I’m so close again. So close. He can make me come right now if he wanted, but I can tell he’s drawing this out, making it last, either as punishment or to make up for lost time. I’m not sure there’s a difference anymore. I try to stay in the moment and watch the way each muscle on his abs and arms clench. I bring a hand up and slowly run the tips of my fingers down his sternum. He shivers at my touch and I look up at him. My heart squeezes at what I find in his eyes. Yes, they’re intense, but this isn’t an angry fuck. This is something totally different. This is him before. This is him when he loved me, even though neither of us spoke the words aloud.
That’s haunted me through the years. I wrote them down, but I should have told him. The way he’s looking at me brings an entirely different kind of pain, the kind that crushes my chest and threatens to break it into pieces. For a moment, I get completely lost in his deep green eyes. I see his pain, his longing, his love. It’s too much. Too raw. I feel my eyes prick with unshed tears and decide I don’t want this. I don’t want this version of him if he’s just going to go back to being a complete asshole. My chest feels like it’s caving, it hurts so fucking much. I turn my head away. He grabs my face and turns it back. I shut my eyes. I can’t look at him. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.
“Look at me,” he rasps, moving a little faster now. I feel the pressure building. I bite my lip and shake my head.
“I can’t,” I whisper.
“I need you to look at me.”
“I can’t,” I repeat a little louder, tears rolling down the sides of my face and hitting my neck.
“I need you. . .to look at me.” He lets out a deep breath and stops moving. My eyes pop open.
Butterflies flap deep inside my belly. I wish I could exterminate every one of them, but it’s no use. He’d only resurrect them. He pulls out and rests back on his knees, lifting my hips so I’m off the bed and angled toward him. He holds my gaze as he thrusts in slowly again. A string of unintelligible words leaves my mouth. I feel out of my depth. I try but I can’t hold his gaze when he’s looking at me like this, like he’s as consumed by me as I am by him. Tears prick my eyes again. Why won’t it stop? Why does he do this to me? Why do I let him? I turn my head quickly and try to blink them away. I wish I could hide under a pillow. I wish I could get on all fours again. Or on the floor with him fucking my mouth. Anything but this. Again, he grabs my face and my eyes shoot to his. I know I can close them, but he’d just find a way to open them.
“Does this feel fake to you?” he grunts, as he fucks me harder now, his thrusts matching the anger in his tone. “Does it?”
I have no response. I can only gasp and shake my head. He slows his thrust and lowers my body, bringing his face down to lick the tears that trickle down my face. He continues with the slow thrusts, his face inches from mine. It feels intrusive. The way it did before when he became an addiction.
“Does this feel like something you can just get out of your system?” He takes my mouth in a bruising kiss. “Tell me.”
“No,” I gasp. “It doesn't. It’s not.”
I’m not sure how much more of this I can take without my heart exploding out of me. I know I could live until I’m a hundred, and I’d never be able to get him out of my system. The connection we share runs deeper than any animosity we may feel. The chains that bind us are too strong. The only thing that could extinguish this is death. I bite my lip harder, as my chest heaves a little. I’m terrified I’ll start crying again. He must see it, the way he sees right through everything else I say and do, because his eyes soften as he brings his lips to mine again.
“Come on, Lyla James,” he rasps out, taking my bottom lip into his mouth. “I want everything. Give me everything.”
“Oh fuck, Lach,” I moan loudly when he changes the angle of his hips, hitting me exactly where I need him. My eyes roll back, but I bring them right back to his, to ensure he won’t stop moving. “Right there. Right there. Pleeeease don’t stop.”
“Fuuuuck you feel so good. So fucking perfect.” He bites his lips and brings a hand to my nipple, pinching it. “Come on my cock, baby.”
I come immediately, shaking and thrashing beneath him. I feel him expand and jerk inside me as he finds his orgasm. My name leaves his lips in a loud growl as he continues to come. My stomach clenches at the sight of it. He’s so beautiful when he lets go. We’re both panting as he sets his forehead against mine for a moment, before he pulls out, rolling onto his back. He faces me and sets a hand on my waist so I’m turned to him as well. I’m wet and sticky between my legs, but I stay put. I look into his eyes and the air in my lungs vanishes again. There’s nothing more overwhelming than being consumed by Lachlan Duke. He infiltrates when you’re not paying attention. He pokes little holes in you and waits for the right time to invade. By the time you notice, he’s already formed a coup d’etat against the emotions fighting against him.
He brings a hand up and cups my face. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too.”
He lets out a heavy exhale and pulls me into his arms. I hug him back just as tightly. We stay that way for a while. I wish it would last forever.
CHAPTER40
LACHLAN
Because she wantsto explore the apartment and we’re pressed for time, we shower separately. We’ll miss the cocktail event if we don’t hurry up, and there’s no way I can keep my hands to myself after what we just did. I follow her back to the foyer. She’s wearing one of my black t-shirts, which fits her like a dress. It probably wasn’t the best choice, since I still can’t stop staring at her legs. I watch her face as she takes in the place. Lyla may have grown up with wealth, but she hates overly extravagant things, so this should be interesting.
The apartment, if you can even call it that, isn’t mine. It’s one of the many luxury residences my father owns. If an important client flies in from out of town to meet with him, he sets them up in one of these. I guess that’s the kind of shit billionaires can do. He sent me to the biggest, most lavish one he owns. It’s an obscene two-story, seven-thousand square foot, four-bedroom, six-bath fully furnished penthouse on East Grand Ave, with the most fantastic 360° view of the city. My first thought, the first time I walked in here was, “Lyla would hate this place.” I’m sure she’ll think it’s nice, because it is, but it’s too much for anyone without a family. Even then, there are too many cons to raising a child here. She looks to the left and frowns. I step up and look with her. Technically, I’m getting a tour as well, since I haven’t cared to explore the entire place. She takes a few steps and looks to the left side.
“Is that an elevator?”
“Yeah, but they’re currently replacing the flooring and mirrors, per my father’s request, so we have to use the other one.”
“Like peasants,” she whisper-shouts as she turns to walk down the hall.
I laugh. Oh, yeah, she’s reeeeeally going to hate this place. She walks to the kitchen, then the living room, and then she stands at the door of the bedroom I use but doesn’t step inside. She turns and walks to the other side of all of this, where there’s a second foyer that leads to a spiral staircase. I bite my lip to keep from laughing at the look on her face as she freezes at the threshold. She mutters something under her breath that I’d kill to hear and walks to the stairs. Setting a hand on the iron handrail, she walks slowly up the stairs. When we reach the second floor, she finds another large living room with a TV and shakes her head.
“Your thoughts?” I ask because I can’t take it anymore.
“You don’t even want to know,” she says, as we continue.
