Unbreakable (29 page)

I got out too, swung my legs over the side, but sat on the edge, with elbows on my knees to conceal just how badly I wanted her. I made a motion at her suit. “Take it off.”

Her fingers went immediately to the little bows at her hips. One quick pull of each, and the bikini slipped off, revealing everything. She was waxed and groomed, naked and stunning, waiting for me to tell her what to do next. Mine, completely. This beautiful, smart, sexy woman was waiting for me, wanting me. For the first time in my life, I felt rich.

“Now lie down,” I said with more bravado than I felt. I thrust my chin at the wooden chaise lounge chair with its thick, coarse cushions. “Lie down…” I swallowed, “…and spread your legs for me.”

I couldn’t believe I’d said that, couldn’t believe she was
obeying
. But that was part of what made her so goddamned magnificent. She’d tell me to fuck off in a heartbeat if she didn’t like it, didn’t want it. That was the game. One word from her and it all ended—that was her power. That the last she thing she wanted was an end—that was mine.

Alex lay back on the chair—it sat parallel to me, in profile—and her gaze never left me. Her tongue ran along her lower lip, watching me watch her, seductive but eager too as her knees fell apart. “I’m ready for you, Cory.”

Dear God…

I jumped down from the edge and tore off my bathing suit. It slapped wetly on the patio cement as I raced toward her, desperate for her. I intended to possess her immediately, but the sight of her, exposed and wet and so very beautiful literally brought me to my knees.

I knelt at the foot of the lounger and delved between her thighs, putting my mouth immediately on her most sensitive flesh, intent on giving her as much pleasure as she could take. She cried out and arched her back, pressing herself into me as I licked and sucked the sweetness of her.

“Yes, oh god,
yes
…
Yes
.”

Her hips bucked beneath me but I held on, probing deep, remembering it had been ages since anyone had touched her like this. She writhed and moaned, her fingers tangled in my hair, holding me there until I felt her climax course through her like an electric current. Another victory.

Alex shuddered and settled back onto the lounge, panting hard, one word falling from her lips. “More.”

Now I surged forward, over her, drove inside her in one smooth motion, and she enveloped me, took all of me into the soft heat of her body with a breathy cry of pleasure
before dragging my mouth to hers to kiss me as if she were trying to devour me.

I had to take a moment to master myself so that I didn’t empty into her on the first thrust like an overeager virgin. But she nearly undid me when she wrapped her legs around my waist and tilted her hips, taking me deeper when I thought I was already buried to the hilt.

“Hard…” she breathed. “Nothing gentle. Nothing sweet.”

I regained control, but only barely, moving slowly despite her whispered entreaties, despite her nails on my back and the rise and fall of her hips, which conspired to drive me over the edge.

“Cory, please…”

“Not yet.”

I found a shred of control and kept the pace slow because I wanted to, to savor this moment, which likely wasn’t going to come again, not when the guilt found her later. I rolled my hips slowly, thrust deeply. She bit my shoulder and the pain only added to the unbelievable ecstasy that was building in me.

“Harder,” she begged, and I had no choice but to obey. I quickened my pace, impossible not to now. My control was unspooling rapidly, my body acting without me, driven by her words and her want. I hooked her leg on the crook of my elbow and just let go.

“Oh god, Cory.” She clutched me, raked her nails, captured my lower lip with her teeth…a thousand little touches that spurred me on. The lounger creaked from the exertion. “Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop.”

Short of her telling me to, I had no intention of stopping, but in that moment, in between the crescendo of ecstasy we’d built together, her eyes met mine, and I felt a jolt tear through me, through my very soul. I suddenly
did
want to stop everything, stop our lustful gyrations—this unabashed fucking—even stop the incredible pleasure that was crashing over me and coursing through me like a tsunami. I wanted to stop and hold her and demand to know what she was thinking, what she was
feeling
, because her eyes suddenly held so much more than lust.

But in the space of heartbeat, it was gone. She squeezed her eyes shut as that tidal wave of pleasure swamped her and I followed after, drowned in ecstasy, my thoughts drowning with me.

Alex

I held Cory tightly, our bodies a tangle of wet, slippery limbs, unwilling to let it all end. I wanted to remain in this fog of pleasure, this deathless death the Hozier song spoke of, and when it dissipated, return to it again and again.

My body hummed, every nerve awake and singing. I couldn’t believe it could be like this. The sensations, the pleasure, the sheer joy of sharing my body with a man. It had been too long—too damn long—since I’d felt anything remotely close to this. It was wrong to betray Drew, but what he and I had wasn’t right either. This passion with Cory, this lust and touching and heat and give and take…it shouldn’t be a novelty or some singular holiday extravaganza—fireworks on the Fourth of July and nothing else for the other three hundred and sixty-four days.

Despite my rationalizations, I expected the guilt to find me and I guessed Cory did too. He raised his head, his expression apprehensive. I shook my head no.
Tonight, there will be fire.

I kissed him, long and hard—a promise of more—and then pushed him away so I could curl off the lounge. “I’m going to take a shower.” I wrapped a towel around my waist and glanced over my shoulder. “Are you coming?”

#

The hot water rained down on us and as we washed the taste of chlorine off our skin, a task made slower by the deep, intense kisses Cory couldn’t seem to get enough of. He didn’t touch my naked body when he kissed me like that, but held my face in his hands, holding me like I was something to be cherished, while his mouth moved with mine, touching and tasting and exploring…

It was dangerous to kiss him like this. I was baring myself to him more nakedly than even standing in the shower with him, or lying on the lounger and obeying his lustful commands. There had been a moment earlier, as we’d rocked together on that lounger, when I’d felt something in me—something I was holding protectively—break free and escape. But then the pleasure had taken over and the moment passed, the feelings bottled back up where they couldn’t frighten me with their intensity. Where I couldn’t look at them and name them and face them for what they were.

“Alex…?” Cory said, after a kiss that left me breathless.

“Don’t talk,” I said. “Talking makes me think and I don’t want to think. Not tonight. And we only have tonight. Okay?”

It could only be tonight. One night to satisfy whatever addiction my psyche had for him. To end, once and for all, what had begun between us in the bank. I had the foolish hope that if we had one night of unbridled passion, I’d get Cory out of my system and be able to move on.

Cory met my words with a pained expression, but he nodded slowly. I clasped my fingers behind his neck, intending to make it up to him.

In every way possible.

“What you did to me on the lounge. When you put your mouth on me...” I shivered with remembered pleasure. “I haven’t had that in years.”

“Unreal,” he said, his voice husky. He kissed my chin, my neck, the curve of my collarbone. I felt the sharp nip of his teeth on my breast but the sensation that skimmed up my neck was more pleasure than pain. “I’ll do it again. I’ll do anything for you. Or
to
you.”

Jesus, just his voice made me weak. “Yes,” I breathed. “I want it all.”

He started to kneel but I took him by the shoulders, stopping him. “But not yet. Later. We have all night. But what you did…I haven’t had it done to me, and I haven’t done it either. Not in ages.” My heart clanged madly in my chest and I forced my eyes to meet Cory’s. “I want to do it. To you.”

And God, that was the truth. I wanted him so badly, in every way. He deserved it. I had been deprived but so had he. He’d known loveless years, all in a vain attempt to do right by the mother of his child. I was determined to give him as much as he was giving me, for at least one night.

His eyes widened slightly beneath the soft rainfall of the shower as my words sunk in. “You don’t have to.”

“Of course I don’t.” I laughed but it tapered away. “I want to. Tonight, I want to do everything.” I ran my hands over his shoulders and let them trail down to rest on his broad chest. I laid a kiss there, on that little white scar on his pectoral muscle where the EMT had stabbed him. “Do you want me to?”

A muscle in his jaw twitched. “It’s been a long time…”

I grinned, emboldened by his desire. “I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’”

I pushed him gently against the shower wall, taking him in, riveted, watching the water meander over the cut lines and planes of his body.
God, that’s a man.
His muscles were beautifully sculpted by years of lifting and hauling and building things with his own hands. And those hands…rough with callouses that chafed my skin pleasantly when he touched me. His tattoos were dark swirls and whorls, accessories that enhanced the masculine sexiness of him. Santa Muerta glared at me from the black depths of her rose-lined face.

He’s mine,
I told her silently, and then knelt to make the thought a reality.

I did my best to pleasure him and my heart soared to hear Cory’s breath quicken, then come in harsh gasps. At the end, he hesitated but I let him know I wasn’t shy. I took him to the edge…and then over. He tensed and shuddered and I didn’t let go until he was spent.

Then I turned my face to the water, basking, as if I’d had my own release. In a way I had. It felt so good to hear the sounds of a man’s pleasure and to know that I had created them.

My satisfied smile turned to a surprised yelp as Cory hauled me to my feet, lifted me, and carried me out of the shower, pausing only long enough to shut off the water.

“What are you doing?” I laughed. He laid me down on my bed with a feral grunt. “What…?”

My words trailed into a moan as he pushed my knees apart and put his mouth between my legs, stealing my thoughts and replacing them with that shocking, intense pleasure that left room for nothing else.

“It’s later,” he growled and I gladly, eagerly, gave myself up to him in that moment and all the hours of the night.

Alex

Morning light fell across my face and I opened my eyes to an empty bed. Despite how we had spent the night bringing each other to ecstasy again and again, Cory had made good on his promise to never sleep in my bed. I slipped out in the earliest part of the morning, and I didn’t sleep a minute after he’d gone.

The pleasure that had wracked my body for every moment of the night lingered, like a fading heat, and I fought to hold onto it. Soon it would be gone and I’d be left as cold as the sheets, as cold as I was when it was Drew who shared my bed.

Drew…

Hot tears sprang to my eyes but I willed them back angrily. “You don’t get to cry,” I muttered. “Not now. It’s too late now.”

Then anger ripped through me that I should feel guilty for wanting—and getting—what should have been part of a normal, healthy relationship. But that, too, faded quickly.

You should have broken up with Drew first
.

The thought made me queasy. I had spent six years building a life with him and now I was supposed to throw it away? Because I was too selfish to control myself?

I was about to bury my head under my pillow and wait until some semblance of composure found me, but I heard a voice. Voices. Men’s voices.

I threw off the covers and slipped, naked, to the bedroom door, to listen. Cory was talking to someone. I cracked the door and the voices became distinct.

Cory was talking to Drew.

Dread slipped down my spine. In a panic, I threw on some clothes. But before I tore out of the room, excuses at the ready, I stopped. There was no hiding it. It would be beneath me—beneath all of us—to try to pretend like it was something other than what it was.

“Face it like a grown woman,” I muttered and opened the door, feeling as though a firing squad awaited me.

I found Drew and Cory chatting about furniture refinishing with a terrible, forced enthusiasm. Cory looked like someone battling back a migraine, his face was so hard and drawn, and Drew was wearing his best Client Face. The mask he wore when he had to make nice with someone whom he disliked. Intensely. The tension in the air was like an unbearable fog and I stepped right into it.

“Drew,” I said and inwardly cringed at how much guilt could be infused in one syllable.

Both men turned to me, Cory muscular and light haired, and Drew slender and dark, as if they had been crafted from opposite molds. Cory’s eyes were filled with unspoken words, though if they were recriminations against me or gentle words of support, I couldn’t guess. His expression was inscrutable.

“Cory was just telling me about how you helped arrange for him to keep his daughter in the city,” Drew said, moving to me and giving me a peck on the cheek.

I stiffened, certain he could smell Cory all over me. “What are you doing here?”

“I dropped by to see if you wanted to get some brunch.”

Unlike Cory’s, I could read Drew’s thoughts as if they were as big and bold as the Hollywood sign.

He knows…
Then I scoffed.
Of course he knows. He’s not an idiot. He’s being polite, trying not to make a scene.

I wished he would. I wished he would rage and yell and accuse. At least then I would know he felt passion for me, that the idea of my being with another man drove him into a jealous rage. But he only waited calmly for me to reply.

“I’m not really dressed for it…”

“It’s okay,” Drew said. “I don’t have too much time. I just thought we’d grab a bite at Bay Cities around the corner.”

“Uh, sure.”

Drew turned to Cory. “Nice to meet you.”

Cory stared, incredulous. “Uh, yeah. Sure. You too, man.”

Oh god.
I hurriedly slipped on the sandals I’d left by the door. Before going out, I glanced at Cory but he shuffled some pages on the table and wouldn’t look at me.

In the driveway, we climbed into Drew’s Porsche, and I studied my fiancé. It felt as if I hadn’t seen him in years. He was dressed in casual finery—golf slacks, an expensive polo shirt the same color of his blue eyes, and his black hair was gelled. He looked the same as he always did: neatly elegant and put together. I felt disheveled and unshowered by comparison, my messy hair a screaming testament to how I’d spent the night.

“Drew…”

“You should have told me,” he began, his eyes on the road. “I thought you’d have at least told me the situation.”

“It only happened last night. I—”

“Not
that.
Let’s not get into particulars about
that
,” Drew said. “I meant how he ended up living there. The hearing, his custody issues…I mean, he said you’re renting the house to him? For how long? Since when?”

“A week,” I said quietly. “And he won’t stay. I offered it to him as thanks for saving my life but he only plans to stay there until he gets back on his feet. And I should have told you that. I should have told you everything. I’m so sorry to have hurt you—”

“I have friends who are in Superior Court frequently,” Drew went on. “I shudder to think how I would have reacted had one of them told me first.”

“I know, I’m sorry, but…” I huffed a sigh, watching him navigate the short drive. “You’re so calm. Aren’t you mad at me? Hurt? Sad?”

“Yes, all three. But I’m not surprised, either.”

My eyes widened. “You’re not surprised to find another man in my house?’

“Not exactly.” Drew pulled into the Bay Cities Italian Deli parking lot. “We’re here. Come on. I only have an hour.”

I took a booth as far in the back as possible while Drew ordered our food, though the very last thing I felt like doing was eat.

“I’m not blameless,” Drew said, watching me
not
eat the salad he’d bought for me. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what you said the day before you moved out. And even before that. I suspected that we’d have…issues. I know it’s not easy for you…how I am.”

“What does that mean? How
are
you, Drew?”

He made a sour face. “Are you really expecting me to talk about it out loud? Right now? In public? This morning isn’t humiliating enough already?”

I opened my mouth to retort, and then snapped it shut. The last thing I wanted was to make things worse for him, but his words only left me confused. I held my head in my hands. “So that’s it? You’re going to let me off the hook. Just like that?”

“What’s the alternative?” Drew asked after swallowing a bite of his pastrami sandwich, his appetite apparently undiminished. “Should I throw a fit and tear out my hair? Should I roll up my sleeves and pick a fight with Cory?”

“God, no.”
Cory would knock you flat in one punch,
I thought and then nearly choked on the guilt that rose up in my throat.

“Should we call off the wedding?” Drew said. “Should we throw away six years together? All of our goals and dreams…should we just abandon them over one little flaw in our relationship?” He put his sandwich down. His face paled. “Unless you
want
to call it off? Do you care for…him?”

“No,” I blurted. “I mean...I…I don’t…know.”

Drew took up his food again. “I didn’t think so. You’re too practical for that. He seems like a good man, don’t get me wrong, but he’s got a lot of problems, right? Paul Phillips was telling me.”

I felt the blood drain from my face. “How on earth does Paul Phillips know anything?”

“From Antoinette, who I would have presumed heard it from you during one of your Monday lunches.”

I pushed my salad bowl away. “Of course.”

Our Monday lunches. Gossip-fests, more like it.
I wondered how many people we must have snickered and scoffed over, how many secrets we carelessly spilled, how many reputations we cast in dubious light over our twelve-dollar appetizers and six-dollar iced teas. And anger burned my cheeks to remember the Posse had discussed Cory the same way, laughing over him, reducing him to a working-class nobody with a great body and a ‘menial’ job, without ever knowing what an incredibly thoughtful and kind and brave man he was. What they knew of him was the smallest fraction of what he was…

Drew shrugged. “In any event, Cory’s got money problems, yes? And a kid from another relationship? An ex? God, that’s a minefield you don’t want to walk into.”

I could only stare, at a loss at what to respond to first. But Drew barreled on, oblivious.

“My point is, he can’t give you want you need, what you’re accustomed to, and in any case, it’s not fair to ask. The disparity is too great. You know it, I know it, and you can bet Cory—as a man—knows it.”

I sat back in my chair. “Do you think…he thinks that?”

“Of course he does. But you and I,
we make sense
. We have a clean slate. No debt, we share all the same friends, we have successful careers…”

“And no lives outside those careers,” I muttered. “We never go anywhere, or do anything.”

Drew seemed not to have heard, intent on his sandwich. I hung my head in my hands, elbows on the table, and tore my fingers through my hair.
This would be so much easier if he just hated me.

I raised my head to find him studying me. “What?”

“Have you gained a little weight? And your hair…You look different. Vibrant.” He smiled. “Must be this time off work.”

Or the six orgasms Cory gave me last night.

A laugh burst out of my throat. Or maybe it was a sob. I couldn’t tell.

Drew reached across the table to pat my hand. “Here’s the bottom line: I love you. I think we make a great team and if this is the way we keep going, then I’m willing.”

“What do you mean, ‘if this is the way we keep going’? What way?”

He looked exasperated. “Do I need to spell it out?”

“Yes, you do.” I leaned forward over the table. “Are you saying…?”

“I’m saying that there’s a reason I wanted you to keep the bungalow. To have a place to yourself. To have…guests, from time to time. So that our partnership doesn’t have to be wasted because of my failing.”

I sat back, stunned, and with a deep well of sadness blooming in the pit of my stomach. “Oh Drew, no…”

“Isn’t that why Cory’s there? Or why you’re there with him?”

“
No,
” Alex said. “Last night was the only time…”
Liar. The bank. Let’s not forget that.
I tried again. “Last night was the
last
time—”

“I don’t want details,” Drew said, waving his hands. “That’s part of the deal. I’ll never want details, okay? It’s hard enough talking about it now.”

I covered my eyes. “I feel sick.”

“Why? From what I suggested?”

“From what you suggested, from what I did...” I looked at him. “You didn’t fail, Drew. You don’t have
failings.
If anyone has failings, it’s me. A lot of them. I don’t know what I want or what I’m doing.”

“I do.”

“You know what I want?”
Good,
I thought.
Tell me, please, because I’m lost.

“I meant I know what
I’m
doing,” Drew said, a thin smile on his lips. “I’m making you happy, the best way I know how. That’s my job, as your soon-to-be husband.” He leaned over the table and cupped my cheek. “Think of it as a solution to a problem.” He glanced at his watch on the same wrist. “I have to get back to work.”

“It’s Sunday,” I said dully.

“I know, but a client is thinking of dropping us and I have to play a round of golf—and let him win—to try to change his mind.” Drew dabbed his mouth with a napkin and took a pull from his water glass. “Your mother says you have a dress fitting tomorrow.”

“You talked to my mother?”
Just when this conversation couldn’t get any stranger…

Drew grinned. “She calls me. Frequently. I don’t mind. As far as future mother-in-laws go, I hit the jackpot. She assures me you’ll look stunning your wedding dress, though I never doubted that, and just as lovely on Friday, at our party, which I’m very much looking forward to.” He looked at her untouched food, frowning. “I really do have to run. Could we get you a to-go box?”

“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s only a few blocks. I’ll walk. You go.”

Drew looked relieved. He bent his tall form down to kiss my cheek. “It’s not ideal. But it works. Doesn’t it?”

I sat, staring at nothing, until the place began to fill up with the lunch crowd. I left my food, wholly untouched, and started the walk back to my place, my bungalow that Drew wanted to me to keep, but not as an investment property, oh no.

To have guests, from time to time.

Though the summer sun was already burning bright, I hugged my shoulders as I walked to my house and current houseguest who, unlike Drew, wasn’t going to be calm or reserved. I mentally prepared for the confrontation, knowing it was futile. I already felt wrung inside out.

Cory had showered and changed and was packing his study materials into a beat-up old red backpack when I came in.