Chapter 33
Morgan
I cried all damn night, and it seems the tears aren't over with as Robert lifts our clasped hands and presses a kiss to the center of my palm.
The action is so sweet, a way for us to connect while he drives us to our destination.
As angry at him as I want to be, I already know I'm going to forgive him.
I know how things look for him and his teammates. As much as I want him to have believed me from the start, it's hard to ignore concrete evidence when it's right in your face. We haven't talked about it, but I know he had to have done so much research in an effort to prove that I wasn't involved with Henry in some plot to make him fall in love with me only to break his heart.
If that's how Henry treats his twin brother, I hate to imagine what he does to people he has no connection to.
"What happened?" I begin, but he shushes me, pointing to the dash of the vehicle.
"Company owned," he says. "Nothing we say in here will be private."
I snap my lips closed immediately. Cerberus already knows too much about me from the research that was done in an effort to figure out who Henry was in the very beginning. The last thing I want are witnesses to us trying to work through this latest mess.
"I got a hotel room earlier," he says as he pulls into a parking garage. "So we don't have to waste time at the front desk."
I breathe a sigh of relief. I have looked rough all day from the bad night I had, but I've continued to cry since he picked me up from work. The very last thing I want to do is spend time with someone staring at me while he's getting a room and wondering if I'm in danger.
"I'll get the door," he says as he parks, and I wait for him to climb out of the SUV and come around to my side.
He offers his hand to help me out of the vehicle and doesn't release it on the way to the parking garage elevator.
I didn't even pay attention to what hotel he brought us to, but even knowing the name wouldn't mean anything. There are a kazillion hotels in Vegas.
The second we step on the elevator, he positions himself behind me, his nose against my neck, arms wrapped all the way around my body, hands splayed across my lower belly.
I live in the moment for the briefest of seconds, but the pain and heartache I felt from yesterday is far from completely gone.
I take a step away.
"I'm still mad at you," I manage through my sorrow.
"I know," he says, his tone marking a hint of remorse. "Henry has been ruining my life since we were born."
"You could've trusted me."
"He's a master manipulator," he says, holding his arm across the elevator door when it opens. "Just down there."
I follow the point of his hand, pausing outside of the room he indicates so he can unlock the door.
"He's impossible to catch. His work is flawless. He's better at what he does than I am," he explains as we step into the room. "It kills me to know that he's been places that I haven't been."
I turn to face him, my brows drawn together in confusion as he closes and flips the top latch on the door.
I understand his meaning when I see the lustful look in his eyes when he faces me.
"Robert," I whisper, wishing there was a way to delete someone from my past.
I had always wondered if my history with his brother was going to cause problems for us down the road, and although I hadn't noticed signs of it before, it's very clear now that he's bothered by it.
"We need to talk," I say holding my hand up.
"We need to reconnect," he says. "Don't you want that?"
"I do," I say, taking his hand when he offers it to me.
I've never felt guilt over my interactions with other men. I was a single female making adult decisions, and although I've had lackluster partners before, I've never really regretted my choices. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't. That's the luck of the draw.
I don't even know if I can hate what happened with Henry because it brought me to Robert, and as angry as I am, I still feel like there's a very real chance this man is my soulmate.
And that's why I don't fight him when he tugs my arm and situates my body face-first against the wall. He doesn't hesitate to press against me. The way he wants to reconnect is thick and very evident against my lower back.
"This is going to alleviate a lot of my anger," he whispers in my ear as his hands trail down my body.
Part of me wants to get away. We can always have sex, and honestly, I don't want our first time going all the way to be tainted with what he feels like he should've had first rather than me having experienced that with his brother.
But then his hands wander, his fingers trailing over my skin the second he pulls my blouse free from my slacks. It takes less than a handful of breaths before he's palming my right breast, praising me, and telling me how fucking perfect I am to him.
I get so lost in it, so lust-drunk and desperate to please him, that I ignore the alarm bells in my head. There will be plenty of time afterward to discuss how things need to look going forward for this to work out between the two of us.
"I hate that I was ever with him," I confess, leaning my head to the side to give him better access to the delicate skin on my throat.
I hiss when he nips at my shoulder, pain radiating from the bite.
"Robert," I snap, ready to push him away, but his hand slides down the front of my slacks, fingers deftly moving my panties away.
Need and arousal take over, and within a minute or two, I'm naked, my clothes discarded at our feet.
"On the bed," he growls in my ear, sending a rush of cold chills up my spine.
I slide past him and get on the bed, smiling at him when he stands at the end admiring my body. I want to preen under his attention, my mouth watering when he grips the front of his jeans, squeezing his erection as if he's having trouble not stripping naked and entering me for the first time.
Instead of working open the button and zipper on his jeans, he reaches into a bag already in the room and pulls out a strap.
"No," I say when he runs it through his hands. "I'm not into pain."
"This isn't going to hurt," he assures me as he reaches for my ankle. "I promise."
Believing him, I shove down the sense of wrongness threatening to bubble up and allow him to wrap the strap around my ankle.
He secures each ankle to some sort of mechanism at the foot of the bed, leaving me splayed open, fully on display. I cross my arms over my chest, unease building in my body to the point I shiver.
"What's that for?" I ask when he bends down and pulls out yet another strap.
"For your hands, of course," he says as he crawls up the bed, straddling my body.
"This isn't how I imagined our first time happening," I manage, hating how weak and scared my voice sounds.
"Really?" he asks, his tone laced with humor. "All IT guys are freaks. Didn't you know that? Hands."
I blow out a breath, but in the end, I still give him what he's requesting, holding out my right arm first before giving him my left as well.
He ties them together before lifting them over my head and securing them. I test the hold, hating the idea that he has fully strapped me down to the bed, preventing me from touching him. It makes me wonder if he’s still holding some sort of grudge or if he still believes that I was planted in his life to ruin him.
"Robert," I whisper, wanting to make sure he knows that he's the only man for me. Angry or not, he's the only one I can see building a life with.
"Hmm?" he says, planting his fists beside my body so he can lean in closer.
His shirt billows out, and the flash of dark ink on his chest draws every single ounce of my attention, making my blood run cold.
I freeze under him, my chin immediately trembling with fear as I try to subtly test my restraints, hoping they give a little more this time than they did at first.
"I was wondering how long it was going to take before you realized," he says, and I can immediately hear the difference in his voice.
"Henry," I manage as tears flow from the corners of my eyes.
"Miss me, baby?" he asks, leaning down to kiss me.
I turn my head, his lips brushing over my tear-covered temple. Bile threatens to rush up my throat as sickness clings to every cell in my body.
"Please don't," I beg, but I don't know him enough to know if he'll even listen.
"I can do whatever I want to you, and there's nothing you can do about it," he says, but instead of touching me, he keeps his hands pressed to the mattress on either side of my body.
I'm a hundred percent vulnerable under him, and he's right. He could do anything. The most fucked-up thing in the world is that now that I know who he is, I hate myself for not realizing it was Henry.
This man is nothing like his brother.
And knowing that is terrifying because where Robert would never hurt me, I think Henry's only goal in life is to do just that.