AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He had her bent over his desk so fast that she had no chance of countering the move. Then his hand was under her dress and shoving aside her panties. Her shocked gasp burst from her lips, silenced only by the knuckles he pressed against her mouth. She bit him, but she didn’t even leave a mark.
Dammit, she couldn’t even make him bleed.
He didn’t waste time on pleasantries. This was a full-on sensual assault, his fingers on overdrive, his mouth on the back of her neck. Teeth scraping her skin, breath hot on her ear. “Do you see what you do to me? You make me into this, and I should hate it. But I don’t. I want more.” He pressed her down on the blotter with his hand spanning her back, forcing her to widen her stance for him. “Admit you want it, too. You want me, Vic.”
Wasn’t it obvious how much she wanted him? Her body quivered with her longing even as her throat closed around the words she refused to say. This wasn’t about her wanting him. It was about him opening his eyes to all they could be, if he would finally just face the truth.
She shook her head but couldn’t stave off the tingling sensation geysering up inside her as he frantically thrust his fingers between her legs and sucked hard on the sensitive flesh behind her ear. Sparks showered in her vision and her cries escaped against his palm, trapped there so that her hot breath warmed her damp face.
He was on top of her, behind her, surrounding her. Kissing her, holding her still, letting her fly.
She didn’t come so much as break apart, shattering into so many pieces she knew there was no hope of ever collecting them all. Before she’d even sunk down to earth again, he flipped her on her back, looming over her where she laid panting on his desk. He gripped her chin with fingers that smelled of her, his eyes glittering slits of gray.
“That’s real,” he bit out. “If you can’t accept that, if you don’t want that like I do, then get the hell out of my office. And don’t come back.”
She shoved him away, not able to breathe with his heavy weight imprisoning her. He stumbled back as if he was surprised she’d actually demanded that he let her up, then stepped clear as she yanked down her dress.
Her mistake—the latest one—was looking back. His fury and his confusion dragged at her feet like stone anchors, imploring her to stay. She wasn’t her mother and he wasn’t his father, and neither of them were quitters. Running from the one thing she wanted more than her next breath didn’t make any sense. But this wasn’t about love, not for him. He wanted her body. What she wanted went so much deeper she couldn’t accept any pretty substitutes, even if it meant she’d end up alone.
If he’d asked her to stay, if he’d even said her name, anything, she wouldn’t have gone. Just once, she needed him to fight for her. To prove she mattered.
But he just let her walk out the door.
Chapter Fourteen
Cory didn’t tell anyone they’d broken up. He didn’t tell anyone anything at all, not even when his mom commented on Vic’s not coming to the packing party, because he had nothing to say. She’d agreed to be his fake girlfriend and they’d fallen into something very real that apparently didn’t matter one whit to her.
r />
He’d looked into her turbulent brown eyes and he hadn’t seen anything there but the desire to be free. Somehow he’d turned into manacles on her wrists and ankles, and she’d grown tired of chafing at her bonds.
So he’d given her what she wanted: an open door. He hoped it hit her on her fine behind on the way through.
Now he was out a lover, a designer, and his favorite person to fight with. Two of the three were replaceable. The last wasn’t, and never would be. Vicky was the biggest reason he’d looked forward to working on the magazine, even though he hadn’t been able to admit it.
And those two people who’d been so damned determined for Cory to find a relationship they’d driven him out to that gazebo the night of the Value Hardware gala? They had other priorities now.
Like moving thousands of miles away. Leaving him here to deal with the fallout from the mess he’d created. It would have been easy for him to try to point fingers in his parents’ direction and blame them for what had happened, but that would’ve been his guilt and regret talking. A year ago he might’ve cast his own actions in a better light, even tried to paint himself as the aggrieved party. Not so anymore. He knew exactly who was at fault—and he was looking at him in the hall mirror of his parents’ house.
Swallowing hard, he turned to face another slice of reality. Bit by bit the house was being packed up, his childhood being put in boxes. His parents were radiantly happy, on the cusp of their new adventure, while his world had gone blacker than the inside of a tornado.
He’d never felt rage before. Not like this. For the most part, he didn’t suffer from wild swings of emotion. There was work and more work. He didn’t have time for flights of fancy, and he most certainly didn’t have time to rocket up his parents’ driveway and slam through the door to confront them over his own stupidity.
But he’d done it, and now that he was there, no one was going to stop him.
He walked down the hall to the kitchen and came to a halt at the lack of…well, everything. The place looked deserted. Over the past few weeks when he’d been occupied with loving and losing Victoria, he hadn’t fully realized what his parents’ moving away truly meant. The house wouldn’t be there for him anymore. The tree house still in the backyard, waiting for phantom children who would never come; the porch swing, listing in the fall breeze; the triangle of flowers in the pasture where they’d buried his dog, Rusty—they would all belong to someone else, and he wouldn’t get to see them unless he asked for permission. And the answer might very well be no.
Fuck that.
This was his home base, the place he felt most like himself. He’d be damned if he let it be sold out from under him just so he could keep his sterile penthouse. He didn’t want to be alone on top of the city anymore. He wanted this house. These memories, mixed with all new ones he made with—
“Sweetheart.” His mom rushed into the kitchen. “You must’ve heard.”
“Heard what?”
“About Misty. She’s gone.”
He frowned. “But she was fine the last time I was here.” Over a week ago. He’d been in the barn, but he sure hadn’t been hanging out there because of the horse. “What happened?”
