Wherever she’d been mentally last night, it hadn’t fully been with him. Even after he’d gently cleaned her with a damp towel, and combed his fingers through the tangled locks of her hair, there had been an absent look on her face. It reminded him of the first time, when she’d frozen him out, too horrified by what they had done to even look at him.
That familiar coldness took root in his chest. “I didn’t mean it,” he had said, feeling clumsy as he spoke into the silence. “What I said about the picture, and the office.”
Jay didn’t respond.
He leaned forward, cupping her throat in his hand, one of his fingers pressed against her lips. She let out a ragged gasp as he forced one of his knees between her legs, shifting until shewas cradling all of him between her rounded thighs. “I didn’t mean it. I wouldn’t do that to you.”
“I know.” The words were hollow and far from reassuring.
That icy sensation sharpened, becoming knife-like. “Are you all right?”
It took her a moment to speak. Maybe she wasn’t sure if he meantnow, orbefore. He wasn’t entirely sure what he meant, either. Only that he desperately wanted the answer.
He felt the cords of her throat shift beneath his fingers as she sighed and fell back against him in the dark. “You didn’t let me finish.”
It took him a moment to understand, because for once, sex was the farthest thing from his mind. But then he did, and then his hips became a cradle of heat.
“Do you want to?”
“Yes, Daddy,” she whispered.
With a grunt, he leaned over and groped for his jeans, fishing out the condom he kept in his wallet. She was as smooth as glass when he entered her, and when he reached around her hips to keep her spread open around his thrusting cock so he could massage her clit, she was already wet.
The marks she’d left on his arms still stung.
His eyes flicked past her now-sleeping form to his phone, which he’d set on her “nightstand” of precariously stacked hardcovers. It was on silent but the screen was lighting up with alerts.
More emails, he thought, threading his fingers through her tangled hair until they caught while he leaned forward to grab it. Every time someone at Beaucroft Assets took a shit, someone CC’d him on an email informing him about it. The CEO of that“family” company had folded, though, just like he’d known they would.
Everyone always did if you waited long enough.
Nicholas looked at Jay again, her face mostly angled away from him. He released the lock of hair he’d been toying with and slid carefully over her hips before vaulting from the bed.
The cat stretched and joined him.
He looked around her room, surprised by how small it was. Half-bedroom, half-kitchen, it wasn’t even half the size of his garage. There was a line of mismatched fake plants on her dresser and a pile of fake chenille blankets in the corner. In case she got cold, he supposed.
Impulsively, he snapped one open and draped it over her bare shoulders.
Walking over to his backpack, he pulled out a pair of shorts. As he tugged them over his hips, his wandering eye caught on a photo collage, faded from age. He scowled at the image of a younger Jay with a short Latino man. The waiter, probably. His arm was draped possessively around her waist and she was hunching, trying to look shorter.
Did you fuck him with the lights off, too?
Her cat sped past his legs as he walked into the kitchen area. Her fridge had an ancient box of baking soda that had probably come with this dump and a few bottles of half-empty vegan hot sauce, but not much else. There were takeout cartons in the trash and a bottle of wine, but it didn’t look like she’d been eating much. The only thing in the pantry was a single can of corn.
He couldn’t imagine living this way, in a room so small that there was barely room to hear yourself think, dimly lit, filled with the constant blare of noise from the streets.
It was fucking unconscionable. She’d thrown him over forthis?
That’s how much she despised you, that voice in his head whispered.She’d have rather lived like this, than with you.
Nicholas shook that voice off and yanked on his T-shirt. She wasn’t going to live like that now. He couldn’t make this place any less of a shithole, but he could get some decent food into her. He popped in his earbuds and shoved his wallet into the back pocket of his shorts. It took him a moment to find her keys. He eventually located them in a small ceramic dish shaped like a cabbage leaf. The sight of it put a catch in his throat.
She had a life here and I was never intended to be part of it.
There were several grocery stores nearby, according to his phone. As he walked out of her complex, he nearly hit an older man lurking around out front. The man looked at him and then quickly away, shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his blazer as he headed down the street.
Nicholas eyed him frowningly, watching as he disappeared around the corner.
