“Envy is a fine enough emotion,” she said, her mouth red and moist in the soft lamplight. “But your brother worked hard for what he has, separate from me, and you would have to, as well.”
“Damn, I know that but—”
Wolfe had had enough. “Hey.” He drifted over to them, brushed a hand over Nichelle’s shoulder. “Can we talk for a minute?”
Did he imagine it, or had she closed her eyes just the tiniest bit at his touch?
Kingsley bristled. “We’re discussing something important here.” He gave Wolfe a narrow-eyed stare. His brother had grown up alongside Wolfe to notice how beautiful Nichelle was, even though Wolfe had been telling Kingsley for years to search elsewhere for his next woman. He had only laughed at Wolfe, asking with an infuriating look if Nichelle was already taken. “You can get her anytime you want,” Kingsley said. “Piss off.”
With a touch of reluctance that Wolfe noticed, Nichelle turned away from his brother. “I’ll be right back, Kingsley.”
With Nichelle in front of him, Wolfe suddenly didn’t know what to do. Her eyes were soft tonight, the off-the-shoulder dress tempting his hands to explore the body on delectable display. He curled fingers around her arm just above the elbow and lost his breath. Her skin felt soft, so soft. He was aware of Kingsley’s stare, but he didn’t care.
Because he wasn’t quite thinking with the head on his shoulders, Wolfe led her upstairs to his old room. He closed the door behind them.
“What’s on your mind?” she asked as the lock clicked into place.
* * *
Nichelle crossed her arms and took a step back, hyper-aware of their isolation from the rest of the family. It was only her and Wolfe in his childhood room, the smell of furniture polish and old books thick around them. His bedroom.
“I talked to Franklin today.”
She blinked in surprise. That wasn’t what she’d expected him to say. Earlier that day, she’d finally made a decision about what to do with Isaac and his threats, an entire damned day devoted to that foolishness when she had more important things to do with her time. The solution she found was a workable one. It kept Quraishi and Wolfe still working together and did not leave her at Isaac’s mercy as he obviously hoped.
“What was that conversation about?” Nichelle crossed her arms. “Or should I even ask?”
“It looks like you already know.”
She turned away from him to sit on the wide mahogany trunk under the window, pressing her palms down into the wood on either side of her hips. “I don’t like to make assumptions.”
“He said you were leaving me.”
She flinched. That had been part of her solution. Not an ideal one, but the only one she had been able to come up with in such a short amount of time. She’d figured Isaac would strike, but not this soon.
“Yes.” She pursed her lips, wondering if she would have the courage to leave when it was time. “I am.”
“What the hell?” He looked shocked. Then his face blanked, emotional walls slamming down. “How could you do this?”
“I’ve made the decision, and this seems to be the best thing to do. I leave Kingston Consulting, no foul.”
“And take Quraishi’s business with you?” His eyes narrowed, the blank look on his face leeching away to leave coldness in its place. “Are you going to sleep with him, too?”
She shot to her feet. “What did you just say to me?”
“Franklin said—” He stopped, hopefully reconsidering what he was going to say.
“No, tell me exactly what he said and what you thought I would do.” She stalked to him, her high heels cracking against the hardwood floors before being muffled by the carpet near his bed. “Tell me exactly what you think I’m capable of. Tell me you don’t trust me anymore.”
He didn’t back away from her, but his face became impossibly even colder than before. His eyes were like flint with none of the amused glimmer she was used to, even in the midst of their most ridiculous arguments.
He opened his mouth and dropped the words in the room. Vile words. She’d said that and worse of other people, men and women, but not people she knew better of. And she would damned sure not repeat them if they weren’t true.
She ignored the twisting pain in her stomach, the pressure in her chest as if someone had just shoved her to the ground and stomped on her. “And you never once questioned anything he said about me?”
“You’re leaving,” he said by way of an answer.
She pressed her lips together. A cry wanted to wrench free from her throat. Nichelle swallowed until the sound slid back down into her stomach and away. “You’re a dick.”
She fought back against him the only way she knew how. By pulling away. Wolfe wasn’t like everyone else. She couldn’t hurt him without hurting herself. But even this—shoving all emotion aside and emptying her face of all expression, drawing her spine tight and preparing to walk out of the room and out of his life—cracked her wide open. The back of her eyes stung. Her limbs were heavy with disappointment. With sadness.
She turned toward the door.
“Don’t do that,” he said, his voice deep and threatening. “Don’t walk away from me.”
“You don’t get to make demands of me, Wolfe.” She did him one better, growling low in her throat. “Not after what you just said to me. If you believe I’m the kind of parasite Isaac described, then you shouldn’t want anything to do with me.” She took a steadying breath and moved toward the door again. “I think we’re done.”
“No.” He grabbed her elbow but she yanked away, gasping at the slight pain.
“Don’t touch me!”
He hissed. “That’s not what you said to me the other night.” And there it was for the first time, his feelings in the open about what they had shared. But this was not the place, and this was not the way to do it.
“You don’t get to do this to me, Wolfe. You came to my house with your wants.”
“Tell me you didn’t want me to.” It was a dare.
But she couldn’t say it because it wasn’t true. She had wanted him so badly that it burned. Her every breath had been painful with the need of him, nothing right until she had her hands and mouth on him, their bodies twined and twisted together, heaving in the bed toward satisfaction. Wolfe stepped close, obliterating the few feet of space she had placed between them.
Clean. He smelled clean, a hint of mint toothpaste on his breath, his sandalwood aftershave.
“Tell me you don’t want me now.”
His confidence rubbed her raw. “I don’t want you now.” She threw the words defiantly at him. “And how can you even pretend to want me when you see me as nothing more than a manipulative bitch with no sense of loyalty?”
“No!” He dipped his head and kissed her.
She gasped as his open mouth touched hers, his tongue a rough inquiry, wet and instantly knee-weakening. Nichelle fisted her hands in his shirt to push him away, but ended up pulling him to her instead. Her mouth opened, releasing a gasping breath when their tongues met. They kissed as if they were starved for each other, wet and noisy and sloppy. Needful.
The sting of sudden arousal burned between her legs, and she clutched at his shoulders, moaned into the unrelenting heat of his mouth. His hands gripped her hips. Then the wall was at her back, the hard press of him at her front. She whimpered with want. The fury of earlier sloughed off to revel in the “at last” of him against her body.
Nichelle sucked on Wolfe’s tongue and raked her nails under his shirt, shoving it out of the way to press her hands into the dense muscle of his stomach, his pecs. She pinched his nipples, roughly. He gasped in her mouth, pushed her harder into the wall, his hands shoving up her dress. She heard it tearing, the twenty-five-hundred-dollar Carolina Herrera sheath destroyed in the frantic heat of their lust. He ripped aside her underwear. She fumbled for his zipper, for the hard heat of him.
They came together with a thick gasp, his hands digging into her hips. Her legs lo
cked around his waist as he slid into her again, a deep and rough claiming. She tightened her legs around him and twisted her hips, wanting more from him, more than what they had become.
He was hot and sweet and firm inside her. Her center gripped him and squeezed while her thoughts scattered beyond retrieval. His breath puffed hot against her ear. He groaned her name, like pain. Sweat shuddered to the surface of her skin, heat under her clothes while she panted and twisted, her fingernails tight in the back of his neck.
“Don’t leave me!” he groaned into her neck, panting as they slammed together, fury and fear, dread and desire driving them together toward a shuddering conclusion. Her legs locked tighter around his waist. Their breaths came faster. The wall knocked with the force of his thrusts.
But—she gasped and gripped him tighter—what if someone heard them? The bed. They should move to the perfectly good bed across the room. But he shifted his grip to her buttocks, tilted the angle of his hips and slammed into her just perfectly. A screaming cry left her lips.
And she forgot all about the bed.
Her hand scrambled back, found a shelf hooked to the wall and held on as he dove up into her, slamming the delight into her again and again. They rocked against the wall, fierce and sweaty. The scent of sweat and sex, desperation and anger and heat rose up like steam. Pleasure scraped her raw, twisting in her middle, gripping her so hard that she gasped his name, raked her nails down his sides. He hissed but did not stop the relentless work of his hips.
He clutched the back of her neck, forcing her head back. He showed his teeth, his canines bared, sweat dripping down his face.
“Don’t. Leave. Me.” He punctuated each word with a pump of his hips. “Please. Stay. Don’t—” The words fell away into scattered curses. His eyes squeezed shut as his orgasm felled him. She felt the heated spurt of him between her thighs, and was then racing to catch up with him. A breathless moment later, she was shuddering, too, and crying out into the soaked collar of his shirt.
They trembled against each other, falling as one from the height they’d achieved together.
“Wolfe...” His name shuddered from her lips when her feet touched the ground.
Nichelle staggered on her high heels, panting and holding on to the wall with trembling fingers. She was slippery and hot under her clothes, between her legs. What had she done? She stared at Wolfe. He stumbled back from her, looking as shocked and breathless as she felt. He shoved himself back into his pants, looking anywhere but at her.
Nichelle yanked down her dress, feeling every bit the fool, even more than last time. His trust was just as important to her as his love. The fact that he didn’t trust her anymore and could take the word of some nobody over what they’d shared for most of their lives made her sick to her stomach. She searched for the right words. “I’ll leave the partnership dissolution papers on your desk tonight for you to sign. I won’t be back in the office tomorrow.” Those words weren’t exactly right, but they would have to do.
Wolfe stumbled toward her. “No. Nichelle. Please.”
She evaded his touch. “You already said enough.” Nichelle left the room, head high, with as much of her dignity as she had left. Behind her, she heard him begin to follow, but she slipped quickly down the hallway and into a guest bathroom to tidy up.
When she was presentable, she snuck out the back door, sending Nala a text when she was in her car, but telling no one else she was leaving. She’d leave it up to Wolfe if he felt like giving explanations. This...thing...they had was over. She couldn’t do this anymore. And she meant it this time. There were only so many times she would break her heart for a man.
Even this one.
Chapter 12
Nichelle walked out on the balcony of her rented condo and into the lush heat of a late-summer San Diego. She held the phone to her ear, humming in response to what her sister, Madalie, was saying.
It had been three weeks since she’d left Florida. She hadn’t answered a single phone call from anyone at Kingston or from Wolfe’s family. Everything she needed to do for the firm she’d done the night before she left for the airport. She’d cut the ties so effectively that she left herself bleeding, too. It hurt.
Nichelle leaned her forearms against the balcony and stared down at the narrow road below and the sandy beach beyond it. At barely two on a Thursday afternoon, there was already a decent amount of people on the beach, many sunning themselves, along with a few swimmers.
“Are you ever coming back?” Madalie asked the same question Nichelle had asked herself nearly every day she’d been in California. Her sister sounded sad over the phone, heartbreakingly so.
“I don’t know.” Nichelle gave the non-answer with a suffocating heaviness in her chest. “There are just some things I need to work out.”
“With Wolfe, right?”
She sucked on the inside of her lip and ignored the abrupt dip in her stomach at the mention of his name. “Yes,” she admitted. The afternoon sun pressed soft kisses into her cheek and her throat, while a delicate breeze teased the back of her neck. Although she ached deeply, the weather soothed her in small ways.
“Wolfe is here in Miami. You can’t work things out with him if you’re all the way over there.” Her sister’s voice cracked. “We miss you.”
Nichelle pressed a fist to her forehead and squinted into the sun. Was she being selfish by running away? “I miss you guys, too, Maddie. I’ll be home as soon as I can.”
Her sister’s watery sigh came loudly through the phone. “Okay.”
A sudden knock on her door dragged her attention from her sister’s suspiciously thick breathing. Madalie had always been the more independent of her sisters, but she was also the one who felt things the most keenly. “There’s someone at the door, Maddie. I have to go.”
“Okay, okay. Just come home soon. Okay? Bye.” The line went silent.
Nichelle sighed. Dammit. At the door, she put her eye to the peephole. A man’s tie appeared, something conservative and expensive. She swallowed thickly for a moment before she realized there was no way it could be Wolfe. He wouldn’t wear a suit and tie in the heat of San Diego. And he would never follow her to California, even if he knew where she was.
But the man on her doorstep still surprised her.
“Garrison.” Wolfe’s best friend. “What are you doing here?”
“Visiting you.” He gave her one of his restrained smiles, his eyes warming long before his mouth curled up ever so faintly at the corners.
Garrison and Wolfe were the opposite of the other. Wolfe was outgoing and charming, dropping panties with a simple glance while Garrison was more reserved, his looks not exactly magazine-worthy. But there was a restrained heat to him, a subtle sensuality and masculine presence. His new wife had discovered, to her contentment, just how much of a prize he was while the women who’d blown him off in college in favor of chasing the flashier and much more in-demand Wolfe were now crying into their martinis.
“Come in.” She welcomed him into the condo with a wave.
He stepped past her with the faint scent of coffee and something else she couldn’t identify. “I’m here because you’re not answering Wolfe’s calls.”
Another thing she liked about Garrison, he was always upfront. You never had to guess where he stood.
“There’s a reason I’m not answering his calls,” she muttered, leading him into the brightly lit living room. “I don’t want to talk to him.”
“I gathered that much,” he said dryly.
In the kitchen, she poured him a glass of sweet tea without asking, took a glass of water for herself and sat down on the couch across from him.
“He’s a wreck over what’s happened between the two of you,” Garrison said.
“Why is everything always about him?” She tightened her lips. “He said things to me that I never thought would come from his mouth.” She arched an eyebrow at him. “Did he tell you that?”
“Yes. He did.”
She
swallowed in surprise. “Then he knows nothing can be done to fix it. There was no point in sending you—”
“He didn’t send me.”
This time she couldn’t hide her surprise. Garrison, looking debonair and elegant in his pale blue summer-weight suit, crossed one knee over the other.
“Wolfe feels guilty about the things he said, like he deserves to be punished. He knows you better than some subpar tactician with severe talent envy.” Nichelle almost smiled at his description of Isaac Franklin. “He’s sorry but won’t come to you because he’s got his metaphoric hair shirt on and is rolling around in it all over Miami. And New York, too, incidentally.”
“Good for him.” She sneered.
“Nichelle.”
“Yes?”
“Forgive him.” The faintest hint of a plea crept into his tone.
“I can’t. Why should I?”
“He loves you.”
“He’s got a real nice way of showing it.” She drew a painful breath. Everything she’d forced herself to forget in Miami rushed back to her with each word Garrison uttered. It was beyond agony.
“All I’m asking is for you to give him a chance. Answer his call next time. Be open to hearing what he has to say.”
“I won’t make any promises, Garrison.” She bit her lip, crumbling into the sofa, her superwoman facade fading away. “It’s been so damn hard.” Her voice trembled, and she gripped her hands in her lap.
“Jesus.” He looked abruptly uncomfortable. But he sank into the seat next to her and settled a hand on her forearm.
“Stop torturing each other with this separation.” He squeezed her arm. “Just talk to him.”
Tears tickled the back of Nichelle’s throat. Her body felt hot and miserable with unhappiness. But it was better than opening herself to be hurt by Wolfe again. He was to blame for what happened this time. But if she allowed him back in, she would be to blame for the resulting heartache.
Nichelle swallowed her tears and looked Garrison full in the face. “Tell him to go screw himself.”
Only once he was gone did she allow the tears to run like acid down her face.
Affair of Pleasure Page 16
