Kane could easily imagine letting his Irish off the chain. One solid punch to the jaw would send the other man flying and would telegraph to all the fucking vultures in this room that his woman was not a fucking project.
He wasn’t going to do it. Wasn’t going to give his colleagues the satisfaction of watching him lose his shit. He also wasn’t going to just stand there and let an adjunct insult Nadia.
“Ah, the board.” Kane stared at Connors, then smiled. The smile must not have been as bland as he’d intended because Connors took a hurried step backward. “Perhaps you and I should approach the board members together, Professor. I suddenly find myself curious to know what they would think of a certain slimy, status-hungry adjunct professor with a predilection for coeds’ literal dirty laundry. Shall we find out?”
Kane watched in satisfaction as blood drained from the adjunct professor’s face. “Uhm, ah, no. I don’t think that’s necessary, Sullivan. Oh, look there’s Professor Long. I need to have a word with her.”
“Don’t let me keep you.” Or catch you walking alone in the parking lot, you rat bastard.
Connors backed away, then spun and plunged into the crowd. Done with the event, his colleagues, and quite possibly his career at Herscher, Kane finished his whiskey, handed off the glass to a waiter, and searched for Nadia among the speculative faces staring at him from the crowd. He caught sight of her near the ballroom entrance, head down, making her way toward the exit.
He sliced through the crowd, which gave him a wide berth. Making a beeline for the door, he ignored everyone and everything else, focusing on one thing, the only person that mattered in that moment.
“Nadia, wait.”
She stopped, but didn’t turn around. He gripped her wrist. “Were you leaving?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice hollow. “This was a mistake.”
“I know, but don’t worry. You won’t have to deal with this again.”
She flinched, then averted her gaze. “Looks like Audie was right after all.”
“Audie? Right about what?”
“You. Us. This.”
He tightened his grip on her wrist. “Please tell me you are not going to take relationship advice from fucking Audie!”
She did wrench her hand free then, folding her arms across her chest. “I know you’re not talking badly about my friends!”
He could feel a headache brewing between his eyes. With so much anger boiling inside him, the last thing he wanted to do was get into an argument with Nadia. Not here, and certainly not about her friends when there were so many other things they needed to talk about. “I didn’t say anything negative about your friends. I’m just saying Audie should be the last person you take relationship advice from.”
She drew back. “Oh, and I suppose you think I should take it from you?”
His eyes narrowed. “Since I’m the other half of this relationship, I’d like to think my opinion matters more than anyone else’s besides yours.”
“What my friends think is important to me.”
“I’m not saying it shouldn’t be,” he retorted, his ears heating as he struggled to hold on to his temper. “But Audie doesn’t know shit about relationships. If you want her advice on picking up stray sex partners and fucking their brains out, she’s your girl. But there’s a difference between Dear Abby and Dear Penthouse.”
“Oh my God!” She stalked away from him, her hands fisted at her sides. “How can you talk so horribly about her like that?”
Dammit. He could face a room full of academic fucktards and stay calm, but two seconds with Nadia and his control frayed like an old rope. “Do you want me to lie? It won’t change the facts.”
“You’re not being fair to her.”
“Fair? Was she being fair to you when she said all that crap to you that night you went to help her?”
He blew out a breath. “Audie’s views on relationships and what denotes a healthy one are horribly skewed and her interpersonal skills are sorely lacking. She needs serious and intensive therapy to uncover whatever her underlying issues are with love and intimate interactions, and I hope like hell that that’s where she is right now. If she doesn’t get help, she’ll continue to spiral down until she self-destructs. And you are going to let her take you down with her.”
Nadia’s expression hardened. “Spoken like a psychologist.”
“That’s what I am! I’ve never lied to you about what I am or what I want with you. Isn’t lying against the principles of recovery?”
She froze. “What did you say?”
“About what?”
“The principles of recovery. I never told you about those. We’ve never talked about the steps, the program. How do you know?”
“I did some research on recovery from drug addiction. I wanted to have the information in case I needed to help you with anything.”
“Oh my God.” Horror spread across her features. “So it’s true?”
“Is what true?”
She shook her head, hurt tarnishing her beautiful eyes. “I didn’t want to believe it. Even when they said it, I didn’t want to believe it, but it makes sense.”
“Nadia, for the love of God, stop.” He shoved his hands through his hair. “Why the hell are we arguing like this? What’s going on?”
“Nothing.”
“Like hell it was nothing! You didn’t even act like this the day after Audie got hurt. What’s going on with you, Nadia?”
“Are you using me, Kane?”
He stepped back, shock blanking his features. “What did you say?”
“You know what? I don’t want to talk about it.” She turned away. “I just want to go home and forget this night ever happened.”
He snagged her arm again. “Not yet.”
“Let go of me, Kane,” she hissed. “You’re causing a scene.”
“Like I give a damn.” He led her to a darkened alcove, found an unlocked door, then nudged her inside. “We need to talk about this, Nadia. I want to know everything everyone said to you tonight.”
She sighed, and the defeat in her tone, in her posture spiked his fury again. “It doesn’t matter who said what, it was all the same. People either thought you were slumming or they thought you were using me as the subject of your next book or paper.”
“What?” His vision flashed red. Connors’s use of the phrase pet project suddenly made sense. Someone actually said that to Nadia’s face?
“Am I just a chapter in your next paper, Kane?” She looked at him, the disbelief cutting him deep. “What’s the title anyway? ‘How to Love a Drug Addict’? ‘The Sexual Needs of the Addicted’? Is that why you’re with me?”
“Of course not! Do you seriously think I’ve been using you as the focus of a research paper all this time?”
“What else am I supposed to think?” she retorted. “You volunteer to act out positions from The Perfumed Garden with me. You don’t blink an eye when I tell you about my addiction issues—”
“That’s because it’s in the past,” he ground out.
“It’s not in the past!” she shot back. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. You think those people out there would really give a damn if my drug abuse hadn’t happened? I tried to tell you this, but you brushed it off, and it leaves me to wonder why.”
“Why what?”
“Why someone with your intelligence, credentials, your career, and your media standing would want to be with me. Why would you stick around after dealing with my friends and my family so soon? Why would you stick around after my confrontation with Audie? Why would you be with me? I couldn’t come up with a good reason—until your coworkers gave me one.”
“A professor needs to publish or perish. That’s the rule for tenure, and yes, I want tenure. We’re a research institution. We do studies of all kinds all year. Sometimes I will
lead studies, gathering data from volunteers. I’ve interviewed hundreds of subjects for my thesis, my articles, and my books. Men and women, young and not so young. But I do not fuck any of my subjects. I have never put personal information into any of my published material, and I don’t intend to start. Give me some credit for having some ethics if nothing else. My colleagues gave you crap.”
“Did they?” she asked, her voice quavering. “Every single one? The women in the bathroom seemed to think I was research, as if they couldn’t imagine Professor Kaname Sullivan dating me. Maybe all of this has been one gigantic real-life study for you. The nipple clamps, the clit jewelry—you put them on me then parade me out in public so you can document my reaction.”
“You started that game, Nadia, on our very first date. I took it to the next logical step, so don’t put that on me.”
She shook her head as if what he said didn’t matter, or she didn’t care. “You want me to believe this isn’t some grand study, when everyone else thinks it is?”
Slowly he placed his hands on her shoulders, turned her so that she could see his eyes. “For the last time, this isn’t about fucking research!”
“What is it about then?”
“What it’s always been about. This!”
He crushed his mouth to hers, desperation and anger and need roaring through him. He would prove to her that what they had was too raw, too strong, too fucking real to be research.
She responded immediately, thrusting her hands into his hair. She kissed him just as hard and demanding as he kissed her, biting down on his bottom lip to draw blood.
Something inside of him snapped. He yanked up her skirt, wrapped his hands around the string of her thong, and pulled. She gasped as the fabric easily gave way. He cupped her mound, feeling the hard edge of the clamp framing her clitoris, the heat of her core, the liquid fire of her need. Heedless of his burning lip, he continued to kiss her as he stroked her clit with his thumb, two fingers sliding into her moist heat.
“I want you,” he growled against her mouth. “You want me. That’s what this is about. That’s what this has always been about.”
With his left hand, he fumbled for his zipper, freeing his erection. Backing her against the nearest surface, he pulled his hand free of her heat to cup her buttocks, lifting her just enough to shove himself home.
She hissed and he mentally cursed himself. It was a rough invasion, rougher than he’d ever entered her before. Part of him silently cursed himself for hurting her, for pushing her, for reinforcing her doubts about him. The other part of him needed her to know that she was his, that they belonged together.
He tried to slow his thrusts, ease back on his kisses, but she tugged on his hair, her inner muscles gripping him. Fucking him in a storage closet at a stuffy faculty party, one moan from being discovered—it obviously turned her on considering the way her pussy massaged his cock in rippling waves, the way her breath caught in the back of her throat, the way her hands gripped his shoulders.
“Nadia.” He groaned, still hard inside her. “You drive me crazy and you shred every ounce of control I possess. You’re under my skin, in my blood and I can’t get enough.”
“Kane . . .”
“No.” He rolled his hips as he thrust into her, drawing a moan from her. “Say my name.”
“Kaname,” she breathed.
“Do you want this?” He drew all the way out, then drove back home again. And again. And again.
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, Kaname.”
“Do you want what I can give you?” he demanded. “Do you want to come?”
“Y-yes, Kaname,” she gasped.
He drove into her again, his palms cupping her buttocks, fingers digging into the crease of her ass as he sped into her warm channel. If he could just give her pleasure, if he could just make her come, make her understand where she belonged, he could erase every doubt, every bad memory of the night.
“Do you want me, Nadia?” he asked, his voice scraped raw. “Do you want all this, knowing that it’s coming from me?”
Tears spilled down her cheeks. “Yes, Kaname. Yes.”
There was no holding back then. Burying his face into the side of her throat, he rammed into her wildly, desperate to give her pleasure on top of pleasure. He slipped his left hand between their heaving bodies, unerringly finding her distended clit, framed perfectly by the clamp. He stroked over her sensitive flesh as he stroked into her, urging her to come. Biting his throat to keep from screaming, she came, her body clenching down on his as if it would never let go.
“Fuck yeah, baby. Mark me as yours.” His hips slammed into her once, twice, a third rough time. He groaned, burying his face in the curve of her neck as he came.
After a minute or ten he managed to command his muscles enough to loosen his grip on her, allowing her feet to slide to the floor. He stepped back. Nadia looked as if she’d been thoroughly used, her hair and makeup mussed, lips swollen, tears in her eyes.
“Fuck,” he said again, a cold knot forming in the pit of his stomach. “Nadia, I . . .” His voice faded. He didn’t know what he could have said, he didn’t know if there was anything he could say. He’d lost control of the evening and himself.
She didn’t look at him as she straightened her skirt. She bent down, picked up the ruined thong. Her breath shook as she breathed deep, and for a blistering moment he thought she was going to break down.
It would have been better if she had. Instead, she reached beneath her skirt, pulled off the clip, then folded the jewelry in the fabric before tucking it into her miniscule purse. “I’d like to go home now.”
“Nadia—”
“I can’t do this now,” she whispered. “I just want to get out of here, please.”
Guilt choked him as his heart sank. He’d wanted to prove to Nadia that he wasn’t using her, and instead he’d dragged her into a supply closet for a quick, dirty fuck. He’d failed to convince Nadia that he was with her for no other reason than that he wanted to be with her. In fact, he had a sinking feeling that he’d made everything worse.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Things had changed between them, and she didn’t know what to do about it.
Nadia sat in the passenger seat of Kane’s car, fighting a rising panic. He’d withdrawn as they’d straightened their clothing and made a surreptitious exit out of the hotel. In fact, he hadn’t said a word since she’d asked him to take her home. It was much the same way he’d been when he’d come home from his trip to Los Angeles—angry, depressed, heartsick. Defeated.
Had he finally faced the truth of what she’d been trying to tell him all along? Being with her in any sort of long-term way was a liability. He never would have lost control if not for her. He never would have experienced that level of censure from his colleagues if he hadn’t chosen her as his date. He certainly wouldn’t have had an argument and then angry sex in a storage closet if it weren’t for her.
Misery swamped her as she watched the streetlights pass by her window. The censure would happen again, she knew. People looked at her differently, treated her differently when they found out about her past drug abuse. Drug abusers didn’t have the marginal social acceptance that those who abused alcohol did. You could be falling down drunk at a party as long as you weren’t mean or didn’t attempt to drive yourself home, but only God would help you if you popped Oxy or Percocet to numb the pain.
She still hadn’t told him everything. The rest of her story hung between them as thick as the heavy air of distance he’d erected. Perhaps it didn’t matter now whether she told him or not. She had the feeling there was nothing she’d be able to do or say that would change the night’s outcome.
The thought gave her heart palpitations. She didn’t want to be without Kane. Despite everything that had happened, she still wanted to surrender to him sexually, still
wanted to care for him and be cared for by him. The idea that she would no longer be with Kane, no longer be able to experience the keen edge of passion at his hands, left her twitchy. Sweat dampened her palms and her stomach cramped with stress and fear. She wasn’t sure she could be without him, even if it was the best thing for them.
He slowed in front of the café, and for a moment she thought he intended to drop her off at the curb. Instead he went around to resident parking, parked, then made the journey with her to her front door. He didn’t try to touch her, didn’t try to kiss her good night, simply stood in the center of the hallway with his hands shoved into his pockets, wearing an expression that suggested he wanted to be anywhere else, any place other than with her. He might as well have been a stranger standing there, so cold and remote.
She unlocked her door then disabled the alarm. Kane made no move to follow her inside. Dread stretched cold fingers around her heart. Even though she knew things had to end, she didn’t want them to end like this. “You’re not going to come in?”
He flicked a glance at her. “Do you think that’s a good idea after everything that’s happened tonight?”
Her heart sank. “Don’t we need to talk this out at the very least?” she asked with more courage than she felt. “Since we had angry sex in a supply closet, don’t we owe it to ourselves to have apology sex in a bed?”
She didn’t want their last time together to be the supply closet in a hotel surrounded by people who didn’t like them. No, their last time together should be a safe and sensual exploration full of the apology she needed to give and receive.
“I need you to answer one question for me,” he said, his voice careful, so very careful. He spoke that way around his colleagues, around strangers. He’d never spoken in the controlled, distant tone with her before, even when they’d first met. That he did so now chilled her to her core.
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