Undone

by Caitlin Crews

  “I just made it your business.”

  Charlie’s gaze went glacial. “Maybe if you go lie down or hang out in that pool of yours for a while, you’ll feel better.”

  She laughed at that, a wild, unhinged sort of sound, and it was amazing how little she cared that she was making a spectacle of herself out here where anyone could happen by and see it. “Really? You think a nap is going to make me forget my called-off wedding and the fact the two people who were supposed to love me the most in the entire world were betraying me behind my back for who knows how long?”

  He held his hands up in a gesture of surrender that, on him, looked like an invitation to further aggression. Maya doubted he’d ever surrendered to anything in his whole life. Something she would have said about herself, too—until now. Because there was something about Charlie that made her question her own strength. There was something about him that made her want to pile all her problems—and herself—on his big, strong shoulders and let him carry it all.

  She’d never felt that way about Ethan. They had called their relationship a partnership and they’d both taken the egalitarian nature of it very, very seriously. She had expected Ethan to take care of himself while she did the same.

  The fact she was imagining things she’d never known she wanted about a man who very obviously wanted nothing to do with her unless she was naked just made her...a little insane, maybe. Or more insane.

  “Do what you want, Maya” was all he said.

  “This is not my problem” was written all over his face.

  And Maya, who prided herself on her control under all circumstances and had made that control the foundation of her entire life, lost it.

  “Forgive me for ruining all the lazy, easy sex with no conversation. What a buzzkill.” Her voice was scathing. “Don’t worry, I get it. You’re perfectly happy to fuck me silly, but heaven forbid I admit I have a feeling. I understand that’s terrifying even when it isn’t about you.”

  He was still studying her in that predatory, watchful way of his that should have made her nervous. But if it did, she didn’t care. “None of this is about me.”

  Maya laughed again, and this laugh was even worse than the one before, wild and obviously, inarguably upset. “You’re absolutely right, Charlie. It’s not. You’re nothing but a quick route to oblivion, and really, I’d rather chug a bottle of vodka. It has more emotional intelligence, and guess what? The hangover is a hell of a lot more fun.”

  And she wheeled around, tears nothing but a memory though her temper was racing through her like wildfire, and tried to put as much distance between her and her latest mistake as quickly as possible.

  CHAPTER SIX

  HE SHOULD HAVE let her go. Charlie knew it without question as she started away from him, all that mess and fury visible in every sweet line of her body. It was like some kind of blazing neon sign, telling him to stay the hell away from her.

  Those were the kind of gut feelings that had kept him alive after his stepfather’s death, when he no longer had the old man’s protection back there in his very rough part of Texas. He’d learned fast to always, always pay attention to his gut.

  In the case of Maya, his gut was clear. He needed to walk away.

  So there was absolutely no reason that he should have found himself lunging after Maya as she stormed off, out of the old tunnel beneath the church and up an ancient stairway that rose steeply between two pastel pink buildings.

  He caught up to her on the next uneven landing and didn’t think it through. Maybe he was beyond thinking, too bound up in all this rage—and this had to be rage, because he wouldn’t let it be anything else—that churned in him with no acceptable outlet. This wasn’t Texas. He couldn’t pick a fight with the wrong fool in a dangerous bar to let off a little steam. He couldn’t follow the worst of his impulses, not here in this tiny little tourist town where his reputation had to stay more in line with the hotel than his own bad decisions.

  And still he spun her around, backing her up against a wall that had been right here since long before there was anything called Texas.

  “Don’t you throw your shit at me,” he growled. “I didn’t leave you at the altar or anywhere else.”

  But she wasn’t smiling back at him the way she always had been before. Not today. Her eyes were stormy and dark, and she tipped up her chin like she thought she could fight him.

  It amazed him how much of him wished she would try.

  “I think we both know it’s only a matter of time.”

  “We had sex, Maya. I don’t know about you, but that’s not exactly revolutionary for me.”

  “Then go have more,” she invited him, her voice like acid straight down his back. “You’re the one chasing people down and manhandling them because you don’t like a little dose of reality in the middle of your nonrevolutionary sex.”

  “You didn’t seem to mind how I handled you before. If that’s changed, all you have to do is say so.”

  “Don’t worry, Charlie.” And her voice was too bright. Too sharp. “I don’t expect anything from you. You’re just some guy who works with his hands and thinks that makes him special. What do I even know about you?”

  “Not a goddamned thing.”

  She leaned forward, and she was smiling again. Not nicely. “I know you like to smile because you think that if you do it enough, no one will notice all the other things going on in there. I know you think that sex and emotion aren’t connected, and if you fuck enough, you won’t feel. I know that you talk about loyalty, but only in the past tense. And that’s fine. You don’t owe me or anyone else a thing.”

  Charlie agreed with her. He didn’t owe her anything. She still didn’t know who he was. He liked it that way. There was no reason whatsoever he should feel like she’d sucker-punched him.

  He couldn’t explain why he had his hands on her shoulders. Why he was leaning over her, somehow unable to just let go and walk away. The way he knew he should.

  “You really think you’re going to shame me into doing what you want?” he demanded, his face much too close to hers.

  “It wouldn’t occur to me that shame was something you were even remotely familiar with.”

  “I didn’t ask you for anything. You were the one who approached me.”

  “Right, yes. You were a poor innocent handyman, trying only to do your job half-naked in the sun, when the big bad lawyer stormed in from Canada and forced you—”

  Charlie didn’t think he moved. He didn’t mean to move. But one hand left her shoulder and found its way to her jaw, and then he was tipping her head back. He didn’t like anything about the situation, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself.

  And he couldn’t seem to make himself let go.

  They were all alone on the landing, the staircases above and below them empty this late in the year and the shutters closed tight against the cold. There were echoes in the distance. The sounds of footsteps, the odd muscular car engine and the bells from the church. But all Charlie could really hear was his own breath, the clatter of his heart inside his chest and what felt like a drumbeat in his cock.

  Most people had the good sense to keep their distance when he had a temper on.

  But Maya held his gaze like she was the one daring him. He could feel that she was trembling, a light fluttering beneath his fingers, but there was nothing but fire when she stared back at him.

  He tried to keep it calm, but his own voice sounded rough, there in the narrow space between old, high buildings. “You keep poking at something you don’t understand, Maya, and you’re not going to like the response you get.”

  She continued to glare straight at him as she lifted up her hand, slowly extended two fingers and then poked him in the chest.

  Hard.

  “You’re not very smart, are you?” he asked, his voice soft with menace, and he could see the shiver sh
e fought back.

  “I always thought I was very smart, actually, but I apparently left my brain on the plane when I landed in Italy.”

  She angled her head to one side as she stared up at him, as if she didn’t care at all that he had his hand right there on her face and her back to the wall.

  And then she proved how little she cared when she poked him again. Harder.

  “I’m not your bottle of vodka, Maya. You’re not going to like this hangover.”

  “You know what I like most about vodka?” she asked, her eyes glittering. “It doesn’t talk.”

  And Charlie was...undone.

  He didn’t know what the hell he was doing. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had challenged him, not without firepower and half an army at their back, anyway. Certainly not a woman.

  And he didn’t want to feel a thing, because he didn’t do feelings and he certainly didn’t do this. He didn’t want anything she was hurling at him to hit its mark and the fact it might have was a problem he should have been off fixing. With prejudice.

  But it was like he didn’t have a choice.

  He crushed his mouth to hers, right out there in the open. Anyone could run up the stairs or come down from above, but he didn’t care the way he knew he should have now that he was all respectable. And known. And the things he did might actually affect the lives of the people who worked for him.

  Responsibility pissed him off. And somehow made him harder, too.

  He slanted his mouth over Maya’s, letting the addictive taste of her flood through him. She was sweet and spicy and intoxicating, and he’d been boned before he started.

  Because she threw him off balance. She made him do things he never did. He didn’t know why he’d left the hotel today. Only that he’d seen her run off down the stairs, and when she hadn’t come back hours later, he’d set out looking for her while pretending that wasn’t exactly what he was doing.

  And when he’d found her, she hadn’t smiled at him the way it turned out he really, really liked her to do. She’d shown him what was beneath that smile instead, and he didn’t know whether he wanted to punch the stone behind her head, fly to Canada to punch her ex or, better yet, slam his own head against the nearest wall until he snapped out of whatever spell this was.

  But with her mouth beneath his, he understood that this was what he’d wanted all along.

  He wanted to eat her alive. He wanted to drown himself in her taste, those wild little sounds she made and the way she launched herself against him, up on her toes to press her body into his.

  He took her mouth, kissing her hard and deep and something like punishing, but whatever he was doling out, she was returning it. And then some.

  And it wasn’t enough.

  He used his chest to press her back against the wall, pinning her there, and then he lifted his head to study the expression on her pretty face. Need and passion warred for control. Her lips were parted, she was still trembling faintly and her eyes were slick and bright with blind desire.

  The only thing Charlie had ever seen that was prettier than this was the face she made when she came.

  And he needed to see it again. Right here, right now.

  He slid one hand over her collarbone and pressed the weight of his palm there. Not choking her, but holding her steadily on that knife’s edge.

  Her pulse kicked at him, rapid and wild. Her breath got short, but she didn’t say a word.

  He crowded into her, slicking his hand down to find her hip and the deliciously stretchy pants she’d worn that held her ass like an offering. He traced the shape of it, firm and tight and round, then moved to the front. He caught that bright, shining gaze of hers, pressed a little harder against her collarbone and then slid his hand beneath the waistband of her pants to cup her between her legs.

  Maya jolted, and her breath went ragged, but all she did was rock her hips toward him as his fingers found their way beneath her panties and into the slick folds of her meltingly hot pussy.

  “You like to shoot off your mouth, don’t you?” he growled at her. He found her clit and pinched it, hard enough to make her squeak a little. She rose up on her toes, but he felt the way she flooded him, telling him the truth. “You think you can taunt me into giving you what you want.”

  “Looks like I was right.”

  He circled her clit once, then again, then stroked down so he could slide two fingers deep inside her.

  “Problem is, now I’m pissed.” He thrust into her, deep, making sure his thumb grazed her clit with each stroke. “I could do this all day. Your pussy is tight. Sweet. I like how it feels on my fingers. And I like the way you taste.”

  He pulled his fingers away from her then, lifting them to his mouth and licking them clean, still holding her gaze.

  Her panting was a little more high-pitched now, and he could feel her shudder against him, over and over.

  Slowly, taking his time, he retraced his steps. Hip to ass, then back to that delicious pussy of hers. He found her clit again, playing with it until she bucked against him and then stroking his way into her again.

  She was wetter now. Hotter. She moved her hips in that insistent, drugging rhythm that he knew could bring him to his knees if he let it. And that only pissed him off more, so he drew it out. He brought her higher and higher—

  And then, instead of tossing her over the edge, he held her there.

  “No...” Her voice was broken. Rough. Her eyes were glazed over with need.

  But Charlie was merciless. And more, he wanted her to suffer. He wanted her out of her head, wild and beside herself.

  He was only getting started.

  He pulled his hand away again and took his time licking her sweetness from his fingers while she trembled, caught between him and the stone wall at her back.

  “Fine,” she panted at him. “If you won’t do it, I’ll take care of myself. It’s the fucking anthem of my life.”

  Charlie laughed at that, hard and maybe a little mean. “Not today, babe.”

  He caught her hands as she brought them down to her own waistband, then hauled them above her head. He pinned her there, holding her wrists in one hand and pressing them back against the wall so she was splayed out before him in a sweet, curvy arc. All woman. All his.

  “You bastard,” she threw at him, but she didn’t try to pull her hands away. She didn’t struggle to do anything, except rock her hips toward his and arch herself against his chest.

  He laughed again, even darker this time. “As a matter of fact, yes. I am a bastard. My mama had me after a long night with a stranger she met in a bar. I didn’t know his name for most of my life. And I don’t really think you give a shit about the life and times of an illegitimate dirtbag from Nowhere You’d Want to Go, Texas.”

  “You can’t—”

  “But I can.”

  He showed her, just to get his point across. This time, he only reached down between them to cup her pussy through the stretchy pants she wore. He held her there, working her back up toward that ragged edge again.

  And then, once more, leaving her there at the last second.

  Her breath hissed out from between her teeth. He could see that she was sweating, her skin deliciously hot in the cool air.

  This time, she didn’t call him names. She rocked her hips almost helplessly, and he could feel the tension in her wrists where he held them above her head.

  “You don’t get what you want by sandbagging me with your crap,” he told her, his voice dark. There were too many things inside him, and he couldn’t name them all. But he knew this: he knew the dark side of desire and the sharp edge of control. “I’m not the kind of man you can manipulate with your temper. Piss me off all you want, Maya. But you don’t get to come unless I say so.”

  Her dark eyes sparked with defiance. “I can make myself come. I don’t nee
d you.”

  “I can tell how much you don’t need me,” he growled as her hips jerked toward him, seemingly of their own accord. “You might think I’m an asshole, babe. And you’re not wrong. But your body thinks I’m God.”

  “An orgasm is an orgasm.”

  “Keep telling yourself that.”

  “I don’t need—”

  Charlie got closer, pressing her farther into the stone at her back. “Did he make you come at all? Or, let me guess, he told you that you had to get there on your own. No wonder this greedy little pussy wants me to tattoo my name all over it.”

  She shook at that, and he kept his hand where it was, holding her so he could feel her heat and dampness, but refusing to move his palm to give her the pressure she needed to get off.

  “You had to come all the way to Italy to find someone to fuck you right. Now you don’t know what to do with yourself, do you?”

  “I told you. I can handle myself just fine.”

  He dropped his head down close to her. “But you don’t want to, Maya. Do you?”

  She made a ragged sound, equal parts sob and frustration.

  “You want to dump all your feelings all over me, that’s fine. But this is the price. It’s easy enough to get my hands on you, sure. You can depend on it if you shoot your mouth off. But if you want me to make you come? You’re going to have to beg.”

  It was like he jolted her with electricity. He could feel it go through her, a wild, intense current that charred him, too.

  Her breath sobbed out of her. “I don’t beg.”

  He leaned closer, then ran his teeth over her neck, grinning when she broke out in goose bumps. “Then don’t.”

  When she turned back toward him, dislodging his mouth and no doubt looking to throw up more walls between them, he claimed her mouth again. This kiss was even dirtier than the ones that had gone before. He knew he tasted like her, so he took the kiss wetter. Harder.

  Until she was shaking, everywhere, and making low little sounds in the back of her throat.

  “Beg me,” he ordered her against her mouth.