Dylan drops his hand around to strum my clit and oh— It starts to hit. But then, wha—
Dylan stops.
Everything.
Just.
Stops.
I whimper and look over my shoulder. Dylan’s face is serious as the grave.
He leans over and breathes kisses over my temple. My entire body shudders, tremors of the waiting orgasm still teasing me.
“It seems like the only way I can get complete honesty from you is when I have you like this. With my cock buried inside you.”
He shifts, pulling out and then shoving to the hilt again and I stifle a groan.
“Now tell me what’s wrong and why you clammed up earlier when I was looking at the blueprints. And don’t you dare try to lie or hide shit from me.”
I can’t help the tear that crests and then falls down my cheek.
Of course he could see I was lying. I can’t keep anything from him. He’ll see through my bullshit every time.
But I have to protect him.
That’s what love means, no matter the sacrifice to him.
So I tell him as much of the truth as I can.
“If Pro got the contract with Lennox Brothers, it would solve so many problems,” I confess, my voice watery. “But I hate the thought, hate it,” I whisper vehemently, “that you would think I would ever use this relationship to get ahead at work.”
I reach back and grab his face. “I swear,” I look him in the eyes, “I would never do that. Never use you just so I could get ahead. You’re everything to me.” I press my forehead to his. “Everything. You’re my everything.”
He pulls back and then surges inside me again. And again and again.
“Jesus fuck, I love you,” he whispers harshly before his lips crash down on mine and my orgasm finally crashes over the edge into a blinding white light.
Chapter Seventeen
DYLAN
The rain is pouring as I push back into my office after my lunch date with Miranda. Jesus, that woman. She hasn’t told me a lot about her past but I’ll bulldoze down her barriers one at a time. I swear I will.
In time, she’ll learn she can trust me with everything. And while I’ve never historically been a patient man, with her I can go as slow as she needs.
I close my eyes, savoring the taste of her on my lips. The sweet smell of her. The feel of her body clenching around me.
Then I shake my head and grin. Jesus, I have actual work to get done this afternoon, but later tonight…
I whistle as I head up the elevator.
Later tonight I’ll be happy to do some more explorative boundary busting.
The pep in my step must be obvious because Darren is in the lobby chatting with Sylvia, our interim Executive Assistant while Hannah is on vacation to visit her grandkids.
Darren turns my way.
“Are you… whistling? What’s got you in such a cheerful mood.”
I throw out my hands. “It’s a beautiful day.”
Both Darren and the young blonde woman behind the desk look in confusion to the window where it’s gray and the rain is pouring.
I just laugh. “Oh, and there’s the fact that I’m in love. That might have a little something to do with it.”
Darren’s mouth drops open. Literally drops open and I laugh, walking up and shutting it for him. “Watch out, little brother, you’ll catch flies like that.”
I walk past him, giant smile still stretching my face. “Be in my office in twenty, Dare. I know you’re flying out to the manufacturing plant outside Bangkok in a few hours, but we need to call the investors together. I want to make the contract with ProDynamics happen after all.”
“What?!”
I hear Darren’s footsteps hurrying behind me as I head toward my office. I smile at the shock on Darren’s face. “But what about the future of robotics? And being on the cutting edge and all that shit? You’ve been fighting for RISC for months!”
“What can I say? Between all the trouble we’ve been having in testing and you wearing me down about it every day, I’m finally listening to reason.”
And the idea of Miranda being the liaison for the length of the contract, yes, I like that very much. Everybody wins. We can try the RISC chips in another few years after they’ve worked out all the bugs and they’re more stable.
“That’s great news,” Darren says as we step into my office, “but are you really saying this didn’t have anything to do with a certain brunette beauty that had you scampering off when you never take lunch? She works there, doesn’t she?”
Then he pauses. “Oh.” Another pause. “I see.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “It’s not like that. If we aren’t going with the RISC chips, there’s no reason not to use Pro processors. They tested among the best of the older style. You know, the kind you’ve been nagging me to go with, ad nauseum. I don’t get what the problem is.”
But Darren doesn’t look happy like I thought he would at hearing the news. To tell the truth, he looks grim. “Look, brother,” he claps a hand on my shoulder, “I hoped this thing would fizzle out on its own and I’d never have to have this talk with you…”
I shrug his hand off. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
He sighs and runs a hand through his hair.
“I had my guys look into her.”
My jaw clenches and I only barely stifle the impulse to shout my next words. “You what?”
He holds up his hands. “Look, Dylan, this girl shows up out of nowhere and suddenly it’s like you’re a different person and now with this contract. I just had to make sure she was legit. So I had some of my guys do some digging and—”
“And nothing.” I stand up and get in my brother’s face. “You and I know better than anyone how false things can look without context. What if she ran a so-called search on me? She’d think I was a… a rapist.” I almost choke on the last word and I can’t believe Darren would pull this shit.
But Darren just stands up taller. “I’d say I’m sorry but I’m not. Dylan, you need to hear what I found out. Did she tell you that she used to date Bryce Gentry?”
“What?” I bark, taking a step back like he slugged me.
“Yeah.” Darren’s nodding. “They dated for two years. She could still be working for him, even while he’s in prison. He could be trying to manipulate you into another scandal or—”
“Shut the fuck up,” I shout, turning my back on him and pacing away several steps. Miranda dated Bryce?
She dated…
My stomach drops to the floor as I remember that day. Before I found Chloe, Bryce was bragging about that night. That night after I left.
“You had fun at our party the other night, didn’t you? You missed the best part, though.” Bryce smirked. “It really got rowdy after you left.”
He laughed as he pulled out his phone and pushed play on a video. “Look. We fucking broke the bitch but she loved every second of it.” And there was the woman with the leather hood on, limbs splayed out helplessly as Bryce crouched over her, his foot on her face as he fucked her ass from above.
Her whole body jerked with the force of every merciless down thrust.
The cameraman walked around them, leaning in especially close so you could hear her pathetic whimpers as she cried.
“She was sobbing by the end, you would have fucking loved it,” Bryce laughed. “Oh, wait for it, wait for it—” he pointed at the screen.
A high-pitched wail strangled its way from the woman’s throat.
“See, the bitch still cums. That slut loves the fucking pain. I taught her to. She’s my bitch. It took a couple years but now she can’t fucking cum without it.”
“Damn,” I said, looking at the video, hard as stone and wishing like fuck I’d stayed to the end of the night. “Wish I had a girl like that.”
I’m going to be fucking sick again.
Was Miranda the girl?
Please Jesus, let Miranda not be that poor girl.
I masturb
ated to thoughts of that night and that video for years. Fucking years, even after I found out what a sociopath Bryce Gentry was.
It took a couple years but now she can’t fucking cum without it. The pain.
And Miranda was with Bryce for two years. And most of the time, she needs pain to come. Oh Jesus. It was her. It was her, wasn’t it. What sadistic shit did he do to her to make her not be able to cum without pain?
I think of everything she told me about her happy childhood in Ohio. Her mom and dad, still happily married after thirty-five years.
What the fuck did I think had happened to her to make her like sex the way she did? Why didn’t I ever ask? Why didn’t I demand to know?
I grab my hair and yank as hard as I can but it’s not enough. I shout and run at the wall, slamming it with my fists.
I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to know about the other men she’d been with. And I hoped, I don’t know, maybe some people are just into pain. Maybe she didn’t have to have demons in her past like I did.
But Bryce fucking Gentry?
Part of what was released in the Gentry files were videos of him raping women, multiple women, in the most horrific ways—
My fists go through the thin drywall and I kick and kick and kick at the boards underneath until Darren is pulling me backwards.
“Dylan!” he keeps shouting but I throw him off, turning on him.
“Was she the girl? That night, was she the girl? That we both…” Oh fuck, even beyond whatever Bryce did to her, there was what me and my own brother had—
Darren looks away and his voice is quiet as he admits, “Yeah. It was her.”
I stomp to my desk and hurl my lamp against the wall but it’s not enough. Not nearly fucking enough. I heave my entire desk onto its side, sending my monitor crashing to the floor. Still not fucking enough. I— We— Darren was at her mouth while she was trapped in that godawful leather hood and I— I—
I kick my fucking chair and then—
I can’t fucking stand looking at my brother for one more second. I have to get out of here. Maybe if I run far enough, fast enough, I’ll wake up from this fucking nightmare.
Chapter Eighteen
MIRANDA
“Mmm.” I lick my lips after I taste the pasta sauce. It’s good. I followed the recipe online but you never know how those will turn out. Not that I’d really know. I don’t cook that much. As in, never. I think this might be the second time I’m using this saucepan.
But I wanted to do something special for Dylan tonight.
I still feel like shit. He asked for honesty and I lied.
Lies of omission still count. I Googled it.
The water in the pot on the other boiler is finally boiling and I pour in the pasta, checking the box to see how long it’s supposed to cook for.
I’m definitely taking up cooking, though. Having something to do with your hands when you’re feeling lousy about stuff is turning out to be very useful. And I get the idea I’ll be feeling lousy for a while because I’ll have to keep lying to Dylan for who knows how long.
I sigh as I grab a wooden spoon and stir the noodles.
I’m about to put on the timer for nine minutes like the package said when there’s a pounding on my front door.
I frown and look toward the door. I’m not expecting a package, I don’t think. I set down the spoon and head for the door.
Looking through the peephole, I smile when I see it’s Dylan. I unlock the door and pull it open.
“Dylan?” I exclaim. “What’s wrong?”
I didn’t get a good look at him through the warped fisheye lens but he’s clearly upset. Really upset.
I reach out for him but he pushes past me into the house, dragging his hand roughly through his hair. I close the door and turn to find him pacing back and forth in the space behind the couches in my living room.
He looks terrible. I only saw him hours ago but somehow he looks like he’s aged a decade.
“Dylan,” my voice trembles. “What’s going on? You’re scaring me.”
His eyes shoot to me and they’re full of so much hurt a hole immediately punches through my chest.
“You dated Bryce Gentry.” His voice is low and gravelly, like it hurts him to even get the words out.
I take a step backwards at the name, I can’t help it.
“Is it true?”
My shoulders slump.
“Yes.”
“Jesus,” he breathes out and when I can bring myself to look back at him, it’s like all the life has drained out of him. “You knew I knew him. You knew even before we started dating.”
I nod and his jaw flexes.
“You knew I was there? That night?”
My eyes squeeze shut and my bottom lip trembles but I fight against the flood of tears choking their way up my throat.
“No. I didn’t know that until later.” I force my eyes open. He deserves the complete truth. “But I guess I always knew there was a possibility.”
He drops to his knees, his face absolutely devastated.
“Why? Why would you—?” He shakes his head and for the first time, I see tears glistening at the edges of his eyes. “Then why would you even flirt with me that night at the conference? Why would you let me—?”
It’s time. Time for the whole truth.
I suck in a breath but it still takes everything in me to keep my voice even remotely steady. “Bryce Gentry tried to break both of us. For a little while I tried to go back to being the girl I was before I met him. But there was no going back. So then I tried to be this other woman. The one everyone else sees from the outside. Confident. Unbreakable. Perfect. But I was dying on the inside because she was a lie, too.”
I beg him with my eyes to understand. “So I went looking for…” I trail off, shaking my head. “A kindred spirit? I researched you. I went to talk to the woman they said that you’d—”
He flinches back in revulsion. “So you knew what I— You knew my fucking proclivities before I even came after you that night?”
I nod, my chin wobbling so hard I have to take another huge breath. “I honestly don’t know if I was looking for someone to commiserate with or if I wanted someone else to– to hurt me and play the same fucked up games that Bryce used to.”
I take a step closer but he jerks back.
“But what I found instead was you. I never— You were never— Please, Dylan, I’m so sorry.”
He gets to his feet, holding onto the wall for strength.
“Wait, Dylan, please—don’t go.” I reach a hand toward him but he looks at it like it would burn him.
“You went looking for the monster,” he says. “And that’s what you found. Jesus, what I did to you that night.” He drags his hands down his face, with his nails like he’s trying to tear at his skin.
“You didn’t do anything to me that I didn’t want. You know I liked it. I wanted it rough.”
“So did my mother!” he shouts. “She didn’t leave either!”
I cry out at the accusation. It cuts. It cuts deep, him comparing me to the woman he never forgave.
His face is full of anguish as he backs away. “I already helped Bryce break you once. You only came back because of how deeply he scarred you. And instead of helping you heal, I’ve only been digging the knife in deeper. Keeping you broken, just like my father did my mom.”
“No!” I swallow down my hurt and focus on what’s important here. “You’re a good man. It’s your brother that’s the monster.”
“What?”
From the total confusion on his face, it’s clear he still has no idea. But I’m done with secrets.
“After you left that day we had lunch at Darren’s house, he threatened me. He said if I didn’t convince you to take the contract with my company, he’d release a video of us he’d taken that first night at the garage. He’s been having you followed. He wants you out of the company. Or at least out of the decision making. I think he might even be sabotaging y
our trials with the new processing chips somehow.”
Dylan just shakes his head like he literally can’t comprehend my words.
But if nothing else, I have to make him understand how dangerous his brother is.
“He hit me, Dylan. He punched me and kicked me and threatened worse.” I lift my shirt to show him the bruises on my ribs. “Please don’t trust him.”
Dylan just keeps shaking his head as he stumbles backwards toward the front door.
“Wait, Dylan, please—” I follow him but he shoves an arm out and I stop.
“Please, Dylan,” I plead. I’m shattering. Can’t he see that being with him was the first time I’ve been whole ever since Bryce. With him I’ve been able to believe that I wasn’t worthless. That I had so much value, I could change someone’s whole life.
But now— Now—
“Dylan, no.” I’m begging now and I don’t even care. “I can’t— Not without you.”
But he’s got his hand on the doorknob. He twists it and then wrenches the door open so hard, I’m shocked it’s not ripped off its hinges.
And then he turns and disappears out into the pounding rain without another look back.
Chapter Nineteen
DYLAN
“You’re all wet, honey. But I bet I could warm you right up.”
I glare up at the barely dressed girl leaning over me. “Did I ask for any fucking company?”
Her plastered on smile falters but only slightly. The strobe light from the front of the club flashes our way, illuminating just how much makeup she has caked on her face.
She disgusts me just like this entire place disgusts me. Which is exactly why I’m here. It’s where I fucking belong.
“Leave,” I order when she looks like she’s going to make a second attempt. I don’t want a fucking lap dance. I didn’t come here for that.
“No,” I say as she starts to turn away. I down the glass of whisky in front of me. “First have them bring me two more of these.”
She nods and then scurries away.
I look around at the garish lights. At the girls dancing on poles. At the desperate men lining the catwalks waving cash. At the women grinding on men’s laps in the dark.
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