I change for bed. As I’m getting in, I spot my phone out of the corner of my eye. I haven’t turned it on yet.
“Time to face the music,” I mutter, and hit the power.
Just as I expected, there are dozens of missed calls from James. A notification says he’s left voicemail. But I hate listening to messages, so I dial the number and erase them all before I can even hear one.
I debate—but not too seriously—calling him back. There are definitely things we need to discuss. But, I’m not ready yet.
He takes the decision out of my hands when he calls me.
I jump, startled that he would try again so late. The ringtone fills the room.
Should I pick up? Not doing so is just delaying the inevitable. We need to talk. And it’s not like I can just hide from him. I’ll be seeing him in lecture soon.
I answer. “Hello?”
“Celeste,” he growls. He doesn’t sound happy. “Where the hell have you been?”
“Home,” I say. “I don’t like your tone of v—“
“You ran out on me,” he interrupts.
My back stiffens. “Yeah. So?”
“So?” he sounds incredulous. “Don’t tell me ‘so,' Celeste. Dammit, woman, I’ve been worried about you!”
My heart skips a beat. He was worried?
But I don’t let my enthusiasm show. I can’t. I’ve got to shut it up and make sure it never comes out again.
I cannot be vulnerable to him.
Instead: “It’s not your place to worry.”
“Like hell it isn’t,” he grunts. “Where are you? We need to talk.”
“I’m in my apartment! We’re talking right now.”
“Face-to-face,” he says. “I’ll pick you up. Be outside in five minutes.”
Then he hangs up.
I stare at the phone in my hand. He’s coming here? No, no. No, no, no I can’t let him do that.
I call him back.
“James,” I begin, “anything you need to say can be said over the phone.”
“I’m coming to see you,” he tells me. “I won’t take no for an answer. You don’t get a choice. Be down in five minutes, or else—“
“Or else what?” I cut in, feeling a surge of anger at his fucking presumptuous act. “What are you going to do, James?”
“If you don’t come down, I’m coming up,” he says.
I wince. James, arriving at our doorstep, with Summer here? That’ll be an even bigger disaster than whatever the fuck is going on right now.
“No,” I say quickly. “Don’t do that. I…” I give an exasperated sigh. “I’ll come down. I’ll be waiting.”
“Don’t be late.”
24.
Five minutes later, I’m out in the chilly street, huddling into my jacket and keeping an eye out for James. The day’s warmth did not carry over to the night.
A black Porsche rips down the street and skids to a halt curbside. A tinted window rolls down. James looks at me.
“Get in.”
I shake my head in frustration but walk around to the other side. Who does this man think he is, bossing me around like this?
I open the door and slide inside. I slam it shut so he understands my mood.
Then I turn to him. “What do you want, James? How did you know where I live? I never gave you my address.”
“I keep close watch on the things that are important to me,” he answers, which isn’t really an answer at all. “Put your fucking seatbelt on.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“Put. It. On!” he says, his voice low and aggressive. I grunt but reach over my shoulder and click it in.
“Good,” he says. “Looks like you can follow directions at certain times.”
He hits the gas without warning. The car accelerates forward so fast that I’m thrown back into my seat.
He throws a sharp right, not stopping for the intersection. There’s a red light, ahead in the midst of an empty crossing. He doesn’t slow. He adds more fuel to the engine. The car roars and surges forward.
“Jesus, James, there’s a stop light!” I exclaim.
He gives no indication of having heard. His eyes are set forward. His jaw is locked. Both hands are tight on the wheel.
“James, James, JAMES, AHH!”
I scream as he blows through the intersection. At full speed, in the dark. When we’re past, he randomly hits the brakes so hard that I fly forward. The tires skid. The car slides across the pavement with the wheels turning to the right. It stops sideways.
James doesn’t say anything as he shifts gears and starts us bulleting down the next street.
“JAMES! James, Jesus, stop it! James you’re going to get us killed!”
He ignores my protest. My heart is racing. Adrenaline pumps through my body. I’m wide awake now. He’s going to crash, I think to myself. I got in a car with a madman.
Before I know it, we shoot from a side street and stop right at the entrance of a garage.
Jesus, I think. My hands are shaking. Blood thunders in my ears. My breathing is hard.
James parks the car. His hands flex on the steering wheel. He glances at me.
My breath catches when I see his eyes: dark and stormy and completely unreadable.
“We’re here,” he says. “We’re going up.”
He unbuckles his seatbelt and steps out of the car.
I try to undo mine, but after that drive, my nerves are shot. My fingers fumble for the release but don’t find it fast enough.
James opens my door. He glowers down at me. Then, in utter silence, leans down across my body to do it for me.
The seatbelt clicks free, but James doesn’t retreat. He holds himself there.
Then, slowly, he turns his head and looks me straight in the eyes.
Christ, he looks angry, I think. That thought is followed immediately by: He’s close enough to kiss.
The adrenaline pumping through me makes a solid read on the situation impossible. In the dark, James looks intimidating… and sexy.
I swallow. Why did I come?
I feel his breath on my lips. I’m almost tempted to move my head forward, purse my lips…
James pulls away. He straightens and barks a gruff, “Come.”
I step out of the car, still shaky. He watches me, jaw clenched, eyes hiding everything.
I might as well try reading the thoughts of a statue for all the luck I’m going to have deciphering his.
“Why did you bring me here?” I ask.
“To talk. Upstairs.” He looks at the elevator. “Now.”
His hand wraps around my waist in a possessive grip. He leads me forwards. I barely manage to walk in a straight line.
Then we’re in the elevator and shooting to the top floor.
James still hasn’t let go of my waist. Nor has he said a distinguishable word to me. All I know—and it doesn’t take a genius to figure this out—is that he is not pleased with me.
Hah! That’s putting it mildly. He’s damn pissed is what he is.
The doors open to his suite.
Last time I was here, he poured me a drink… and I ended up in the hospital. The time before… I ended up fucked.
He steps out and leads me in. Halfway to the living room, I push off.
“James, you have to tell me what you want.”
He regards me for a moment. Then he speaks:
“Do I?” he asks. “Funny. Because I might want the same thing out of you.”
“What do you mean?”
He turns on a dimmer to grant the barest glow of light. “I mean,” he tells me, “that your behavior makes no sense. You ignore my calls and then come to my office to get fucked.” He strips out of his jacket. “Then, after I’ve given you your pleasure, you start crying. You run out on me.”
“I was not—”
“Listen!” he breaks through. “You fled. For no perceptible reason, you ran away.”
“I left of my own volition,” I tell him s
tiffly. “It shouldn’t matter to you more than that. I came. I got what I wanted, and then I left. That’s it. This is about sex, James. We’re not in a relationship! Why mess it up?”
“Oh no,” he cautions. “Now you’re being dishonest. I see it, Celeste. I know you’re lying. This thing, the spark between us? It’s based on way, way more than sex.
“Because of that,” he steps toward me, “subterfuge is not something I will tolerate.”
“Ugh!” I turn away and stalk toward the huge window before he can come closer.
“Don’t turn your back on me!” he exclaims.
“Yeah?” I challenge over my shoulder. “Or what? You’ll yell at me?”
“No,” he says. He sets his drink down. “Or else I’ll do this.”
He spins me around by the shoulders and pins me against the cold glass. His lips crash into mine, and he kisses me.
I struggle against him. I’m in no mood to be kissed. But he tightens his possessive grip and presses his mouth to me harder.
The kiss is rough and heated and searing with passion. It’s like a roaring volcano. It opens me up to him and pulls out all the emotions and feelings and desires and waves that I’m hiding.
My struggle lessens. I feel myself giving in, losing way to him, abandoning the fight…
But then my backbone kicks in, and I push him off.
“No!” I say. “No! You did not bring me here for… for…!”
“For what?” he demands. His voice is sharp and dangerous and threaded with need.
“For that!” I exclaim. By now, my whole body is wired and on fire and ready for more. I’m breathing hard. I can feel the flush in my cheeks. Most of all, I can feel his eyes on me. Devouring me, consuming me, tempting me. Pulling me toward him, tugging me into his sphere of influence so that my protests become null and void.
“You’re… right,” he says slowly. He hasn’t moved from his spot beside me, but that means he hasn’t come closer. He tastes his lips, then continues:
“I brought you here to discuss your behavior. I brought you here to tell you exactly what is, and what is not, appropriate in our relationship.”
“What relationship?” I ask. “I don’t want a relationship. I don’t want anything with you, James.”
“Really.” He seems amused. “You don’t want me to keep fucking you? You don’t want me to bring you to the very heights of sensual pleasure? You don’t want to experience the high I give you?” His eyes hone in on me. His voice drops to a low growl. “You don’t want me to make you come?”
I shiver in spite of myself. His effect is undeniable.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t try to stay immune.
“You’re an ass,” I say, turning away. “A presumptuous ass who thinks he can impress me with his fancy cars and upscale apartments and fucking social status on campus and in the whole goddamn city. You know what, though, James?” I turn back on him. “I won’t be taken in by it. I won’t be seduced. You can try all you want, but I’m not some harebrained hussy, the likes of which you’re used to dealing with.”
He gives an irritating, smug little smirk. “Those aren’t the things that seduced you, Celeste,” he says. He steps to me. “I did.”
And just like that our mouths are locked again.
Passion fills me from his kiss. It flows from him into me and awakens all the parts of my psyche I’ve been trying to suppress. It opens the floodgates of memories of our nights together, the one on his boat, the short-lived one at his party, sex at the library…
It opens up all those memories and makes me want more. More pleasure, more passion, more him. It makes me crave the physical peaks he can bring me to. The ones that only he can bring me to. The ones I’ve never seen or experienced before James.
He breaks off. His pupils are dilated. His eyes are wide. He’s breathing hard.
He’s affected every bit as much as I am. Knowing that, seeing that, makes me feel so powerful, so decadently sexy. Being the object of desire of this amazing man is unlike anything I’ve experienced before.
He looks at me. For a long, stretched-out moment, the two of us simply regard each other… and I feel fear.
Because never has a man affected me so before.
He brings his hands up and brushes my face. It’s such a tender caress that I almost flinch away.
“Why me?” I whisper. “Why do you treat me so? You don’t even know me.”
“I know enough,” he says. “I’ve seen you unguarded, and that’s what I like. This…” he looks around the massive apartment, “…all this feels empty. It’s felt empty my whole life. I’ve been searching, Celeste, I don’t know for what. Something that would bring me… fulfillment. I’m not teasing. I thought it was writing, for a long time. But that’s lost its spark. I thought it was becoming a celebrity, being known, being idolized.” He shrugs. “It wasn’t that either. I’m still looking. I’ve been looking my entire life. But when I’m with you…?” He looks me up and down, then focuses on my mouth. “When I’m with you, and I have those gorgeous lips touching mine… kissing mine… feeling me…” he parts my lips with his fingers, “when I feel your tongue, Celeste, pressed against my own or swirling around my cock, or giving voice to the words that your mind dreams up when you’re challenging me or being angry or displeased or moaning…” he steps into me so that our bodies are fully touching, “well, in those moments, I feel like I’m a little bit closer to being… there.”
“There? Where’s there?”
“Fulfillment,” he tells me. He looks in my eyes and waits for my reaction. “Tell me what you’re thinking,” he says.
“This… is way too much.” My head is spinning, half from his words and half from the intensity of his gaze. “Fulfillment? We’ve known each other for a few months! We’ve only been fucking for a week.”
“But it’s you, more than any other woman I’ve been with,” he tells me. “I’m not making this up, Celeste. When I make you come… when I watch the orgasm take you… when I see your body float to new heights… that’s what I feel. Fulfilled.”
“Too much,” I mutter, shaking my head. My knees are weak. “I need to sit down.”
He guides me to the couch. “Water?” he asks.
“Yes, please.”
He brings a glass. His short absence gives me a much-needed moment to collect myself.
“Here,” he says. Then he sits beside me and watches me as I drink.
“James.” I take a deep breath. “You don’t know me. You don’t know who I am. How can you say any of those things?”
“Because I feel them,” he tells me without hesitation. “And I’ve never felt anything like it before. Where it will lead? I don’t fucking know. But, while at first, you were a high…” he brushes aside a strand of hair, “Now, you’re a full-on addiction. Did you know I couldn’t get you out of my fucking mind the entire day? After you ran out on me without a word, I kept wondering: What did I do wrong? When I couldn’t reach you, when you didn’t pick up the phone, that’s when I really started to get angry.”
“Why?” I say, breathily.
“Because I didn’t want to lose you over something I didn’t know I did,” he says.
“It wasn’t you,” I tell him softly. “Trust me. It was me. My own shit that I had to deal with.” I look at him and swallow hard. “It’s over with. It’s done. You don’t need to worry about it again.”
“Are you sure?” he asks. “Are you absolutely certain, Celeste?” He looks me deep in the eyes. “Because you can’t get away anymore. I won’t let you. If you run, Celeste, if you ever run from me again… I will fucking chase you. You’re not going to slip out of my hands until I’m good and ready to let you go. Do you hear me?”
“Yes,” I say.
He nods. “Good. And now…” His fingers dance up my arm. “Let’s make good on the real reason I brought you here, hm?”
25.
Hours later, I’m lying in James’s bed, staring at the ceiling,
wide awake and all alone.
Well, he certainly knows how to make my body soar, I think.
I stretch out across the bed like a happy kitten. James went downstairs for some water or something a while ago and hasn’t returned yet. I wonder what’s taking him so long.
Maybe he’s just processing all that happened. I definitely am.
I thought I’d be in for some angry sex tonight, but James was tender. He made love to me. We kissed like fools before and after. It was the sort of sex that washes away all the bad feelings and makes you feel cleansed. It was the sort of sex that was fulfilling to both of us, not just in the pleasure we attained, but in the way it exposed each of us to the other.
It wasn’t just fucking. Somehow, it was more meaningful than that. Maybe I’m kidding myself. Maybe I’m just being sappy, because I’m drained from all the events of the last week. Maybe I’ll get up tomorrow and realize how foolish all this was, and—
Holy shit. I jolt up. Tomorrow! I have early class tomorrow. I need to get back to my apartment. Summer’s going to be wondering what the hell I’m doing out for so long…
I scramble out of bed and jump into my clothes. A quick look at my reflection in the window tells the story of my nocturnal activities clearly. Summer’s no idiot. She’ll know exactly what I’ve been up to the moment she sees me.
But not with whom.
I hurry down the stairs, hardly paying attention to my surroundings. I hear voices drift up from the lower story.
Voices. Emphasis on the plural. A man’s… and a woman’s.
I stop. I can’t make out what they’re saying. One belongs to James, of course, but the other…?
The other I’ve never heard before.
Not that it makes much difference. It belongs to a woman, which means James has another guest.
I sneak farther down, quiet as a mouse, trying to make out what they’re saying.
The voices are hushed, which makes it difficult. I hold on to the railing and sneak down one step at a time, until…
Until my heel catches the edge of the step and I go skidding down the final three.
“Shit!” I curse. The racket immediately draws James’ attention. He whips back from the door.
Uncovering You: The Complete Series (Mega Box Set) Page 131