His father? Yes, his father had been more than capable of hurting him, but the fact thatJaycould had been a knife that slipped right through his defenses.
She had gutted him. Unable to eat or sleep, he had mulled over her rejection for days as it festered in his heart. Then he remembered the exchange he’d had with his father on the way back from Vegas—he had called her willful,ungrateful—and he had thought that yes, maybe Jay needed to be humbled a little, after all. He’d thought that if she lost that angelic shine, she would come crawling to him willingly when he dragged her down into the gutters.
But then he’d seen the way she looked at him afterwards.
There was no love in that look.
He thought he might die when she looked at him like that. For a while, after she’d gone, it felt like part of him had. And when he’d found her again, and seen the terror in her eyes in that dinky little soap shop, it was like she’d killed him all over again.
I’ve ruined this, he remembered thinking. I’ve ruinedher.
Maybe it was a mistake to let her leave. There was the possibility that she might not come back. Putting on his favorite dress and fucking him goodbye was exactly the sort of thing that a woman like her might her might do before she left for good.
Fuck.
He held her tighter, squeezing her body to his until she made a small squeak of protest from her reddened lips. “Don’t run away.” His words buzzed in the silence, stinging like angry wasps. “Please.”
I’ll let you do anything to me but leave.
He kissed her neck, filling his arms with her warmth and softness. Jay was not a tiny woman and he loved how she felt when she was flush against his larger frame and all those soft, sweet curves molded to the hard planes of his body, hopelessly intertwined with hundreds of memories where he had felt cared for and loved.
“I wish it had always been this way between us. From the very beginning.Thisis how it should have been.” He gave one of her breasts a squeeze. “Youshould have been mine.”
You will be soon.
“Nick?” she murmured sleepily.
“Yes. I’m right here.”
“I thought you said something.” She snuggled against him in a way he felt everywhere as her fingers smoothed absently over the hair furring his forearms. His cock stiffened in his pants at the sound of her throaty sigh. “Mm. Warm.”
He let his hand glide down her front, over her jutting hip until lace yielded to skin. He let his hand settle in the crease of her thigh exposed by the slit in her dress and had to fight back a shudder at her heat. “You up for some fun?”
“No,” Jay whined sleepily. “I don’t want to run.”
He laughed involuntarily, which made his balls throb.Goddamn it. “I didn’t say run. Daddy wants to roll your lazy little ass over and fuck it.”
“Sore,” Jay said.
“I hope that’s a request,” he whispered in her ear. “As in, ‘Leave me.’”
“Sleep.”
“Are you even awake, Jay?”
There was a long pause. Then she let out a quiet snore.
Nicholas leaned back, contemplating the rather dire state of his semi before sliding out of bed and getting dressed to the light of his bedside table lamp. Jay slept on, her body dipping into the space he’d left. Seeing her look so peaceful twisted his gut.
There was a Vietnamese place that opened early and did vegan spring rolls and coconut cream ca phe nau. He placed an order, then fed Jay’s cat, shooing it out of the way with his foot as he bent to grab its kibble bag. The annoying thing followed him around the room, tail up, rubbing against his bare ankle as he filled the bowl that still looked full enough, to him.
He had already arranged for her U-Haul and the plane ticket, ignoring her protests when he upgraded her to first class. She still thought this was about past debts, but he had never given a fuck about money beyond using it as a tool to get what he wanted.
This time, he thought, things would be different.
He checked on her again: she was hugging the pillow, the embroidered flowers of her nightgown glistening like ice where the fibers caught the light, sharply contrasting with the deep brown of her skin. He ached to photograph it, to trap the moment like a butterfly in amber, part of him fearing that this was the last time he’d see her waking up in his bed.
With a ragged sigh, he closed the door.
