All or Nothing (2 page)

Still, no matter what she said, how she blamed him or the futility of their friendship, he wanted her. Wanted to devour her. Wanted… God, all these years and he still didn’t know exactly
what
he wanted from her. Everything maybe, if he could figure out what that was.

But
she
didn’t want
him
. She wanted to
choose
how and who she loved. Wanted to shape it, shine it, force it into a form she could accept instead of one she couldn’t control. She’d never been able to control him—not for lack of trying—and that meant she wouldn’t have him.

He’d tried, once, to be what she wanted. For an hour, it was the most incredible heaven he could ever have imagined. And then it was hell.

Unadulterated, unforgiving hell.

It still was.

“You know what I mean, Lucas.” She dared to glance at him but had to look away almost immediately. Lying is probably easier that way. “We…we could be friends.”

He snorted, grabbing her beer and taking a deep draught. Hadn’t they ordered drinks? He looked over at the bar for Vino, who nodded and waved a towel at a waiter. So, Vino hadn’t missed their tense little embrace? Ah well, at least Lucas wouldn’t be forgotten in here again anytime soon.

“We could have been,” she insisted stubbornly. One might even say stupidly, but he hesitated to direct that word in her direction. She’d laugh if he ever revealed that little consideration.

“If we lied to each other.”
To ourselves
, he added silently. Not a stretch for her, she lied to herself every day. But he wasn’t in the practice of self-delusion. The cold, hard truth was with him every moment of every day or he’d forget himself and try for things he could never have.

Like her.

“What happened between us was a long time ago.” Her voice firmed, but it was still low, private. A whisper that reminded him of her lips against his ear while she gasped the last lulls of her orgasm. He sucked in a breath, forcing himself to concentrate on her words instead of his own foolish memories. “You have to let it go, Lucas.”

Did he now? “Because our past interferes with your planned love affair with my brother?”

“Yes!” she spat, as bitter in voice as he felt inside. Their gazes met and locked, angry and desperate.

God, they were a pair. She tried so hard to love an ideal. He tried harder not to love her. Neither one of them pulled it off.

“As long as Kyle knows how you feel about me, he’ll never—”

The waiter stopped at the table, dropping two napkins, placing her whisky shot on one and a frosted glass of hops on the other.

“Never what?” he asked when the kid was gone, a chill that shouldn’t happen in June snaking through him.

Her expression closed. “Nothing. It doesn’t matter.”

“You brought it up, Belle.” He grabbed her shot and downed it. He should have let her brush her words under a rug. He should, but evidently he was a glutton for punishment. He had to hear the words crisp and clear, so he wouldn’t forget them. So he could play them over and over and convince himself they were true. If he were lucky, he thought, grabbing the beer, gulping deep, he’d be at least a little numbed before the pain hit.

She watched him, mouth pulled down at the corners, looking strained but determined. “As long as you want me, he’ll never see me as anything more than a friend. And that’s killing me.”

Nope, not fast enough.

The lash of hurt wasn’t kind enough to blind him, either, so he saw her head dip when his teeth grit with audible cracking sounds, saw the shine of her eyes before she darted her gaze away. He could take a lot from Belinda. Her pushy ways, the in-your-face attitude she wore to cover an inner fragility he craved to protect. Hell, he could even take a few blows to the face when he had them coming. But he could not take her tears.

Especially when they fell for another man.

He slid out of the booth, yanked his wallet from his pocket and threw down a few bills to cover the drinks and the food he wouldn’t eat. Belinda stared up at him, eyes still gleaming, the true pink of her lips starting to show through her black lipstick. Then he grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. Not easy in those spikes, but she landed well, ending up eye-to-eye with him thanks to the four-inch help. Confusion showed on her face, probably all that was keeping her quiet.

“Come on.” He pulled her behind him, opening the door and guiding her out.

“Where are we going?”

“Home.” Her home, his home, he didn’t care. They were only a couple of blocks apart. Just one more sign of their weird little symbiosis. Loving to drive each other insane.

But it was time to end it.

If it meant burning all the passion out of each other as fast as humanly possible, he’d do it. Odds were it was the only way he was going to stop wanting her. Stop craving her. Hell, stop loving her. Then maybe she could finally have what she wanted most in life.

His brother.

Neither one of them should be driving. He’d just thrown back a beer and a shot of Johnny Walker Black Label like they were glasses of cupcake sprinkles, and Belinda was shaking so badly from head to toe it was a wonder they made it to her car.

She unclipped her keys from her belt loop, forcing herself to open the driver’s side door of her ancient LeSabre first. He didn’t seem any worse for the sudden liquor infusion, but one couldn’t always tell with Lucas. She leaned over to open his door lock, then came back to her seat with a snap. Leaving her feet outside the car, she found the zipper tab at the back of her boot and pulled it down her leg to the heel.

“What are you doing?” Lucas’s impatience crackled in her ears.

“I can’t drive in these. The heel makes it hard to push the pedals.” Left leg free, she started on the next one. Fast from years of training, she tossed the boots to the backseat while Lucas ducked away from the stilettos as they passed between them. She rolled her eyes. “They can’t kill you, Lucas.”

“They can blind me.” He pulled his seatbelt across his chest. She watched him move. Probably seriously buzzed but still so economical, so inherently graceful. Her worst secret habit was watching Lucas Lonnigan move. His hands, his body, any part of himself in motion could freeze her in place for a full minute if she let it. She’d probably get a rush watching him sleep, but she’d never seen it happen. For all she knew, he never slept. Just kept going on will alone.

His cool blue gaze met hers, none of his reserve there now. Her hands began to tremble again. He wasn’t being distant or sardonic for once. Those eyes were burning and left little doubt where he expected this ride to go.

He made it her choice to get them there.

But why now?

The question had to be asked, but she was afraid to voice it. Why did he suddenly feel the need to take action? It wasn’t that table dance earlier. She’d gone pretty far with that, but she knew his limits. She hadn’t crossed them. She only punched his buttons because…well, because he deserved it.

He knew how she felt about Kyle—he’d known before she admitted it to herself, years and years and years ago—and he threw it in her face that his brother hadn’t seen her as important enough to warn. The jerk.

But Kyle was everything she wanted. Someone to laugh with. Someone who could always make her smile, who didn’t have a care in the world. He was kind, never so much as raised his voice unless it was to laugh. He wouldn’t drink every day or spend his time making up barely plausible reasons for his absences or her bruises. He wouldn’t take over her love and wound her with it. Not Kyle. He never asked for more than a person was willing or able to give on their own. He was a safe harbor and she craved one of those desperately.

Lucas was no one’s safe harbor. He was a constantly rolling sea. He
looked
peaceful and smooth, the giant swells of his emotions never crashing in giant splashes or colliding into each other to give him away, but she knew better. Under his perfect surface was a churning channel of water, each wave a stronger emotion than the last, pulling you under and drowning you until you knew nothing but his passion, his power, his possession.

She’d barely survived him once. No way in hell was she going to
choose
to spend a lifetime fighting his current.

She risked a glance at the silent man next to her. For all his aloofness, Lucas was dangerous to every hope and desire she had. Too many had rested on his shoulders at one time and he’d crushed them all with one careless question. But she was no eighteen-year-old girl now. She’d banished that idiot as surely as she’d wiped herself clean of everyone else’s responsibilities and fears. She had her own life to live, and she was beholden to no one, least of all Lucas Lonnigan.

“Do you need me to walk you home?” she asked, pulling the car up in front of her loft. Once a decrepit warehouse near the bay, now it was her entire world in the shape of an airplane hangar. She’d bought it at auction with her own money and spent every dime she didn’t need for supplies and food to make it a home.

She discounted the fact that Lucas found it for her shortly after buying a condo not too far away. Or that he’d double-talked numbers until the banker who granted her the loan gave her unbelievably low terms. Otherwise, it might be Lucas’s, too, and that was just unacceptable.

“I’m not going home.” His grim voice rang with too much authority.

She watched him unfold himself, get out and close the door firmly. His gaze met hers through the glass as he circled the front of the burgundy car. Couldn’t he at least get drunk gracelessly? He moved smoothly, never looking down to see if he had even ground, never stumbling or slipping. She imagined the play of every muscle beneath that jacket and shirt. She’d tasted them once, memorized how they flexed and tightened. How they felt under her fingertips, over her body.

She heated. More than twelve years and she’d forgotten nothing. Not the smell of the dewy grass beneath her back, not the heat of him above her, inside her. Not even the tension of that tiny black ribbon around her neck, the ends of the small bow kissing the hollow of her throat with every thrust…

Definitely not the fiery heat of his gaze as he’d looked into her eyes, demanding that she knew who she made love to with an endless silent stare. The same gaze he fixed on her now, through the driver’s side window.

Her heart beat in irregular flutters, feeling like butterflies had taken over and gone crazy. He waited for her, but she couldn’t make herself open the car door. He would leave, she knew he would, when she didn’t have the courage to take what he was offering.

The impasse would continue: she unwilling to accept their desire, he unwilling to let it go. She’d stay away from him for a while. Maybe a few months this time, until they were both able to pretend nothing had happened but a few drinks and some temperamental words. Or until Kyle badgered them into being in the same room together again. Probably the latter. It always came down to the latter, which was for the best.

At least, it was until Lucas opened her door for her.

So much for choices.

“No more games, Belle,” he said quietly. Almost sadly. It had her looking up at him, but he’d buried everything again. She studied him for a clue. His tall runner’s frame had its usual rigid posture. The broad, roping muscles in his legs strained the fabric of his khakis as he stood as if he were ready for war. Same lean waist, broad chest and wide shoulders. His face was just as chiseled as ever, but the night shadows made hard planes of his cheekbones and deepened the lines around his mouth. He was grim. Determined.
Hungry
.

He reached out a hand.

It was the hunger that did her in. Blatant. Demanding a response. She had one, in the coils of her belly, taut with need. She couldn’t have turned him down tonight, no matter what terrible thing he said. That look reduced her to silt and drew her hand out of the car.

“Don’t forget the boots.”

“I thought you didn’t want to get blinded,” she replied, unable to resist teasing him. There was too much going on, too many emotions around them, making the cool summer air heavy and hard to draw into her lungs. Something had to give.

He tugged her hand, a cue to hurry. “Believe me, seeing you in them drives
any
red-blooded man to self-inflicted blindness. It can’t get any worse now.”

There was a compliment in there. Somewhere.

She reached behind the seat and pulled the boots out. He waited while she zipped them back up, his breathing the only sound he made until she was done. Then she grabbed her keys and let him pull her to her feet. One step, then another. Before she could move again, he slammed the door and pulled her up against him.

His hard body made contact with too much of her own. All the signals of panic and pleasure drowned her thoughts in an instant. She tried to close her eyes, to savor all the sensations of him, but he touched her cheek and shook his head.

“I’ll only have tonight, Belle. At least let me pretend it’s me you want to be with.”

As if there were ever anyone else. “I didn’t say we were going to spend tonight together.”

“You didn’t have to.” He lowered his mouth to hers, a touch, then a lick. He shifted downward, meeting her lips full-on, the scorching heat of him tipping her backward. He held her up, cupped his hand around the back of her head and drank from her like the last well in the Sahara.