Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
Val almost giggled at the look of shock on Red’s suddenly pale face. Almost.
Oh, he wasn’t expecting that, was he?
Too fucking bad! Oh, his talk of covenants and forever had really struck her right in the heart, but her mind was still wrapped up in the fact he’d been deceptive—whether intentional or not.
She’d never seen anyone move as fast as he did—in a flash, she was, once again, pinned to the wall, but this time, Red restrained her wrists over her head. As shocked as she was, she didn’t even think to struggle.
Eyes wide, heart thundering, she blinked up into his face. Anger like she’d never known before burned from his nearly black eyes.
Holy shit, he really didn’t like what she’d said.
Somewhere, in the back of her brain, she recognized the ringing of a phone, but his next actions stole every ounce of her attention.
His face collided with hers as he took her mouth in a kiss that scorched her. Wet and hot, he invaded her, his tongue tangling with hers in a dance older than civilization. He commanded without a single word as she groaned, the taste of him heady, delicious, addictive. She opened further, mindlessly offering to him more of her, giving permission to destroy and rebuild, to devastate and hold her together—in that moment, they were two people, but one single organism, breathing and thriving, hurdling headlong into utter cataclysm.
Fuck, he could kiss.
Tearing her mouth from his, she tried to wrest her hands from his grip, but he held tight.
“You think you can take what belongs to me and give it to someone else—and expect me to fucking sit by and watch?” With every word, his voice dropped until he was growling so deeply, so darkly, she could feel every syllable in her core.
But it was his words that hit her the hardest—though it took a moment for them to line up in her brain.
Rage, unfiltered and blistering, thrashed through her, stealing her breath and snapping the last thread of her anxiety.
The motherfucker dared to say what he said after the fuckery he pulled? Oh, hell fucking nah!
She ramped up her struggling, and barked, “You motherfucking piece of shit—let me go!”
Recoiling at her violence, Red’s grip on her wrists loosened, and she ripped herself from his hold. Her hands free, she shoved at him, her anger and frustration a boost in her strength, as Red stumbled backward a step, giving her room to hurry around him and toward the door.
Fuck closure; he could fucking choke on regret for all she cared!
“Val! What the fuck?” he barked as he reached for her. She jerked her hand away, just barely avoiding his touch. “You honestly think I’d let my woman fuck another man?”
Shaking with emotions, many she couldn’t name in that moment, she spun on her heel and faced him, baring her teeth.
“Do you hear yourself?” she shouted, ignoring the ringing phone once more. “You’re pissed that I just said I want to fuck someone else—and you’ve actually done it ! You’ve actually stuck your dick in another woman, Redtube! At least I can change my mind and there’s no consequences, but actually fucking her, actually giving a piece of yourself to someone, a piece you can never get back? That’s a whole other level of betrayal.”
Growling, Red thrust his hands through his already mussed hair. “Is this about the fucking cake again?”
“Yes!” she cried. “Yes, it is about the fucking cake, and it’s also about your lies, your cowardice, and your failure to have any sort of self-control.”
His big body shuddered, his face hardening, his nostrils flaring. His hands curled into fists at his sides, violence and rage pulsing from him in waves. But she wasn’t scared of him, she knew he’d never hurt her—like that, at least.
“So, you’re going to punish me, is that it? I hurt you, I fucked around— when we weren’t even a couple —so you’re going to throw other men in my face?”
She laughed humorlessly, the sound making him cringe.
“No, we weren’t official, but you knew how I felt about you, you knew what I thought you felt about me. In my mind, in my heart, we were together, we were slowly but surely building something special.” Yeah, that was partly her fault for assuming, for hoping without having communicated openly about expectations. But it was also his fault for not even considering how she’d feel about him fucking around. And that was where all the pain came from. Her breath hitched as the tears began spilling town her cheeks.
Red cursed, cupping her face and using his thumbs to wipe away the stream, but there were too many.
“Fuck…Val…” he rasped, pain thickening his voice. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
She tried to shake her head, but his hands on her face held her in place. God, she hated that she desired his touch, was even relieved to have it, but at the same time she loathed it, that he was close enough, that he was touching her with hands that touched other women. Pleasured other women.
Women who didn’t look like her, women who weren’t fat or pale or scarred or short or dull. Women who looked perfect beside him.
Something deep inside her wrenched, tearing, splintering, shattering, and she cried out, “You destroyed me!”
Stunned, he jerked as if she’d struck him, an animalistic sound of anguish exploded from his chest, like a lion taking bullet in the leg from a poacher.
But she couldn’t stop the flow of words or tears.
“Me just saying I would fuck someone else set you off, so imagine how I feel knowing you’ve actually done it! That a woman who isn’t me was naked against you, your bodies pressed together, skin against skin. She got to feel your body on hers, your flesh, your heat. A woman who isn’t me got to feel your breath against her face, on her neck. A woman who isn’t me got to feel your lips on her, kissing her, licking her, giving her pleasure. A woman who isn’t me saw you naked, saw you bare and aroused for her— not me — her ! A woman who isn’t me felt you slide inside her, filling her, bottoming out inside her, stretching her. A woman who isn’t me got to touch you with her hands, got to feel your muscles flex beneath your skin as you thrust into her, making her feel good, making you feel good. She gasped, she moaned, and you did, too. A woman who is not me laid beneath you, watching your face as you took your pleasure, as your face went slack as you came. A woman who is not me heard your groans, your grunts, your hisses, your moans as you worked to find your release, as you worked to make her come. A woman who is not me laid beside you, satiated, exhausted, well fucked, and she traced your tattoos with her fingers. A woman who is not me took something from me that I can never get back— that moment . That single moment when you found pleasure with her, when you gave yourself to her. And you did that over and over and over again, one ‘hair tie’ after another, all while I remained ignorant, believing in your promise to ‘ wait ’, blissfully unaware that the man I loved was stealing these moments from me to give to someone else. All while I thought of you, dreamed of you, foolishly planned a future with you—as you gave what should have been mine to a woman who isn’t me .”
Shuddering, her chest burning, her face wet with tears, she let out a single sob.
“No, we weren’t together, no labels, right—but my heart was yours, and you carried it with you even as you betrayed it.”
No longer capable of holding herself together—because it felt like the cosmos were being ripped apart, she collapsed.
Strong arms caught her, holding her against a hard, warm chest, a chest that was trembling, over a heart that was racing. She was in his arms, his embrace, and she hated that she’d never felt safer.
Red held her as she cried, sobbing, tears burning rivulets down her heated face. Her throat ached from her wretched cries, her chest ached from the unutterable pain, and her body was numb, only upright because he was keeping her there. Holding her together when everything around her was falling apart.
What seemed like hours later, Val slowly surfaced from the deep, dark pit into which she’d fallen. The first thing she noticed was that she was sitting. In a lap. She tensed, but the thick, strong arms around her only tightened.
“You’re alright, my love…” Red’s deep voice rasped in her ear, his warm breath like a balm to her nerves. “I’ve got you.” As if to prove it, again, his arms tightened around her.
My love….
She sighed, leaning into him, her heart beating steadily as it settled to match his.
Why was she in his lap anyway? Last she remembered….
She blinked. She was currently across the room from the door, sitting sideways on Red’s lap, and he was sitting on a black leather couch along the far wall. She hadn’t noticed it when she first walked into because she’d been—understandably—mesmerized by Red’s computer set up. Now, though, she wondered at the purpose of the couch. Then she wondered how many women he’d fucked on it.
Suddenly, she wasn’t feeling all cuddly.
Stiffening, the twisted and planted her hands against his chest, pushing away. His arms remained right where they were, and his gaze was pinned on her.
There was concern there, but also frustration.
So what? She was frustrated, too!
“Let me up,” she demanded, her voice hoarse from all the sobbing.
He didn’t speak for a moment, before finally saying, “I don’t want to. You feel too good, like you belong right where you are.”
God, how she wanted that to be true, but she couldn’t stop thinking about him, the couch, club women, hair ties?—
You’re gonna drive yourself crazy if you only ever focus on his body count!
“Let me up, Red, I need some room to breathe.” This time, her voice was stronger, though it still hurt to speak.
He swallowed, his pronounced Adam’s apple bobbing. “I don’t know if I can; I know that if I give you the chance, you’ll run.”
She huffed, rolling her eyes, annoyed that he could read her so easily.
“And it doesn’t matter where you go, or how well you hide, I will track you down, and I will make you believe me.”
Again, she rolled her eyes. He was being so freaking dramatic. “Believe you about what?”
His gray-hazel eyes bored into hers, peeling away every layer of bravado she’d been able to scrounge up since she’d come back to her senses.
She sucked in a breath and held it.
“I want you to believe that I love you—” she sucked in another breath, her eyes widening in shock. Yeah, he’d said it. She wasn't hearing things before. “I want you to believe that you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, that you make me so fucking hard—just with your voice—that I can’t even walk until I’ve jacked my cock for some relief.” She shuddered at that, the image blazing through her mind so fucking illicit, her panties were sticking to her suddenly slick pussy. Holy shit. She’d fantasied about sex with Red, but she’d never been this close to him before. And with the added data—his scent, his body heat, his hardness under her hands, his overwhelmingly intense and sensual presence—she had more than enough material to make her next fantasy downright illegal in Western civilization.
She shifted in his lap, her big ass wriggling—something hard and throbbing made itself known. She gasped, Red groaned, his hips thrusting upward as if by instinct.
Leaning down, he planted is face in the nook of her neck, and drew in a deep breath. She shuddered, her nipples tingling, her pussy growing wet. She bit back a groan of her own—fuck that felt so fucking good.
His hot breath drifted over her heated flesh as he growled, “Fuck, baby, if you don’t stop doing that, I’m going to prove to you, without a doubt, that I am so fucking turned on by you….” His body hardened as he moaned and brushed his lips along her tendon, and he thrust upward again, like he just couldn’t stop himself.
Lord, she wanted to melt into him, let him do exactly as he warned her he would?—
That sneering voice from deep in the belly of her insecurities snarled, How many women has he said the same thing to, right on this couch?
And then, she wasn’t so comfortable anymore.
She shoved, hard, nearly toppling off his lap and onto the floor in her haste to put space between them. Stumbling to her feet, she took two large steps back, her chest heaving with fortifying breaths.
Val was so flustered by her emotions, her physical response to him, that she couldn’t stop herself from blurting, “How many women have you said that to right there on that couch?”
He furrowed his brows, his gaze dropping to the black leather seat beside him. Then, his features hardened, his eyes, only a moment ago filled with heat and hunger, were now cold.
She almost stumbled backward from the chill in the air. She swallowed, never removing her eyes from him as she slowly got to his feet, every movement controlled, lithe, like a panther. An angry panther.
Once he was on his feet, towering over her, his cold gaze paralyzing in its intensity, he pursed his lips, shaking his head as if in disappointment. She couldn’t breathe, her mind spinning, as she watched him peer into her. Then, his gaze brushed over her face, down her neck, her chest, her belly, right down to her feet. Then, his gaze drifted upward, taking in her body again, slowly, methodically, as though he were counting her pores, categorizing every twitch of muscle, mapping each of her features….
Finally, he spoke, his voice deep yet clear, “To answer your question, I’ve never had a woman in here. This is my place of work, and despite what you may think of me, I am a professional, and I take my duties to this club seriously.”
Okay, now she felt like shit.
“Red—”
“But it wouldn’t matter if I fucked a hundred or none, you would still find something about it, about me, that you’ll use as an excuse to run.”
Okay, now she felt like punching something. But before she could take a swing or speak, he continued.
“Because you’re scared.”
As though her lungs were ripped from her chest, her breath exploded from her body, her ears ringing with his words.
Because he was right.