Quantum Boxed Set: The Complete Series

by Force, Marie

  I ease back from the kiss, running my thumbs over her sweet face. “I care about you more than I’ve ever cared about anyone. No matter what else happens, I need you to know that.”

  Her eyes shine with unshed tears. “I do know, Hayden. I’ve known that for a long time. I love you so much. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. I wish you’d believe me when I tell you that.”

  “I want to.”

  “You can.”

  “I’m trying.”

  “I know you are.”

  “Tell me where you were tonight.”

  She rubs shamelessly against my hard cock. “Aren’t there other things you’d rather do right now than hear about my night?”

  “Just tell me you didn’t let any other man touch what’s mine.” I’ve never said such a thing to a woman before, and to me it’s almost bigger to admit she’s mine than it was to admit to myself that I love her.

  “I didn’t let anyone touch me.”

  The relief I feel at hearing that trumps every other emotion I’ve experienced during the last insane twenty-four hours.

  Her legs curl around my hips in invitation. Her wet heat on my cock is irresistible, and I slide into her slowly and carefully, knowing she has to be sore. Whereas last night was about ravenous hunger, tonight is about sweet love. I almost have myself convinced that I could be satisfied if this is all it ever is for us, sweet vanilla sex with the woman I love.

  If only I didn’t know how much more is possible. But for tonight, for right now, this is more than enough. It’s more than I ever hoped to dream possible. She moves with me in an effortless rhythm, her internal muscles snug around my cock, her heat searing and branding me as hers. It’s true. As much as she’s mine, I’m hers. I can no longer deny that, and I don’t want to.

  I find the hem of her gown and drag it up and over her head. Her lovely breasts bounce with every deep stroke of my dick. That plus the way the tips tighten into hard beads before my eyes mesmerizes me. Everything about her mesmerizes me. This, right here, is what it means to make love. I didn’t think it would be different, but it is. It’s night and day. It’s my whole heart, soul and body engaged at the same time. It’s what I would’ve said I didn’t want until I had it, and now it’s all I want. She is all I want.

  She digs her nails into my back, which is sexy as fuck. Everything she does is a turn-on. Her scent turns me on. Don’t even get me started on those little noises she makes when I’m deep inside her. God, I love them. I push my hands under her to grab her ass cheeks so I can go even deeper. I pull her open to take more of me, and she comes immediately.

  I’m not nearly done with her, so I ride the waves of her orgasm and keep her coming by not letting up on the pace. She feels so good that I’m tempted to let go and give in to the need that has me right on the edge of losing my shit. But I want one more from her first. I slow down, press deep inside and stay wedged tight while her muscles work me over. If there’s ever been anything that feels better than being inside Addie, I haven’t experienced it.

  Bending over her, I draw her left nipple into my mouth, licking, sucking and biting until it’s standing up tall. Then I do the same to the right side.

  “Hayden,” she whispers.

  “What, baby?”

  “I want you to train me. Teach me. Show me what you want.”

  I shake my head. I can’t. I just can’t.

  “Please,” she says, her eyes filling. She grasps my face and forces me to look at her. “Please.”

  “No.” I begin to move again, faster now, angry at myself and her. She’s asking for more than I’m able to give. If she ever knew what I really want, she’d look at me with fear in those beautiful eyes. I couldn’t bear that, so I take the coward’s way out. I fuck her hard until she comes again, and this time I give in and take my own pleasure, losing myself in her.

  I come down on top of her.

  She wraps her arms around me, her tears wetting my face. “Why?” she asks softly, so softly I almost don’t hear her. “Is there something wrong with me?”

  “God, no, baby.” It kills me that she would think that. “Everything about you is right. You’re perfect just the way you are. I’d be crazy to mess with perfection.”

  “I want to be perfect for you. I don’t want to be put on a pedestal to worship and admire. I want to be your equal. Your partner.”

  “You’re my equal in every possible way.”

  “But I can’t be your submissive.”

  “No.”

  She pushes on my shoulder. “Let me up.”

  I withdraw from her, and she gets up. “Addie—”

  “You need to go now, Hayden.” She disappears into the bathroom, the door slamming behind her.

  “Fuck.”

  Chapter 13

  I take a long hot shower as tears stream down my cheeks. I hate him and love him and want him and hate him. My emotions are a big disaster that circles around one exasperating man. I stay in the shower until the hot water begins to wane. My heart aches along with every other part of me as I towel off and put on a robe.

  Certain he’s long gone by now, I leave the bathroom and find him sitting on my bed, his head in his hands. He got as far as putting his jeans back on, but his chest is still bare. His defeated pose goes straight to my broken heart. Knowing he’s hurting as much as I am makes it more bearable. But why is either of us hurting when we both know what we want? That’s the part I can’t seem to reconcile no matter how hard I try.

  I sit on the bed next to him and put my arm around his shoulders.

  “I couldn’t leave it this way,” he says after a long silence.

  “That’s an improvement from when you ran away.”

  “I don’t want to hurt you, Addie, and I hate that I keep doing that.”

  “Then don’t. Tell me what’s stopping you from giving us a real, honest chance.”

  Releasing a deep breath, he sits up straight.

  I keep my arm around him, needing the contact and hoping it helps to prop him up, too. He wants to tell me. I can see that. But he shakes his head. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “When you say that, I want to punch you, and I want to make it hurt.”

  A ghost of a smile occupies his lips. “I wouldn’t blame you if you did.”

  “You’re not being fair to either of us.”

  “I’m sure that’s how it must seem, but I’m actually thinking of you when I tell you it’ll never work. I’ll disappoint you more than I already have. I don’t have the settle-down-with-one-woman gene, Addie. Look at my dad—he’s on his fourth wife, and because all they do is fight, I expect he’ll be telling me any day now that they’re splitting. And my mom—three husbands, three divorces. That’s my gene pool. The Roths don’t do monogamy or the kind of lifetime commitment you deserve.”

  “That’s utter bullshit, Hayden. You’re not your parents. If you were, you’d be in rehab with five kids to support. But you’re not. You’re their polar opposite, and you can’t even see that. You’re a successful, productive, healthy man who has many of the same friends he had in high school. You’ve never touched a drug, you drink only socially, and you take care of everyone and don’t even realize it.”

  “What does that mean?” He looks genuinely baffled. “Who do I take care of?”

  “Everyone! Your mom, Sebastian, Flynn, the Quantum team, me.”

  He shakes his head. “I do not.”

  “Hayden.” I wait until he’s looking at me. “You do, too. Everyone looks to you for direction at work—and not just when filming—and your mom would be dead without you. You’re a caretaker. It’s who you are. It’s what you do. But who takes care of you?”

  “I don’t need anyone to take care of me.”

  “Everyone needs someone. Why won’t you let your someone be me?”

  “Because!” He gets up and stalks to the glass door to my deck. Hands on his hips, his every muscle rigid with tension, he says, “You think you know me, but you do
n’t. You don’t know how hard it is for me to…” He buries his hands in his hair, as if he wants to tear it from his skull, and then drops his hands to his sides, his shoulders sagging in defeat.

  I get up and go to him, placing my hands on his shoulders and touching my lips to the indent between his shoulder blades. “What’s hard for you to do?”

  “This! Us. All of it. I don’t know how to do this, Addie. I’ve never done it. I’ve never seen it done. I’ll fuck it up so bad, and then you’ll hate me for real, and I couldn’t bear that. I just couldn’t. If I lost you…”

  I slide my arms around his waist. “You won’t lose me, Hayden. I promise that no matter how badly you fuck it up, no matter how ugly it might get, you’ll never lose me.”

  “You can’t make that promise. You don’t even know what you’re saying.”

  “Tell me what I don’t know. What big, dark secret are you keeping from me that’ll prevent us from making a go of this?”

  “There’s no secret. You’re asking me to be someone for you that I have no idea how to be.”

  “All I’m asking you to be is you. We’ll figure out the details together, one step at a time.”

  “What if…”

  “Say it. Whatever it is, put it out there.” I feel like I’m fighting for my life by fighting for him.

  He turns to face me, and the torment I see in his eyes sears me. “What if this isn’t what I want?”

  I force myself to remain calm, to not show him how much his question hurts me. “Only you can know that.”

  His hands land on my hips, keeping me with him when I would’ve turned away to get myself together. “I want you. I don’t know if I want all the bells and whistles you’re looking for, but God help me, I do want you.”

  “I want a chance to make it work. That’s all I’m asking for, Hayden. A chance.”

  He stares down at me, and I hold my breath waiting to hear what he’ll say. “Why me? Why in the world have you set your sights on me?”

  “Why not you? Why do you believe that no one in their right mind would ever care about you or love you?”

  “Because no one ever has.”

  “Your mother does.”

  He shrugs. “She has to. I’m all she has.”

  I stare at him, incredulous. “That’s not why she loves you. She loves you because you never stopped believing in her, even when she gave you every good reason to turn your back on her. Flynn loves you. Jasper, Kristian and Marlowe love you. What about Sebastian? You saved his life, Hayden. Where would he be without you?”

  All this talk of love makes him squirm. “You’ve built me up to be way more than I actually am.”

  “No, I haven’t. I see you exactly for who and what you are, and I love you.” When he would turn away from me, I stop him. “I love you, Hayden, and not because I have to, but because I don’t know how not to. I’ve loved you, I think, since the first time I ever laid eyes on you, lording over one of your first sets, bossing everyone around. You blew me away with your passion and your intensity and your sexy blue eyes.” I’m telling him far more than I ever intended to, but I sense he needs to hear it. “I don’t remember a time when I didn’t want you, and now that I’ve had you, I want you even more than I did before.”

  He stares at me, seeming stunned by my confession. “That long?” he asks, his voice hoarse.

  “That long. So you see, you have to give me a chance or else—” I never get to tell him the “or else” because he’s kissing me. His hands cradle my face as he devastates me with every stroke of his tongue. I cling to him, hoping this is his way of telling me I’m going to get that chance I want so badly.

  His hands drop to my shoulders, and then his arms are around me. He breaks the kiss, his lips skimming over my face and neck. Only the tight hold he has on me keeps me standing when I’d otherwise slide into a puddle on the floor. His tender sweetness disarms me. I wonder if he’s ever shown another woman this side of himself. Probably not. Look what it’s taken to get him to be vulnerable with me.

  “I want to give us the chance,” he says haltingly.

  The surge of joy that overtakes me has my heart on the verge of bursting.

  “But…”

  With that one word, the joy is gone, replaced by anxiety. What now?

  “I won’t bring you into my BDSM lifestyle. That’s off-limits.”

  He giveth, and he taketh away.

  I let my arms fall from around his neck and take a step back. When he tries to come with me, I flatten my hands against his chest to stop him. “No deal.”

  “Will you listen to me?”

  “No, I won’t. I want all of you or none of you.” As I say the words, a stab of panic hits my abdomen, leaving me reeling but firm in my resolve. “Your choice.”

  “Addie, please. Listen.”

  “You heard me. I don’t see what else there is to say unless you’re willing to give me everything.”

  “You’re seriously going to tell me you’ve loved me for ten years and then walk away if I can’t give you everything?”

  I force myself to meet that intense blue gaze that shreds me. “Yes.”

  Shaking his head, a furious expression on his face, he stalks across the room to grab his T-shirt off the floor and puts it on—inside out. But he doesn’t notice as he leaves the room.

  I stand perfectly still until I hear the door slam behind him. My legs begin to tremble, and I stumble my way to the bed, where I sit and focus on breathing. One breath at a time, one second at a time. That’s how I’ll bear the pain that makes every part of me ache for what I just let walk away. Isn’t some of him better than none?

  “No,” I say, moaning. “No, it’s not enough.” I don’t know what to do with all the emotions running around inside me. I’m confused and despondent and furious. And sad. I’m incredibly sad for what could’ve been. My cell phone rings in the tone I’ve assigned to Flynn.

  Another rule to being the successful assistant to the biggest movie star in the world is never ignoring a call from him, even when your heart has been shattered.

  “Hey,” I say. “What’s up?”

  “What’s the matter?” he asks.

  “Nothing, why?”

  “You sound weird.”

  “I’m fine. I was working out.”

  “Are you lying to me?”

  “What do you need, Flynn?”

  After a long pause, he says, “I’m coming over. Don’t go anywhere.”

  Before I can object, the phone goes dead. “Great.” I put on a robe and head for the bathroom to do what I can to repair the damage before he gets here. I usually love the way he looks out for me, but tonight I want to be alone. I don’t want to talk about it. What’s there to say?

  I love Hayden. He loves me. But we can’t be together for some reason that only he seems to understand.

  My face is swollen, my eyes are red, and I generally look like death warmed over. I suppose I should consider myself fortunate that it took twenty-seven years to have my heart broken. Sure, I’ve had boyfriends, a few I even liked a lot, but I’ve loved only one man. In the back of my mind, always, was the image of how my life would transpire.

  Hayden and I would sow our so-called wild oats with other people, and then it would be our time. After a gorgeous, joyful wedding, we’d buy a fantastic house on the coast where we’d entertain lavishly and raise a family of blue-eyed babies. I’d hold down the fort at home with the kids while he was on location, and in the summer, when our kids were on vacation, we’d go with Hayden to exotic places where he’d create magic on film and our family would share in a grand adventure. There’d be delicious Thanksgiving turkeys and ten-foot Christmas trees and Easter egg hunts on our huge lawn. There would be friends and family and love and laughter and happily ever after.

  I wipe away the new flood of tears that course down my cheeks as it becomes clear that none of that is going to happen. Not with him, anyway. The sad thing is, I can’t imagine any other man but him p
laying the starring role in my fantasy life. I’m still in the bathroom and still weeping when I hear a pounding knock on my door.

  I’m in no way prepared to see anyone right now, but I know Flynn won’t leave until he’s laid eyes on me. I tie my robe tighter around my waist and wipe my face—as if that will matter. I open the door to find Flynn, Natalie and Marlowe. Fantastic.

  He gasps at the sight of me. “I’m going to fucking kill him.”

  “No, you’re not.” Leaving the door open for them, I turn away and head for the bar I keep in the corner of my living room. “Who needs a drink?” I pour glasses of prosecco for myself, Natalie and Marlowe.

  “Yeah,” Flynn says. “I’ll have one.”

  I pour two fingers of Bowmore, his favorite single-malt Scotch, into a highball glass and hand it to him. He’s pacing the length of my living room, clearly livid with Hayden. Part of me wants to set Flynn on Hayden and encourage him to beat some sense into his best friend, but what good would it do?

  Marlowe hugs me. “What can I do?”

  “Nothing. How was your trip?”

  “Screw that. I don’t want to talk about London. I want to talk about why you’ve been crying and what we’re going to do about it.”

  “There’s nothing we can do.”

  “What happened?” Natalie asks, her expression empathetic and kind.

  I sit on a floral chaise and curl my feet under me. “He offered me eighty percent, and I said that wasn’t good enough.”

  “What do you mean?” Flynn asks, his sharp gaze intently focused on me.

  “It’s sort of personal…”

  “Come on, Addie,” he says. “This is you and Hayden we’re talking about here. We want to help.”

  Again I tell myself it doesn’t matter if they know the truth, because there is no me and Hayden as anything other than “friends.” I clear my throat and vow to get through this without tears, which also aren’t helping anything. “He wants to be with me, but not in the way he is with other women.”