Breathe for Me (Be for Me 1)

He rummaged in a drawer and tossed a tee-shirt at her. “I need you to go now. I’ve got somewhere else I need to be tonight.”

He saw confusion bloom in her eyes, shock rob her cheeks of that pretty post-orgasm flush. He glanced away. He didn’t want to see it. It was the best thing for her. For them both.

“Pardon?” She sounded stunned.

“I need you to go.” He looked at her again. “I’ve got other plans.”

She blinked but didn’t move.

“I need to spell it out?” Bitter anger surged in him. Mostly with himself. But he had to get away from this nightmare. The horror in his own head. “I don’t want to see you again.”

She got off the bed and stalked towards him. “Xander, we just had the best sex ever. You couldn’t get enough of it. You were—” she broke off.

He knew why she had. He’d been out of control. He had. So caught up in his lust for her, his need to make her his. To own. To control. To keep.

And that was the problem.

“We’re done.” He walked out of his bedroom. “You can keep the tee-shirt.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Patronizing bastard. Furious wasn’t the word for how Chelsea felt. There were no words to describe her rage. Her hurt.

She’d finally done it—instigated, acted out a fantasy only to have it fail. Except it hadn’t. He’d been so into it, she’d have said he loved it. But then he’d done the whole Jekyll and Hyde thing—turning into a totally different person. A side of him she’d never seen—a side she didn’t believe in.

It pissed her off. Royally.

She felt like chopping his precious frickin’ tee-shirt into dime-sized pieces and stuffing them into his mail box. Except she wasn’t going to go psycho-ex-lover on him. He wasn’t worth it.

And she was worth more.

Twenty-four hours later she was still raging. And she’d accepted she wasn’t going to walk away from this. She wasn’t going to bury this for too long and have it fester.

Not this time.

She’d learned from that mistake. She was going to deal with it. Clear the air. Express her emotions. Because wasn’t that part of this whole thing? Learning to communicate was part of forgiveness. Was part of being able to move on.

Well she’d just aced the art of communicating her sexual needs, now it was time for the emotional. She had to be honest. Even though she knew she wasn’t going to like what he was going to say, she damn well wanted to hear it. And she wanted to tell him more than a few things too.

Because Xander Lawson was every bit as much of a coward as she’d been. Every bit as constrained in his ability to communicate. Well that was changing. This minute.

She knocked on his door. Kept knocking. She knew he was in there. She’d gotten Brad to text her the moment Xander walked through the door. He wasn’t at the pool—she’d just checked that. So she was sure he was here in his apartment.

His door jerked open. He looked at her, his body language freezing. Slowly he lifted a single eyebrow as if he couldn’t for the life of him understand why she was bothering him.

“You owe me answers.” She barged past him, not caring if he had company. “And don’t you dare say it’s because I don’t do it for you anymore. I can get you hard in seconds. I’m willing to bet you’re hard for me now.”

“Chelsea.” He closed the door and turned to lean against it.

She pivoted and got right in his face. Still furious. “You wanted me to tell you what happened with Tom. You wanted me to trust you enough to open up to that. And I did. But it’s a two way street. If you have a problem, it’s not fair to hold back from me. Because I’m feeling like I’m failing again.” She rubbed away the annoying tear that had escaped. Damn it, she hadn’t wanted to get emotional, but here she was welling up already. “Don’t do this to me. I played, Xander—I finally played up. For the first time I felt good about doing something sexy and silly and naughty again. I finally felt like owning my body and what I wanted from you. I felt released from that guilt. And I loved it. So if that isn’t what has you going so cold, then you need to tell me. Because this isn’t fair.” She’d been through too much.

“Chelsea.” Her name was wrenched from him. “It wasn’t you. It’s not you. You’re…” He didn’t finish. Instead he put his hands on her shoulders—but didn’t draw her close. Rather he literally held her at arm’s length. “I’m sorry.” He searched her face, his own expression somber. “It wasn’t that. I loved that. Not just the Catwoman moment and that wildness. But that you came back to me, that you were there for me. I loved that too much. And that was the problem. It wasn’t you. It’s me.”

Chelsea gritted her teeth through a momentary hit of rage, before she could speak again. “That’s the worst line ever. I need more than that.” She fisted her hands and crossed them in front of her breasts and then jerked her arms wide—knocking his hands from her shoulders in a sudden, slicing move.

She stepped forward before he had the chance to blink—slamming her body against his.

“I need you to be honest,” she snarled at him. “You wanted me to open up, you damn well do the same. You’re as chicken as I am, Xander Lawson. Only you hide behind your charm and your easy arrogant playfulness. You think you can stop from getting involved by keeping things light and fun and all just a game. Well we moved past light and fun days ago. Be brave. You like a woman who’s your match? I’m more than a match for you. You need to step up to my level and you need to do that now.”

For a moment he stared at her, but then he closed his eyes. A second later he pushed past her. It wasn’t hard, he had the greater strength after all. She turned and watched him walk. She’d never seen him hunch before but right now he sat with his shoulders raised, his elbows propped on his knees as he pressed his forehead into his fists.

“Xander?” She knelt sideways on the sofa beside him, facing him. It hurt to see the person she loved suffering and in pain and not knowing how to help. How to reach out and comfort. But she had to try. Because she did love him. She put a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Please.”

“I don’t like the person I’ve become around you.” His voice was low and croaky.

Her hand fell from his shoulder in her surprise. “Pardon?”

He looked up at her. “Being around you has brought the worst out in me. The very worst.”

She wasn’t hurt at what he said. She was too perplexed to be hurt. “What do you mean? Xander?” She shook her head. “I don’t get it. You’re fantastic around me. You… you’re…” He was her dream guy.

Dear Heaven, he was sex on toast with double sides of humor, strength, and loyalty.

“Chelsea, my father wasn’t just a thief. He was a thug. Sub-human. Missing a link or twenty. He liked stealing—got off on it. He also got off on hurting people. He beat up on my mother.”

Chelsea’s blood chilled. What about Xander? Had he beat up on Xander?

“He was alcoholic,” Xander added. “The charming kind until he went one drink too far.”

“You don’t drink.” She remembered at the restaurant he hadn’t. Not once in all the nights they’d shared.

“Never.”

“But you wouldn’t be that kind of drunk.” She was sure he wouldn’t. He was fundamentally kind.

“I’m not taking the chance.”

Chelsea’s heart ached. He doubted himself? Did he really worry he could be like his father? “So what happened? Your mom left him?”

“Remember I said I was scared—in the car?”

She nodded.

“One time he left me behind. He got sprung and he hightailed it out of there on foot. He left me. Anything could have happened but he didn’t care. I was okay—just, but that’s when she finally made the decision to leave him. He’d beat her so many times, but it wasn’t until he started grooming me for the jobs that she finally got the strength to get away from him. When she realized he’d sacrifice his son to save his own skin.”

&nbs

p; Chelsea tightened her grip on him—ached to draw him close and just hold him.

“Don’t judge Mom,” he said in a low voice. “She’d tried to leave before.”

“And what had happened?”

“He nearly killed her. He threatened to take me from her.”

“So how did she do it that time?”

“She called her family. They planned it. A co-ordinated escape. She’d had to get within the safety of the Hughes home.”

“Did he come after you?”

“Yes.”

“What happened?”