Sparrow (27 page)

I was his rag doll, for him to flip, spin, toss, finger, use, repeat. And that’s exactly what I craved.
In bed, anyway.

“I wanted you since that night at Rouge Bis, you know.” His lips dove to my neck and he bit me hard, making my back arch with desire. He licked the spot, moving his finger down my spine and grinding against me. “Such a breath of fresh air. Messing around with me like I can’t break you in two.”

I moaned, returning a favor by pushing my hips in his direction.

He unbuckled his belt, unzipping his dress pants as he spread kisses all over my face and chest. God, I wanted more of him. Not just his body, just more. More feelings. More sex. More everything. I wanted him to be my real husband, and I was lying to him, myself and the world when I said that all I wanted was sex. This was just the tip of the iceberg. I was addicted.

“It’s going to hurt like a motherfucker,” he warned.

“Of course it will.” I smiled into our kiss, my lips still glued to his. “Everything with you does.”

He yanked my underwear down and guided his cock to my entrance. We both watched through hooded eyes as he moved it up and down my slit. I was so ready for him after falling apart between his strong arms, coming so hard, so wet and in need, I barely had any second thoughts about it.

“I love this,” he whispered wildly, his mouth traveling down my body, his tongue swirling around my nipple. Everything about him was scorching hot, and I threw my head back, my eyes closed. “Love that I’m going to rock your world and ruin you for every other man in the world.”

When he entered me, I held my breath. It wasn’t just painful—it was torture. So bad, in fact, that tears stung my eyes. Troy was equipped with something resembling a semi-automatic weapon, and even though his cock was the first I had ever seen, I had a feeling it wasn’t a modest, fun-sized one. He moved inside me slowly, his eyes holding mine. Interest flickered in his gaze, and I tucked my head into his chest.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” I felt my face heating. He didn’t look turned on anymore. Just…alert. He was searching me, looking for something, making me feel even more naked than I already was.

“Breathe, baby,” he said seriously. “The pain will go away, but the pleasure will stay. I got you, Red.”

He thrust in and out, and I winced every time he did, digging my nails deeper into his back, knowing I’d leave marks. Because I wanted him to stop. Because I wanted him to continue. Because I never wanted to leave.

He kissed away a tear that slid down my cheek, and I wish he hadn’t, because my heart broke a little more when he showed me tenderness. I wanted the ruthless version of him, the one that didn’t offer me hope, that didn’t promise a happily-ever-after ending. Troy was the guy who not only broke your headboard, but also broke your heart. And I didn’t want false hope to occupy any more space in my mind than it already did.

He was pumping in and out of me, faster, stronger, deeper. Soon, I learned his rhythm, and our hips moved together like a sensual dance.

The pain will go away.

No, it wouldn’t.

The pleasure will stay.

“I want you to come in my arms again,” he said, but I knew it wouldn’t happen. Not when all I could feel was him ripping through me. He snaked one of his hands down between us and started rubbing my clit, applying pressure. I gasped a little when he flicked it up and down with his thumb.

“Oh, God,” I panted. “That hurts in the best possible way.”

He kissed me, darting his tongue between my lips. Even his tongue fucked my mouth. The massive bed creaked a little with every push, the headboard banging against the wall with every thrust.

Wild. Possessed. Abandoned.

And it turned out that was all I needed, to twist and writhe again under him. I felt the familiar sensation of losing control over my muscles and tried pushing him away, because this time, the orgasm threatened to tear through me.

He held me in place, nailing me to the bed with the firm hand that played with me. “Fuck, you’re beautiful when you come.”

And I came again, this time harder, screaming his name to the sky and back. I don’t think anyone ever felt more intoxicated from another person as I was intoxicated from Troy Brennan. The scary stranger turned cruel husband.

It was only after my second orgasm that my husband started pumping harder into me, losing control himself. It was wild to see him letting go for once as he thrust deeper and deeper. He swelled inside me, filling me completely, and strangely, not only physically.

He was coming. His forehead rested on mine, his black strands of hair sticking to his temple. Our sweat mixed together.

Damn, it was sexy.

Hell, I was done for.

It wasn’t him taking my virginity that made me feel vulnerable. Not the fact that I was lying in a pool of our lust and my own blood. It was what I felt for him that horrified me. I wanted to step away from whatever I was feeling, put some space between me and Troy, gain some control over my heart. I was spiraling down, fast. Drowning, sinking, free-falling. I was defenseless, helpless, completely exposed. A sitting duck waiting for him to fill me with a buckshot and strip my feathers clean.

He flopped down next to me, pulling me into his arms, my ass against his body. The sheets beneath us were so wet, the thought of Maria finding them made my face heat with embarrassment. I would change those sheets tonight and do the laundry myself. Tomorrow, it’d look like nothing happened.

We lay there in silence while he drew letters and patterns on my skin with his finger. He wrote “God” and then “Troy” and then “Red.” Drew a house, raindrops and a pair of wings.

We weren’t kidding anyone.

This was not just sex. It was more and it was scary. A good thirty minutes passed before one of us spoke. Surprisingly, it wasn’t me.

“Tell me about your mom,” he asked out of nowhere, me still in his arms. His tone was lazy, like we were familiar with one another more than just physically. And that was a lie I was tempted to believe.

My body must’ve stiffened, because suddenly, his fingers stopped stroking my back and his lips no longer pressed against my hair.

“I don’t have a mom,” I clarified. “The woman who gave birth to me ran off long before I was able to remember anything about her.”

“Have you tried looking for her over the years?” The softness in his tone was rubbing me the wrong way. He was not supposed to care. He was a sorry douchebag who cheated on me, forced me into marrying him and broke the law for a living.

“Are you auditioning for
Dateline
? What the hell is your problem, Troy?” I wiggled out of his touch, pulling myself up from the bed and standing up in a hurry. I lifted items of clothes that weren’t even mine from the floor and dressed in his shirt and my underwear without making eye contact. Tonight was not supposed to end this way.

He was still lying on the bed, his head supported on one of his arms. Naked, he watched me. “Just trying to be a good husband,” he said.

“You’re good for only one thing, Brennan.” I pulled my panties up my legs in swift movements. “And that’s for what happened between your sheets not too long ago.”

“They’re your sheets, too, Red.”

“Thought I was supposed to be lovebird from now on?” I turned my back to him, already making my way out of the room.

I heard his laugh, and my heart twisted in anticipation and sadness.

“I changed my mind.” His voice had a hard edge. “I’m not letting you fly away. Ever.”

SPARROW

“CONSIDER THIS…”
Lucy’s hands were quick as she peeled potatoes at the speed of light at my kitchen sink. “You told him to fire Connor and he did. You told him to quit fucking around and it looks like he did that too. I think it might come as shocking news to you, but honey, your husband has feelings for you.”

Standing next to her, I stirred the Alfredo sauce for the rotini, dunking my finger and having a taste. I added a dash of salt, stalling. She was no longer concerned for my safety. Now, she was more interested in my love life.

“Mmm,” I said, not really eager to tell her about the part where the so-called loving husband dragged me on a plane with a fake passport against my will and screwed another girl in our bedroom.

On the same day.

Yeah, Disney wouldn’t be calling him for tips on how to play a credible Prince Charming.

“Yeah, well, we’ve been married for three months, and he’s still bottling up all these secrets, not letting me in on anything. Why did he marry me? Who did he refer to when he said ‘they’ that night before we went to Rouge Bis? He won’t even tell me what happened with Catalina.”

We were making tons of food for a charity event for the homeless shelter down the road. Over the past few months, I’d gone to the shelter often, bearing tasty donations. The volunteers who worked there were all too happy to ask me if I could help cooking for their little gathering.

Lucy was about to pour the drippings from the bacon for the Alfredo into an empty jar when I redirected her with a wooden spoon to the garbage disposal down our sink.

“Seriously? It’ll clog up your pipes.”

“Don’t run the water either,” I shot back.

She grinned, but did as I told her and poured the grease down the disposal.

I was still rebelling in small, mundane ways. Keeping him on his toes. Showing him that just because we shared a bed—and enough sex to make me walk all wobbly the day after—didn’t mean that I was an agreeable little wife. So far I have managed a few “accidents,” including breaking his iPad, staining his favorite suit with white sauce and keying his Maserati. The headboard we broke together, so that wasn’t exactly just on me.

“Look at you, all grown up and having detached sex.” Lucy gave voice to my thoughts, talking over the grinding of the disposal. “How can you hate him, doing everything you can to show him just how much, and still sleep with him at night?”

I didn’t hate my husband, but somehow, I was horrified by the concept of admitting it aloud.

I downplayed the whole situation by offering a half-assed shrug, wiping my oily hands on a paper towel. “It’s just sex. If I didn’t do it with him, I would have ended up having to stay a virgin until he dropped dead. Even I’m not stupid enough to cheat on a Brennan.”

Now that Connor was out of the picture, I spent more time in our neighborhood, cleaning and cooking for Pops, and also more time with Lucy and Daisy. Lucy was in the loop again. Knew that I was sleeping in the master bedroom. Knew that my nights were warm this stormy, cold Boston summer. A summer that somehow was bleeding into an even worse New England fall.

My best friend was also privy to the fact that we shared civil conversations when my husband came home from work. He got back at reasonable hours, sans lipstick stains and the cloying cloud of flowery perfume of a woman who desperately wanted to be acknowledged.

One time he even took a bite of my famous blueberry pancakes. Yup,
that sugary crap
.

“Humor me here, sister.” Lucy started wrapping up some of the dishes in foil. “If he
does
happen to have feelings for you, would that change anything? I mean, would you ever consider treating this like…I don’t know, a normal relationship?”

I snorted into my chest, eyes firmly on the dishes in front of us. “No. Not unless he came clean about everything.”

Deep down, I knew that we would never be equals until he’d let me in on why he’d married me in the first place. I also knew that no amount of sex and small talk was going to prod the truth out of him. If I was detached, his heart was practically on another planet, nowhere near my own.

“Do you think he’ll ever come clean?”

My gut twisted in pain. “Honestly? Fat chance. I think people like Troy spread so many lies to hide their secrets, they drown in them and forget their own truths.”

But that wasn’t completely accurate. Troy was as comfortable in his sea of lies as a synchronized swimmer in an Olympic swimming pool. I was the one who was drowning in them.

Worst of all? I was feeding myself even more lies. Because I told myself I didn’t care. While slowly, he crept under my skin.

Piercing through layers.

Clawing his way deeper into me.

And I knew it was only a matter of time before he reached the most dangerous place in my body.

My heart.