Bound By His Desire (19 page)

In seconds he had her panties off, and with the low back of her dress she hadn’t been able to wear a bra. He lifted her up and she hooked her legs around his waist. He walked them to her bed, and once his knees connected with her mattress he fell forward until they were both lying on the soft downy sheets.

He dragged his lips from hers. ‘I can’t go slow, sweetheart. I need hard and fast and I need it now.’

‘I’m all yours.’ She wanted to have him possess her as much as he wanted to possess her. She widened her legs, encouraging him to take her. With one clean thrust he did. There was no finesse to their lovemaking. It was hot, hard, animal sex. Nick took her on a ride and she was more than happy to join him on it. With each thrust of his hips her blood sizzled until she was sure it was going to boil out of her.

‘Nick!’ Her orgasm hit her by surprise. The ferocity of it almost blew her mind. Nick shouted out his release moments later, collapsing on top of her breathing heavily.

After their breathing settled down Nick peeled himself away from her and rolled over to the other side of the bed. She immediately felt his loss. With the loss of his warmth of his body over hers, goosebumps broke out over her exposed flesh. She reached down and pulled the blankets up.

Uncertainty about what to do next or what to say hit her. They hadn’t sorted out anything. Confusion reigned in her mind. His actions were telling her he cared and wanted something more with her. He wouldn’t accept it when she’d told him goodnight. He’d blown her mind away and not given her any time to think about his brushing aside the reason she was so upset with him.

Perhaps now was the perfect time to talk to him, while he was relaxed from making love to her. Hopefully his guard would be down enough for her to get to the bottom of what was really going on with him. If it were any person other than Nick, she would suspect he was scared about facing his feelings. It didn’t seem possible that that would be him. He was confident in everything. She’d never met him until a few weeks ago, so she had no idea if he’d ever had any long-term girlfriends or if he’d even been married before. Was it wrong that she knew nothing about him? Then again, she hadn’t told him anything about her past, so she shouldn’t expect him to share things with her if she didn’t share things with him.

She rolled over and propped herself up on one elbow so she was facing him. ‘Nick?’

He cracked open an eyelid. ‘Mmmm?’

His bare chest lured her to touch him. Using her index finger she drew lazy circles around his pecs. ‘Why do you blow so hot and cold? One minute you want me, the next you’re pushing me away, only to chase me down when I do walk. I don’t get it.’

His hand clasped hers, stilling her movement over his chest. A sigh lifted his chest up and down. He then bought her fingers to his lips where he pressed a kiss on each finger. If he was hoping to use it as a distraction and make her forget her question, she wasn’t going to let him this time.

‘Don’t go trying to distract me, Nick Rhodes. I think the time has come for us to really talk. Don’t you realise you don’t really know anything about me? Doesn’t that bother you?’

Nick sat up and moved towards her, until his body was almost flush with hers. He kissed her below her earlobe before taking the soft flesh into his mouth and sucking it gently. She couldn’t hold back the shiver or moan that swelled through her.

‘I know you like this.’ He then pulled the sheet down and kissed the top of her left breast. ‘And this.’ She grabbed his hand when he went to trail it under the sheet.

‘That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it. You’re doing it now. Why? Don’t you even care?’

‘Fine,’ he said, as he went back over to his side of the bed, plumped the pillows behind him and folded his arms across his impressive chest. ‘Tell me all about what a wonderful childhood you had. How your mum was always there for you when you got home from school with a smile and happy to help you with your homework.’ He shoved the sheets aside and got out of the bed. ‘Guess what? Not everyone had a perfect childhood. I’d much rather forget mine. How’s that for an answer?’ He bent down and scooped up his trousers and stalked out of her room, slamming the door as he went.

Pam couldn’t move. Never had she seen Nick so angry, not even when Ethan was being a jerk over the deal. Talking about his past was clearly a topic he shied away from. What happened to him? She didn’t have a perfect childhood, far from it.

She got up and grabbed her robe and decided she was going to have this out with Nick, once and for all. She didn’t care if it brought up bad memories for him. He needed to talk about it, because if there was any chance of a future together they had to be honest with each other.

She stopped in the middle of the hallway. What was she doing dreaming of a future with him?

You’re dreaming about a future because you love him and can’t imagine what life will be like without him now that you’ve had him.

The voice was true. She did love Nick. She’d tried so hard not let it happen. Tried so hard not to fall for Nick because she knew her life would become complicated. But he made her feel so alive. She may have known him only a little while, but he had given her so much.

She continued walking down the hallway towards his room. She knocked quietly on the door, and waited. When she didn’t hear anything, she turned the handle and opened the door.

The room was lit by the ambient glow from the city lights. It didn’t take long for her eyes to adjust the light. She glanced around the room, stillness permeating the air. She almost thought he wasn’t in his room, but then she spied him in the far corner. It appeared he was gazing out at the view. His arm rested against the window, his head lying against the glass. Even from her vantage point at the door, she could tell he had closed himself off. His body so rigid, as if made of the hardest granite on the planet.

Her anger subsided a little. For the first time since she’d locked gazes with him at Jasmine’s wedding, Nick had the air of defeat around him. The man who always confidently strode into boardrooms, like he knew everyone was going to say yes to his ideas the moment he uttered them, wasn’t standing at the window. An angry, hurt boy stood there and her heart bled for him. Pam wanted to take the defeat away. Would he let her?

She took a couple of tentative steps into the room.

‘What do you want?’

Not exactly the warmest greeting in the world, however she wasn’t surprised by it. From his outburst in her room, she knew he never relied on anyone. Apart from Luciano; the two men were the best of friends. She wasn’t going to let his cloak of back-off-you’re-not-welcome-here deter her.

Straightening her shoulders, she walked over to where he was standing, the smooth lines of his back glowing in the dim lighting. Tentatively she laid her hand on his back. The flesh jumped underneath her touch. He didn’t shake her off, though, so she used that as a positive sign he was willing to listen to her.

‘My father walked out on us when I was eight. My mother turned into a bitter woman who scorned every man’s very presence on the face of the planet. When I was ten, my father got remarried. That was the last time I saw him, and that added salt into my mum’s already very open wound. I couldn’t even mention a boy’s name without my mum flying off the handle, warning me that I was going to be used. Men were unreliable and only wanted one thing from you — the use of your body. She would forbid me to go to any school dances. She used to give me a lecture every time I went to work functions. Men were the enemy and my father was enemy number one.’ Pam paused to catch her breath. She hadn’t meant to blurt it all out like that. With each word she spoke, the tension seemed to seep, little by little, out of him. ‘My father didn’t even bother to come and help me when I told him my mum had a terminal disease. I was his first child and he couldn’t even be bothered to help me bury her when she died. I stood by myself at the graveside as they lowered her coffin into the ground. The only important person in my life was my mother. Even though she was a bitch, I loved her. I was all she had. And I had to bury her alone.’

She finished on a whisper, not knowing if her words had helped or had only made things worse between them. The tension, which had seeped out only seconds ago, inched its way back into his flesh. The muscles under her hand firmed up until they were harder than when she’d first touched him.

Pam had no idea what drove her. Instinctively she knew something was about to happen. Something that couldn’t be good. She took a couple of steps back.

‘Is that supposed to make me feel better? Am I supposed to feel sorry for you because you grew up without a father?’

She pulled her robe tighter around herself, trying to shield herself from what was about to come at her. The Nick standing in front of her wasn’t the Nick she knew. This Nick appeared out of control. Something deep and dark was driving him. It was up to her to decide if she would let what he was about to say kill any of the love she had for him. Or if she could absorb what he said, and help him through the darkness that had taken up residence in his soul.

‘What happened, Nick? What happened that hurt you so badly?’

‘Oh, no you don’t,’ he flung at her. ‘Don’t you start with the
share your feelings
bullshit you girls are always on about. Talking won’t make it better.’

She could walk away. She could turn around and walk back to her room and leave him to wallow in his self-pity. But she cared too much to walk away.

‘Is not talking about it making it any better for you, Nick? Because from where I’m standing it looks like it’s eating you up from the inside. The man standing in front of me is not the cool businessman I know.’

He slapped his hand against the window and turned to stalk towards her. He stopped, placed a finger under her chin and lifted it so their eyes met. In the dimly lit room his eyes glowed. She never thought brown eyes could look as bright as they did. If desire darkened their depths, anger made them light up with fire. ‘You think you know me? Trust me, honey, you don’t.’

‘Then tell me who you are. Tell me who the real Nick is. Tell me about the boy who doesn’t want to remember what happened to him, even though those memories are eating away at his soul.’

A harsh laugh erupted from him. ‘Such pretty words. You really don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.’

‘You don’t have to sugar-coat anything you say to me, Nick. I’ve been sworn at, hit, spat at by my mother during the darkest days of her illness. I took it all because I knew it was frustration that was eating at her. Frustration that her limbs were so useless I had to feed her. Frustration that I had to clean her up when she lost the ability to control her bodily functions.’ She jabbed a finger in his chest. ‘So nothing you say will shock me.’

‘My mother killed my father and then shot herself and I found them. I found them lying in a pool of blood,’ he started in a voice with no emotion; so monotone, so dead, she wondered if perhaps she’d never be able to bring him back to the land of the living.

‘Nick.’ His name whispered out of her but he didn’t hear it. For all intents and purposes, she may as well not have been in the room.

He continued on without acknowledging her. ‘My mother’s face was half shot off. I didn’t even recognise her, and my father was gazing up at me with dead eyes and a look of shock and despair on his face. You try calling the cops and explaining the scene you walked in on. The mass of red on the ground, the liquid inching its way towards you. Answering questions when you didn’t understand what the hell had just happened.’

‘I’m sor — ’

‘Don’t tell me you’re
sorry
. Every Goddamn policeman, welfare officer, nosy neighbour told me they were
sorry
a boy my age had to come upon the tragic scene of a love so deep that one couldn’t live without the other.’ Sarcasm dripped from every word. ‘What a load of shit. They had no idea what went on behind closed doors. Love is not beautiful. Love is destructive. Love kills. Love strangulates the life out of you until you can’t see or think clearly. Love can drive you to the arms of another person because you can’t take the endless questions you have to come home to each night. The demands of wanting to know who you spoke to or who you saw that day. Love is evil and I’m not looking for it.’ He looked her dead in the eye. ‘And neither should you.’

He brushed past her and out the bedroom door. Pam knew there would be no point following him. What could she say?

Nothing. She could say nothing. She couldn’t convince him love could be beautiful or everlasting when she understood exactly where he was coming from. When things had become difficult for her father, he went and found solace in the arms of another woman, eventually creating a new family she wasn’t allowed to be a part of. Her mother had never looked for love again. Like Nick, she believed love was a stupid emotion.

How did Pam even know what love was? How could she be sure what she was feeling for Nick was love? She’d never been in love before. She’d never even had sex until a few nights ago. What great example could she hold up to compare to what she was feeling for Nick and know if it truly was love?

Maybe Nick was right. Maybe both of them should steer clear of love. She made her way over to the bed and sat on the edge. But she didn’t want to give up on love. She wanted to have what Jasmine and Luciano had. Couldn’t Nick see the love the two of them shared? Tragedy and circumstance had kept them apart, but they’d found their way back to each other. Their love was a lot stronger because of the adversity they’d gone through to find each other again.

She may have nothing in her past to go on. No shining example of everlasting love between two people. But she had people around her she could look to. People who had found love with each other.

Love did exist. She knew it and she would find it.

You’ve already found it.

The voice in her head was right. She had found love and she’d found it in Nick. It was now up to her to show him.

Nick downed his second glass of whisky, enjoying the burn of the liquid down his throat. Hurt was a constant companion. Usually he kept it buried. Tonight it had reared its ugly head. By the time he got to the bottom of the scotch bottle, it would be buried again and he could go on as before. Be numb to everything but the next deal and the next deal after that.