“That’s rich, coming from you! When did you move on?”
He looks a little guilty, but then he shrugs. “Consider yourself stuck with me, then.”
Anger wells up inside me, like a flood of dark poisonous mud. “No! No way!” I dart up from the bed and he follows suit. I push at his chest to get him away from me. He’s too close and I can’t breathe. “Get out!” I holler. “I hate you!” I push again and he catches my hands and shoves me backward until I hit the wall.
“Stop it, Ker! You’re overreacting!”
He’s holding both my arms, so I try to slam my head into his nose. Christian evades me and I cower as his expression changes into something less calm, something looking way too much like what I’ve seen before. In the harbor. Something dangerous. My heart speeds up as he grips my chin and presses my head back to the wall.
“Let me go,” I gasp, terrified over what I’ve suddenly unleashed.
His lips thin into a straight line as he glares at me from under a curtain of dark hair. I squirm and try to get loose, but he presses harder against me, his whole body covering every inch of mine. “You have no idea—” he whispers. And suddenly he crashes his lips against mine. My whole mind, my whole world, is instantly filled with his scent, his being.
I moan loudly and try to get free. I can’t do this! When I’m finally able to bend my head away, I pant and stare at him, shaking my head, my eyes locked with his.
Don’t do this to me!
I know how this will go. He will take, and I will let him, and I’ve been down that road. It led to nothing but pain. He takes a sudden step back and lets me go. Shoving a hand through his long hair, he licks his lips, as if tasting me. I’m unable to look away from his hypnotizing darkness. I remember all too well how those eyes sucked me in from the very first glance.
I break the spell first. “Where’s Cece?” She’s my first priority. Now. Always.
“Gimme a sec.” Christian peeks out into the main room and then comes back inside. “She’s sleeping under the table, on the rug.”
Okay… she’s okay… and I… Oh God! I slide along the wall until I sit, my legs unable to support my weight anymore. Christian crouches before me. I sob and curl up, fresh tears spilling over the old, dried ones.
“I love her,” I whisper, wiping my mouth repeatedly with the back of my hand, still feeling his lips, fighting the need for more.
“I know you do, Kerry.” His voice is so filled with warmth it makes another set of sobs wrack my chest.
“I was so alone. I didn’t have anyone to share it with. Not anyone. She is such a miracle and she filled me with so much life and— You should’ve seen her, smelled her when she was a newborn, they have a certain scent, powdery... have you—” I look up just in time to see him shake his head. “No, you haven’t. Of course you haven’t.”
I hold his gaze. For a brief moment I ache for him and what he’s missing in life by being who he is. I want him to know about her, and about what he’s been losing out on. Maybe I want him to hurt a little, make him realize he’s such a loser—doing what he does with his life.
I want him to get a glimpse of what he could have had.
What could have been.
“I have,” he says quietly, “once. My little sis. I was fifteen when she came. Mom got a little preoccupied. She never even breastfed Angela. Us brothers had to take turns with the bottle, and the diapers.” He frowns and looks away, a look of pain passing his face.
I cock my head as I take him in. Something changes in his whole demeanor, his gaze turns distant, something about him looks softer than I have ever seen before and a sudden surge of jealousy shoots through me, shocking me. I shouldn’t feel that way. Certainly not toward his sister. And why would I ever feel jealous about anything regarding him?
“What happened?”
Christian shakes his head, his eyes focusing on mine yet again. “It was bad times. We did what we could. Never mind. Tell me about Cecilia, please.”
I study him a few moments more, fighting the urge to reach out, to put a hand over his.
“Her first sound that wasn’t a hungry scream, or just sweet nonsense, wasn’t ‘mommy’.” I smile through the tears at the memory. “It was ‘amp’, like ‘lamp’ you know.”
I lace my fingers as I twist my hands nervously. My eyes can’t seem to keep looking into his for too long. It reminds me of too much. Things I don’t want to be reminded of. He chuckles, and when I glance at him again, he’s got a smile on his face and my heart, my stupid, stupid female heart jolts at the sight. Because he is so heartbreakingly beautiful to look at when his features lighten, and all the cruelty disappears as if it was never there to begin with.
“Amp,” he repeats. “That’s cute. You’d think it’d be ‘mommy’…” His voice falters. His gaze drifts toward the living room. “It should have been ‘mommy’,” he repeats, more to himself than to me.
Chapter 5
Christian
God, I want to take her in my arms as she sits in front of me, curled up by the wall, and whispers early memories of our daughter, her birth, her first words, when she crawled, walked. Her first wounds, her furious reaction when Kerry had to say no the first time. I smile then. I recognize myself. My distant memories of my baby sister come back to life. Losing Dad that very same day was such a trauma that we all went into survival mode. I became the man of the house, and with Mom plotting revenge even as she lay in the maternity ward, there was no one left to fend for the new little addition to the family. I have done this before. I had forgotten.
Finally Kerry is quiet. She fiddles with the hem of her pants and it’s obvious she can’t quite stand to meet my gaze. Her worry and discomfort around me makes me ache. I want to pull her into my embrace. I know I can coax a response out of her, give her warmth and pleasure. I know I can make her mine without much force. It’s there. It’s so close to the surface. Tension crackles between us, her breaths erratic, her eyes wide and filled with emotion. Her full lips… I want those lips on mine again so bad that it nearly chokes me.
It’s time to back off or I won’t be able to stop myself.
“I’m gonna check on Cecilia.”
She looks up and then fights her way up to standing. My hand flies out and steadies her. She twitches at my touch and I pull back immediately, as if she had burnt me.
Moaning, she sags a little and grimaces.
“What?”
“My ankle.”
I give out a short laugh. “We’ve beaten each other up pretty good, haven’t we?”
She looks up at me, a hint of a smile pulling at her lips. “I guess we have.”
Cecilia lies on the side with her little chubby hands tucked under her chin, and a drop of drool in the corner of her mouth. There are the prettiest little dimples where her knuckles should be. Her long dark eyelashes flutter as she seems to be dreaming something. I hope it’s pleasant. I barely remember her from today. I barely remember today. I slept. I had a fever. Sitting down on the edge of the couch while Kerry carefully scoops up Cecilia and cradles her to her chest, I try to feel if I’m ill or not. I decide I feel better.
Kerry is making cooing sounds. “Oh, my poor baby, you had to fall asleep all alone out here and Mommy was so mean to you… oh my God.” She puts her hand over her mouth and her lower eyelashes glisten wet yet again.
I refrain from rolling my eyes. She knows nothing about abusing children. What a blessing to be so unaware of how fucking ugly life can be for some. But I don’t think that’d be an argument that would cheer her up.
“And we didn’t get to brush your teeth,” she continues.
I have to hide the smile with a yawn.
I remain on the couch as Kerry carries Cece into the bedroom. She takes her time, but finally she comes back out, her cheeks flushed, her eyes glazed. I believe she’s been fucking crying again. What the hell? I can rough her up pretty badly, and she doesn’t even make a face, and then she can sneer, once, to her offspring an
d it breaks her?
I don’t get it. I don’t get her. Sometimes I think the world that separates us is too big, even when we’re stuck together in the middle of it.
She remains standing on the carpet in the center of the room. “The storm’s over.”
“So I noticed.”
“How do you feel?”
I flex my arm. “Better.”
“Oh.”
“Disappointed?”
“No, I wouldn’t have helped you if I didn’t mean it.”
I grin. “Perhaps. Or perhaps you’re just a better person.”
“Oh, I know I am.” She flashes a brief smile and again I see a hint of that Kerry I met so long ago at the bar. An eternity ago.
I sit up, suddenly longing desperately to touch her, to reach for some of that soft and kind humanity in her. I’m so tired of fighting. “Come here.”
She takes a hesitant step closer. “What?” Then she sits down on the edge of the table, just out of my immediate reach.
“Are you afraid of me? Still?” I frown. I don’t want her to be. I understand if she is. I wish she knew me, that part of me deep inside that isn’t a total fuck-up. The innocent I once was too. I have done bad, bad things, and she knows them all too well, but I am more. For her I want to be more, to find that again.
She regards me for a long time. “A little, yes.”
My heart sinks, but I grasp at that she’s just ‘a little’ afraid. “What are you afraid of?”
She swallows hard. “That you’ll hurt me again, I think.”
“Hurt? Or… touch?”
Her eyes widen. “Both,” she answers with a small voice, almost as a question instead of a statement.
“Can I just hold your hands?”
Her fingers thread in and out of each other and she squirms. “Maybe,” she whispers.
Victory. Small, but undeniable. I shuffle closer until I sit before her. Then I take her hands in mine and just hold them, my thumbs slowly stroking the sides of her thumbs. She gasps, and her mouth falls open, her eyes darting between our joined hands and my eyes.
“Tired?”
She nods. “You’re still warm.”
“You’re cold.”
She flinches when I lift my arm to push a tendril off her forehead. I stop mid-air before I make contact. When she starts breathing again, I carefully caress her hairline with the tips of my fingers. Her skin is so smooth. I remember that.
From before.
I lower my hand and let it rest on hers again. “You’re beautiful, Kerry.” My heart clenches. I doubt this woman would ever want to get to know the real me. As she wriggles her hand out from beneath mine and ties it into a fist in her lap, her knuckles whitening, I know she won’t ever want to get to know me. Not after all I’ve done.
And yet, I can’t leave her alone. Something in her calls for me, beckons me. I need her to become mine, I need to find our common ground.
I need her. I need Cecilia.
Or I’ll drown.
Kerry
“You’re beautiful,” he says.
I ache so bad at his tender words. I want to believe him. I want him to be good, but those beautiful eyes can turn to death in a second. These warm, kind hands can remorselessly take another human’s life. They came so close, so very close, to claiming mine.
His fingertips touch my cheek. His caress is lighter than a feather as he softly strokes along my jaw and then down my throat where I’m sure he must feel how hard my pulse beats. Goosebumps spread rapidly along the side of my neck, causing my whole spine to tingle and tense. I look into his eyes, barely able to keep my gaze locked with his. A soft smile plays at his slightly parted lips. It is as if he’s directing a beam of light, want, need, and desire toward me, and me alone. It calls to me, pulls me closer, transfixes me. I want to stay in its center and remain there, safe, loved. I lean into his touch, I can’t help myself, I’m pulled to the promise of closeness, the opposite of hurt. It stings somewhere deep inside as I remember Christian, before all the bad things happened, this is the man he was.
The man I thought he was.
He’s pressing a rag over my mouth and nose, never letting go.
I stiffen, unable to defend myself from the onslaught of memories. They nag, burn holes in my soul, erode me and make me sway, tossing me violently between comfort and pain.
His fingers leave my cheek and grip carefully around my hands, pulling me closer, urging me to comply. I’m here, not there. It’s now, not then! He’s different, he’s changed. His thumbs massage my knuckles, rubbing circles on them, making my skin burn.
He carries me in the darkness, toward my death, unaffected by my fear, by my screams, smells of rotten seaweed surrounding us.
Then, then, then!
Pulling me even closer, wedging his thighs between mine, his eyes roaming my face, he then smiles. Victoriously. Beautifully. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to resist what’s about to happen. He’s given me the most, and he’s taken the most. In my life. Ever. No one before I met him has meant more to me. How can I deny him? Maybe I do belong to him and have just never realized it until now?
“I want to kiss you, Ker.” His voice is raspy and thick and it makes me shiver.
I don’t say anything. But I don’t back away either. Eyes, so familiar, and yet so foreign, dart between mine as he moves closer. Our gazes are still locked as his lips touch my mouth, softly, not intrusively. He feels the same… and still not.
A gun to my head. Cold, unyielding metal.
“Kiss me back… Please.”
His face is a blur and my mind spins. The plea is such a soft whisper and his breath is warm on my mouth. The scent I know so well invades my every pore, fills my nostrils, and assaults my senses. He smells so good. Soapy. Musky. Familiar. I lick my lips and accidentally touch his. Jerking slightly when his hands leave mine and come to rest at the back of my head, I inhale, my heart stuttering. He pulls me to him more forcefully until there’s no return, no backing away. Pressing his mouth to mine, he separates my lips with the tip of his tongue. I gasp and my mind spins faster and faster. He feels good. He is warm, tender, vulnerable, somehow safe, and yet so terrifyingly dangerous. How did we end up here? My brain refuses to stop the increasing whirl of panicked thoughts and memories. I see him now, I see him then, I see him as a twisted image from too many dreams.
“Oh my God, come, babe,” he groans against my lips and puts his hands on my hips, pulling me to him until I straddle his lap. He cups my ass and pulls me even closer, chest to chest. He’s getting hard, pushing against my sensitive core. I have only soft pants on and they feel like no material at all as he slowly rocks back and forth. His hands wander along my back, one hand finding my nape, tightening the grip, his other sliding along the gap between my shirt and the waistband of my pants.
“Kerry,” he mumbles as he makes me breathless when his fingers meet the naked skin on my back, “I’ve missed you so fucking much.”
I don’t know what to do with my own hands, they lie passive on my thighs until I softly put them on his shoulders, careful to avoid his wound. The shudder that runs through him at my touch awakens something in me, a memory of when this felt real, when I thought he was someone not… him.
His hand wanders under my shirt, up to between my shoulder blades, then slowly slides to the side, his thumb brushing the side of my breast. I arch up in sudden, surprising need for him to really touch me.
Christian no doubt feels my sharp intake of air and how I squirm against his rock-hard bulge. Cupping my breast, he finds my nipple, pinching it, making me gasp as he keeps devouring my mouth, stealing every last bit of air along with my sanity.
He kneads my breast as his other hand travels along my back and slides inside my pants. I ache and tingle everywhere, swell, my pussy cries for his touch and it’s insane, because it’s not right. I try to remember who he is, what he’s done, but when he finds my soaked slit my brain turns to mush. I bite down on his lip when he thr
usts his fingers inside me, not gentle, nothing with this man is gentle.
A flash of a memory rips through me. Dark. Fear. Then he circles my clit, making me cry out. My thighs shake and I gasp when he suddenly twists us, pulling me under him, his fingers stabbing in and out, taking, taking, taking. It hurts a little, and at the same time it starts a furnace deep inside. He lodges himself between my thighs, pushing his thick bulge against my clit, rocking back and forth, teasing me, making me unable to breathe.
In a couple of desperate, jerky moves, he pulls up the front of my shirt, abandons my mouth and latches on to my nipple, licking, flicking, grazing it with his teeth.
“You’re mine, Kerry,” he growls. “You’ve always been mine. You said it once. You admitted it. I’m never letting you go now.”
Salty air on my face. Deaf to my pleas for my life.
My heart speeds up almost impossibly. My body hums, responding to his touch, to the fear and the pleasure, to the beast who claims his woman.
Me.
I moan, I try to speak, but cry out when he bites down on my other nipple, as his thrusting increases.
My flesh screams that it’s good, that it’s right, while my mind tries to dig up my sanity from the depths of my soul.
“This has gotta go,” he rumbles and starts pulling down my pants along my thighs.
He throws me to the ground. Rough hands around my throat.
When they’re past my knees, he makes quick work, pulling up one of my legs as he sits up a little, looking me over. I stare at him, my insides ice cold and scorching hot at the same time. His dark hair partly covers his eyes. In the dim light there’s something demon like over him, making my chest clench. I remember how he tied me up, spanked me until I cried.
“Say you want me, Kerry. Tell me you’ve longed for me as much as I’ve longed for you.”
I have. I have longed for him and feared him more than death, and here we are again.
Death. He’s death.
I see someone he’s not. I see a man where there’s nothing but a cruel monster.
Russo Saga Collection Page 89