Otherworldly Bad Boys: Three Complete Novels (94 page)

God damn it. He was impossible to resist.

I was naked on the padded black bench in Vigil’s underground lair off the subway tunnels. He was beneath me. I was straddling him, and he had just given me my third orgasm of the night. Sweating and breathless, I sagged against him. He’d come too, and he let out a satisfied sigh.

I lay down on his chest, feeling his penis slip out of me.

He casually ran his hands over my bare back. “Fucking you has got to be the sweetest thing in the history of the universe.”

I smiled, my cheek flat against the heat of his body. “Yeah, I like it too.”

He poked me. “Like it? The noises you were making? I think you more than liked it.”

“You’re right,” I said softly. “I loved it.”

“I loved it too.” His voice rumbled in his chest. “I love you.”

I didn’t move. I couldn’t. I was too stunned.

He didn’t mean it,
I told myself.
He only said it because he just got off, and we’re in the afterglow. I’m sure he didn’t mean to say it.

“Did I freak you out?” he said.

I lifted my head. “N-no. But I thought you might want an out. An excuse. Sometimes, it’s easy for those words to slip out before you mean them.”

He tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear. “I meant it, Cecily. But if you’re freaked—”

“I’m fine,” I said.
Say it back
, I told myself. But I didn’t. My throat closed up, my mouth felt dry. I lay my head back down, my heart pounding.

“You’re freaked,” he said.

“I’m not.” I took a deep breath. “I—”

He gathered me into his arms, pulling me up higher on his chest. “Cecily, you don’t have to say anything.”

“Maybe I want to,” I said.

“If you wanted to, you would have said it,” he said. “Look, I know that things between us are less than normal. I know this isn’t anything like a typical relationship—”

“Fuck typical,” I said. “I don’t care about that.”

“So, then what’s the problem?”

“There isn’t one,” I said.

He chuckled. “Sure, there’s not.”

“There isn’t.”

“It’s going to make it weird between us because I said it, isn’t it?”

I looked up at him, deep into his eyes. “No, I swear. I feel it too.”

“But you’re not saying it.”

I took a shaky breath. “There are… things we don’t know about each other.”

He turned away from me.

“You don’t know things about me,” I said. “I just think that maybe you shouldn’t overly commit yourself to feeling a certain way until you, you know, know them.”

He was quiet for a minute. Then, “I get it.”

“You do?” Great. Any second he was going to ask me what these things about me that he didn’t know were. And I wasn’t going to be able to tell him.

“Yeah. I’m keeping things from you. You want to know why I’m connected to The Phantom. You want to know why you can’t see my face when we’re intimate.”

I’d kind of forgotten about that Phantom thing. “Yeah, actually.”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”

“Ever?”

“Well, not yet. Maybe if we… I’ve already been more open with you than I ever have been with any other woman, and I feel… safe with you. Maybe someday…”

“When?”

“I don’t know.”

I nodded slowly.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. He kissed me.

I kissed him back. “It’s okay.” Maybe I’d dodged a bullet. Maybe he’d forgotten about what I’d said.

He pulled away. “You know, Cecily, you haven’t exactly told me everything about yourself either.”

Shit. I hadn’t been so lucky after all. “Well, that’s what I said. There are things we don’t know about each other.”

“What don’t I know about you?”

I wriggled out of his grasp, looking on the floor for my clothing. “Oh, all kinds of things, I guess. You don’t know about my favorite childhood toys or when I learned to drive or what soap opera I used to watch my freshman year of college.”

“No, I guess I don’t,” he said. “But I wasn’t really talking about those kinds of things.”

I found my shirt. I picked it up. A bra would be nice.

“When we met, you told me that the reason you wanted to take down Barclay was personal.”

Screw it. I yanked the shirt over my head. I’d have to do without a bra. “So did you. And you haven’t told me why that is. Or why you won’t kill him.”

“You’re getting dressed.”

“Yes, Captain Obvious. You’re very observant.”

He dragged a hand over his chin. “You are freaking out. You’re freaking out because I said I love you.”

“I’m
not
.” Where the hell were my pants? “But it’s a big deal, you know. You don’t go around saying it to anyone.”

“You’re not just anyone. You’re the most amazing woman I’ve ever met. I’ve said it when I shouldn’t have before. But you’re the one person I’m completely convinced that I
should
say it to.”

Oh. Really? My heart swelled. I sat back down with him. “Callum—”

He winced. “I wish you wouldn’t call me—”

“Are you serious?” I jumped to my feet. There were my pants, over there. How the hell had they got over there? Well, it didn’t matter now. I hurried over to them.

“I know it’s my name, but I don’t associate a lot of good things with that name. And when I’m wearing the mask—”

“You know, that mask thing is kind of fucked up,” I said, yanking my pants on.

“I know that.” His voice was flat.

Damn it. I’d hurt him. I rubbed my face. I looked down at the floor. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…”

He sat up. “No, you’re right.”

I heaved a sigh. “I’m not ready to tell you things yet either.”

“Okay.” He was quiet.

“Okay?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Bu it’s not exactly fair, considering I’ve opened up to you quite a bit.”

“It’s not the same,” I said. “The things that I…” My chest felt tight. “I need to go.”

He was on his feet. “I’ll take you.”

“No,” I said. “I’ll take a cab.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I gaped at Blake Monroe, who was standing in the office of
The Sun-Times
wearing cuffed capri pants and a tiny jacket. Her peep toe heels were at least three inches high.

“What are you doing here?” I asked her.

She smiled. “I thought I might fight fire with fire.”

“What?” I crossed my arms over my chest.

“Well, you’re a journalist, right?” she said.

“Right,” I said, feeling impatient.

“So, I thought I’d have a journalist take you down.”

“Take me what?” I sighed, exasperated. “Look, Blake, I don’t have time to play your little games here. Either you tell me what you want, or you leave. Got it?”

“I just wanted to give you this,” she said, handing me a newspaper article. “You know, it’s funny. After Callum left the ball last night, I went to see some of the girls that he used to employ in your current position.”

I wasn’t even looking at the paper. I wanted to rip it into a million pieces. “Callum does not employ me.”

“But he could have,” she said. “Couldn’t he? A few years ago, you and Jewel had the same job.” She tapped the paper she’d handed me.

I looked down at it.

“Callum’s Gal Pal’s Sordid Stripper Past,” it read.

Every part of my body felt as if it turned sticky. I couldn’t move. My feet stuck to the floor. My fingers stuck to the newspaper. My tongue stuck to the roof my mouth.

Blake was smiling. A big, wide smile. So gaping it seemed to swallow her face. She looked pleased as punch. Proud of herself. “I talked to Jewel. She wasn’t happy after Callum basically kicked her to the curb. She liked that gig. It wasn’t hard to convince her to tell me everything. And it was even easier after that to get her to talk to a reporter.”

I made a funny noise in the back of my throat. Something strangled and shocked.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to tear at her face. She couldn’t have done this. She couldn’t have. Not a
newspaper
article. Not everything about what I’d had to do, about my secret shame, splashed in front of the entire world.

I loved newspapers. And Blake had used them against me.

But I couldn’t move. So I didn’t touch Blake. I only stared at her, struggling to process it all.

“Listen to me very closely, Cecily,” she said. “I’m sorry that it came to this. I really am. If Callum hadn’t seemed so serious about you, I wouldn’t have bothered. After all, I’ve let him dally around however he pleases for years.”

What the fuck was she talking about?

“But you should understand one thing,” Blake continued. “No matter what he says. No matter how many times he claims we’ve broken up. No matter how much he says he hates me. Callum is mine.”

I managed to shake my head. I still couldn’t say anything.

She laughed. “You shaking your head? You don’t agree with that?”

I made another noise. Something in a croak.

“Oh, he’s got his issues,” she said. “I know that. I know that he’s not exactly the most skilled lover. But I’m willing to overlook that. Because Callum and I are meant to be together. We complete a dynasty. The Monroes and the Rutherfords were meant to be joined in us. It was our parents’ deepest wish. And it
will
happen. I’m going to marry him. Nod if you understand.”

I clenched my teeth together. I didn’t nod.

“I’m willing to do whatever I have to do to preserve my dynasty,” she said.

And then she swept out of the office, leaving me stuck to the floor, clutching the newspaper.

I peered down at the article.

Was it all there? Could Jewel have explained to them why I had to do it? Could she have given words to my desperation, to my loneliness?

I shut my eyes.

My throat tightened.

Fuck.

I was crying.

As soon as I could make my limbs function again, I went to Lauren’s office. I felt like a wooden marionette, like all of my movements were stiff and forced.

“Cecily?” she said. “Is something wrong?”

She obviously hadn’t seen the article yet. Good.

“I, um, am not feeling too well. I’m going to need to go home. I’m sorry,” I said.

She made a concerned face. “Yeah, you don’t look good. Knowing you, if you’re claiming you need to go home, you’re practically on death’s door. I swear, Cecily, if we cut you, you’d bleed newsprint. Get out of here.”

“Thanks,” I said. I turned like a robot and went back to my desk.

I gathered my things.

I walked out of the building.

I took the train home.

While I was on it, I stared blankly at the faces of the other people in Aurora, all of them going about their business, ignoring me. I wondered how their days were going. How would they react if their deepest, darkest secrets had been revealed to the world?

Then I saw a look in some of their eyes. And I realized they recognized me. They
knew
.

When I got home, I threw myself on my bed, and I cried wildly, with abandon. I sobbed and sobbed, pounding the pillow in my rage and frustration.

Then I stopped.

I read the article.

Because I realized I hadn’t even read it yet. I’d only read the headline. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as I was imagining.

But the article was bad. It made me look like some kind of heartless opportunist, someone who’d only become a stripper for the money, and who’d never been kind to anyone else along the way.

It wasn’t true.

It was only that Jewel didn’t like me because I hadn’t partied with the other girls. I hadn’t spent my time getting wasted with them. I hadn’t snorted up all the dollar bills they shoved in my g-string.

Jewel had always thought I was a snob.

But Darlene had known the real me. She’d known who I really was. She’d understood.

Of course, I’d kicked Darlene out of my apartment last spring. She’d come to me, begging for a place to stay. And I’d let her stay. Until she started throwing parties and having guys over and drawing attention to me. Until people started making comments about my trashy friend.

Then I told to her to get lost.

And she went back to Hayden Barclay and back to stripping. And then she died. And it was all my fault.

I cried again.

This time, I didn’t throw so much energy into it. This time, instead, they were deep, wrenching sobs that seemed to tear me apart inside, even though my body barely moved. I felt like the tears were going to swallow me whole.