I grab his face with my hands and smash my lips to his. “God, baby. I’ve been waiting for this,” he whispers against my lips, “dreaming of the night that I finally get to own every part of you.”
Goosebumps rise on my skin when his hand glides up my spine until he reaches the base of my neck, where he grabs a fistful of my hair hard enough to have control of me, but not enough to hurt.
I whimper in delight when he bites my neck, then licks it. “You going to let me, baby? You going to let me own this pussy?” He reaches in his pajama pants, pulls out his hard penis, and rubs the head between my pussy lips.
It feels too good to answer, so I settle for nodding my head.
“Answer me, Caroline,” he demands.
“Yes, Phoenix, please,” I cry out.
My guess was he would lay me down on the couch or carry me to the bedroom, but he surprises and horrifies me when he grabs my waist to lift me up then slowly lowers me down on his cock.
The feeling of finally having him inside me, filling me so completely, is sensational, but I’ve never been on top before, I’ve never been in control, and I’m petrified that I won’t have a clue what to do.
I don’t have to worry long. It’s almost as if Phoenix can sense that I’m internally freaking out about this. His hands don’t leave my waist. He leaves them there and helps guide me up and down on his erection. First at a slow pace, so painfully slow, but from the groan he emits into the air, he still enjoys it.
It’s no time at all before I’m comfortable enough to quicken the pace. “Shit, baby, that feels so good,” he growls. I arch and throw my head back when he sucks one of my nipples into his mouth.
It’s the mix of what he does and says to me, and the fact that finally, after all this time of waiting, praying, and hoping for this moment, this night is happening. It’s everything I’ve hoped for that has me so close to the edge of ecstasy.
He releases my nipple with a pop before saying, “You have never looked so beautiful as you do right now, Caroline. On top of me, riding, your skin bright with your last release and seconds away from giving me another.”
“Oh, Phoenix…I-I’m so close,” I whimper.
“I can feel it, baby. You’re so tight. Let go, sweetheart. Let go and give it to me!” His command is my undoing. I let go, calling out his name the entire time.
I’m vaguely aware of him lifting me as he stands and walks us toward his bedroom, keeping us connected the entire way. No words are exchanged. He just sucks and kisses my neck until we reach the bedroom doorway.
He doesn’t stop. He heads straight for the bed and lays me down in the center of it. Then he lies down on top of me. “The moment I met you, I knew this would be us one day. I tried to deny it at first, but it was inevitable. This was meant to be us.” He groans as he thrusts in and out of me.
I use my feet to push his pants down the rest of the way and off his feet before wrapping my legs around his waist and scratching down his back. If the way he begins pounding inside of me is any indication, this turns him on.
“Baby, give me one more. I’m so close. I want to let go together,” he moans in my mouth. I can feel the tightening in the bottom of my stomach, and the feeling is so strong it’s almost scary.
I squeeze my eyes closed as the strongest sensations rock through me. I lose all control of my reaction. “Oh my God!” I call out.
“Hell yes! I’m coming, sweetheart, I’m coming,” he shouts as he shoots hot spurts of semen inside me.
Once our breathing has evened, he rolls me to my side and pulls me into him. “Damn, baby. I knew it was going to be amazing, but that was just too much for words,” he says in my ear.
I’m so tired that I find it hard to keep my eyes open, but I still make a move to go wash up in the bathroom. “Where are you going?” he asks, tightening his hold on me.
“To clean up?”
“No. You’re right where you belong. We’ll both clean up tomorrow morning…together.”
“Okay,” I say instantly through a yawn.
“Go to sleep, love.” He chuckles.
I’m already halfway there, which is why I so foolishly speak my thoughts.
“Night, Phoenix. I love you.”
Chapter Eighteen
Breaking Up Is Hard To Do
One week.
One. Bloody. Week. One week since I spent the most incredible night with Phoenix and I haven’t heard a word from him since. I knew when I woke up the next morning and the only thing I found was a note from him saying he had rehearsal and he would try to see me later that something wasn’t right. I ignored it and told myself I was just being sensitive.
The ball in my stomach grew when I waited around that suite all day for him to come home, but eleven at night came and he never showed. I fought the tears back when I called the cab and went home.
I repeated this for the next three days as I waited for his calls that never came. I came up with excuse after excuse as to why that was. He was busy. Maybe he lost his phone. Maybe a family emergency. Maybe he was eaten by a shark. The justifications were endless.
It was day four when I got the nerve to call him. No answer. It just rang and rang. I also received no call back. This pattern went on for day five and six as well.
Day seven, I lost all patience. I went to his suite. I basically got the same response. I knocked and no one answered, so I used my key. Everything was the exact way I left it last Sunday. I knew instantly he hadn’t even been home.
I left that hotel with the last of my hopes dashed. I could feel my heart shattering, but I just couldn’t accept Phoenix would do that to me, not after knowing what it did to me when Chris did the same thing.
It’s now day eight and, after pouring my troubles out to Violet over the phone for almost an hour last night, she decided what I needed was to get out of the house and have a girl’s night at the movies. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that was the last thing I wanted.
So I fight the urge to shoot her a text with some lame excuse as to why I can’t come and crawl out of bed. I do the bare minimum of makeup and decide yogas and hoodie is as good as it is going to get tonight for clothing.
After feeding Bubbles, I pull out my cell phone and ring Violet.
“Pub. This is Violet.” I can barely hear her over the music in the background. Last I knew, there isn’t anything big going on at the pub tonight, so I’m surprised by all the voices I hear.
“Hey, Violet, it’s Caroline. Am I still meeting you at the pub in an hour?”
“Oh, Caroline! Uhh…hold on one sec.” I hear ruffling before a door opens and then closes and all the noise dims. “Hey, I’m going to be a little later so I thought I would just swing by and pick you up? That way you don’t have to wait around for me.” She rushes all that out in one breath, which makes me suspicious.
“I don’t mind waiting.”
“No, it’s cool, babe. I know how much you hate crowds,” she stutters.
“What aren’t you telling me, Violet?”
“What do you mean? I was just saying I know how you hate crowds and we have a big one tonight.” Since when does Violet try to detour me from being around crowds? She’s the biggest supporter of me going out and having fun. The excuse she gives me doesn’t make sense.
I wrack my brain, trying to figure out what she could be hiding from me. My heart sinks to the bottom of my stomach when I realize what it is. Phoenix. He’s the only one who Violet would try to protect me from.
“He’s there, isn’t he, Violet?”
There’s a pause before she finally sighs and says, “Yeah, honey. He is.”
I squeeze my eyes against the pain. All this time I’ve tried to come up with any kind of reason why he all of a sudden disappeared out of my life. I refuse to believe he would do this to me, that he could love me the way he loved me that night, say the things he said to me, and then leave, treat me like I was just any other kind of random groupie.
What could I have d
one? I thought that night was perfect. Screw that. I spent a month after Chris blaming myself for this and that. I won’t do it again. I did nothing but give all of me to Phoenix.
I went through obstacle after obstacle, ignoring all the hurtful words I received from many of the people in his world all because I never believed any of it was true. Phoenix couldn’t hurt me like this. The excuses are over.
“I’m on my way, Violet,” I say with steely determination.
“Caroline, I don’t think—“
“I’m coming,” I snap and hit end on my phone.
The cab ride there is a blur. My mind stirs the entire way. I’m seeing red by the time we pull up to the pub and I slam the cab door. The pub is so stuffed with people they can’t even close the front door.
I elbow my way through the crowd. Everyone is drunk and loud and it’s only adding to my anger. When I finally fight my way in, I have to squint my eyes to see. It’s dark and there’s a thick cloud of cigarette smoke in the air.
I hear my name being called from the bar, but I know it’s Violet, so I ignore and continue to fight my way forward. “Caroline!” Shaun says right before he steps into my view. “What are you doing here?” His eyes bounce around the bar, almost like he’s looking for Phoenix to give him some kind of warning. Well, he gets no warning, just like I didn’t when he decided to demolish my world.
“Where is he, Shaun?”
“Where’s who?”
“You know who and I’m sure you know why I’m here. Where. Is. He?” I grit out. I’m sure, at this moment, if I was in a cartoon, flames would be coming out of my mouth and steam out of my nose and ears.
I know I have no real reason to be mad at Shaun, but, right now, I can’t help but be mad at anyone trying to prevent me from giving that arsehole a piece of my mind. I’m not a violent woman, never have been, but at this moment I have enough anger built up inside me I feel like I could tear someone’s head off.
I’d like to think Shaun can sense this, which is why he admits defeat and steps out of my view. What is left of my heart crumbles. All the fight I have left in me drains out when I see the sight in front of me—Phoenix leaning up against the wall with a bottle of Jack in his hands and a big breasted bimbo clinging to his front. I feel the burn of tears at the back of my eyes and pray for the ground to swallow me up. I was a bloody idiot for coming here!
All plans of putting him in his place cease to exist. I’m about to walk back out when Phoenix chooses this moment to turn his head and look in my direction. All the noise around us is drowned out by the thumping in my chest. I wait with baited breath, just wondering and trying to guess what he’s going to do.
I see his eyes widen. He never expected me to show up here and one look at my attire makes it clear I didn’t come here for the party. I came here to confront him, a very un-Caroline-like thing to do.
I also see, even in this smoky pub, when he decides what to do. He wraps his arm around the waist of the blonde and pulls her closer to him, if that’s even possible, and his lips go to her ear, where he whispers something. My hackles rise when she throws her head back and laughs. Phoenix takes another swig of beer and his dark eyes come back to me.
“I’m so sorry, Caroline. He’s a fucking idiot.” I turn around and see Shaun’s sympathetic face.
“That’s where you’re wrong. I’m the fucking idiot.”
“Do you want me to give you a ride?” he asks, but I shake my head and start backing away. The only thing I want is to get out of this bloody pub. I stop when I bump into something. Just when I think this night couldn’t possibly get any worse, I turn around and come face to face with Marcy. Of course she is here to witness this, and the sadistic smile she gives me lets me know she has, in fact, witnessed everything.
“Said you were nothing special.” She laughs. I don’t respond. I mean, really, what can I say? She’s right. I wasn’t anything special to him. I was just another lay. I push past her and head for the exit.
I ignore Violet’s sad look and burst out of the pub. My chest feels so tight that I take a huge gulp of cold air. The tears I am struggling against break free. I know I said I would never regret being with him no matter the pain I could go through in the future, but I never knew pain could feel like this.
I feel like my life is crashing around me. My whole world is flipped on its axis. I don’t know how it’s even possible, but my body is in so much pain, yet numb at the same time.
I have no desire to wait around all night for a cab, and a long walk home sounds like it’s the best thing for me right now. I’m not quick enough, however.
“Caroline!” My breath seizes when I hear the voice I craved to hear all week, but was just a moment ago praying I’d never have to hear.
I don’t stop my walk to hear what he has to say. I want to put as much space between him and me as possible. “Will you just wait a fucking second?” he pleads at my back. I still don’t respond. I remain silent and listen to his footsteps echoing behind me.
“You know what? Screw it. You don’t want to talk? Fine.” I remain silent. With each word he says, my anger grows again. “I tried to tell you, Caroline. I’m no good for you. This…this is who I am. It’s who I’m always going to be.”
I snap. I completely lose all sense of reality. I let out a scream full of every emotion that’s choking me, whip around, and push Phoenix away. It shocks us both, but I hold on to my anger. “Liar!” I shout in his face through hot tears. “You’re a liar! This isn’t who you are. This is who you want them to think you are!” I shout and point back to the pub and the small crowd gathered to watch my pathetic display.
I lower my voice and it’s devoid of any kind of emotion. I officially give up. “You’re nothing but a coward because only a coward would do what you did to me. I never want to see you again.”
Without another word, I spin on my heels and rush away. By the time I complete the hour walk home, the tears haven’t stopped. They don’t stop falling through my shower, or by the time I get dressed, or climb into the bed.
In fact, they don’t stop falling until the sun rises. I spend the entire night replaying the pub scene and trying to convince myself a life without Phoenix Castle won’t be so bad.
Chapter Nineteen
Not Ready To Forgive
I groan when I walk into my library and see a beautiful arrangement of flowers sitting on my desk. That’s not exactly the normal reaction a girl gives when she walks into work and the first thing she sees is flowers. Well, that’s the reaction a girl gives when it’s the third bouquet of flowers she’s received from a guy she decided she never wants to see or talk to again. Yes, three bouquets of flowers since our big blowup at the pub four days ago.
The Sunday after the pub, I didn’t get flowers. I got Phoenix showing up at my door banging on it and yelling through it that he wasn’t leaving until I talked to him. That wasn’t going to happen. I wasn’t going to let it happen even though I have to admit a huge part of me wanted to swing that door open and hear what he had to say. I still didn’t open the door.
He wasn’t lying, though. He wasn’t going to leave until I opened the door, so I did what any rational woman would do. I called a cab, directed them to pick me up at the street behind my house, climbed out my bedroom window and hightailed it to the cab, where I jumped in and told the cab driver to hit the gas. I was a woman on the run.
I considered having the cabbie take me to the library or maybe even the pub, but I know those two places would be the first place Phoenix would look, so those locations were out.
I spent the rest of the day in the next city, traveling from bookstore to bookstore, killing time until I felt it was safe enough to return home. I returned at one in the morning. By that time, I was physically and mentally drained, and wanted to cry when I saw he was gone and I could go inside and crash on my bed.
Do you think that’s what I did? No. I went inside, crawled into bed, and cried for a good couple of hours. Then I moved into th
e pissed-off-at-myself phase for crying over the ass hat in the first place. Afterward, I promptly slid into the pissed-off-at-the-ass-hat-for-doing-this-to-me-in-the-first-place phase.
No sleep was had that night, and no sleep has been had since that night. Every night it’s the same thing on repeat, and every morning I get out of bed feeling the same way—pissed off. This morning was no different.
When I see the flowers on my desk, I storm across my library to do what I’ve done with the other two bouquets and throw it in the trash, but as I go to grab the vase, I stop.
Sitting on the desk next to the flowers is a small decorative castle for the inside of Bubbles’s bowl. I try to keep my heart steely toward it, but despite myself, my heart begins to soften. I pick the stupid cute castle up and toss it in my purse. I shove my purse under my desk, pick up the flowers, and toss the flowers in the trash.
What? I said a little bit of my heart softened, not the whole damn thing!
***
I jump in my computer chair when the library door bursts open with a loud bang, disrupting my otherwise silent library. I can feel my eyes bulge when I see Violet standing in the doorway, fuming.
“Uh…hi,” I whisper.
“Hi?” The eerily calm way she repeats that informs me “Hi” may have been the wrong thing to say. “I’ve been calling you nonstop for the past four days. I’ve been worried sick. I have to come down here on my one day off to check on my best friend and make sure she’s not dead and the only thing she has to say for herself is ‘Hi’?”
She storms over to stand in front of me and gives me an expectant look. “Well?” she snaps.
“I’ve been busy?” I phrase it as a question because I’m quite certain that answer won’t be satisfactory either. I know I’m right in assuming that when she places her palms on my desk and leans across it until her face is only inches from mine.
“Look at my face,” she demands.
“What?” I ask, confused.
Love, Unwanted (Discovering Love #3) Page 13