CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“Amy, wait.” Lucian's voice is pleading, but I'm already headed for the door.
I feel his hand on my wrist, and I reflexively turn and slap him as hard as I can. The pain of my throbbing palm drowns out the aching in my heart for a split second. He winces but quickly reaches for my other wrist to hold me captive.
We've played this game before. So many times. And I've always given in. Not this time though. This time, I'm going to fight him tooth and nail to get out of the room even if I have to claw his stupidly beautiful eyes out.
“Lucian, let me go.” I flail in his arms, and when he doesn't immediately release me, I start kicking.
The first successful blow hits him in the thigh. He cries out and pulls back, dragging me with him. His grip around my wrists is like iron.
I kick at him again and miss. He pulls me roughly to him, wrapping his powerful arms around me like a vice. I scream and stomp on his foot, and then we both go down.
My heart is beating one hundred miles per hour. It feels almost like I'm trying to escape a legitimate attacker. I don't believe he'd truly hurt me though.
I manage to land a blow between his legs, and he curls into the fetal position. I take the opportunity to crawl away. His recovery is astounding though. Before I have a chance to make it to my feet, he's on me again, turning me around. I go for another nut shot, but he has wised up to my attacks. He pulls my hands above my head and uses his body weight to keep my legs pinned to the floor. Since I can no longer escape, I scream and scream and scream, hoping that it will annoy him enough to make him let me go.
“Rape!” the word comes out of my mouth repeatedly until my vocal cords are sore. When that doesn't work, I start screaming, “Fire!”
Lucian doesn't budge. He simply lays there on top of me, his heart drumming against my chest while he catches his breath.
“Amy. Are you done yet?” he asks when I don't feel like I even have a voice left.
“I hate you.” I give one final struggle before going limp beneath him.
His eyes rove over my face, and that familiar heat returns to his gaze, the kind that's gotten to me every single time. Not this time though. I'm so mad that if I could shoot flamethrowers out of my eyes and catch him on fire, I would. I'd bite off his dick if he stuck it anywhere near my mouth.
He leans down to kiss me, and I turn my face. Almost instantly, I feel his hand grabbing my ponytail, jerking my face forward. His lips meet mine, and I mumble protest into the kiss. Then I use my last defense. I bite him. Hard.
Blood fills my mouth. He gasps and pulls away, a small trickle running down his chin. There's a flash of anger in his eyes, but it goes away just as quickly as it came.
“Damn it, Amy, can't you see that I'm infatuated with you.”
“Infatuated,” I let out a strangled laugh. “Yes, you're absolutely, mindlessly infatuated with me. That's why I haven't heard from you in an entire week.” I spit his blood in his face, hoping it will make him get off of me. Never before have I been this nasty to another human being. I can hardly believe myself, but I'm so crazy with rage right now that there doesn't seem to be any filter between my mind and my actions.
He closes his eyes, absolutely shocked. He holds the expression for a moment before wiping his face on my arm and smirking. “You're kind of violent.”
“And you're a rapist. Now let me go.” I struggle again to no avail.
“A rapist? Really?” This seems to amuse him even more. “You think so horribly of me.”
“Because you're a horrible, horrible man. As soon as I get free from here, I should call the police.”
“For what? My only crime is being scared of my feelings for you. That's why I haven't spoken to you. I'm not the kind of guy who gets feelings, Amy.”
I want to feel something from his words, but I don't. All that's flowing through me is bitterness and anger. “Then let me go and I can put more distance between us.”
“I don't want that. I can see that now. I want you to belong to me.” His words are strong with conviction.
“That ship has sailed, Lucian. You've screwed up too much to have me. You don't deserve me.”
He looks away from me for a moment as if he's thinking. “You're right. I don't deserve you.”
Then I feel his weight lift off of me. He sits Indian style a few feet away. It's such a strange thing to see, all the fight leaving him, especially when he had the advantage. I'm grateful though. This has been far more dramatic than I had anticipated. I said what I came to say, now I just want to leave.
I pick myself up from the floor and dust myself off. My eyes linger on him all the while. The atmosphere in the room is unsettling. Every emotion I've had up until this point I've been able to distinguish. Now, I just feel off.
Part of me thinks that I should care about his strange withdrawal, but I've learned my lesson about being soft with him. Give him an inch, and he'll take a mile. This is likely another one of his traps. I'm not falling for it.
I start walking towards the door.
“Amy,” his voice is strained. I don't turn around. “Amy, please.” He twists his torso to face me. Curiosity gets the better of me, and I make the mistake of glancing at him. There are tears in his eyes. My heart of stone begins to crack, and I quickly send my psychological guards to patch it up before it's too late. “Just talk to me. Please, just talk to me.”
He looks like a wounded animal. So weak and pathetic and...broken. This is different than when he told me about his wife. This pain isn't for her. It's for...me.
“We have nothing else to discuss, Lucian.” I clutch my purse tightly against me like a shield.
He turns to face me the rest of the way, but he doesn't get up. “I'll do whatever you want. Just don't leave. I promise I won't advance on you again. I just want to talk. Just to talk.” His bottom lip trembles slightly.
I feel sorry for him, though I don't know why. The crack in my heart isn't getting filled fast enough. Stone slowly turns to jello as I begin to think that perhaps I've hurt him just as much as he's hurt me. It doesn't seem possible though. There's a very real probability that those are fake tears, that he knows this is what he needs to do to reel me back in. He's a master of manipulation.
“There's nothing you can say that will make me change my mind.”
“I won't try to change your mind. I just want you to listen. I just want to talk.”
I curse myself for my own curiosity. Even if it is all bullshit, I want to hear what he has to say.
“Talk. You have five minutes.” I gaze down at him coldly.
“Do you want to sit down?” He pats the spot beside him.
“No. I don't want to be anywhere near you.” Especially not at arm's length.
“Alright.” He nods.
For several moments, he's silent.
“Times a tickin, Doctor Reddick.” I tap my foot.
“This is hard for me.”
“Perhaps some things are better left unsaid.” I turn to the door again, placing my hand on the handle. If he has nothing to say, then there's no reason for me to stay.
“I have feelings for you, Amy.” The words come out in a desperate slur.
My body tenses from hearing them. “I don't care anymore.”
“I know I've fucked things up. Badly. I've driven you away. And yes, this last time it was on purpose. I didn't want to face those feelings. Maybe if you would have stayed away...”
I'm taken aback by the sheer honesty in what he's saying. Never before have I doubted less that he's lying. He was purposely trying to get away from me. It hurts, and I don't understand it, but I don't want to talk about it anymore either.
“So you were going to abandon the project?” I ask, pretending that it's the only thing that ever mattered.
“No. I was just taking time to recompose myself, to separate my feelings from business.”
“I don't care.”
“That's bullshit. I know you do care. This is just a front.”
I turn to him and shake my head. “No, Lucian. I truly don't care anymore. I don't care about the project. I don't care about you. All I care about is fixing the mess that you've made of my life, even if I have to make a bigger one of my career to feel whole again.”
“You don't feel whole?” It's a stupid question in light of everything we just talked about.
“I told you already. You've broken me. You've destroyed...so much. I'll spend a long time repairing myself.”
“If you walk away from me, I'll be broken too.”
“You were already broken. You've been broken since before I met you. It's just taken this long for me to figure it out.” I turn the door handle, and Lucian flies to his feet.
He pulls me back into his arms, and I have to resist the urge to try to fight him off again. “Please, don't go, Amy.” His voice is unsteady, and I know he's on the verge of crying. Knowing that he's in pain bothers me, even though it shouldn't. He did this to himself. He did this to both of us.
“I don't care about you anymore.” The words sound just as hollow as I feel inside.
“But I...I...”
“You. You. It's all about you. It always has been.”
“Tell me how to make this right.” He squeezes me gently.
“There's no making it right, Lucian.”
“I don't want to be without you.”
“You should have thought about that before you dicked me around.” I carefully try to peel his fingers from around me, but he doesn't budge.
“People make mistakes, Amy. When you've been through as much as I have. When you're so scared of losing the ones that you love...It's so hard to love again. I haven't wanted to let anyone get close to me. Not until you came along.
“This was never supposed to happen. You were supposed to be just another casual fuck, but then you got under my skin. I saw how beautiful and sweet and wonderful you are. I saw what I was missing in my life, and I was scared. I was scared because I thought that if I brought you close to me, I would just lose you. Somehow, someway, something would happen, and I'd lose you. I didn't think I could afford that kind of pain again without breaking completely. And now I realize that I can't afford not taking that chance.”
I sigh, genuinely feeling sorry for him. He has been through a lot. After dealing with so much loss in close proximity, it would probably be natural to want to distance yourself from any kind of real human connection.
I place my fingers on top of his, but not even I can tell if I'm trying to comfort him or not. I'm speechless, unsure of what to do. More than anything, I'm emotionally exhausted.
“Say something,” he whispers into my ear.
“What do you want me to say?”
“Say that you'll give me another chance. I won't push you away again. I promise.”
I want to believe him, but it's hard after everything he's put me through. He doesn't deserve another chance. I think we both know that.
“Is that why you still work here at Flesh, because you've been trying to keep your distance from me?”
The question catches him off-guard, and I can feel his body tense behind me. “It's complicated,” he mutters after a few seconds of silence.
“Everything about you is complicated. I don't like complicated.” I relax in his arms, surrendering to the fact that he won't let me go until he's good and ready. I absolutely hate the way he makes me a prisoner like this. Now that I think about it, he's kind of needy. Kind of selfish. Definitely not as perfect as I originally thought. I can only assume that he behaves this way because deep down inside he's insecure. Perhaps it stems from his fear of losing people.
“I wish it wasn't so.”
“I wish a lot of things weren't so.” His embrace is starting to feel strangling. “Let me go, Lucian.”
“Tell me you'll give me another chance. Let me take you out to dinner tonight.”
“The idea of going to dinner with you after you've been with however many women are left on your client sheet for the night isn't exactly appealing.” I turn my head to look at him, but I can barely see his face.
“I'll cancel all of my appointments for the rest of the evening. I'll be ready whenever you tell me to. Tonight can be all about talking, compromising, telling each other the raw truth. That's what you want, isn't it?” He sounds like he's grasping at straws to please me.
The fact that he's willing to cancel his appointments for the rest of the night tells me that he's very serious. Even if I don't want to admit it to myself, even if I don't want to believe it...he does care about me. I'm beginning to think that every reaction he's had tonight, the tears and the begging and the defeated look, it was all genuine.
I swallow hard, watching my defenses break down from the inside, seeing a small sliver of light shining through the dark clouds of these heavy moments. The thought of giving in to him makes me feel naive, but deep down inside, I still want him. Aside from the night that we made love together, this is the closest he's ever been to the man I want him to be. He's chasing me. It's not the other way around. He's willing to sacrifice...what? Fucking a few extra girls tonight. The thought instantly disgusts me.
“At the top of my list of priorities was sex.” I try my hardest to keep bitterness out of my voice. I don't want him to think that I'll be angered by an honest answer, even though it's pretty obvious that I would be. “If I were someone else. If you had come in here and I had been a normal client, would you have had sex with me?”
“No,” he replies without hesitation. “Now let me take you to dinner.”
It's an unexpected answer, and while I should be satisfied with it, I can't help but want to dig further, to find some dirt that will help me to hate him again. Even though I selfishly want him, I feel like giving him this last chance is a big mistake.
“How many girls have you slept with since me?” I ask.
“Amy, don't do this.” Lucian tenses behind me.
“How many, Lucian?” My tone is so biting that it could shred skin.
“None since I told you about my wife and son. None since I realized how much you matter to me.” It's a diversion from the actual question, but now that I think about it, I don't want the real answer. This is good enough.
That there was a period of time since we've known each other that he's still been intimate with other women hurts, but the fact that he stopped after a breakthrough in our relationship does mean something to me. He stopped because he truly cares. Maybe we are making some kind of progress after all.
I'm filled with so much uncertainty. My emotions are everywhere. There's a cold part of me that's still looking at him as a project. A deeper part of me desperately wants to be with him, despite all of his non-stop douchebaggery. I've never had bad boy syndrome before, and I hate it. I hate that I'm attracted to him. I hate that I want to heal him. I hate that I'm willing to compromise myself to try to make something out of this mess.
“Pick me up at eight,” I say before pulling out of his grasp and opening the door, never looking back at him.