Around four in the morning, he wraps me in his arms again and asks what I saw in James. I hold nothing back.
James was my escape, I tell him, the one person who let me be myself. We didn’t share a lot of chemistry, but at the time it didn’t matter. I thought he loved me for me. Not my body, not what he wanted me to be, but the flawed person I was.
After tonight, I don’t know anymore. Maybe he loved that I asked so little of him. Maybe he was too obsessed with work and his ex-girlfriend to care.
When I wake in the morning, Bram is gone. There’s a note on the nightstand. Hope you’re okay. Call me. I touch my mouth. I can still feel the heat of his goodbye kisses on my nose and lips.
I sit up in bed. Something feels wrong. No, not wrong. Different.
The familiar crushing feeling in my chest. The horrible certainty that I’ll never be happy again. That I don’t want to be happy. It’s gone.
For years I idealized James. I ignored the red flags so I could hold onto my dreams. Delusions were better than the death of love. I couldn’t afford to lose him. I didn’t have a family that loved me, and if I didn’t have James, I had nothing.
Now I have everything. I have Bram, and I have the truth.
I still grieve for James, but it doesn’t feel the same. I don’t think it will ever again.
I get out of bed and take a shower. I’m still sad and in shock, but it helps to have a job to do. I have a busy week ahead, and a protective man I want so much to impress.
The next two days are a whirlwind of phone calls, visits to florists, and meetings with catering companies. The invitations have already been printed and sent out. I’ve invited one-hundred and seventy-six guests, from CEOs and bank presidents to a graffiti artist and a burlesque performer. To save time, RSVP’s are by email only. I can’t wait to see who responds.
I love driving Bram’s car into the city and feeling free. I love having places to be and things to do. No matter how many times I hear the words no, or we need more time, I hand over his credit card and pay my way out of it. He did give me an unlimited budget, after all. And the only way to make this event happen on his timetable is to throw money at every obstacle in our path.
This was the person I was meant to be. Competent. Driven. Free of the past. Loved. And more than anything, Bram makes me feel loved.
I lie awake at night thinking through every detail, from the seating arrangements to the makeup the servers will wear. I’ve hired a makeup artist who promises he can bring my vampy vision to life with dark red lipstick, false eyelashes, and smoky eyeliner. Their hair will be pulled into topknots. They’ll be naked except for heels and chandelier earrings, and of course, gold body paint.
It’s strange to give my attention to something else besides Bram, but he wants more than a party. He wants me to pour my soul into one night of beauty. He wants my strength and independence, and that’s what I’m going to give him.
Three days before the event, I meet Stephanie to go dress shopping. She helps me pick out a slim white gown with netting for the sleeves and most of the body. It’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen, and it covers almost nothing.
Stephanie looks at the price tag and gives me a confused frown. “Bram told you to buy anything you wanted? Even if it costs as much as a small car?”
“Maybe a small used car,” I say, and we laugh.
It takes me ten minutes to slither into the dress and zip it up the side. When I come out of the dressing room, Stephanie shakes her head.
“It’s perfect on you,” she says. “Your father would kill you if he saw you in it.”
“Sold,” I say.
Afterwards we walk to the most elegant bakery in the city for a cake sampling. They know my timeline, and they’ve promised to deliver my order on Saturday even if they have to bake for two days straight. One 5- tier cake per table. Eight trays of truffles filled with different kinds of liquor. A chocolate fondue fountain.
Over German chocolate and coconut cream, I tell Stephanie everything. Well, almost. I leave out parts like how I got to Bram’s house, my escape, and my four hours as a missing person.
She’s so happy for me. She’s happy that I lost my virginity. She’s happy that I’ve gained weight. She’s happy that I’m happy. And that’s all I could ever want.
Since she has a wedding Saturday night, she makes me promise to take a hundred pictures of Bram’s dinner party. I promise her twice that many, plus videos.
“I still don’t understand why you quit Divine,” she says. “I mean, I got a promotion and a raise out of it, but still.” She makes a sad face. “I miss you.”
I take a big bite of maple cheesecake and smile. “You won’t when I’m your competition,” I say with a full mouth.
She stick her tongue out at me and steals the rest of the German chocolate off my plate.
Bram
Thirteen hours away from her. It feels like thirteen weeks.
She’s stayed in my thoughts every second, all week. I can smell her on my skin. Feel her mouth on my lips and cock.
I’m in withdrawal from my sweet girl. The one I’m trying so hard to push away.
I wasn’t supposed to keep her. I was going to save her, make her stronger, and set her free. I guess this is what freedom looks like.
I unlock the door and walk inside. I shouldn’t even be here. Grace was meeting her friend Stephanie today and sampling cakes. I was going to go to a steakhouse with Fritz, drink vodka, and stay out late. Get home long after Grace had gone to bed. But I canceled at the last second.
The plan was to give her a whole day without me. No call or text. I managed that part. But when five o’clock rolled around and I got in the car, I just wanted to go home. I wanted to be with her.
“Grace?” I call.
She’s going to come bounding out to meet me like a sweet, lonely kitten. Or she’ll run up from downstairs where she’s spent all day planning an amazing party to please me. I can almost hear her high, feminine voice ringing through the air like a bell. You’re home! Oh, Bram, I missed you. Please don’t ever go away again.
“Grace?”
I walk into the kitchen. It’s spotless and empty. Upstairs, my bed is neatly made and every sign of her has been neatly put away. Her towel is folded over the stainless steel rack. Opening the bathroom cabinet, I touch the bristles of her brush. A silky strand of auburn hair snags around my finger.
Fuck, I miss her. I crave her touch. I had total control of her body and mind for three weeks, and now she’s leaving me. With my help.
She isn’t in the living room, or downstairs in the ballroom. Because I don’t want to give up yet, I even peer outside into the garden. It’s damp and windswept. No sign of her.
I turn away as a cold, empty space opens up inside me. For years it’s been there, and I’ve always relished it. It meant I was an island, a man who needed nothing and no one. I’d survive, no matter what.
But tonight, it feels like a bullshit defense. It hurts.
I should have measured my words. Grace felt my first, abrupt nudge as she stood on the edge of the nest, and she heard the message loud and clear.
Time to fly, baby.
And that’s exactly what she’s doing.
She walks in the door just before nine o’clock. It’s all I can do not to jump up from the couch. For two hours I’ve been like a frantic father, walking from window to window and fighting the instinct to call her every three minutes.
I want to shout at her. Where the fuck have you been? Why didn’t you call? I want to strip her clothes off and throw her over my knee to be spanked until she screams.
But I can’t. This is my doing. This is what I wanted.
And now I’ve got it. A stable, independent woman with her whole life ahead of her. She’s no longer racked by grief or her hatred for me. She’s not a danger to herself or my company anymore.
She doesn’t need me. She’s just fine, all on her own.
So why do I want to put her back in
her room and start all over again? Why do I want her to need me, to depend on me like she did before?
I thought she’d resist the change. She seemed so happy and comfortable in this house. And at first, she did resist. She pouted. And I liked it.
I could encourage her self-reliance, knowing that she’d always be reliant on me first.
But when I led her to the edge of the cliff, she only clung to me for a moment. Then she let go of my hand and leapt.
What did I expect? She didn’t come to this house under her own power. She was forced. Kidnapped, if I’m being honest. It took time to smash the wall around her heart and gain entrance to her spirit. It’s no surprise that she’s dying to get back into the world and be a free young woman again.
“Hi!” she says, flitting into the room with three shopping bags like an excited butterfly. “I made good progress today!”
She thumps across the room in high wedge shoes and plops beside me on the couch. Her bare leg presses innocently against my thigh.
She smells like gardenias, and she’s wearing a mini-skirt she bought on her shopping trip with Coral. It’s so mini, in fact, that when she sits down it practically shows her panties. I stifle a growl.
“Tell me,” I say.
“Well, one of these bags is filled with material for the drapes I want to make. At the last second I decided velvet would be better.”
“Velvet,” I say, watching her flushed, animated face.
“Yup. I found some beautiful tablecloths at an event website, so we can just rent those, and for flowers I’m adding purple orchids and burgundy dahlias to the red roses. There’ll be so much deep color.”
The scent of gardenia drifts around my head. “Is that new perfume?”
Her eyes get round and excited. “Do you like it? My parents never allowed me to wear perfume when I was younger so it stills feels like a sin to wear it.”
I lean close and sniff her neck. It’s all I can do not to bite her instead.
“Did you buy the bottle?” I ask.
“Is that okay? You said to buy anything I wanted, but I only bought the perfume and some panties. That’s pretty good, right?”
Perfume and panties. Just what a girl needs when she has nothing tying her down. When she’s beautiful, unattached, and the man who fucking adores her has no claim to her.
“Right,” I say, but my voice sounds rough and irritable. Possessive rage rises in my chest. I circle my hand around her soft thigh.
As I expected, the edge of her panties is just under the hem of her skirt. So tempting, so alluring to every cock in the city. I can just imagine how many men stared at her ass, smelled her gardenia skin, and thought about fucking her. And she did everything she could to encourage it.
“It was a chilly day today,” I say. “You went out with bare legs.”
She shrugs. “I was so happy to be out, I hardly felt the cold.”
“I bet.”
Once I exorcised James from her heart, I assumed she’d be mine. I didn’t anticipate that the only person she’d belong to would be herself. Her free, beautiful, happy self.
She gives me a teasing smile. “You left early this morning, and didn’t tell me what to wear. If you’d said jeans, I’d have worn jeans.”
Lips pursed, I nod slowly. She’s right, but right can’t cool the boil in my blood. It can’t make me think straight, or change what I’m about to do.
“Stand up,” I say.
She sticks out her long legs and flexes her calves. Her new, bright-red pedicure makes my cock throb. “I walked too far in these shoes today,” she says with a satisfied sigh. “My feet are killing me.”
“Stand up.”
A frown flickers across her brow as she registers my tone. “What’s wrong, Bram?”
I shrug. “You were out all afternoon in a slutty skirt. I want to see what every other man got to see.”
She looks genuinely confused. Such an innocent, flirtatious little bird. “What?” she says.
“Every cashier, every married man, every college boy – show me what you showed them.”
She gulps down her nervousness and stands up. I wave her a few steps away. “Stop. Right there.”
Planting her wedges a foot apart, she drops her hands to her sides. Her lips quiver but her eyes are insolent.
“One week away from me and you forget your training? You forget to respect me?”
“One week away and you forget what you said?” she says evenly. “I can quote you verbatim. You need to start standing on your own two feet.”
The words sting like stones as she throws them in my face. She’s right, yet again. But still my greediness won’t subside.
“I said nothing about dressing to entice other men. Or not calling. Or coming home late as excited as if you just got fucked in the back seat of a car.”
A sharp frown creases her forehead. “I don’t understand. You said –”
I know what I said.
I wish she’d drop to her knees and wrap her arms around my legs. I wish she’d bury her face in my lap and beg for forgiveness, even though she did nothing wrong.
Am I this fucking insecure? This bonded to a woman I once thought of as a nuisance to be controlled?
She can’t detach this fast. It can’t be this easy.
I get up and stand in front of her. Hands on her hips, she stares at me.
She barely has time to suck in a breath before I whirl her around. My cock is so hard I feel lightheaded. This was always my courtroom fantasy. Strip Grace Garrett down and fuck her until she forgave me. Fuck her until she loved me.
“Please, Sir…” she stutters.
The word Sir washes over me like a healing wave. But it’s too late to stop what’s coming.
Hand in her hair, I march her to the dining room table. “Take off your panties and kneel on the table,” I say.
“Why?”
“Do it.”
She flashes the prettiest ass in the world as she climbs up onto the table. Her slit is pink and glistening. The combination of her pussy, bare ass, and the high wedges on her feet make her look sweet and slutty in the most innocent, fuckable way.
I stand behind her and unzip my jeans. I can’t even wait to get undressed. I’m going to have her now.
I wrap a hand around her throat as I enter her hard and fast. A little scream rips from her body as I bury my cock to the hilt.
Leaning forward, I take her ear in my teeth. “Self-reliance doesn’t mean you have control. I do. I always will.”
She reaches across the table and grips the edge. Knees braced, she takes another deep, hard thrust.
“Still sore from your first fuck?” I ask.
She nods. “And my sixth and seventh.”
“And who’s the man who fucks you, Grace?”
“You are,” she says.
I nail her hard, glad her pussy still aches. I never want the aching to stop. I want her to feel that ache when she wakes up every morning and remembers that she’s mine.
She may be free, but she’ll never be free of me.
Wrapping a hand around her pretty face, I give her my index finger to suck. “Make it nice and wet,” I say. “It’s going in your ass.”
She whimpers with her tongue wrapped around my knuckle. Her saliva feels like warm velvet running down my skin.
“That’s right. Good girl.”
She makes a beautiful sucking noise as I pull my hand away. I give her a deep, thick thrust, then pull out, leaving her pussy with only the head of my cock to hold onto.
Spreading her ass cheeks, I slip my finger inside. She hisses as I pierce her delicate flesh.
“Remember, your ass belongs to me as much as your cunt. Okay? Tell me you understand.”
She nods and her hair falls over her eye. “I understand.”
“Nobody else gets to fuck you. Is that clear?”
She nods as I corkscrew my finger further inside her. She clenches down hard and moans. “It’s clear.”
I’ve got my hand around her throat, my finger in her ass, and my cock all the way up her pussy. The first few times, I was gentle. This time, she’s discovering what a good, hard fuck really is.
Her cunt is starting to conform itself, to shape every exquisite contour to my cock. It feels different than it did every time before. She’s like warm wax, molding herself to my body and what I want. She can’t pull away from me now.
I grab her hair and yank her head back. Her gorgeous green eyes roll back to look at me. “You understand what this is, don’t you?” I growl.
She nods as best she can.
“What is it?” I ask.
A pretty tear streams over her temple. “You’re angry.”
I lean down to kiss her tear as it vanishes into her hair. Her back arches like a cat’s and her pussy clamps around my cock.
“This isn’t anger,” I tell her.
“It isn’t?” she whispers.
“No. I just missed you so fucking much today.”
Her body telegraphs relief as she relaxes. Everything is softer now – her cunt, her gaze, her ass around my finger. Trust floods back into her face. I see her pulse slow in her neck.
“Oh, Bram,” she says.
I lick the trail of her tear. “You did nothing wrong,” I say, and reward her by ramming my cock into her. “You were perfect. Your skirt was perfect. Your perfume was perfect.”
She’s crying now. I made her cry with my jealousy and my crazy fucking need for her. I want her to be like every other woman I’ve fucked, but she isn’t. She’s got her hooks into my soul. A month ago, my happiness depended on no one but me. Now, I can’t take a breath without thinking of her.
I pull back and step away. “Turn around and look at me.”
She turns on her knees. Tear-flooded eyes glued to my face, she sits on the edge of the table. Her wedged feet hang down.
“Fuck,” I say. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“What wasn’t?”
“I was supposed to change you. You weren’t supposed to change me.”
Her blouse is pulled to one side, showing her bra strap and one white shoulder. “How am I changing you?”
Breaking Grace Page 24
