by Lynda Chance
Shutting the door behind them, twisting the lock, he leaned against it and crossed his arms over his chest. Courtney walked to the center of the room, obviously trying to ignore him, but Nick could see her frame subtly trembling. His temples began to throb as she went to the bed where she picked up a robe, the only single item out of place in the entire room, and hung it in her closet. Then she moved to the bedside table and straightened the picture of her parents that was always kept there. When she continued to ignore him by moving to her chest of drawers and opening the top drawer, he’d had enough.
“Courtney,” he demanded flatly.
She continued to fiddle with the contents of her drawer as if she were alone in the room.
“Courtney,” he said again. “Look at me.”
With an ostentatious show of reluctance meant to piss him off, she turned to face him. And it worked for a split second until he saw what lurked in her eyes. And then his temper died as his heart clenched. Need. Pure and simple. Need. For him. Knowing he wasn’t the only one feeling anguish, he swallowed as his muscles relaxed a small bit. “Come on, baby. Let’s go home.”
Exhaling a sad sigh, she shook her head.
At her obstinate refusal, he attempted to temper both his voice and his impatience. “Sweetheart. We’ll work this out, but we’re going to need some privacy to do that.”
“There’s nothing to work out,” she said softly, looking at the floor.
“Well, since you’re my wife, I’m going to have to disagree.”
Her eyes lifted. “That’s not your choice, Nick. I get it a say in this.”
Pissed now, he sucked in oxygen through gritted teeth. “No, I don’t think you do.”
Her eyes sharpened. “Don’t be that way.”
He ground his back teeth together as he braced his legs apart. “I’m losing patience here, so get anything you might need. I’m ready to go.”
“I’m not going with you.”
Every muscle in his body tightened again. “I believe you’re mistaken.”
Hesitantly, she shook her head.
Nick took a deep breath and tried not to lose it. He tried to remember that Courtney thought this was for his own good. She was wrong about that, but still, he needed to be gentle with her. Where the hell had he been when lessons on gentleness had been given? He gritted his teeth and attempted a calm tone. “Has it occurred to you that my mother obviously knows about us? She wants us to be together, babe. She loves you and wants to keep you in the family. She’s smart. She probably figured out years ago that I had it bad for you. Why the hell do you think that I was the first person she called every damn time some kid started hanging around you when you were in Florida?” As he said the words, he realized he was only now beginning to understand the depth of his mother’s past manipulations.
Nick straightened to his full height when Courtney’s face paled. When she remained silent with a tightened face, as if she were digging her heels in, he pushed off the door and paced toward her. “We can play this a couple of ways,” he threatened, pretty much losing patience entirely and looking for her immediate compliance. “You can grab some more stuff if you need it and come home with me where you belong, or I can stay here tonight,” he paused for a moment. “With you. In this room.” He let her absorb that statement before continuing, “Trust me, my mom would love it if that happened. She’d be pushing for a wedding in the morning, you know she would. You want that to happen?”
Her brows furrowed and her eyes began to swim with tears, a look of misery crossing her face. “Why are you doing this to me?”
He steeled his guts against her distress. Did she really think he was going to simply let her go? He wasn’t going to lose her. He. Would. Not. Lose. Her. Unable to hide his feelings, he asked in a curt voice, “Are you kidding me? Why are you doing this to me?”
Pink highlighted her cheekbones. “You know why.”
This time, it was Nick who shook his head. “You’re not thinking straight. I’m tired of waiting. Get your stuff.”
She stood completely still for a moment, looking dazed. “You wouldn’t sleep in here with me,” she dared. “Not with your mother in the house. It would be way too embarrassing. For all of us.”
Nick locked his eyes on hers, fighting both arousal and temper. He knew she was trying to call his bluff, bless her baby heart. She needed to learn and she needed to learn now: He never bluffed. “Try me,” he issued the challenge in a tone that demanded her instant capitulation.
As she stared back at him, obviously struggling for control, Nick knew the exact moment when she realized she’d lost this particular fight. With a graceful motion that tied him in knots, she turned away from him, went to her closet and took a small bag from the top shelf.
He let out a slow relieved breath, refusing to think about how badly things could have ended.
Chapter Ten
Courtney beat Nick to the tower by a full seven minutes, extremely pleased with herself. As she raced across the penthouse, she’d had plenty of time to run to her original suite of rooms and lock her bedroom door against his possible intrusion. Possible, right. He’d be trying to get inside her room any second. After changing clothes, she began unpacking her bag, not because she was happy to still be here, but because she didn’t want her clothes to wrinkle.
The loud banging on her door made her jump, even though she’d been expecting it sooner or later. “Courtney. Open the damn door.”
She looked at the door while she tried to breathe evenly. “No. I’m here where you wanted me to be. Now go away,” she responded loudly enough for him to hear but keeping her tone below a shout.
Unfortunately, Nick had no problem shouting. “Open. The. Door. Now.”
“Go. A. Way.” Pushing the syllables out one at a time as he did, Courtney sank down on her bed and waited, knowing damn good and well this was another battle she was going to lose.
“You want me to break down your goddamn door?” he asked, changing tack, his voice coming out almost pleasantly.
“No, I do not,” she answered back with a false sweetness.
“Then make a choice. You’ve got five seconds.”
Courtney’s pulse began hammering.
“Five.” The word came our harsh and threatening. He sounded even angrier than she’d thought he’d be.
But she didn’t think that Nick would break down the door.
“Four.”
Could he break down the door? He probably could, but he’d only have to get it repaired later.
“Three.”
Shit.
“Two.”
Courtney opened the door and glared at him. Her eyes narrowed when she saw the key in his hand. “You’ve got a key to my room?” His expression was pissed, but his stance appeared casual. He was barefoot, obviously having kicked his shoes and socks off while he’d counted outside her door, and the fact that he’d started stripping was making her heart race even faster.
“Yeah. I could bust the door, but why not use the key?”
“So you lied to me?” she asked. “Were you trying to scare me? Didn’t you think the threat of using the key would be bad enough? You had to threaten to bust down the door?”
He shrugged as if unconcerned and took a step forward while she took a step back. “All’s fair in love and war.”
She studied him a moment, seeing the steel in his demeanor that he was making little effort to hide. Suddenly tired of the heartache, about half of the fight went out of her. “So is it love or war?” she questioned him softly.
His eyes narrowed as he pocketed the key. “I think it’s love but evidently, you want to make it war.” Courtney’s heart raced triple time, both from the look in his eyes and from the knowledge that he could unlock her door anytime he cared to.
She stiffened her spine as Nick took another step forward and then another until he’d backed her up against the wall. He lifted one of her hands and held it above her head, pressing his torso into hers.
He stared down and she couldn’t miss the fire in his eyes. Holding her hand captive against the wall, he pushed against her. His muscles were tensed, his body rigid when he spoke. “I’m about to show you how much I love you, how wrong you are to want to get away from me, but I have one thing to say to you first.” His inflection changed on the last few words and Courtney heard anger in its purest form infiltrate his tone. When he fell into an aggrieved silence she swallowed and braced herself for whatever was coming. His eyes pierced into hers and then he continued in a forceful hiss, “If I ever catch you driving that fast again, you’re going to live to regret it, understand me?”
His tone turned so antagonistic that she froze, not moving or speaking.
“You understand me, Courtney? I swear to God, you take a chance like that again, I’ll personally peel your pants off your little ass and spank you so hard you’ll be blistered for a week.” Her lungs seized up at his air of menace. His features darkened and grew even stormier. “Got me, babe?”
Courtney swallowed hard, thinking about her choices. She knew she’d been somewhat careless, but she wasn’t about to admit to it now. “I was being careful. I know how to drive,” she shot back, belligerence only a heartbeat away.
His gaze became even more pointed and his jaw flexed in pure, unadulterated anger. “Wrong fucking answer.” With that, his strong arms hauled her away from the wall and over to the bed. She began to yank on her hand and dig her heels in as he backed down on the bed to sit. It was useless, he was too strong, and as he pulled her down and over his thighs in the classic pose of a spanking about to happen, Courtney began to struggle in earnest.
“Let. Go,” she enunciated loudly and clearly, thrashing her head as she pushed her legs, trying to get away. It was impossible. Nick laid one brawny arm across the back of her thighs to hold her in place.
“You’re never going to drive that fast again, understand me?” he pushed out in a pissed, labored tone.
Courtney couldn’t move her legs at all, and panic began to set in as she tried to swivel her body toward his to get her butt away from his line of fire, but his grip was too strong. “I want a divorce!” In an effort to get him to stop what he was about to do, she repeatedly drummed one arm on his leg until she realized that it was futile and that she was only bruising herself. When she felt him drag her satin tap shorts down and scrunch them around her thighs, exposing her naked butt, she went wild. “Stop it! Goddammit, Nick, stop it!”
“You’re not getting a goddamn divorce,” he yelled back as his hand came down in a single slap but then stayed there, grabbing her butt cheek and squeezing.
She hit his leg again, trying to get him to stop. “Let me up. Don’t you dare.”
His fingers continued to clench around her buttock in a threatening way. “Are you going to stop driving like a wild woman?” he bellowed. “And baby, you better answer correctly this time, you get me?” With that, his hands quickly peeled her shorts completely off and tossed them aside, not letting her up, controlling her movements the entire time.
When she remained furiously silent, he lifted her until she was forced to straddle him, their torsos banging together, and she took the opportunity to pound him on the back. “You cannot hit me!”
“I didn’t hit you,” he denied, baring his teeth. “I tapped you on the ass. One time.”
“Well you can’t tap me on the ass.” When he only stared at her, she hit him again, this time on the shoulder. “Understand me, asshole?”
He ignored her swipes as if they were nothing more than a pesky fly landing on him. “You can’t drive like that. You’ll kill yourself or somebody else. I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure that doesn’t happen. And don’t call me an asshole.”
“Well threatening me with a spanking me isn’t an option. You think I’m going to stay in a marriage where you manhandle me against my will? Fuck that! You better think of another way to get your message across.”
At her words, obviously taking them as a challenge, he flipped her over until she was lying on her back and he was looming over her in a sexually threatening position, with his expression showing little to no remorse. “We can move to option two. I can subdue you this way, and trust me, there’s nothing I’d love more.” He stared into her eyes, his gaze running over her hair and face and down her torso to land where her naked thighs came together. His features pulled into a frown and then finally, as he began to breathe more steadily, he rasped, “I know I didn’t hurt you.”
“Yes, you did!” He hadn’t, not really, but she was still infuriated.
Any remaining gentleness left his face. “You’ve been hurting me, too.” Suddenly floored by the pain she saw etched on his features, she wasn’t ready for it when his mouth fell to hers.
His kiss was strong, fierce, annihilating. His tongue thrust possessively and he began taking from her mouth, stroking in and out as if he couldn’t get enough. His scent went to her head; it was a powerful aphrodisiac that never failed to entice her. As his kiss continued, against her will, Courtney began to melt in his arms.
He lifted up just long enough to peel his shirt and her camisole off. She was completely naked now, and he held her pinned to the bed, one hand going to her breast. His fingers were like magic against her nipple, kneading her there, and Courtney lost all thought and reason.
He lifted his head and growled, “You can’t drive that recklessly. I’ll die if anything happens to you, understand?”
“Nick—”
“I’ll die if I don’t have you. It’s that fucking simple,” he exhaled on a pant as he lifted away and shoved his jeans and underwear down and off.
He came back down to her and pushed between her thighs, ready to impale her. Lifting his head, he stared down at her, their breath coming quickly in tandem. “You’re killing me,” he growled, stopping at the brink of entering her.
“It’s killing me, too,” she answered back, lifting her hand and running it through his hair.
“I love you,” he growled, sounding none too happy about it.
“I love you, too,” she snapped back, her emotions high, right before his mouth came back to hers. He kissed her hard, long, forcefully.
And then, with no warning, he lifted his mouth from hers and he stared down into her eyes. Shifting, he forced his knee between her legs, pushing it against her naked, unprotected mound. “Are you my wife?”
She breathed deeply, trying to control the runaway fever in her blood. “Yes, but—”
“No buts. It’s a yes or no question. Are you my wife?”
“Nick—”
“It’s a simple goddamn question, babe. Are. You. My. Wife?”
She blew out a breath. “Yes.”
“And do you want to stay that way?” He breathed enraged fire over her, his words coming hot and scorching. When she remained mute, he said, “That scene at the restaurant. That was bullshit and you know it. I don’t care about children. I don’t give a shit about having a family. How many more times do I have to say it? What do I have to do to get that message across to you?”
He was lying, how could he not be? Courtney licked her lips and stuttered, “Maybe not … maybe not stare at the children you see with such a look of longing?”
His expression tightened. “Let me ask you something, babe.” His hands reached for hers as he pinned them above her head. “Toddlers are cute, right? Kind of like puppies. You telling me you don’t even think they’re cute? You blaming me for glancing at a couple of kids?”
Holding her breath, she shook her head.
His lips flattened. “We’ve never really had a serious conversation about this. About why you’re so scared to have kids.”
Her eyes narrowed on him, swallowing as he continued to press his knee against her. “I’ve told you why.”
Nick scorched her with a look as his hands held hers captive to the mattress. “You promised me for better or worse. I get that you think that this is a huge problem, but I’m telling you, we don’
t need to have children. Would you like me to prove it? I could go get a vasectomy and then there’d be nothing left to fight about.”
She pushed against him, horrified at the suggestion. “Don’t you dare!”
“Oh, so now what I do with my body is your choice? That hardly seems fucking fair considering you’re not giving me a choice about our marriage.” The angry words spilled from his mouth and then he blew out a breath, as if to calm himself. “Okay. You don’t want to talk about depriving me of children. I get that.” His words stopped a moment and then gentled. “You’re sweet. It’s why I love you.” She felt her heart melt but she remained silent and he continued, “Then let’s talk about having kids.”
Courtney felt her eyes flare in panic. She began pushing against him and Nick’s patience seemed to snap as he held her all the more tightly, possessively, protectively. “Here’s the thing that you’re not getting. You don’t have a choice whether or not you spend the rest of your life with me. That’s the part of the fucking equation that you’re missing. No choice. I’m here and I’m not leaving and you’re not going anywhere. You can get the goddamn idea out of your head; you’re not getting your own apartment. You’re not moving out.” He blew out a breath and then took another. “The choice you do have is simple. Have kids or don’t have kids.”
At his ultimatum, Courtney wavered, her feelings divided. His words were so strong and true that she was reassured that she’d get to have him forever. Relief rushed through her; he was taking the choice away from her and she was going to let him. But still, the fact that she was the one getting what she wanted out of life didn’t seem fair and she said so. “That’s not fair—”
His expression became harsher. “I don’t want to hear what’s fair or not fair.” Holding her wrists with one hand, he trailed the other down to her cheekbone and gripped her, looking into her eyes intently before he continued in a ragged tone, “What wouldn’t be fair to me is living my entire godforsaken life without you. Can you not see that I’ll lose my sanity if I can’t have you?”
