldn’t sleep now.

  The soft click of her door woke her. When she turned over in her bed, it was to see that the covers were mussed where Nick had slept, but he was gone. Had his leaving awakened her? She threw off her blankets with a frustrated huff. This time, she would not be deterred from seeking the path toward which she and Nick had been heading. She was determined to follow him, no matter where he went to escape them. Because his sneaking away in the middle of the night needed to stop.

  Bleary-eyed and tired, she crawled out of bed and cinched a corset around her waist before pulling on yesterday’s dress. They couldn’t ignore the problem that made it nearly impossible to move into another phase of their relationship—or whatever it was that they had. She was determined to have an answer to that today too. They’d come leaps and bounds yesterday, but today she would not allow him to close himself off again.

  After finding Nick’s bedchamber empty, she headed downstairs, only to find him in his study, pacing the floor. His hair was disheveled, his shirt only tucked in at the front. Seeing him thus caused a lot of the frustration building in her to vanish.

  She shut the door and flicked over the lock behind her on entering the room. Nick stopped pacing immediately and scrubbed a hand over his face, scratching his beard as his eyes focused on her in the darkness. It broke her heart, seeing him so exhausted from too many sleepless nights.

  “I didn’t mean to wake you.” He sounded genuinely concerned to have disturbed her rest, and that ebbed the rest of the anger that had built while she’d searched the house for him.

  “And I didn’t intend to let you sneak out of my room yet again.”

  He rubbed his face again. “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “I could tell. As I have been able to tell every night for weeks, Nick. Please tell me what is going on.”

  He didn’t say anything. Didn’t confirm or deny her observation. With a sigh she thought she wasn’t meant to hear, he went over to the sideboard and poured two decent-sized glasses of whiskey. He held one out for her to take and motioned toward the library. She didn’t normally imbibe in liquor like this but took the glass anyway.

  “Sit with me for a while,” he said.

  He was oddly unsure of himself. Not the Nick she’d grown to know and love since moving into this house. The Nick who ruled over everything and everyone in his life like each layer was a finely oiled piece of machinery over which he had complete control.

  Tumbler in hand, she preceded him into the adjoining room. She didn’t sip the liquid fire, afraid it would cloud her thoughts when they needed to have a serious conversation. If she beat around the bush with this, it would give him reason to hide behind the carefully constructed wall he kept erected between her and his emotions.

  If she couldn’t find a door through that wall, she knew she had to find a way to climb over everything he was avoiding.

  Before either of them could sit, she blurted out, “I think you’ve been avoiding me. Avoiding having another dream while in bed with me. And we need to discuss why.” When she looked up, he appeared unperturbed by her questions, so she continued. “Help me understand what it is you’re afraid of.”

  “What confessions do you think to garner from me? I’ve often been a night wanderer. This is nothing new, and it’s unlikely to stop. Telling you what haunts my dreams will not end them.”

  “Then help me understand why you wander more than you have before. Haven’t you noticed the strain it’s causing between us? It makes me wonder if you regret what’s happened between us. If I’m honest with myself, Nick, I don’t think I can go back to being mere acquaintances. But if that’s what you want . . . you have to tell me. My heart’s too involved to have you slowly shrink away from me. I don’t even know what you want from me. Am I your mistress? Am I your secretary? Do I even mean more to you than that? Because I feel that if I did mean more than that, you would open up to me.”

  Nick threw his tumbler at the fireplace so fast that a strangled sound caught in her throat at his sudden show of violence. The glass smashed into a thousand shards of glittering crystal that smeared across the brick.

  “Nick,” she whispered in her shock, fighting tears back.

  Nick turned toward her, stalking her with all the grace of a lion eyeing a gazelle. She took a deep, steadying breath and braced herself. The only thing she was certain of was that he wouldn’t hurt her.

  He pointed at the fireplace. “That is what you do to me inside. That is how I feel. Broken, torn apart, afraid that if I lose you, there will be nothing left of me. I will be destroyed. Do you understand that?” His voice was low and dangerous.

  “What do you want from me, Nick? Tell me what I am to you.”

  “Everything,” he said with more force and conviction than she expected.

  Amelia vowed to herself that if he wanted to end them, then she could handle the news. Would handle the news. Maybe. God, let it not be that.

  She was sure she could be brave and stand up to Nick, no matter the decision he made. But now that the words she’d been itching to say to him for the past week were out, she wanted to take them all back. To pretend. To continue to love him because she’d been so happy until her brother had ruined it all. But to continue in the way they were, together but apart . . . it simply wasn’t the way she wanted to live.

  “Tell me what’s wrong, Nick. It’s just you and me here. No judgment, no theories. Just us.”

  “It’ll pass. It always does,” he said, as if that was the only answer she needed. It wasn’t. It was so far from it.

  “Stop lying to yourself. Every night that you pull away, I feel a little piece of my heart breaking. Whatever it is, you can trust me. Confide in me. Please. Before it’s too late.”

  His hands braced either of her arms. “That I want you as my own will never change. Is that what you need to hear? That I won’t let you go? That you are mine, whether or not you want to be?”

  She shook her head and closed her eyes for just a moment—long enough that she could count to five so she didn’t lash out at his nonanswer.

  Opening her eyes again, she looked straight at him. “You’re saying all this because you want to bury a past you think is so much worse than mine. It devastated me to have to tell you what my brother did, Nick. It made me feel half the woman I normally feel when I’m with you. I needed to be honest, and for the sake of our relationship, I let you in. I let you see me at my lowest. I let you see what broke me as a person. Why won’t you do the same?”

  Nick’s forehead pressed against hers. His hands were warm where they covered her arms, looser now than the grip with which he’d originally held her.

  “I can’t and won’t paint a pretty picture of my life growing up, Amelia. So much of it was filled with a darkness so black that it sometimes engulfed and decided my actions. I’m not diminishing what you felt in your situation, but there are some things better left unsaid. Better left in the dark, where they bel
ong.”

  Tears filled her eyes. She couldn’t help her reaction. This wasn’t anything more than he’d told her before. None of what he said helped her understand what haunted him. “I can’t begin to understand why this makes you the way it does if you won’t explain it to me.” Her frustrations were mounting, her anger brimming. She wanted to scream. Yell. Anything to make him understand that she could help him through his difficulties.

  “I can’t,” was his answer.

  “You won’t.”

  “Trust me for now. Just let me get past this.”

  “Do you understand the position this puts me in? All I know is that you are pulling away from me. I can’t even grasp at a reason. I just . . . ” She dragged herself out of his embrace, not wanting his touch to soothe her. Distract her. “Perhaps we need time away from each other. Maybe I should go to the agency and find another job placement. Because the truth is . . . I can’t live the way we are living. I can’t sin, night after night, when you’re heart isn’t in it as much as mine.”

  Every word tore a new wound in her heart. But this was nothing more than the truth. Time apart might make him realize what he’d given up. Looking at the resolve set in his steely gaze and his unwillingness to talk about the invisible truths standing between them, she didn’t think leaving would help them either. But she was out of options. She had no other way to approach this if he wanted to cut her off from his life.

  Worse . . . he said nothing.

  Not a damn thing.

  His expression was unmoving.

  Unable to look at him a moment longer, for she feared she’d completely break down, she turned and ran for the door.

  Why hadn’t she just stayed in bed? Instead, she’d set herself on an unknown path. One without Nick. Why? She hated this feeling that was ripping her apart from the inside out. It hurt so much and so deeply that she feared the wounds could never be healed.

  Biting her bottom lip on a half-escaped sob, she violently wiped her tears away with the back of her hand. Nick caught her as she fumbled with the lock on the study door, spinning her around and wrapping his arms tightly around her, crushing her against his solid body.

  She wanted to break down. To just let the tears overtake her. But she held strong.

  “I have already told you I can’t let you go. Stay, Amelia.” His voice was so calm, just above a whisper. “I couldn’t bear it if you left me. I can’t let you leave. I won’t.”

  Hearing him beg tugged at her heart painfully. Amelia’s fists clenched where they were trapped between their bodies. There was only one thing she could do.

  She pushed him away, hating that she was seconds away from breaking down. Hating that she knew she had to hold it together when every second in his arms chipped away at her control. “You are breaking my will every day. Making me lose myself in you. Don’t ask this of me. Please, Nick. Let me go.”

  If she stayed, they would only end up back where they were. And she needed more than his physical comfort. He held her tighter against his chest, crushing her between him and the door as if he would never let her go.

  “I told you I couldn’t let you go. Don’t try to leave. I warned you that you were mine the night I took your virginity.”

  Tilting her head back, she stared at him, eyes awash with tears she was helpless to stop from flowing over her cheeks. “Why are you doing this to me?”

  The gray of his eyes was stormy, as though waiting to unleash a fury she’d never seen. “Because I can’t let you go. Because I love you.” His tone brooked no argument, so she said nothing to contradict him, just stared at him for another moment before pushing at his immovable body again. Nick’s hand gently cradled her throat, his thumb forcing her head to lean against the door. “I’ve already told you that I wouldn’t let you walk away. You belong to me.”

  Her lips parted on a half-exasperated groan at his declaration of ownership over her. “How could I belong to you when you close yourself off to me? I will not be controlled by you, no matter what I feel—”

  Before she could get out the rest of her sentence, Nick’s mouth took hers in an all-consuming kiss, his tongue robbing her of breath as it pushed past the barrier of her lips and tangled with her tongue in wordless need.

  Hunger rose in her, but whether it was for physical desire or a need to draw as much of him into her as possible was hard to say. And she hated herself a little for not pushing him away again and again until she won this argument. Not now that she had a small piece of him all to herself. Even if it wouldn’t be enough in the end.

  Without a doubt in her mind, she’d never crave anything as badly as she craved Nick—his essence, his strength, him.

  Her hands fisted around his shirtsleeves, holding him close. She didn’t want to let go . . . of him or the moment.

  His touch was like a branding iron as he tugged her dress from her shoulders, pulling down the front of the dress. The pull rent the delicate satin material as he pushed down her corset to free one breast. His hand squeezed her, the tips of his short nails digging into her flesh.

  Their mouths didn’t part once, almost as if Nick wanted to distract her from her original purpose. Keep her thinking of their kiss. The way their tongues slid knowingly against the other. The way he tasted like coffee and danger. Forbidden. Like the apple from the tree, he was a temptation she could not refuse.

  His distraction was working.

  And his hands were everywhere.

  He pushed and pulled at the material of her underclothes, desperate to expose as much of her as he could. He wasn’t gentle, and she hated that she loved that so much. That she wanted him to tear every inch of cloth from her body and expose her flesh.

  She remained trapped between the solid warmth of Nick’s body and the cold hard door at her back as he lifted her. She wrapped her legs around his hips, needing to be closer any way she could. It didn’t escape her just how well they fit together. Nick’s straining cock wedged powerfully between the folds of her sex, and he stopped kissing her to shove his hand between them, opening his trousers and shucking them impatiently down his hips. Their bodies were so tightly smashed together that his cock landed against her belly first. She moaned; she couldn’t help it, and he followed suit when he seated himself deep inside her. Amelia curled her arms around his shoulders and neck to keep from sliding down the door.

  This was a bad idea, but she was helpless to stop what was happening. She didn’t think she could stop where this was going. She didn’t want to. Not really. If this was the end of them, then she would take this memory with her. His complete need to own her body.

  He tore his mouth from hers, his body grinding between her legs, building her need, her desire.

  “Don’t ever run from me.” His voice was low, dangerous. And it was full of lust and a demand for complete control that she wanted to obey but knew she wouldn’t.

  Instead of responding, she pulled herself up higher on his hips, until her mouth was plastered against his again.

  He swallowed that sound and ate at her mouth and sucked at her tongue, as if that alone would leave his mark on her. He hitched her hard against the door and fucked her like a man starved for feeling. The quick motions had her shoulders crashing against the wood behind her, causing her to hold on tighter as Nick found an angle that allowed him to drive ever harder and deeper.

  He pulled away from their heated kiss and flattened his hands on the door next to her shoulders. Her head leaned back, the position arching her breasts up so Nick could bite and lick at the flesh he’d already exposed. Her hands tangled in his hair, pulling at it, needing to keep him close, needing him tighter inside her.

  His cock was unrelenting as it beat into her like a sword, aiming true as it plunged deep. Like it was the only place it wanted to be. Her back was surely bruised; her body ached with a need so profound she could barely skim the surface of understanding just how she could allow this to happen when moments ago they’d been fighting.

  Their bodies thrashe
d, pushed, and pulled. They both needed this.

  Nick let her nipple go with a shout, his hands slapped tight around the globes of her buttocks to better grip her so he could pound inside her. She bit her lip and moaned. She’d never felt anything so intoxicating and overwhelming all at once.

  “Fuck!” he shouted. “Fuck.”

  And then he took her harder—hard enough that her head smacked against the back of the door every time his body slapped into hers. He fucked her like a man possessed, bent on one thing: complete abandonment of their emotions.

  She made breathless sounds of need as his seed shot inside her. His motions were strong and forceful as he emptied himself. She felt every heavy squirt of his throbbing member and felt her need for completion only grow.

  Sated, he rested his forehead against her chest, his hot breath chilling her damp skin and teasing her firm, exposed nipple. She was still primed and ready. And it left her feeling empty.

  He pulled out of her without saying a word.

  Without looking at her.

  Her body felt bruised and sore as her feet touched the floor one at a time. She felt his seed slide down the inside of her thighs and clenched her legs together as she righted her dress, tucking herself back into it and hiding her nakedness.

  Nick tucked his penis away, still avoiding her gaze.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, as though that could explain what had just happened between them.

  She hated herself in that moment. Hated that she’d allowed that to happen when it changed nothing between them.

  “You have nothing to be sorry about.” Only she could claim that.

  Nick focused on her, his stormy expression freezing her to the spot, making her second-guess herself. His expression seemed lost, as though he couldn’t figure out the next step to take.

  Reaching behind her, she clicked over the lock. The sound was audible and undeniable in what it meant.

  Was there really anything that could be said between them?

  She needed time away from him—to reflect on what had happened and to think about what she’d threatened. She needed to make a decision on whether or not they could work out their differences and move past this hurdle, because she could not continue to be stagnant or carry on how they were. She realized she needed a commitment. But that commitment could only come with his complete honesty.