The Bastard (Filthy Trilogy 1)

“Of course,” she says. “Take it. Then you can tell me what you haven’t told me. No secrets, right?”

No secrets.

I can’t agree to that statement. I do have secrets. Secrets she won’t like. Secrets I don’t intend for her to find out. “We’ll talk,” I say instead and answer my call.

***

Harper

We’ll talk.

Not “no secrets.” I don’t miss that sidestep and if he thinks I will, he’s forgotten that I’ve survived the Kingstons for six long years. He, who is all about me not keeping anything from him, says “we’ll talk” to my request for no secrets. I don’t know what that means, but I don’t like it.

“No,” he says, to whoever he’s talking to. “That’s not the deal.” He’s calm but hard, a sharp-edged quality to his seemingly nonchalant tone that I’m not sure is about me or his caller. “I don’t like being played with,” he adds. “We’ll replace you.” He disconnects the call and we pull up to the hotel and the valets are immediately upon us.

I slip on my coat even as I step outside. I round the vehicle as Eric palms the driver a large bill, a hundred, I think, which drives home his success, but more so, it shows a generous side of this self-made man. Someone I don’t believe has lost touch with where he came from, or he wouldn’t be so eager to dress down his success. Perhaps only his secrets. This idea sets me on edge again and I have to rein myself back in. Do I really want to go down this “no secrets” path? Do I really want to open that door? Haven’t I already? There are parts of me I don’t know if I can ever expose. Mistakes I’ve made. Things I know that would hurt him. I don’t want to hurt this man. I’m falling in love with him, and that very idea has me walking into the hotel rather than waiting on him, afraid he’ll see. Afraid I’ll scare him away and he won’t want to stay and help.

I push through the automatic revolving doors and suddenly Eric is behind me, taking the small moving space with me, his body pressed to mine, his hands on my waist. His mouth at my ear as he says, “You don’t mind if I join you, do you?”

“Depends,” I say and then I don’t know what I’m doing. I push the buttons I don’t want pushed back. “Are you going to tell me your secrets?” We clear the doors at that moment and he doesn’t reply. He simply pulls me under his arm and aligns our hips, casting the staff to our left and right random greetings before we cut left past the security desk and reach the elevator bank with two cars.

He punches the button and one of them opens, his fingers lacing with mine as he guides me inside and uses his card to key in his floor. The minute the doors shut, he pulls me to him, his fingers tangling in my hair, his thick erection throbbing against my belly. “My secrets would hurt you more than they’d help us.” And then he’s kissing me, drugging me with the rich, spicy taste of his tongue on my tongue, driving away my need to know what he means. Because there is more in this kiss, too. There is the taste of certain pain. He will hurt me. He will leave me. And this time he’ll take everything I am when he does, and I can’t even seem to care.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Harper

“Damn coats,” Eric murmurs, trying to pull me closer, but settling for another kiss, his tongue licking into my mouth for a deep stroke that I feel from head to toe, inside and out. I always feel this man inside and out. I have always felt this man in a complete, consuming way, even when we were apart, even when I was with other men. And the way he’s kissing me, the way he seems to drink me in, leaves nothing behind. He takes all there is to take. He takes all of me and I can’t stop it from happening. I can’t protect myself with Eric.

He’s danger.

He’s safety.

The elevator dings and he reluctantly parts our lips, his hand stroking my hair in an act that is somehow tender and erotic at the same time. “Let’s go to the room,” he says, his voice low, gravelly. Affected. I affect this gorgeous, intense, brilliant man, and even now, I have moments like this one where that doesn’t feel possible. I’m the enemy. I’m the princess. I’m hated and I’ve even felt that in his touch, in his kiss, only I don’t feel that hate anymore.

“Yes,” I say softly. “Let’s go to the room,” I add.

His eyes smolder with amber heat in reply, with none of the ice I’ve seen there on random occasions to be found. I hate that ice. I love the fire, banked just behind those embers. He laces the finger

s of one of my hands with the fingers of his and leads me toward the hallway. We cut right and I’m relieved and surprised to find his room a short walk to our immediate left. We stop at his door and nerves flutter in my belly as if I haven’t spent hours with him this very night, as if this right now will be our first time together. He doesn’t give me time to live inside those nerves though. He pulls me in front of him, his big body behind mine, and even with my coat on I am aware of every inch of hard muscle pressing against me, promising wicked dirty deeds to follow.

He opens the door, and when I would dart into the room, he holds onto me, keeps me with him, and walks me forward while he stays at my back. The door slams shut, and I think he locks it, but I can’t be sure. He eases us forward into the room and then shifts behind me. His jacket lands on a desk in the living room to my right. Already he’s dragging mine off my shoulders, but even as he does, he keeps me in front of him, holding onto me as he drops my coat on top of his.

Then his hands are sliding up my stomach, under my T-shirt, dragging it over my head. It’s barely hit the floor when his hands are on my breasts and he’s leaning forward, his lips at my ear. “Do you feel me the way I feel you, Harper?” he asks, his breath a warm fan on my neck that still manages to shiver down my spine. His lips are a whisper of a touch like his words at my ear.

“You know I do,” I say, my voice raspy, affected, my hands covering his hands.

“Are you sure about that?”

“Let me turn around and ask me again when you’re looking at me.”

“I’m not ready for you to turn around,” he says, tilting my head back and bringing our lips together. “I was never ready for you.” I’d insist the opposite was true, but he doesn’t give me the chance. “What am I feeling, Harper?”

“Tell me,” I say, wishing he’d let me turn around, some part of me wondering if I’m facing forward because he’s feeling exactly what I felt downstairs: vulnerable inside my own emotions.

“What am I feeling, Harper?” he presses.

I say what I feel. “Resistant.”