I sighed. “Believe me when I say you truly don’t understand what I’m going through.”
“The only thing I don’t understand is why you can’t admit that you have feelings for me. Why do you keep fighting this?”
I couldn’t give him an easy answer to that.
“I’m not so blind that I can’t see what I do to you.” He ran his thumb across my cheek lightly.
“Maybe you’re overestimating your effect on women,” I lied. He had an effect on me. I had no idea why. Since I’d met Blake, other men didn’t come onto my radar, but James was right in front of me, impossible to ignore.
He laughed softly. “You flush whenever we’re close like this, like you need to catch your breath around me.” His thumb came down along my jaw and brushed over my lower lip. “And the way you part your lips when you do…it’s all I can do not to kiss you right now. Because somewhere underneath it all, I know you want me to.”
My breath rushed out of me. The second my eyes flashed to his, his mouth was on me, kissing me with soft and tender strokes that stole my breath. I tensed, waiting for the voice in my head to start screaming at me, but she didn’t. Maybe she was as tired of fighting as I was. Something inside me let go. Through all the doubts, I gave myself permission to want James in this moment, for as long as this moment lasted. When he tightened his embrace, I arched into him and slipped my arms around his neck.
“James.” I whispered his name, letting the sound of it settle over me. I tried not to think about all the ways he felt different from Blake. The way he smelled, the way his body felt against my own.
“I’ll make you forget all about him. Just let me in, Erica,” he whispered between kisses. His hands were everywhere, soft, tentative touches, but instead of fire, they left a chill across my skin. I shivered as I played his words over in my mind. Just let me in.
No. The little voice had just enough energy to speak up. James’s lips tried in vain to coax me back, but whatever I’d felt in the heat of the moment had passed. The fire that had swept through me and overtaken my senses so quickly had faded just as fast.
And that’s when I knew. Blake was the only one I’d ever let in. Somehow he’d rooted himself in my soul, and no amount of lusty chance encounters with James would change that.
“What’s wrong?”
I shook my head. “I can’t do this.”
“What do I have to do? Please, just tell me.”
“You don’t want to be with someone like me. God knows, I don’t even want to be with myself most days.” I straightened and took a step back, trying to gain some distance between us.
“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?”
“There’s nothing you can do, James. I can’t be what you want me to be. This… This isn’t fair to you.”
“Will you stop? Don’t push me away because you’re scared of what you’re making me feel. I can watch out for my own feelings.”
“Maybe I’m scared for myself then. You’re right. I am attracted to you. I can’t deny that, but you need to understand that I can’t love you.” The truth of the words struck me as I spoke them. I wasn’t capable of loving anyone else right now, or possibly ever, no matter how great of a person he might be.
“I’m not asking you to love me. I’m asking for you to give us a chance. You have no idea what we could be because you won’t even let us start.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. For weeks I’d been holding myself together with the emotional equivalent of duct tape. All I wanted was someone to help put me back together again, but James wasn’t that person.
“You want him. You’re going to go running to him.” He stared at me a long time, his expression pinched with the frustration that seemed to bubble just below the surface.
“I’m not running to him.”
“It’s pathetic to watch you doing this,” he snapped. “Chasing after him when I’m standing right here. I want you. I’m losing my mind wanting you, and all you can think about is getting another chance with him.”
Anger surged through me at his assumption. “I’m not chasing him, James. I left him. I left him. Okay? I broke my own heart. This is all my doing and you don’t understand the first thing about it. So stay out of my head and my heart, and keep your fucking judgments to yourself.”
I wrung my fingers in an attempt to slow the tremble that hummed through me now.
He seemed to relax, his shoulders sagging slightly. His expression softened. “I can’t understand why you’d hold a candle for someone who hit you.”
“What?” I frowned. Had I heard him right?
“My dad had a heavy-hand too. I know it when I see it, trust me. But for the life of me, I can’t understand why you’d tolerate it, no matter how much you cared about him.”
“I—oh my God. James, that day… Oh, shit.”
I let my head fall into my hands. I’d been so wrapped up in dealing with my own feelings that I’d never once thought about what he might think to see me like that. No wonder he hated Blake so much.
I took a step closer and put my hands on his chest. I didn’t want to fight with him like this, and he needed to believe me. “Blake has never hit me. I promise you. Please trust me when I say this whole situation is more complicated than you’ll ever realize.”
My proclamation didn’t have its desired effect. He stepped away, and my hands dropped down with his movement.
“Whatever you say, Erica.”
The defeated look on his face added an impossible guilt to my already shattered emotional state.
He turned and disappeared down the hallway and back into the office.
* * *
I had no idea what I would say if Blake happened to be at his office. He’d get an earful of everything I was thinking and feeling, one way or the other.
I marched through the bullpen with enough speed and focus that heads turned, my heels clicking as I went. I stormed through his office door, ignoring Cady’s greeting, and slammed it behind me as soon as I found him at his desk. He swiveled in his chair.
“Erica, I wasn’t expecting you so soon.”
“Fuck you.” I walked up to the side of his desk, ready to give him a piece of my mind.
He rose gracefully and faced me. “I thought you took fucking off the table when you broke up with me. If you’ve changed your mind about that, I’ll admit I’m still interested.”
“Not making progress quickly enough with Risa?” I lifted my eyebrows and my lips firmed into a tight line.
“Not as quickly as she might like.”
I clenched my jaw. His words sliced through me like a thousand little knives. How could he change this way? Had he always been this cold? I took a breath and prepared myself for the fight.
“You can screw whomever you want, but stay away from my employees.”
“You seem to be taking a pretty liberal stance on workplace relationships.”
“I don’t know how many times I need to tell you, James and I are friends.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes,” I insisted. I didn’t know why, but I really wanted him to believe it.
“Looks to me like he’s hopelessly in love with you.”
I swallowed hard. “So now you’re using Risa and Sophia to get back at me, to make me jealous? Is that it?”
“Are you?”
He came closer, trapping me between him and the end of the desk. I backed up against it, feeling unsteady.
“How long was I supposed to wait for you, Erica? Or did you just come here to get off.” He slipped a hand up my thigh and reached for my panties.
I slapped his hand away. “I didn’t used to hate you.” I swallowed against the tightness in my throat.
The cold look in his eyes changed. They darkened with emotion. “Loving me wasn’t enough. You’ve made me desperate.”
I shook my head, confused.
“No? Maybe it wasn’t love then.” He canted his head slightly.
“Blake—” I winced
at the insinuation. How could he ever doubt it?
“You could barely say it, Erica.”
My mouth opened but the words caught. I wanted to tell him I loved him, hated him, and missed him desperately. Explain how so very tired I was of this painful and draining separation.
“Say it,” he bit out. “If there’s anything worth waiting for, I need to hear you tell me now.”
Unshed tears burned my eyes. “Why would you wait for me?”
“Because I can’t fucking help it,” he snapped. He raked his hands through his already messy hair. “Jesus Christ, did you really think I’d just stop wanting you? Just like that? Flip a switch and everything would change? That I’d feel nothing?”
I squeezed my eyes closed, though I could feel his gaze burning into me. He cupped his hand behind my nape, bringing our faces so close. My eyes flew open at his rough breath against my lips. My heart pounded against my chest. His expression tightened, painted with all of the anger and frustration I’d spurred.
“Whatever it is that took you away from me, I’ll fix it, I promise.”
“You can’t fix this, Blake.”
“Like hell, I can’t. I’ll do anything to get you back. Do you understand? Anything.”
The tears burned and streamed down my cheeks. The asking in his intensely green eyes took hold of me, enveloping everything. The pain behind them penetrated my soul. His expression softened, and he wiped away my tears, kissing the path they’d made down my face.
“You’re the only one, Erica. There’s never been anyone else.”
“But—”
“Not Risa, not Sophia. No one comes close. Believe me, no one ever will. If we can’t make this work…” His grip on me tightened slightly. “I can’t even think about it. God help me, I’ll keep trying until I break you down. Say it. Baby, please.”
The softly worded plea shredded me.
“Say it,” he whispered, kissing me sweetly.
“I love you.” The words came out in a sob. I swallowed down the urge to breakdown completely, strengthened by the pressure that lifted slightly by saying the words. “I love you so much.”
He answered by lifting me up to rest on the edge of the desk. “Then don’t give up on us. Love me, damn it. Please, baby. Let me love you.”
He slid his hands up my thighs, bunching the fabric of my dress as he went. He silenced any thoughts of refusing with another deeper kiss, devouring my mouth with hungry, urgent strokes. I linked my hands behind his neck, meeting his resolve.
“Jesus, I need you,” he growled and pulled away. In one swift movement he yanked off his shirt and divested me of my panties, careful to ensure that my heels stayed on.
“Blake, the office,” I whispered, vaguely aware that we were breaking an unwritten rule of not fucking in his office.
“Don’t give a shit. I need to be inside you more than I need to breathe right now. I don’t care who knows it.”
With one arm, he swept the contents of the desk behind me to the floor. Everything landed with a loud crash. He pushed me back, crawled over my body, and wrapped my legs snuggly around his waist. He covered me with fevered kisses, sucking my neck until my skin prickled with heated desire. He tugged down the top of my dress, freeing my breasts. He took my nipple in his mouth, circling the tender tip with the pad of his tongue and repeating the motion on the other.
“I thought I’d lose my mind seeing you walk away from me last night.”
“I didn’t want to leave you, Blake.”
“I couldn’t sleep from wanting you so badly. Wanted to bury myself so deep in you, hear you scream.”
I whimpered, desire thick in my veins. I shifted anxiously beneath him, desperate for more contact. I scrambled for his belt, unfastened it, and pushed down his jeans to free his cock. Frantic for him, I lifted my hips, meeting him as he shafted easily into me. He ground his hips, staking his claim inside me as I stretched around him. He filled me so completely. His ragged breathing matched my own.
No one had ever made me feel this way, and no one ever would.
He took my mouth, his tongue seeking mine with deep velvet strokes until I could scarcely breathe. I moaned as he pulled back and then plunged deeper.
“Say it again.” The command left his lips in a strangled groan.
He gripped my hip and thrust again, so deep.
“I love you, Blake.” I sobbed from the pleasure of it. “Oh God, you feel so good. It’s so good.”
As if something invisible snapped, the thin veneer of control slipped from his features. No longer could I make out the familiar lines of restraint on his face. Only his intense animal need to possess me. He pumped into me rapidly. The friction of his fierce movements made me wild. I grasped at anything—his hair, shoulders, the edge of the desk. Anything to ground me when I slipped perilously into oblivion.
He took my hands in his own and held them tight above my head, firmly enough that I couldn’t escape. My breasts jutted out, tantalized by the soft hairs of his chest. I moaned and cried out unintelligible things. I’d lost my mind in the pleasure.
Our bodies collided over each other’s, slick and taut with the tension coiled tight within each of us. The slow burn of my desire was raging now, the fire taking over as I clenched helplessly around him. His hips slammed mercilessly against me, my body anchored there and by his mouth where he kissed me. Passionate bruising kisses that I fully met like a person who’d been starved of them.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck. Erica. Come, baby. I can’t stop.”
His words spurred me right into my orgasm. I let out an intoxicated cry, my fingers threading tightly with his. His eyes never left me as he took his pleasure, the cords of his muscles strung so tight. The taut knots of his abdomen clenched once more before a spasm rocked his powerful frame.
My body hummed. My chest expanded with warmth, and I inhaled his scent, basking in our sudden and fierce closeness. Love—a heady, pulsing, possessing wave of love—held me in its clutches. Everything that I’d been trying to forget and subdue when he was near came rushing in, overtaking my senses. Forehead to forehead, we caught our breath between slow, passionate kisses.
He stilled for a minute and looked up. “Damn it.”
“What?”
“I have a conference call in a few minutes, otherwise I’d take you home and finish this.” He shook his head. “Never mind, I’ll have Cady reschedule it.”
He thickened inside of me, impossibly ready for me again. I tightened in response, overwhelmed by how much I wanted him again already. I wanted to gorge myself on everything I’d been missing for so long.
Then reality slowly resurfaced. This had been amazing. Heart-wrenching, toe-curling, amazing sex, but it didn’t solve things. I pressed my hands on his chest gently.
“Let me use your bathroom.”
He pulled out of me. I bit my lip, suppressing a whimper at the loss. With his help, I slid off the desk and collected myself enough to escape into the adjoining bathroom. I shut the door and cleaned myself up. How would we get through this now?
Before I could begin to think about it, he knocked on the door. I pulled myself together quickly and met him at the doorway.
“Everything okay?”
“Sure.” I pushed by nervously. “I’ll let you get back to work, I guess.”
I’d barely passed him when he tugged me close. “What if I don’t want to let you go yet?”
I avoided his eyes, unable to keep from relaxing into the warmth of his body.
“Let me see you tonight.” He paused, penetrating me with his gaze.
I contemplated a response. He’d just stripped me down emotionally and called my bluff on this whole breakup. What else could I say to keep him away that he would possibly believe or accept at this point? He was the definition of undeterred.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
His eyes widened slightly. “We’re back to this?”
I sighed inwardly. We were so far from being back to
normal. I was no closer to being able to tell him everything he didn’t know.
“You’re killing me with this shit, Erica. After what we just did, you won’t let me take you out?”
I tried to weigh my options, the possibilities, and all the things that could possibly go wrong. In the middle of this trying thought process, Blake kissed me. I kissed him back, twisting the fabric of his T-shirt into a fist as I pulled him even closer. Everything melted away as it so blissfully had earlier.
“I’ll meet you after work, okay?”
I nodded without thinking, drunk on the taste of him once more. Before I could tear myself away to leave, he spoke again.
“About Risa…”
My gaze shot up to meet his. I sobered momentarily with apprehension about what he might say.
“It’s not what you think.”
“Oh?” Then what the hell was it?
“Her loyalties don’t lie with you.”
“What do you mean?”
“You said you wanted to make your own mistakes, so I’m letting you. Do your homework. You’ll figure it out.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
On the walk back, I’d pulled my hair up into a twist so I didn’t look like I’d very recently been nailed on a writing desk. I returned to the office and ignored Risa’s guilty look in my direction. I couldn’t make eye contact with her. As soon as I passed the partition, James was behind me.
“How did it go?”
His tone had an edge, reminiscent of the bitter jealousy that I’d recently unleashed onto Blake. I sighed, wishing I hadn’t chosen to come here first.
“Fine. We’re on the same page now.”
“I can see that,” he said quietly, thumbing a tender spot high on my neck. He shook his head and turned to leave as quickly as he’d come.
I sat down and opened my compact. In the tiny mirror I saw a quarter-sized violet bruise where James’s hand had grazed.
My face heated. Goddamn it, Blake.
He was ruthless in his jealousy, and now James was obviously pissed that I’d gone and done exactly what he’d said I would.
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