‘I don’t want your pity.’ All that emotion emptied again. He couldn’t stand to see the sympathy in her eyes. ‘I cannot be pitied. Look at everything I have, everything I’ve done.’
‘Yeah, you’re amazing,’ she whispered. ‘But you don’t let people in.’
‘Why would I want to?’ He turned to look back at the sleeping dog.
Yet he knew he had to—his own child was the game changer. And it was happening too soon. He’d never wanted one, but now one was on the way and he wanted it to have everything he hadn’t and still didn’t have. Self-sufficiency was key to his own existence, yet he was human enough not to want that for his own child. Thank goodness the baby had Ettie.
He tried to be calm, to breathe, to think. But his heart thundered and his lungs hurt. His whole chest was still bound in tension.
Leon stood so still, Ettie almost believed he wasn’t breathing. But as she neared, she could feel the vibrations rolling off him. She sensed the power he was exerting to hold back and press everything back down deep. He’d been appallingly hurt and she’d had absolutely no idea. He’d hidden it so well, for so long.
She might not have had a father, but she’d had a mother who’d loved her, who’d at least wanted the best for her. And she’d had her sister.
Leon had been utterly isolated. The witch hadn’t even let him keep his dog. His father hadn’t stood up for him. The horror of it broke her heart. That he’d been treated as a project, not a person.
While she’d grown up with nothing but love, he’d grown up with everything but. No wonder he was remote and controlled and untrusting. And right now she knew he regretted saying anything at all. While there mightn’t have been physical marks, there were definitely emotional scars. Five minutes beneath a frigid torrent of water must’ve felt like an eternity. Two hours in a dark cupboard for a small boy must’ve been pure hell.
‘Leon—’
‘Don’t.’
She knew he was withdrawing. Rebuilding his walls to shut her out again. She couldn’t let that happen. Not yet.
‘Don’t think that this is going to change everything just because you’ve told me a few things,’ she said, trying to reach him. ‘We’re just getting to know each other, that’s all. That helps build trust.’
‘Don’t actions speak louder than words, Ettie?’ The strain was evident in his hoarseness. ‘Can’t you trust me already? I’m not your dad or your ex. I haven’t left you.’
Not physically. But emotionally he was walking out of that door. And he was turning the focus from himself to her, to help his escape.
‘Leon—’
‘Have I betrayed you?’ he flared.
‘No.’ She welcomed the resurgence of his emotion and stepped closer. ‘But there’s action and there’s action.’
His default response was to close down all intimacy other than the physical. It was the only way she could think to keep him here with her.
‘Look,’ he cleared his throat, ‘you’re going to make a wonderful mother, Ettie. I know you’ll care for this child in a way I was never cared for. But I can only do what I do.’ He frowned as if he was struggling to think. ‘I’m good at taking control in a crisis.’
Yes. Because his whole life had been a crisis. He’d been locked for ever in a fight for survival, to win, to be free. When had he last taken the time to just breathe? When had he ever let someone else make the calls and shoulder even a little bit of his burden?
‘You have to take control because you’ve never had anyone you could count on.’ She placed her hand on his chest.
He didn’t reply. The agony churning in his eyes, the blistering beat of his heart beneath her fingers, said it all. He didn’t trust anyone. She didn’t blame him; she had trust issues of her own. But maybe in time he could learn to trust her? Maybe—eventually—they could be a true team?
‘Can’t you relinquish control to me?’ she asked softly, spreading her hand wider and slowly sliding it down his chest. ‘Just once?’ She felt his muscles tighten beneath her touch, saw awareness flare in his eyes.
‘Are you still feeling insecure about your sexual experience?’ he asked gruffly.
No. This wasn’t about her. But this was the language she knew he understood and it could be their starting point, right?
‘Don’t you know what you do to me?’ he asked harshly as she slid her hand to his belt and twisted her fingers to release the buckle.
She shook her head. That was what she wanted most of all—to see him. To know him. ‘Let me see.’ She lifted her chin and dared him, unfastening the buttons of his shirt without hesitation. ‘Let me do it.’
He didn’t stop her. But he didn’t help. Like a statue ablaze—the tension thrummed from him as she pushed back the two halves of his shirt so she could see—touch—his burning skin.
‘Just let me,’ she whispered.
She reached up on tiptoe and kissed along his jaw, aching for the years of sufferance and isolation he’d endured. He didn’t lower his chin to meet her lips with his.
‘I don’t want your sympathy,’ he growled, rigid and angry.
‘Just as I don’t want your money,’ she answered.
He pulled back his head to look down at her then. ‘This isn’t about money.’
‘It isn’t about sympathy either. This is about caring, Leon.’ She cupped his jaw with one hand, and slid her other over his chest, tracing the strength and heat. Skin on skin. ‘This is about you opening up and letting me in. Let me in.’
‘You don’t need to take care of me.’
‘But you get to take care of me? Next you’ll try telling me not to breathe,’ she muttered back at him. ‘Screw your control, Leon.’
With a sudden forceful push, she pressed him against the wall. His eyes widened and his hands automatically spanned her waist.
‘I’m taking control.’ She kissed her way down his chest. Her own passion was unleashed. She wanted to truly touch him. She wanted to show him—
‘You think?’ He hauled her back up to kiss her hard and deep, his anger igniting.
‘I know,’ she said when she tore her lips free.
A crazy kind of confidence she’d never before felt fired through her veins. She knew what to do. What she wanted. She showered his body with kisses, with light, teasing touches of her fingertips, with swirls of her tongue, before letting her lips slide closer.
Her own heat increased the more she heard his uneven breathing, the more she felt his tension build. She stepped back for a moment to slide her own clothes off. Slowing when she saw the way he was leaning back against the wall, his feet planted wide apart, watching her strip. She was no real beauty, definitely no model-type, but clearly it didn’t matter.
Only when she was fully naked did she step forward again. She unzipped his trousers, pulled them and his boxers down. She knelt in front of him as he’d knelt before her only last night.
She heard his growl—of warning, of want. She smiled and kissed closer, closer, but she didn’t take him in her mouth. Not yet. It was enough to let him enjoy looking. She saw his hands curl into fists, his knuckles whitening. He liked what she was doing. But he was still holding back. She didn’t want him to hold back.
She licked up the length of him and then looked up. ‘Lie down.’
He shot her a look but complied with her request.
Ettie simply stared for a moment at the sheer magnificence of him outstretched on the floor before her. He still said nothing but his raging erection and ragged breathing were all the encouragement she needed. Her mouth watered and that confidence flooded her again.
She straddled him and ran her hands over his body. He was so still. Letting her. Yet resisting her inwardly. He’d learned such control. He needed to unlearn it.
And she just needed to touch him. She was firm. Gentle. Reverent. Then rougher. As she released her grip on
her own desire, her pace picked up, her intentions deepened, her need coiled. Her breathing shallowed, her heat spiked.
He was so strong. So alone. So worthy of so much more. And now she was angry. He should have had everything. She would give him everything she could right now. With a blind kind of fury, she ached to make him feel the way he made her feel—wanted. So. Damn. Much.
She slid up the length of his body, desperately kissing him, stroking, sucking him hard and then grinding her heat on him, until he flipped—literally holding her to him and flipping them both so he was above her...within her.
‘Yes,’ she cried out as he thrust to the hilt.
But he stopped—straining—his eyes closed, his jaw clenched as he fought to regain his control.
‘Don’t stop,’ she ordered, gazing up at him. ‘Don’t shut me out.’
His hands gripped her thighs deliciously hard. She knew he couldn’t resist this for much longer. He shuddered as she moved beneath him sinuously, easing her own ache, enticing him to complete abandonment.
His eyes opened. ‘I don’t like losing control of my emotions, Ettie,’ he grated.
‘Is it losing control of them?’ she challenged him. ‘Or is it just expressing them?’
He was still for a searing moment more. Then she saw the flare and felt his sudden shift. He snatched the pen securing her hair—freeing it into a wild tumble around her shoulders. He wound thick hanks of it around his wrists—literally binding her to him and cradling her head in his fingers so he could see into her eyes, so he could devour her mouth. The tug was strong, but not painful as her head tilted back at his pull—exposing her mouth, her neck, her breasts to his ravenous, rough kisses.
‘I like it,’ she admitted with low, savage hunger. ‘I like touching you. I like seeing you like this. I want you like this.’
‘On the edge?’ he growled, twisting his hands again to shorten the tie between them.
‘Over it,’ she said brazenly. ‘With me.’
He swore bluntly and drove into her, again and again. Ruthlessly, out of control, he claimed his place in her very core—pushing harder, faster, deeper. This wasn’t fun or easy or light. It was the most bared, the most touched she’d ever been. The lump in her throat ached. She’d been alone too. She’d been alone so long, but right now—he was here, right here, literally bound to her. Inside her totally. Her eyes stung because she was exposed—vulnerable and shaking and so damn needy of this. His kiss, his possession. She felt the wild emotion storming through him and into her, only to transform again into something wonderful that they then rode together. He growled again as she arched, pressing herself closer still, wrapping her legs and arms tightly around him, holding him so they were utterly inseparable. His kiss devastated her. Unleashed emotion rippled between them like electricity—a power surge energising them both into frantic, clawing creatures seeking oblivion in this dark, magic world they made together. She gasped as he thrust harder and harder. He was so powerful. And she so complete. All thought was gone, all words. There was only animal sensation, animal sounds...and then screaming, orgasmic agony.
* * *
Leon flinched, suddenly wide awake. It was completely dark. Despite the warmth of the soft woman curled next to him, he was freezing. His heart was pounding as if he’d been sprinting for his life. He’d woken like this so many times in his youth and he hated it.
Despite the pleasure he’d had with Ettie tonight, he was now tossed back into that old torment. That stupid talk had stirred up thoughts. Memories. Feelings.
Fear.
He should have kept it in, resisted his own damn temptation. But that gift, Ettie’s sweetness, cracked him open. Now he tried to empty his mind again but those malevolent memories swirled, relentless. They’d been woken.
He’d kept it all buried for so long—had hidden that dark, incomplete side of himself from everyone. Living alone it didn’t matter, it was easy. But in marriage?
He didn’t want to poison her with it. He wished he’d never told her. To complain of a little punishment? Of loneliness? He’d been as weak as his mother had warned. What he needed was his control back.
He slid out of bed silently so he didn’t wake Ettie and quickly checked the small puppy. It was fast asleep and warm in its little bed. Leon opened up his laptop in the lounge and tried to work. But his mind was fragmented and he’d achieved little by the time dawn finally began to lighten the dark.
He showered, standing for a long time under the steaming jet—trying to relax. He’d get through the weekend, he’d fall back into bed with her...
But he hadn’t even made it to Saturday before falling apart. Having her this close was confusing, constricting...those stirred-up memories still prickled like thorns in a blood-splattered bouquet in a damn low-budget horror film. Reaching out, he flicked the faucet to cold and suffered the pelting icy droplets. They were like little knives, pinkening up soft skin. Those memories surged.
He braced. He’d beaten them a long time ago. Banished them. And he’d banish them again now because he was not that boy any more. He had control. He flicked the faucet back to warm. Yeah. He had power. And he would make this work.
He’d talked about it with Ettie—told her far more than he’d ever intended. Surely he’d satisfied her infernal curiosity at last? So now it was done and behind them for ever.
He’d get this back to the practical, responsible arrangement he needed it to be.
He breathed in and quietly walked to the bedroom to grab some clothes. Then he got back to his computer. Focused. Calm. Ready.
But Ettie walked into the lounge an hour later, looking like sunshine in a simple denim skirt and white T-shirt. One look and he felt that hard-wrestled-for control slip again. Every time he so much as looked at her it was like that thing bound tightly within him was loosened. But it was something he didn’t want released. Not ever.
‘You’re working already?’ she asked.
He nodded, fighting the urge to reach out and touch her. To use sex as his distraction again, as she’d teased the other day...
But last night—how good she’d felt, how intense that had been with her...that hadn’t just been distraction. It had been much more than simple, mindless fun. And it couldn’t be like that again.
‘I’ve fed the puppy; he’s asleep again,’ he said after clearing his throat. ‘We’ll take him for a walk later.’
She nodded and sauntered through to the kitchen looking like the sexiest, sweetest thing he’d ever seen. He breathed out as she left. See? He could resist. She’d claimed control, but he had it back. Just.
Oh, who was he kidding?
Only now he realised the troubling truth: she was his weakness—Ettie Roberts herself. His slide into addiction had already started and he hadn’t realised because she felt so good. But she was what he craved—all the time. But he couldn’t use her in that way, as if she were his personal opiate. He had to dial it back. He had lost control last night and he’d not expressed anything other than pure, selfish greed.
He refused to be all over her. Sure, they’d sleep together and they’d have this baby, but he’d pull himself together properly and remind them both that this was just another business arrangement. That was all it could ever be.
CHAPTER TEN
ETTIE WAS ACUTELY relieved when Monday finally arrived. It wasn’t that the weekend had been awful... She and Leon had walked the puppy, wandered around the markets, watched a movie rather than go to that concert—her pick. He’d driven her out of town specially to dine at another amazing restaurant... It was as if he was determined they’d be a normal couple—albeit one with luxurious experiences. She knew he wanted to make this work and she knew he’d be loyal. He had his own brand of duty and honour burned in him. He had everything else too—humour, looks, a bank balance big enough to make anyone’s eyes water. And he was so attentive, always ensuring she had w
hat she needed.
Almost all she needed.
But there’d been no more mad, unrestrained sex on the floor, in the kitchen, in the lounge...in fact there’d been no touching at all until darkness fell. But then when it did...?
They’d come together with a wordless intensity that neither of them had addressed afterwards. Neither Saturday nor Sunday. But all through both nights that raw, unrestrained passion had been unleashed. That genie was well out of the bottle now. Leon had made her moan and shake, he’d stripped her back to pure nerves and he’d roared with her, riding her hard. Again. Again. Again. Through the darkness they’d clung to each other, almost crazed with need. Neither of them could get enough and neither of them denied it. Until daylight. Then they were returned to that beautifully curated lifestyle of breakfast at a cute deli, a walk in the park, pondering his next art selection at an elite auction house...but no argument or discussion of anything deep. And that was why she was relieved by the prospect of work. She needed the time away from him so she could think. Because it wasn’t quite right—not since that acutely profound moment on Friday night.
Now she shimmied into her uniform and brushed her hair into submission, ready to face her first day in her new position.
‘Here...’ Leon was in the kitchen, dressed in a charcoal suit, looking more remote and businesslike than ever. ‘Something for your first day as manager.’
She picked up the beautiful business satchel he’d pushed across the counter towards her. She saw the gold insignia and drew in a steadying breath. This wasn’t some knock-off from the street markets, this was real leather, from a real luxury label. ‘You didn’t have to—’
‘Look inside.’ He sipped his coffee and watched her.
She suddenly felt nervous, because his gaze seemed especially dark this morning—the amber glow was absent. She reached for the slim box tucked inside. Pressing her lips together, she lifted the lid.
It was a pen, but not just any pen. The distinctive white star on the cap told her that, as did the intricately engraved gold nib. ‘Leon—’
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