The Love Coupon (Stubborn Hearts 2)

She was the one in the wrong because it was bullshit. Everything she’d said to him the night he’d shouted her name on the balcony was bullshit.

You got as many flips of the coin as you wanted, the upside was where you made it, nothing was certain about the long term until you acted to make it certain. But she was paid a good salary to be convincing and Tom bought her argument without a single counterpoint, so ending this was real for him and she knew where she stood.

You didn’t always get to have the family you wanted, or the education you needed, or the support you deserved. You didn’t always get to keep your dearest friends forever. You didn’t always get the job, or the client, or the peerless reputation, or the win. Those things only worked sometimes, for some people and Flick had scooped up her fair share of the prizes. She didn’t get to have Tom too.

She could’ve chosen to fly out early. She was functionally redundant in the office now, useful as an excuse for long lunches and rambling farewell speeches, but she stayed and she could tell herself it was because she hadn’t found a new apartment and wanted to save on accommodation costs as much as she wanted. That was bullshit too.

Like Wren had said, it would be worse if she didn’t remain friends with Tom. And the sex—well, the sex was an appropriate bonus for the heartsickness that was about to follow. It would be the same as grief. She’d mourn Tom like she’d already mourned Drew and would again when he died.

Until she got over Tom. And that wouldn’t start till she left.

Unless she stayed.

You didn’t get to have everything. But you got to make the choices.

I make it happen.

“Whenever you’re ready, O’Connell.”

He raised a brow at her peremptory tone, while he took his tie off. “You’re not in any position to make demands.”

She made demands on herself all the time. Get away from her family, take the help that’s offered, make Drew proud, study, stop caring what people think, graduate, go to college, learn to dress the part, work hard, keep learning, put things in perspective, build something of her life she could be proud of.

“I—”

He was beside her, sitting on the bed in the second it took her sentence to falter. “We can do something else tonight. There are a few coupons left.”

Not many. Tomorrow, Friday, was her last day in the office. Sunday was Tom’s birthday and she flew out Monday.

“I’m all tied up with nowhere to go—we wouldn’t want to ruin that.”

He put his hand to her hip over the rash of broken capillaries, like the burn scar he never saw as ugly, and trailed it up her side, tracing the script of her tattoo before moving over her shoulder and throat, to stroke her cheek. It was such a loving, mindful touch she had to close her eyes and hope he read it as lust.

“Flick, look at me.”

“Are you any more naked than you were a moment ago?”

“Flick.”

One choice from here, two styles of approach. She couldn’t stay for a man who didn’t love her enough to think about leaving with her. She was going to lose control one way or another, and better it be frustration than tears.

She opened her eyes. “I need a striptease pronto. I need your hands on me. I need your mouth on me. I want to be screaming in the next five minutes or I will sprinkle a

ll the leftover glitter on every piece of clothing you own. You’ll never get rid of it. Six months from now, you’ll be in a serious meeting with a big-bucks important client, and she’ll be thinking, hmm, that Tom O’Connell is a mighty colorful character, might not trust his advice on this highly sensitive, confidential life-and-death matter.”

He leaned down over her. “There’s leftover glitter?” He looked appalled, and she jerked on both outstretched and pinned-down arms trying to grab him for a kiss.

His amused laugh was a warm puff of air by her ear. But he followed with the kiss she needed and he got with the action. He stripped and it wasn’t a tease, because it wasn’t Tom’s way to put on a show, but it was a visual feast all the same. He was down to his briefs, the delicious ladder of his abs, those cresting dips at his hips made for her fingers. You’re really something, you know, Tom O’Connell. It didn’t take much to embarrass him. Her scrutiny was enough to make him angle his face away.

She didn’t think of him so much as granite or marble, as unbendable or immovable anymore. He was physically imposing, tall and broad and hard-muscled. He could throw her around, tear her apart if he chose to. Her skin, her senses knew him to be easy and gentle and safe. Even when safe was terrorizing her with touch she couldn’t return, with lips she couldn’t catch and caresses that tickled where she’d never been ticklish before.

“Oh my God, Tom. Stop.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Yes.” She rolled her head. “No.”

He laughed again, his discomfort gone, his enjoyment evident, and he made her his servant in a way she’d never intended. She saw stars behind her eyelids that she couldn’t see from his balcony. When he used his fingers inside her, pinpoints of light exploded like fireworks. When he got inventive and used her vibrator, she swore at him; it only egged him on. By the time she got his tongue she was doing her best impression of a scene from an exorcism, trying to levitate off the bed. It was gruesome and irritating and startling and wonderful, and next time she wanted to try it with a blindfold.