A heavy sigh fell from his mouth as he wrapped her tightly into his arms, pressing his chin on the top of her head. “I’m sorry, Olivia. I’m sorry that life, for whatever reason, gave you such a cruel experience. I could say it will only make you stronger, but it won’t. Because you are strong already.”
She slowly leaned away to stare up at him. “I don’t feel strong.”
“That’s because you are choosing to hide.” He brushed a tear away and added, “Sometimes there is darkness. Don’t hide from that, angel. Face that darkness. You cannot conquer what you don’t acknowledge.”
The growing emotion in her eyes said she knew what he meant. “Why would they do that to me?” she managed to choke out.
Like a dam breaking open, at last allowing her emotions to free since she had finally asked the one question her heart hadn’t allowed her to ask, tears rained down her cheeks. He brushed each one of them away. “Because they are selfish,” he told her.
She buried her face into his chest. Her fingers clung to his shirt. “I just keep looking back to the day when I walked in on them in my bed. I loved them.” Her voice shook. “I thought they loved me.”
Part of him wanted to hurt Cameron. The other part of him wouldn’t have moved away from Olivia even if he were there. “They will regret how they hurt you, if they don’t already.”
She leaned away and stared up at him with her soulful eyes. Noah saw nothing else but the raw pain in their depths. Pain that he wanted Cameron to see and hurt for. That’s when he knew something really special about Olivia. She didn’t hold any anger toward Cameron and Lacie. Her heart simply wasn’t capable of that. But she was hurt. So, so, very hurt. And that vulnerability changed something inside of Noah, making him understand something he hadn’t before. This was one of those fork-in-the-road moments for her. Something that happened in life which was not planned. A moment when the direction of one’s life changed.
And Noah knew it.
He brushed a tear away with his thumb, wishing there was more he could do to help her. “I don’t like seeing you hurting.”
“I don’t like seeing myself hurting either.” She heaved a long sigh before adding, “But I also don’t know how to stop hurting over what they’ve done. Because the truth is, I miss them, but then at the same time, I know it’s the old them I miss, not those new people who would do something so cruel to someone they loved.”
He agreed with a slow nod. “I would imagine that’s how you find healing. Facing that you will miss them. They were important people in your life for a long time. You can’t hide from that or pretend it never happened.” She watched him intently and he tucked her hair behind her ear. “People change. Sometimes in a bad way. Sometimes in a good way. That’s inevitable. But now, it’s what you do about it. Don’t change because of them. You were a kind, loving woman with them. Don’t let them take that from you.”
“Again, you always seem to know what to say to make me feel better.” She smiled softly, pressing her hands against his chest. “You’re a really kind man, Noah.”
His chest expanded with warmth and he smiled in return. “Thank you for that, Olivia.”
“Thank you for listening,” she said and stepped away. He let her, wanting to give her the space she needed to think through the release of emotions.
She placed another photograph in the tray, moving it around while the image appeared. Then her raspy voice filled the room. “Oh my…”
Noah followed her gaze. “Now that is a photograph I can get behind,” he mused, leaning forward to get a good look.
She picked the photograph up with her tongs then hung it from the clothespin. In the photograph, she was on her knees, staring up at him, and his rock-hard cock was
in her hand, by her grinning mouth. That smile took him from soft to hard so fast a low groan spilled from deep in his chest.
Something she obviously heard and reacted to. “Noah,” she whispered huskily.
“Show me the next photograph.” His muscles quivered with anticipation. He knew what that photograph was, because he had taken the picture. The memory had not been far from his mind.
With hands shakier than before, she placed the paper into the solution and used her tongs before the image appeared. Her slow breathy gasp filled his ears when she took the photo out of the tray. She clipped it to the clothespin, then the tongs dropped out of her hands, landing on the table as she stared at the photograph in front of her, her mouth parted, breath all but gone now.
He was equally captivated. He had taken the photograph from up above as his cock was deep in her mouth. She looked damn good wrapped around him, with her dark lustful eyes staring back at him. A ravenous hunger had him sliding gentle fingers over her shoulder, bringing a shiver. “Are there video cameras in this room?” he asked.
She shook her head, words obviously lost to her.
Heat burned into his groin. He had never experienced the hunger he did for her. All those sweet looks, that intense arousal she offered him, drove him wild. He reached for his tie, removing it from around his neck a second later. “Offer me your wrists, Olivia.”
“Yes, sir,” she breathed, lifting her hands to him with a seductive grin.
Christ, the playfulness, the confidence…she wreaked havoc on his control. Knowing they had a time limit in this room, he used his tie to bind her to an exposed metal pipe in the wall behind the table. Leaving her there, he carefully picked up the tray of solution and placed it on the floor in the corner of the room, keeping it safely away from them.
When he returned, he stepped in behind her. “Tell me what you see when you look at that photograph of you sucking my cock.”
“I see us.” She gasped when he pressed his erection against her butt cheek.
She felt good. So damn good. He grabbed her ass firmly. “Look at how gorgeous you are there. Do you see why those lips tempted me that day now?”