But the hunger wasn’t satisfied. And it was in no mood to wait.
His palms beneath her ass rocked her forward. She rocked herself back, clenching her legs around his waist. His smile this time could only be called…feral. He thrust into her, the sudden stroke sending her nerve endings screaming with pleasure. And he knew it, no doubt able to tell by the reflexive tightening of her muscles around him, because he did it again. And again.
He lifted her, surged into her even as she pushed down on him for more, greedy for the feeling of him pounding within. Aching. Throbbing. She let her nipples abrade his chest, the sensation adding to the wildness of the ride, the pressure in her middle, the tension in her soul.
Then the cresting began. She bit her lip at the first frothy burst of release. Her eyes were closed so tight she could only see the white of the pressure, feel the squeeze of his hold, the hot splash of him deep within while he groaned. But he kept moving…and she kept coming.
“Lucas!” she finally cried, when she didn’t think she could take any more. He thrust once again and she fell over the highest peak yet, quaking and shivering, draped across him, unable to do more than lay her forehead on his shoulder and try to breathe.
The aftershocks continued to wrack her long moments later, their lessening magnitude what she’d once thought the height of pleasure. He held her, soothing her now with a warm hand on her back, making sounds of contentment, kissing her shoulder with all the gentleness she thought he lacked. She might even have slept there, safe in his hold as she’d never felt before.
Finally though, she came back to herself. He was murmuring something. She closed her mind to it. If she let herself listen, she’d know he was feeling something, trying to express something to her that she couldn’t bear. This night would not be about feelings. It was for sex. For taking advantage of chemistry, drowning out the hunger. The second he said anything about passion or love, the guilt would win out and she’d have to push him away.
It might be stealing, but as long as he was willing to forgo his need for commitment, she’d take all of him she could get.
He slipped from her body with little complaint from her, though she didn’t want to let him go. The cool water was welcome again, gentle and kind as it washed away everything dark between them. When she tipped her face up to look at him and he pushed her hair back, she was able to smile.
He looked down, fingering the ends of her hair, his face unreadable but for the hunger still lurking, impossibly, in his eyes. Her heart leapt at the sight of it and she throbbed deep inside.
“This is going to be a long night, isn’t it?”
He took his time answering, lowering his mouth to hers to kiss her lips—graze them, really—holding her close in his embrace. Gentleness again. And peace. Sweet, wondrous peace.
“Sweetheart, you have no idea.”
But she’d find out. Very, very soon.
Belinda with clothes on—no matter how tight or how scarce—was a sight to behold. Belinda without anything at all was proof there was divinity in the world.
Inspired
divinity.
Lucas lay wide awake in her bed, running his fingers through the soft silk of her hair. He smiled to himself at the decadent abandon of her limbs splayed out across his body. Her head lay just under his heart and the rest of her was draped bonelessly around him, pretty much where she’d slumped after their final, tumultuous ride. One leg over both of his, the other pressed firmly to his side, one arm wrapped around his middle, the other hand under his shoulder, cupping him close.
They’d used most of the small loft in some way or another—he now owed her for a flower vase and a lamp on top of the price of her boots and pants—but for the most part, he made use of every inch of this incredible brass bed.
On nights when he liked to torment himself—most nights—he’d imagined what it would be like to be with her on a bed. To sink with her into a nest of pillows instead of the dew of grass. She’d deserved a bed that first time. She’d deserved so much more than a bed. But no matter what he wanted, he was not the man who would give those things to her.
Last night he’d tried to fulfill every fantasy he’d ever had of her, knowing the memories would have to last him until he was cold in his grave. He’d washed her mask away, the harsh make-up, the plaster in her hair, until despite the color, she was
his
Belle again, scars and all. All night long, she’d cried
his
name, took
his
passion and returned it tenfold. He’d take solace in that. Curb the wanting with it.
Set her free with it.
His hand stopped moving in her hair, resignation finally taking hold. He hadn’t slept. He watched the sun sneak in through the bay windows of the warehouse, pulled her white comforter up over her shoulders and told himself he could take a few more moments, steal a few more seconds, before he had to go. But it was already eight in the morning. The night had long since expired and he had a promise to keep.
Slight as she was, it wasn’t easy to dislodge her. She slept like a solid brick. One limb at a time, Lucas extracted himself from her hold, easing from the bed. He turned around, watching to make sure she slept on, undisturbed. She lay peacefully, facedown on her bed, her jet hair stark against the white pillows and white comforter, cuddled in them like a child.
A really sinful child.
He touched her hair once more, sliding it though his fingers like ribbons before stepping back. Steeling himself, he knew if he didn’t do this now, he’d never let her go. He went back to the bathroom, where they’d haphazardly hung their clothes over the shower rod. Only half-dry, but better than walking out in the buff. He held back the urge to swear by the skin of his teeth while putting on the frigid clothing. Finally, he had just about everything on, keys in his pocket, heart on the floor.
This is what she wants
, he reminded himself, looking in the mirror. But his face wasn’t reflected at him. Kyle’s was. Fewer harsh lines bracketed his mouth. A satisfied, sleepy look took the severity out of his eyes. There was light to them he’d never seen before. He scrubbed a hand over the short scruff of his hair, barely moving it, wondering if she would have wanted it longer, the way it used to be.
But it didn’t matter anymore, did it?
It was over.
He took a last glance around the little floor plan, looking for clothes he might have left behind. All there was to see were the toppled toothbrush holder, the birth control pill dispenser she’d tossed over her shoulder in a show of feminine power and the remnants of a midnight snack that had been shoved aside for more constructive activities. The loft was open on one side, guarded by waist-high rails before giving way to the internal stairs. They would have done more damage the night before if her living area hadn’t been so sparsely arranged—just a couch, the large brass bed, a small television and a tiny kitchenette tucked into the corner.
She’d kill him for thinking it, but the room wasn’t the home of a dedicated goth queen. Her bedspread was white and fluffy. The curtains were Victorian-looking lace. Her bedside table had a doily beneath the lamp, for God’s sake. Everything was neat and had a place, filled with the light and sweetness she never allowed anyone to see.
At its utter, basic core, this little room was where the real Belinda lived. Out there, in the city with her brash ways, over-the-top outfits and undying dedication to Kyle, was where she hid. He sighed, wondering if she ever gave a thought as to why. He certainly had. Twelve years of thoughts, of fears, of wondering if he’d been the one to make her that way. But if he were, it would mean she cared about him, which she vowed as loudly as possible would never happen. Still, he wondered. Sometimes, he even hoped…but not often.
“Where are you going?” her voice asked from beneath the blankets, nearly making him jump. She hadn’t moved in the slightest. Bending down slightly, he could see that she hadn’t even opened her eyes.
“Home.” The clarity and resolve in his voice was exactly what he knew they had to be.
Her right eyelid lifted, then squinted at him. “You’re dressed.”
“I know.”
“I thought…” Both eyes opened now and she rubbed them with her hands. She yawned into a catlike smile before beginning a similarly feline reach of her arms.
A stretch of her entire body was too much of a temptation to deny, so he watched her shoulders emerge from the bedding, each tiny muscle flexing as she rolled joints and shifted. His body leapt, imagining that sinuous movement over him, already hungry again.
I’m going to want her even when I’m dead, aren’t I?
“I thought maybe we could go to breakfast or something.” Sex still poured through her voice as she rolled onto her back, not covering her breasts with more than a haphazard pull of the sheet over one shoulder. The peachy tip of one peeked out at him over the fold of her arm, teasing him with its already puckered state. It took all his will to tear his eyes away and meet her dawning gaze. “Lucas?”
“What?” Sharper than he meant, but damn it, did she think this would be easy for him?
She didn’t shrink away into the blankets, but her dark eyes narrowed, accentuating the tiny fissure that split the very end of her eyebrow nearly to the corner of her right eye. “Where are you going?” she asked again, probably finally realizing.
“Home,” he repeated, softer now, looking away from her to the door. A few steps and he’d be out. Gone. Alone. Forever.
“So that’s it? Again? Make me bowlegged and disappear into the night.”
“It’s day already, Belle.”
“Oh don’t get analytical with me. I know what damn time of day it is.” She sat up fully, the blankets sliding to her waist, but it wasn’t a problem because she drew her knees to her chest, looping her arms around her legs and resting her chin on the highest point. With her spiky cut hair going in every direction, her eyes narrowed to slits, she looked like an angry cat, preparing to pounce. “You’re running away.”
Like I’m on fire.
“You’re a coward.”
“You’re hardly one to talk, Belinda. You knew this was coming.” Didn’t she? He tried to think back to the night before. Hadn’t he been clear? Didn’t he tell her exactly what the night was about? He was sure he did. He knew he did.
“Maybe I got confused by all the thrusting and praying to God. You didn’t
sound
like someone desperate to escape.”
He closed his eyes. No, escape was anything but his plan the night before, but he had a resolve to keep. This wasn’t just about setting
her
free. Maybe without her, he’d finally get a life instead of waiting for her to stop wanting Kyle.
“See, I knew we shouldn’t have done this. I knew you’d want to get emotional about it. Not everything between us has to be a federal case. We’re good at this part. Why are you making it into one?”
“I’m doing this because it’s what has to be done,” he uttered, reminding himself, too.
“Says who?”
“What do you want from me, Belinda?” he snapped, glaring at her finally. Fresh-faced, pink lips slightly parted in surprise, she was everything he’d loved since he was six damn years old. But she’d never be his. Never. She didn’t
want
to be. He had to remember that.
“You wanted sex. I gave you that. You don’t want anything else from me. You don’t want me to love you. Or care about you. Or be part of your life. You never have. You want Kyle. Now you can have him. I’m not in your way anymore.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You said that as long as I wanted you, he never would. You said I was
killing
you, remember?” He sure did. “You might tell yourself I’m inhuman, but I’m not a monster. And I’m tired of being your dog, just a poor, unwanted substitute. I’ve had my fill, Belle. I’m done.”
“What?” Her dark eyes were wide. Afraid, again.
Lucas turned away from her. All his life, it seemed, had been lived for her protection, her happiness, to keep her from being afraid. He couldn’t do it anymore. This was for the best. This was the only way for either of them.
This is what she wants.
“I’m done with you.” He took those steps to the door and walked through it.
He never looked back.
Chapter Three
Belinda stared at the closed door of the loft for ten minutes. Ten. She knew because she counted each and every second. Lucas didn’t come back.
“This is the most psychopathic relationship I’ve ever fucking heard of,” she said to no one. No one but herself, anyway, and she didn’t exactly believe it. Oh, she and Lucas were good at sticking it to each other, there was no doubt about it, but her parents took that particular cake and she knew it.
When she was growing up, her father only showed up to make his overworked wife pregnant and broke. It often became her job, as the oldest, not to give her harried mother messages that her father was on the phone. Or to keep the kids from expecting much from the old bastard, so they wouldn’t get their hopes up that he might stay. But six kids were hard to corral, especially with her working part-time and going to school. By the time she was a senior in high school, she was tired of relationships on the whole. She’d vowed never to get involved in one, either.
The vow lasted only as long as it took Lucas to lay her down on the grass by the lake on prom night.
Belinda rolled her eyes now. Okay, their relationship probably started a lot earlier. Like the day she met him, parked on the top of the slide, ignoring all the kids behind him yelling for him to move. Kyle had dared him to try the “big kid” slide. They’d gone up together. Kyle had come down alone. Lucas got scared and refused to budge, frowning over the edge at the woodchips below. She’d stomped past Kyle, kicked off her shoes and socks and clambered up the metal slide from the front. It took some pounding on his hands to get his grip loose and finally she shoved him until he began the descent whether he liked it or not.
Of course, he’d grabbed at her dress and accidentally sent her wheeling over the side of the slide to the ground in an arm-breaking crash as thanks. No good deed going unpunished seemed to be his mantra in life.
Oh, he was sorry about the broken arm. He’d stayed with her, screaming bloody murder for the recess aides and not leaving her side until the ambulance carted her away. Lucas always did sorry well—hadn’t he spent a whole decade trying to make up for her lost virginity?—but she was tired of being the one getting broken whenever they tangled.
“I’m not going to cry.” She slid her hands into her hair. It was weird to have it dry natural, but it was what he’d wanted the night before. After their little water escapade, he’d washed her carefully, massaging her soreness away, lathering her hair twice and getting a little carried away with the conditioner while he was at it. Probably trying to scrub the black dye out and get to the white gold beneath. Little did he know, no amount of scrubbing was going to make the stupid girl he’d once made love to come back, no matter how badly he wanted her.
Or was figuring that out what made him leave?
She scruffed her hair once more and threw back the blankets. She couldn’t stay in bed and try to make sense of Lucas Lonnigan. If twenty-five years of knowing him hadn’t given her any insight, one morning in the bed where he’d slept certainly wouldn’t.
Getting up was a revelation. Her body was sore, but her joints glided smoother than ever. She groaned a little, arching her back, wondering if maybe she shouldn’t have said the word
bowlegged
; it was coming back to haunt her. Most men couldn’t actually keep going until you couldn’t walk straight the next day, but Lucas apparently never had to worry about stamina. She caught sight of herself in the mirror over her sink and gaped.
Her hair stuck off her head on the left side and fell stick straight on the right. Her mouth was swollen, still red, and from her chin down she had the pink, freshly scrubbed look only a prickly morning beard could produce. If you dragged it all over your body. The damn man.
Anger flooded her. First he ruined her boots with water. Then he ripped her pants right off of her. Now he’d gone and tattooed her. When she saw him next she was going to—
To what? Yell at him for making love to her until she forgot everything else in the world? For spending an entire night giving her hope that maybe she’d been wrong to push him away all these years. That they might be able to…to… God, she couldn’t even think of where she’d been going with such an idiotic plan. Not that it mattered. He was
done
with her.
Belinda reached past the curtain and turned the hot water on full blast. She jumped in, sure to put her face directly under the spray and take the stinging behind her lids away. But it only intensified.
Done
with her.
How did a man make love to you with so much passion, with so little control, and claim to be
done
with you the next morning? Was he human? Was he unfeeling? Didn’t he understand anything
at all
?
She put her hand on the wall to support the weakness in her legs. The ache in her heart threatened to break her chest open. When she pulled in a gasp of air, it echoed off the walls of the oversize stall like a sob. But she wasn’t sobbing. That would mean she was crying and you couldn’t be crying without tears.
She put her other hand on the wall and fought the wracking of her shoulders. He was
done
with her.
It was for the best. Wanting Lucas was a bad thought from its inception. Kyle was the one she could rely on. Kyle didn’t inspire passion. He didn’t get angry. His eyes didn’t burn when they looked at her. He would never possess her the way Lucas had. Could.
Did
, anytime he put his mind to it.
After last night—clearly after this morning—she could put her desire away, the way he was doing. Unlike her mother, she wasn’t going to be ruled by it. She wasn’t going to be carting around kid after kid, every year taking her further from her dreams of being a respected and successful artist. She was struggling now, yes, but she wouldn’t be struggling forever. She was free.
She didn’t need Lucas Lonnigan.
She certainly didn’t want him.
She was
free
.
Which was exactly what she repeated to herself over and over as she sank to the floor of the shower stall and cried, no longer able to hold it in or pretend it wasn’t happening.
It would have been nice if the next time Lucas saw his brother, Kyle were in some kind of full-body cast. But no. He found the idiot parked on his front porch as if he’d be welcome. Worse, he refused to go away.
Kyle had it in his head that he was interested in Jessica, his date from the night before. The date that was little more than a ruse to get Lucas alone with Belinda again because Kyle couldn’t mind his own business.
Karma hadn’t been kind. Jessica’s reaction to being duped with a doppelganger had been to crush Kyle’s adoration beneath a sedate, lawyerly high heel of total rejection.
If Lucas didn’t want to kill him, he’d be laughing at the sap.
At least, he would if Kyle would go away. It was going on three in the afternoon and the pathetic bastard was still in Lucas’s kitchen, whining.
“I’m just going to have to be persistent. She feels it, too.”
“Feels what?” Lucas asked wearily. At best, he could hope they shared the similar feeling of Jessica’s foot up Kyle’s ass, but he doubted his brother would be so positive about something like that.
“She’s the one, Lucas. My one in a million.”
Great, the one time Lucas attempted to be comforting in ten years and the moron didn’t get it right. Kyle had been going on about wanting to end his boring existence of wine, women and song to settle down and have a few miniatures of himself to fawn over. “I said you have a basic search cell of a million women in the regional area for your ridiculous breeding hunt, not that you’d
find
one in that million. You’re technically looking for one in five-point-five billion.”
His brother leveled a surprisingly good bland look his way. “You have no sense of romance, do you?”
Lucas surveyed him sourly from his small dining room table. That was a rotten accusation to make on this, of all days. Hadn’t he bent over backward to be everything Belinda asked him to be, to no avail? Wasn’t he about to sacrifice his own happiness for the contentment of the woman he loved? No sense of romance? He was the
epitome
of romance, goddamn it.
“Romance is an overused term for an under-appreciated emotion.” Extremely under-appreciated.
Kyle grinned, back to being cocky and easy in his skin. “So that’s a no, then?”
Lucas tightened his death grip on his coffee mug, grumbling into it as he drank. “I like you less and less as the years go by.”
“Nah, you love me.” Kyle bent back into the fridge and dug out the lasagna leftovers from a lunch with a client. “More importantly, so does Jessica. I have to admit, when I thought up sending you to meet Belinda, it never occurred to me I’d find someone for myself. Talk about lucky.”
Yeah, lucky. Stupid. Either or.
“I just have to put a plan together,” Kyle continued, oblivious. “A way to get her to forgive me. Then everything will fall together, the way it should.”
“She’s a lawyer, Kyle. She’s trained to see through clouds of bull—”
“She loves me,” Kyle interrupted adamantly.
Since his twin said almost nothing with that degree of firmness, Lucas took a second to rethink his position on Kyle’s seriousness. This might be worse than he thought. “Does this mean you think you love her, too?”
“Not think.
Know
,” Kyle corrected with a raised forefinger. “She’s the one, Lucas. She’s everything I want.”
Much worse. The bridge of Lucas’s nose began to hurt. Come to think of it, his brain was starting to hurt, right at the temples and deep into his eyes. Or was it just aggravation? “You don’t even know her!”
“I know what I feel.”
“Oh, please,” Lucas scoffed. “Hard-ons are not synonymous with love.”
Kyle snorted. “Like you would know. Your idea of deep affection and commitment is letting your date figure out how to split the bill.”
“You don’t think I’m capable of love?” That egg of theirs should never have divided.
“You’re as capable of it as the next guy. You don’t seem to believe it, though, so why should anyone else?”
Lucas felt his mood slip to rancorously grim. “As if you’ve ever done anything in your life for the sake of love.”
Kyle’s confidence took a definite hit, his smile faltering and his head tilting to the side before he looked back at his food. He stabbed his utensil at it a few times like a pitchfork into hay. “Yeah, well…I didn’t have a reason before. I wasn’t in love with anyone.”
He gave Lucas a strange sideways look. A look Lucas didn’t want to interpret. “So how did things go with you and Belinda?”
“None of your business.” Lucas might have to suffer watching Kyle and Belinda live happily ever after, but he wasn’t sharing anything about the
one
night she was his.
“Uh-huh, just what I thought.” The smug twit.
“Oh, shut up. You don’t know anything.” Now he couldn’t even drink his coffee anymore. He shoved the cooling mug to the other side of the table in disgust.
“I know this much: The last time you stayed a whole night with a woman, you were in the womb. And yet, here you were dragging your sorry ass in the door after eight in the morning. Wretchedly, I might add. Proof positive that you’re in love. You know as well as everyone else does that you want to be with her. Why do I have to constantly force you into going out with her?”
Honesty twisted Lucas’s mouth. “Because no one ever asked what
Belinda
wanted.”
Kyle only laughed, back to his happy-go-lucky, blind, pain-in-the-ass self. He found some bread and wandered over to the toaster. “No one ever had to. She’s pretty clear about what and who she wants.”
No shit. She’d been clear for nearly two decades. “That’s never bothered you?”
“Why should it bother me? I think it’s great.” He would. The whole world was supposed to adore Kyle, wasn’t it? And he owed no one anything in return. Just being there for the adoration was enough, right?
Wrong.
“You jackass!” Lucas snapped, anger flooding him. “How could you do that to her? String her along, knowing—”
“
Me?
” Kyle’s surprise was nearly genuine. He pushed the toaster knob into place with a click and laughed. “Belinda doesn’t want
me
.”
Blind, stupid fool. “Then you’re not even half as smart as I gave you credit for.”
“I’m not the idiot here, Luc.” Kyle leaned his back to the counter and crossed his arms, still smug, still annoying. “Ask anyone. The only one Belinda has ever wanted was you. I’m her pal because you, my uptight, high-strung placental partner, drive people to acts of insanity and she needed me to make sure she didn’t kill you.”
Yeah, right. “Like I said, try asking Belinda sometime. She has very specific answers on the subject.”
“Was that what you were asking her last night?”
“Kyle,” Lucas growled, curling his fingers around the edge of his kitchenette table. This one would probably fly further than the one at Vino’s would have.
“Okay, fine, I won’t ask about last night, but you’re nuts if you think I’m going anywhere near Belinda.” Then he laughed. He actually laughed. The toaster sprang, grabbing Kyle’s full attention until he’d juggled his food across the kitchen and back to his plate.