Exodus

by Stewart , Kate

  Roman’s rejection has made me a very sad and lonely little girl, and I’d been acting like one, dragging my battered heart around and begging someone, anyone, to tell me it is worth something.

  “You were right, you know,” I say, running my fingers over the blossoming wall of honeysuckle again. “I’ve been a sad, lonely little girl for a long time.”

  I smile, though my eyes are glistening. “I couldn’t understand why he couldn’t, didn’t want, to love me. I understand that’s just a blood tie now, and I’m a responsibility. Nothing more. But I won’t apologize for growing up thinking I deserved his love or for growing up period, and the choices I’ve made doing it. In believing in it. Because…how can love be a mistake?” A warm tear runs down my face as I finally look up at him. “Even if it’s not enough, if it’s more trouble than it’s worth, if it does me more harm than good, even if everyone I give myself to denies me, I refuse to believe it’s a mistake.”

  He stalks toward me, his eyes unwavering as I swallow, bracing myself for impact. “Sometimes…s-sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever grow up enough to know the difference between what I romanticize and what’s real.”

  He reaches me, and I keep my eyes averted as another fast tear forms and falls.

  “How do you do it, Tobias? How do you keep your heart out of it?”

  He lifts my hand to cover his chest, and I lift my eyes to his. It’s in his gaze I see the same vulnerability and fear that shone in them the night he realized he’d damned us both.

  “Please don’t do this to me,” I beg, knowing if this is another game, another mindfuck, I will not survive it.

  He bends, so we’re eye level as his heart pounds against my palm.

  “There’s something you need to know,” he swallows, his frame rattling as he covers my hand on his chest, the beat beneath quickening, smashing against my palm as if trying to break free.

  “Your heart is not your weakness, Cecelia. It’s mine.”

  Slowly, so slowly, he bends and presses his full lips to mine. And with this one act, the rest of my self-preservation ceases to exist.

  Because of him, because of his kiss. A kiss just as raw, just as honest as it was last night, but far more meaningful than any other we’ve shared. I grip his wrists when he palms my face, tilting my head before he dives deeper. The burn starts behind my eyes as my innermost fear is realized, and I dive headfirst, living fully in the seconds and minutes that replace everything I thought I knew about love.

  He explores my mouth with gentle licks, his tongue coaxing mine, drawing out a whimper.

  My heart pounds in distinct beats as I rip myself away.

  “Please—” He cuts off my plea with another searing kiss and another, and then another until my fears quiet.

  He pulls my chin with his thumb, parting my mouth further, opening to me and licks in discovery as I wrap what I can of myself around him.

  Slick with need, I squeeze my thighs together as he teases me, drawing me further into him. He does this over and over, dizzying me to the point of insanity. At his mercy, I wrap around him as he kisses me, and kisses me, his tongue sweeping me into this moment with him, erasing every line we’ve drawn. When he pulls back and gazes down at me with hooded eyes, it’s not lust that has me gasping.

  It’s the truth he lets me see. No amount of lies or contradictory actions on his part can ever take this away. He dips again and takes my mouth, a confession on his tongue, and I meet him kissing him back, telling my own.

  And it’s then I allow myself to fall, further and further into the biggest secret of my life. A secret I’ve known longer than I will ever admit.

  I’m falling in love with my enemy.

  So be it.

  Our tongues tangle in the most erotic and passionate of dances. Eyes closed, I savor the affection and clutch him to me, drinking, consuming as he feeds my starving heart. He answers every question I’ve ever had, with each sure stroke of his tongue, and brush of his fingertips.

  I don’t need words or promises. His kiss makes them irrelevant.

  Hunger rumbles low, and with every thorough brush of his tongue, I become more ravenous to expose everything we’ve hidden beneath our thin veil of hate.

  He bends lifting the hem of my sundress, and I extend my arms above my head and keep them raised as he pulls the material off, leaving me completely naked in the middle of the sun-soaked garden.

  His eyes explore me from head to foot running fingers along my skin, his palms covering me in his reverent touch, an apology for all the violent touches before. A tear drips from my chin and he whisks it away with his tongue before sweeping me into his arms and setting me on the lounger. Wordlessly, he pulls off his shirt and boxers between kisses. Shaded by a canopy of wisteria, I drink him in, as we exchange one kiss for another, the next more intoxicating than the one before it. He pulls away, gazing down at me, his palms caressing the top of my head with a gentle sweep.

  “Why, why couldn’t you just leave me alone?” I rasp out, utterly helpless to the emotion he’s stirring within me.

  “C’était trop demander.” It was too much to ask.

  He stares down at me, hands roaming over every inch of flesh within his reach, his eyes and lips worshiping, his heart pounding against mine, demanding acknowledgment. The kiss turns fevered as our mouths call a truce and begin to make promises we can never speak because if we do, we will no longer be enemies.

  But in glimpses of his fiery depths, all of it’s gone; his contempt, his judgment, his anger, his resentment, all of it replaced with tenderness, longing, and blatant need. He slides his warm hand down my stomach before pressing thick fingers inside me. Every brush of his lips causes eruptions throughout my chest and all over my body.

  Our visual connection remains unbroken as he moves to hover above me. Cradling him between my legs, I cup his jaw. Once he’s readied me, he lines us up and without hesitation, pushes his length into me, claiming me fully. Flattening his chest to mine, he drives in further, and I lose every ounce of my breath. His cock is rooted so deep, I’ll never be able to forget the way he feels.

  He grinds into me, burrowing further, embedding himself as he peers down at me, eyes beseeching, begging me not to look away, to accept him, to accept us, and our fate. He pushes my knees apart further before he slowly, so slowly, begins to move.

  My world shifts as he gently rolls his hips, his gaze never wavering as I take all of him in, while he brands my body, a declaration, a possession.

  It’s belonging I feel with every slow thrust, every kiss, every look, every breath that passes between us.

  We let ourselves go, our mouths molding with the perfect exchange, moaning and gasping at the way I fit him, and the way he fills me so completely. His lovemaking is ecstasy in the purest form. I shudder in his arms, in the completion.

  Pulling him tighter to me, I cry out as he surges into me, his mouth covering the whole of my breast, his teeth grazing my nipple as he rears back and drives in again, hitting the end of me over and over, purposefully staking his claim.

  “Je ne peux pas aller assez loin.” I can’t get deep enough.

  With every slow thrust of his tongue, every possessive push of his hips, he damns us, the confession in his eyes narrating our story, our ill-fated fortune as star-crossed fools, sharing a merciless love neither of us can ever deny, but can never keep.

  On the brink, I break our kiss, look him in the eyes and call out his name as the rush overtakes me. It’s the sound of his name coming from my lips that sends him over, and I feel him pulsate just before he buries himself and pours into me.

  Bodies slick, he burrows deeper, a thin veil of sweat covering him as he trembles in my hold, emotion shining in his eyes, twisting his features. He’s completely exposed and lets me see him in his most vulnerable state, and I’ve never seen anything so perfect.

  He presses his forehead to mine, as we share several collective breaths. I stroke his back with my fingers as some of the high disappears
from his eyes, and the truth sets in. He dips to kiss me, and I feel him start to retreat as my heart begins to sink with the weight of our secret.

  When he pulls away, the loss rips me apart as I hold in a sob, and he turns from me to sit on the edge of the lounger, his shoulders sagging forward, stretching the wings along his muscular back.

  The sight of the bond he made with his brothers draws tight. It’s there, the answer, the reason for our beginning and the reason for our end—a bond made from love. A timeless bond a different love could never break. A bond that exists with his brothers and his reason for being.

  He can never choose me.

  He will never choose me.

  I can never ask him to.

  “We can never be,” he says softly from where he sits.

  “I know.” I lift to sit as he slowly stands and picks up my dress, handing it to me. Gathering his boxers, he glances over his shoulder, his eyes filled to the brim with guilt. “I can’t make you any promises.”

  “I haven’t asked for any.”

  “This ends now. It has to, Cecelia. It has to.”

  “I know.”

  It’s anger that takes hold as he jerks on his briefs. I brace myself for the pain of his absence, for more heartache as he retrieves his shirt from the ground. I’ve had my heart broken before, I’m all too familiar with the feeling, but there’s a raging now in my chest, with a strength I never imagined possible.

  Briefly, he stops dressing, staring at me with the undershirt around his neck before pushing his arms through. Tortured eyes meet mine, and I see his defiance, not against me, but against the stars lining up against us.

  Utter fucking disaster.

  “I don’t want to fucking leave. I don’t want to argue. I don’t want to hate myself. I don’t want to blame you. I’m tired of being angry at them, but damn them and…damn you, Cecelia, you were never supposed to know them, you were never,” his face twists with fury as my heart seizes, “you were…” He jerks me to stand, pulling me against him, anger rolling off his frame, anguish in his eyes.

  “Yours. I was always supposed to be yours,” I say as he nods and crushes me with his kiss.

  “Tell me about her,” I say as Tobias folds his hands over my stomach, peering up at me. He’s gloriously naked, his beautiful ass in full view behind him. Even with his declaration in the garden that we can never be, he’s prolonged that decision. Since then, we’ve spent our day christening the house in new memories; talking, eating, playing chess, swimming, and alternating between fucking and making love. We’re both in denial, refusing to deal with the inevitable.

  “Please, I want to know.”

  “She was…beautiful, funny, full of life. Headstrong and strict when she needed to be but surprisingly gentle. She loved her wine and taught me to cook. She was such a good cook. In the kitchen is where we spent most of our time together. She could always make me laugh, no matter what mood I was in. She was my best friend…my everything.”

  “And your stepfather?”

  “Beau was my father.”

  “Okay. Don’t suppose he was moody?”

  This earns me a look that has me laughing.

  “I have to be just as cunning,” he defends without apology, “just as ruthless, and you know why.”

  “Are you saying there’s some sort of charming flip personality? Do let me see it.”

  He slaps the side of my ass and I yelp. I swear my heart stops when he smiles at me.

  “Jesus, Frenchman. I think I’ve broken you.”

  He exhales and drops his head on my chest. “I’m human, Cecelia. I didn’t start this with intent to be…the way I have to be. I have to know a criminal mind to think like one. I have to command respect, loyalty.”

  “Well, you seem to have succeeded there.”

  “There’s no other way to go about it. But that’s not why I’m in this. I don’t need power. It’s a necessity. And I didn’t go into this looking to get rich. That’s also a necessity, the cost of the ante. I’m just as disgusted by some of the human products of money and power as you are, but it has to be a fair fight in order for there to be a fight.”

  I swallow. “I know.”

  “I’ve kept a lot of secrets in my life, easily, and without a second thought, but with my mother, it was damned near impossible to lie to her. She had this tone she used, and it worked like a truth serum on me. Within minutes she could get me to break. I thank God she’s the only one. And sometimes I’m grateful that she’s not here anymore to get the confessions out of me. Because I’m not sure she would want to claim me as her son if I was honest with her about the things I’ve done.”

  His eyes flit with emotion before they gloss over in thought.

  “My mother swore my real father was a horrible man, but I think, maybe, he was just misunderstood.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I have a feeling.”

  “Or a secret?”

  “A feeling,” he insists.

  “Well, look at us,” I pipe up, “with our Daddy issues.”

  “At least I had a man willing to step in where he failed.” He runs a hand down my abdomen, eyes lowered, nostrils flaring. He’s angry for me.

  “I’m okay,” I say, running my fingers along his jaw and over his shoulders. “I really am okay. It’s time to suck it up and move on. But not one of my thousand dreams will include him.”

  “You think you are okay, but the truth is, that’s a blow you’ll feel in some degree for the rest of your life.” His eyes flame. “I’ve never wanted to kill a man in cold blood as much as I did him yesterday.”

  “You don’t ever have to be that guy.”

  “I will take him down, Cecelia.” It’s a promise. Probably the only one he will ever be able to make me.

  “You don’t have to do that, either.” His gaze goes from rolling embers to accusatory within the same second.

  “I didn’t mean it like that. Tobias,” he lifts, and I force his eyes back to mine. “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m not condoning what you’re doing either, but I’m not going to try and talk you out of it. I would never ask you to.”

  His stare turns incredulous. “How can you still feel anything for him?”

  “I feel sorry for him.”

  “That’s feeling something.”

  “I’ll pity him when you’re done with him, too.”

  He pushes me back to hover above me, his hand covering where my heart lay before he presses a kiss to it. “I’ve been such a bastard to you.”

  “Yes, you have.”

  “Don’t forgive me.”

  “I haven’t and I won’t.” I fist his hair, pulling his eyes to mine.

  “You’re trying to forgive me,” he says. “And I don’t deserve it.”

  “Probably not. But I understand the game, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t stay angry because I know the reasoning behind some of what you do. I know how naïve that seems, but we weren’t just fooling around last summer, I was made to understand what this is about. I respect what you’re doing.” I roll my eyes and draw my next words out reluctantly. “I admire you for it, a lot more than I’ve let on.”

  He nods, threading our fingers, his eyes unfocused.

  “It’s been my life for so long, at this point I’m not sure if the man I am now and the boy who took it on still agree on much. And Dominic is so much like I was. And he’s only getting angrier. We’ve earned enough capital to go legitimate, but he likes the hunt too much. And he loves the street games. We’ve been arguing a lot about the way he handles things here.”

  “What is it you want to happen?”

  “Too much for a lifetime. I’m not sure how far I want it all to go.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I’ve said too much,” he drops his head and rolls it back and forth on my stomach.

  “You said you need a vacation. I really don’t think that’s equivalent to spilling trade secrets.”

  “Let’s change the subj
ect.”

  “Let’s not. Let’s talk about Saint-Jean-de-Luz.”

  “Leave it alone,” he warns, his tone going cold.

  “Wow. Okay, that was a fast regression.” He lifts to hover above me, leans in to kiss me, and I turn my head.

  “Don’t you dare think of denying me,” he growls, pulling my lip with his teeth.

  “My, my, Frenchman, how demanding we are.”

  He runs his erection along my thigh. “You called my name,” he murmurs, getting lost as he lines himself up with my entrance. “Fucking beautiful.”

  “You’re just a gauntlet of emotions today.”

  “I’m losing my fucking mind,” he narrows his eyes at me, “and you’re the reason.”

  “Now I’m to blame?”

  “Take it. Please take it,” he says softly. And I nod, just before I float away in his kiss.

  “It’s vanilla.”

  “It’s cinnamon,” I counter as he pulls the milk and eggs from the fridge.

  “I hate cinnamon,” he grumbles.

  “Hate is a strong word,” I argue as I start the coffee, grinding the beans for my new French press.

  It’s become a morning ritual. He cooks for me, and I watch him while goading him for kicks. He stands in nothing but black boxers. His hair still damp from our shower. The bulge of his ridiculously thick thighs along with his impressive length and muscled ass strains the fabric where he stands only feet away. The sight of him tempting from any vantage point.

  He woke me up this morning with my wrists secured in his hands, his head between my thighs. An apology for his day late return from a ‘business trip.’ I’d waited, restless, worried, especially with the image of his last injury fresh in my mind. He only spent two days away, but the wait felt like an eternity. And I endured it just for another stolen moment. With his wicked tongue, he apologized profusely until I’d verbally mouthed my forgiveness and only let me go when I shuddered beneath him.

  Then he teased me mercilessly until I begged him to take me. And when he did, all playing ceased, our eyes locked, and he tore through me equally as starved. He kissed me with so much fervor, that I forgot myself, forgot that we were wrong.