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“Jesus, Olivia, is that what you thought? I left you that night because there was too much on the line, not because I didn’t want you. I was afraid of pushing you into something you might regret. But Olivia, you make it so fucking impossible,” he said, pleading up to the ceiling. His breathing was ragged and he looked back at me with stormy eyes. “I can’t be around you anymore because you drive me crazy ev
ery second of the day.” He ran both hands through his hair. “Fuck, if I don’t distance myself from you, I’m going to lose my sanity.”
I gulped in a shaky breath. The past few weeks had definitely been a test of my sanity.
“And when I ended things, you just took it, you didn’t even care. Just let me walk out. Tell me you care Olivia, and that I’m not completely delusional.”
“You know I can’t,” I whispered. How could he think I didn’t? It was oozing from my pores all the time, how much I wanted to touch him, how much I thirsted for his attention.
“Then show me.”
“What do you want from me, David?” I cried. “You expect me to jeopardize everything, ev-ery-thing, for . . . for what?” I exclaimed, my voice bouncing off the empty walls. “Sex? My marriage, my work, my friends . . . . My marriage!” I swayed slightly as I yelled, at the mercy of the alcohol that ran through me. “I can’t do it, David!”
“Olivia. How many times do I have to say it? Did you hear a word I just said? It’s not like that and you know it,” he intoned calmly, which only made me feel more hysterical.
“Oh, okay,” I said wryly, sweat forming on my nape despite the cold. “Where’s your date, David? Did she stand you up? Is that why you’re here now, in this stairwell? To see if I’ll fuck you?” I stepped up to him, coming right under his chin, my temper flaring and my thighs burning. “Well what’s stopping you, David? Why not take me now? I bet you don’t even have the decency to bring me upstairs.” I put as much venom as I could into the words and they felt bitter leaving my mouth.
“So help me God, Olivia,” he whispered, stepping back infinitesimally and locking his hands under his armpits. “Don’t test me. That date was over before it had begun, thanks to you,” he replied. “And I know what you’re doing. I know you’re afraid.”
“Afraid?” I cried, gesturing wildly. “Afraid of losing everything, yes!”
“You’re afraid of this. I am too. I want - ”
“Stop!” I shouted, covering my ears. “This has to stop,” I said. “Why won’t you stop?”
“Olivia, listen to me,” he said, crossing his arms tighter across his chest. His face became calm as he took a deep breath. “I am afraid. I have never touched a married woman. You might not believe me, but this has been hard for me too because it goes against all of my beliefs. My parents, who are my world, have been happily married for thirty-seven years, and I would kill anyone who tried to come between them. But it’s nothing compared to keeping it inside. I can’t hide it like you. And if I honestly thought he was the right person for you, I would walk away right now.” My heartbeat pounded in my stomach, reverberating throughout my body as he paused. “I have real and deep feelings for you and . . . I want to be with you.”
CHAPTER 22
I want to be with you.
“How can you say that?” I asked, incredulous but no longer yelling. “You barely know me. You have Maria, yet you see other women. You’re Chicago’s bachelor of the goddamn year. Everything you’ve said tonight, they’re just words and they don’t mean anything. Just give up already.”
“No.”
“You know what, at the end of the day David, you’re a player,” I spat, “and you want what you can’t have.”
“You think I can’t have you?” He stepped back into me.
“Wait,” I said, panicked.
“Is that what you think?” he asked, leaning a little closer. “I don’t think so. I want you. And I think you want me too.” He didn’t wait, like I’d asked. He was upon me in a moment, consuming me with a hard, open-mouth kiss that tasted of thick whiskey and sex. The warmth of his hands on my arms spread through me. He whipped off his jacket, never taking his lips from mine, and wrapped me in it, so that I was drowning in him, in a mossy blend of pine and aged leather.
“Show me you care, Olivia,” he breathed. “I need it. I need you,” he said softly into my ear, kissing the spot beneath it that made my knees buckle. Feather light kisses along my jawbone lit chills over my body, and he stopped at my lips. He stilled there, as I became painstakingly aware of the empty feeling between my legs that I wanted him to fill.
I looked into his eyes, and for a moment, everything else fell away. He took away the pain, all the things that hurt, and that I could never say out loud. Brown eyes pleaded with me to let him take over, to let him ease the hurt.
He squeezed my arms mightily, reminding me with a flex of strength that if he wanted, he could take me whether I agreed or not. “Show me, Olivia, I need you, only you.”
“I – I . . . ,” I breathed onto him, desperation for him filling me to the brim. The instant I surrendered to it, he engulfed me in a primal kiss that was all mouth, saliva, lips and teeth.
Our hands, for the first time, explored each other furiously. He slid his hands under the jacket and let the softness of his cashmere sweater thaw my skin. His fingers traveled behind my neck, over my shoulders and along my arms. They grazed the crease of my ass as his hands bunched my leather dress. They pulled me against a hard erection, but I was already moving past them, tugging his shirt from his pants, reaching underneath, touching his firm stomach; oh, how I had longed to know what his skin would feel like beneath my fingertips. He withdrew suddenly, ripping me from my adulation.
“This isn’t right,” he said.
“What?” I asked with breathless shock.
“Come upstairs with me,” he pleaded. He wrapped me up again and put his lips against the curve of my neck. My face burned deliciously from his stubble and only more of it would soothe the sting. “Come upstairs,” he whispered. My eyes rolled up to the ceiling as if the answer might be written there.
Before I could respond, pulling me down the second half of the stairs by my hand. I tried desperately to match his long strides, almost breaking into a run behind him.
David hit the ‘Up’ button when we’d reached the floor below. He slid his hand under the jacket that hung from me, sternly placing it on my shoulder as though I might try to run.
I opened my mouth to protest – say something, anything – but I was heady from the hand fastened to me and from the intoxicating, overwhelming scent of him. And then he looked down, comforting me with his eyes and his nearness. “You’re so beautiful,” he said, as though to remind me of it.
The elevator doors parted and David guided me inside with another couple. He swiped his card to the penthouse and we stood at two separate corners during the ascent. My mind raced faster than I could keep up. Now’s the time, I thought. Say something, Olivia! Stop this! The elevator charged with tension and the people in front of us exchanged a knowing look.
I opened my mouth again . . . He was a wall of exquisite beauty, his hands tentatively rubbing his brow and then pushing through his obsidian hair. He frowned, and then exhaled, and then frowned again, all the while watching the numbers rise, glancing at the couple in front of us, and then letting his eyes drift to me. His expression was pained; not just lustful or wanton, but pained and yet . . . adoring, as though I were finally his, something he’d finally acquired after a lifetime of longing. These were the things I thought I saw, they were what occupied my thoughts during the fateful elevator ride. With him, it didn’t take much; it was easy, it was right, it was as it should be.
He wasted not a moment, but pulled me to him once we were alone again. Voracious lips locked on mine as his hand found the hem of my dress. Stiff leather crackled audibly in the silence of the elevator, diminished only by the treasonous moan that escaped my lips when his rough hand moved against the soft skin of my inner thigh. Suddenly he was moving me backward out of the elevator, and somewhere in the distance, bells chimed or keys jingled.
Inside the apartment, he shut the door and leaned his forehead against it for a weighty moment. He didn’t bother with the lights, just turned to me in the dark. I was sobered by his stare, and the gravity of the situation began to set in; after this there would be no turning back.
I took a
step back, just enough for him to notice. He reached out, but I shook my head. “I can’t do this,” I said, but my voice wavered. “I don’t know how to do this.” I could barely form the sentence, due to an all-consuming desire. “David,” I pleaded breathily, asking him in that one word to have the strength I couldn’t.
He wet his lips and paced toward me, forcing me back into the wall like a scared kitten. He slipped the jacket off, brushing his hands against my arms, so it fell in a heap onto the floor. His immense body trapped mine against the wall when he placed his hands on both sides of my head. I’d been pinned to the wall not long before, and I’d been terrified. This time was different. This time, there was nowhere else I wanted to be. Regardless, I ignored my body’s impulse to submit. “I can’t do this, I can’t do this,” I repeated softly, shifting from foot to foot and glancing at the door. I willed myself to move.
Carefully, he reached down, encircled my wrists with each of his hands, pulled me forward and, with an unrelenting grip, quickly folded them behind my back, pinning me against the wall, stilling my body with his. “I have to leave,” I said.
“So leave.” I began to resist, thrashing against his hard body. I realized that this time, instead of walking away, he intended to fight against me, to fight for me. My arousal amplified rapidly from being bound by his hands, helpless in his grip.
My chin quivered, and I shook my head, lightly at first and then harder. His head was pulled back so his mouth hovered above mine, and I turned away from him, trying to focus on the door across the room. “Olivia,” he whispered thickly into my ear, the hairs of his cheek tickling mine. Nothing rivaled hearing my name on his lips. I yearned for the burn of his face on mine. I wanted this, I couldn’t deny, but I also knew that it was irreversible.
I stubbornly kept my head turned toward the door, knowing that one look into his eyes would be my undoing. Shifting my wrists firmly into the grasp of his left hand, he reached up with the other and slowly dug his fingers into my hair. My breathing grew shallow as he slid each bobby pin from its designated place and dropped it, chiming as it hit the floor. My hair fell plentifully around, me and he tucked a handful behind my ear, exposing my neck. His hands were callous as he gripped my chin, turning me to him. With the gentleness of a saint, he kissed my wound and drew back to look at me.
