The Other Man (28 page)

He wrenched himself out of me, off me, climbing from the bed.
 

I was already on the edge of sleep when I felt his hands grip my ankles and start to pull.
 

“Oh no you don’t, honey,” his gravelly voice was a rough croon.
 
“You don’t get to sleep.
 
Not tonight.”
 

He dragged my hips to the edge of the bed, spreading my legs wide.
 

I listened to the sounds of him putting on another condom.
 

I still hadn’t opened my eyes, but I wasn’t in the mood to sleep anymore.
 

“Look at me,” his voice rumbled.
 

I opened my eyes just in time to watch him push between my thighs.
 
I scrambled up onto my elbows to see as each thick inch of him disappeared inside of me.

“You’re insatiable,” I told him, voice low and needy.

“Had you forgotten?” he shot back.
 
“And besides that, it’s been months . . . for
me
.”
 
His tone was so dark and accusing that my eyes shot to his face, raking over it, trying to decipher if he’d meant what I thought he had.
 

But I couldn’t tell from his expression, and he wasn’t elaborating.
 

He was otherwise occupied.
 
And so was I.
 
There was no room in my overtaxed brain to spend on wondering what was in his just then.
 

He planted his fists on either side of my hips, rocking in and out of me at a jackhammer pace.
 

I tried to go to sleep again after that round, but he, again, was not having that.
 

“Get up,” he said, hands on my shoulders, pulling me to sit.
 
“There’s no time to sleep.
 
We still need to talk.”
 

I propped myself up on my hands, looking down at myself.
 

He was still wearing his jeans.
 
He’d cleaned up, again, and even zipped them up this time.
 

But I was still nude, completely, sitting on the edge of my bed, legs splayed wide apart.
   

It was so undignified, the way I was spread open for him, just letting him stare at every part of the body I’d just let him have
three times
, that it spurred me into action.
 

“If you want me to stay awake,” I informed him, standing and moving to shrug on my favorite silk robe, “I’m going to need coffee.”

He left the room without a word to make said coffee, I presumed.
 

I took the opportunity to clean myself up and finger comb my disheveled hair.
 

Also, I gave myself a good berating in the mirror.
 

What’s wrong with you?
I asked myself.
 
Why do you just keep going back for more?
 

But it was swiftly clear the berating did no good, as, after I’d straightened myself up to a minimal degree, I went out to join him in the kitchen.

Going back for more.
 

He handed me a cup of coffee right as I got to the kitchen, moving past me, into the dining room, and taking a seat.
 

That was unusual.

He never just sat down.
   

It was so strange that I found myself standing over him, right in his personal space.
 

He just sipped his own cup of coffee and stared at me.
 

I sipped mine and stared back.
 
I had not one clue what to say to him, where to start.
 

The truth was, I didn’t want to start, because I knew how it would end.
 

Don’t come back here.
 
We’re finished.
 

How was I ever going to manage to make those words come out of my mouth?
 
I had not a clue.

But I knew that they needed to.
 

CHAPTER
 

TWENTY-EIGHT

“I don’t know what to say to you,” I finally told him, after we’d both drained our cups.

We’d been silent the whole time, watching each other between long drags of coffee.
 

Neither of us wanted to have this talk, it seemed.

He took the mug from my hand, set it on the table, then picked me clean off the ground by the hips, setting me astride him.
 

We were breathing our coffee breath into each other’s mouths.
 
“I thought you said we needed to talk,” I said softly.
 
“
This
won’t solve anything.”
 

He didn’t answer, just stared at me while he worked between our bodies, getting us both ready.
 

“Heath,” I chided when I realized he was hell bent on fucking me again.
 

He stilled, cold eyes intense, then spurred into action, reaching for my hands, setting them, palm down, over the muscled flesh of his pecs.
 

“Go ahead,” he rasped.
 
“Touch me.
 
Do it.”
 

I did, hands moving over his chest, softly tracing at his scarred flesh, and as I watched the way it made him cringe, I knew why he wanted me to.
 

It was painful to him, and he
wanted
to hurt.
 

But, regardless of everything that had happened, all the ways I was hurting myself,
I
didn’t want that.
 

I took my hands away, gripping his where they held my hips.
 

He made a pained noise and kissed me.

So much for talking.

He took me right there in his lap, opening my robe and impaling me.
 

“Condom,” I cried out.
 
Just because we’d had that one night of a slip up, months ago, didn’t mean I meant to be so careless again.
 

“I’ve got a better idea,” he rasped into my mouth.
 
As he spoke, he closed his eyes, dropped his head back, and rocked his hips in and out, fucking me hard, bouncing me on his lap with firm hands and bucking hips.
 

Perverse as it was, his words, what they might have implied, combined with the way he was working me, had me coming in a flash, gripping around him, wondering what the hell was wrong with me even as I clenched on his thick length and got off.
 

I was still catching my breath when he pulled me off his dick, setting me down on the ground.
 
On my knees.
 

He hadn’t finished.
 

He gripped my hair in both hands and dragged my face to his lap.
 
He was still hard and throbbing.
 
His engorged cock was slick and close enough to lick.
 
When his tip touched me lips, I couldn’t seem to help myself.
 
I opened up and started sucking him off like I’d been starving for it.
 

He didn’t last long like that.
   

He rasped out my name as his seed burned down my throat.
 

I was still licking his twitching length clean when he spoke.

“I know he spent the night.”
 

I moved away from him like he’d just caught fire.
 

My robe had been opened, but not removed, and I closed it and retied the belt with shaking hands.

For once it was my turn to pace.
 
I didn’t look at him for a long time, and when I finally did, I wished I hadn’t.
 

He was still sitting, his thick, spent length hanging crudely out of his pants, but I don’t even think he noticed it.
 

His arms were folded across his chest, and he was staring at me in a way I couldn’t stand.
 

He looked wounded and vengeful all at once.

It was several pounding heartbeats later that I found my voice.
 
And my indignation.
 
“And just how do you know that?
 
Did your spy
girlfriend
tell you that?”

He went still as stone.
 
“What are you talking about?”
 

My lip curled.
 
I could feel this getting ugly.
 
“You know.”
 

Something happened to his face, something scary.

He stood, tucking himself back into his jeans and zipping them up, his eyes never leaving me.
 

A ruthlessness I’d never seen before had overtaken his expression.
 
“I
don’t
know,” he bit out.
 
“Explain it to me.”

“That woman you have spying on me.
 
She
told you, didn’t she?”
 

His whole face clenched up, and I knew something bad was happening.

He’d gone so still, but something volatile was writhing
in agony
under the surface of that stillness.
 

“How do you know about the woman spying on you?” he asked me.
   

I wanted to curse at him in five languages for the question, but I managed to answer civilly enough.
 
At least he knew now that I was aware of her.
 
It was something I’d needed to address, needed to have out in the open.
 
“She came to see me.
 
Didn’t you know?”
 

His face didn’t so much as twitch, but his shoulders started shaking.

He looked like he was about to snap, to lose it completely.
 

I was afraid of him, that’s how much he was losing his ever-present composure.
 

I’d always known he was dangerous.
 
But my instincts, which I’d trusted before Heath, had always told me that, while he was dangerous, he was not at all dangerous to me.

I did not feel that way now.
 

Something dark and vile had overtaken him.
 
He’d barely moved, but I still knew, deep in my gut, that he was incensed to a degree that I’d never seen before.
 

To the point of violence.
 

I was shaking.
 
This was not Heath and his usual combination of mean and magnificent.
 
This was not Heath angry = Me turned on.
 

This was something unmanageable.
 
I knew it.
 

“She contacted you
directly
?” His face was fraudulently collected, but his voice hid nothing.
 
He sounded murderous.
     

“She came to my house.
 
She had all kinds of interesting things she wanted to tell me about you.”
 

I couldn’t speak of her without revealing my feelings, though I tried to hide it.

My jealousy was very thinly veiled, but as I studied him I realized that that didn’t matter.
 
He’d never notice it, because he simply wasn’t looking for it.
 

He was much too wrapped up in his own volatile emotions then to notice mine.
 

“She came
here
?
 
To your
house
?”

I didn’t answer, didn’t bother to repeat myself, just staring at him.
 

He cursed, fluently and savagely.
 
“Did she lay a hand on you?
 
Hurt you?”

I couldn’t manage an answer for several pounding heartbeats, because the way he asked it made me realize something.
 

This fury, this unadulterated rage he was going through was not directed at me.
 

It was for her.
 
I was both relieved and as baffled as ever.
 

“No,” I finally got out.
   

That seemed to take some of the steam out of him, which was good.
 
I could breathe again when he didn’t look so close to the brink.
   

“She just came here . . . to talk?” he finally managed to get out.

“Yes.
 
She told me everything, Heath.
 
I know
everything
.”
 

His brows drew together menacingly.
 
“
She
told you everything?
 
I don’t fucking think so.
 
She doesn’t
know
everything, and I’ve worked with her for a long time, so I can guess what she
did
tell you.
 
A convincing combination of lies and truth.
 
But I see it got to you.”
 

“Are you saying you’ve never lied to me?”

“Not like you seem to think.
 
Have I been completely upfront with you?
 
No.
 
Have I lied?
 
Yes.
 
But not more than I had to.”

“I know that you only approached me because of whatever was going on with your sister and Dair.”
 

He cursed, and it was as good as an admission of guilt.
 
“Yes, that’s why I approached you then.
 
But it has fuck all to do with me being here now.”

I recoiled.
 
It was an awful thing to hear, because it made me think that— “So you only slept with me because of—”

“No!
 
Fucking no.
 
Stop it.
 
I checked you out for my sister.
 
I searched your house.
 
I got a feel for your patterns, trying to figure out if you were seeing Dair.
 
But, like I said, that had fuck all to do with us having sex.”
 

“Then why—”

“I fucked you because I couldn’t fucking help myself, okay?
 
It was never part of the plan.
 
It was always
against
the goddamn plan, okay?
 
I’ll admit that I invaded your privacy way more than was fair.
 
I, shit, Lourdes, I started watching you and I liked what I saw.
 
More than liked.”