“Bullshit,” she snapped. “This isn’t about saving my life. What the hell’s happened, Lucas? Why are you being so tense and weird? And why won’t you tell me what’s wrong?”
“There is no ‘this,’ remember, Grace?” The familiar ice was back in his tone. “We’re not in a relationship and I don’t have to tell you anything.”
Oh no. Hell no. She wasn’t going to put up with that. She wanted to know what was bugging him. She wanted to help.
Moving quickly, she went past him, then turned to face him and folded her arms, putting herself between him and the elevator, blocking it. “No, you don’t get to do that,” she said flatly. “You don’t get to walk away and ignore me. Not after you dug around in all my issues and made me talk about them whether I wanted to or not.”
He straightened, the movement subtle and yet somehow making him seem taller, more powerful. More dangerous. Silver glinted in his eyes, hard, cold. “Get out of the way.”
Screw that noise. He didn’t get to intimidate her. Sure, his confirmed kill count was impressive and he had skills that made him infinitely dangerous. But if he thought he could simply brush her off like an annoying fly he could think again. Goddamn arrogant, controlling men.
She lifted her chin. “Don’t use that sniper shit on me and don’t pretend you’re not walking out because you don’t want to talk. I get that. Hell, you think I wanted to talk about all that crap with my dad? I didn’t. But I did because you asked me to. So, tell me what’s going on. Why are you suddenly going into ice-man mode on me?”
His expression didn’t relent. “Grace—”
She took a couple of steps toward him, so she was right in front of him, inches from his chest and all that hot, bare skin. Yes, he was intimidating. Yes, all he needed to do was push her out of the way. But no, she wasn’t backing down. She didn’t quite understand why it was important to her that she didn’t. It was just that with a man like Lucas Tate, you absolutely couldn’t afford to give an inch. Not when he would take every mile there was and then some.
“You told me you’d give me everything while you were here,” she said, playing her trump card. “So, give me this.”
Finally something flickered through his gaze, gone so fast she couldn’t read what it was. “It’s got nothing to do with you.”
“If it’s got nothing to do with me then it won’t matter if you tell me then, will it?”
He said nothing, his beautiful features tense and hard. Giving her back nothing but the ice and snow of the frozen winter outside.
She didn’t know what instinct it was that had her reaching out to him, especially when her touch had made him pull away earlier. But she did it nevertheless, putting her hands on his bare chest, pressing her palms against his hot skin as if the warmth of her touch could unfreeze him. And she looked straight up into those icy blue eyes.
“Tell me,” she said softly. “You helped me last night. Let me do the same for you.”
He’d gone absolutely still, yet the tension was vibrating off him, his eyes glittering. He looked like a man fighting something infinitely more powerful than he was and knowing he was failing yet fighting on anyway. Like holding back the tide or stopping the sun from coming up. Preventing the moon from sinking.
He was silent for so long, cold for so long, that she thought she wouldn’t be able to reach him. Then just when she thought he wasn’t going to say a thing, he said, “I dreamed of the horses last night.”
It wasn’t at all the answer she was expecting. “The horses?”
“At the ranch.” His gaze was abruptly focused on hers, staring at her so intently she could barely breathe. “I dreamed about the fire I lit. The smoke and heat. The screams of the animals … They sound like people, did you know? They sound like people screaming.” He stopped all of a sudden, and there was no warning. He reached for her, grabbing her upper arms and hauling her right up against him. Then his mouth was on hers in a kiss so desperate it stole every last breath from her body.
* * *
Lucas didn’t really know what he was doing. Somewhere in between her blocking his exit to the elevator and her hand pressing down on his chest, the heat of it scorching him inside and out, he’d lost … something. His ability to detach himself, to cut off his emotions completely, to keep himself the fuck under control. Whatever it was, he’d lost it.
He’d thought he’d stayed cold. Sure, the nightmare that had woken him up at one in the morning hadn’t helped, and because he hadn’t been able to go back to sleep the subsequent hours he’d spent in the gym then pacing around in the living area, turning over all kinds of plans in his head, then sitting down to e-mail a few contacts, probably hadn’t done him any good either.
But he’d thought he was fine. He’d taken that call from the asshole after Grace—the fake cop obviously having done his part to deliver Lucas’s message—and given him the lowdown on what was going to happen. Two days to get the money together and then to make it to the drop-off. He hadn’t given the asshole—Oliveira himself apparently—any time to respond, because he’d made his move. Or rather, he was going to make his move, since his real plan didn’t involve exchanging money with international criminals. No, he had another idea about what he was going to do. All he needed was to wait for a couple of those e-mails before he could make it.
But he’d heard the soft sound of Grace’s breathing in the silence of the room and realized she’d been there for quite some time, watching him. Listening to his conversation for sure, but definitely watching him.
He didn’t like it. He was the one who watched, not the other way around.
Tension had crawled across his shoulders and back, and for some reason when her warm hands had come around his waist, touching him, they’d felt like acid on his skin, peeling him open. He’d pulled away before he’d even realized it. Which he never did. He never made any kind of physical movement that wasn’t completely intentional.
Even when he’d pulled her to the floor in her studio and taken her there, that had been a completely conscious choice.
This wasn’t.
It was the dream that had been the problem. For months after the fire, he’d had nightmares of smoke and flames and the sounds of animals screaming. He’d used to wake up, covered in sweat, his heart racing, fear sharp and metallic in his mouth. But once he’d started the physical and mental discipline his father taught him, riding and target practice, hard physical work to tire himself out, anything that would consume his focus and direct his attention for long periods of time, he’d gotten much better. The dreams had faded and then stopped completely. He hadn’t had one since he was fifteen.
Until last night. Until he’d smelled the familiar acrid scent of smoke, felt the lick of fire against his skin, heard the screaming of horses as the stables had burned around them. He’d woken up with a jerk, once again covered in sweat, the sounds of those horses echoing in his head.
Grace had stirred beside him and he knew he’d woken her too, so he’d murmured it was nothing and to go back to sleep, while he’d gotten up, his heart pounding. He’d instinctively tried to exorcise the dream by going into the gym and working himself into a stupor with the punching bag. By the time morning had come around, he thought he’d succeeded.
Then she’d touched him, proving just how big of a lie that was.
He’d thought going straight to his shooting range would be the best way to handle it. Put some distance between himself and her, focus on the target the way he used to back in Wyoming and not on the churning mass of emotion inside him.
But she hadn’t accepted that, because Grace never accepted being dismissed. She’d gotten in his face, putting herself between him and the elevator, standing there demanding he tell her what was going on. He hadn’t been going to, because telling her would be tantamount to turning on that emotional tap and if he did he knew he’d never be able to shut it off. All he’d thought of doing was nudging her gently aside and out of his way.
She’d tou
ched him again, though. Put her hand on his bare chest and pressed down, her lovely eyes full of warmth and concern. He was very good at keeping people out, at making sure they kept their distance. No one wanted to be around someone who was cold and emotionless, who never smiled and who didn’t bother with small talk. But somehow Grace had gotten inside him, her warmth, her restless passion, her careless physicality. Her quicksilver emotions. And even though he knew he shouldn’t tell her, he wanted to. Because there was a deep part of himself that was tired of keeping people out. Tired of being alone. Tired of having to deal with this himself.
He wanted to let someone in. He wanted to talk to someone.
So he’d told her about the dream, about the screams that were still echoing in his head, about the fear that seemed to grab him by the throat and not let go. Her eyes had gone wide, her lovely mouth in an O of shock, and suddenly talking was too much for him. There was only one way he could drown out the screams in his head and that was with her.
It wasn’t a conscious decision this time. It was instinct. And a part of himself—the part that always tried to stay in control—made a desperate grab at the reins to try to pull him back.
But it was too late. Her mouth was under his and she was hot and sweet, and he wanted to lose himself. Escape the screams. Channel all the fear and pain and anger that he didn’t understand, into her.
It was a violent, hungry, savage kiss. An impossible, uncontrollable kiss.
Desire raged inside him as if a dam had burst and he was overwhelmed, was drowning in the flood.
He couldn’t stop himself from ravaging her mouth, pushing his tongue deep inside, as his fingers pressed hard into the fragile skin of her upper arms. The taste of her sated him and yet, at the same time, reminded him again of the fact that he was starving and desperate for more.
She melted against him instantly, her body pliant in his arms, and when he hauled her dress up above her waist she made no attempt to stop him. Not even when he shoved her up against the nearest wall, curving one hand behind her knee and hauling her leg up and around his waist, opening her up to him.
Keeping her mouth beneath his, he slid his hands between her thighs, finding that she wasn’t wearing any underwear, her flesh hot and slick beneath his fingertips. She jerked under his touch, shuddering, and he pushed her harder against the wall, crushing her there with his body, needing every inch of her up against every inch of him.
Her hands settled on his shoulders, stroking him like he was one of those terrified horses himself, trying to soothe him. But he didn’t feel soothed. He only felt more desperate.
Pinning her against the wall, he ripped open the front of her dress, baring her perfect little tits, and then he tore his lips from hers, lifting her higher so her nipple was right there. Then he leaned in and covered it with his mouth, wanting the taste of her skin to explode the remains of the nightmare. Wanting her cries to drown the sounds of the horses screaming. The sound of his conscience and his own guilt screaming along with them.
She arched against him, giving him the cry he’d wanted as he sunk his teeth into her tender flesh, nipping her, then sucking hard. He pushed his hand down between her thighs again, stroking the wetness he found there, rubbing his thumb over her clit, making her even wetter, even slicker.
His name broke from her, the hands on his shoulders no longer stroking, her fingertips digging into his skin.
Yes, fuck. He wanted more of that, wanted more of her helpless ecstasy. But he had no patience, none at all. He was desperate, strung out, swamped by the emotions inside him, and with no idea at all how to handle it except this.
Taking his hand from her clit, he jerked open his jeans and grabbed his cock. Then he shoved his way inside her, hard and deep, the tight feel of her stretching around him drawing a harsh groan from his throat.
She shivered, holding on to him, her breathing loud in his ear as he kept her pinned between his body and the wall.
“It’s okay.” Her voice was hoarse, fingertips stroking his shoulders once again. “It’s okay, Lucas. I’m here. Take whatever you want. Whatever you need.”
And he did. He shoved his hand in her beautiful hair and turned his head, taking her mouth again. Sliding his tongue in deep as he thrust his cock deep inside her pussy. Pulling back, then slamming back in. Over and over. Escaping the feelings he couldn’t seem to turn off. Channeling them into pleasure. Into ecstasy, because it was the only thing that made sense.
Hard. Fast. Faster.
Her pussy clenched tight around him, her mouth open and generous, letting him ravage and devour. Her body was soft and so fragile in his hands. He could destroy someone like her so easily, because he was dangerous; he always had been. He cared too much. He felt too much. Her feelings led her to creativity, to color and light and joyful passion. But his? Christ, there was only one place his feelings led him to and that was to destruction.
He slammed into her, over and over, giving himself up to the pleasure as it opened up inside him, stripping him for a few blissful moments of all thought, everything narrowing down to this moment. To her body trapped between him and the wall. Her pussy tight around his cock. Her mouth beneath his. Her hands on his shoulders, soothing, stroking.
Grace. Grace.
The orgasm took him without warning, exploding like an IED, fierce and bright, blowing all the thoughts out of his head, leaving him clean and empty, a few precious seconds when he didn’t have to keep himself locked down or stay detached. When he could simply be.
The sound of his breathing was loud in the silence, harsh and elevated, his heartbeat so fast. He felt torn out of himself somehow, cracked open, and he had no idea how that had happened or why.
You’ll never be able to get it back under control. She’s ruined you.
He shut his eyes, forcing the thought away, replacing it with her musky apple scent and the salty/sweet taste of her skin.
She was stroking him again, her hands moving carefully on his shoulders and on his back. “Do you have nightmares?” she murmured. “Is that what happened?”
“I used to get them after the fire.” Her touch made him shiver, but he didn’t want her to stop. He didn’t want to move either. “For at least a couple of years at least. I used to hear the horses screaming and the sound woke me up.” It was surprisingly easy to say. “I told Dad about them in the first few weeks after the fire and I asked him why it kept happening. Why the horses sounded like people. And he said that…” He stopped, a shudder going through him, the words getting stuck in his throat.
Grace said nothing, her hands moving on him. There was no demand in her now, her silence an invitation that he could fill or leave empty if he chose. And a part of him wanted to leave it empty forever, to keep this particular truth to himself. Because it was terrible and he didn’t want anyone else to have to share the burden of it.
But somehow he was speaking, as if the truth wanted to come out whether he wanted it to or not, drawn from him by her softness and her heat. By her gentle touch. It seemed that Grace Riley could be quiet and still when she wanted to be too.
Lucas drew in a breath. “After I lit the fire in the stables, Dad did some digging and looked at the fire department’s report on my family. On the fire I lit back when I was five. He also checked the coroner’s report and…” He had to force the words out. “My dad was found in bed, apparently dying of smoke inhalation. But my mom … she was found in the hallway and it looked like she’d been heading to my room. The fire there was very intense, very hot.” His voice got gravelly. “Some of the roof had come down, pinning her underneath it and…” Grace’s hands didn’t stop touching him, her movements slow and gentle, weaving patterns on his skin. “She was still alive when it happened. But she couldn’t move and the fire was so hot.” It shouldn’t have been so hard to say. It had happened so long ago. “The coroner thought she’d probably burned alive, or so Noah, my foster father, told me. He said he didn’t want to keep the truth from me, because it was a cau
tionary tale. He said that I’d probably heard her, that the horses’ screams sound like people because I was still hearing my mother screaming as she burned.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The view over Lucas’s powerful shoulder wavered as tears filled Grace’s eyes, her heart clenching tight in her chest. Tears of shock as the horror of what he was telling her finally penetrated.
She couldn’t comprehend it. That a man could dump that kind of truth on his thirteen-year-old foster son.
“Why?” she asked shakily “Why would he tell you something like that?”
Lucas didn’t move, his breath warm against her neck. His big, hard body was all around her, caging her, pinning her to the wall, and yet somehow it felt as if she was the one keeping him upright, not the other way around.
“It was a punishment.” His voice sounded scraped raw. “I had to learn a lesson so it would never happen again. I think … he must have hated me to tell me that.”
A tear slid down Grace’s cheek and then another. She didn’t stop them.
There was always going to be a reason for why Lucas kept himself so cold, so detached, and that reason was always going to be a difficult one. He’d even laid it all out for her that night of their first kiss, giving her all the reasons why he couldn’t let go of his control. He’d lit fires and his family had died, but when he’d talked about it his cold voice had somehow sucked all the horror out of it. Made it seem distant.
But this … She was still reeling from it. He’d found this out at thirteen and had been living with the knowledge that his mother’s terrible death had been his fault ever since.
No wonder he’d locked himself down so completely.
He was still inside her and of course they hadn’t used any protection, but they’d already had that discussion and anyway, that seemed like the least of her problems right now. She had no idea what to say. No idea what to do. How could she make him feel better about something as horrific as that? Her own issues seemed like nothing in comparison. So her father had been a temperamental artist and had been mean to her. Balled up a few drawings. Big fucking deal.
The Wicked Billionaire--A Billionaire SEAL Romance Page 22