Come Alive (17 page)

His eyes dropped to my lap, and he gripped my
thighs. “You taste so good,” he uttered, licking his lips. My face burned in
response. He pulled me in for a hug, and his finger trailed goose bumps down my
spine. “Did you eat tonight?”

“Hmm?”

“Did you eat? Aren’t you hungry?”

“I’m fine,” I sighed into his neck. “And I
should go. It’s late.”

He stepped away, and I shivered instantly. My face
distorted as I looked at him. “I’m so cold without you.”

“I’m sorry, baby,” he said softly. “It is cold
tonight.”

I shook my head. “All the time. I’ve been cold
since that night. I can’t get warm.”

“It’s probably all the goddamn weight you lost,”
he scolded. “This is unhealthy. What happened to the girl I took for burgers a
few months ago?”

“She was lost,” I said, my voice hitching as I
looked at him.

He embraced me again. “If it were up to me,
you’d never be cold.”

“I know,” I said, because I thought I did. I
thought I believed that he really did want more from me, but it terrified me
when he said it.

“I’ll take you home,” he said, pulling back.
“But for the love of God, Olivia, please let me make you something to eat.”

“How?”

“We had an event up here last night. There are
some leftovers.”

“Will you be shirtless?” I asked, knocking my
heels against the cupboard underneath me. My mouth formed into a circle.
“You’re blushing.”

“No, I’m not. If those are your conditions, then
fine, I accept.”

I blinked at him and hopped off the counter.
“All right,” I said, shrugging my robe back on.

“Can I put underwear on?”

“Hmm . . .” I closed one eye as I thought, and
he laughed.

I went to leave, but he pulled me backward and
into his arms. With my back to his front, he leaned into my hair and murmured,
“How’s that for a reflection?”

I looked up at the mirror. He made me beautiful.
Together, we were beautiful
;
a puzzle with only two
pieces. I shifted my eyes to his and nodded. He held my stare a moment and let
me go with a kiss on the cheek.

I snuggled into the warmth of my robe as I
wandered to the kitchen while he changed. “Are there plates?” I called.

 
 
He appeared,
tutting
at me. “I’ll prepare it.”

“I don’t mind.”

“Go on, and let me make you something to eat.”
He furrowed his brow at the contents of the refrigerator. “There isn’t much,
but I’ll come up with something.”

I propped my chin in my hand and watched him
navigate the kitchen. “Do you like to cook?”

“No. I usually eat out or my housekeeper makes
something a couple times a week.”

It was my turn to tsk. “You do need a woman in
your life.”

He answered with a grunt, but I was comforted
that there was at least one thing he wasn’t proficient in. I smiled like a
schoolgirl as I watched, enjoying the view of his spectacular, ridged torso and
taut ass. His muscles were hard but not bulky, and they became more defined as
he moved. I was tempted to run my tongue over them appreciatively. Once, after he
stuck something in the microwave, he stole away for a chaste kiss on the lips.

He set down two plates of day-old
hors d'oeuvres
and pulled his chair to the corner of the table so we
were close. “Next time
you’ll
be topless,
right?” he teased.

I forced a laugh, but I had caught his slip.
Next time
. “However you’ll have me,” I responded,
deliberately gulping down the nagging guilt.

His eyes darkened with the dilation of his
pupils. He reached out and slipped his hand in my robe, tugging it open
slightly to reveal my breast. “I’ll have you any way I can, until you beg me to
stop.”

At his touch, I sighed and wilted against my
chair. If he were mine, I would have told him that I’d never ask him to stop.
That he could take me any way he needed me. His fingers grazed over my nipple
and under the curve of my breast. I arched toward him as his hand dropped
behind me, caressing my lower back and sliding over my ribs. He pressed my
waist and his thumb ran over my scar. His eyes burned when he said, “Tell me.”

Chapter 16

HE
WANTED ME TO OPEN for him again, and he had a way of making me. But didn’t he
understand that it made everything harder? I sighed heavily. “The best way I
know how to deal with it is to forget, David.”

“The best way or the only way?”

I smirked at him. He grabbed the seat of my
chair and pulled me to him in one quick jerk. With a firm hand under my jaw, he
thumbed my cheek and then kissed the corner of my lips.

“Even when you smirk, you have the prettiest
mouth I’ve ever seen.” His breath was hot on my skin as he said, “I think about
it all the time.”

My heart stopped, and I was sure I’d blown a
circuit. “All the time?” I exhaled.

“All the time. To see your mouth wrapped around
my cock earlier is something I will never forget.”

My nipples tingled and tightened. I swallowed.
His mouth brushed over my skin, and he pressed a lingering kiss on my temple.
When he drew back, he maintained contact with a hand over my hair.

“You’re safe with me,” he said quietly, and I scrambled
after his mood shift. After a beat, and without removing his hand, he said,
“Forget about the scar. Tell me about growing up in Dallas.”

“What?” I breathed.

“I don’t get much time with you, indulge me.”

I waited for my heart to calm while he stroked
my hair. “I was a happy kid,” I said. He nodded encouragingly, so after I
dipped a buffalo wing in blue cheese dressing and took a bite, I continued. “That’s
how I remember it anyway. We lived in a nice home, which actually had a white
fence.” I smiled. “Gretchen and her brother John were my best friends. They
lived around the corner.”

“What were you like as a little girl?”

I dropped my eyes. Why was I telling him this? What
was the point in learning about each other? It could only lead to more pain.

“Hey,” he whispered, and I looked up again.
“What were you like?”

I closed my eyes and the memory began to seep in
– the memory of the girl I was before the divorce. It was a place I
rarely let myself go. “I was
alive
.”

There was a hint of concern on his face when I
opened my eyes again. “Alive?” he asked.

“I was always doing something. John would tease me
about being a chatterbox, and when I wasn’t talking, I was making up stories or
games. I wrote everything in journals. I always had a pad of paper with me.”

David’s forehead creased with a deep ‘V’. “I
thought you didn’t like writing.”

I searched my brain, trying to remember when I
had said that. “I used to. A lot. A teacher told my parents that I had a knack
for creative writing and grammar skills above average for my age. My mom wrote
for our local paper and had published a few books before I was born. Sometimes
she had two or three novels in the works, and as soon as I was old enough, she
would have me sit and edit them. When I told her I liked writing and not
editing, she would make this face and tell me that I didn’t have what it took
to be an author. Editing was what I should focus on.

“Anyway, regardless, Gretchen and I started an
unofficial school newspaper. I would write short little articles, sometimes about
our classmates, sometimes fiction, and she would illustrate it.” I blinked a
few times and took a sip of water. “My dad would photocopy it, and we’d pass it
out every couple weeks or so. John called us nerds, but he always stole a
copy.”

“Did you ever think, as you got older, about writing
your own book?”

“Only when I was a kid. That’s my mom’s thing.”

He dropped his hand and sat back in his chair.
“And you don’t want to be like her.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“My mom was, and continues to be, difficult. She
. . .” I studied the table as I thought. “She could be distant. And mean. She
was very jealous and sometimes, when my dad went on business trips or stayed
out late, she would drink. It made things worse. My dad stopped allowing
alcohol in the house, but when she got in a mood, it didn’t stop her.”

I paused, and he placed his large hand over my
lower ribs, consuming the small scar. “Is that how this happened?”

His hand was incredibly warm and comforting, and
I covered it with one of mine. “That night . . .” I paused and closed my eyes.
I inhaled deeply and deflated against the chair with a long exhale. The last
fifteen years passed behind my lids. “That night was hard, but everything that
came after was worse.”

“Why?”

“Thirteen isn’t the best time to have your life
flipped upside down. I was still figuring out who I was, and it was easy to
shut down. I stopped playing, stopped writing, and I just . . . was different
afterward. I had to grow up fast. Suddenly everyone expected me to be an adult
about the whole situation, but I was just a kid. And after, I wanted to take
care of my dad the way my mom had. Better, actually. So I had to grow up. I had
to take control.”

“You like to be in control.”

“If I’m not, I feel . . . helpless.” I picked at
something on the table with my free hand, while the other one still sat atop
his.

“Is that why you don’t like people touching
you?”

My eyes darted up to his. “What do you mean?”

“Sometimes you flinch. Not with me, I mean. But
for instance, that jerk-off earlier.”

“Steve?”

“Don’t say that name to me again, all right?
Yes, him, or the bartender from Lucy’s engagement party.”

This way he had of figuring me out, I didn’t
know if it bothered me. It was as if I had no secrets from him, and there was
nobody in my life that I let
get
away with that. “I
just don’t like when strangers touch me. That’s not unusual.”

“Well, might it have something to do with wanting
to be in control all the time? Or even what happened that night?”

“I don’t think I want to talk about this,” I
said, trying my best to sound indignant.

He looked disappointed but nodded. “Do you ever read
what you wrote as a kid?”

“She destroyed everything.”

“Your mom?” His expression was horrified.

I shrugged. “After we left. It was childish stuff
anyway.”

“I refuse to believe that.”

“But it’s true.” I smiled warmly. “I bet you
were a perfect kid.”

He took a moment to respond. “I was.”

I laughed, and he shook his head. “I was pretty
good, but I had my moments.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that I would sometimes get overly
excited about the things or the people I loved.”

“You’re being vague.”

He narrowed his eyes at me playfully. “I was
good. I got straight A’s, and I didn’t party too much because I played sports.
But I can be a little hotheaded, and it was harder for me to control as a kid.”

“You don’t say,” I responded without thinking.

He looked at me a second and then raised his
brows. “You might not believe me, but I’m usually pretty level-headed. I hate
bullshit, and I don’t let it get to me. Certain things just set me off,
especially when I feel . . . protective or possessive of something.”

“Something?”

“Or someone.”

“Did it ever get you into trouble?”

“I got into a couple fights, yeah. One almost
landed me in
juvie
.”

“Over what?”

“That particular one happened at school when
this guy called
Jessa
a bitch. I got lucky though;
his parents were pretty fair and dropped the charges. I think they were secretly
happy that I laid him out, because he was an asshole.”

I giggled softly.

“I almost killed Alvarez that night,” he said seriously.
“If I’d known what he said to you,” he swallowed, “I would have.”

I believed him. Mark had pinned me against a
wall, hissing in my ear how he would show me a good time when David found us. I
remembered the anger that had radiated from his body that night as he pushed a
gun into Mark’s neck.

“Does that scare you?” he asked.

We searched each other’s faces in the late hour,
as the city slept around us. “I don’t know. No. You don’t scare me.”

“Even though I can be a little . . . intense?”

I twisted my lips and considered this. Nothing
about him frightened me, so I shook my head.

“Good.” He exhaled, looked down at my plate and
grinned. “You ate.”

My answering smile turned into a yawn.

“I guess I should get you home.”

I nodded. “It’s been a while since I stayed up
all night.”

He leaned in and kissed me. With his face an
inch from mine, he said, “Know that you would be spending the night in my arms
if things were different. I would not let you leave.” He delivered the last
line in a firm, almost angry manner. Before I could respond, he said, “I’m
parked in the garage. We can take the elevator straight down so there’s no
chance of running into anyone.”

“Thanks for taking care of me.”

His lips pursed, and he turned away. I followed
him from the kitchen to reluctantly change back into my jumpsuit. While I
waited for him, I checked my phone, bracing myself for Gretchen’s reaction, but
there was only one text from Greg.

Sep
5, 2012 11:17 PM

Heard
from
Gretch
?

I shrugged it off and when I looked up, David was
watching me. He walked over slowly and cupped the side of my hair. “Ready?” he
asked. I nodded into his palm.

“Why’s it so cold?” I grumbled on the way to the
car.

“Didn’t you bring a jacket or anything?”

“Did you see me in a jacket?”

“I think I might have something.” He stopped at the
Mercedes, popped the trunk and rifled around until he produced a pink hoodie. “
Here.
”

“What is this?”

“A sweater.”

“Whose is it?”

“Who cares? You’re cold, I have a sweater, put
it on.”

“No.” I handed it back to him.

“Olivia, put it on,” he ordered with finality
and closed the trunk. He opened the passenger door and raised his eyebrows at
me. I shrugged into it before climbing in sulkily. Flowery perfume assaulted my
nostrils, and I sneezed. I hated the pink sweater.

“Whose is it?” I asked again once we were
driving.

“It’s
Dani’s
.” He glanced
over at me. “Isn’t she a friend of yours?”

“Yes.”

“So why are you making that face?”

I sighed. “Because she’s a friend. I’ve known
her for a long time. And it’s weird . .
. .”

“Maybe you could return it to her for me.”

I glared across the car at him and then narrowed
my eyes when his shoulders pulsed with a suppressed laugh. “It’s not funny,” I
said. “The idea of you two together makes me sick.” I dropped my head between
my knees, and he was silent. I knew I was being unfair, but I didn’t care; when
it came to David, none of my reactions seemed to be in my control.

“I’m sorry,” he said graciously, grasping the
back of my neck. “Nothing’s happened though.”

“Have you broken things off?”

“No, but – ”

“Then it still I could,” I cut him off.

He sighed heavily.
Why isn’t he reassuring me that it won’t?
I ran my hands over my
face and decided not to let it ruin one of the best nights of my life. I took a
soothing breath and looked over at him. “I’m sorry. It’s not my place.”

His gaze remained fixed out the windshield when
he said, “It could be.”

I reached out and put my hand on his thigh, and
he rubbed my forearm.

“So what now?” I asked. Outside, the sky was
gradually lightening to pink with the rising sun.

“I don’t know. I’m going back to New York
though, I need to spend some time on that project.”

“For how long?”

“A week or so.”

“Oh.” A week suddenly felt like a lifetime.

“I’ll e-mail you when I return. At work?”

I sighed and looked out the window. Even without
my veil of lust, why couldn’t I just say
no?
And why
did it feel like not saying no was almost worse than anything I’d done up that
point?

Even when he sat across from me, I yearned for
him. I felt myself being pulled in opposing directions, crumbling under the
pressure of two men.
Bill, who I loved and who had been there
for me whenever I needed him.
And David, who drew me in so completely
that I didn’t see anything but him. But it wasn’t just the way he physically
consumed me, it was an emotional, intense, overwhelming consumption of my body,
mind and heart.