Chapter 18 – Cora #4
“I thought you threw them out,” he mutters, staring at his hand. “Why’d you put them in a book?”
I sink back on my heels. “To press them.”
He finally meets my gaze, and I’m struck. He’s in pain. He’s lost. He’s confused himself.
I’ve never met this man before. He’s younger somehow. A tiger with a thorn in his paw.
“That was stupid,” I say. “You burned yourself.”
His gaze darts meaningfully to the fire full of family photos. “Stupid, eh?”
I inch forward on my knees and take his hand by the wrist, bringing it closer so I can see it better. It’s only red, not bubbling. That’s got to be good.
When I glance back at his face, he’s staring at me, and something strange unfurls inside me. The room’s dimensions change, but not like when I’m losing it. The space around us feels huge, but the space between us is nothing at all, like an earth and its moon in an empty galaxy.
Before, I would’ve said I was the moon, but I’m not so sure. I always thought we had nothing in common, but I guess we were both alone. We were both clinging to each other.
I cradle his hurt hand in my palm.
“Cora,” he says, gruff and quiet, like we’re two kids hiding together somewhere we’re not supposed to be. “Don’t leave. Don’t leave the girls because of me. I deserve it, but they don’t.”
“Don’t you hate me now? Since I’m a liar?”
He lets out a bitter, chastened laugh. “I don’t hate you. I’m going out of my fucking mind.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re leaving me.” He looks up to meet my eyes, and there is such pain there, like he’s drowning, reaching for me as he sinks to the ocean floor, and I’m at the surface, peering down, watching him disappear, and he knows he doesn’t deserve rescue, he’s accepted it, so he’s doing the only thing left—memorizing my face before it’s all over.
“Don’t leave me, Cora.” His voice crumbling to pieces, demolished. “Even though you probably should. Just don’t.”
He has always had the upper hand—richer, older, stronger. Colder, which is his greatest advantage.
He doesn’t anymore. Somehow, I’m on top. Even though he knows that I’ve lied to him since the day we met. Even though he might as well own me.
I could hurt him worse than he hurt me. I could break him. I wait for the feeling of victory. Or at least satisfaction.
Instead, a terrible tenderness invades my chest. I could never have done what he did, but I sure as hell have felt how he feels.
I don’t pity him. This isn’t empathy or compassion or anything like that. It’s much more elemental. I feel not alone. It’s a small feeling. A seed, not even a sprout. But still—it’s alive.
“I don’t want to leave you,” I mutter, breaking the moment.
“Then where were you going?”
I don’t want to say her name, not here and now, when we’re huddled so close together, two royally screwed up human beings instead of a billionaire and his trophy wife, but I guess the only way out of this is through.
“Away. Somewhere else. Delaney has a video of me crashing your car. She said she’d go public with it unless I convinced you to hire her back.
I couldn’t risk it. CPS could take the girls.
” I reflexively tighten my grip on his hand, and he hisses.
I try to let him go, but he won’t let me.
“I had to do something. They won’t take the girls from you if I’m not around. ”
He blinks for a few seconds, processing, and then he says, ice cold and perfectly calm, “That is not happening.”
Now he lets me go, rising to his feet and digging in his pocket for his phone with his left hand. As he stalks toward the French doors, he snaps, “Gideon—”
When he steps out onto the veranda, I can’t hear the rest of what he says.
Gideon is the oldest, the de facto head of the business and the family.
Everyone knows he’s connected. Lucian has always felt like the most dangerous brother to me, but Gideon certainly has the influence to make this go away.
Why didn’t that occur to me at the library? I could have talked to Kendra.
Or Adrian, for that matter.
The synapses in my brain are firing again. Of course, Adrian can handle it with a phone call. He’s a Maddox. I really short circuited when Delaney said CPS.
I nudge the blackened bouquet on the charred rug. There’s not much left to salvage. A scrap of ribbon. An iris that miraculously escaped unscathed.
Adrian strides back inside and comes to stand over me. He holds out his good hand. I take it, and he tugs me to my feet.
“You don’t have to worry about Delaney anymore. It’s handled.”
I tilt my head. It feels like a cold wind has blown all the cobwebs in my head away, and the room comes into crystal clear focus—the poker on the floor, the shattered glass on the hearth, the burnt patch on the rug. It’s like a scene from a crossover episode of Real Housewives and Clue.
My eyes find his. He’s blanked them out, and I can’t read them anymore, but I don’t need to, either. My sense of him is working now like touch in the dark.
“I don’t think I’m okay,” I tell him. “I’m really messed up.”
“I’ll take care of that, too.”
I choke out a laugh. “That’s not how it works.”
“You’ll see.” He leads me, slower this time, out of the library to the kitchen. I lean by the sink as he gets the first aid kit. While he runs the burn under the water, he keeps me by his side with his good hand on my hip.
“We should call Dr. Farhadi to treat that burn,” I say.
“It’s not that bad.”
“The girls are with Kendra.” I’m not sure if I told him.
“I know. Martinez told me.”
“He called you?”
“Yeah. And that lawyer. Chad Masterson.”
“Drake Chambers.”
“Isn’t that what I said? You’re done with him, by the way. He sold you out because he doesn’t want to piss me off. He’s a coward.”
“The lawyer you gave me when we got married sold me out, too.”
“Well, he’s fired, too. They’re all fired.”
“All the lawyers? We don’t need them anymore? What about the prenup?”
“I told you—the prenup is cancelled. We have a new deal.”
“Oh yeah?”
He turns off the faucet and shakes his hand to dry it. I flip open the first aid kit and root around for some Bacitracin or Aquaphor.
“Yeah,” he says. “I don’t ever fuck up again, and you don’t go anywhere. If you do, I come after you and haul you home. If someone messes with you, you tell me, and I ruin them.”
“And if you mess with me?”
“I don’t.”
“Simple as that?”
“Simple as that.” He grabs a package of gauze and tears it open with his teeth.
“I can get that for you,” I volunteer.
“Already done. Put some of that cream on it, though. And get some tape ready?”
I draw a heart on the gauze with the Bacitracin. When I look up, he’s grinning at me. Kind of like he’s been through the war, but grinning.
I lay the gauze gently on the burn. “I’m totally unbalanced. You get that, right?”
He nods. “Tape?”
I rip off a piece and offer it to him on the tip of my finger.
“Maybe I’ve got issues, too,” he says as he secures the gauze. It’ll do for now, I guess, but if he doesn’t call Dr. Farhadi tomorrow, I will. “There is evidence.” He holds up his bandaged hand.
I impulsively nuzzle his forearm with my cheek, and his eyes light up. He turns to face me, turning me by the hip to face him back.
“One day, you’re going to tell me everything I don’t know about you, Cora or Cara or whoever you are,” he says softly.
“You can’t make me,” I whisper back.
He smiles. “Kiss me, then.”
I lift my chin, but he doesn’t lean down. He waits, mouth curved, brown pupils sparkling. Like he’s happy. Lucky. Lost and found.
I know the feeling. I thought it was gone forever, but maybe it’s just a little further down the road than I thought. Maybe the happy is less ever after and more in progress.
I rise up on my toes, cup his neck, and pull him down.
When I press my lips to his, I keep my eyes open. So does he.
“Why did you care so much about that bouquet?” I ask.
He doesn’t like that I’ve left off kissing. He wraps an arm around my waist and hauls me against his chest. “I thought it’d make you smile. It didn’t. You never put it in the vase. I thought you threw it away.”
“I loved it. When you gave it to me, I was trying not to cry. You don’t like it when I cry.”
“I suppose I overreacted.”
I snort. “That’s one way to put it.”
“Yeah? How would you put it?”
“You pulled out the rug from under yourself.”
“Like this?” He grins and reaches down to scoop me in his arms.
“Your hand!”
“Don’t squirm, and you won’t bump it.” He carries me out of the kitchen, down the hall, through the foyer, and up the front stairs. He’s breathing hard when he gets to the top, but I’m pretty sure it’s from excitement, not exertion. The man is in peak physical condition.
When we get to our bedroom, he reverently lays me on the bed and wrangles his shirt off one-handed. I watch amused as he does the same with his pants. He’s right-handed and that’s the injured one.
“You could help me out, you know.” He nods at my leggings and tunic. I managed to kick my shoes off when he carried me over the threshold.
I sit up and take off my top and bra, watching him watch me from the foot of the bed. He’s stroking his hard cock with his left hand. Must feel weird.
He really is the most beautiful man. His stance, the breadth of his shoulders, the proud tilt of his head—everything signals power and control. Except his eyes. His eyes yearn.
“Take off your pants.” His voice is a deep rumble that sends tingles skittering across my skin. My nipples pucker, beads of milk dribbling from the tips. It’s been way too long since I pumped, but it’ll have to wait a little more.
I shove the leggings down along with my panties. I’m already wet.
“Show me.”
I lean back on my hands, bend my knees, and part my thighs. Blood rushes between my legs.
“Wider.”
I walk my feet out until I feel my pussy lips split open.
“Peel the hood back. I want to see your clit.”
He’s never talked this much before. I love it. I use my middle finger to pop my clit free. The cool air hits it, and my lower belly contracts. I feel needy. And beautiful. And wanted.
He’s working himself harder, and I can see the struggle on his face. He wants to touch me, but he also wants to watch.
A trickle of milk runs down my stomach. I wipe it away with my palm.
“Leave it.” He finally kneels on the mattress and prowls up my body. I lower myself onto my back as he settles between my thighs. “I love this.” He weighs my aching breast in his palm. “I fucked a baby into you, didn’t I?”
He pushes his cock inside me as I nod. I moan as he stretches me. Fills me.
“Two babies, actually.” He works his hips, stroking in and out, the perfect tempo, like he knows exactly what he’s doing as he ratchets the sensation up, notch by notch, until I’m fucking him back, desperate for the thing he’s giving to me, like wanting another slice of cake when your mouth is already full.
“These are mine, aren’t they?” He laps a nipple and gives it a gentle suck.
A warm flush spreads through my chest. Letdown.
It’s happened a few times before during sex.
Adrian tells me to ignore it, and I get distracted soon enough.
He doesn’t usually talk about it. “I fucked a baby into you, and you’re feeding my babies with these, aren’t you? ”
He squeezes and pulls my left breast, in the same rhythm as he strokes in and out of me with his cock, and the trickle of milk becomes spurts, splattering his chest, running down my belly onto the bed. We’re making a mess.
The relief somehow tangles up with the aching in my pussy to become a gnawing, shameless hunger. I wriggle my hand between us to play with my clit. He chuckles.
“Do you need to come, Cora?”
I whimper.
“I’m going to fuck another baby into you one day soon, aren’t I? Spread your knees wider. All the way.”
I can’t spread them any further. My hip sockets are at their max.
“Look at me, Cora.”
I didn’t realize I’d looked down at his slick cock pistoning in and out of my stretched pussy. I glance back up at his face. The gold rings around his pupils are shining.
“You’re mine. Do you get that? I don’t care if I don’t deserve you. You belong to me. You and our babies. Forever. Do you understand?”
I squeeze my thighs as tight as I can and hook my ankles, anchoring myself as an orgasm rips through me, shorting my brain for a few seconds until Adrian brings me back with a shout as he comes.
Minutes pass as we catch our breath, plastered to each other, a total mess. Finally, he pushes himself up on his elbows to look down on me. “Well? I’m waiting?”
“What was the question?” I mumble, smiling, while his words play in a loop in my head. Mine. Belong. Forever.
“Say yes,” he growls.
“Yes.”
And then he’s smiling, too, this man who one day, I might come to love, if I figure out how to do that for real.
It’s possible.
After all, this man loves me, even if he doesn’t quite understand the concept. He feels it, though, or something like it. I can see it burning in his eyes.