Hadn’t I done that this morning?
Wasn’t that why she’d run off to her bedroom?
She’d been in such a fluster that she’d left Scottie out here with me, and it was why I was certain her kid brother was glowering at me with all the disdain an almost one-year-old kid was capable of.
I couldn’t even think of the words that had spilled from my lips without cringing, and Scottie had been there to witness it. He didn’t understand, granted, but he judged me for it nonetheless.
My introspection wasn’t going to improve matters. I had humble pie to eat, a good two or three slices, and I would, easily, because I was a bastard.
A real shit who didn’t deserve this woman or this child in his life.
Who deserved the solitude that had been caving in around him these past few years.
Who’d dug himself into a well of despair so deep that he didn’t know how to get out of it, but knew the woman he’d hurt this morning was his salvation.
My jaw worked as I got to my feet. Scottie scowled at me as I bent down and hauled him into my arms. He squawked, not happy at the move, and probably not happy with being so close to me, but that was the shit thing about being a baby—you went where you were carried.
Still, he settled on my side like he was born to be there.
It was eerie how well he and I connected.
I got the feeling the kid didn’t like change, that he was unhappy at losing Mrs. Linden, and then these past few weeks of endless alterations to his routine were definitely not something he approved of, but with me? He seemed settled, and that? Well, shit, it made me happy.
It had been so long since I’d felt anything other than stoic that the warm feeling inside me had taken me all this time to recognize.
Nicholas wasn’t happy.
Nicky had been, but Nicholas? No.
I knocked on the door, and waited for her to let me in. When it took a while, I pressed my forehead to the wooden plank and called out, “I can’t apologize to the door.”
“The door would listen. I won’t,” she rebuffed, but I heard her tears, knew she was still upset, and I couldn’t blame her.
I’d mocked the paper she’d handed in the other day.
Why had I done that?
Why did I target her writing? Downgrade and downplay it when it was some of the most refreshing work I’d read in years?
I wasn’t jealous.
I just—
Hell if I knew what I was. It confused even me.
I closed my eyes. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.
She didn’t reply, and the silence from her room was deafening. She didn’t make even a peep of sound, so it made it feel as though I were talking to an empty room. Then, I heard the patter of her footsteps, and I released a heavy sigh of relief. Scottie’s hand slapped my cheek, almost like he knew Phoebe wouldn’t give me the beating I deserved, and I took the smack.
Fuck, I’d earned it.
Pulling back slightly so I didn’t lean on the door, I waited with bated breath for her to open it. When she did, she stood staring at me with tear sore eyes.
I’d done that to her.
Me.
I sucked down a breath and whispered, “I’m sorry.”
That had her tensing. I realized she hadn’t anticipated my apology, and I wasn’t sure if that made me an even bigger bastard or not.
“Why do you do that? Why do you say the things you do to me in one breath and then do something crazy like let me stay here and not pressure me to find somewhere else to live? How can you hurt me with your words, but hold Scottie like he’s yours, and offer to get a damn nanny for us?” She gulped, and the tears clogging her throat hit me like another sucker punch—I’d experienced so many of late that it was a wonder I was still standing. “Why, Nicholas?”
In the face of her earnestness, it didn’t even occur to me to lie.
“Because I’m scared.”
“Of what?” she sputtered.
“You. Me. What you make me feel,” I rasped, aware that she didn’t have a clue how I felt about her.
“You’re confused about hating me?” she questioned, her brow puckering.
I was confused about fucking loving her. But I couldn’t say that. She’d run away from me if I did.
No, the truth was too unpalatable.
Some thought the words ‘I love you’ were as big a cure as a ‘sorry’ was, but they meant nothing. Not really. Not unless they were gifted and received with heartfelt intention.
I licked my lips. “I don’t hate you. I’ve told you that before,” I retorted. “I don’t want to feel anything for you—”
“But you do?”
Before I could answer, Scottie—my new BFF—squawked and took her attention from me to him. She stared at me for a second, then sighed and reached for her brother.
When the kid was settled on her hip, I watched as she lugged him across the room and set him up in the crib I’d insisted on buying for him—something she’d only agreed to when I’d bought a travel one, and had told her that she’d regret it if he fell out of bed with her one night.
I could have left them to it. I’d made my apology, after all, but I didn’t want to.
I was sick and tired of being on the outside looking in. That was how I’d spent the past eighteen months. Watching her from afar, needing more and not daring to grasp it.
Instead, and feeling as though I were bridging a thousand-foot wide chasm, I stepped across the threshold and closed the door behind me. Was it strange that I felt the need to herd her in? To contain her?
To me, she was like a wave of butterflies. Impossible to capture. But I wanted to. I wanted to be the one to cage her because I knew that was the only way a fucked-up monster like me would ever be able to hold her.
As it clicked closed, her head whipped around so she could look at me over her shoulder.
I kept my back to the door and stayed silent until she carried on tending to Scottie.
“He’s asleep,” she muttered after a few moments.
Christ, that was quick.
“Come to the lounge and talk with me?” I requested huskily, watching her back stiffen.
“About what?” she replied with a tired sigh. “There’s nothing to discuss.”
“Please?” I asked again, ignoring her refusal.
She huffed out another sigh but stepped away from the cot and moved toward me. I opened the door for her and stepped out behind her, and the second I closed it once more, I grabbed hold of her and pressed her into the wall.
Before she could do little else than squeak, I was on her, and thank fuck, she was on me just as fast.
Her hands were in my hair, pulling at the strands as though she wanted me closer but Christ, there was no getting any closer. Her lips were on mine, my tongue in her mouth, and I fucked her. I fucked her there like I couldn’t fuck her pussy, and goddamn, but she loved it.
In my arms, she was a wild thing. Anything but the tame and calm woman who’d managed to raise a baby who wasn’t her own, and hold down several jobs while going to college.
This woman was electricity, and I wasn’t scared of touching her. If anything, it drove me higher and faster than any other kiss I’d experienced.
I pushed my cock into her belly and raised my hands to grab at her own. I knew she’d try to touch me soon, and that couldn’t be tolerated.
Not now, maybe never, but I needed to bind her to me, tie her to me in ways that no other ever could.
With one hand clasping her wrists, I used the other to smooth my palm down her leg and hooked her behind the knee, urging her to grip my hips. When the other mimicked the first, I rocked my cock into her core, letting her softness brush against my hardness.
Fuck, even through several layers of clothing, it felt good.
Better than good.
Heaven.
I stopped fucking her mouth and pulled back to catch my breath. This was about as much sexual contact as I’d allowed myself in th
e past four years and I didn’t want to come too soon. But shit, it was hard.
As I pushed my dick into her softness, I pressed my face into her throat. I couldn’t stop myself from scenting her, from breathing in deeply and absorbing every bit of her smell. It filled me to overflowing, making me never want to be apart from her, making me want to take it into my body so that our scents were combined into a new one, one of our making.
She struggled against my hold, her arms twisting, hands writhing with her need to touch me back. But I didn’t let her. Instead, I ground my dick into her cunt, reveling in the low moan that escaped her at the pressure.
“Get yourself off,” I ground out against her throat, then, I nibbled on the tender skin there and bit down.
Hard.
Hard enough for my teeth to leave marks, for there to be a bruise in the morning. Hard enough for me to remember the claiming, for her to see it later on.
She whimpered in pain before she began to rock back against me. Her butt bouncing off the wall as she wiggled, this time not to escape me, but to facilitate her orgasm.
I felt and sensed the difference in the tenor of her breathing, in the way her tits bobbed against my chest.
That she used me filled me with delight. I loved it. Fuck, I loved her.
When she screamed in my ear, I let myself go.
For the first time in four years, I came.
My seed spilled into my pants, my shaft throbbing as it celebrated an orgasm, as it reveled in the close proximity of her pussy. I wanted more. I wanted in her. Just the thought was enough to make my cock twitch, but I contained it.
Barely.
My breathing was hard and rough as I came down from the high, and her own was sweet and soft, still a little ragged, but she was like molten gold in my arms. Sinking into every part of me, merging with me until I wasn’t sure where she began and I ended.
The Japanese believed in kintsugi. That a piece of pottery didn’t lose value once it was broken. If anything, it gained it. A broken pot, for example, was bound together with a special gold lacquer, highlighting the flaws, celebrating the imperfections, reforging it so that it was useful once more.
She did that to me.
Sank into every crack in my nature, bound herself to every broken shard, making me a better man than I was before. Not new, not perfect, but if anything, perfectly imperfect for her.
The thought resonated with me in a way that made me feel like I could breathe easier for the first time in years, and I released her flesh from between my teeth, enjoying her whimper as I pulled back. The move had my cock burrowing into her soft flesh, and I stared at her with heavy-lidded eyes.
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I rasped.
Her eyes widened, the dazed emerald orbs grew clearer as she worked through my words.
“How could you be afraid of that?” she whispered back. “It was beautiful.”
My jaw tensed. “You don’t understand.”
“No. I don’t. Explain it to me.”
Her irritated tone had my lips twitching, but I closed my eyes and shook my head.
“I’m not ready.”
She gritted her teeth. “Well, I am.” When I didn’t reply, she wriggled in my grasp then grated out, “Nicholas. Talk to me. Please. Help me understand.”
I thought about her words. Thought about whether it was possible for her to understand, and then I thought some more—about showing her my scars, revealing the mental ones as well as the physical, but I just couldn’t do it. No gold would make those better or make them less hideous.
I’d hidden them for so long. From the world, from myself even. When I showered, I refused to look at that part of my body, just scrubbed it with soap to make sure it was clean.
How could I share that with her, this beautifully perfect creature?
The answer was, I couldn’t.
Wouldn’t.
And so, I released my hold on her hands, and pulled back and away.
I used words to keep my distance from her, but this time, the words I needed to say, the truths I needed to reveal, were something I wasn’t ready to disclose.
❖
When I turned the key in the lock a few days later, the sound of voices came as a surprise to me.
I knew for a fact that the sitter shouldn’t be arriving until three hours from now in time for Phoebe’s shift at Crow, and though it should have been impossible because I could count the number of friends I had on one hand, Phoebe had even fewer.
Hell, I was pretty sure her only friend had been cremated a few weeks ago.
As sad as that made me feel, it also made me wonder who the fuck she’d brought to my apartment.
Was she with a guy?
Had she brought some random home to—what? Punish me?
Whenever I didn’t do what she wanted, she sulked.
It was an irritating habit I wanted to spank out of her, but if I spanked her, the desire to fuck her pinkened ass would be too overwhelming.
I couldn’t deal with the temptation, even if she did wear on my last nerve with the silent treatment she’d gifted me with since I hadn’t explained myself to her.
But if she thought she could bring someone here to get back at me? I’d spank her until next fucking Tuesday.
As I rushed inside, intent on beating the crap out of anyone who thought they could take a taste of what was mine, I heard the other voice.
And it was no stranger’s.
“Fuck,” I whispered under my breath, as I closed my eyes in anger.
Rage whirled around inside me like a twister, and I took a few moments to calm down because if I didn’t, I’d do something I’d regret.
Not because I minded hurting Gina, but because I didn’t want Phoebe to see that side of me.
It was a side only Gina could bring out of me. A side that was born from the mutual grief we had over our daughter, but also from the past experiences we’d shared—all of them bad.
Like it always did when she was around, the skin on my belly, hips, lower back, and butt began to itch. Tingle with reaction. It was unnerving and made me want to scratch the still delicate skin, but instead of doing what I wanted, I stormed down the hall.
Realizing Gina was in my fucking bedroom, I came to a halt in the door and saw she was in my bed.
Naked as the day she was born.
And Phoebe?
She was standing at the foot of that bed, gawking at my ex.
But as I saw the two of them together, for the first and most definitely for the last time, something hit me.
How unalike they were.
In my mind, they’d been like twins. Both with rich dark hair, bright green eyes, and a body made for sin.
But they were so dissimilar it was a joke.
Gina’s brown hair was from a bottle, and her skin was overly tanned to the point of being sallow.
Phoebe had warm, olive skin, and her hair was a lustrous brown that glinted red in certain lights and chestnut in others. Her eyes were like gems, not dull like Gina’s. The difference was like that of a beryl stone and chalcedony.
From the very start, I’d seen the two of them as so startlingly similar that I’d almost believed they were one and the same person. Except Phoebe was younger, fresher, born to remind me of everything I’d lost, a secret torment I had to exorcise from my life—not that it had worked.
She’d become my obsession when, at best, I’d been mildly curious where Gina was concerned.
Because both women were arguing, snapping at each other like feral cats, I had a chance to catch my bearings, to overcome my surprise in the pair’s appearances.
As such, my tone was cool when I interjected, “Is it that time of the month again, Gina?” I tilted my head to the side when both women startled at the sound of my voice. “You know, the one where you come and make a fool of yourself in front of me?”
Phoebe jerked in surprise at that, but Gina’s brow furrowed. Against my navy-blue comforter, her nakedness was a
ll the starker. But I’d long since lost any interest in her tits and ass. Nothing about her intrigued me anymore. Nothing.
At the foot of my bed, looking hurt and confused and angry, was the possessor of every ounce of intrigue I’d need for a lifetime.
Unlike Gina, who was brash and trashy even though the clothes the bitch had discarded on the floor cost twice as much as everything Phoebe owned in the world, my woman looked simply put together in a pair of well-worn jeans and a thin cotton tee that let me see her bra through the grain.
Phoebe looked the innocent, while Gina appeared a slut.
Night and day, the pair of them.
And for the first time in Gina’s presence, when I sucked down a breath, it was loaded with relief because I was free of her. Entwined utterly by someone else now. We’d always have the tie of Rosa, but Rosa was gone, and I had to live. I’d survived long enough, and life was beckoning me with its siren song.
“Nicky,” Gina crooned, her voice loaded with faux seduction. “Don’t be like that.” She cut Phoebe a look. “Is this your new plaything? I’m not possessive.” At my snort, she scowled before tacking on, “Anymore. I’ll play with her too.”
Phoebe stiffened at her words, staggering back a few steps as though trying to evade their meaning.
Though I wanted to go to her, wanted to comfort her, I didn’t. Couldn’t.
Gina turning up at my place had happened once too often, and it was time I cut the cord for real. She’d crossed boundaries, and I’d let her. Was I afraid of her? The question gave me pause, made me wonder if I had been. If, deep down, I was scared of the ticking time bomb she represented to me.
But I was no longer the Nicholas of before. I had more to lose if I was caught up in a blast, but I couldn’t live my life with this witch poisoning everything I did.
And so, I bit off, “Unfortunately for you, I am possessive. I’d share her with no one, and certainly not a slut like you. Get the fuck out of my bed, Gina.”
Her green eyes glinted with stony rage. “She’s seen them, has she? That why you’re so concerned about keeping her? She puts up with how gross you are beneath those pretty clothes?”
“The scars you inflicted, you mean?” I retorted, sounding cold and unaffected, when inside I was a tortured animal. Phoebe knew about the scars now and the second Gina fucked off, she’d ask about them.
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