Chapter 17
“Okay, Pauline. Thank you for letting me know.” I end the call and set my phone down on the cocktail table in Nick’s living room.
“Everything okay?”
He walks out from the kitchen barefoot, his white shirt still tucked loosely into his belted suit pants but unbuttoned to his chest and rolled up at the sleeves. Clutched in his hand is a cut-crystal tumbler of whisky. We arrived at the penthouse about an hour ago, our plans for a proper date tonight put on the back burner. With Kathryn hospitalized, the last thing on my mind is going out somewhere. I had planned to go home after the hours spent at Kathryn’s bedside, but it didn’t take a lot of convincing for Nick to persuade me to stay the night in the city with him in case her situation worsened.
Fortunately, that worry seems to be abated at least for now.
“They’re moving her out of ICU tonight. Pauline says the doctors want to observe her for a few hours tomorrow, make sure she’s strong enough to go home. There’s a good chance Kathryn will be discharged following the afternoon rounds.”
“Sounds encouraging.”
“I suppose so, all things considered.” I fold my legs under me on the sofa. “Pauline thinks it’s time for Kathryn to start thinking about hospice.”
He doesn’t say anything as he takes a seat beside me, just nods then takes a swig from the crystal glass. “You sure I can’t fix you a drink?”
“No, thank you.” He’s on his second since we came home from the hospital, and this one appears to be a larger pour than the first. “Do you want to talk about it?”
He stares at me as if I just said I wanted to discuss my period. “Talk about it?”
“Kathryn’s cancer. The fact that she’s dying.”
“What more is there to say?”
Although he seems accepting enough on the surface, even calm, I study his face as he tips the glass to his lips again and downs another healthy swallow of liquor. There is a storm of dark emotion behind the shuttered control of his gaze. A world of hurt he’s holding far out of my reach.
“I know your history with Kathryn, Nick. Are you afraid to tell me that you still care about her?”
He swivels a hard, questioning look at me. “Is that what you think?”
“I don’t mean romantically. I know that was over a long time ago. I mean, are you okay with the way you and she have left things? What I mean is, are there things you need to resolve with her while you still have the time?”
He drains his glass and sets it down on the table. “We’ve talked.” I’m sure my confusion is evident in my face. Nick leans back on the sofa with a sigh, draping his arm behind me. His fingers toy idly in my hair, his touch soothing me while I wait for him to say more. “You were in the hall with Pauline. Kathryn woke up. We spoke for a few minutes. I don’t know . . . I guess she felt the need for some kind of absolution from me. Closure, maybe.”
“Did you give it to her?”
“I told her there was nothing to forgive. I never hated her, even though I let her believe I did for far too long. She didn’t deserve that.”
I reach up and stroke his beard-shadowed cheek. “She’s been waiting years to hear you say that,” I point out gently, well aware of how deeply it hurt Kathryn to feel she’d made an enemy out of him only because she did something motivated by her love for him. I lean into his side, drawn to his warmth, his strength. “Thank you for showing her kindness today, Nick. She needs that kind of peace now more than ever.”
His arm comes down around me, tucking me close. “What do you need?”
“You. This.” My fingers find their way to the back of his neck and into the silky edge of his black hair. “All I need is us. I see Kathryn so alone at the end of her life and it scares me sometimes.”
He frowns, brushing the backs of his fingers along the side of my face. “You’re afraid of being alone?”
“No. Afraid of going through my life without you.”
“Angel.” The word is a rough whisper just before his lips meet mine. His kiss is deep and possessive, flavored with need and the sweet, smoky flavor of the whisky on his tongue.
I didn’t come here tonight with the intention of making love, but when Nick is kissing me like this, there’s no room for anything else. He makes me feel safe. He makes me feel cherished and protected, as if nothing bad can ever touch me so long as I’m in his arms.
I need to feel those things now—more than I realized.
After being in that hospital around so much talk of sickness and dying, I need to feel alive.
I need to feel secure in Nick’s love.
His kiss turns hotter before I’m fully prepared. With his tongue stroking against mine, devouring my soft moans and panting breaths, he pushes me down onto the sofa beneath him. As much as I ache to feel him against me, his need seems even more urgent. He draws back on a groan, then makes quick work of my loose top and denim shorts. His mouth is hungry on me, traveling over every inch of bared skin, his teeth nipping me sharply when he reaches my hip.
“I have to taste you,” he growls, already dragging my panties down my legs.
If I craved a slow burn tonight, it’s clear that Nick has other ideas.
He spreads me wide, then descends, his dark head buried between my thighs. There is no prelude, and no mercy in the assault he wages on my sex. It’s wet and hot and fevered.
There’s no slowing him down, but then it’s easy to get caught up in the storm of his intense passions. And seeing him so consumed with lust for me is a pleasure all its own.
I cry out in protest when his mouth leaves me just when my climax was building toward its peak. Straddling me with one foot on the floor and the other knee bent on the side of me, he strips out of his shirt and tosses it aside. His eyes are turbulent with need as he unfastens his belt and draws down the zipper of his bespoke slacks. He pulls his cock out, his hand wrapped around the hard length, stroking it all the way to the plump, glistening head as he moves nearer to my face.
“Take it.” His voice is low and demanding. “I need your mouth on me now.”
I can’t obey him fast enough. Arousal spirals through me, as sharp and compelling as Nick’s command. I close my lips around him and suck him deep, moaning at the feel of him on my tongue, filling my mouth. His hands mold to the back of my head as I move up and down on him. He shows me the tempo he wants, the pressure of his fingers urging me to go deeper, faster, harder.
“Fuck,” he grinds out tersely as he powers into my mouth.
I know he’s on the verge of coming and I want to take him there. I cup his balls and meet every furious stroke, even though it’s almost too much for me to manage. On a violent curse, he pulls me off him and shoves me down onto my back. His slacks and boxer briefs bunch low on his thighs but he doesn’t seem to notice or care.
Kneeling between my legs, he yanks my hips up to meet him, his scarred hand guiding his cock roughly into the folds of my slick, swollen cleft. He thrusts inside, tunneling deep and hard, as far as my body will allow. It’s almost too much. He’s immense and tonight he’s got the sexual hunger to match. There is an air of domination in him now that unsettles me, even though it once turned me on.
Nick’s eyes are locked onto mine but they seem remote, shuttered as he moves inside me. His hips rock urgently, violently, leaving no room for the tenderness I crave. I don’t know what’s spurring this animal need in him, if it’s the alcohol or the hospital or the dark, troubled mood that seemed to ride him most of the day. Maybe it’s all of those things.
He doesn’t give me any chance to reach him.
Pulling out of me on a harsh snarl, he lifts me under the arms and turns me around, positioning me on my knees and then pressing me down atop the arm of the sofa. With my hands caught in his grasp at my back, he enters me from behind, bucking into me with even greater frenzy. I can’t deny the erotic pleasure that streaks through me to be pinned beneath him, submitted completely and wholly at his mercy.
But this isn’t what I need right now.
I need to see his face. I need to touch him, and feel his arms around me.
I crave an intimacy I don’t think he’s capable of tonight.
“Nick,” I gasp, struggling to find my breath, let alone the words. “Nick, please . . .”
I don’t know if he hears me. He seems too far gone into whatever it is that owns him right now.
And then I hear the soft jangle of a belt buckle. Followed by the fluid whisper of cool leather being wrapped around my wrists at my back.
“Nick . . . no.” I flinch, a jolt of alarm shooting into my veins. I tamp it down, knowing he would never hurt me or do anything I don’t want. “Not like this, okay? Not tonight.”
Nick and I have played at games like this before, but something is different about him tonight. I don’t know why he feels the need for this kind of control right now, but he is lost to it. I sense a darkness in him so strongly it startles me. Terrifies me.
And the leather doesn’t leave my wrists; it only tightens. Everything inside me freezes in an instant.
“Nick?” I turn my head to look at him over my shoulder but his eyes are wild and vacant. “Dammit, Nick. I said no!”
I scramble away from him. Pulling my hands out of his hold and kicking free of the sofa, I fall to the floor in an inelegant sprawl. I sit up, naked and shaking. My breath heaves in and out of my lungs as I stare up at him in shocked silence.
I’m not sure which of us is more horrified.
“Avery—fuck.”
He reaches for my hand to help me up, but I don’t take it. I move away from the sofa in a rush of limbs then slowly stand up, easily out of his reach.
“Now you’re afraid of me?” His face is a mask of contrition . . . and barely contained fury. “Jesus Christ.”
He swings his feet to the floor and stands, pulling up his black boxer briefs and pants and tucking his still-erect cock inside. He zips up tersely and reaches for his empty glass on the table.
I swallow hard, searching for words as I watch him stride away from me toward the kitchen. Hastily putting on my clothes, I follow after him.
“What was that about, Nick? What the hell were you doing?”
“I thought it was obvious.”
His flippant reply stops me cold in my tracks. I watch from behind him as he pours two fingers of liquor into the glass. I wince as he throws it back in one gulp. “Do you really think more alcohol will help?”
He grunts, not bothering to face me. “It’s been known to in the past.”
“Oh, really? You mean like the night you almost put a gun to your head in the back office at the gallery?” The glare he swivels on me nearly sends me back a pace. I’m sure that’s his intent, but I hold my ground. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s bothering you. Does it have something to do with Kathryn’s cancer? The fact that she’s dying?”
“This has nothing to do with her.”
It’s not much of answer, but at least he’s talking. “Was it the hospital, then? I noticed how uncomfortable you were there.”
“For fuck’s sake.” Forgoing the glass, he grabs the bottle of single malt and stalks past me, back into the living room. “Stop trying to analyze me, Avery. If I wanted a therapist I’d fucking hire one.”
“Maybe you should.”
He barks out a caustic laugh. Still keeping me at his back, he walks to the large living room window that looks down over Manhattan’s nighttime skyline and the two glistening rivers that flank the island. The first night he brought me here, I stood in front of that window marveling at the view below and the darkly handsome, mysterious man who had invited me into his world.
Dominic Baine had been a fascinating puzzle to me, one I couldn’t wait to solve.
Now I can’t help wondering if I’ll ever know him.
Will he ever truly let me in?
“What were you going to say to me earlier today at the rec center, Nick?” I watch his body tense at the question. The change that sweeps over him is almost palpable. “When I said I was proud of you, something happened. Did it have something to do with your past? Maybe something about your father, or the fight the two of you had that injured your hand?”
“Drop it, Avery.” He pivots around to face me now, his jaw clamped. Finally, he blows out a short breath. “You’re making something out of this that isn’t there.”
“Am I?” I slowly shake my head. “I don’t think so. I don’t think the way you’re acting with me now is nothing.”
“How I’m acting?” He holds his arms out, the web of scars gleaming on his forearm and his right hand, which is wrapped around the neck of the half-empty bottle of whisky. I notice he’s not quite steady on his feet. “You said you needed to fuck, so we fucked. Now you’re looking for reasons to fight with me.”
Anger and hurt surges up inside me like a black wave I can’t stop. “I didn’t need to fuck tonight. I needed tenderness from you, Nick. I needed comfort. Connection. Things you seemed willing and capable of giving me a few nights ago, so why not now?” I hate the way my voice trembles, the way my whole body shudders with the raw ache of my disappointment. “I told you that if we had any chance of making it, there couldn’t be any more lies or secrets—and you agreed. You agreed there would be no more games of control. No more power plays.”
“And what if I can’t do that?”
I take a step back, almost staggering at his quiet reply.
Now he’s the one who advances. He moves toward me, holding me in a penetrating stare that terrifies me as much as it breaks my heart. “What if those are promises I can’t keep?”
I swallow hard, a coldness opening up in the middle of my chest. “Then we’re only wasting each other’s time, Nick.”
He doesn’t say anything. Not a damn word. I want to scream and rail at him but I don’t have the strength to summon anger when I’m still reeling from the body blow of everything he just said.
“I should go,” I murmur.
“That’s probably for the best.” His answer is equally as wooden as I feel.
Oh, God. Is this really happening?
I don’t want to believe it.
My hands are shaking as I pivot around to retrieve my shoes. I put them on, collecting my phone and slipping it back into my purse.
“I’ll call Patrick,” Nick offers from behind me, his tone so reasonable I want to scream. “He’ll see you home safely.”
I cringe at the idea of his driver being summoned to schlep me back to Queens. “Don’t bother. I can get home on my own.”
I glance at Nick and find he’s already turned away, staring out at the darkness on the other side of the large window.
As I slip out the door and close it behind me, my exit is punctuated by the jarring crash of a bottle hitting a wall.