Unmistakable (14 page)

“Please,” I murmur softly. “I can’t take any more. We can play later. Not this time. Please.”

I know that he can feel the pulsing of my skin, the enormity of my need for him. With a groan of defeat, he grabs a packet from his pocket. I steal it away and slide it over his length. He lifts me so that my back is pressed up against the wall. My legs are encircle his body. He moves his fingers into gently into my center, finally finding all of the sleek wetness that’s been building ever since I saw his ice blue eyes peering at me from the darkness.

“Oh, Jesus,” he murmurs. “Shit, Stella.”

I see my opening and I grab it, pressing against him, needing more and needing it urgently.

“Not here. Not like this.” His voice is frantic, desperate. He’s close to losing all of his tightly held control.

All I wanted to do was to comfort him, to tell him that I loved him in the hope of wiping away some of his pain, but his touch provides more solace than I can bear. I know it’s fleeting, that this is yet another memory that I will have to recover from. Even the knowledge of it can’t dampen my need for the kind of closeness that I have always wanted, and never expected, from him.

“Exactly like this,” I say, the husky desire clouding my voice.

“The building will fall down,” he says, a wave of laughter rumbling in his chest.

“So be it.”

He sweeps my body into his arms as if I’m weightless. “I’d hate for us to be interrupted by the fire department,” he says, covering my lips with his to silence my protests.

As he lays me upon my bed, I murmur at the loss of contact, instinctively reaching up to wrap my fingers into his palm. He closes his hand around them and slides next to me, propping his arm on his elbow and drawing invisible circles into my skin until he reaches the scar on my abdomen.

Eventually, when the tissue heals even further, it will be nothing but a thick white line that hides an avalanche of pain, but now, it’s still jagged. Angry. As his fingers caress the pink ridges, my stomach clenches, from both the alien fingers upon a long-hidden piece of flesh and from the memory of the blade driving into my skin.

He feels the shiver and pulls back abruptly to look at me. His voice is barely a whisper. “Did I hurt you?”

Our eyes meet. He’s asking about a different kind of scar.

“I missed you,” I manage. Pain flickers across his face, and I shake my head and smile, as if to say, that’s what we do—hurt each other. I brush my fingers across his mouth to silence his unspoken regret. There’s only one kind of apology that I want, and it has nothing to do with words.

“Please.”

“Greedy,” he whispers, kissing my eyelids. “So greedy.”

“Luke.”

His pained groan reaches all of the hidden places deep within my skin. He doesn’t want to concede yet, but I can’t wait any longer.

“I need you. I need you inside me.”

That decides it. There’s no hesitation as he slides his cock into my body, in one long elegant thrust. He doesn’t need to ask if I’m sure.

I’m so ready for him that there’s no pain at first, only the sleek wetness of flesh meeting flesh. But he’s too big and I’m too small, and as he pushes more deeply, I release a little cry.

I can feel him retreating, yanking himself away.

“You didn’t tell me...”

I hear the low, vague threat in his voice, and I shake my head, willing him to understand.

“I’m not a...” His eyes darken. I know he catches the meaning. I’m too embarrassed to say more, which is absolutely ridiculous, given our current position, so I smile tentatively. “You’re just...huge.”

His face relaxes into a sly grin. “Flatterer.”

“It’s not flattery when it’s the truth.”

I move my hips and push my fingers against him, forcing myself to open. When he slides all the way into me, my moan is so loud that he places two fingers over my lips, his eyes dancing.

He thrusts hard, and my shock matches his. We fit together so perfectly, despite his size and mine, that I glimpse eternity and hold on as tightly as I can before it’s lost forever.

We’re no longer fragments of the people we had been. The connection is so strong and so ephemeral that I need to break it before it breaks me. I close my eyes for the briefest of instants, to save myself, but his voice calls me out of the darkness.

“I need you to see me.” Through my haze, I hear gentle determination in his voice. “I need to see you, Stella.”

When I look up at him, I’m rewarded with a sweet smile that reaches every contour of his face.

“Better.”

I feel no need to soothe him with words now, not when I have other things to give. I clench my muscles around him and move my legs above his head. There’s a deep ache as he thrusts again, stretching and molding and fitting my insides to his length. I arch my back to pull him even more deeply into my sweetest spot.

My hands grasp for every piece of him that I can touch, but he moves too quickly and the sensations are too strong, so I settle for watching his face as we move together.

I slide my fingers to his jaw and stare as the shadows flicker across his eyes. My body pulses around him, and the waves start to crash into me. It’s too soon and not nearly soon enough. I toss my head to the side, unable to look, unable to see his realization of just how much I need this, but he covers my lips with his and silences the series of wild groans that I can’t contain.

The orgasm crests and falls, intensifying to the point of pain as his silken thrusts turn more and more frantic. I can’t lose him, not yet, so I pull his body close to mine and try desperately to hang on as an inhuman shudder, aching and powerful, runs through his body and mine. It’s impossible for me to separate the two, so entirely are we together. We’re falling, melting, becoming one, and as we crash back to earth, he murmurs something into my hair.

The words are garbled and not meant for my ears, but there’s a depth of emotion in his voice that I never imagined he could possess. I allow myself a silver of hope that somehow I’ve managed to touch more than his body. Now that I’ve tasted, I want it all. I know the inherent hazard in wanting something that’s beyond my power to control, but I can’t seem to resist hoping for it anyway.

He stays within me for long minutes, caressing my hair and kissing me gently. When he finally removes himself from my body, he gives me a fierce kiss, one that seems to last forever and only a moment. The acute pain of separation deepens as he pulls his limbs from mine.

There’s a danger in his eyes that precludes words. Although we’re only seconds removed from the kind of closeness I thought was reserved for seriously adult fairy tales, I can’t read his expression.

I know only that there’s a finality in his kiss that I can’t mistake for anything else. The air grows colder.

He stands before the shuttered window, as silent and immutable as a marble statue. I can’t touch him or reach him, wherever he truly is. I want to cry out his name and force him to come back, but that requires a different kind of courage that I’m not certain that I possess.

So I stay, curled into a tiny ball, rendered completely silent by fear and every other emotion that no one, not even Shakespeare, managed to find words for.

I wait for him to come back.

I wait for him to leave.

I wait for him to break my heart or to make it whole again.

I
can’t take it anymore.

I have to say something.

“Hey.”

It’s not eloquent. It’s not poetry. As far as post-sex greetings go, it’s probably near the bottom of the list. Maybe I should have gone with hi, and thank you for the most mind-altering experience of my life.

Then again, maybe not.

“Luke...”

When I say his name, he unleashes a silent roar that punctuates the air with its ferocity. The sickness creeps into my gut—I know what’s happened.

Still, when he takes a step towards the bed and his face comes into focus, I’m the one who wants to scream.

There’s a freight train headed my way. All I can do is wait for it to smash into me.

I know what his face, that cool mask that betrays no emotion, means. I expected regret. I expected anger. The one thing I can’t abide is indifference, and that’s exactly what he gives me. He’s locked himself away. I curse my own stupidity, my foolish hope. I know what he’s going to say before he says it, but nothing could have prepared me for the icy scorn in his voice.

“Forget that ever happened.”

That’s it. I really am going to scream.

“Give it a name, Luke.”

I need to hear him say it aloud. I want this to have been something more than careless sex. I want it so badly that I think I can will it into existence.

It was important. It had to have been.

His naked form is magnificent as he crosses the room slowly. Even that is by design. Standing before me, he tosses the t-shirt over his head with a nonchalance that rips cracks into my soul.

“We fucked.” He draws in a sharp breath. “That’s the last time you’ll hear it from my lips. In my mind, it never happened.”

The anger rises in my bones, and with it, my tiny flicker of hope fades into embers.

“You are such an asshole.”

“Yeah, I am.”

Yeah, he is. There’s nothing in his face or voice for me, just an endless flatness that speaks volumes all the same. I should count myself lucky to make it out after a few meaningless minutes of tangling between the sheets.

Lucky. My ass.

I want him to leave and I need him to stay. Unfortunately, need beats want every single time. I try again.

“That’s it, Luke? Seriously? You were just waiting for Jack to get out of the picture before making me another one of your conquests?”

It’s never been a fair fight, but I’ve just broken all of the rules of engagement. At the sound of Jack’s name, he stops moving. His icy stare glitters with anger.

“This? You and me? This was an accident. Just pretend like it never happened. In fact, I’ve already forgotten,” he says, his voice unwavering.

I feel reckless, uninhibited by any of the burdens I’ve carried so long. He’s already taken everything I had to give. I have no pride left to salvage, so I might as well throw all of my chips into the pot.

“Fine. I’ll see you around. I’m still enrolled in your class, after all. Maybe I’ll decide to actually show up.”

There’s no way I would actually stoop that low, but he doesn’t need to know that.

“No, you won’t.” His eyes peruse, tease, tantalize. I want to throw something at him.
I want to throw my body at him. Shit
. “I’ll remove you from the class myself if I have to, but I don’t think either of us is going to go down that path. I meant what I said. Forget this ever happened.”

“Give me one good reason why I should do that. An incentive.”

“This never happened.”

“That’s not a reason.”

He gives me a long, measured look before fixing his gaze, again teasing and sarcastic, on my naked body.

“I was pissed and I reached for the nearest piece of ass to calm me down. It just happened to be you. You lucked out, sweetheart.”

He’s never called me sweetheart in his life. I want him to say my name. I want him to call me Stella bella, but he won’t do it. I could fling the book at him, the whole rotten truth. I could use Jack’s memory and his name and every ounce of guilt I saw in his eyes, but Luke won’t give in.

There’s something he’s not telling me, but I can’t see through my veil of anger to see what it is, and frankly, I don’t know if I even care. I may have thrown the last scraps of my dignity at him, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let him see me fall apart, regardless of what he is, what he once was, and what he will always be, to me.

“Good to know,” I mutter. Then, “You haven’t changed at all, have you?”

His laugh is bitter, humorless. “Apparently not.”

“Fine. It doesn’t matter. According to you, it’s not like anything happened. You kissed me. We fucked. No big deal.”

“Not even a little deal.”

I am going to murder him with my bare hands if he remains in my room for one second longer.

“Luke, stay out of my way. Don’t call. Don’t write. Don’t give me any reason to come and kick your ass. Ask around. I didn’t just change my hair and my clothes. I’m not a little wilted flower anymore. I know how to throw a punch.”

He stifles a laugh. If I had my wits, I might laugh, too, because the idea of me being able to inflict any pain on his magnificent frame is, indeed, laughable.

“You don’t have to worry about my staying out of your way. It’s done. I should have done this a long time ago. You’re no longer a thorn in my side. Great. Cleansing,” he says, running a hand through his hair and tousling it.

A thorn in his side?

Of course. I am a selfish, preening, spoiled monster. I stand up, not caring that every inch of my flesh is on full display, and I jab my finger towards the door.

“Get. Out. Now.”

“Happy to oblige,” he murmurs.

To my very great shame, I watch his every movement as he stalks through the living room. When he reaches the door, his shoulders shake, and I realize that all of my hope hasn’t been extinguished after all. I’m still waiting for him to explain why he’s done this, why he wants to hurt me so much.

He fumbles with the doorknob. I’ve never seen him look anything but perfectly coordinated, and he can’t even work the goddamn door. After a breathless moment, he manages to wrench it open.

He walks right out of my life, and he doesn’t look back.

I love him. I’m not stupid enough to think, or really hope, that he will come back, but I love him all the same.

I could crumble into a helpless, sobbing mess of tears. Three years ago, that’s what I would have done, and there would have been no certainty that I would ever be able to put all of the pieces back together again.

But it’s not going to happen this time. I’m angry. I can use that. Anger is the most potent of emotions.

I love him, but I hate him, too.

I hate him. I hate his stupid, laughing eyes, and his stupid, magnificent body, and the stupid way he looks at me and takes away all of the not-completely-insane parts of myself. The few I have left.