I swallow and move in, separating them. “Are you done?” I ask Ollie.
“You’re not going home with him.” My ex discreetly flexes his wrist, his ego seriously bruised.
“Ollie, you know me,” I say, fighting for calm.
“Yeah, I know you,” he retorts, goading, making James bristle harder.
“Would I ever allow a man to physically hurt me?”
He looks at me, and I hate the pain I see past the anger. “But you’re not that woman anymore, are you, Beau?”
I step back, injured, despite him being right. No, I’m not the woman he knew. Carefree, happy, ambitious, stable. “Thank you for coming, but it wasn’t necessary.” I don’t know whether it’s insistence when James has no right to insist, or whether it’s my incessant need for some answers, but I turn to James. “I’m ready,” I say, before I sidestep his towering frame and pad on bare feet to the doors.
“Beau,” Lawrence calls, and it kills me, but I ignore him, my mind made, my focus set.
“Beau, sweetheart, come back,” Dad yells. “What the hell is going on here? Ollie, Dexter, stop him!”
I make it outside into the fresh air and look at my feet. “I’ll carry you,” James says from behind.
“No.” I look back over my shoulder, seeing Ollie glaring at us in utter disbelief and my father looking nothing short of furious. “No need to rile anyone further.” I’ve made a good enough job of that myself. I’m surprised by James’s restraint. I could see it was taking everything out of him not to flatten Ollie and my father. I know he’s capable. And while I’m thinking of capable, what else is he capable of? I look up at him. I shouldn’t be so attracted to a man who’s such an enigma. “I found a shell casing under the chair in your dressing room,” I say, straight up and with no emotion. “And I’m still coming home with you.”
He doesn’t flinch. He’s shows no surprise. Not a thing.
“That’s why I was up the ladder painting,” I go on. “That’s why I had the music blasting. I was trying to drown out the nagging, screaming questions.”
His gaze drops to my cast, and guilt grips me. I didn’t splurge all those words to point blame or to make him feel shitty. I simply needed him to know that I know. But I don’t know what the fuck I know, and it’s sending me to crazy town. Enough is enough.
“I want to know who you are. I want to know your other name. Why you think I’m in too deep.”
“I’m in too deep too.” He looks at me, and I back up, alarmed by the apologies in his eyes.
“Will I want to leave when you tell me?”
“Probably. But I won’t let you.”
“Why?”
He steps into me, taking my cheek, smoothing his palm down my face. “You’re not going anywhere because despite my better judgment, I’m mad for you.” He drops a kiss on my parted lips, and then each of my closed eyelids. Warmth seeps into me. A warmth I’m baffled by. “Let’s go home.” He lifts me from my feet, and my good arm goes around his neck, holding on.
Clinging.
James paces to his car, and I study his profile the whole way, wondering what he’s going to share and how I might feel once he has.
Despite my better judgment, I’m mad for you.
I’m mad for him too. So maybe now, it simply won’t matter what I learn.
50
JAMES
I carry her from the car to my apartment, and once inside, up to the bathroom. I place her on the loo and start drawing a bath, loading it with lavender. “Aren’t we going to talk?” she asks.
Talk. She suddenly wants all the words, and I’m now unsure if I can speak them. I crouch before her, taking her hand and placing it on my rough cheek, holding it there and closing my eyes, leaning into it. Feeling her. Just feeling her touch and hearing her breathe. She chose to come home with me. But still, I can’t talk until I’ve reinforced something. And it won’t be rough. It won’t be hard. “We need to do something else first.” I open my eyes and take in every bit of her.
“What?” she whispers. But she knows.
My hand goes to her thigh, and she instinctively clenches them together. She’s trying to halt the onslaught of desire from steaming forward. And I understand. It’s been too easy to bury herself in my touch. My attention. To ignore the constant red flags. Be ignorant to them all. She’s clever, observant, but it feels like she’s shut down that side of herself since she met me.
Because she’s scared. She has every reason to be.
“We need to fuck, Beau,” I breathe. “Every inch of me needs to touch every inch of you, my cock plunging, your moans drenching my apartment.”