Offensive Behavior

She put her hands in his hair and pulled his head down, looked him in the eye and said, “Now you know failure.” His knees buckled, but she held on to him. “I won’t leave you. This is the reason I’m here. I want you. Do it.”

He crashed into her mouth, hands in her hair, pulling at it to release it from the pins holding it. He backed her into an archway. He palmed the strap of the dress off her shoulder and pulled it down, down, till her breast popped free, and his mouth went there, tongue flicking, sucking tight, forcing a moan from her. Anyone could look up and see them, come up the stairs and catch them. Let them. He gathered her dress in his arms, drawing it up her legs. She was naked underneath it and he hadn’t guessed. He was self-destructing and she was pulling at his shirt, undoing his belt, she was exploding apart with him.

He found her wet, and she rocked into his fingers as beneath them the band started up. People would be dancing. He didn’t dance so Dev would’ve asked Zarley to, would’ve teased Reid about it, later, would’ve put his hands on her gently, and made her laugh. Owen would’ve cut in, would’ve charmed her and Reid would’ve hated it, burned for it. But that’s what she deserved, someone like Dev or Owen, someone smoother, gentler and experienced. Someone with enough emotional intelligence to understand his effect on others, and never, never hurt the ones he loved.

Zarley would leave him and his failure would be complete, but he would have her now, this one last time. He hitched her leg to his hip, she curved against him and he entered her on a single thrust with a shout he couldn’t contain and lightning strikes inside his eyes.

TWENTY

Reid was a storm of destructive emotion and Zarley was the land he broke over. She gathered all his panic, shame, guilt, and the sharp pain of his sudden awareness and took them into her body so he couldn’t use them to hurt himself. Because she was strong, and in this, he was freshly scored, and lashing out with misdirected fury. He was already wounded and she understood the shock of engineering your own downfall and what it meant to become unanchored because of it.

If she could save Reid from himself she would.

There’d been no one to save her.

He battered into her and she absorbed his energy and grounded him, letting him pour his angst into her, both of them climaxing fast and sharp. He came back to himself then, but with remorse that made him unable to meet her eyes, even while his hands sought to soothe her.

They put themselves back together. There was a restroom on this floor and Zarley was able to repair her hair and makeup enough to allow them to leave without calling attention to themselves, but it turned out there was an elevator on this floor. They could take it to street level and avoid going back into the ballroom. She tried to take Reid’s hand when they stepped inside it, but he brushed her off and then made a sound of distress and grabbed for it, holding too tight.

“I don’t know what to say about what I just did to you.”

“Nothing that I didn’t want, Reid.”

“It was—”

“A little wild.”

“I was unhinged and I took it out on you. That’s not acceptable.”

“To whom?”

The elevator door opened and he put his hand over it to hold it while she stepped out. The car was waiting. “I’ll take you back to Kathryn’s.”

She stopped and turned to him, put her hand to his face. “I’m staying with you.”

“I could’ve hurt you.”

“You didn’t. You didn’t break a stitch in this dress.”

The driver opened the door for her and she settled inside. When Reid slid in the other side, he stayed against the door, so she went to him, easing across the seat, taking his hand and making him put his arm over her shoulder. She snuggled into his side and he sighed, resting his cheek on her head.

“You’re sure you want to stay with me.”

“One hundred percent.”

He gave the driver instructions to return to his place via a liquor store. This is what he’d meant on the way here about not disappointing her. He’d wanted her to see his triumph, instead she was witness to his darkest of hours.

“I talked to Sarina while you were busy. I like her. She said she misses having you around.”

Reid brought his arm down and she sat straighter, giving him space. “I made her cry tonight. Fuck. I made Sarina cry. I’ve made women at work cry, but never Sarina. I broke her heart tonight. And Dev, the way he looked at me. Owen was the first person in college not to treat me like a redneck hick. I thought when they sided with Kuch to oust me I’d read too much into our friendship, that it was over. I was wrong. But it’s over now. I’ve fucked it all up.”

“You can fix it. You can apologize. Grovel.”

The car came to a stop outside a bodega. Reid opened the car door.

“I’ve destabilized the company. If I get back in Dev will quit, so will Owen. No amount of groveling can fix that, can take away the fact I made Sarina cry. I made Dev hate me, and Owen. God, I made Owen’s job impossible. If he was a different man, he’d put a hit out on me.”

He got out of the car and went into the store, returned with a clink of bottles and another suggestion he take her back to Kathryn’s which she declined. They rode the rest of the way to Reid’s apartment in silence and inside he made for the terrace, shedding his coat and tie, rolling the sleeves of his dress shirt up, a bottle in his hand.