by Fae Mallory
He nodded in agreement. “Yes, I am, and it looks like you could use one. What’s Mitchell done this time?”
Tears flooded her eyes. “I did it. It’s my fault.”
“Then you can fix it,” Jon reminded her.
“He hates me!” Izzy sobbed, the tears she’d been repressing breaking free at last. “I ruined everything, and now we can’t even work together.”
Jon wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, letting her cry against his chest, his big hands stroking her bare back. “I’m sure that’s not true. I’m sure he wants to make up, too. Mitchell wouldn’t last a week without you. Everybody knows that.”
His assurances only made her cry harder because those words had once been true. Only weeks ago, she and Robert had been an inseparable team, but because of her own mistakes in wanting more, she’d ruined the best friendship she’d ever had. “He won’t even look at me.”
“Then he’s an idiot because you look smoking hot in this dress,” Jon told her staunchly.
Sputtering with laughter, Izzy looked up to see Jon grinning down at her. “Now, isn’t that better than crying?” he asked.
“Much,” she sighed as he wiped the tear stains off her cheeks with his thumb. “I should have said yes when you asked me out.”
“You had your reasons,” he allowed with a wry smile.
Feeling like she was in a fog, Izzy used her grip on Jon’s shoulders to pull him down. Although he didn’t fight, he made no effort to kiss her until Izzy captured his lips with hers, surprised by how soft they were. In her arms, Jon was warm and solid, his arms holding her gently against him as she sucked at his lower lip, but not kissing her back. Realizing what she was doing, Izzy released him with a jerk. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” he soothed, rubbing her back.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” she hastened to explain. “I was—”
“Thinking about Mitchell,” he finished for her.
Izzy hung her head. “Yes.”
Gentle fingers cradled her jaw, forcing her to look up. “Don’t worry about it. The first time I saw you two together, I knew I didn’t have a chance. You’ll straighten this out.”
Trying to smile, Izzy sighed. “I hope you’re right.”
“I always am,” he informed her, leaning down to press his lips against hers in a chaste kiss.
There was a jolt, and Izzy found herself embracing empty air as Jon was jerked away from her. “What—?” she gasped, her eyes fluttering open to see Robert pressing Jon against the rough brick wall, the handle of his cane against the other man’s jaw.
“What are you doing?” she demanded, her voice high and breathless.
Robert ignored her, his lips drawing back in a snarl as he applied pressure to the cane, and Izzy grabbed his arm, forcing it down. “Stop it.”
Jerking his head at Jon, Robert snapped, “Leave us.”
Jon looked to Izzy for guidance, his posture tense and alert. When she nodded, he took a step back off the fire escape. “I won’t go far,” he promised before disappearing back inside the gallery.
“What was all that about?” Izzy asked, sounding shrill to her own ears as Robert fumbled in his pocket, pulling out a pack of cigarettes. He withdrew one and placed it between his tight lips, muttering a curse as he tried and failed to get his lighter to work.
Reaching out, Izzy caught the cigarette between her fingers and yanked it out of his mouth, flicking it into the street below. “You don’t smoke.”
“This seems like an excellent time to start again,” he snapped, but he made no move to get another. Bracing his hands on the railing, he glared at the buildings opposite them, his tense form pulling the oxygen out of the atmosphere, making it all but impossible for Izzy to draw breath.
“I thought the show was a success,” she said for lack of anything better to say, recognizing the comment’s inanity before it was fully out of her mouth.
Robert shuddered. “Enough about the show.”
Izzy ducked her head, searching for any other safe topic of conversation and finding nothing. The space around them seemed littered with landmines, and she could see no way to safely navigate them through. If they couldn’t get past this, their working relationship was over.
Reaching out, she rested her hand on his forearm, feeling the tension in his muscles. “I really am sorry about the other night.”
Robert jerked away from her hand, his eyes glittering with fury. “Don’t you dare,” he warned.
“We have to talk about this,” she protested. Ignoring it was only making things worse.
“I don’t want to hear it,” he snapped.
If he wouldn’t even listen to her apology, there was no hope for them. This strained relationship with Robert was more than Izzy could bear. She couldn’t live with his hatred. “Then that’s it, then,” she murmured, her shoulders slumping in defeat.
It was the last thing in the world she wanted to do, but he’d left her no choice. “I’ll turn in my resignation tomorrow.”
Chapter 7
Robert flinched like she’d struck him. “What?”
“We can’t go on like this,” she told him, the words burning Izzy’s throat. For four years, her world had revolved around Robert and leaving him behind felt like throwing herself off a cliff, but if she stayed, it would destroy both of them.
“So, that’s it?” he demanded, his voice hoarse. “You’re just going to walk away and leave me with nothing? Is it really that easy for you?”
“No!” Izzy sobbed, wrapping her arms around her middle in a futile attempt to shield herself from the words that felt like lashes against her skin. “I don’t want to leave, but if you won’t accept—”
“I don’t accept it!” he thundered. “You want me to keep quiet and take what you’ll give me and watch you with other men, and I will never accept that. My God, Izzy, how can you be so cold?”
Nothing he was saying made the slightest bit of sense to Izzy, who’d wanted nothing more than to know why he wouldn’t accept her apology. “What are you talking about?”
“I gave you everything,” he ground out, his voice rich with bitterness. “I put myself in your hands, made myself vulnerable, and it meant nothing to you.”
The unfair assertion broke through Izzy’s fog of misery. “How can you say that?”
“It was business as usual for you, just another task to cross off your to do list. ‘Fix the lights.’ ‘Buy lunch.’ ‘Choke Robert.’ I kept hoping that—but you didn’t even care.” With a violent movement, he lashed out, kicking her half-empty beer bottle down onto the sidewalk where it smashed against the pavement. Izzy felt like she was breaking along with it.
“I never told anyone about that part of me. When you saw it, I thought it was a sign. We already fit together so perfectly, and then we had this, too.” He folded his arms across his chest, and Izzy could see him shaking.
“I’d never been so happy,” he said, looking haggard in the dim light. “And all you wanted was to get back to work and forget it happened.”
“That’s not true!” Izzy denied, stung by his assertion. It was Robert who’d shut her out, not the other way around.
“No?” His mouth quirked in a humorless smile. “Every single time, the first words out of your mouth were about the show. You didn’t even want to talk about what happened. And like a fool I kept going back for more, hoping that this time things would be different. But they never were.”
Izzy’s breath left her in a whoosh, his words slamming into her like a punch to the sternum. She’d been so intent on proving that she wouldn’t let their personal lives distract her from their work that she’d never looked at the situation from his point of view. She’d been thoughtless and cruel, and it was no wonder he’d put up walls to shut her out. The only wonder was that he’d trusted her enough to submit to her again and again, and she’d repaid his trust by making him believe he meant nothing to her.
“I’ve been in love with you
for four years,” she said, feeling like the words were being torn out of her soul. For years she’d kept her secret, and bringing it to light went against all of her instincts, but she had to tell him. Robert’s painful honesty deserved nothing less.
“I don’t want your pity!” he snarled, raking his hand through his hair until it stood out like a lion’s mane. “And I don’t accept your resignation. You have to leave me with something, Izzy. It’s not fair.”
“It’s not pity,” she slammed back. “What happened between us meant everything to me. I wanted to prove that I could still do my job even though we were involved, and you shut me out.” She’d been in the wrong, but so was he. She wasn’t the only one who’d behaved badly.
Robert leaned back against the brick wall as far from her as he could get, but he dropped his arms from their defensive position, looking at her with eyes shadowed with wariness. “You pushed me away,” she reminded him. “Why?”
A scratching sound reached her ears, and she looked down to see him clawing at the wall with his short nails, his face twisted with indecision. Not giving herself a chance to think about it, Izzy stepped forward and grabbed his wrists, pinning them to his sides. “Why?”
“I was afraid,” he confessed through bloodless lips. “I liked being vulnerable in front of you, being at your mercy. I’m not accustomed to that.”
Izzy pressed the insides of his wrists with her thumbs, feeling his pulse racing. “And you decided you didn’t want that,” she suggested.
“I wanted it too much,” he admitted, his gaze sliding away from her face. “I would have kissed your feet in the middle of rehearsal if you would have allowed it. Instead, you were all business. I was mad for you, and you didn’t even care.”
“I care.” Using her grip on his wrists, she tugged him away from the wall and closer to the railing to get him out of the shadows. “And Kathryn? You were flirting with her tonight.”
A faint smile appeared on his face, some of his color returning. “I was trying to make you jealous. I thought that if you saw me with another woman, you might realize you wanted me for yourself.”
His expression darkened. “Instead you slipped off with Jon.”
“I was wildly jealous,” she confessed, shaking her head at her own foolishness. “Jon brought me out here to calm down.”
“He kissed you!” Robert accused, and beneath her thumb his pulse leapt.
“I kissed him first,” Izzy admitted, holding on tightly when Robert tried to pull out of her grip.
“Jon is a very good friend, but that’s all he is. By the time I met him, I was already irrevocably in love with someone else.” At her words, Robert stopped struggling and just looked at her, his eyes dark with suspicion.
“That would be you,” she reminded him. She’d told him she loved him before, and he hadn’t believed her. Izzy hoped that this time would be different.
“Me,” he repeated. As Izzy watched, his lower lip trembled, and he sunk his teeth into it to halt the tremor, a movement that proved too much for her self-control.
Releasing his wrists, she shoved Robert back against the wall, hearing his startled grunt when his body collided with the brick. Before he could react, she plastered herself to his front, grabbing hold of a handful of his hair to yank his head down none-too-gently. With a growl, she buried her teeth in his bottom lip, punishing him for tormenting her with Kathryn. Robert yowled at the rough kiss, his hands splaying against her back to draw her nearer.
“Hands behind your back,” Izzy broke the kiss long enough to order, and with a whimper of protest, he obeyed. Rewarding his compliance, she laved his lip with her tongue, soothing the hurt she’d inflicted even as she mourned the loss of his touch. It was only fair for her to deny herself the pleasure of his caresses. This was as much her punishment as his. In her effort to prove she could be his everything, she’d nearly destroyed their relationship.
Izzy pressed her breasts against his heaving chest to make up for the loss of the embrace, forcing him to take only shallow breaths as she thrust her tongue between his lips. Robert tasted like scotch and cigarettes. Clearly the one he’d tried to light on the fire escape hadn’t been his only slip, and she would have to punish him for that, too. For now, she was more interested in plundering his mouth and discovering all of the erotic little noises he’d make as she learned his sensitive spots.
The roof of his mouth was particularly delicious, Robert making soft straining noises against her lips as she licked him there. As Izzy ruthlessly exploited her new knowledge, twining her tongue around his to tease him before returning to that spot with firm strokes, she could feel him hardening against her belly. Robert was shaking in her arms, the powerful man completely undone by a simple kiss.
Wrenching back, Izzy waited until he met her eyes, his pupils completely blown. Wanting to be confident that she had his full attention, she reached down and loosely cupped her hand over the bulge in his trousers, relishing his groan of delight as he bucked against her.
“You’re mine. There will be no more shutting me out or stunts to make me jealous. If something is bothering you, you will tell me about it. Am I making myself clear?” she demanded. All of the problems they’d faced over the last two weeks could have been avoided if they had simply talked about this.
Robert nodded, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed hard. “Crystal clear.”
“Good.” Izzy smiled fiercely and gave his cock a squeeze. “You belong to me now. Your body, your mind, all of you is mine.”
“Yours,” he hissed, his face contorted with agonized pleasure.
Izzy grabbed his tie and pulled him down, his lips feverishly hot as they moved against hers. Taking pity on him, she parted her lips, letting him explore her mouth as urgently as she’d learned his. With single-minded fervor he plundered her, his tongue stroking against hers as his hips bucked, pleading wordlessly for mercy.
Her knees went weak from his sensual assault, and Izzy pulled back, unwilling to surrender control so easily. “Enough,” she rasped, Robert moaning a protest when she stepped away.
In the gallery beyond, she could hear music and laughter, the party still in full swing, and Izzy hoped that Jon had made himself scarce once he realized Robert was no threat to her. For all that he didn’t seem to feel the sting of being a jilted lover, it would be gauche to flaunt her new relationship in his face. They needed to go somewhere private.
“I’m taking you home,” she announced as she stooped to pick up his fallen cane. At his anxious look, she relented and gave him a smile. “I want to enjoy you in private.”
Robert’s eyelids fluttered as he let out a breathy moan. “Yes.”
Using her grip on his tie like a leash, Izzy stepped back inside, a wall of heat striking her the moment they were off the fire escape. Perhaps that was all in her head, a reaction to the rush of excitement that filled her when Robert obediently followed her, allowing himself to be led like a puppy. “That’s my good boy,” she purred, giving the tie a tug as he stumbled, his eyes glazing over.
“Home, please,” he pleaded.
“Home,” she agreed. Izzy felt a moment’s hesitation when they reached the end of the short hallway leading to the main space, but there was no other way out save for crawling down the fire escape, a route she didn’t much fancy. It would probably be wise to release her hold on Robert’s tie while they made their way out, but Izzy couldn’t bring herself to do so. Robert was hers, and she wanted everyone to know just how completely he belonged to her. Even though she now knew there was no reason to be jealous of Kathryn, the green-eyed monster refused to be banished so easily.
Giving his tie another tug, she led Robert into the thick of the party. Several people tried to press drinks on them, offers that she politely shrugged off. Most of the actors were tipsy enough not to find anything amiss in their stage manager leading their director around by his tie, and for those sober enough to notice—well, actors were a kinky lot. They would hardly be surprised.<
br />
As she neared the door, Izzy spotted Jon, the tattooed man deep in conversation with Leslie, and he raised his bottle of beer in a good-natured salute as they passed him that made even Robert chuckle.
Izzy didn’t break stride until they were out on the street, not wanting to give anyone a chance to strike up a conversation. This new understanding was too precious for her to want to share this time with anyone else, no matter how well-meaning. Robert was hers, and she wanted him all to herself.
“Get us a cab,” she instructed, her fingers twitching with regret as she released Robert’s tie.
He obeyed her, opening the rear door for her with a flourish before following her inside, blinking when she gave the cabby her own address. “I thought we were going home.”
“The handcuffs are at my place,” Izzy explained, the cabby swerving slightly as he overheard her remark. It was Robert’s reaction that interested her more. His eyes drifted closed at the mention of handcuffs, his head arching back to bare his throat for her. He was hers to do with as she wished, and every possibility that raced through her mind was more exciting than the last.
A quick glance at his lap told her that he was as affected by this as she was, and Izzy’s mouth went dry. She could order him to take himself out for her perusal right here in the back of the cab. He was keyed up enough to obey, casting dignity and propriety aside in an effort to please her, and seeing the body she’d been dreaming about for years would please her very much indeed.
It would be less pleasing if they got themselves arrested for indecent exposure, she admitted with a wry twist of her lips. She’d waited four years. She could wait another ten minutes until they got to her apartment. Perhaps later they could experiment in a less exposed environment like the theater. For now, she was disinclined to push things too hard for fear he’d balk.
“What are you thinking?” he murmured.
Reaching out, Izzy rested her hand on his thigh, feeling his bunched muscles beneath the fine wool of his trousers. “I’m thinking about everything I’m planning to do to you when I get you home.”