by Bromberg, K.
The woman is making me crazy.
Absolutely fucking insane.
I don’t hesitate, though, when I knock on the door, because deep down I know who is going to answer, and maybe I’m looking for a fight.
She ran out on me. Again. She ran out after hearing me say things I never expected to speak but that came out nonetheless. First in the hallway with her and then in my speech.
But when I call I still go straight to voice mail, so I’ll assume my number is still blocked on her cell. I’m not spending another goddamn night like this.
I refuse.
The lock jiggles behind the door, and Joey looks startled when he opens it to see me standing there.
“She’s not here,” he whispers.
“No?”
He lifts his eyebrows as I study the fuck out of him to see if he’s lying, and he surprises me when he steps outside and shuts the door behind him. “Lucy’s asleep,” he explains.
“She’s not here?” I ask again.
“Lucy? Yeah, she’s here. Didn’t I just say she’s asleep?”
Sarcastic asshole.
“Don’t be a dick.”
“She deserves better than you, you know?” He crosses his arms over his chest, and the little fuck you smile on his lips has me clenching my fists.
“Are we talking about Lucy here or Vaughn? Because it seems you’re trying to be the gatekeeper for both.”
“Vaughn deserves better,” he repeats.
“You’re right. She does,” I say, enjoying his little sputter in response. “But it’s impossible to fight a battle you never saw coming. Now, you mind telling me where Vaughn is?”
“It’s none of your business.”
My chuckle carries through the night. “That’s where you’re wrong, but I’ll let it slide.” I take a step forward. “She come home after the gala?”
I see the no in his eyes before he repeats his line. “Not your business.”
“If she had, you wouldn’t still be here . . . so I’ll take that as my answer.” I take a step back.
“Did you ever think maybe she is home and she asked me to stay because she enjoys the company of someone who doesn’t treat her like their plaything?”
“So you’re dating, then?” I ask to call his bluff. “Isn’t that grounds for termination at your job?”
Joey’s instant stammering over what to say next is answer enough. She’s not home, and he thinks he has the balls to stand up to me, but when the rubber meets the road, he’s a pussy.
“Thanks, man.” I pat him on the shoulder a little harder than necessary. “I appreciate the help, though.”
And when I stride back down the walk toward the car with him staring at my back, I’m not any fucking better off than when I got here.
She’s not here.
I am.
Once again, we’re in two different places, seemingly wanting two different things.
I’m beginning to think fate has it out for us.
Either that or I’m fighting an uphill battle.
Thank fuck I know a thing or two about fighting.
“Where to?” Al asks when I climb back into the car and slam the door.
“Hell if I know,” I mutter and lift the glass to my lips. “Home, I guess.”
The night flies by outside. The lights of the city. The red of the stoplights. The darkness as we cross the bridge. The brightness as we enter downtown and then uptown.
Every woman I see out and about, I swear could be Vaughn.
But nothing eases in my chest during the drive.
Not the ache. Not the worry. Not the want.
I blow out a resigned breath when we pull up to the curb of my building. A small part of me hoped she’d be sitting here in the lobby. Nothing. It’s empty. My only companion is the hum of the elevator car as I ride to my floor.
The door dings, then slides open.
At the end of the hallway of sorts is someone sitting on the floor with her knees to her chest.
Vaughn.
This time it really is her.
Her thick lashes flutter and look up so that those aqua-colored eyes of hers meet mine across the distance. Emotions war through them—confusion, hurt, forgiveness—each one trying to win its place, and hell if I’m not rooting for forgiveness to win.
Followed a close goddamn second by lust.
I stop in my tracks as she rises to her feet. It takes everything I have to stop when all I want to do is pull her against me and take the rest of what I started earlier tonight.
But she came to me.
She’s waiting for me.
While it feels like a victory, I know with Vaughn there’s always so much more than meets the eye, so I’ll let her take this on her terms.
I’m the one who fucked up.
I’m the one who risked this all.
“Long night, huh?” It’s all I say.
CHAPTER TEN
Vaughn
“I keep asking myself how I can be with a man who so blatantly disrespected me. How can I crave your touch? How can I look at you and hate you for what you did and still want you?”
Ryker stands in the hallway to his penthouse—tie loose and draped around his collar, shirt unbuttoned at his neck, cuffs undone—and just stares at me. His eyes are dark and stoic, his lips unmoving as he remains silent.
“Everything you said tonight was perfect, Ryker. Everything. It fit the cause. It will raise money. It . . .” I shrug, unsure how to phrase what it is I want to say.
“I didn’t say it to win you back.” His voice is full of gravel when he speaks, its deep tone resonating off the walls and echoing throughout me when I don’t want it to. “I said it because it was true.”
“Why?” It’s one word, one question, and it could mean so many things. I’m curious which one thing he’ll think it’s referring to.
“There’s no right answer to that question. I was wrong, Vaughn. The senator wanted to talk, he said he had some dirt on you, and I walked easily into whatever game he was playing. No excuses. No bullshit.” He takes a step toward me but doesn’t reach out to touch. “I’m a man so used to thinking only about myself. The next client. The next high I can get in court. The next person I can turn to my advantage. It’s not a flattering fact, but it’s the truth.”
“We all have unflattering facts.”
“Yeah, but . . .” There’s an unexpected uncertainty in Ryker right now. A vulnerability I’m not used to seeing. That softer side he spoke about earlier. “I’m not good at this, Vaughn—the baring my soul shit. It’s not me.”
“No one asked you to.”
His laugh is soft and self-deprecating and punctuated by a subtle shake of his head. “I know you didn’t ask me to, but if I don’t tell you . . . I risk losing you. The past few weeks have been total shit, so I’d prefer not to repeat it.”
I smile. It’s slight and soft, but it feels good to know this has affected him too.
He takes another step forward, as if each step of his and my lack of retreating is his way to ask if he can continue.
“You got to me, Vaughn. You got to me when I told myself I didn’t believe in relationships or women or the idea of wanting more. We may have fought each other most of the way to this point, but hell if you haven’t reached into my chest and grabbed hold of my cold heart.”
“It’s not that cold.” I make the first move and reach out and rest my hand over his heart. He gazes down at it, almost as if he’s surprised. When he looks back up, there’s a genuine smile on his lips that would melt my own heart if his words tonight and his actions right now hadn’t already done just that.
“I’m not going to ask you for your forgiveness again, Vaughn. I’m just hoping in time you’ll be able to give it to me and that maybe . . . maybe we can move on from here and see wherever this takes us.”
He reaches out and cups the side of my cheek. It takes everything I have not to close my eyes and turn into it. Not to kiss his palm. Not to kiss him.<
br />
“You asked how you can want to be with me when I blatantly disrespected you. I did a lot more than just that. I hurt you. I used you. I—”
“You better watch out, Ryker. If you keep pointing out the bad, I might not want to proceed with the good,” I tease.
“I don’t know the answer to your question. What I do know is that there’s something about us that works. It’s your stubbornness and my persistence. It’s your drive and my determination. It’s us both allowing each other to be who we are without shame or trying to change one another. We just work—defined or not.”
I give in to the temptation. I shut out the warring thoughts in my mind that I forced myself to leave outside when I walked in here to wait for him. I rise on my tiptoes, lean in, and brush my lips ever so softly against his.
And when I lower myself off my toes, I keep my eyes closed as Ryker presses his lips to my forehead. We just stand here like this outside his front door, my hand still resting atop his heart.
“I was wrong.” His lips move against my forehead, the heat of his breath warming my scalp. “There’s a reason why I did what I did. It’s not a good one. It doesn’t validate or justify, and none of these words will take away the hurt I caused. I was—”
I break off his words with another kiss. This time it’s more than tender. I slip my tongue between his lips and slide my hands up the side of his neck so I can thread my fingers through his hair, and I just take.
What I want.
What is mine.
What I’m suddenly afraid to lose.
The kiss is loaded with greed and angst and heartbreak and apology.
“Vaughn,” he murmurs against my lips as he tries to speak. “I need to explain—”
“Later. You can explain later. Right now, I need you, Ryker,” I say and allow myself to give in to everything I’ve been resisting. “I need you.”
And those three words are almost as powerful as the other three words I feel about him but haven’t yet allowed myself to voice. The ones that were front and center and in neon lights when he stepped off the elevator tonight.
I know he can see the tears welling in my eyes when he leans back and frames my face with his hands. The simple gesture makes me feel so protected in that Cinderella princess way, and for the first time, I don’t care that it’s silly. I’ve never had this feeling before, so who says I can’t enjoy every trite, cliché, ridiculous moment of admitting I’m falling in love?
There’s so much apology in his eyes that one doesn’t need to be given or accepted right now. I can figure that out later. You can love someone without wholly forgiving them.
“God, I missed you.” He groans before kissing me for the first time.
It starts off slow. A touch of our lips. Then another. Each time the kiss a little longer, the need growing a little more urgent, until the dam breaks.
We crash together in a torrent of need right here in the hallway. Our lips and hands and tongues and bodies reconnect as if it’s been years since we’ve been together rather than just weeks. But there’s something about Ryker Lockhart that makes me feel like each time is new. Like each time is more special. Like each time is a hint of so much more to come.
My back hits the wall behind me as his body presses against me. Our hands roam over one another, but it’s our lips that do the talking with each kiss.
And that’s all we do. Kiss. The simplest of intimate actions. But it’s his lips that hurt me to begin with, and so I feel like he’s trying to show me that they don’t always bring pain. No. They can soothe and murmur and caress and cajole and apologize.
Every part of me burns for him. Chills chase over my skin, and the ache is so very sweet at the delta of my thighs.
But every time I try to run my hands along his waistband and cup his cock, he locks his hand around my wrist and prevents me.
“Just this. We need this,” he murmurs against my lips and then dives back in to feast on them again.
The transition into the penthouse happens gradually. A step toward the door when we come up for air. His keycode punched in the lock pad as he presses his hand against the small of my back, pulling me into him. The quiet click of the door behind us as we move down the hallway ungracefully but steadily.
The sound of my zipper when he slides it down the seam of my dress and then the swish as the fabric falls to the floor around my feet.
The startled inhale as I undo his shirt buttons and run my palms up the naked planes of his chest. The groan he makes as his head falls back when my hands cup the hardness of his cock.
The dance continues until we’re both undressed. We don’t take time to look at each other. Our bodies are already known to each other. It’s our hearts we’re still trying to figure out.
I kneel on the bed, our kisses still as intense but a little slower. A lot softer. Each one telling a chapter in a story instead of a line in a paragraph.
Ryker crawls over me as my hand encircles his dick and guides him to where I want him. With one elbow pressed beside me, he wraps his hand over mine, and we both guide him into me.
It happens so effortless this time—him filling me. The ache turns to pleasure. The burn into desire. Short pants of breath and long slides of skin. Moans of rapture and hitches of breath.
The darkness of the room swallows us and at the same time unites us. The loneliness we felt apart fuels us to want more together.
We make love without words. Because even though I won’t accept those three words from him yet, we both know that’s exactly what we’re doing right now. Loving each other.
We’re cementing those emotions that came to light when we were absent from one another’s life. With each push in. With every pull out. With the gentle urgency he uses. With our fingers intertwined and resting beside my hip. With the drag of his lips over my collarbone and the grip of my fingers against the skin of his ribcage.
Our bodies work to reach the high. The climax, a slow surge that begins to build within, is undeniable and so very different than I felt previously.
There’s emotion pushing it now. There are feelings and commitment and things we’ve never really expressed but that can be felt in its tides mixed in.
Ryker buries his face against the underside of my neck as his hips begin to thrust faster and my body begins to tense. His breath is hot against my skin. My mewls are loud against the harsh pants of his breath. The slap of our skin is an underlying beat.
And then it hits with white heat and electric pulses and a bliss that warms me from my core out to my fingertips and back again. My head arches against the pillows as my hips buck and my back bows . . . as I beg for everything from him that I never thought possible for myself.
Unable to let go, I wrap my legs around his hips and my arms around his neck as he chases his own, my body his to use.
It’s less than a minute before his groan vibrates in the back of his throat. Before his muscles tense and shudder with the adrenaline my own body is slowly falling from. Before his body relaxes and he slowly rolls off me with an audible exhale.
No words are exchanged between us as we stare at the ceiling. The penthouse is so high up that the shadows are stagnant. There are no headlights driving by to light up through the windows. There are no streetlights providing ambient light. Just the moon outside this twentieth-story tower.
Silence smothers the room as our hearts decelerate. His hand slides over mine, and our fingers intertwine much like our bodies just did.
Something has shifted between us.
There’s a gravity all of a sudden—a realization that whatever this is between us is so very different than before. Sure, he stated it with so many words when he met me in the hallway, but now? Now it feels real, and there’s panic in acknowledging it.
I scoot off the bed without either of us saying a word. The clock on the nightstand reads 11:30 p.m., and I wonder how it can be the same day when everything feels so very different.
It takes me a minute to find my dress o
n the floor in the darkened room. “Lucy’s at home. It was my night. Joey’s with her. I need . . .” I slip my dress on as I struggle to explain what sounds so very stupid to me. That I kept my night to have Lucy even though I was going out to the event. That I hired Joey to watch her. That I’m now using her being there as an excuse to leave. “I need to—I just—”
“I understand.” His eyes meet mine across the room, but they say the exact opposite of his words.
I don’t know what to say to him. I don’t know how all the emotion shared between us in the past hour can still feel tinged with an uncertainty, a hurt, but it does. I go to leave but find myself turning around to face him. Words and thoughts and emotions bubble up and manifest in the tears welling in my eyes.
He notices but stays where he is—sitting up in his massive bed, the sheet draped over his waist, his hair mussed, his head angled just slightly to the side—and waits for me to lead us.
“Vaughn?”
“I know we just did this”—I point to the bed like a tongue-tied teenager—“but I . . . I need to take this slow. I need to . . .”
“I understand.” Two simple words reiterated, but they make a lone tear slip over and slide down my cheek. “Can I walk you out or get my driver to—”
“No. Stay.” I shake my head. “Good night.”
“Night, Vaughn.”
We stare at each other for a few moments as I beg my feet to move, while my heart wants to stay here and my head is uncertain about the limbo I feel.
And when I finally find the courage to leave, I’m not sure if I’m relieved or saddened that he lets me. Maybe we’re both finding our footing in this new chapter we’ve started. Maybe we’re afraid to ruin the moment we’ve shared.
But I leave.
To gain some clarity. To give myself some space to process everything. To make sure I’m ready to accept his love the only way he knows how to give it.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Vaughn
I had no intention of sleeping with Ryker.
I really didn’t.
I had planned to go to his penthouse and explain why I was wronged—why he had wronged me—and to explain why we could never be despite how much I quietly wanted him.