by Tessa Bailey
“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded angrily. “Put that out.”
“Why?”
“It’s bad for you.” When she took another puff, he growled. “Knock it off, Sera.”
“No. Every time you smoke a cigarette, I’m going to smoke one, too.” Sera knew this little act of rebellion was childish, but God, it felt fantastic. She’d been protected her whole life, learning so young that acting out only made things worse for herself. Well, right about now, things were about as worse as they could get, so she might as well go for broke. Bowen had just gotten finished telling her how good she was. How he wanted to absorb all the bad. This was her way of telling him she didn’t need it.
Before she could take her third drag from the cigarette, Bowen tossed his own into the sink and advanced on her. The cigarette was plucked from her fingers on the way to her lips and held up between his fingertips. “If that’s the case, I’ll never touch another one in my goddamn life.”
Having his vibrating intensity so close heated her head to toe. She tried to back up but her hips hit the counter. “Right.” Her laughter sounded breathless. “I doubt it’s that easy.”
“You don’t think so?” He lifted the edge of his shirt so she could see his ridged abdomen, the smooth skin interrupted by scars every few inches. A now-familiar feeling of dread kicked up a fuss in her stomach. “You want to know how important it is to me that nothing bad touches you? This’ll be my reminder.”
He ground out the lit cigarette on his stomach.
Sera screamed a denial, making a frantic attempt to stop him, but it was too late. His hand fell away and she could see the charred ring of flesh just above the waistband of his jeans. She slumped against the counter, watching in disbelief as he flicked the cigarette butt into the sink without taking his eyes off her. Not once. He hadn’t even flinched once.
Suddenly furious, she shoved against his chest, but he didn’t budge. “Stop using me as an excuse to hurt yourself, dammit. What is wrong with you?”
“That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?”
The black smoking hole on his stomach, the blood on his face, it became insufferable. She needed it gone, now. Whether or not his behavior had been rational, she needed every reminder of what she’d driven him to do gone. Seeing him in pain when she could stop it went against everything in her nature. With a groan of frustration, she took his hand and dragged him toward the bathroom, making a valiant attempt to ignore the victory that flashed in his eyes. It made her question his sanity, yes, but she was also grateful for that look. It would give her a reason to resist him. Today, in this moment, she would not give in. No matter how much willpower it took.
She flipped on the light as they entered the small bathroom, having to tug her hand away when he didn’t let her go immediately. Seeing them in the mirror, his taller, more muscular frame inches behind her, watching her as if his heart were in his throat, made her determination waver all too soon. Closing herself off to the emotions, she turned on the shower taps and found a lukewarm temperature in deference to his fresh wound.
A glance in the mirror showed him stripping his shirt over his head and tossing it on the floor. His hands went to the fly of his jeans then, but she refused to turn around completely, as if watching him disrobe in the mirror would somehow affect her less. How he could make every pulse point in her body pound while covered in blood and a self-inflicted wound staring her in the face, she had no idea. But if the power he had over her body continued to be this potent, after everything they’d faced since last night, it would never go away.
Doesn’t change anything. “Get in,” she instructed, cringing inwardly over the huskiness in her voice. Behind her, Bowen pushed his jeans and boxer briefs down in one quick movement and stepped out of them, revealing his too-beautiful body. Despite all the scars, the bruises, the blood, she’d never seen anyone so magnificent. “I’m not going to stand here all day.”
One edge of his lips tugged up, but it looked unnatural thanks to his cuts. “I thought you were a nurse, Seraphina. Where’s your bedside manner?”
“Do you think it’s funny?” Swallowing her nerves, she turned. “Throwing these things you knew all along about my life in my face?”
“No.” His expression went from playful to fierce. “Nothing about this shit show is funny. Your life being in danger isn’t funny. Knowing you’re leaving. Isn’t. Funny.”
His passionate speech sent her back a step, much to her irritation. “You’re right, it’s not. But it’s reality.”
Her words seemed to set him off. “And let’s not forget you knew every gritty detail of my life, too, Sera. I saw the disgust in your eyes the second you found out my name. Found out whose hips you’d had your legs wrapped around, whose mouth your hot little tongue had been inside.” He grabbed the shower curtain and yanked it aside. “You must hate wanting me. That should make me happy. All that bad I want to protect you from? I’m the fucking worst of it.”
No, you’re not! She wanted to shout and stomp and rail at him for having such a low, distorted opinion of himself, but she held back. Encouraging him would be a mistake because if he saw a crack in her resolve, he’d hammer away at it until she broke. She couldn’t allow it. Someday soon, when this was over, she would break. That eventuality couldn’t be avoided, but she could put it off. She could do it without him watching, dying to pick up her pieces.
He stepped under the spray, letting the water course down his chest, abdomen, legs. She waited for him to move the shower curtain back into place, but he didn’t, giving her an up close view of him showering, lathering soap in his hands and scrubbing the blood from his face and neck. Moving lower to give attention to the cut muscles of his chest, soapy water flowing in patterns between the hard ridges. She tried to watch with the professional detachment of her past nurse self, but it failed miserably, slick heat settling between her legs instead. It was turning him on. Whatever he saw on her face, he liked it. He liked her witnessing this private ritual; she could see the excitement in his heavy-lidded gaze. Trying to maintain an impassive expression, she watched him move lower, lower, until he reached his aroused length. Until now, she’d kept herself from staring, but when he took it in his hand, she could no longer avoid looking. His eyes challenged her to look away as he braced a hand on the shower wall and started stroking himself.
“I might be bad for you, but I make you feel good, don’t I, baby?”
Inside her bra, her nipples puckered so tight, she knew they were visible against her tank top. Her palms itched to run up her thighs, over her belly, to end at her breasts. She wanted to squeeze the sensitive buds, feel the answering tug between her legs.
He bit down on his bottom lip and hummed in his throat. “Tell you what I’m thinking about right now. I’m thinking about the way you leaned back last night and bucked those hips like a fucking pro.” His eyes closed on a groan. “I have no idea how I held back so long…needed to come so bad inside my tight girl.”
She shot her hand out to brace herself on the sink. His growled words were making her knees shake right along with her willpower. “Stop,” she whispered, but could barely hear herself over the pounding shower spray. Her body willed her to climb into the shower and let him take her, hard enough to shake the memories of this morning loose.
“It’s a good thing we wore that condom, Sera. It might have been the only thing keeping you off your back.” His hand worked faster over his rigid flesh. “You know what I’m thinking about now, don’t you? No barriers. Just me, buried deep and fucking you hard. I’d block those screams with my mouth until they had nowhere to go and you’d just have to work your motherfucking hips faster to make up for it. I saw you, baby. I saw how dirty you’d let me give it to you.”
Her back hit the wall, chest rising and falling with shallow breaths. The urge to touch herself had never been so strong. It nearly overwhelmed her. She closed her eyes to block his image before she lost control, forgot why she’d decided to
resist him in the first place. When the shower spray shut off, panic loomed. She heard him climb out, his wet footsteps stopping right in front of her. So close. Too close. Resolutely, she kept her eyes squeezed tightly shut, even as his body heat enveloped her, the fresh scent of his soap invaded her head. Above everything, she heard the slap of his hand working his erection, his raspy moans driving her toward insanity.
“That’s how it’s going to be, baby? You want it, but you’re not going to take it?” Against her lips, she felt his tongue, licking slowly, sensually, across the slightly parted seam of her mouth. Nothing could stop her head from tipping back, seeking more contact. Damp air kissed her belly, telling her he’d lifted her shirt to bare her midriff. Smooth, wet flesh dragged over her belly and his uneven groan told her it had been his hard arousal. The hand holding the sink to keep her steady shook with the effort. Never in her life had she wanted anything more than she wanted Bowen in that moment. She wanted to climb his body and let him sink deep inside her, turning his words into reality. Just when she thought she would cave to the desire, he drew his lower body away from her. “You want to call this a win when we’re both aching for it? That’s just fine, Sera.” His mouth grazed her ear. “Just remember one thing. No matter what happens or where you go, I had you first. I took up every tight inch of you. I watched you get off while you called me your man. Nothing, nothing, will ever change that. You might not want me, but I’ll be your man until I die.”
Her eyes flew open at his words, heart beating so out of control it was a wonder it stayed inside her rib cage. Jaw set, gaze on fire, he was a glowing brand burning his words into her skin where they’d be for all time. He seemed taller, broader in that moment, filling her entire vision. Inescapable. Real. Part of her, the part she’d let fall for him so fast, begged her to launch herself at him and return the promise. Yet even in her overwrought state, she knew she would regret it. It would be a promise she wouldn’t keep and that would hurt even more.
His face grew shuttered the longer she stayed quiet, earnestness replaced by bitter acceptance. With a final once-over of her shuddering body, he whipped a towel off the metal rack and wrapped it around his waist.
“Tell you what, baby, I’m going to keep it hard for you. I want you to know it’s there waiting.”
He left the bathroom without a backward glance.
Chapter Twenty
Bowen stared at Sera over the rim of his nonalcoholic beer. It tasted like shit, but what didn’t taste like shit lately? On top of the slight hangover he was still nursing from last night, he didn’t want his reflexes dulled, so he suffered through a long pull. His hand tightened on the glass when she dropped off a round of drinks to a table full of men who, in their inebriated state, couldn’t help sending her appreciative looks.
She would make her move soon. He’d seen the glances she’d been throwing around the club to judge how much longer she should wait to head downstairs. As it got later, the music got louder and people stopped noticing how long she spent out of the dining room. Except for him. He noticed every single movement she made. Every breath, every hesitation, every gesture.
The torturous afternoon he’d spent painting so he wouldn’t lose the battle with his urge to just fucking seduce her already, she’d spent plotting in the guest room. Knowing she was so close had wreaked havoc on his senses for five unbearable hours. He’d wanted that voice in his ear, begging him to fuck her faster, deeper. He still wanted it with a vengeance, but at this point he would settle for her simply talking to him, sharing her plans. After the shower that had resulted in this century’s worst case of blue balls, they’d retreated to their corners and hadn’t spoken since, except to decide what time he’d take her to work.
There was an unspoken agreement that tonight she would finish her investigation come hell or high water, but she obviously had no intention of involving him. So he was involving himself. He’d sit at the bar drinking shitty nonalcoholic beer until she needed him. A dozen different emotions battled for supremacy in his chest. Desire for her to succeed and prove herself in a way he’d never gotten the chance to experience. Self-disgust over a small hope that she didn’t succeed and had to stay with him longer. Rage that she wouldn’t involve him. Fear that she’d get hurt.
Not that he would allow that nightmarish outcome willingly, but what if she got caught in a cross fire? He bit his bottom lip to avoid asking the bartender for something stronger, to drown out the image of Sera in pain. In fifty years, even if he never saw her again after the dust settled, he knew that outcome would remain his worst nightmare. He’d told her as much this morning, ripped open his bleeding chest and let her see his bones. And she’d rejected him. It didn’t matter that she still wanted him physically. Women had wanted him as long as he could remember. That didn’t help him now, not with someone like Sera, who needed something more. Someone more.
As if she’d heard his thoughts from across the dining room, she slowly straightened from the table she served and looked at him. Just…looked. At first, he didn’t know what she was trying to communicate to him, but it slowly dawned on him. Good-bye? This was her good-bye? It plowed through his chest like a freight train, sucked the oxygen from his lungs. He slipped off the stool, wanting, needing, to go to her, but she shook her head subtly, halting him in his tracks.
No, no. No. It couldn’t end like this. What he’d said to her in the bathroom couldn’t be how he left things. He couldn’t live with that. Couldn’t live with the memory of her cowering from his touch, as if he’d ever lift a finger to hurt her. But he had; he’d been hurting her by throwing their mutual attraction in her face. Challenging her to say no, even though he’d known it was the right thing for her to do.
He shook his head, trying to communicate his need to say a decent good-bye. Remind her that she’d live inside his head forever. But she broke their eye contact and disappeared into the kitchen. Bowen stood there frozen, torn between the need to go after her and common sense, which told him someone would notice if he followed her. A minute passed, maybe two, and he could already feel insanity creeping in. As if she’d dragged the light out along with her, leaving him standing in an awful red glow that felt more like a horror flick than real life.
“Driscol.”
His last name being spoken behind him permeated the red fog. He wanted to turn and take a swing at whoever stood there, like a wounded animal. Then the voice registered and his blood ran cold. Connor. What were the odds that he would arrive just as Sera disappeared downstairs? He didn’t have time to think about it, only knew he had to keep the man there. The chance he’d been waiting for to help Sera had presented itself. It would also prevent him from ever seeing her again. The irony of that made him want to bang his head against the bar.
“Connor.” His voice sounded rusty. “Shouldn’t you be hiding shirtless in the shadows somewhere?”
The other man eyed him suspiciously. “Union break.”
Bowen nodded to the empty stool beside his own and gestured to the bartender. “You allowed to drink on the job?”
“Who gives a fuck?”
“Point taken.”
They stayed silent as the bartender pulled a pint of beer for Connor and set it in front of him. Tension lay thick between them, but both were waiting for the other to acknowledge it. Bowen understood this dynamic. He had it with Wayne and his father. Passive-aggressive bullshit that passed for being friendly in Bensonhurst. But he’d never dealt with Connor before, a man who actually had something more than greed going on behind his eyes. He just didn’t know what it was.
“Heard about what happened last night outside of Marco’s,” Connor said, taking a sip of his beer. “Also heard you let him off with a couple broken bones.”
Remembering the sound those bones made as they broke, nausea rolled in Bowen’s stomach. “What’s it to you?”
Connor shrugged. “It’s not like you to be so benevolent. That Sera’s influence?”
Never going to see her again. Ne
ver again. “I don’t like you saying her name.”
“I don’t care.”
Bowen’s fists started to shake, so he hid them under the bar. He didn’t get challenged very often and he shouldn’t let it stand, but he had Sera to think about. On top of it, there was something in Connor’s tone that stopped his words from being a taunt. Almost as if he were amused. At least someone was. But he didn’t like this asshole throwing him off guard, so he decide to surprise him. “Speaking of benevolent, I hear you starting working for your cousin, Hogan, just so he’d help pay off your mother’s medical bills.”
The beer paused halfway to Connor’s mouth. “Mind telling me where you heard that?”
“I don’t kiss and tell.”
Connor’s lips twitched, but Bowen could see murder in his eyes. “All right, you don’t want to tell me who’s been running their mouth, that’s fine. I’ll find out on my own.” A tense pause ensued. “What about the nonalcoholic beer? You turning over a new leaf?”
“Just watching my waistline.”
“Where’s Sera?”
Gone. She’s gone to me. The sickening thought rattled around his skull like dice, but he managed a casual laugh. “She’s working, otherwise I wouldn’t be here. The atmosphere isn’t exactly captivating.”
“I mean, where is she now?”
Bowen held the man’s steady gaze. As far as he could tell, Connor hadn’t glanced once at the dining room since walking into Rush. “If you have something to say to her, you’ll say it to me first.”
A muscle jumped in Connor’s cheek. “My cousin will be back in the morning, a day ahead of schedule. He asked me to talk to you personally.” He leaned in and lowered his voice. “Our contact overseas got in touch with Hogan. The shipment has been rescheduled for tomorrow night. It’s risky, but he wants to stay the course. Same plan, different night. He wants to make sure you’re still in. If not, we call it off and wait another month. We need your manpower.”