by K L Clare
The diversionary tactic was working. We were in the air, and I could think of only one thing: Will. Touching him and being touched by him.
“No more holding back,” he said in my ear. A trail of heat blistered my skin where he kissed his way from there to the edge of my blouse. His hand left my behind and worked the buttons.
“No more,” I admonished.
“Won’t make that mistake again, Elle. I’ll give you whatever you want.” I reached for his hard length after he pushed it against me. He caught my fingers and kissed them before imprisoning my hand above my head.
I wanted him. “I—”
He shut my mouth with his. Urgency burned in his eyes when he pulled back. “I need you to think this through. You must be certain, because if we do this—once I’ve had you—it can never be undone. There’ll be no one else for either of us. Never again will another man touch you, not as long as I breathe. You need to know how it’ll be with me. Make sure that’s what you want. Remember who I am, what I’ve done. What I’ll do.” Warning was written in his eyes.
I’m the bad guy. You must be okay with that. And I was.
“Will—”
He pressed his lips to mine and dragged his mouth over my cheek to my ear. “Hear me out,” he whispered. “I want you. Bloody fucking hell, I can think of nothing else. I need you to be the one to make a clearheaded decision. If you want me, if you choose me, or if you fail to make a decision at all, I’ll take what I want. And that’s every piece of you. If you decide otherwise, I’ll protect you but from a distance. Can’t be part of your life that way. Can’t be near you and not have you. So choose, Elle. Choose what you want and be absolutely sure. Whatever you decide, I’ll give it to you. You have my word.”
What he didn’t realize was I’d also fallen beyond reason. We were in the same crazy place. Still, I wanted to give him something to ease his worried soul. My fingers played along his jawline, my nails scratching through his slight beard. “I have thought about it, and I know what I want. I always know what I want. I choose you, Will.”
He pushed the unbuttoned blouse from my shoulders. His illuminated eyes swept over me from head to toe. “You’re so beautiful, feminine, delicate. These legs, and that arse. . . .”
“Kiss me again, Will,” I said. “You’re still in the red.”
He grinned and pressed my back to the cushions, positioning himself above me. His fevered lips were on mine as he opened the button on my shorts. “I’m going to take this off. I want to see more.” He stared into my eyes as he tugged down the zipper.
I nodded. I was his for the taking.
“I need to touch you. Waited so long.” He used his kiss to burn a path from my mouth to my stomach and slid the shorts over my hips and down my legs.
I moaned and arched against his mouth. I needed him. Nothing else mattered. The taste of Scotch on his tongue, his scent, the feel of his hot mouth on my skin—God, I was high.
When he returned to my mouth, I yanked at his shirt until he pulled it over his head. He pushed his hand down into my panties and slid two fingers inside me, drawing a sharp cry from my lips that he swallowed with his kiss. “Christ, you’re smaller than I expected. So tight, baby, and so wet,” he murmured, circling higher with his thumb as he moved his fingers in and out of me.
He tested me. Watched me. Pushed me.
No words formed in my head as he increased the intensity of his touch. Pleading for release from the ache he caused, I pulled his face to mine and cried the one word my brain had retained. His name.
He smirked against my mouth.
I writhed beneath him and cried out again, this time climaxing—shattering into billions of tiny fragments of myself. He owned me with his kiss, thrusting deep with his tongue, swallowing every sound I made.
“You are mine. You’ll never let another man touch you again.” It wasn’t just words. It was a command, and he wanted confirmation I wouldn’t break it.
“You. Only you,” I whispered, lost in his eyes.
He acknowledged our agreement with a bow of his head and kissed me once more before he stood. “Leave it,” he ordered when he saw me reach for my blouse.
I snuggled into the blanket and watched the muscles in his shoulders and back ripple as he stretched the way a lion might when rising from his den.
12
Will closed the dividing panel on his way back from the front of the plane. He sat next to me as he spoke into his phone. “Handle it, Ethan, before we land. I don’t want any opportunities created from delays at Gatwick.” He took my hand and kissed it while listening to his brother’s response.
Panic rushed up my spine. Were they talking about me?
“You okay, Elle?” Will asked, disconnecting the call. “Your skin is on fire.”
I shook my head, increasing the dizziness that had begun to buzz about my brain. “Why does she want me dead? It’s absurd to think I’d move for the throne.” The thought was random, incoherent—or maybe it was appropriate, I didn’t know.
“The Queen’s been known to get her hands dirty, yes, but not this, not murder,” he said.
A cold sweat consumed me. I prattled on like a child. “Why won’t she make them stop?”
“We can talk about this later. You don’t look well just now.”
Beads of sweat formed above my top lip. I covered my ringing ears. “Medicine.”
Will went for my handbag. The cabin spun, and I collapsed backward onto the pillows. His words—whatever he’d said—and the fumbling of his hands through my things sounded as though it had come from the end of a long, echoing corridor. He placed an arm behind me and held a small pill on his palm.
I put it in my mouth and swallowed three times before it went down. “Too hot,” I said hoarsely and wilted against his arm. I wore only my bra and panties, with no other layers to remove.
“Be still. I’ll get something cold.” He placed me on the pillows and moments later reappeared from the lavatory with small towels soaked with cold water. One he pressed to my forehead and the other to my neck.
“What else can I do to help you?” Will backed away when I reached for him. “I can’t hold you—my body heat will increase your temperature.”
Nausea hit fast and hard, taking control of my body. I covered my mouth and clawed at the cushions in a desperate attempt to get to the lavatory. He got it and carried me the few feet to the door, gently setting me down inside.
I fell to my knees and retched forcefully. Will was on his knees behind me. He held up my hair and my convulsing body.
“Jesus, Elle. When did you last eat? You’re ripping your gut to pieces.”
I was sicker than I’d ever been. It was stupid of me to not have eaten, to not have taken a larger dose of meds. I dry heaved for another ten or fifteen minutes before finally crumpling into Will’s arms. The tempo of my heart was erratic, and my weak body was listless.
Will settled on the floor and held me, his big body half in and half out of the lavatory. He ran his fingers through my hair and soothed me with his protective whispers.
Violent tremors racked my body then. Disjointed thoughts overwhelmed me. I was frightened. My blood turned cold. A heavy blanket tightened around me, suffocating me. My mind rebelled against the attack, but my body had no fight left. “Not yet. Don’t kill me,” I whispered.
“Look at me, Elle. Focus on my eyes.” The blanket was Will, his warm arms and body clamped around my frigid frame. “Your mind isn’t clear. We need to get fluids into you.” I dug my fingers into his arm. “I won’t let go, Elle. I promise.” He pressed my face to his bare chest and kissed the top of my head.
Will grabbed his phone and called his younger brother in England. “Thomas, get a paramedic to the tarmac on standby. And not some fucking ambulance driver. What? You’re breaking up. . . .”
He lifted himself and me from the floor and laid me on the sofa bed, then headed for the front. He quickly returned holding a bottle of cloudy water and took off his j
eans to climb in with me. His skin seared mine when he pulled me to his body and wrapped his scorching arms around me. The kiss he placed on my forehead was like fire. He pulled the blanket over us and shifted his weight.
“Try some of this water,” he said.
I shook my head.
“I’ll give you a little more time, then you must.”
My icy body melted further into Will’s heat. Trembling slowed to shivering, and at some point, soothed by the thundering of his heartbeat against my face, I fell asleep. He woke me frequently to make me drink the electrolyte-enriched water. I drank with success three or four times, but the last time, a wave of nausea rolled through my wasted body.
“Going to be sick,” I croaked.
Will wrapped me in the blanket and lifted me, sitting us on the floor again near the toilet. He gathered my hair and waited patiently while I heaved the water I’d taken in. I fell against him and closed my eyes.
“Open your eyes, Elle,” he ordered, lowering my head.
I tried but failed to focus on his eyes.
“Do not close them. Focus on mine. Understand?”
But I had nothing left to give. I allowed my lids to fall shut again, leaving my fate to him. Senseless, daunting thoughts ran wild inside my head, tormenting me, knowing I couldn’t fight back. The lyrics were dark and eager, convincing me that I couldn’t feel my heart, that someone was killing me.
My mind was broken.
13
After the paramedic administered fluids intravenously and the tachycardia ceased, Will carried me from the plane to his shining black Jaguar. The car suited him well—it too was strong, intelligent, and sexy. “I’ve got you, Elle. You can trust me,” he whispered as he sheltered me in his arms.
I was comforted by the car ride—the smooth roar of the engine, the luxurious floating of the wheels over asphalt, the security of Will’s embrace. I curled around him on the back seat while Thomas drove through the lush green countryside to Hastings, an ancient seaside town at the east end of England’s southern coast, about two hours south of London. The house was located on the eastern ridge above the sandstone cliffs that overlooked the English Channel.
The reason Will favored Thomas’s help was apparent. Thomas was closest to him in size and strength and had a similar disposition. He also looked a lot like Will, even with his contemporary contrast to Will’s classic handsomeness. Thomas would be the only one able to hold Will in check on a physical level when he needed it.
I’d fallen sick on the plane, but that wasn’t the worst of it. I’d also fallen apart.
In the following days, repressed grief and fear came forward as a destructive cyclone of emotion. My mind fought back the one way it knew how by forcing a mental lockdown. But after four long, rainy days, the sunshine radiating through the windows finally drew me out of bed.
I counted them. Nineteen deer frolicked across the boundless lawn of the estate, their spirits wild and free. One small doe stopped and fixed her eyes on my window. Through her, my soul looked back at me. It scorned and provoked and pushed me to let in the pain.
As if she were satisfied with the message she’d delivered, the little female ran back to the herd and left me staring at my reflection in the pane of glass.
It was clear there was only one way to free myself from the darkness into which I’d fallen. I had to feel the pain. I needed to acknowledge it so it would leave me. Before that moment, my broken mind had refused to embrace the idea.
Will wound his arms around me from behind and watched the deer play.
“Will, go on. Do something for yourself today.” It was time for me to get it together, and I had to be sure I mended with my own pieces, not his.
“I can stay. Try the medication.”
He’d stayed in that room with me for days, working hard to protect me from grief and depression. He allowed me to absorb his strength and fuse with his soul. It was the only way for me to be free of my pain. From the moment we had arrived in England, he’d accepted the burden and carried it as his own. There was nothing more selfish than what I’d done to him.
“No,” I said. “I need to feel it.”
I sent him out before the first tears fell.
I shoved the numbness away and pulled the pain inward. Every splintered piece of my heart cut me deep, and those cuts bled heavily. My soul mourned Isobel. She was too young—my sister’s life ended far too soon. It wept for Gran. Her death was unintended. She’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. My soul howled for the parents I’d never known and for all the years of my life when I wasn’t alone—the years I had with my sister and my grandmother—but still felt as though I had been.
I cried with the force of someone who was drowning. Snot and tears mixed together in my mouth, choking me. I screamed soundlessly and writhed as pain and loss ripped through my hemorrhaging spirit. Fear and anxiety were all that remained when I found the strength to pick myself up from the floor.
Stumbling into the bathroom, I whispered hoarsely, “Fear and anxiety can be managed.”
Steam would provide relief for my sore throat and gritty, swollen eyes, so I turned on the hot tap and stepped into the shower. When I emerged from the bathroom an hour later, fresh linens covered the bed, and a silver tray filled with sandwiches, cheeses, and fruit was on the table. Will had warned me about the efficiency of the household staff.
I slipped into my white silk robe. When I pulled the pins from my hair and let it fall, my mind drifted to Will. He’d return soon. A tiny flutter tickled the walls of my stomach.
As if summoned by some intuitive force, he pushed through the door with a bottle of Scotch in one hand and a bottle of red wine in the other. He poured without words as he watched me, evaluating my mood, watching it brighten before his eyes.
What we shared in the days prior was intimate and beautiful—chaste. His kisses had been tender and sweet and his arms a sanctuary. But that was about to change. Neither of us could wait another moment to lose ourselves to that one incomparable connection we hadn’t yet made.
A smile tugged at his lips as he stalked across the room and towered above me with a glass in each hand. He waited for me to meet his eyes. “When I said you were mine, I meant it. No one and nothing takes from me what is mine. You will come back from this, Elle. Back to me, so we can get this thing started.” His voice was strong as it delivered his first command since we’d arrived.
“Drink.” He put the wine in my hand.
As I measured the determination in his eyes, I sipped and waited for his next words.
“You’ll eat with me tonight. Now or in an hour, but you’ll eat before this night is over.” He nodded at my glass. “Another.”
I took another drink and stared at the man who had threatened to smack my ass for poor behavior in the States, the man who had shattered me blissfully on the plane using nothing more than his fingers. The man I wanted more than anything.
His brows flashed. Had he read my mind?
One of those long fingers guided the glass to my mouth before he went to refill his own. While at the table, he lifted the bottle of medication his physician had prescribed for me and examined the label. Then he stared at me, pushing deep into my soul. Without moving his eyes from mine, he released the bottle of antidepressants into the wastebasket.
He shot his whisky and came back to me. “You haven’t said a word, but your eyes tell me everything. Those bewitching green eyes.” Will swept tresses of hair out of his way and threaded his fingers through the back of my layers. He pulled my mouth to his and sucked hard on my lips, murmuring against my mouth. “Goddammit, Elle. I can’t wait any longer to have you.”
The wine glass slipped from my hand, splashing red at our feet. Neither of us cared. He opened my robe, and it slid from my shoulders. It fell to the floor on top of the mess and revealed my bare body. I reached for him, my heart fluttering, but he stepped back.
“I want to look at you.” The blue of his eyes was lost. “Christ
, you’re lovely.” The same words he’d said when we met in Stonington on the pier—said with the same charged eyes.
My lips curved into that same nervous smile.
“You know what will happen if I don’t leave this room.”
I nodded.
“And that’s what you want?” His tone suggested it was something I shouldn’t want, something that should offend me.
“Yes, that’s what I want. You, Will.”
He erupted—became an explosion of fiery emotion. He tore his shirt over his head and dropped his jeans as he consumed the space between us. I gasped at the sight. He was enormous. His erection was enormous. My body quivered like that of a virgin who’d never seen a man before, but my desire for him countered the nervousness.
Will smirked.
Then he lifted me into his arms and carried me to bed. He pushed his tongue past my lips as he fell on top of me. Our kiss was a firestorm of pent-up emotional and physical desire. It boiled in our blood. It was bone-deep. His skin burned into mine until I couldn’t tell the difference.
We ignored the persistent banging at the door until we couldn’t.
He leaped from the bed like a starved animal and shoved into his jeans. “What the fuck do you want?” he snapped at his brother after nearly jerking the door off of its hinges.
“Jesus.” Ethan hesitated. “We’re going to lose Stanbury if you don’t speak to him now. There’s nothing more I can do. He agreed to stay if you get back to work and handle his offshores. Otherwise, he’ll pull everything.”
Will pushed his fingers through his hair and looked at me as he spoke to Ethan. “I’ll be down in a minute. I’ll take care of him.” He closed the door and tugged on his shirt as he came back to me. “We were so close, baby.” His rasping words swept over my ear before his lips rested at my temple.
“You weren’t concerned about contraception or—”
“I saw your pills on the plane, and I was tested before I came to get you. I would never touch you without knowing it was safe for you.”