by Abby Wood
Her chest expanded with her gasp, and he held her tighter.
"I hate you," she whispered.
"I know," he whispered back.
He simply held her, because for how much he wished he could be normal for her, for himself, he'd tried to protect her. However, he knew he couldn't hold back from her any longer.
He'd gone three years without raising a hand to another person before and he'd focused all his attention on growing his business. Back then, he'd thought he could outrun the darkness, but it always caught up with him. It always came back worse than before.
He lied and fooled himself into thinking he could push away his need to strip the power from others the way Professor Frank succeeded in accomplishing what he set out to do, despite the school being clueless on who was teaching classes. But Nathan wasn't a teacher, he wasn't good, and he sure in the hell wasn't doing penance for living a shit life when he was owed pleasure.
He kissed the side of her head. "I'll take you home."
Ignoring the way her body stiffened, he set her on her feet and steadied her until she was okay standing on her own. Then he led her out of the room, picked up her bag, and took her to the car.
They traveled in silence. He stared at the road, but he was conscious of her beside him the whole way. She shed no tears and for that, he was thankful.
All he needed was one sign that she wasn't fully cooperating with his decision and he'd turn the car around. He begged her silently to put an end to today. He knew for her happiness, he had to let her go.
Because for how much he'd wanted to break her, he'd accomplished the opposite.
She'd nearly broken him.
###
Hollow and rejected, Addison sat on the floor in her bedroom. The box of her mother's belongings lay in front of her. She stared a hole in the cardboard. After hiring a company to clean out her mother's house and give it all away to charity after her death, the only thing she kept were the contents of the safety deposit box.
Mr. Foster, her mother's attorney, had contacted her after the memorial service and handed her a key. Finally free of any pre-conceived idea of how she should live her life, she'd rebelled and refused to go over the contents. The wealth, the properties, the bitter show of what Carly Flint achieved in her life had nothing to do with her.
There was no reason to pretend that her things mattered to her after her mother's death, because they meant nothing while she was alive. Her mother refused to love her, despite living in the same house for eighteen years. The moment she graduated, she'd gone off to college and disowned her mother.
Only when she returned with a grant to start a small business and bought the house three blocks away from the house she grew up in did she come into contact with her mother again. She closed her eyes. Exhausted, she had better things to do than bring up the rush of horrible memories.
Nevertheless, when Nathan drove her home, she'd realized her life was truly fucked up. Not only had she fallen short of pleasing Nathan, and ultimately had her heart broken, she'd spilled her guts to him about the man who fathered her. She couldn't ignore the valid danger she'd created by letting her secret out.
She blew out her breath and picked at the tape on the top of the box. If the threats were real, her mother would document what Curt Stewart was capable of doing. She'd cover her tracks, and leave behind evidence the police would find upon her death if she died unnaturally.
Instead, a blood clot to the brain killed her.
Rrriiippp. She shook her hand to get the tape off, and opened the flaps.
Folders, envelopes, papers lay neatly in piles. She paused before reaching inside. She didn't know what she expected to find, maybe some sign that her mother was a real human being with feelings and possessions she couldn't manage to throw out over the years, a picture Addison finger-painted in Kindergarten or the clay ashtray she'd made in summer camp would've surprised her. Contents out of a filing cabinet only added to her growing disappointments.
She extracted a handful of files and thumbed through them before setting them to the side. Investments and bonds might as well have been house deeds and car titles. She imagined if she ever had kids, someday she'd liquidate her mother's holdings to pay for their education or to help them settle in life, but she'd never use the money to further her own career. She wanted nothing from the woman who gave her even less than nothing in return.
Underneath the papers, a slim cardboard box like the ones Nordstrom's give out at Christmas time lay at the bottom. She rubbed her hands across the hem of her shirt. The name Curt Stewart written across the top sent her heart racing.
Before she could talk herself out of putting everything away, she lifted the box and carried it to the bed. She eyed the phone. Maybe she should let someone know that she was going through her mom's stuff.
Her head pounded. She had no one. Nathan rejected her. She pressed her hand to her forehead. God, she couldn't think of him right now.
First thing she needed to take care of was herself. If Curt Stewart could come after her or her business, she had to prepare.
Pushing everything out of her head, she opened the box. She blinked. The room compressed in on her. Oh, my God.
Several pictures lay on top of her mother's items. She looked away, not able to understand what she was seeing. Her stomach rolled. She covered her mouth, and ran for the bathroom.
The images stained her thoughts. She hung over the toilet, gulping air, fighting to stop the dry heaves after losing the contents of her stomach. Oh, God. Oh, God…
The memories of her mother in business suits, her hair severely pulled back into a low bun, and her stern mouth were the opposite of what the pictures depicted. She pulled herself to the sink and turned on the tap. The cold splashes of water on her face refused to take the sight of her mother, stripped and kneeling on the floor.
The red marks marring her body repulsed her. She covered her face with the towel and tried to breathe through her nose. There was some mistake.
The woman in the pictures was not her mother.
She walked back into the room, carrying the towel. She wrung the corner of the material as she paced in front of the box. The pictures were old and made with a Polaroid camera, but there was no doubt that it was her mother.
Just not the mother she knew and remembered.
If someone told her to think up the wildest sex adventure for Carly Flint, she'd laugh and say her mother was more likely to hold a whip and beat men to death rather than cower to anyone. Her mother's opinion of the opposite sex lacked compassion and respect.
Sure, she had business dinners and meetings with other men, but she never brought anyone home. Addison stopped in front of the box, closed her eyes, and hoped she could look again without throwing up. Not once had her mother dated or loved someone else.
Even her mother despised her father to the point of obsession after Curt Stewart claimed Addison was not his child.
"Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck," she muttered, falling to her knees and scooping up a handful of pictures.
She ignored looking straight at her mother's body and studied the pictures. One after another, she rushed through each Polaroid shot. Nothing she was seeing made any sense.
She went through the pictures again, looking in the box to make sure she checked out each one. Finally, she threw them all in the box and sat back more confused than ever. Not one picture had Curt Stewart in view.
Of course, he could have been the man behind the camera. She leaned her head back against the bed. Then who was the man in the picture with her, and where were the shots taken?
Nothing looked familiar. She heaved herself forward, and fished out the cardboard box. Maybe the other papers would clue her in on what went on in her mother's life, not that she had a desire to learn more. She only knew that she had to find out where her father fit into her mother's life.
Because either she held evidence that would save her life or she'd discovered why Curt Stewart wanted her dead.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Three fucking days.
Nathan stood on the porch of Addison's house at two o'clock in the morning. He edged closer to the door. After working long hours to distract himself, going to Billy's and boxing a few rounds every night, and trying to catch a few minutes of sleep while sitting in his chair at the office, and failing, he accepted that standing here made him feel better than he imagined.
Knowing Addison was on the other side of the door, snuggled in her bed and safe, put his mind at ease. He grabbed his shoulder, working out the stiffness. From Antonio's reports, she'd gone to work every day and straight home all week.
No doubt, she was pissed at him for keeping a tail on her. He pulled out a pick and slipped it between the door and the locking device. With a flick of his wrist, he tripped the bolt. Adrenaline rushed through his body the same way breaking and entering always brought him a high.
The click of gaining entrance into Addison's house interrupted the silence of the night. He silently slipped inside and shut the door. There was no hesitation. He'd come for one thing.
Whatever he had to do to bring Addison back into his life, he'd do. If she wanted to take the chance on him, take what he'd give out, he was willing to try. At the first sign that he was doing her more harm than good, he'd be the first to make sure she received help and cut himself out of her life.
He'd come to the conclusion, once he realized he was miserable without her, that he'd painted everything in black and white. He'd fucked up, and instead of working with Addison, he railroaded her.
In the past, controlling the situation worked. Never emotionally invested in others, he hurt them because he enjoyed causing pain. With Addison, he found himself out of control and obsessed. He needed more from her, and he wasn't willing to live without her. She'd wrapped herself around him, hung on, and he missed the constant contact.
Not only physically, but the sight of her brought him calmness. Her smile warmed him when the outside world was bitter cold. Hearing her laughter, her teasing, made him safe in his own environment.
He only hoped he hadn't damaged what they'd had, so he could reconstruct their relationship. It was the fear that caused the slight tremor in his hands, a weakness that never happened on the job or around other people, only with Addy.
A clatter came from upstairs. He took the stairs three at a time, and found the light on in her bedroom. What the fuck?
Addison, on her hands and knees, arranged pictures on the floor. He stayed in the doorway. All of her attention riveted to whatever she was doing, she had no idea he'd came inside the house.
Before he could think about alerting her to his presence, she scrambled off the floor, flopped down on the bed and typed into her laptop. He frowned.
Wearing an oversized T-shirt, her hair wild around her shoulders, and make-up free, the darkness around her eyes stood out. The stress evident in the way she scowled. He clenched his teeth. What was so urgent she was up in the middle of the night?
He walked across the room and stood at the foot of the bed. "Addison?"
She screamed, falling to her side and blinking in surprise. "Nathan! Shit! You scared the hell out of me."
Her face relaxed, and then instantly she put on a mask of indifference. His fingers curled. His actions had caused her to hide her feelings from him.
"What are you doing here?" She scooted off the bed and crawled around the floor, sweeping the pictures into a pile and picking them up.
"I want to talk," he said.
She walked to her dresser, opened a drawer, and dumped everything inside. "Now? It's late."
"What are you doing up?" He hooked his hands in his pockets.
She ignored his question, studying the room. He tilted his head, following her line of vision, trying to understand why she was jumpy. Anger over him breaking into her house hadn't hit, so something else bothered her.
"Addy," he said. "What's going on?"
Her gaze whipped back to him and she processed what it meant to have him in the house. "Get out."
He shook his head. "We need to talk."
"Talk? It's over between us." She marched across the room and pulled her robe off the inside of the closet door. Shoving her arms in the sleeves, she said. "If you have something to say to me use a phone like a normal person or come by my office during working hours."
"I’m here now," he said, sitting down on the mattress. "Come here."
"No." She crossed her arms.
"Addy, come here," he said.
She shook her head. "Out."
"No." He tapped down his amusement.
"Yes." She pointed to the door. "Go."
He couldn't help chuckling. He'd missed her. "You're adorable."
Her brows lowered. "I am not."
"You are," he whispered. "There's something about you believing in yourself enough to think you can put me in my place and order me to do what you wish that I find incredibly sexy. Of course, I won't give in to you and leave, but your attempt pleases me."
Her mouth, which had come open while he talked, snapped closed and she glared. He crooked his finger and motioned for her. "Come here."
"Nathan…" she whispered. "Please, don't do this."
He wanted to drag her underneath him and fuck her until she realized it would do no use denying him what he wanted. He'd take everything with or without her permission. But, this was Addy.
He'd barely survived three days without her and right now, he'd take what she'd give him freely. He patted the mattress.
"Sit beside me." He leaned forward, braced on his elbows, and clasped his hands together to show her he wasn't going to harm her. "Please."
She wrapped her robe tightly around her middle, crossed her arms, and stepped over to sit beside him. He inhaled deeply, catching the fruity sweet scent from her hair. Where his chest loosened in relief of having her close, his gut tightened in male awareness. A heady reaction he wanted to last longer.
So close to her, at this moment, he believed there really was a heaven and he'd died. But, she kept space between them, even pulling her robe tighter and shoving her hands between her legs to keep from touching any part of his body.
"This is my one and only time I'll bring this offer to you, so listen carefully, and think about what I'm asking of you before you speak," he said.
"Nathan, I—"
He held up his hand. "I'm not angry. I was. I couldn't understand why you'd need more from me and I took your pleading with me as an attack. I got defensive. No one—he paused—I can't think of one time in my life someone became angry with me or demanded I change."
That confession was an understatement. No one dared contradict him. He stared at the floor. Maybe when he was a small child and believed his mother would protect him, he'd answered to someone else. But, he had no memory of that time.
"Professor Frank once asked me why I enjoyed hurting others— and that went for men too, although it's never a sexual rush with the same sex. I just like to fight. Women…dominating them, seeing the welts and the blood, the helplessness in their expression and the fear that they can't stop me gives me security. A security I've never known, but crave. It's almost a fight or flight response. As long as I'm in control, I stay alive. I do receive pleasure knowing I'll survive another day."
Fuck. He was screwing this up and not making any sense. How could he expect her to understand him if he rambled on about unimportant shit?
"Will I die if I stopped?" He glanced at her. "Probably not, but I'm not a nice person, Addy. It's like a drug. I've been addicted to dominating my life since I was young, and it's the only way I know how to handle myself. I've tried to stop, and the anger bottled up until I exploded…until I wasn't safe. I knew no limits, and when I get that way, I could kill without any regret."
Addison sucked in a breath. He ran his hands down his thighs. She deserved the truth.
"Yes, I've killed before." Even to his own ears, he lacked compassion. "Men, not women. Never a woman. These were
men on the streets, fighting just like me to keep a dry spot on the ground as their own and food in their stomach."
Today, those men would thank him for putting them out of their misery. The reasoning behind his behavior was something Addison would never understand. The streets were an ugly place. People committed suicide every day. Others were too chicken to take their life, and made life miserable for everyone around them, begging someone to do the job they couldn't manage to do on their own. They stepped into his life, and he answered their pleading.
"When you begged me to keep you, it wasn't fair of me to ask. You knew nothing about me and I realized I was hurting you. I went about everything the wrong way. I showed you articles on the web, and that gave you an idea of why you are the way you are, but me…I can't be classified. I don't seek out relationships, clubs, or want to play at flogging, beating, pleasuring a woman the way doctors explained. It's not a kink, it's not a passing interest, and it's not the enjoyment of humiliating a woman the way it is for some people. I don't even have the ability to love, because I lack that particular emotion."
He inhaled deeply. "I'm not the creation of two people who were in love or enjoyed sex after having a dinner date, Addy. I'm a product of rape, and that's no excuse for my behavior, but I am who I am."
Addison's chin dropped to her chest, and her hair hid her face. His chest squeezed, but he swore when he came here that he would not touch her first. Whether she hid her disgust or couldn't face the truth, he had no idea.
"I only have one more thing to say, and then I'll leave you alone," he whispered. "I don't want you to beg me to keep you, because I'm not worth having. I want you, and I need what we have together. I would give anything to take you home, because that's where I believe you belong. I want you to come to me on your own power. For the first time in my life, I'm going to step back. It's up to you whether you want to continue being with me. I can't ask you to change for me, and I can't promise I won't hurt you. You know who I am, but I can promise that I will do everything in my power never to cross the line of hurting the goodness inside of you."
