by Dani Collins
A spasm of anguished emotions worked across his dark expression. There was grief and the reflexive hostility anyone showed when their deepest pain was exposed, but there were other things too. Frustration. Resolve. Remorse?
“It’s not a connection I can prove,” he said through lips that barely moved.
Her whole body felt plunged into an ice bath. To hear her vague suspicion met with such a condemning remark gave her goose bumps. He believed Victor had played a part in his father’s death. No wonder he held her in such contempt for accepting generosity from a man with no right to the wealth he’d used to dazzle and persuade her. She felt sick for letting the advantages Victor offered outweigh a proper examination of the type of man he was.
Clair barely recalled the walk back, lost in absorbing the gravity of the injury Victor had dealt to Aleksy’s family. No wonder Aleksy was such a hard, bitter man. The greater wonder was that he hadn’t swept her onto the street the way he’d threatened to.
“Are you all right?” he asked when they entered the suite.
She looked up from removing her shoes, startled to see they were in the apartment. “F-Fine.” Her lips were numb. “I think I need a warm bath.” She could barely face him. “Walking might have been a bad idea after all.”
His scarred cheek ticked in silent agreement.
Clair swallowed. “You can go into your office if you want. I won’t go out again. I promise.”
* * *
“You’re still here.”
Clair’s bemused voice startled him, in a good way. She looked better. Her face was clean of makeup, her cheeks glowing from the heat of her bath. She wore yoga pants and a thickly woven pullover that hugged her bottom and clung to her thighs. Gorgeous.
He swallowed.
She’d been so wan after their morning out that he’d been worried about her, which unnerved him; he didn’t normally feel more than superficial concern for anyone. She was turning him inside out.
“What do you have there?” he asked, trying to distract himself, rising with the intention of taking her load of laptop and files.
“I was going to work on the foundation in here, but if you’d rather I used the dining room—”
“No, here is fine.” He looked at the cover of the laptop balanced on the stack of file folders as he set everything on the desk. The label jumped out at him with the company logo and its scrolled initials: V.V.E.
“It…was something he gave me to work on, then said I should keep it.” She bit her lip, her upward glance culpable.
Aleksy tensed. The man was dead, but he just wouldn’t die.
“I’ll get rid of it,” Clair said flatly. “I just want the foundation files off it. Then I’ll throw it in the incinerator. Honestly, I feel so sick with myself!” She covered her cheeks with her hands, her blue eyes clouded with repentance. “I didn’t realize he contributed to your father’s death. You must be so disgusted with me for having anything to do with him. I am.”
Mental walls were clashing into place, trying to lock out what she was saying, but the words were spoken. He couldn’t ignore them. All he’d said earlier crept around him like coils of barbed wire, warning him any move would only tangle him up more painfully. He didn’t know why he’d let himself delve back into his mother’s grief or Victor’s role in his father’s death. He just wished he could forget them.
He suddenly stopped cold. What was he thinking? For twenty years those horrors had been uppermost in his life, driving him toward making Victor pay for them. To put any of it out of his mind was a betrayal of his parents’ memory—but somehow the passionate hatred that had kept him going was now evaporating.
While Clair was seeping in.
His heart gave a hard, uncomfortable lurch—she was starting to mean too much to him.
She inhaled deeply, rousing him from his thoughts. He realized she was interpreting his expression and grim silence as confirmation that he did hold her in contempt. He scowled. “We met because of him. That’s it,” he tried.
“How can you say that when it’s obvious you’re angry and hate me for having anything to do with him?”
He was angry. Something was rising in him that he didn’t even understand. Clair wasn’t stupid, weak or avaricious. Why, then, had she let herself become involved with such a man?
“All right, yes,” he ground out with enough fervor to make her start. “I want to know how, Clair. How could you let him near you? How could you not see him for what he was?” Unexpected, bile-green jealousy rose in him. “How could you—”
Not wait for me.
He jerked his head to the side, hands fisting defensively, terrified by what he’d almost said. His heart pounded and sweat broke on his brow and upper lip. He reminded himself that for all his possessive urges, he really had no right to her.
“In part, I was just very naive,” she said with quiet self-reproach.
“I know you’re naive,” he countered, incensed by the reminder. Everything in him was programmed to protect that vulnerability in her, even from—especially from—himself. After all, if he’d finished his story earlier, he’d have revealed that he was ultimately responsible for his father’s death. That his father had stepped into a fight Aleksy had started and that when Aleksy had finished it, he’d walked away with two lives on his conscience. Three if he counted his mother.
He kept looking for qualities in Clair that he disliked so he could feel less disgusted with himself for pressuring her into this arrangement, but she kept reinforcing that he was taking advantage of an innocent. Her next words proved it.
“It was the first time I’d been singled out as special. I was susceptible to that,” Clair admitted in a small voice, eyebrows pulling together with humiliation.
Aleksy seemed to freeze into an even stiller statue. Clair experienced that old feeling of wanting to fade into the wallpaper, hiding her flaws so no one would see why she didn’t deserve to be chosen and taken home. It was painful to stand tall and own her mistake. She clasped the edge of his desk, drawing strength from its solid weight.
“When I was growing up, the home had an arrangement with the school nearby. If we kept our noses clean, we could attend and have the same chance at scholarships and higher education as the rich kids. I gave it a shot, but I wasn’t a genius, just average. And I wasn’t rich. I always wore secondhand uniforms, never had trendy shoes, never got invited to parties. The kids weren’t trying to be mean. I just wasn’t one of them.”
Aleksy’s intense scrutiny nearly evaporated her voice. It was so hard to crack herself open and reveal this tainted, imperfect neediness inside her.
“When I got to London I wasn’t special there either. I worked three jobs to make rent, so I didn’t have time to date or party even if I’d wanted to. Then along came Victor. He treated me like I was the only one who could get things right. He needed me to be places for him and when I walked down the hall, people noticed me because they thought I was important.” The last part tasted bitter. She’d known she wasn’t important, but she’d liked that others had been deluded into thinking it. How pathetic.
Letting her hips rest on the edge of the desk, she gripped it with both hands, shoulders hunching as she spilled the rest. “He gave me things I’d never had, money for clothes. New clothes. He said he’d support the foundation.”
“I’m doing that. Do I make you feel special?” His harsh voice grated over her exposed, sensitive core.
It sounded like a trick question. “I realize I’m just another mistress to you. I don’t expect you to treat me as anything special,” she said.
“You should,” he shot back with startling vehemence. “You should expect every man alive to treat you as the smart, kind, remarkable woman you are. Do not sell yourself short and fall for scum like Victor.” He rubbed his jaw so his final remark came out muffled and a
lmost indiscernible. “Or me.”
She took a moment to remind herself she’d only known him a few days, that he might know himself better than she did, but her urge to contradict him pushed her forward a few steps.
“Don’t sink yourself into his class,” she blurted, her hand going to his arm even though it was a risk of rebuff. “The way you make me feel—”
His arm was iron beneath her touch. She could feel his instant rejection, but his attention fixated on her mouth as though he was willing her to continue.
Clair had thought she’d been cleaved open to her very heart when talking about her secondhand upbringing. What she’d revealed so far was nothing, though, nothing, compared to confiding his effect on her.
Especially when he looked so severe, as if whatever she said would be refuted and thrown back at her. He was beautiful and dangerous, clad in black jeans and a black pullover that clung to hard pecs and biceps, someone who could squash her self-worth under a disparaging heel.
“I—” She had to clear her throat. Despite her terror at opening up, she was reacting to his closeness. Heat trickled into her fingers and toes, gathering in her loins. “The way you make me feel isn’t some adolescent need for approval or status or…whatever I was looking for then. It’s…good. I just feel so good when you touch me.”
Her voice dried up and he was talking over her anyway.
“Any man could make you feel like that.”
She flashed him a galled glare and snatched her hand back. “I’ve never reacted to anyone the way I do to you.”
Hurt started her pivoting away from him, but he snatched her back to face him.
“You haven’t been with anyone else—”
“I haven’t wanted to! That’s the point. You’re special. To me. To my body,” she clarified. “I don’t know why.”
He blew out a frustrated breath. “It’s the same for me. I don’t understand it either.”
“Really?” She shouldn’t have asked. She should be more confident, not beg for confirmation that he liked to be with her, but she desperately needed to hear it.
He seemed to waver over what to say to that. She might as well have been naked, standing there waiting.
“You must know how you affect me.”
She swallowed. His words arrowed sweetly into her heart, even though they only spoke of physical reaction.
“How would I?” she asked with a shrug that tried to hide her defenselessness. “You didn’t want me to stay last night. You didn’t want me to kiss you this morning.”
His cheek ticked in the way she was beginning to know meant his own shell was being penetrated. “Kiss me anywhere,” he said gruffly. “Everywhere. But not here.” He touched his scar lightly.
Her heart lurched while her shield crumbled, leaving her unsteady and weak with longing.
“Do you mean that?”
His stared right at her. “What do you think?”
CHAPTER TEN
SHE BLINKED, TRYING to take in this new information, new freedom, to seek badly yearned for physical contact with another human. With him.
“Like…now?” she asked cautiously, feeling pulled toward him.
The air in her lungs felt sharp as knives. Desire and insecurity ground their rough edges together inside her at how easily he was lifting up her emotions and tossing them around.
He looked at her with the masculine arrogance he wore like a cloak, pure Aleksy, isolated and driven and powerful. She was only Clair, green, overwhelmed and too deeply enthralled by him for her own good. At least when he was the sexual aggressor she knew he desired her. To take up the onus of initiating lovemaking meant doing the unthinkable: asking him to want her.
But she really wanted him to want her. Really, really did.
“Every man enjoys being seduced.” He shifted to lean his hips on the edge of the desk, contemplating her with a type of removed curiosity. “I’m no different.”
Seduced. She’d meant a kiss, but she was reminded of the care he’d taken when she threw a similar challenge at him.
Acute inadequacy sliced through her at the same time, cutting all the sharper because the longing within it was so honest. She wanted their most intimate connection with all the pent-up hunger that never seemed to dissipate, but she wished she’d kept her mouth shut. Her base need for approval was too bone-deep, the risk too great if she failed to arouse him.
She shook her head and said with a papery laugh of bravado, “As if you’d ever give up control to anyone.”
“You don’t think you could make me?”
Her heart skipped, teased into hope by the light suggestion. “Could I?”
“Try,” he dared.
He was all supreme confidence, and that intimidated her, but a flash of eagerness for the challenge surprised her, making her pulse leap and her nerves flutter. She didn’t know what she was doing when they came together, each time so overwhelmed by his experience she lost all conscious thought, but the idea that she might be able to break past his wall of willpower excited her, making heat swirl and tingle into secretive places.
She tried to probe past his burned-gold eyes to the thoughts behind. Need was welling up to tight levels in her. She wanted to make him want her.
And he wasn’t as detached as he wanted to appear. He was watching her every breath, waiting to see what she’d do.
That gave her the courage to take a few steps toward him, but as his heat and scent surrounded her, all her thoughts short-circuited. Her hands lifted instinctively, greedy to touch, but nerves arrested her.
He was so much bigger than her, his chest a wide plane bracketed by arms hanging with tense readiness, his biceps taut and straining against his pullover. She wanted to kiss his bare wrists, but imagined he’d think that inane.
His rib cage expanded as he inhaled, drawing her eyes to the lift of his strong shoulders, the tendons standing out with strain against his neck. He stared down at her from beneath his thick, spiky lashes, eyes flashing with frustration.
That revelation of want held firmly in check gave her the nerve to take the plunge. She moved to stand between his feet and set her hands on his shoulders.
He jolted a little, as if she’d burned him. She felt the leap of energy as an electrical charge, flaring awake all her senses. With the sort of smooth caution someone used when petting a wild animal, she relearned the familiar shape of his shoulders, hands warming as heat radiated off his muscles. She traced the ridge of his collarbone through the warm fabric of his shirt and when she reached his throat, she crept light fingers under his collar, circling until she found the bump at the top of his spine.
The hollow at the back of his neck was familiar territory. She stroked upward against the short spikes of hair on the back of his head. As she went up on tiptoe, she expected to feel his arms lock behind her, dragging her stretched body into his taut one. Then he would drop his head and kiss her. They’d be in the bedroom in seconds.
He didn’t move, only looked at her.
Nobody will ever truly want you, Clair.
Her heart fell and continued to fall, like plunging into an icy crevasse, the descent long enough to comprehend what a mistake she’d made and dread the damage at the bottom. She felt stupid and incapable. A disappointment to herself and him.
Ducking her head, she eased her hold on him and lowered herself to flat feet, body unavoidably brushing his, making her almost cry with denial as she felt the bulge of—
Unnerved, almost fearful, she stared at where his jeans followed the contour of his hardness. Caught in a spell, she slowly reached out and traced the shape with a wary touch, then became aware of the searing affect she had. His breath hissed in and the shape of his erection grew pronounced, unmistakable.
She stared in astonishment. She’d barely touched him! The
thrill that went through her nearly melted her onto the carpet at his feet. She wanted him, all of him, so badly. Her gaze skimmed over the wall of him again, starving eyes consuming a banquet. She didn’t know where to start. Fear of revealing her extreme need paralyzed her. She didn’t want him to see—
But maybe it was the same for him. Maybe it would excite him to know he was wanted, the way she’d just felt a rush of desire from recognizing his arousal.
It took all her nerve, but she lifted her face and let him see whatever was there. A blush of heated excitement, longing in her eyes, admiration for the sheer sexiness of the man he was. Licking her lips, she even told him, “I want to kiss you.”
His nostrils flared as he drew in a sharp breath. Color flooded under his skin and his hands came up as though to grasp her hips. He caught himself and clasped the edge of the desk, knuckles white. With a jerk of his head, he acquiesced.
Clair used her hips to nudge his thighs farther apart so she stood right up against his erection. Her heart thundered. Aleksy lowered his head, but that was as far as he went. She had to press her mouth to his and cling to his shoulders for balance as she lifted herself on her toes. She had to open her lips and try to cajole him to do the same. His erection pressed insistently against her belly, but he didn’t let go of the desk.
To her chagrin arousal grew in her despite being the one trying to arouse him. Touching him in any way made her body writhe with desire while the taste and feel of his smooth lips against hers clouded her mind. She wanted to lose herself in the kiss. She wanted this to be the kind of all-encompassing kiss he always gave her.
He wasn’t cooperating, though. His breathing was erratic, but he didn’t seem as overcome as she was. Growing frustrated, she cupped his head and boldly forced her tongue into his mouth.
He grunted and leaned into her. Surprised by her success, she tried again and was met by a welcoming draw and the stroke of his tongue against hers. Now came the drowning pool of pleasure where she ceased thinking about the mechanics of what they were doing and hummed with gratification at the sheer joyfulness of kissing him. Nipping, soothing, consuming. Arching her body, she stroked herself against him, ready to abandon herself completely.