Squinting at his profile, she licked her lips. “Are we talking about Benjamin now or you?”
He raised his brows at her and then looked back at the road. “We’re talking about Gallagher. Our whatever is still on. But you dumped him. I want to know why.”
“Don’t worry,” she said. “You won’t make the same mistake he did.”
“You know I don’t give a damn about making mistakes. You said you didn’t want me to change, I take you at your word… But you being cagey like this intrigues me. Now you’ve gotta tell me.”
Rora could feel him stealing glances at her. In this enclosed car, she couldn’t run away or make excuses.
Instead, she beamed at him and slapped a hand onto his leg. “Want head?” But he wasn’t going to fall for that and she’d known he wouldn’t. She groaned. “If I tell you the truth, you’ll think I’m a horrible person.”
“You’ve seen me break bones for kicks,” he said. “My right to judge anyone else’s choices went out the window years ago, decades ago.”
She hadn’t expected that he would be so disgusted or offended that he’d throw her out onto the sidewalk, but she didn’t like to admit that the reason wasn’t dramatic or due to anything Benjamin had done.
“It makes me sound like a horrible person to say it out loud.”
“He was shit in bed?”
“No!” she exclaimed. “God, no! You’re the second person to say that to me and it’s not true. He was perfectly sweet… maybe a bit too gentle sometimes, but that’s ok, every guy is different.”
“Then what was it?” he asked. “You know I won’t stop until—”
“He was too normal,” she said. He took a second to think about it, his scowl growing more intense as the seconds passed. “It sounds horrible because he was an incredible guy. He was so passionate, especially about his work, he would just light up when he talked about it… But the truth was, I was most in love with him when we weren’t talking.”
“So when you were fucking?”
“No,” she said. “Sometimes he did talk to me in bed, and…”
A private smile warmed her lips; she didn’t acknowledge Strike’s double-take.
“Ok, get that look off your face. I can’t kill the guy twice… but I can piss on his memory if you don’t stop thinking whatever you’re thinking right now… Dirty talk?”
“It wasn’t dirty,” she said, twisting to face him, though she didn’t really look at him, she was looking past him, out his side window. “He would be romantic… Not about me, but he’d talk about the sky and the stars and—”
“I’m falling asleep already. You’re telling me you came with that guy? I don’t believe it. Who else said he was shit in bed?”
“Bella,” she said, and curled her legs under her. “I guess she didn’t really say that he was shit, she used the word peculiar.”
Deadpan, it was obvious Strike wasn’t enjoying this conversation, but he’d been the one to start it. “To Bella, that means shit,” he said. “But if he talked about the stars with her, she’d probably have laughed in his face.”
“It wasn’t funny, he was being sweet and I’d never been with a sweet guy before, not like him. But he could be passionate too… When he worked, I could sit across the room and watch him for hours, the way his expression changed, the speed of his fingers, the way he’d stop to ponder… I was… mesmerized. He’d get so excited about his work, it would be infectious. He’d talk at a thousand miles a minute and I would just sit there, taking it all in.”
“He was obsessive,” he said. “It’s a trait of those with superior intellect.”
Which would include Strike too, the two men were the same in that way. She exhaled. “But the… other stuff… Setting the alarm, going to the same deli every day for lunch, planning to go to the fair at the weekend… He wanted normal. He talked about houses and cars and kids and I… I started to have panic attacks. I didn’t want suburban; he did. Our relationship became routine, brushing our teeth, talking about the latest budget report, then ten minutes in missionary twice a week, and… We had this fight one morning…”
“About what?”
“Him leaving his damp towel on the bed,” she said and exhaled a laugh, rubbing her face because it was such a ludicrous memory to stick in her head as significant. “It wouldn’t have registered, I guess, if he’d just moved it, but he apologized… He apologized. It was so… normal… and he was so sissy about it. He didn’t move it or tell me to go to hell, he groveled. He wouldn’t let it go. I was this nagging wife and he was the kowtowed husband and I just froze, I knew I couldn’t do it anymore.”
They rode in silence for a minute and she was replaying those times, numb to what had ultimately happened to Benjamin. It was difficult for her to connect the two events; such normality to such tragedy.
“Twice a week?” Strike asked.
Snapping from her daze, they made eye contact for a second when he took his focus from the road, probably trying to stop her from dropping into the darkness of grief.
“It’s funny,” she said. “Bella had you and I had him, and then we switched… Guess she wasn’t wrong about us being an intimate foursome…” Benjamin was her past, and she had her future beside her. “If we’d had sex before going to Wonderland, you and me I mean… Would you have joined us in bed when Bella drugged me, or that last day?”
“Drugs, maybe,” he said. “But not on the last day.”
Trying to figure that out, she rested an elbow on the back of the chair. “Why not on the last day?”
“But you’d be ok with me doing you while you were drugged?” he said, glancing at her like it was ridiculous, which it kind of was.
Maybe she hadn’t conveyed her reaction in the right way. “I guess if we’d done it before, like now, we’re actually together, there’s implied consent. I don’t think I’d want you to drug me on a regular basis, but if we were in peril, in a life or death situation and you had to, then I wouldn’t judge you for it.”
He smirked and dropped a hand from the wheel to touch her knee for a second. “I can’t wait to see what that situation will look like. What the hell’s gonna happen to us that it will be life or death for me to screw you while you’re unconscious?”
Punching his shoulder, she laughed. “You know what I mean… If Bella had held a gun to your head and told you to do it or she’d shoot, I don’t know.”
He might not be a smiler, but he was definitely amused by her. “Love the imagination, Cupcake.”
“Tell me,” she said, curving a hand over his bicep. “Why not the last day?”
“I could see it in your face that you didn’t want to be there,” he said. “I don’t know how Bella didn’t know it.”
“Because she doesn’t know me like you do,” she said. “You’re against rape, aren’t you? Because of your mom.”
His shoulders rose and fell. “I don’t have a lot of morals, you’ve seen that for yourself. But it’s the one thing I won’t do under any circumstances.”
He’d picked on her for elevating one scenario over another, yet his answer made just as little sense. “Wouldn’t someone say that a drugged person didn’t want to have sex? Why is one different to the other?”
“I’d have kicked Bella out when you were drugged, I wouldn’t have shared you with her.”
Rora would’ve appreciated that. Waking up in bed alone with Bella was a horror until she knew Strike was there keeping an eye on things. So, if he’d kicked Bella out and Rora had woken up with him… well, it wasn’t like she’d never woken up with him before. That would have definitely been less of a violation, even if he had been naked like Bella was.
“So, it would’ve been just you and me, which makes a difference because…” she asked, opening her mouth and bobbing her head to goad him into explaining.
“You were hot for me,” he said. “You didn’t want to be in bed, in your underwear, under Bella… But if I’d been the one on top of you, kissing you… touc
hing you…”
Boosting herself over the console, she kissed his cheek and rubbed the back of his neck. “I love you, Flame,” she whispered.
He stopped at a light and turned to kiss her. “You’re the one who wanted to go across town and skip the motel. Don’t get frisky.”
“Not skip it, delay it,” she said, opening her mouth on his cheekbone. “And if we do this now, we don’t have to get up in the morning. We can stay in bed all day if you want.”
“I’ve got to get on the road back to town tomorrow,” he said.
Though she didn’t mean to whine, she was disappointed. “Why?”
“Business.”
She waited for him to elaborate but got nothing. So Rora tried to prompt him with a poke in the ribs. “Strike?”
He glanced to her. “What? We don’t have to tell each other everything.” But there was enough of a smirk on his face that she took his statement as a joke. Catching his earlobe in her teeth, she bit hard, though not hard enough to draw blood, and sat back on her feet. “You’ve got a thing for biting, baby. We’re gonna explore that later.”
Later. In the motel room, when they were alone and in bed, safe and warm together, open to enjoying each other. She still didn’t understand why he hadn’t wanted to have sex before they did or why Bella had flipped out so dramatically when she learned that she and Strike hadn’t slept together.
But they were nearly at the research building, so those questions would have to wait until another time.
twenty-three
Throwing the motel room door out of her way, Rora tipped her head back and screamed as she strode in. “How can they do it?” she shouted to the heavens, holding up her hands. “How can they get away with erasing a man’s life like that?”
Spinning around, she watched Strike come in and close the motel room door behind himself. He put Opal on a side table and took off his jacket. “You’re angry.”
“You’re damn right I’m angry!”
Turned out that going to her and Benjamin’s old workplace was a useless exercise. The building had been torched. Literally. They’d driven around the corner onto the block and seen a dozen firetrucks sprawled across the complex tackling the fire that engulfed the ten-story building.
“Might have been an accident,” he said, cool as always.
Glaring at him, she tore her own jacket from her body and pulled her top up over her head to throw it away too. Everything was annoying her and making her feel itchy and claustrophobic; she hadn’t known it was possible to be so riled with frustration.
“There’s no way it’s a coincidence,” she said.
He shrugged. “There were other things in that building.”
He came to her and laid his hands on her hips. Rora didn’t know if he was trying to comfort her with his touch or enflame her with his nonchalance.
Snatching the hem of his tee-shirt, she tugged it up. “Take this off,” she said, and he helped her pull it over his head.
Closing her wide mouth on his chest, she sucked and licked, digging her teeth into his pec and her nails into his shoulders.
Strike growled. “Like that, is it?”
Planting his hands on either side of her face, he thrust her head back, pushing it so far so fast that pain shot through her neck. He bowed, kissed her hard and then bit her lip. Pulling her bra from her body, he didn’t worry about clasps or decency; just kept kissing her while he tore it off.
Turning in circles as they fought for dominance on the way to the bed, they shed their clothes and were naked when he snatched her hips and threw her down onto the mattress.
Seizing her knees, he forced her legs open and mounted the bed between them. His grasp on her breast was so harsh that it bruised, firing her heart into overdrive. Yes, this was what she needed, pleasure, pain, him, here, now.
She scratched her nails down his back in response to his bite on her nipple. Inflicting that pain caused him to rear up to drive his tongue into her mouth. He needed her, but she needed him more. Rora fed off the desire burning from his being and coiled her legs around his thighs.
But when she tensed to pull him forward, he stole her ankles, pulling them away from him and flipping her over onto her front. Landing on top of her, the weight of his body made it difficult for her to breathe.
Gathering her hair away from her cheek, he pulled it hard, forcing her profile down into the bed. Laying his cheek on hers, he rubbed his scathing stubble into her softer skin. It stung, making her pant and fumble for him, but he captured her wrists and slammed them to the bed on either side of her head.
“You angry, baby?” he mumbled into her ear. “Are you?”
Bringing his mouth to hers, she did her best to turn and meet the fervor of his tongue kiss, but in her position, it was difficult to seal their mouths.
“Yes,” she panted when he licked his way around to her ear. “I’m angry.”
“Good,” he purred.
Wriggling beneath him, she needed to take a deep breath, but enjoyed being at his mercy, pinned beneath his weight. He drove a knee between her thighs and rose, grabbing a handful of her hair to yank her up.
Instinct made her hands go to his, the knot of his fist embedded in her hair made her scalp scream. But her grip couldn’t loosen his. He pulled her up high on her knees and knelt behind her, one leg between hers and the other on the outside.
She yelped when he tugged hard, forcing her head around so he could growl in her ear. “You think you’re angry now? I’m gonna fuck you, and you’re not gonna come, and you’re gonna be pissed as hell when I’m done using you.”
Trying to pull forward, she cried when he yanked her back, forcing her spine to collide with his chest. “Strike,” she said, but the word was lost when he thrust her forward, pushing her face into the mattress as he pushed her legs further apart to get between them.
His fist stayed in her hair, holding her down, and then he slammed into her from behind, his dick pushing all the way into her pussy in one hard thrust. Calling out with an open mouth, Rora was held immobile under his hold on her hair.
With his other hand on her hip, he pulled her back to meet every advance. Her belly felt each push, the deep impact of his dick hitting her so far inside. “Strike,” she panted his name, clenching her thighs to keep her hips up and her core tight to give all the resistance she could to his hard thrusts.
He let go of her hip and spanked her, maybe for saying his name, maybe to piss her off, didn’t matter. The harsh force of his hand on her ass tossed her into the oblivion of an orgasm so powerful that her body spasmed around him and slowed his pace.
After spanking her again, he pushed into her. “I told you not to do that,” he growled and fired into her faster again.
Forcing her pussy to take every inch of him, he leaned back, angling her head from the mattress so her chin rested on it.
His growl started low and got louder until he cried out and emptied himself into her before shoving her forward onto her face.
Boneless and panting, she stayed still for a score of seconds. She was sweating and exhausted and sore everywhere. Slowly rolling onto her back, she saw Strike standing next to the bed looking down at her.
For a full minute, they just looked at each other, the burning intensity of their eyes exchanging defiance.
Opening his hands, he let his arms rise a foot from his body and took two steps back. “I’m yours,” he said. “Use me. Punish me. Hate me.”
But she didn’t hate him. She couldn’t hate him. He didn’t deserve to be punished. Rora hadn’t said no. She hadn’t fought to get away. She hadn’t told him to stop. She didn’t want him to.
What he’d done… taking control of her, holding her down, filling her with all of him… It was exactly what she’d needed to expel her frustration. He’d given her what she needed.
She wasn’t angry anymore. With him in control, she was… free.
Taking time to balance her weight on her shaking arms, Rora trembled as sh
e sat up. Twisted her legs to one side, she let her arms hold her up at the other. Adrenaline and endorphins were still pulsing through her enlivened body. Curving each leg off the bed, she managed to get herself onto her feet.
Then with her eyes on his, one careful step followed another until her upright body was parallel to his. Again, they just looked into each other. Rora wished she could see into his mind. What did he expect her to do? Hurt him? Hit him? Cut him?
His anticipation was probably as intense as her love and that was all she had now, standing in front of the man who gave her what she needed. Love. When she lifted her hands, he inhaled, just a tiny sign that he might be bracing to absorb whatever came next.
But instead of lashing out, she laid both hands on his cheeks and rose to her tiptoes, pulling him down to let their lips just brush each other.
“I love you, Strike,” she said, sliding her hands from his face around to the back of his neck. “I love you.” Grabbing her ribs beneath her arms, he pushed her back an inch and peered into her like he didn’t understand. “You give me everything I need. You are all I need… I’m not angry anymore.”
“Why?”
He must have been sure that she was going to unleash fury on him, and he just didn’t get why she hadn’t or maybe he didn’t understand why she loved him.
“I don’t have to be angry when I’m with you. I don’t have to be angry or afraid. Whatever this is, we’ll figure it out. You make me strong, Strike. You make me invincible because you’ll always be there to scare the demons into their holes, to clear my path home… to you. You’re my home, Strike.”
“Death’s no obstacle to the devil,” he murmured, pushing her hair away from her arm, sending it tickling down her spine.
Rora pulled him down for another kiss. “There isn’t anywhere you can go that I won’t follow.”
twenty-four
“What you got there?” Strike asked, coming toward her across the convenience store parking lot.
Hide & Seek Page 20
