Five Minutes Late: A Billionaire Romance (38 page)

“Ashley, I have never allowed a woman to stay overnight in this house. I have never had sexual relations with a woman in this house.”

I stared at him. How could that be true? All those actresses and models and athletes and porn stars and random fame whores, and none of them ever stayed the night? Nobody ever got their freak on with him here? Really?

But yes, really. Somehow, in the same bone-deep way I knew Devon was faithful to me, I knew he was telling the truth about this. All of those women, however opportunistic or slutty, exited those mahogany double doors out front before the night was through, and they went out those doors unfucked.

Why?

“Um, I guess I shouldn’t be looking a gift horse in the mouth or anything, but … what difference did it make about jumping all those slinky bitches here, if you were already all over them everywhere else?”

“Everywhere else? I would hardly say I’ve participated in passionate sexual union absolutely everywhere else; I’ve never been with a woman in the middle of Times Square at rush hour, for instance –”

“Yeah, you’d get tire tracks all over your ass.”

“ – or in the main tunnel of the Large Hadron Collider –”

“I’m pretty sure that would be fatal.”

“Only if the mechanism was turned on at the time.”

“Devon, if you ever want to do it with me in any of those places, you need to stop dodging the question. Why didn’t any woman ever stay the night here? Why didn’t any woman ever get all sweaty and satisfied with you here?”

“Ashley, this is my home.”

Those blue-violet eyes drilled into me. “Outside, I wear my mental armor. Outside, I stand prepared for the attentions and expectations of the world, and I can pretend to be what everyone believes me to be.”

“You don’t pretend with me.”

Why did he shudder when I said that? Why did his eyes flick away from mine, just for an instant?

I chalked it up to nerves and moved on. “But inside this house, you let your guard down, is that it?”

“Just so, although I never feel truly safe anywhere, not even here. But here it seems I am almost safe, almost free from the firestorm of assumptions and needs and demands waiting for me outside, and I can almost relax. Can you understand that, Ashley?”

I pushed my chair back. I stood up. I took our bowls and spoons to the sink and rinsed them off under steaming hot water because only assholes leave dirty dishes lying around.

Then I walked over to Devon, I stood behind his chair and wrapped my arms around him, and I rested my chin on top of his head – that last was a bit of a stretch, even with him sitting down, but I pulled it off.

“Devon, I understand that we’re safe with each other here, there, or anywhere. I also understand that it’s late and getting later, we’re both tired, and we need to be in bed, even if we’re way too sleepy and doped up with ice cream to do more than snuggle. Agreed?”

“I agree with all my heart, wise Ashley.” Devon forged to his feet, stepped away from his chair, and pulled me into his arms, right there next to the humming refrigerator.

I melted into him, he sank his face into my hair, and we just held each other for an endless time that might have lasted five minutes. No questions, no answers, just warmth and safety and an understanding that went beyond words.

***

I was a gutless coward.

I took shelter in her warmth, and I said nothing of how little time we had left. I hid within the safety of her love, and I did nothing to warn her of what was coming. I accepted the comfort of her understanding, and I revealed nothing of how unreal I was, and would yet become. She gave me everything, and I deserved nothing.

I was safe in her arms, but she was not safe in mine.

25. Need

Snuggling was all we were good for, at first. Even though I stripped down to nothing but my baggy borrowed t-shirt and Devon stripped down to nothing but … nothing, we did not in fact start humping like bunny rabbits as soon as we climbed under the covers – instead, somehow, we both fell asleep within minutes, spooning together like an old married couple. Behold the mighty sleep-inducing powers of emotional meltdowns and ice cream, huh?

I woke up less than an hour later.

Devon slept on, folded around me from behind, his arms holding me safe against the hard planes of his body. Now and again he shifted in his sleep, murmuring words I couldn’t make out and tightening his hold on me before drifting away again, somewhere where I couldn’t reach him.

What was he dreaming about? Was I with him in there, protecting him from his demons?

I nestled against his warmth, layered my arms over his, and listened to the steady rhythm of his breathing. I ran my fingers over the rough black hair coating his forearms. I felt the slow, thumping beat of his heart against my back.

In this small, sweet corner of the world, everything was drowsy and safe and warm and perfect – so why couldn’t I relax and fall asleep again?

My body commented that while it would much prefer a vigorous session of wild monkey sex with the beautiful weird guy pressed up against me, it could deal with getting some more sleep first instead.

Then my brain sputtered to life, and it hit me.

Devon never did tell me about his panic attacks.

When and how did they begin? What set them off? Why hadn’t he told me about them, instead of just letting me discover him drenched in sweat and hyperventilating like crazy?

I asked for all those answers, and he never gave them to me. Sure, he’d found the courage to tell me how his life first ran off the rails when he was torn screaming from his mother’s arms, but he hadn’t said word one about the panic attacks – and while I supposed it was possible for a five-year-old to develop something like post-traumatic stress disorder, complete with full-flip-out panic attacks, my instincts told me that wasn’t how it happened, and that wasn’t when it happened.

The panic attacks came later, when something even worse messed with the guy’s head – but what could have been worse than being ripped from the only comfort he’d ever known straight into a terrifying new life where everyone hated him?

Did I want to know?

That was what kept me awake. I had no evidence to point to, no facts I could be sure of, but I was certain beyond doubt that an even worse story hid in his past – a story he was so scared to tell me, he’d done a bait-and-switch, throwing me off the trail by telling me instead about that terrible long-ago day when his five-year-old world shattered into a thousand unrecognizable pieces.

Would I ever hear that other story, the hidden story?

And was all of the truth in the past? Was the worst truth of all hiding here in the present, right in plain sight?

That last question was the one that outlasted all the others, the one that spiraled down with me as I fell back into a sleep filled with restless dreams.

We came together in the small hours of the night, somewhere between dreams and waking.

I sprinted through a forest in some dark, sleeping corner of my mind, a night-time forest lit by the moon and full of howling creatures, creatures that ran nipping at my heels but were never there when I turned to look back at them.

I hurtled through the trees, my bare legs flashing in the darkness, and the thing was, I literally went through the trees – I smashed into one gnarled trunk after another, passing through the bark and into the heartwood in a blur of splinters and booming sound before rushing back out into the open air.

I never took a single scratch from the impacts, not a bump or a bruise or a scrape – and neither did the trees, because each time I stared back over my shoulder, looking for the red-eyed things that chased me, I saw the last tree I’d crashed through standing unbroken and unmarked, as if I’d never so much as touched it.

After seconds and years of running, I sped clear of the trees and passed onto open ground. The creatures that ran snapping and snarling just behind me picked up speed, closing in, and then flew past me as I stumbled to a stop on the brink of a cliff.

I watched their bodies plummet like stones through an endless gulf of air, an ocean of space and darkness that went on forever. I stared as they spun away below me, stared until their howling passed into silence and their bodies shrank down into dots and then disappeared in the distance.

Shivering with sweat, I stood just inches from the edge, staring down into the nothingness that had swallowed my pursuers. I kept staring into the abyss for a long time after the creatures vanished, because the sight was fascinating. I leaned forward for a better look, craning out over the edge, creeping closer to non-existence, staring down, expecting to see the glint of a river far below, or the tumbled rocks of a canyon, or more trees. Instead, I saw …

… stars.

The ground whipcracked beneath my feet, jolting me forward, throwing me toward the edge. I lunged back, trying to get away, fighting the earth that wanted to shake me loose into space, and fighting the part of me that wanted to plunge over the brink and soar down to the stars that hung burning in the darkness.

I slid forward, pebbles turning beneath my feet. I was losing traction as I drew closer to the bare edge of the cliff, losing the fight. I stared at the stars waiting to claim me and I lurched, swaying on my feet as I tried one last time to step away from the edge, away from nothingness – and slammed against an unyielding wall at my back.

My dream turned sideways and left me as I jerked awake, lunging against the solid wall of Devon’s body behind me as my feet scrambled for purchase beneath the silk sheets.

Gasping for air, sweating and shaking, I stared at the glint of a mirror on the far wall for several endless minutes before I could accept that Devon’s body and bed were real, and that the cliff existed only in my fading dream.

“Don’t be afraid.”

Devon whispered those words into my ear, and then he spoke to me with his hands and his mouth and all the length of his body.

He caressed my curves with his right hand, his fingers bunching in the fabric of my t-shirt and then sliding underneath. He stroked over my ribs and onto the soft spread of my stomach, his fingers splayed wide, as my breathing slowed and I settled back against him, relaxing into the strength and protection of his powerful body. He moved his palm in easy circles over my hip, and then he reached down and pressed his fingers into the round swell of my ass.

Once I would have cringed at that touch, convinced that no man could find beauty and pleasure in generous curves like mine, not really, even though I knew better – but now I treasured Devon’s touch. I reveled in the feeling of his large, tender hand gliding over me, the gentleness of his fingers, and the warmth of his skin against mine. I wanted him to explore every dimple, every curve, every inch of my round, soft body.

I trusted his touch.

Sighing with contentment, I closed my eyes. The lingering hold of the dream slipped away as I stretched and purred like a sleepy kitten, warm and safe in Devon’s arms.

Then his mouth settled onto my neck, and a different kind of warmth flared to life inside me.

He licked and kissed along my neck, taking his time, until he found a place where my pulse pounded just beneath the skin. There he fastened his lips against me, kissing like a starving man, sucking and nipping until I knew his mark would burn there by morning.

The warmth of arousal flashed through me like a summer thunderstorm. A moment before, I’d been relaxed and drowsy, needing nothing but his arms around me – but in an instant, I needed so much more.

Desire pulsed between my legs. My heart sped faster, sweat broke out on my skin, and just how did he manage to take me from zero to sixty in a matter of seconds?

I lifted my head and pushed up against Devon’s mouth, leaning into the sweet pain and wetness of his kiss – and then, while his mouth worked against the tender skin of my neck, his left hand eased inside my t-shirt and cupped my breast.

He held the warmth and weight of my left breast in his palm, and I whimpered as his long fingers closed on the tender flesh, stroking and kneading. I gasped, lost in the delicious sensation, and he responded by giving my breast a gentle squeeze before brushing his fingers over the nipple.

He brought my left nipple to instant, aching hardness, rolling it between his fingers and rubbing gently over the sensitive tip. Wordless little sounds of pleasure came out of me as I twisted in his arms – and then before I knew it, his other hand moved up from my hip, slid under the thin, clinging fabric of my shirt, and closed on my right breast.

He held the swelling mounds of my breasts in his hands, and I moaned as he fondled my aching nipples. He didn’t pinch them, he didn’t pull, he just rolled and rubbed and teased them with a delicate, maddening touch, sometimes only barely brushing the skin, until with each gentle caress, an answering ache of need surged through me, like the beat of a desperate heart.

It was sweet, but it was torture. “Please, I just want …”

I wanted so much from him in that moment, but he didn’t answer. Devon usually spoke to me when we made love, even if only a few words – whispering my name as he moved inside me, murmuring filthy, thrilling suggestions as he kissed all my secret places, or telling me with a grin just what he was going to do to me when we, um, did just a little bit of naughty role-playing now and then – but not this time.