by Unknown
The ride up to his apartment was the same; quiet. Only, he took my hand and squeezed it. The way he stared at the floor, his lips moving but no sound emitting from them made me wonder if he was practicing what he wanted to say to me. Scowling at the floor, he scuffed his shoe on the carpet, looking lost. I'd never seen Drake look lost. He always seemed so put together, so sure of what he wanted. When he'd come after me, it had been without hesitation. I hadn’t stood a chance against him.
My heart dove a little as we exited the elevator. I clasped his arm wondering if this was the last time I would stand so close to him. He let us in to his apartment and through the filtered light of the curtains; I could see the destruction that the past week had wrought on him. Towels and clothes were strewn over the back of the couch, and an empty bottle of scotch lay on its side on the floor. A brown spot stained the cream carpet below the neck of the bottle. Glasses and beer bottles fought for space with half-eaten meals on the coffee table. The counter was covered too. I breathed in the stale air and the hint of alcohol. It was such a contradiction of the man I knew.
His shoulders slumped as he stood in the middle of the room, and my heart broke a little for him. I weaved my arms around him. I knew what he needed right now. Pressing my lips to the back of his neck, I ran my hand down over perfectly sculpted abs. My fingers found his belt buckle and undid it, before his hands covered mine. "You should leave."
I paused at those words, but I knew if we swapped positions, those words wouldn't stop him. He could read me, and he’d push me because he knew what I really needed, but I could read him too. Right now, he pushed me away because he didn’t want to tell me why he’d fallen apart. But he needed me. Perhaps more than he’d needed anyone before.
"You’re mine," I said, tugging his belt free. "I own you, the way you own me." I undid his pants and took him in my hand, squeezing and tugging his cock until its rigid length jutted from my hand.
He turned sharply, his mouth devouring mine as he groaned into me. The rasp of his tongue over mine sent a shock of pleasure to my clit. I whimpered with that first full bolt of lust, but he would not break my focus. Sliding a hand up to cup the nape of his neck, I whispered into his ear. "You’re fucked, Doctor Barclay. You thought you could have me, and that it wouldn’t matter, but I see through you. You want me to control you. You want to belong to me, and it’s destroying you."
"You’re wrong," he groaned, hauling me against him and tearing at my clothes. "You’re so fucking wrong."
He gripped my hip with one hand and yanked my skirt up to find my panties. One tug and he’d removed them, nothing more than a ruined sliver of silk. His fingers slid inside me, pummeled me, making me wetter, making me buck into his hand. "I was destroyed long before your sexy little pussy wrapped itself around me. You can never own me. There’s nothing left to own."
I shivered as he pulled his them from my aching slit. He bent me over, one hand on my neck, one wrapped around me as he thrust into me, fucking me as he tried to release the demon inside of him. Crying out as he took me over the edge, I felt him jerk behind me as he came.
Tears stung my eyes as he slid out of me, and I carefully rearranged my skirt, unable to face him. All he had ever wanted was to fuck with me. To take my body and create an addiction in me I couldn’t control and to take my heart and leave me useless for anybody else.
Trembling, I picked up my keys. He’d loved once, and it had destroyed him. God, I envied the woman who still held his heart. How perfect she must have been, to own him the way she did after so long. I didn’t look up as I marched past him to the door. If I looked into his eyes, I would break, and I couldn’t. Nothing could break me again. Nothing was worth that pain.
"Birdie?" He called out as I crossed to the door. The way he said my name was a plea of sorts. I touched the doorknob. Would he regret today? Opening the door, I walked out.
The elevator took forever to reach the ground, and I sprinted from it blindly. Strong arms wrapped around me, and I lashed out. I jabbed at his chest, but he didn’t let me go as he hauled me back into the elevator.
He stroked my hair from my face. "Darlin’, shit, I…" He pushed his forehead against mine. Our breathing was jagged but synchronized. His lips brushed against mine. "Fuck, Birdie. Fuck you and what you’re doing to me."
I glared up at him and bit his lip, drawing blood. "Let me go, you asshole."
"Never, darlin’. You’re fucking mine."
"No." I shook my head, trying to deny his truth. "No, I’m not. I will never be yours again."
He spun me around so I couldn’t lash out at him and leaned into me, his hands covering mine where he held them to the wall. "I don’t know how to be what you want, Birdie. I don’t have it in me to be good for you, but god…" his breathing stopped for a moment, the silence punctuated by the muted sounds of the elevator music. "... I want to be yours. I want… to be the only man you ever fuck, or sleep beside."
I glanced at him over my shoulder. "Then let me in. Don’t lock me out and tell me you can’t belong to me, when we both know you already do."
He let go of me, and I turned and slumped against the wall.
He drew his brow down in a tight line. "I should let you go. I don’t know how to do this. I feel like I’m fighting myself every step of the way."
I tossed my hands onto my hips. "For fuck’s sake, Drake. It’s not that difficult."
The elevator doors opened, and an old couple gawked at us. My cheeks heated as I realized they must have heard me swearing in the elevator. Drake lead me past them and back into his apartment. I was on a roller-coaster ride of emotions. How many minutes before I stormed out the door again?
"I’m...fuck." He collapsed onto the couch. "I’m a drug addict, Birdie. I am literally fucked up. I’m one step away from losing myself to old habits. Is that what you really want in your life? Do you have what it takes to be with a person like me?"
I didn’t know what to say. That’s why he was drinking at work. That’s why things were so different than they were before. "You’re not on drugs now though, are you?"
"No," he said, "but these last few days I’ve been walking on a razor’s edge."
"Why?"
He threw up his hands. "Because I can’t handle the pain. I admire you for that. I could tell the first time I met you that you hurt like I did, but you controlled it, whereas I let it take over."
I chuckled mirthlessly. "We’re not so different, you and I. I didn’t control the pain. Surely, you must see that. I let it control me." I rubbed my arm. "You’ve been a gamble, Doctor Barclay, right from the start. I calculated the risks. The odds were never good, but it was a choice I made."
He stood up in one swift move and caught me to him. "I can’t let you go. I should. I should let you walk out that door and keep the hell away from you, but I can’t."
It jolted my heart to know he was as addicted to me as I was to him. I smiled. "You’re mine, aren’t you?"
"I am." He bent to devour me, and I reveled in the pull of his lips against mine and the tug of his teeth on my lip as he slid inside me, unraveling me with his tongue. Heat built inside me and my wetness dripped between my thighs. He was mine. Pushing him down on the couch, I straddled him. I could feel his erection pushing at my slit, and he pressed his fingers into my hips, pulling me tight against him.
Working his belt free for the second time, I slipped it from the loops in his pants. His cock stood proud, and I grasped it in my hand and impaled myself on it. "Tell me your secrets, Drake, let me take them from you."
He growled low in his throat as he rested his head against the supple leather and lifted me up and down the length of him. An ache built in my core each time his hips rose to grind into me. Clutching his shoulders, I moaned, "tell me."
"I can’t," he said. "Not when you’re wrapped around me like this. I can only see you. I can only feel you. You fill my senses."
I wanted to giggle, but he moved a hand to flick a fingertip over my clit, and I s
huddered from the intensity of the pleasure that rolled through me. "Is that part of it?"
He turned me so I couldn’t see his face as he continued to fuck me. "My whole world blew to smithereens. It was so bad I became an addict. A fucking addict. It took me years to get clean."
Cupping my pussy with his hand, he slowed his thrusts; his fingers pressing into me and making me need more. "You come along and blast your way into my life. You make me feel things I don’t want to feel, and the worst of it is… when you disappeared… you ruined me as much, if not more, than all the pain I felt…"
I wrapped my hands around his head, holding him to me as I kissed him over my shoulder. He didn’t need to say any more. I understood. "Make me cum, Drake."
He growled as he slid a hand under my shirt and squeezed my breast while he pumped into me. His teeth grazed my neck while he continued to ply exquisite torture on my nerves. Whimpers ripped from between my lips as he pushed me further, his cock stretching and filling me with every slide.
"Always mine. You and your precious little pussy. I’m never letting go."
His words tumbled through me, cresting on a wave of need that broke and filled me until I clenched around him. "Shit, I’m…"
"Cum for me, darlin’," he ground from between his teeth.
I cried out as my orgasm poured through me, firing each sensitive nerve until my entire body was caught in the sensation. Gasping for air, my body shook as I came back into myself. He pulled out of me, and I collapsed onto his chest, his fingers lingering between my folds, exploring the parts of me he owned intimately. An arm wrapped around me, he brushed my hair back from my ear. "Control me, don’t let me fall."
Shifting in his arms, I offered him my mouth. He took it, relying on me to be the oxygen he needed. I’d let him fall all right, but not in the way he meant. Pulling him with me to the bathroom, I peeled away his shirt. When I kneeled before him to tug down his pants, he clasped my shoulders with shaking hands. He was still hard, and I took his cock in my hand and stroked it. That was the first time he hadn’t cum while he fucked me.
I stared up in to his eyes, and his gaze twisted with intense longing and something else. A deeper need than just the joining of our bodies, or the need to have me surrender to him. He pulled me up, holding me close as if he couldn’t bear not to touch me. I reached into the shower and turned on the water, the cold blast turning quickly into cleansing heat. Placing his hands on my hips, I pulled my top over my head. Lips to my shoulder, he murmured against my skin, and I shimmied free of my skirt before guiding him into the shower.
I mulled over the words in my head. What I should tell him to let him know that I would stand beside him. A dollop of soap in my hand, I rubbed it over his chest, tracing the words there. He still had not told me what they said, but I was certain I understood them. Lathering up his shoulders, I massaged the knots that held him tight.
"Birdie?"
When he used my name, when he called me that, instead of darlin’, that was when he needed me most.
I turned away from him as he grabbed the bottle of soap and lathered my back. "I want you to fall, Drake." His breath whispered over my wet skin. "I want to be your addiction. I want to be what you need." Like he was for me.
It wasn’t enough, the honesty of my desire for him, for us. He'd offered me his soul, and I needed to give him mine in return.
"When I was fourteen, my dad died." My lip trembled.
He squeezed my shoulders and stepped into me, but didn’t say anything.
"I struggled with it. One minute he was there, and the next… he was gone." He massaged my neck with his fingertips. "My brother, he’s… stronger than me. It seemed like he grew up overnight. He dealt with it, and I couldn’t. I started drinking."
"That’s why you don’t drink now?" He brushed his lips over my ear.
"No," I said. "No. I stopped drinking after..."
His hands slid down my arms as I took a deep breath. "I started going to parties. I’d say I was sleeping at a friend’s house, and then I’d go find a party where I could get wasted. Nobody stopped me. I used to wish I’d get in trouble, like I would have if Dad had been around. I wouldn’t have gotten away with it, if he was still around."
I leaned into the cool tile wall, and he put an arm around me. "Darlin’, you don’t need to…"
"But I do." I couldn’t look at him while I remembered that night. "I was stupid, and young, and I screwed up. I thought I was all grown up, with my drinking and hanging out with older guys."
The room swayed as I sauntered toward the guy who had been eyeing me for most of the night. I grinned at him and tossed back the last of my beer. His mouth curved up, and I stared at his lips.
"I went up to him. I didn’t ask his name before I kissed him. I threw myself at him."
His hands wandered over my ass and under my shirt as he thrust his tongue into my mouth. I’d wanted to kiss him, but his lips were too hard against mine; rough and pushing at me. Maybe that was what kissing was like. God knows I’d never bothered to tongue kiss a boy before. I pushed my tongue into his mouth, and he groaned. His teeth scraped against mine, and I could feel him pressing against me as his hands moved under my shirt and over my bare skin. I swayed against him, and he crushed his hips against mine. "Let’s find somewhere to get to know each other."
"Okay," I said, "but I need another drink."
He sniggered. "Whatever you say."
He left me to get more drinks, and I rested against the wall. I touched my hand to my mouth. My lips stung. My stomach dipped, and I wrapped my arms around my belly. Maybe, I’d overdone the drinks. Perhaps it would be best if I went home. He wasn’t gone long before he came back with our drinks. He handed me one and stared at me until I downed it.
Up close, he didn’t have a very nice smile, all teeth, and the sides of his mouth curled wrong. His cheap cologne burned my nostrils and added to the nausea. He wrapped an arm around my waist as the room weaved. "You don’t look very well. It looks like you could use somewhere quieter."
"He asked if we could go and talk and I thought sure, why not. He was only being friendly. He led me to one of the bedrooms and sat beside me while I waited to sober up a little bit. I thought I would just take a few moments and then head back down stairs. He asked me if he could kiss me again, and I let him. I guess I felt guilty for being a tease."
Drake placed his hands on the wall either side of my head as he leaned into me. I could hear his breathing becoming heavier, and the way he pressed his fingers into the tiles screamed how tense he was despite the hot water soaking us. "I don’t really remember the rest of it. I must have led him on. I must have...when I woke up, I was naked and aching and alone."
Drake turned me in his arms, his jaw clenched as he stared at me. "That was the incident?"
"Yes." I swallowed. "I stopped going to parties, stopped going out altogether. I made a huge mistake and I wasn’t going to do it again."
He wrapped his arms around me and shut off the water. We stood there for a moment, our breathing mingling in the silence. "But you… let me…"
"I made a decision to let you in. Mistake or not, you made me want to."
He clasped my face and tilted it so he could gaze into my eyes. I flinched at the coldness on his face. Had he realized what he’d gotten when he pursued me?
"Damn, Birdie. You should have told me." I tried to pry his fingers from my face, but he wouldn’t let me go. "I would have been more patient. I would have done things differently."
He reached out to grab a towel and wrapped it around me before he snagged one for himself. I took the moment to steady myself. "You pushed me to want something I never thought I would. I wouldn’t change it."
He tugged me out of the bathroom to the bedroom and held me. "I want to kill the bastard that hurt you."
Holding his face between my hands, I pressed my lips to his. I didn’t want to continue talking about the past. He curled me into him and nuzzled my hair. "So, I went wild
and you shut down. Do you think there’s hope for us?"
Could I hope he felt about me the way I felt about him? The way he held me, opened up to me, and laid himself bare made me feel that he did. I pondered the question for a long time. Was now the right time to tell him I’d fallen for him?
He shifted, his cheek pressed into the pillow. His mouth slightly parted. I stroked my fingers through his hair. Words could wait. I wasn’t going anywhere.
Chapter Seventeen
Drake
I opened my eyes to predawn gray. Fuzzy light cast shadows over the room and offered up a silhouette of her sleeping form beside me. Twisting onto my side, I pulled the silk sheet over us and held her tighter. The sensual smell of apples and intimacy warmed me. With each minute that passed, the room grew lighter, and I stared at her as the angles of her face took on color. Each eyelash, each freckle that covered her nose, became clearer as the room lightened. I stroked her hair, unable to keep my fingers to myself, and her eyelids crinkled. Not wanting to wake her, I froze. Her lips parted and her breath escaped in a soft sigh.
Maybe she knew it already, or maybe she’d known all along that she would break me down and rebuild me. I’d used words to get her into bed. Words that I had known would have her offering me her body and any other goddamn thing I wanted. I hadn’t expected those words to mean so much to me.
From the first time I told her she was mine, I had meant it. Maybe I hadn’t realized it, but I did now. There was no escape from the reality of her. The heat she brought to my blood, or the way her smell had become the scent of home. She wriggled her ass closer to me and my body stirred. If I woke her, she’d be willing and ready to give me what I wanted. Pressing my lips to her hair, I thought over what she’d told me.
Anger over what she'd gone through made me tense as it bristled under my skin, and I tapped my fingers against my thigh trying to release my agitation without waking her. I wanted to kill the boy who had hurt her and left her questioning her role in what had happened. She had me now, and I’d beat the shit out of anyone who tried to break my girl.