by Jade Kerrion
He held his breath as he approached the corner of Water Street and Hudson Avenue. A small-framed person in a hooded trench coat leaning against the brick wall looked up.
Familiar eyes in a stranger’s face. He would have recognized her eyes anywhere.
“No flowers for sale today?” he asked, relief making his tone brusque.
“Are you mourning anyone?” she asked quietly.
“I haven’t lost anyone who’s meant enough to me.”
Cixi bit her lip and lowered her head. “I know why you’re angry.”
“Do you?”
She nodded. “I took the diamond. I’m sorry.”
The diamond. Right. Keep the conversation focused on the fact that she stole the diamond, not on the fact that she left me without any explanation. The former justified his anger. The latter revealed vulnerability he couldn’t afford to display to a callous, heartless thief. He focused the fury that had simmered for months. “You’re sorry? It’s not that simple.”
“I know. Whatever you do, whatever you want…I understand.”
“I don’t think you do.” What I want…wanted…is…was…you. Rio ground his teeth. Damn it, why couldn’t he get his tenses right?
Their eyes met. Some part of his mind still saw her as she had been. Small, upturned nose dusted with freckles. Plump lips and a dimple dancing in her left cheek.
They were gone now. Her nose had been straightened and lengthened into an elegant profile; her lips reshaped into a sexy pout, and the dimple had been smoothed away beneath flawless skin.
Only the eyes were truly hers, and she stared at him with an expression that seemed equally born of resentment and regret. Her regret made perfect sense, but resentment? A muscle twitched in his cheek. None of this is my fault.
Without warning, she placed her small hands on either side of his face and kissed him. The contact jolted his mind and shot straight into his groin. Their tongues tangled with heat and eagerness that belied her virginal image.
No. He couldn’t allow himself to lose track of who—what—she really was. Liar. Heartbreaker. Thief.
He grabbed her wrists and imprisoned them behind her back. “Be careful. We’re not the same people who fell in love two years ago.”
She stared up at him, her eyes large, her lips slightly parted.
In spite of her perfectly applied makeup and that much-too-beautiful face, she had the air of a street waif—the kind that tugged at his heart and begged to be protected.
I’m not going to fall for that again.
His grip tightened on her wrist as he led her through an unmarked doorway and up the steps to a dimly lit corridor. An old woman, her eyes canny and ageless, stared at them. Her gaze flicked over their clothes. “That’ll be two hundred.”
The price was extortionist—easily five times the hourly rate for a room rental—but he didn’t care. He wanted, needed, to show Cixi she no longer had power over him. Rio flung the money at the woman and took the key she held out.
It wasn’t until he reached the end of the corridor when he realized she had given him the same room that he and Cixi had used the first time they’d made love.
The room was as tiny as he remembered, its carpet thin and dirty. The sheets on the bed might have been colored at some point, but had faded from repeated washings. The dubious stains appeared to have been washed over, if not completely removed.
He locked the door and flung the key down on the bed. “Take it off.”
Cixi hesitated for a moment before shrugging off her trench coat. Beneath it, she wore the white gown she had worn to the auction. The blue diamond still glittered at her throat. Rio grimaced. It was a reminder, if he ever needed one, of what happened when he allowed love to get the better of him.
Love was for fools.
Lust was easy, and it was all that was left to him.
He clenched his teeth against the flicker of doubt that it was wrong…that somehow, he was wrong. She was a thief, and the diamond was the least of what she had stolen from him. His pride, his love—I gave her too much power over me and it is time to take it back. Anger steeled his resolve. His voice, husky with raw male need, rasped. “Take it all off.”
Cixi drew a deep, shaky breath. Rio was staring at her the way he had always looked at her, with desire in his eyes, but there was something hard and cold in the set of his jaw.
He was right. She didn’t recognize him, but then again, she scarcely recognized herself. She straightened. If it was revenge he wanted, he would have it, and she intended to enjoy every moment of it.
Eighteen months of hypervigilance, of being in control and on top of her game, had knotted tension into her every nerve. She had no safety valve; no mental, emotional, or physical release; no one she could trust.
Except Rio.
She needed the release as much as—perhaps even more than—he needed his revenge.
She unzipped her dress and slipped the straps off her shoulders. The dress fell into a silken puddle at her feet. She was about to step out of her three-inch heels but he strode up to her. His warm hand cupped the heat between her thighs. With a low gasp, she pressed her hips forward, craving his touch and the friction of his rough hands against her slick body.
He rubbed his fingers against her satin thong, drawing a moan from her. “What do you want?” he murmured in her ear, his voice hoarse. “You took my diamond. Are you a thief or a whore?”
A shudder ran up her spine. Desire coiled in the pit of her stomach. She could not bring herself to be afraid of Rio, in spite of his crude, even cruel words. Her body craved him like a person dying of thirst. It didn’t matter how he touched her as long as he touched her. He unhooked her bra and let it fall. She arched her back as he cupped her small breasts. He twisted the nub of her nipples between his fingers until they swelled, rosy and engorged.
She moaned, low and breathy, clutching at his biceps as her knees wobbled.
Rio snarled. “You’re not going to fool me with that act.” He pushed her away from him. “How many other men did you lure into loving you, into believing that he was the only one you wanted, the only one you loved?” He twisted her around and pushed her up against the glass window. Coldness smashed against her body. He grabbed her wrists and pinned them above her head. “I thought you were a shy virgin, but you’re really a shameless witch.”
She writhed against the lust spearing between her legs. If anyone on the street looked up, they would see her, naked, but for her diamond necklace and high heels, pressed against the window. A rosy heat filled her from the sheer eroticism of being on display. Her body betrayed her, her legs spreading involuntarily as his fingers brushed against the curve of her buttocks and the inside of her thighs.
“So wet.” His breath rasped against her ear. “So ready. For what?”
He slid two fingers into her. Instead of pulling away, she pushed down on them, wanting more, wanting him deeper. His thumb flicked repeatedly against her sweet spot as he stroked her core. The pressure and friction built until she was a wild creature pumping down on his hand. Her arms strained, trying to pull from his unrelenting grip on her wrists.
She did not even care who saw her or what she looked like. She needed her release; she needed to let go.
For a moment—for a single precious moment—she needed to not be in control.
She surged toward the cliff. His hands were on the reins, alternately holding her back and driving her forward. He twisted his fingers around in her, and grazed his fingernails against her buttocks.
Cixi’s eyes flared wide. Her body stiffened, clenching around his fingers as the orgasm shattered her. She sagged, held up only by his grip on her wrists, pinning her against the window. Her mind, dazzled, tried to pull the pieces of herself back together. Sound rustled behind her—a warning—but even so, she was caught off guard when he rammed into her, impaling her on his rock-hard length.
Whatever the state of her mind, her body was ready for him—slick and warm—a woman prime
d for a man. He braced her hands against the glass, grabbed her hips, and pounded into her. The motion pushed her forward—the cold glass in front of her, his heated need behind her. Sensations collided within her, crashed over her, drowning her.
“I loved you.” His voice was raw with pain and rough with need. “I would have given you anything. Everything.”
His words frittered like sparks of friction. They caught, igniting all the guilt within her, setting her aflame. She writhed, wanting him, wanting the intimate invasion, wanted him to spend all his anger and hurt on her, so that he could overlook her betrayal and love her again.
“Please,” she moaned. Her legs quivered. She did not know what she was asking, begging for—that he would stop, or that he would go on forever.
He cupped her breasts in his hands and drew her upright. He pulled almost all the way out and then drove into her. His hands squeezed around her breasts; his fingers found her nipples, pinched and twisted them.
Pain and pleasure shot through her simultaneously. She arched back against him as she came undone, her world shredding at the edges. She wailed, the thin cry of an animal helplessly speared by ecstasy. Her body clenched around him, and his grip on her breasts tightened as his hips jerked and he spilled his seed into her.
Her mind was still dazed, still splintered when he carried her, still impaled on him, toward the bed. She murmured her protest as he pulled out of her and set her on the mattress. She cracked open an eye and watched with patient languor as he tucked himself back into his pants and straightened his jacket.
He had not even bothered to undress.
She swallowed painfully against the sudden awareness of the differences in their position. His tuxedo was hardly rumpled. She was fully naked, but for the diamond necklace and her high heels. Her nipples were erect and swollen from his attentions, and the evidence of his release dripped from her body, glistening on her thighs.
He stared at her as if at a stranger, as if he no longer recognized or knew her.
He stared at her with loathing.
The pain in her chest was so sharp and so real that she had to press against it to be certain nothing had actually physically broken.
Rio turned and strode toward the door.
“Wait.” She extended her hand to him. She moistened her lips and swallowed to wet her throat enough to speak. “The diamond.”
“Keep it.” He dismissed it as if it—and her—were worth nothing. “You’ve earned it.”
His words struck her like a blow to the face. “No, Rio. Wait please.” She scrambled from the bed and raced to the door, but he stepped out and let it slam before she could reach it or him.
He left her standing alone in the room, her trembling fingers pressed against the diamond, his payment for the whore he had turned her into.
Chapter 5
Cixi slowly pushed open the door and stepped into the condominium. Her body dragged and her mind drooped from exhaustion, more mental and emotional, than physical.
She’d had her release, but at what cost?
The emotional battering of realizing that she had been right about Rio? That he hadn’t really loved her? That he had treated her like a whore?
But then again, I didn’t tell him the truth.
Can it even make a difference at this point?
She slid her hand along the wall and turned on the light.
“Where is it?”
Her head jerked up, and she stared at Guan Yu as he uncoiled from his seat and strode toward her.
Her icy control and perfect façade slid back into place. “I told you not to come into my home without an invitation.”
“But you never invite me.” He smiled coldly. He tugged off her trench coat and his smile broadened. “You’re lucky you’re still wearing it. If you had returned without it—”
“What?” Her chin jerked up. “What would you do to me that you haven’t already done?”
“I haven’t done to you most of the things I would like to do.”
Her heart pounded at the low, lethal tone in his voice, but she refused to give ground. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Don’t I?” He circled her like a predator. The hair on the back of her neck stood up when he whispered in her ear. “I know what you did. I know you enjoyed it. You spread your legs and let him pound into you like a rutting bull.”
She braced against the shudder running down her spine.
“You’re a tease, Cixi, a shameless slut, and one day, I’ll show you where you belong—naked and on your knees. Wearing nothing but that diamond pendant and your high heels.”
The image clutched at her throat. How were Guan Yu’s sick fantasies of her any different from the way Rio had seen and treated her earlier that evening?
Guan Yu’s fingers brushed against the front of her dress—over her breasts, between her thighs—not quite touching, but the threat was clear. His erection pressed into her back.
His voice rasped. “One day, you will smell of me. Stink of me.”
I’ll kill myself first. She silently endured the threat of his touch because she could do nothing else. She closed her eyes and willed her heartbeat to slow down into a steady beat. Defiance was the only weapon available to her. For now.
The time was not yet right.
“Don’t forget how much you owe us,” Guan Yu said. “We took you in when you’d lost everything. We are your family. You owe us your life, your fame, your fortune.”
He stepped back, but the coiling unease along her spine tightened. Nausea pooled in the pit of her stomach; he wasn’t done.
Guan Yu walked to the door, but before he let himself out, he said, “He wants them.”
She turned to look at him. “Wants what?”
“The earrings and the ring. The matching pieces of the Najam ‘Azraq. Our father wants them. You have twenty-four hours to get them from Rio Loren.”
“No! Rio would never—”
“Or you know what will happen to him.”
Cixi’s eyes widened. Would Guan Yu take the diamonds by force? Hurt Rio, even kill him?
She saw the answer—the certainly of death—in Guan Yu’s narrowed eyes.
Her half-brother smiled thinly. “I suggest you get started or you’ll run out of time—both you and him.”
I was an ass. A cruel, callous ass.
Rio stared at his reflection in the mirror, despising the man he saw.
Yes, Cixi had stolen from him, but in the end, the Najam ‘Azraq was just a stone—a pretty arrangement of carbon atoms. He hadn’t even really missed it. He certainly hadn’t been using it. The jewels had been sitting in the vault of a bank, awaiting their eventual delivery to the next lady of the household.
His throat tightened.
I loved her. I would have given her everything.
Perhaps her theft of the diamond saved me from the worse fate of falling permanently into her clutches.
The logic was obvious, but the hard knot of guilt in his chest refused to unravel.
Groaning, Rio dragged his hand through his hair. Whatever she had done to him, he was not proud of what he had done to her that evening. There was no other way to polish a glow on his actions. He had treated her like a whore.
And paid for it too, to the tune of several million dollars.
He had intended to take that diamond from her, but she had looked at him like a child told that her favorite teddy bear, the one she hugged every night, the one she cried silent tears into, would be taken from her.
Just because.
Just because what? He owned that diamond? It was worth several million dollars?
The diamond had become hers in a way that meant more to her than it did to him. Even he, his eyes, mind, and heart clouded by anger, could see it.
That was it, then. He would call the insurance company in the morning and tell them he had gotten rid of the diamond. At least he would save on the damned premiums.
A knock interrupted his thoughts. He glanced at his watch
; it was past 2 a.m. Rio frowned. “What is it?”
The butler’s familiar voice spoke through the closed door. “Sir, there’s a young woman asking for you. She says her name is Cixi. I told her the family was asleep, but she was insistent and said it was urgent. Should I admit her?”
What now? He grimaced. “Show her to the library. I’ll be out in a few minutes.” Rio splashed water on his face and massaged the taut muscles in the back of his neck. Damn. It was more than he had bargained for on what was supposed to be a weekend visit in New York City.
He walked out of his bedroom and past the closed door that had once been his brother’s bedroom. The room had been left unchanged, untouched since Charles Loren died two years earlier. The door closed, like it had that night on a promising seventeen-year-old life extinguished in a drug overdose.
Not now, he thought. He didn’t possess enough mental and emotional energy to deal with the loss of Charles and the return of Cixi at the same time. He shunted his brother out of his mind. Hell, he would have liked to have done the same to Cixi. After all, he had a life to get back to—a life that demanded all his wits. He could not afford to be wool-gathering, distracted by the shit life threw his way.
He would tell her to get out and be done with it.
He should have told his butler to close the door on her.
It’s that damned curiosity again. It’s how we met, after all. My curiosity. Her compassion. Only mine’s real, and hers is not.
For a moment, he stood by the door of the library, watching her as she walked slowly along the book shelves, her fingers trailing across the polished wood. She was nervous and doing her best not to show it. Odd how much one could come to learn of someone in six months.
And still not realize the most important thing—that she never loved you; that she was merely playing you. The flare of irritation compelled him to break the silence. “What are you doing here?”
She visibly startled and turned, a delicate hand to her throat. The blue diamond still hung around her neck, but she had changed out of her evening gown. Denim jeans hugged her slender legs, and a long cable-knit sweater brushed her thighs. With her hair tied up in a ponytail, and her face free of makeup, she looked like a college student.