48. Claire
He quit trying to fight me and just held me for a long time before we separated. His silence was more soothing than his words, and I was willing to take it for as long as he was willing to give it to me. But when my body started to turn to lead, he must have realized. He swept me up without a word, laid me in the bed I’d crawled out of hours earlier, and left. I woke up to his hand in my hair, telling me we were home.
Home.
As if.
I don’t belong here. I should have left after that night on the roof when I felt myself trying to be someone I wasn’t. I may not know who I am, but I know who I am not. And I am not the kind of girl that a man like Remington Boudreaux catches feelings for.
That’s why, as soon as I make it back to the room I’ve been sleeping in, I start to gather everything that I brought with me.
Our walk back to the house after docking was silent, and the house is similarly quiet. It’s weird after yesterday, when the house was packed full of guests and mourners and so loud, I could barely think. I didn’t see Rhea or Dimitri, or even Elaine on the way back. Which means I’m either going to steal Remy’s car or ask him for it. But I know I won’t steal it, even if part of me wants to just to see what he’d do when he finds out.
I’m running again, but this time, I don’t want him to chase me. Because he can pull me back in too easily. He’s already done it, over and over. And that’s not helping either of us.
My heart hammers as I set my suitcase down next to me and stare at his door, my palms sweaty. I don’t want to face him. I don’t want him to see that I can’t handle this. And I definitely don’t want him to see that somehow, in a matter of weeks, he’s gotten ahold of me.
But I’m choosing the lesser of the evils, so I knock on the door anyway, fighting the impulse to turn and run before he can open it.
There’s a flicker of confusion on his face when he sees me, but then his eyes drop to my luggage and his jaw tightens. “You’re not leaving.”
My mouth falls open without my permission, his words like a shock to the system. “Excuse me?”
“You don’t have to leave, Claire.” He shakes his head. “You still have a few weeks left of summer. Stay.”
I shake my head, too, because I don’t want to even hear his words. “No. I don’t belong here.”
I don’t tell him I feel like I’ve belonged in his bed more than I feel like I’ve ever belonged anywhere. That certainly won’t help with the goodbye. “Rhea will be devastated if she comes home, and you’re gone.” He crosses his arms, like that’s final.
“Where is she?” I narrow my eyes on him. He’s been with me most of the day and night, so I’m not sure how he’d know his sister isn’t in the house somewhere.
“With Dimitri, somewhere. I didn’t ask.” He sounds like he’d rather not talk about that anymore. “Don’t leave.”
I don’t want to leave as much as I do. I want him to throw me on his bed and pin me to it, fucking me until I can’t even move, let alone think of running from him. And I know that’s wrong, which is why I’m doing this.
“I have to.”
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.” He snaps. “I told you that once before.”
Yeah, before we killed a man and then fucked with his blood drying on our flesh.
“I want to leave.” I tell him, trying again.
His lips twist into a smirk. “I don’t believe you.”
“What’s the point of me staying? So that we can tear each other apart for a few more weeks? If you want me dead, you’d better hurry up and do it. Your poison is too slow, too unreliable. You held a gun out to me and told me if I wanted to shoot you, I’d better not miss. This is my equivalent. If you don’t want me to walk away from you, you’re going to have to kill me.”
I don’t blink or even hesitate when I give him my ultimatum. But neither does he. “Killing you isn’t the only way to keep you here.” Remy brings his mouth to mine, but he doesn’t kiss me. His lips brush mine with every motion they make as he whispers against them. “I could tell my sister you left and tie you up in the guest house. I have an empty cellar now that Wes is gone.”
My breath hitches at that. I know I’m not supposed to like that idea, not supposed to be burning for him to follow through on that promise. “I could tape your pretty lips so you can’t scream.”
“Remy…” I’m pretty sure the lips he’s speaking about are quivering, desperate for his kiss.
“I could give you the world.” His voice sounds different at that one, and when my eyes snap up to his, he looks as though he didn’t actually mean for that to slip out. But now that it’s said, he can’t take it back, so he doubles down. “Fuck, Claire. I would do it to keep you from walking away right now.”
I close my eyes because I can’t bear to see him right now as he makes promises he doesn’t intend to keep. I guess the chaos must feel as good to him as it does to me because he’s desperate to hold onto it. He can have any woman he wants, so why is he holding so tightly to me?
“I can’t do this.”
“You can do anything.” He assures me, his voice silk and velvet and everything delicious. His thumb swipes over my bottom lip, parting it from the top, and I open my eyes just in time to see him looking at me like he’s going to absolutely devour me. “And you can have everything. Just stay.”
He doesn’t give me a chance to fight him, because he crushes his mouth to mine and sweeps me against him, tugging me into his room. I hear the door shut behind me, but I can’t focus on anything other than the adrenaline racing through my veins, the hedonistic pleasure, and the crashing pain that I know will follow. “Remy…” His name is a plea on my lips, but I’m not sure what I’m asking him for.
He swallows it regardless, consuming me with his kiss as his hands trail down my sides, dipping into the waistband of the shorts I’d changed into as soon as we got back upstairs. My breath hitches in anticipation, my body going weak with submission.
I’m on my back on his bed in the next instant, parallel with the headboard, his body pressing into mine, his lips on mine so fervently that my lips are starting to go numb and my head feels dizzy. He doesn’t give me a chance to get air. He’s taking from me now, like maybe if he takes everything I have, I’ll have no reason to go. “Remy.” I tangle my fingers in his hair as he feasts on my flesh, trailing hot kisses down my neck before shoving my shirt out of his way so he can continue uninterrupted down my stomach. I’m hanging just off the edge of the bed, and he retreats to the floor. His mouth is just above my hips when he pulls my shorts and panties from me in a single move, not even bothering to free my ankle before pushing my thighs apart and spreading me with his tongue. This time, he feasts on something far more carnal, and all of my reservations, all of my resolve and reason go out the window.
I’m a helpless mess when it comes to him, and I can’t even bother to be embarrassed by it right now. The part of me that needs him is primal, so deeply ingrained that I’m not sure my attraction to him was ever a choice. It’s like my body was made for him to control, to pleasure, to take his own pleasure from. We fit so good in this way.
“You belong to me, Claire.” His hot breath whispers over my aching core, and I open my eyes to see him looking at me from between my legs. “I don’t care who’s been here before. I don’t care if you don’t want to admit it to yourself. Because your body knows. Look at how you melt for me. Look at how I’m on my knees for you. Any man or monster who has ever tried to claim you has been lying to themselves, because no one will ever crave you the way I do.”
“Remy, I…”
My voice fades away as he dives back in, pulling me into him.
He eats my pussy like a starving man desperate to live another day, and it quickly reduces me to nothing. I’m inconsequential as the orgasm builds and makes everything else cease to matter, my desperation for what he does to me (with his tongue and without it) taking over every cell in my body. I’m wound so tight that when I come, every muscle inside of me simultaneously clenches, waiting for the anticipation to end. When it does, I fall apart from a great height, pleasure and relief flooding my limbs in violent waves that threaten to tear me under like the one in the ocean. And they continue to pull at me without ceasing as he holds tight to me, refusing to let go even as I try to freefall into the pleasure.
Gasping, I do my best to pull away, unable to take anymore. I can’t even form a coherent thought, let alone a word, but it doesn’t stop me from trying. “Rem—”
He doesn’t slow, and I almost wonder if he didn’t hear me.
Pain turns sometimes to pleasure, and pleasure can similarly turn to pain as he keeps me splayed before him, sucking my swollen clit into his mouth so hard that every muscle in my body has locked, agonizingly stuck as fire works its way through my veins, a second orgasm threatening even as the overstimulation turns painful. Tears are building in my eyes, and my stomach is cramped so hard I can’t reach up to grab his hair, so I bend to the side, yanking a fistful of it between my fingers. That, at last, seems to snap him out of whatever trance he’s in, and he looks up to see me. When he releases me, it feels like hes let me out of a trance, my back falling flat against the mattress as I work to breathe in enough air to send the oxygen to the parts of me that feel they’ve been cut off from circulation.
“Stay,” he says, as if I’m capable of movement anyway. I hear the whoosh as his pants fall to the floor, and then he lines himself up with me, locking his fingers in mine before pushing into me and burying himself all the way inside. His mouth crashes over top of mine, and I can taste myself on him when his tongue slides against my own. It’s a wicked combination, his mouth and mine, our need tangling so that I don’t know where his ends and mine begins. I’m not even sure where he ends, and I begin. And I don’t care, because he drives me into the bed with the force of his thrusts, stoking something deep inside of me. The angle makes him feel deeper than any of the other times we’ve done this.
“Tell me you’re mine.” He pants, his words sweet in my ear. “Tell me you’ll stay.”
“I’m yours.” I moan, pretty sure I’d agree to anything in the moment. But I won’t tell him I’ll stay. I can’t do that to him… or me.
“Tell me you don’t need anything else.” He begs, thrusting into me with a new pace that makes it impossible to form a word. Which is convenient, because I just moan as he lifts my ass, giving him more access to me. “Tell me…”
I don’t have to tell him anything, because he comes apart in me a moment later, his thrusts slowing before they cease altogether. He doesn’t even pull out of me before collapsing on top of me and tilting my mouth to his, stealing another kiss. This one is softer, not as hungry, or as desperate.
I close my eyes, focusing on his breath as it evens out, afraid to break the spell. But one of us has to, eventually. So, I take the moment.
“I quit taking my birth control.”
He lifts his face from my chest slowly, his eyes round with shock as he wonders whether I said what he thinks I did. “You—what?”
“I quit.” I tell him calmly, watching his eyes narrow as he shoves off of me and slides out of me at the same time, leaving me uncomfortably cold. But I don’t move. I need the cold after the heat of the moment we just shared. I need to feel empty for a minute, because at least that will help prepare myself for the transition.
“Why would you do that?”
I can’t tell if he’s annoyed because we’ve been fucking without protection, or because I’ve stopped poisoning myself. Maybe both.
I don’t answer him, standing up without meeting his gaze. My stomach is twisting with what I know is about to happen, but I bombed this moment on purpose. Whatever this has been between us, it’s past its expiration.
And we both have to let go.
I shimmy into my shorts and straighten my top so that I can pretend I’ve got some dignity to hold onto as he watches me, his jaw tense. “I’m not trying to trap you, if that’s what you think.” I tell him, ignoring the way I can feel his cum slipping between my thighs. “It was tainted.”
“Tainted?” He scoffs, like he has no idea what that means. And maybe he doesn’t. I’d suspected Elaine of being the one to poison me, slipping a little anthrax or rat poison into my drinks little by little. Maybe it was her who switched my birth control, though I don’t know why she would possibly want to do that.
“Mm.” I nod. “Tainted. I stopped taking it this morning. We’ll be fine today, I’m sure. But that’s the last time.”
He glares at me in confusion as I try to stalk past him, snaring my arm and making me face him. “What the hell?”
He thinks he had me. He thinks we can just keep destroying one another as if we’re infinite and not so easy to shatter. Maybe he’s not, but I am.
“You told me before you’d never love me. So why do you care if I go?”
It’s a brutal question. He flinches when I ask it, but I deserve an answer. I don’t understand what force threw us together, but it doesn’t seem to be cupid’s arrow. There was just as much hate as love in him when he threw me on the bed in the boat and fucked my ass.
“I don’t know.” He says, with an honesty I can’t fault him for.
I can’t explain it either. But I do know that regardless of who I am or who I’m going to be, there’s no world where we make this work. We’ve lived in a bubble the last few weeks, isolated from the world, from responsibility. I have school to think about, a future to plan, a life to create for myself. And I’d never be able to do that if I’m living for what he gives me. I already know he’ll never give me the one thing I want more than anything, the one thing he blanches at the mention of despite all those pretty promises about giving me everything. “I want a family.”
He doesn’t miss a beat, which further proves that I’m right in this. “You have a family. Rhea… me.”
“And I love her.” I tell him, my pulse thundering over the word love as I focus all my energy on making sure the last word comes out right. “But she can’t give me what I want.”
As brilliant as he is, he’s thick enough that he stares at me like he can figure out what I want just by looking at me. “Kids. A family.” I shake my head, trying to deny the pricking at the back of my eyes.
“Kids?” He laughs, like the idea had never even crossed his mind. “You’d bring children into this world, even knowing how wicked it is?”
The question feels like an accusation, like he’s telling me I’m selfish to want something so trivial. It hurts worse than I could imagine. My chest feels heavy, and it’s like shards of glass are flying around inside my ribcage. “I have no one in this world. I’ve always felt like half a person, like something is missing. If you hadn’t found me before Wes got me on that plane—”
“But I did—”
“And if you hadn’t, the only person who would have missed me was Rhea. There’s no one waiting up for me to call to let them know when my plane lands safely. There’s no one to tell me to not stay out all night, to give me a band aid when I’m hurt, to—”
“To put you back together when you break.” His voice is low, quiet without the outrage from moments earlier. Understanding starts to dawn on his face, slowly. “I could be that person for you.”
“No, you can’t. It’s too late for that. I already told you, I can put myself back together. I may not get it perfect, but I can do it. But I want to be that person for someone else. I want to be the one that tells them things they already know, that demands a call so I can know they’re safe, that puts band aids on knees and puts people back together when they break. Or better yet, I can keep them from breaking at all.”
He looks like he wants to argue, but he presses his lips together instead. “You want to be a mother.”
“It’s the only thing I know about myself definitively.” I nod. “And you don’t want to be a father, right?”
I don’t think he’s said as much. He hasn’t had to. This isn’t the kind of home you raise kids in. This isn’t the sort of life you bring a child into.
“It’s the only thing I know about myself, definitively.” He sighs, mirroring mine. There’s a beat of silence as we both consider what this means, as if we were ever going to be anything more than a toxic fling. “So, where does this leave us?”
“Back where we started.” I tell him. “You’re my best friend’s brother. There isn’t any future between us. And I’m going home.”
I watch his knuckles curl into fists at his side, and then his abs flex as he reaches up to run his hands through his hair. “Claire, don’t do this.”
“There’s nothing left to say.” I assure him gently. “It’s fine. If you want to call me a taxi, we won’t even have to sit together all the way to the airport.”
“I’m not sending you to the airport.” He snaps. I’m exhausted, tired of this fight already, so I’m grateful when he relents, his shoulders slumping. “I’ll call Simon to come get you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” I almost laugh. I don’t know where his pilot spends most of his time, but asking him to fly all the way to Costa Rica just to take me home to Oregon sounds insane. He’d likely be tired by the time he even gets here. “I’ll fly economy and I’ll be just fine.”
“I don’t even know if there’s a flight soon. Sometimes there are days between them, and if there is one, it’s probably to JFK or Atlanta, which means you’ll have a layover and—”
“There’s a flight leaving in the morning.” I say quietly. “And I’ll be on it, whether you drive me there or I have to walk the whole way.”
The defeat in his gaze as he watches me hurts as much as the denial, which has faded now as he realizes he has no choice but to accept this.
“When do you have to go?”