by Libby Rice
He deserved this, with all his talk of Lissa and India and absolution. Yet she drew parallels where none existed. The man who’d built the mausoleum Cole could see shining in faint lines through the bathroom window had done nothing wrong.
Natural causes were a fickle bitch that stole loving spouses right and left.
The man in the mirror, however, had made huge mistakes, blunders that couldn’t be rectified by something as simple as a piece of art by his wife’s favorite artist in his wife’s favorite land. That man deserved to be alone, flipping through years of pictures of brash prostitutes offering up freebies. Cole had known that all along.
Still, knowing and doing—pun intended—remained two different things.
What had started as a nice but futile idea to get his game back had evolved into a disguised passion the moment he’d strolled into The Gray Halls gallery in New York City and found his Lissa in a blood-red corset. Desire had been instantaneous, but he hadn’t expected his unwelcome hard-on to graduate into respect and then… this.
“Correct,” he said, pitching his voice low and brutal, relishing that while she slumped naked and ill in the bath, he stood in fighting form, clothed, and towering above her. Closer with each second. “Unlike Shah Jahan’s, my wife wanted to leave me. I’m fresh out of white marble. And I think I’ve already proven that I don’t intend to while away my life in a state of celibate atonement. Should I prove it again?”
“One more step”—Lissa wagged her index finger feebly in front of her face—“and I’ll do the proving. Your eyes have that gleam they get when you want me, but taking what you want is the mental equivalent of flogging yourself with a butcher knife.”
Porcelain hit his thighs, halting his march straight into her bath. “Right now you’re too weak to prove two plus two equals four.”
“I warned you.”
Before Cole could react, she stood up.
******
With all the doubt in her life, Lissa didn’t know a great many inalienable truths. But like every other woman on the planet, she sensed with complete and utter confidence when a man neared the edge.
The second she’d risen from the barrier of the bathtub, Cole had jumped off it.
Sugar shock.
Purposefully, face taut and eyes glittering with undisguised lust, his scrutiny traveled the length of her body. “Jesus,” he rasped, “you have no mercy.”
Suddenly Lissa felt completely bare, which she supposed she was, wearing nothing but sopping silk and lace. He laughed, and the husky sound rippled over her damp skin, raising patches of goose bumps. Yet she was so hot. Giddy pleasure at the close-up of his striated torso warred with a rising frailty she couldn’t ignore.
“Mercy is for fools and children.” Cole didn’t happen to be either.
“We can’t do this.” Yet the crazed look on his face made it clear that if pushed, he might do it over and over again. “You’re sick.”
“Mmm,” she half-acknowledged, lifting shaking hands to his shoulders. “Emperor Cole has deemed me off limits.” What else is new? The taunt drained her remaining strength. Exhaustion washed over her, and she closed her eyes and swayed into his chest. So much for her devious plan. He was supposed to fall at her feet, not the other way around, and preferably not literally.
Dazed, she felt herself lifted and set gently on a towel he’d already spread over the tile. When she opened her eyes and looked at him, he shook his head. “No.”
“Yes.” Lying back, she rubbed at the droplets clinging to her skin with the oversized cloth beneath her. Horizontal felt better. The dizziness abated, and Cole had been right about the steam. Her lungs no longer seized with every breath. “Haven’t you wanted this? I swear if I see your perfect ass walk away one more time…”
Instantly he was hovering over her in push-up position, arms tight. A warm strip of moisture meandered up the side of her neck. His tongue. “Damn you. I’m not the one who sleeps in a scrap of lace. Or the one with a coughing problem that jiggles my magnificent breasts on every exhale.”
Almost in a trance, she gripped his sides and rocked upward into the hardness he held out of reach. “You’ve deserved it.” But enough play. This was serious. “Every time we’ve been intimate”—not often enough in her estimation—“the pleasure’s gone down on your terms.”
Proving her theory, he graced her with a dip of his corded hips, and she chuckled up at the ceiling. Instead of falling at her feet, she thought with fuzzy abandon, he could fall onto her clitoris.
Flexibility had always been one of her finest qualities.
Thorough swirls of his tongue traced to her collarbone in a steady, fiery tease. But then Cole spoke and ruined the effect. “Something wrong with my terms?” His breath roughened as he bore her to the floor, stretched out and straining, lips never leaving her skin.
“Only the fact that they’re yours,” she said. He’d pleasured her for secrets, for a distraction, even to gain reluctant admissions Lissa had preferred to hold close, but never upon request. “Time for mine.”
Without a word, he eased himself into the cradle of her body. Then, like a man half starved, Cole threaded his hands through her hair and tugged her face to his. The kiss that followed was obviously intended to punish, a lesson against making demands. He’d kissed her like that once before, after catching her probe his family for answers. Then, his aggression had been tinged with anger. Now she tasted desperation.
Lissa welcomed the rough thrust of his tongue. Instead of shying away, she met him in an all-out struggle for dominance.
With an abrupt twist, he tore his mouth away. “And your terms involve getting fucked on the bathroom floor while you’re ill?” He met her gaze with speculative fervor. “One more move, and I’ll accommodate you in a way we’ll both regret.”
Lissa gasped. Only if regret sounded like, Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Again, sir! “Please”—air, she needed more of it—“have me. But only if I’ll find you where I know you want to be in the morning… in my bed.”
No more running. That was her term.
She bucked under him, trembling with the memory of the pleasure he’d given her before. “In my bed, where I’ll proceed to have you”—she writhed beneath him, convinced her lower half was melting—“before we work together, the team we’re supposed to be.”
In the fight between all and nothing, all had to win.
A wicked roar sounded from Cole’s throat. With one hand, he jerked his workout pants down and her panties to the side. He sank into her softness, demanding she receive him. No gentle prodding. No coaxing words. The ruthless thrust stretched her wide from the sensitive nerves at her entrance to the mouth of her womb.
Nothing had ever felt so good. Nothing would rival the feeling again.
“Enough?” His voice was strained to the point of sounding inhuman.
Once, in the days when she hadn’t had the strength to take control, one of her adolescent tormentors had bent her thumb back in the hall near her locker. He’d wanted fifty bucks, which had been a ton of money between high school kids. “Mercy?” he’d taunted. When she’d shaken her head, breathing deep, he’d bent the digit farther. “Mercy, Lissa?” She hadn’t had fifty dollars on her. In the end, she’d given him a garnet and gold ring—not a priceless gem but certainly worth more than fifty.
Cole said enough the same way that jerk had said mercy, only Cole wanted her to give in to save herself… from the rough sex he thought would make her sicker, from attachment to a man off limits… basically, from him.
“No,” she breathed, mired in the shock of sensory overload but stubborn to the end. Never enough.
“Lissa, goddammit.” The muscles of his arms strained at her sides. “I need you so much.” He started to shake. “I can’t stop.” Yet he slowed way down, his frenzied entrance fading to a slow, tender rocking she couldn’t have expected.
“Love the feel of you,” he whispered, sliding deep. “Won’t hurt you.”
As if.
“Relax,” he crooned against her throat. “You’re so tight around me. Just feel. That’s all you need to do, sweet girl. Mmmm… like that.”
She’d heard of women having orgasms from penetration alone. Hadn’t believed it, personally. But now? Cole had her arms pinned above her head, and every time he eased through her swollen tissues, a prickling awareness sparked. The sensation both wound her up and laid her open, more open than she’d ever been.
“Cole,” she said in wonder, “I’ll come from this?” Not a question, really, but proper intonation was hard to come by under the circumstances.
“Yes you’ll come from this—”
The contractions started before he could finish. While the feeling of clenching around his thick shaft was familiar and oh, so welcome, this time her body pulled harder. Spasmed longer.
He worked her madly, drawing the pleasure along a stunning, wet slide. “It’s so strong,” he growled. “You’re sucking me under, baby. God, keep coming.”
She did. On and on, like her muscles were hooked to jumper cables. She was still twitching when he stiffened and flooded her body with warmth, gritting a firm, “Always like this, like you,” in her ear.
Drunk on adrenaline and slowly-receding pleasure, fatigue instantly replaced the sexual high. Lissa lay stunned, slack as a wet ribbon, though anything but regretful.
They hadn’t used protection.
“I’m on the pill.” She wanted to get the info out in the open, before she descended into the tunnel calling her name.
He pulled her against his chest, preparing to lift her from the floor. “I know,” he said quietly. Of course he did. They’d lived together for months. She’d even taken one of the tiny blue pills on the plane between Qatar and Delhi to get the timing right with the twelve hour shift.
“A deal’s a deal,” he said, standing with her cuddled against his pecs. “Sleep. I’ll see you when you wake.”
A beat of silence descended before he added, “In your bed.”
Chapter 32
Ten percent humidity at fifty-four-hundred feet sucked a Christmas tree dry long before Santa came to call. Trevor had put off the inevitable needle spray that would come with removing the scorched pine for much longer than that. He circled the tree, eyeing the single string of white lights and the two Target ornaments. He and Rhea managed the minimums, but no one would accuse their house of being a home.
That would change once he hauled out the lumber now masquerading as a holiday. Lissa’s painting would soon grace the wall behind the crispy tree, whether his wife liked it or not.
And she did not.
Even so, Rhea’s resistance mocked the bear hug she gave the canvas in question. So did the hand that idly stroked the suspension wire slung across its back.
To Trevor, hanging the damn thing was a no brainer. Their living room had been decorated with “wall art” from Bed Bath & Beyond while a Lissa Blanc original lived behind their couch. No time like the New Year to spruce up the house and force Rhea to confront leftover… conflictions.
Because Trevor was done with them.
Setting both ornaments aside, Trevor decided the lights could join the tree in the dump.
Rhea sat on the arm of the couch, still clutching the painting. “I’m not ready to hang a gift from your mistress.”
“Bummer.” Especially since he knew that she knew there had never been a mistress. Rhea could move on. Or not.
“You’re asking too much,” she reiterated. Rhea wouldn’t beg or plead. That would require heart.
Trevor shrugged and lifted the tree off the ground, stand and all. Instituting his plan while she watched, seemingly from the other side of a thick pane of glass, left him with a curious sense of detachment, an emotional disengagement that brought only relief.
“As they say, shit happens.”
He made it around the corner to the hall before he saw Sasha. Behind Cole’s dog, Kent rocked from side to side, shifting from one foot to the other in the doorway.
Excellent. Useful company had arrived. “Hold the door for a sec?”
Kent ignored him. His uncle looked around the bulk of Trevor and the tree into the living room. His attention landed on Rhea. “I remembered,” Kent said.
Trevor let the tree touch the floor. New memories were always welcome. Kent deserved to possess all of his past. “Yeah? What came up this time?”
“You,” Kent answered, his gaze still locked on Rhea. “And Kate. Having lunch at the St. Julien on that day. I saw you through the window on my walk. I’ve remembered all of it.”
Kent’s explanation held expectation. Whatever he’d recalled, he believed telling Rhea would garner a reaction.
Trevor swung around, keen to see what she’d do.
The impenetrable confidence Rhea wore like a shield wavered in the uncertain, almost protective way she tightened her hold on Sisters. “We were friends. There were lots and lots of lunches.”
Kent’s muffled snort sifted through the tree branches. “Not like that one, I’m guessing.” Without waiting for another response, Kent pressed. “Now I know why I was so curious before. I wanted to know what exactly happened at that lunch. Because, honestly, if I had to guess, I’d say Kate broke up—”
The tension shattered when Rhea exploded off the couch. Before Kent could finish, she tore through the hall, jostling past Trevor, the tree, a disgruntled Sasha, and a squinting Kent to reach the door.
Lissa’s painting never left her arms.
Her shove set the Christmas tree off-kilter. Trevor steadied the wobbling but didn’t have time to secure the coat tree flanking the door. The iron rack crashed to the floor, sending Sasha backpedaling into the kitchen.
Within moments, Rhea’s car roared to life.
“Jesus,” Trevor muttered.
Kent held the door wide so Trevor could at least chuck the tree into the yard. Turning back, Trevor saw that Kent had gone to one knee. His uncle reached out for something on the floor. Item in hand, he froze.
“What?” Trevor lifted the rack and set it in place. Then he retrieved the only jacket that had been hanging—Rhea’s hot pink windbreaker.
Instead of standing, Kent lowered himself fully to the floor, shoulders to the wall, like he bore the weight of a hundred years. After a string of taut silence, he looked up at Trevor. Kent had arrived with life in his eyes, bursting with the euphoria of another recollection. The man on the ground had lost that spark. He looked haunted, a dead man still breathing.
Trevor beat back a tide of panic, dropping to his haunches. “Chest pains? Should I call 911?”
Kent held out his palm. “I’m sorry.”
With one look at Kent’s hand, the heart pounding in Trevor’s chest cleaved in two. One side, the forgiving side, fell to sadness. The other dipped into a blazing anger that threatened to burn him from the inside out. His marriage had been crumbling. His wife tended toward the illogical. But this?
Kent held a shallow, circular container. A pill container. The kind of pill container Kent always kept in his breast pocket for emergencies.
The kind missing from Kent’s pocket when his heart had called a time-out.
Trevor closed his eyes. When he opened them, he looked at Kent pleadingly, asking the only way he could if he really saw what he thought he did.
Kent nodded solemnly.
They’d found the missing nitroglycerin tabs, and the only place they could have come from was Rhea’s pink jacket.
Chapter 33
The sheets stretched wide and empty the next morning. Lissa squinted through a dull, beating pain in her skull, but a deep inhale—more like a test breath—proved her lungs were on the up and up.
Lucky, she’d need all her energy for the tricky, lying bastard who hadn’t fulfilled his end of their bargain.
She’d like to think Cole had gotten antsy and gone on a coffee run. She knew better.
Nope, he’d steam-cleaned her lungs, railed her silly, and then tucked her into bed b
efore slinking off to nurse his never-ending guilt complex.
In the meantime, she’d dreamt in murky scenes where she’d grown sicker instead of better. A doctor had appeared at her side, and, of course, Cole had featured prominently as the attentive but forceful nurse in Calvin Klein boxer briefs.
Weeks ago, the thought of giving him time had seemed like a mandatory concession to his grief. Days ago, she’d chided herself about patience and given herself a pep talk about accepting the good and releasing the bad that came her way. Hours ago, a two-minute vaginal orgasm courtesy of an out-of-control Cole had equaled good.
This very second, why wasn’t it enough?
Testing the waters, she curled into the fetal position and rolled onto her knees, noting that sometime between the bath and this moment, she’d managed to dress herself in a pair of yoga pants and an “Incredible India” tank top. Nothing else. When she could breathe somewhat normally, she unfurled until she sat upright on her shins.
And met Cole’s worried stare.
He’d been reading from a tattered piece of paper. Notably, he wore black boxer briefs and tired eyes. Numerous bottles crowded the dresser at his side. Bottles of drugs. The kind a doctor might provide.
Squinting didn’t help. The labels were written in Hindi. To her, the text looked like swooping curly-cues connected via a ruler-straight line.
Trying not to furrow her brow in obvious confusion, Lissa considered the bottles, then Cole, then the bottles again.
“Good afternoon,” came Cole’s deep welcome.
Afternoon? Logic intervened—Calvins plus meds plus afternoon added up to an empty bed that told the wrong story.
“What happened?”
******
Cole pinched the paper between his fingers. Defying logic, Kate’s last words always chilled him out when he sensed a loss coming on. Comparatively speaking, nothing could get as bad as her choice to leave, so reminiscing gave him a sick sense of relief about the future.
