Her Wicked Heart (15 page)

I squeeze my eyes shut. I don’t want to listen to one of his lectures. I can’t take this right now.

He must realize how harsh he sounds, though, because when he speaks again, I can tell he’s trying to be calmer, even if he can’t quite manage it.

“You need to get away from that place,” he says. “Go back to your brother’s for a while. Or stay with some friends. It doesn’t matter where you go.”

I shake my head, even though I know he can’t see me. “I need to be here.”

“Why, Lou? Why the hell do you need to be there?”

He’s asked me that question before. And I’ve asked it of myself a hundred times. Sometimes I think the answer changes day by day.

“I’m tired of running,” I tell him. “I’m tired of being a coward. I want to do the brave thing.”

“Even if it’s the wrong thing?”

I close my eyes. “It’s not the wrong thing for me.”

“Fuck, Lou, this is insane. This is
illegal
. You’re lying. I don’t know what you think you’re going to accomplish there or what you think they’re going to do when they find out who you are, but it’s not going to end well.”

I shake my head again. “What’s the alternative? That I spend my life running?”

“This isn’t about running. This is about learning to let things go. To be an adult for once and take responsibility for yourself and your actions.”

What does he know about letting go? What does he know about having your entire life torn out from under you?

“I’m sorry, Ian,” I say.

“Lou, I—”

“I’m sorry,” I say again because there’s nothing else left to say.

“Don’t shut me out,” he says, and I can tell he’s getting worked up again. “You’re better than this, Lou.”

Am I, though?
I already know I’m a mess right now. I don’t need to hear it from Ian’s lips. Not again.

“Goodbye, Ian.”

“Lou—”

“Goodbye.”

And then I hang up on him. For the last time.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I lean against the wall for a long time after we hang up.

I deserved that. I deserved every word he said. And I know I’m going to be carrying around the shame of this for a long time.

I close my eyes and try to find the emptiness deep inside of me. I know it’s buried in there somewhere. The hard part is over, and now I just want to drown in numbness for a while.

But it’s not enough.

I don’t stop to think about what I’m doing. I shove my phone in my pocket and head down to the eastern wing of the house.

Ward’s exactly where he said he’d be. There are a couple of other contractors down here, too, all helping with the moldings, but I
don’t give them a second glance.

Ward looks up as I draw closer, and his face brightens. I answer with a very wicked expression of my own, then continue past without a word. I wouldn’t want any of the other workers to hear.

He gets the hint.

I continue down the hall, and I don’t even have to glance over my shoulder to know that Ward is following at a respectable distance behind me. My chest warms and goose bumps prickle across my scalp. I can feel his heated gaze on my back, and it makes me shiver in anticipation.

I consider leading him back to my room, but that’s much too far away right now. Instead, I turn down one of the quieter halls.

As soon as we’re out of sight of the other workers, Ward grabs my hand from behind.

“This way,” he says, his voice low and husky.

I let him lead me. He takes me down the hall and up the small staircase at the end. We duck inside the first bedroom we see, and though I reach for him, impatient, he shakes his head.

“Not yet.” He leads me to the far wall, right next to the large stone fireplace, and I realize with a tightening in my stomach exactly what he’s doing.

It only takes him a moment to find the stone that serves as the latch to the hidden door. He presses against the wall, and the secret hallway opens up in front of us.

I guess that answers my question about whether anyone knew these passages existed.

There’s an amused look on his face. “Pretty awesome, huh? Remember what I said about this place having a bunch of secrets?”

I nod, trying to make sense of how I feel about this sudden reveal. “Though I guess they aren’t so ‘secret’ anymore.”

“They’re secret enough.” He pulls me into the dark hallway. “The only reason I found them was because I was repairing a bookcase in one of the upstairs studies and I accidentally hit the spring that opens the door. These passages didn’t even make it on
to the blueprints for this place, believe it or not. I can only imagine the trouble those Cunninghams were getting up to.”

I flinch at the mention of my family’s name. I don’t want to know what Ward thinks my family was up to. I don’t want to talk about my family at all right now.

“What is it?” he says. He pulls the hidden door shut behind us, closing us off to the rest of the world and plunging us into darkness.

“Nothing,” I say quickly. I don’t want to be having this conversation right now. I want something else.

Before he can ask me again, I grab him by the front of the shirt and pull his mouth down to mine. He warms quickly to the kiss.

And then he’s leading me, backing me up against the passage wall. I clasp my hands behind his neck and try to draw him closer—as close as his sling will allow—though we’re pressed so tightly against each other now that there’s nothing left to do but melt into each other.

He’s just as ravenous as he was last night, and my body reacts with the same fire it did before. I’m startled by the sense of relief that floods through me at that realization; I guess a part of me was afraid that it was just the moon and the wine and the anger that made us behave like wild animals last time. That we were both reacting to some crazy thing deep within ourselves, and not responding to each other.

Now I know. My lips burn. My skin feels alive. This isn’t in my mind. This is Ward—his mouth, his hands, his hard body smashed against my own. The wall of the passage is at my back, cold and hard and unforgiving, but it’s the solid man in front of me that has the true power. My body feels like it might turn to mush, dissolve into a million tiny bits of sensation. Let him tear me apart. Let him hold me together.

He tugs the bottom edge of my blouse out of my skirt and slides his good hand beneath the fabric and up over my belly. His fingers slip beneath the cup of my bra, gliding over the curve of my breast. I moan against his mouth, and he sucks my bottom lip between his teeth. I drop my hands to his waist and sneak them beneath the hem of his T-shirt. My hands move over his back, my nails trailing lightly across his skin, and I feel his muscles tremor beneath my touch.

His knee presses between my legs, and my core throbs in response. My nipples are hard points, and he tugs at one with his thumb and forefinger. At the same time, his face moves to my ear, and a shiver moves through me as he closes his lips around my earlobe.

“Please say you have a condom,” I whisper into the darkness.

He gives a low laugh, his breath washing over my ear. “I don’t know what you think I’ve been doing in the ten hours since the last time we were in this situation, but I haven’t had a chance to get to the store yet.”

I groan. “Tease. You shouldn’t be touching me like this if you aren’t prepared.”

He laughs again, and it’s a deep, throaty sound. “You started it.”

He captures my mouth again, and I can’t do anything but obey the command of his lips. He continues to push my thighs apart with his knee, spreading them as far as my skirt will let them go. I move my hands from his back down to his butt, pulling him harder against me.

He smells of sweat and grass. It’s more intoxicating than I could have imagined. My mind is becoming fuzzier by the minute, and I’m wondering if that buzz I felt last night had anything to do with the wine at all. I feel just as drunk right now.

I reach for his belt. He moans and pulls back slightly, letting me loosen the buckle, but the minute I have it open, he reaches down and grabs my hand.

“We shouldn’t get carried away,” he says.

“Do you really want to stop?”

His hand loosens, and I reach for his fly. He doesn’t argue when I slide his jeans down. In fact, he’s already sliding my skirt up.

“You’re dangerous,” he says against my mouth.

“I’m a crazy bitch, remember?”

“You might be crazy,” he murmurs, “but I don’t believe you’re a bitch.”

Maybe
bitch
isn’t the right word. Maybe I should say
train wreck.
Or
coward.
Or even
narcissist.
But I don’t have the presence of mind to argue with him right now. He doesn’t seem to be up for much of a discussion either. His fingers slide against my underwear, and I spread my thighs. I want him inside of me.

He’s still wearing his boxers, but I intend to fix that. But as I reach for his underwear, he grabs my hand again.

“Are you on birth control?” he asks.

His grip on my hand is firm, and I know I can’t just press against him and change his mind this time. For the briefest of moments, I consider lying, but in spite of the screaming urges of my body, I’m not the kind of girl who’d ever trick a guy that way.

“No,” I whisper.

He lets out a long breath and drops my hand. Still he stands over me, keeping me pinned against the wall, and I can feel the tension in every muscle of his body. He wants this as badly as I do, fights against the same overwhelming urges. His pelvis is locked against mine, and I can feel the throbbing length of his arousal against me, separated only by our respective undergarments. Just two thin layers of cotton.

He groans, dropping his head over my shoulder. His nose buries itself in my hair while his lips brush lightly against my neck. I wrap my arms around his back, over the shirt this time. I don’t trust myself to touch his bare skin and be able to control myself.

“You aren’t making this very easy,” I say, my voice shaky.

He chuckles, and I can feel the vibrations of the sound in my own body. His injured arm is still pressed awkwardly between us, but above that, where our chests touch, I can feel the rapid pulse of his heart.

“You aren’t making this easy, either,” he says into my hair. He kisses my neck again, and this time he moves his hips slightly, shifting himself between my legs.

I try to stifle my small cry of pleasure, but it’s no use. My fingers curl against his back, bunching up his T-shirt.

“Slide your legs together,” he murmurs.

I’m torn between relief and disappointment, thinking he’s asking me to help relieve a bit of the temptation. But as I slide my thighs back toward each other, I realize that it’s only wedging his arousal more tightly against me. We each suck in a breath at the same time.

“Are you trying to torture me?” I growl into his ear.

His good hand grips my hip. “If I’m going to suffer, then you are, too.”

He shifts his hips again, withdrawing slightly. I want to cry out, to beg him to stay where he was, but I don’t even need to voice my need. He presses forward, sliding himself back between my legs again. Once more the hard, hot length of him rubs against my panties.

Forget what I said before.
This
is torture. Sweet, beautiful, agonizing torture.

He moves again, pulling back and sliding forward, simulating what we both want. Every rock of his hips sends a pulse of pleasure through me, and I press my lips together, fighting back my moans. He braces himself against me, moving with a steady rhythm, and ev
ery stroke of his body brings me closer to the edge. My underwear is soaked through, the thin fabric so damp that I can feel the heat of him as if there’s nothing separating us at all. I clutch his shoulders, trying to keep myself above water.

He seems just as desperate. His breathing is ragged in my ear, and his good hand digs into my hip. He’s sweating again, and a bead of it drips from his neck onto my collarbone. My skin is so hot that the drop feels like ice as it slides down my body.

I’ve never had sex without, well,
having sex.
It’s not the same, and at the same time there’s something undeniably exhilarating about this. About finding pleasure in our desperation. My body is tightening, building toward release, and I throw my head back against the wall. Ward growls and quickens his pace. His mouth moves along my neck, sucking and kissing until all of the sensations in my body flow together and pleasure crashes through me.

He pulls back before his own peak, and in spite of my disappointment, I’m grateful he has the presence of mind to take the extra precaution. I don’t need any more complications right now.

His support gone, I allow myself to sink down the wall and sit on the hard ground of the passage. Ward carefully removes his damp boxers and tugs on his jeans again before lowering himself beside me.

“Wow,” he says.

I smile. “
Wow
is right.” My heart is still beating a thousand times a minute, and my limbs feel light and tingly. “I need some time to recover from that.”

He laughs. “I hope you weren’t working on anything important this morning.”

“Everything is important to Mr. Haymore,” I say.

“Well,” Ward says, pulling me up against his side, “he’s just going to have to let a few things go today.”

Let a few things go.
Ward’s words bring up my conversation with Ian:
This isn’t about running. This is about learning to let things go.
All at once, the shame, the confusion rushes back into my gut, and I turn and bury my face in the crook between Ward’s head and shoulder. He tightens his arm around me and gives a laugh.

“What, we don’t even have sex and we’re still required to cuddle?”

I shove away from him and start to get to my feet. “Fine. If you don’t want to—”

“Wait.” He grabs my hand and tugs me back, still laughing. “I was just joking. Come here.”

He pulls me against his chest, and I sink into him. His good arm circles my back, holding me close, while his fingers toy with the ends of my hair. I press my face into his shoulder, still shaking, but not just because of our almost-sex anymore. After a moment, Ward seems to realize it, too. His hand slides up to the back of my head, gently stroking my hair.

“What is it?” he asks softly.

Where do I begin? It’s
everything.

“I just don’t want to go back out there,” I say after a moment. I’m not completely deluded. I might find a temporary reprieve here and there, but my problems aren’t just going to disappear. Moments of joy or pleasure aren’t going to bring back my father, my home, my financial security. They aren’t going to suddenly point me down the path to self-actualization. They aren’t going to erase what I did to Ian.

“No one wants to be out there,” Ward says gently. It’s a wiser, truer thing than I expected to hear. I let my hand drift across his T-shirt. The fabric is damp with sweat.

For a moment, I consider telling him everything. About my family. About my time in Thailand. About my crazy reasons for coming back here and pretending to be someone else. I might have lied about my name, but everything else I’ve said to him has been true.