“I…don’t understand. And I need to understand. Please. Give me that much.”
He said quietly, “The girls I train are not the only ones I see. There are other women I date sometimes. Vanilla women. But with them it’s just sex. There’s none of the connection that comes so much more easily in the kink arena. Well, for some people.”
“You do it to avoid connection.”
He only nodded. He could barely stand to look at her, so fucking beautiful with her long hair everywhere, her gaze burning into him. She was trying so hard to understand through the haze of what he knew damn well was still subspace. Which made him even more of an asshole.
“I see.” She paused, her fingers curling and uncurling around the edge of the blanket. “But this was sex. Just sex. I wasn’t asking for anything more. Tell me why it was wrong, Adam.”
“You weren’t asking for anything more? Christ, Skye, every look you give me, every response to my touch, is asking for more.”
The tears started again in her big brown eyes, and again he felt guilty as hell. “Look, I’m not saying that’s wrong. It’s me. I’m all wrong. Lord, please don’t cry.”
“I’m sorry.” She rubbed at her eyes, smearing what was left of her makeup, making her look even more torn. More beautiful. “I can’t seem to help it. God damn it,” she muttered, looking away for a moment. When she turned back to him her eyes were blazing. “Okay, you want the truth? Here it is. You feel right to me. Is that…an illusion? Maybe I made it all up, because of what…because of the things we’re doing together. Because of the intensity of it.”
It happened all the time—a lot of new submissives became attached to the people who played them well. But it did nothing to explain what was happening with him, why he hadn’t been able to maintain the carefully held control he’d developed over the years he’d been involved in the BDSM scene. He’d been aware from the first moment he’d seen her that he could all too easily lose it with her. The attraction had been too strong—insanely strong. So why hadn’t he just turned away? Why hadn’t he sent her on her way after that first night? Hell, right after they’d met at the coffee shop?
She waited silently for his answer.
The answer was because he’d had to have her, touch her. Make her his, damn it.
He couldn’t possibly tell her these things.
He was in big fucking trouble here.
Even more so when she asked him, “What do you think made you this way? What is it that shuts you off from becoming emotionally involved? And I think, regardless of what you’re saying, you’re not completely shut off. If you were, you would have maintained control, wouldn’t you?” She paused and bit her lip while his hands fisted at his sides. “I don’t mean that to be accusatory. Because no matter how spaced out I might still be, this is something I’ve wanted pretty much from the start—the sex. The…intimacy of it, mixed with the play. Something I want whether I’m in subspace or not. Whether I’m even with you or not. You were the one to set that rule.”
She paused once more, pushed her hair from her face. He was frozen—all he could do was sit there and watch the emotions ranging over her lovely face.
“I know you don’t want to hear this,” she went on. “And I don’t know whether to be flattered or angry that it’s happened with me. Because it’s so…it makes it so much harder for me to keep any emotional distance at all—these tempting glimpses of what you have to offer, if only you’d allow yourself to just let go and let it happen. And if only I’d let myself.” She shook her head. “No. No. Because no matter how hard we’ve both been fighting it, I think I have let myself, a little, at least. And I just realized…that whether or not you want to believe it, whether or not you like the idea, you just did, too.”
She was right.
Fuck.
He scrubbed a hand over his beard.
This was exactly the sort of thing he could not deal with. It was several moments and a few long, deep breaths before he could force himself to speak.
“I can’t explain myself to you, Skye. I can’t do it.”
“Meaning you won’t.”
Her mouth set in a stubborn line. He had to respect that in her—that she would argue with him like this. Even now, after what they’d just done together. Had to love that about her.
She sat up, leaned in toward him, and he could smell her. Her faint smoky perfume, the scent of her arousal, the musk of sex. That leftover fragrance of him fucking her on the table.
But it hadn’t just been fucking for him, had it? That’s what was freaking him out. Not that he’d done it, but his reaction to it. To her. He wasn’t ready to admit to himself what the sex had been for him.
“Tell me, Adam. Tell me why.” She sounded angry. He couldn’t blame her.
He shook his head. He didn’t talk to anyone about his past, about the things that had made him shut down. She was right about that. But he’d never discussed what he’d been through with anyone. Why did he want to tell her about it suddenly? Nothing was making sense anymore.
Skye reached out and laid her soft hand on his arm, said quietly, “Tell me. Please, Adam. Please.”
He drew in another long breath, blew it out. Was he really going to talk to her about this? Even as the battle waged in his mind he said quietly, “There was an accident.”
She just nodded. He couldn’t believe he’d said the words aloud. The rest wanted to come pouring out, as though through a crack in a dam.
“It was a long time ago. I was fifteen. My older sister, Beth…” He paused, ran a hand over his jaw. “She’d picked me up from a party. It was late. I was drunk. I’d called her to come and get me and my best friend, Clay.” His heart was thundering like a freight train in his chest, but he made himself spit the rest out. “We were hit by a drunk driver. And she…Beth and Clay both died that night. But not me. Not me. I fucking walked away with nothing more than flesh wounds. I’ll never know why I’m still here. Fuck, that sounds pathetic, doesn’t it? So, yeah, I shut a part of myself down after that. A normal reaction, I’m told.”
“It is.” Skye stroked her fingertips over the back of his wrist. “But it’s also a normal part of the process to let it go, eventually. How long do you intend to punish yourself?”
Tension thrummed through his body so hard he wanted to shake her off, but he held himself still, rigid as stone. “That’s not what I’m doing. The accident made me realize there were things I could do so that I never had to…go through that shit again. Look, we all have issues, our history to deal with. I’m sure you have something, Skye. What was all that stuff about not wanting to use your father’s name?”
He hadn’t meant it to come out as an accusation. Shit.
She answered, anyway, with a small shrug of her shoulders.
“He was a drunk. He made me miserable. I left when I was eighteen. I don’t speak to him. I don’t particularly trust men because of him. That’s why doing this with you was such a big step for me.”
She stopped, swept her hair from her cheek again. Why did he want to do that for her? Maybe because of the pain he saw shadowing her eyes. Or maybe just to feel the silk of it in his hands.
“So, is that enough information?” she asked, “or do you want to continue to divert the conversation from your own issues?”
She was strong. Smart. He liked that about her. He almost smiled.
“Look Skye, it’s not as if I never recovered. I did. That’s why I had the phoenix tattooed on my back as soon as I turned eighteen. I understood even then what it represented.”
She nodded. “I want to see it.”
He turned without another word and Skye took in the brilliant colors, the flawless detail of the classic, Asian-style phoenix that covered his entire back. The feathered wings flowed over the muscular ripple of his shoulders, the body and the sweeping tail curved sinuously down his back to his waist. It was beautiful, the detail exquisite. The eyes of the mythical bird glowed like a pair of emeralds within the fire of the re
d, gold and orange plumage. She reached out to touch it, felt him shiver beneath her fingertips.
“It’s magnificent. Rising out of the ashes…” She traced her finger lower, over the scar across his ribs she’d felt earlier.
He yanked away. “Don’t, Skye.” His voice held a dark edge she’d never heard from him before.
“Why not? It’s a part of you.”
He turned back to her, his blue eyes blazing. “You don’t get it, do you? This is a part of me I never wanted to expose to anyone. And you ripped it out of me.”
She felt shocked by his words. Hurt.
“No, don’t try to blame me, Adam. Some part of you wanted to tell me, had a need to, I think.” Her heart was hammering in her chest. She had the sense something important was happening here, and the idea that she could lose him now scared her in some completely unreasonable way. But she was angry, too. “Maybe you need some time to think this through. Maybe I do, too. I’m going home now.”
He stood up in all his naked, masculine glory. She had to look away. He was too beautiful, and it stung. “That’s probably a good idea. Before we really hurt each other. I’ll take you as soon as I’m dressed.”
“I can call a cab.”
“I said I’ll take you.”
Fire in his blue eyes. He was mad, and it wasn’t all her he was mad at. But it was also about the power in him, the pure energy of who he was. She felt as though her heart was breaking. How was that possible? She’d known him less than a month.
She just nodded, picked her clothes up off the floor and quietly put them on, holding back the tears that burned at her eyes, tightened her throat. Even dressed, she was shivering. With a kind of shock. With a deep dread that she may never see him again. That she shouldn’t see him again.
He was dressed now, too, making him seem even more remote. “You’re cold. I’ll get one of my coats for you.”
When he went down the hall to his bedroom she unlocked the front door and fled into the night.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It had only been two days and he was already crawling out of his skin with the need to call her. But she’d left, run out of his house without saying goodbye. Normally he wouldn’t even bother to ask himself why it mattered. This time he simply knew that it fucking did.
Damn it.
It was his fault she’d left. He’d been such a rotten bastard, he wouldn’t blame her if she never wanted to speak to him again. She probably didn’t.
He’d been trying to distract himself with work, but the team managing his investments and properties did too good a job for there to ever be more than a few minor details to look after, a few papers to sign. He rubbed his eyes, shut his laptop.
Maybe he needed to get out of town. Get her out of his head, even for a few days. He picked up his cell phone and dialed.
“Shaye here.”
“Shaye, it’s Adam.”
“Hey, I haven’t heard from you in a while. And you sound like hell. What’s up?”
“Honestly, I feel like hell. Some skiing might help. Are you game?”
“I can’t right now. I’m not as free since I started managing The Ring for Hawke while he’s in Europe. And Devin keeps me busy.”
He could hear the satisfied grin in his friend’s voice.
“Sure. Okay.”
“You don’t sound okay, bro.”
He pulled in a breath, let it out slowly, scrubbed at his jaw. “Fuck, I’m not,” he admitted.
“Want to tell me about it?’
Where to start? “You know when you met Devin how screwed up your head was for a while?”
His friend laughed. “As clear as day. I almost lost her. Keeps me in line now.”
He picked up a pen and tapped it on his desk. “Yeah. I’m…in the same shape at the moment.”
“Who is it?”
“Her name is Skye. And…she is this amazing woman, I’m telling you. New to the scene, but took to it like she’d been born to it. I have to be with her, Shaye. Fucking have to. But I fucked up and now she’s gone.”
“Is it fixable? Because if it is, it sounds like you need to try.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know if she’ll even see me.”
“Okay…” Shaye drew out the last syllable. “That doesn’t sound great. But if she’s the one, Adam, you should think about it. Think hard. It’s worth it. I had no idea until I met Devin.”
“I know. I’ve seen you two together.”
“You could have that, too.”
“Maybe. Maybe.”
“So?” Shaye asked.
He scratched at his goatee. “So I’m thinking.”
“Don’t let it go on too long. Don’t wait until it’s too late.”
“Food for thought.”
“Do you need to meet up? Talk it out?” Shaye offered.
“That’s not my style.”
“Yeah, not mine, either. But sometimes this kind of shit can just eat at you.”
“It’s doing that. But I need to…figure it out on my own from here.”
“Okay. Call if you want to, bro.”
“Thanks. Good of you to offer.”
They hung up and he pushed back from his desk, stood and moved into the living room, but once he was there he realized he didn’t know what to do with himself. He shook his head, grabbed his keys and went down to the garage, got into his car and backed into the street. He had no idea where he was going. He only knew he had to drive. To think. Or not think.
Damn it.
He down-shifted as he rounded a corner, the tires squealing a little as he took the turn too fast.
Skye had gotten under his skin, climbed right in and curled up somewhere deep in his system. He didn’t know if she would ever go. If he could ever let her go. He didn’t like it one damn bit.
But he didn’t want to stop feeling the way he did about her. It felt too good, even if it hurt like hell at the moment. Even if it made him crazy. He didn’t want to shut it off, for the first time in his life. He knew that on some very deep level.
What he didn’t know was what the hell he was going to do about it.
* * *
More than a week had gone by and Skye hadn’t heard from him. She’d mostly holed up in her apartment, alone and miserable, other than when Esme had dragged her out for coffee. Not that she’d been able to drink any coffee—her stomach had been in knots since the night she’d left Adam’s house. She’d been living on tea and old black and white movies, going through boxes of Kleenex.
Why couldn’t she seem to stop crying? She was supposed to be mad, not sad. Wasn’t she?
Of course, he had every right to be angry with her after she’d run out on him like that. Terrible manners, she knew, especially in the more formal realm of the BDSM life, but she’d had to get out of there.
Curled up on her old, overstuffed velvet sofa with a soft afghan over her lap, as she was now, she’d spent most of the week going over their conversation, dissecting it from every angle. But she always came to the same conclusion—that Adam was incapable of real intimacy. He’d pretty much told her so himself, had even told her why. And he resented that she’d made him do it, made him feel something for her.
What sort of transformation would he have to go through before he could break through those old walls? If he was even willing to try.
No, he would have dumped her sooner or later, and the longer it took, the more attached she would have become, until his rejection would have been unbearable.
It was nearly unbearable already.
She turned to look out the living room window at the cityscape she had always loved. But it looked bleak and lonely to her now. As empty as she felt on the inside.
The only other thing she’d done other than huddling under a blanket was drawing—she’d been drawing him all week. The table in her tiny kitchen was littered with sketches in charcoal and pencil. She’d tried to capture the musculature of his big body, the details of his strong hands, the flawless lines o
f his tattoo. Mostly she’d tried to draw his face. But she couldn’t seem to get the eyes right. And every time she tried she’d start crying again.
Finally she’d set up her easel in the living room close to the bay window and painted, just a series of strokes in burnt umber and highlighted with white. The result wasn’t very good. But it captured him a little better than the flatter sketches did. Still, his eyes refused to come alive for her.
She didn’t think she’d ever feel Adam again, alive and warm and commanding her heart as much as her body.
Never again.
What had happened to forever? Had that ever been more than fantasy? An illusion she’d only ever hoped for in those fleeting moments when she’d dared?
Shit.
She dropped her gaze. She still had paint under her fingernails. She hadn’t bothered to give her hands a good scrub. Hadn’t bathed in a day or two. She wasn’t really sure how long it had been since she’d done anything more than throw on an old pair of paint-splattered jeans and a warm thermal top, twisting her long hair up into a loose ponytail. She felt like a mess, inside and out. And she couldn’t get warm no matter how high she turned up the furnace, no matter how many layers of clothing she put on. The cold came from deep inside her, like an internal stratum of ice.
So this was what a broken heart felt like. She didn’t much like it. In fact, it was fucking awful.
She pulled a pillow to her body, telling herself to pull it together. She had a gallery show next month and she was behind in her work. But she felt completely devoid of inspiration. She could paint nothing but him.
Adam.
She sighed, shook her head, and jumped at the knock at her door. Her heart leaped in her chest as she moved across the living room into the hall, and opened the door.
“Hi…um…are you Skye Ballard? I think I got your mail.” A gawky young man with dark-framed glasses and a Charlie Brown sweater stood there, several envelopes in his hand.
“Oh, yes, that’s me.” Why did her heart drop into her stomach? Had she really expected he would come after her? It would more likely have been Esme trying to drag her out of the house again. “Uh, thanks.”
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