Chapter 15
After getting slammed on her back with enough force to jar her teeth for the fifth time in a row, Leia growled. “If you’re trying to say something, can you use words rather than actions, please? I’d prefer not to attend tonight’s event covered in bruises.”
Warren straightened and slicked his hair back into place. The previously pristine bandages wrapped around his knuckles were spotted with blood, making Leia wonder just how long he’d been in the gym before she’d arrived half an hour ago for their weekly sparring match.
“Very well. Either you concentrate or concede the fight. I won’t have my time wasted with paltry attempts.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” she snarled through the pain in her right shoulder. “I was doing okay before you decided to go into Terminator Mode.”
“If you seek clarification using such coarse language, then perhaps we need to end this session.”
She hadn’t wanted to spar today, but the alternative had been to lie in bed, thinking about Noah and what happened last night. Wanting to repeat it again and again. And again .
In the end, the need for some other form of pain to mask the one gouging itself endlessly through her heart had won out. “No, I’m fine,” she said and pulled herself up. “Consider me concentrated. Let’s go!”
Loosening her knees into the desired Bartitsu stance, she rolled her shoulders and brought her fists up. Warren took his time centering himself, long enough that her concentration slipped again.
He attacked without warning.
She managed to block him a few times before he caught her in the ribs with a merciless chop. Her breath knocked out of her and, unable to move fast enough, he swept her feet from underneath her with a vicious kick. She landed painfully on her left hip.
“Dammit! What the hell are you trying to prove?” she shouted.
“That you’re useless to me unless you’re as committed to this as I am.”
She blinked at the cryptic warning. “For heaven’s sake, say whatever the hell it is you mean, Warren. I’m too fucking tired to decipher your codes today.”
“You’re tired? It’s only seven-thirty in the morning,” he delivered icily.
“You didn’t come home on Thursday and you were out of touch until past midnight last night.
Your behavior this past week has been quite disappointing.
Can I presume to ask where you were? Or should I hazard a guess? You were with King?”
“No, I wasn’t with King.” She didn’t feel bad at the technical half-truth.
“I haven’t been with him since…” She stopped as her stupid emotions painfully counted the days.
“I checked into a hotel on Thursday night because—” She paused again.
Knowing Noah’s suspicions where Warren was concerned, did she want to tell him that Noah had people watching her?
“Be cause I wanted to be alone. And I stayed there because I didn’t have any pressing appointments in the office yesterday morning.
As for last night…” She shrugged. “I went for a drive.” Also technically true, but it had been a drive like no other.
Her stomach still quivered at how the hot and steamy drive had ended with her so wrung dry, she’d fallen asleep in the back of Noah’s car and woken up two hours later to find Noah watching over her.
Her heart had tripped over itself at the look on his face. But before she could speak, he’d sent her a crooked smile, wished her good night and hung up.
“I find that hard to believe since your driver returned without you at nine o’clock.”
She refocused reluctantly on Warren and admitted with a sinking heart that their relationship had indeed changed beyond recognition.
And not for the better. What she’d suspected before she’d taken the Indigo Lounge trip had come to fruition.
She couldn’t avoid it anymore. “Are you calling me a liar?”
“I find myself unable to trust you as readily as I used to… but I’m willing to make allowances for the sake of your present circumstances.”
She laughed and shook her head. “So because I’m a little stressed, it’s okay that I’m a liar? Hmm, I wonder what else I can get away with.”
She lunged at his unguarded flank, but he was too quick for her.
He countered her attack with another hard chop to her side. She crumpled onto her knees and wheezed. When he held out a hand to her, she struck hard at his midriff.
He doubled over but delivered another flat kick with his foot that sprawled her out on the mat. He landed on top of her. His arms imprisoned hers and his strong legs trapped hers between the steel of his.
Dark brown eyes gleamed displeasure, mixed with other emotions. Focused on setting herself free, Leia didn’t feel the full impact of his body until he shifted. Then the truth of his feelings became unmistakable.
Hell. She didn’t want to admit what his body was blatantly stating to hers, but the truth of it was pressed against her belly.
She shook her head, unease tightening her body as her conversation with Noah in the bistro rolled through her mind. “No, Warren… no.”
His expression hardened. “If you pretend you didn’t know this was coming, I will be very disappointed in you.” The words were breathed softly against her cheek.
Turning her head a fraction, she concentrated on the ceiling, struggling to remain calm as he kept her pinned. “I knew it was coming.”
He remained silent for so long, she reluctantly brought her gaze back to his. Satisfaction flared in his eyes. “So it’s not foolish of me to deduce that you’re here, with me, because the idea isn’t repugnant to you.”
“It’ll never work. We don’t want the same things, Warren.”
A cool chill replaced the satisfaction. “Explain.”
She thought about Noah, about how being with him made her heart—hell, her very soul—lift, race toward danger with sheer abandon.
“You crave being controlled,” Warren said. “But you wish to have free will as to who you let control you. I’ve known that about you since you were a child. Have I not given you that, nurtured that in you?”
“Yes, but I also crave warmth. Passion. And a little loss of control every now and then isn’t a bad thing.” It showed that she was human. That the man who commanded raw, gut-wrenching emotion from her was human too.
“You haven’t been ready for what I can give you. Now you are.”
“What you don’t get is that I don’t want it with you, Warren.”
For several seconds he said nothing. Then he vaulted off her and held out his hand. “We will revisit this another time. When you’re in a better frame of mind.”
The Leia of a few weeks ago would’ve acquiesced immediately. Avoiding confrontation had kept her safe for five years. But, for good or ill, she was no longer that person. She rose without his help and went to the cooler to grab a bottle of water. “Don’t hold out hope of me changing my mind.”
He half circled the room, his fists clenching and unclenching once. “You won’t afford me the courtesy of a discussion?”
“There’s no point in discussing it. I won’t change my mind. Once Stephen is caught, I’m moving out.”
He tensed. The atmosphere grew icier. When he faced her fully, she accepted once and for all that the cool, unflappable Warren, whose strength she’d leaned on, was gone forever. A flash of malice blazed in his eyes before he banked it.
“You are not strong enough to leave me.”
“You’re wrong. I’m more than strong enough to stand on my own two feet.”
The curling of his lips was so evanescent, she thought she’d imagined it. “Did King put you up to this?”
“You used to think me capable of making sound decisions before I met Noah. Have I suddenly changed so much that you can’t accept that the decisions I make are my own?”
“Countless errors of judgment in the space of a week beggars that belief. ”
Her shoulder, ribs, and hips ached. She wanted to walk away but she knew this conversation needed to happen.
“You’re welcome to make any conclusions you want.
But I’m doing this, Warren. I’m moving out.
I’ll always be grateful for everything you’ve done for me.
Please, know that. Without you, my life would’ve turned out a hell of a lot differently.
But I don’t owe you the rest of my life. ”
She headed for the door of the gym. She was one step from it when she heard him behind her.
“Wait.”
Suppressing a grimace, she turned.
He stood in the middle of the room, cool, lean, his hair slicked back in place. “This sparring session isn’t over. You’ve never given up mid-lesson. Are you going to start now?”
The challenge was a blatant test, a taunt for her to prove to him that she hadn’t abandoned everything he’d taught her.
She was tempted to say to hell with it and walk away.
But walking away would mean he’d won. She needed to stand her ground.
To fight. She headed back to the center of the mat. “Okay, let’s get this over with.”
A whirling series of kicks and blocks followed that made her grunt in pain, but Leia didn’t give up. She even managed to get in a hit or two of her own. A few minutes before the fifteen-minute session was over, he increased the strength of his strikes.
“Warren, that’s enough…” She tried to block another one, but he came at her. “Warren!”
“You think you’re strong enough? Then fight harder!” Another lethal strike.
She cried out as he caught and twisted her arm up her back. “Warren, stop. Shit, that hurts!”
He pushed her to the floor and slammed his body onto hers. “ Show me how strong you are, my dear. Once I deem you worthy enough to stand on your own two feet, I’ll let you go.”
“Fuck you! Who the hell do you think you are?”
“I am the man who wants what’s best for you.” A soft kiss landed on her cheek. She shuddered and closed her eyes. “The only man who knows what’s best for you. Why do you fight me?” Another kiss caressed her jaw before it trailed down the side of her neck.
“Warren, get off me.” She tried her best to emulate calm even though her heart was racing loud enough to drown every other sound.
“I’d never hurt you. Not the way he did.” He brushed her hair off her temple and trailed his fingers over the shaven patch above her ear.
That touch… right there in that exact spot, felt like the worst violation. She relaxed her body long enough to distract him, then launched herself up. The back of her head caught his nose.
He grunted in pain. She scrambled to her feet, but his grip on her arm tightened.
Using the advantage of his superior strength and height, he yanked her closer.
Her wrist exploded in agony, but she didn’t have time to acknowledge it before he lifted and propelled her back against the wall.
Once he had her caged in, he let go of her arm.
“I’m sorry, Leia. I didn’t mean to frighten you. Please don’t think badly of me.”
Fear and shock held her rigid long enough for his head to descend toward hers again.
Oh God.
She started to turn her head but couldn’t avoid him quick enough. His mouth crashed onto hers. Cool and moist, he explored her with a clinical expertise that left her cold. And angry .
She lifted her hands to his shoulder, ignoring the painful throb in her left wrist, and locked her fingers behind his neck.
He made a sound, perhaps of satisfaction.
Or arousal. She didn’t waste time examining it.
With his thighs braced on either side of hers to trap her, he’d left himself wide open.
She brought her knee up hard and fast. Bone connected with soft tissue. An angry howl accompanied her freedom.
Leia stood over Warren’s bent form, her heart thumping in pain and disappointment. “You taught me to defend myself, Warren. Did you think I wouldn’t defend myself against you?”
He wheezed in answer, his impeccable hair hanging around his face in disarray. Weirdly, Leia pondered how that made him seem a little bit human.
She backed away, keeping an eye on him as she neared the door. “Come near me again and it’ll be more than just your crushed balls on fire.”
Noah checked his watch and cursed himself for the hundredth time for not taking his Maserati.
Why the hell was he stuck in the back of a limo?
Oh yeah, that’s right. He didn’t plan on getting through this evening sober.
But then he should’ve ordered a different car or taken a goddamn helicopter to the event.
Because sitting in the same spot as Leia had done last night, surrounded by her exquisite perfume and the lingering smell of her arousal, was beyond stupid.
Not to mention the enclosed space and the images smashing through his mind were giving him the boner to end all boners.
He would be lucky if he arrived at his destination alive.
He lowered his window and let in fresh air he hoped would cleanse his mind.
Feeling marginally better, he passed a finger beneath the collar of his studded shirt.
As the key speaker at the Silver Spoon Charity Ball, he hadn’t been able to back out as he’d wanted to when Maddie had sent him the reminder yesterday.
King’s Ransom had given a lot to the charity, which rehabilitated young offenders and victims of abuse. He’d agreed to give this speech because Gabe was also on the board of the charity and had talked him into it.
Gritting his teeth, he re-read the text message he’d received ten minutes ago:
Must pass on wing-man duties. Angie’s back. She wants to talk. My dick may not fall off after all. Don’t wait up.
Fucking Gabe. A spike of jealousy shamed him.
He would’ve given his right arm for an uncomplicated life right now.
Leaning back, he rested his head against the seat then immediately swung his gaze upward.
Sure enough, there were the two indents in the felt roof where Leia had planted her feet before ravaging herself to orgasm.
His cock hardened so fast his vision blurred. Holy fuck. Would he ever be able to sit in this car again without those hot memories torturing him?
“We’re here, Mr. King,” his driver informed him.
With a stiff nod, Noah threw open the door and strode past the group of paparazzi crowded at the stunning entrance to the five-star hotel.
He greeted business acquaintances, drank champagne and schmoozed for fifteen minutes then breathed a sigh of relief when the announcement was made for guests to take their seats in the main gala room .
As he passed the easel that held the seat allocations, he paused. Irritation snapped through him when he realized who else was on his table. Shannon Gleeson, his ex-therapist.
This should be fun …
About to turn away, he froze when a name caught his eye.
Snyder. And seated right next to him… Leia.