by April Lust
She shook her head at me and even tried closing the door, mumbling something that I couldn’t quite catch. I could make out “Santos” and “bad idea” though, and it was enough to cause two conflicting emotions to surge through me: anger and concern.
If there were ever two that didn’t belong together.
I shot my hand out to lay it on the door, palm flat, effectively stopping her from closing it right in my face. I wasn’t going to give up so easily. The concern…well, that was stupid on my part. Whatever she was afraid of, I was pretty sure now it wasn’t me, and I was also pretty sure that that meant it didn’t matter. She wasn’t mine anymore, which meant she wasn’t mine to take care of.
Giving the door a good shove, I forced it open. She stepped back, only half surprised, and let out a sigh as she shook her head. “Damn it, Nester.”
I stepped into the house and closed the door behind me. Shoving my hands into my pocket, I noted that the house was even cleaner than it had been yesterday and there was the lingering smell of bleach in the air.
She cleaned again today, I though, and worked not to frown. I wondered if it had to do with me.
Shoving whatever guilt I might have felt away, I turned to face her, noticing that her hair was wet and she was wrapped up in a robe. She’d just gotten out of the shower.
“What do you want, Nester?” she asked me, not meeting my eyes and sounding just a little tired.
Searching her, looking for my way in, I decided being direct was my best choice. I stepped closer until I could smell her lime and coconut shampoo and I could see the red splotches on her face where she must have scrubbed away the makeup she’d been wearing. When I reached out and touched the bottom of her chin, she had to let her head half fall back just to meet my eyes.
“I want you,” I told her, transforming all the anger I felt into deep passion, because this had to be convincing. I worried it too easily would be. Then I crushed my mouth to hers and when she groaned into my mouth, I knew I’d won.
I backed her up until her back found the wall, never breaking the searing kiss between us. Her hands were already wrapping themselves up in my hair, combing through it harshly, her nails dragging along my scalp, tugging me ever closer. My hands found her waist, then moved down to find her hips. I gripped them harshly, so tight that I hoped I left bruises on her soft, supple skin.
Shoving her back farther, my hips ground into hers. She let out a whimper and I knew that she felt my hardness. And it was hard. I ached to pull it out, to take off my constricting jeans and to ravage her, but I couldn’t make this just about fucking. I had to be careful. I had to think about this. The only way I was going to pull her back was to make her ache for me.
The way I’d ached when she tore out my heart.
Anger clawed at me, but I took it and wrapped it up in passion until I couldn’t even tell the difference anymore.
I broke the kiss, taking only half a second to admire her bruised, swollen lips and the way her pink tongue darted out to lick at them, before I had to move on. My mouth latched on to her skin, nipping and licking at it as I moved down the hollow of her neck, tasting her. I had to lean far down to reach her collarbone and quickly decided I didn’t care for that. So my hands slid around her hips to find her full ass and cupped it. Quickly giving it a squeeze, I used my hold on her to lift her up, making her groan in pleasure. I kept her pinned to the wall and her legs opened of their own accord to let me settle between them, then wrapped around my middle to pull me closer.
I could feel her heat and remembered that she was wearing a bathrobe. She’d just gotten out of the shower, and with glee and aching arousal alike, I realized she was already naked beneath that stretch of fabric.
Using leverage and her legs gripping her to me to hold her up, I allowed one hand to move from her round ass to her front. I let my hand slip down between us and when I found that she was already hot and wet with need, I grinned at her, my eyes flashing dangerously.
Her breath caught and she licked those lips again.
I growled at her for it, leaning forward to bite at her lower lip. Between her legs, I let my fingers wander. They felt along her moist folds, teased the area around that sweet little nub that I knew would shove her up over the edge and into oblivion. She groaned and pleaded and whimpered, all but begging me for more. Gone was the woman who had tried to get me to go. Gone was the woman who had told me that I shouldn’t be here.
Gone was the woman who belonged to Santos DeArma. This woman was all mine.
“Oh god, please, Nester,” she begged me, her eyes half-lidded and her breathing coming in quick, sharp gasps that made her heaving breasts look delicious and enticing.
I did as she requested and let two of my thick fingers plunge into her core. She cried out, throwing her head back until it cracked loudly against the wall—she didn’t seem to care and neither did I.
“Fuck, Zel,” I ground out as I felt how incredibly tight she was. How could she be this tight? It was almost like she was a damn virgin, like she hadn’t had sex in years. Whatever she was doing, she needed to keep doing it, because I suddenly realized I was going to have to stretch her out before I stuck my dick inside her again.
And as her slick wetness slipped down my fingers and my hand, I knew that I would shove it into her again. I was just going to have to be a little more cautious about it than I really thought.
Refocusing on the here and now—as well as what I was trying to accomplish so that I didn’t do anything stupid like fuck her right there against the wall—I continued to work my fingers into her warm body. She continued to beg me, crying out in need and desire, calling out my name like it belonged to a deity, the only deity that could bring her peace and power alike.
I worked her up into a frenzy, all the while driving myself insane. I was so hard in my pants that I wanted to drop everything and just slide inside of her, but I had to hold out. There was more to this now than just fucking and I needed her to be mine.
As I worked her with my fingers, my mouth found every exposed piece of skin it could reach. I dragged my tongue along her and bit at her shoulders. Then I kissed at that same skin to soothe the burn I’d caused. She clutched at me and tried to buck, continued to beg until I thought she’d lose her voice.
And then, when I thought I couldn’t take it anymore, I moved my thumb up until I found that little numb and rubbed it.
“Nester!” she screamed, and I pushed her over the edge, her body clenching and pulsing around me, her sweet release coating my hand and dripping onto the floor beneath us.
She became limp, like nothing more than jelly in my hands, and I had to gather her up just so she didn’t fall. She let me carry her in my arms, and when I laid her out on the couch, noticing the way her robe fell open to reveal so much smooth, creamy skin, I saw her smile at me.
I almost lost my mind, wishing that I could take care of my own needs, too, but my needs ran deeper than sex now. Much deeper.
I winked at her and almost turned to go when her hand jerked out and grabbed mine. Surprised, I turned to look at her. Her eyes were hooded, and her smile was all contentment, but she was sweet as she said, “Can I…take care of you?”
The raging boner in my pants wanted to let her. The anger in my chest wanted to tell her that I’d just used her. But there was another part of me, too, that felt just the tiniest twinge of guilt. I was using her, manipulating her to get what I wanted, and here she was wanting to take care of me.
I almost had the good grace to be disgusted with myself, but then I remembered the rock on her finger and how she was going to marry Santos DeArma.
No, I wouldn’t feel guilty over this. Not at all.
Forcing a smile, I shook my head. It took everything I had to be tender, but I made my voice that way as I said, “Not this time, hon. I wanted this to be about you.”
And then I left her, because I could tell she was a puddle of mush both from the orgasm and from my words.
I’d get wha
t I wanted from her and I’d get my revenge on Santos DeArma. There was no question about that.
Chapter Seven
The next day, I went back to Zelda. I brought her flowers and I made nice, watching with keen, shrewd eyes how she blushed at my attention and her lips pulled into a hesitant, but sweet smile. She tried again to tell me how I couldn’t be there, but she didn’t stop me when I brushed past her into the house. She didn’t stop me when I put the flowers in water and set them in the center of the kitchen counter. She didn’t stop me when I cupped her cheek with my hand, nor when I let that hand trail lower down over her jaw and neck and collarbone.
She didn’t stop me because I knew that whatever she said or thought, she still wanted me. And I would take full advantage of that fact.
“We shouldn’t be doing this, Nester,” she whispered to me, breathless as I trailed my hand down over her breast and lower along her ribs and stomach, finally stopping on her hips where her jeans hung low.
A spark of irritation swept through me. I tried to keep it back, but she must have seen it, because her expression crumpled slightly and she turned away.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, but I wasn’t even sure what exactly she was sorry for. Wanting to fuck me? Or actually fucking Santos?
Deciding to run with the irritation, that genuine feelings were more likely to sway her, I asked in a barely controlled voice, “What is it that you could see in a man like Santos?”
She hesitated, almost like she was racking her brain in search of an honest, but valid answer. Like maybe she didn’t know what she saw in him. It made me frown, because I could understand if she was in it for the money or if some lingering naïve part of her was convinced he truly was a good man. But this? If she didn’t know what it was she saw in him, then what the hell happened?
Shoving that question aside, I focused on my goal at hand. I needed dirt on Santos, and Zelda was my best shot at giving it.
And if I maybe got her riled up again, well, I could think of a few things we could do that would make us both pretty fucking happy.
Swallowing, Zelda finally said, “He’s a…difficult man, I know, but he’s done right by me and kept his word.” Her mouth snapped shut, like she had just told me too much, but I couldn’t figure out what was in her statement that would give me anything about Santos.
“Are you crazy?” I asked through gritted teeth, then shut my eyes and tried to slow my breathing. Getting angry with her wouldn’t help. Not in the slightest. When I opened them again, she wasn’t looking at me. “You said you didn’t want a criminal,” I reminded her gently, hoping to get her talking about what it was Santos did for a living—I knew, but maybe there was something I was missing.
She clenched her eyes shut at my words, looking guilty, maybe about what she’d said to me.
Good, I thought, feeling some smidgen of satisfaction at the idea that she was upset over how she had treated me. She deserved that much at the very least.
When she opened them again, she told me, “Santos isn’t a criminal.” She sounded only half convinced, but pressed on before I could call her on it. “He’s a businessman. And a philanthropist.”
I couldn’t help but snort at that. Philanthropist? Sure, and I played for the New York Yankees in my free time. “Right,” was all I said out loud in response.
Her cheeks reddened, and I saw her eyes flash. But the flash died quickly and her shoulders slumped as she sighed. Shaking her head, she said, “Really, he tries.” Now she didn’t even sound half convinced. “He invests in a lot of construction that would never get done without him. Buildings that are anything from low-income housing to daycare centers.” She hesitated, looking and sounding uncertain or even a little sick at her own words, like she’d just tasted something sour.
I sensed it more than anything else. There was something there, something that she didn’t agree with.
“No hospitals?” I joked.
She sent me a look, then said, “Not yet. That’s the new one, though, I think. It’s costing him a fortune, you know. And after the last collapse, well, you’d think he’d get out of the construction building.”
I froze, doing my best to hide my sudden interest in her words. My face remained blank—I hoped—but inside, my mind was buzzing with activity. First, there was no way that Santos was a philanthropist. If he was doing something charitable, then he was getting something back for it, too. But what? Like Zelda said, it was costing him a fortune to invest in these buildings. What was the return for him?
“Guess he’s not a very good businessman,” I told her instead of voicing my real thoughts. I couldn’t let her know what I was doing.
Zelda folded her arms across her chest, pushing her large tits together and making my mind wander to other things. After last night, I’d ached with need. I had gone home—which was still temporarily Jackson’s couch—and jerked myself off to the memory of how I’d fondled Zelda until she came. When my own release came, it was a relief, but it didn’t get rid of the need that had been in me for years now.
I hadn’t wanted to simply jump into the bed with Zelda, knowing that she would immediately write that off as me being horny after so many years in prison—which wasn’t wrong, necessarily—and never let me back in, if only because she would have been still suspicious of my motives. By pushing her over the edge instead and letting my own needs go unsated, I gave her the impression that what I wanted was more.
I do want more, I thought as I eyed her voluptuous body. I just couldn’t let her know what that really was.
“What are you even doing, Nester?” Zelda asked finally when I’d stared at her too long, thinking of things that I shouldn’t have been thinking of.
I swallowed and thought fast. If Zelda realized I was leading her to water, pumping her for information about Santos rather than being here for the sake of affection and desire, I wouldn’t get much more. In fact, I’d probably get a slap in the face and a boot in my rear as I sailed out the door.
Taking a step closer, I decided to be bold. “I’m trying to figure out what happened. I’m trying to figure out how it is that I lost everything that mattered to me.” Everything I loved, I thought, but couldn’t quite say the words. I’d told Zelda I loved her a thousand times before, but I couldn’t say it now, again, after all these years and the worst betrayal I could have imagined.
Part of that was because I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction.
Part of that was because I couldn’t afford to reopen that bleeding, heartsick wound.
Zelda clenched her eyes shut tightly, looking as though she were on the very verge of tears. But she sucked in a harsh, dragging breath and shook her head. “It’s complicated, Nester. You must know that.”
Anger bubbled inside of me. Complicated? What was complicated? She left me for Santos, my greatest rival, and did it under the pretense of not wanting to date a criminal.
If that wasn’t ironic, I didn’t know what was.
Forcibly, I shoved down that anger. I couldn’t afford to lose what little ground I’d gained. There was still so much more information to get and Zelda was the best place to make a play for it. Still, it was difficult to focus on the betrayal, but not how it hurt.
Stepping closer again until we were nearly chest to chest, her shirt just barely grazing mine, I looked down into her big, doe eyes. They were filled with something that might have been regret, might have been desire, and might have been something else entirely, but I didn’t care to decipher it.
I had a damn job to do now.
My hand reached out for her, caressing the soft skin of her cheek delicately, gently. Her eyelids fluttered, her lashes long and thick like her hair. Her lips parted and she let out a tiny sigh, like she’d been waiting for me to do that.
“There’s still something here, isn’t there?” I asked her, keeping my voice quiet, because I was afraid that if I put any sort of power into the words I’d lose myself to grief and anger. I didn’t want to be honest with
myself, but being this near to Zelda tore me up a little bit inside. I’d dreamed about this moment in jail, how I’d come back to her home and throw open the door. How I’d make her see reason—or passion, at least—and I’d win her back, even though her words had stung me worse than anything else ever had in my life. What I did after was whatever, but getting her back had been some sort of lingering idea in my head, even if the rest of me was sold on revenge.
Zelda pulled her lower lip between her teeth, worrying it until it looked red and swollen. Kissable. Delicious. A little breathless, she told me in a soft voice, “It doesn’t matter if there is, Nester. You can’t be here.”
My body tensed at the rejection, but I reminded myself that it didn’t matter. I wasn’t here to actually get her back; I was here to use her. In whatever ways I thought necessary or useful. Forcing myself to relax, I let my hand slip down from her cheek to her neck and around to the back. I massaged it a little, then used it as leverage to jerk her forward. Only moderately surprised, she collided with me, her hands going out automatically to support her. They landed on my chest as her breasts crashed into me.
