Monster (24 page)

“Is it dislocated?”

“Doesn’t look like it. Try rotating it for me?”

It hurt like the dickens, but she was able to rotate it without too much complication. “That’s good. It’s probably a strain, but I would have someone check it out for you, just to be sure.”

“Maybe tomorrow,” she conceded, turning around to face him again. “How do you know this stuff?”

He shrugged. “High school and college football. You tear, strain, and dislocate a lot. After a while you start to learn the symptoms. Plus I studied sport’s medicine before opening the bar.” Yeah, she definitely pegged him for an athlete, as big as he was. That thought incited a blush that made her grateful it was dark enough in the parking lot that he didn’t see.

“I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t come out when you did. Thank you.”

“It’s no problem. But like I said, you keep interesting company. First the ‘suit and tie’ and now this rat faced bastard.”

“The suit and tie?”

“Yeah, the broody guy in the suit that dragged you out like you were his own personal Raggedy Ann doll.”

“Dominic,” she quietly supplied.

“What’s his deal? Is he someone we have to worry about?”

“No, that was the first and last time, I promise. We’re…we’re actually getting a divorce soon.” It was the first time she’d actually said it out loud to anyone other than Jenna. And the fact that that other person happened to be her very sexy, very gallant boss with a killer smile made it that much more awkward. She needed to go, like yesterday.

“Which means you’ll no longer be sporting this boulder?” he took hold of her hand left hand and grinned down at her wedding ring. “This things huge, it’s a wonder you don’t have a hand injury too.”

Eden gently pulled back her hand with a sheepish smile. “I’m returning it after the divorce. It’s way too flashy anyways.”

“Yeah, I didn’t peg you for the flashy sort of girl.” If she didn’t know him so well, she would’ve sworn he was flirting with her. But flirt was part of Carver’s charm. It came to him as natural as breathing.

“I’m not, I mean not anymore. It’s a long story.” She sighed. “I’m going to head out. Thank you again.”

Having retrieved her keys from the ground when the cops came, Eden unlocked the door and stepped inside the driver’s side. Carver waited until she was settled, with her seatbelt in place, before closing the door for her. “You’re welcome.” He flashed a smile and she was again taken aback by how gorgeous he was, handsome in the way that he needed to have his own calendar, in her opinion. That smile drew attention to the devastating blue of his eyes that gleamed like sapphires. If she wasn’t already so embroiled in this very complicated thing with Dominic, Eden was sure she would’ve fallen hard for Carver. She was already attracted to him. Honestly the man oozed sex appeal so potent that any woman within the vicinity would’ve felt it. But she was emotionally and currently physically, unavailable. She had way too many issues that needed to be resolved before she even contemplated getting into relationship with someone. “Take care of yourself, Eden.”

That’s exactly what she intended to do. With a parting smile, she turned the engine over and headed home.

* * *

It was while settling Liam in his crib and dropping a kiss on his soft, puffy cheek that Eden decided to forgo the shower and bathe instead. On silent, naked feet Eden entered the master bath, and though it had been home to her years before, it felt strange entering this place now that it was his domain. Even as she stepped inside the all-white bathroom with its reflective milk white walls and glass mosaic tiled floor, she tossed a few nervous glances behind her just to make sure he wasn’t there. Eden silently chastised herself for being silly. He was halfway around the world. There was no way he was going to come out of the shadows like some boogeyman and catch her in the act.

Her soaps and bath salts were exactly as she’d left them, nothing out of place, situated right next to his toiletries. She didn’t know how to feel about that. But that was nothing new at this point. Surrounded by sumptuous bubbles and nearly scorching hot water, Eden sank deeper into the tub that was big enough to accommodate two more people comfortably. With the painkillers she’d taken doing their job, the pain in her shoulder wasn’t as excruciating, but the dull ache was a clear reminder of what she’d faced earlier in the evening. With any luck, Alex was rotting away in a cell right now. Eden hadn’t said anything to Jenna when she’d taken Liam, but she would tomorrow. It was Eden’s hope to have Jenna press battery charges on him, something concrete that would stick and keep him in prison for years to come. She was willing to testify and would encourage her best friend to do the same. Alex had a record a mile long, the majority were domestic abuse charges he’d accrued since he’d been with Jenna.
Jenna needed a fresh start, she needed some peace of mind, and Eden was sure it would start by putting Alex away.

Closing her eyes, shutting off her brain, Eden lounged back and luxuriated. Nearly a half hour later, she emerged from the ceramic tub, clean and relaxed, taking with her the distinct scent of sandalwood and citrus. She slipped back into her robe before exiting the bathroom.

She knew instinctively that he was in the room even before she saw him. The tiny hairs on her skin stood on end as slivers of both pleasure and fear licked down her spine. Her heart forgot its rhythm at the sight of him, beating erratically against her breastbone. He looked as though he’d just arrived and his first stop had been to Liam’s room where he emerged now, silently closing the connecting doors behind him. He was still in his suit, business as usual. Eden felt her body instantly responding to the sight of that suit, and she was startled to find that she’d developed a fetish over the last few months. Dominic in a suit was an aphrodisiac all on its own. It was fitted, tailored as all his suits tended to be; black slacks hugging his strong masculine thighs, while his shirt, a deep burgundy that looked amazing against his complexion, was fitted perfectly to his upper physique.

He’d discarded the jacket somewhere along the way, and Eden knew there’d been a tie at some point, but that too was gone in the way of the missing suit jacket. The sleeves of the shirt were rolled up to his elbows, and he’d unbuttoned the first three buttons so that the column of his neck and a bit of his chest was left exposed. The allure of that exposed golden skin dropped in her the need to press her lips at the point where neck met chest. When her gaze finally met his, it was to find him assessing her with the same deliberate thoroughness that she’d exercised. Heat suffused every inch of her skin, and though she knew there was the barrier of the robe to protect her, Eden couldn’t have felt more naked beneath the unerring scope of his predatory gaze.

“Hello,” he greeted in his husky timbre.

“Hi.” She licked her lips nervously, looking past his shoulder to the exit behind him. Eden knew she needed to make her escape now before things spiraled completely out of control. “I know you must be tired. I’m just going to leave.” She didn’t take two steps past him before he grabbed her arm and dragged her backwards to the wall by the bathroom door. He backed her against that wall and held her there, dominant to the very core, every inch of his hard angled body surged against her yielding femininity, rendering her immobile. He swooped down, and with a kiss that instantly set her ablaze, his tongue licked at the seam of her mouth, demanding access. His groan rumbled at the taste of her liquid sweetness, strained and muted in the depth of the mouth he took without permission, but knew was freely given.

Wetness instantly pooled between her thighs as his roving hand frantically moved down the length of her body, cupping her breast through the thin layer of cotton, tweaking a distended nipple until she cried out in pleasure and pain. Her body involuntarily arched towards him, wanting more. But that hand scrambled lower still, down her thighs until fingers found her hot slickness, running satisfyingly down the center. “So wet for me,” he growled, and she whimpered at his mercy. He manhandled her; his large hands firmly gripped her thighs and hoisted her up against the wall until she stared down into his rapacious green eyes, eyes that held hers as he lowered her onto his cock, sliding simultaneously in molten flesh that greedily engulfed him.

Powerful legs maintained her weight as he began to move, long, smooth drives that filled a void in her that she hadn’t known was empty until now.

“Eden…” Dominic rasped. He pinned her arms above her head and nuzzled into her neck, taking into his lungs the sandalwood and citrus that smelled so much better on her skin than it ever did on his. The insane need to feel her heart pushed him to drive deeper into her pliant body, a need he would never satisfy but never tired of trying. “This is Eden,” he murmured in silent wonder almost too quietly to himself, but she heard and her heart took it like oxygen. She dipped her head to steal a kiss that he instantly took charge of, and their tongues tangled. He caught her lower lip between his teeth and nibbled before plunging his tongue back into the sweetness of her mouth, depriving her of air, but it was breath Eden was all too willing to do without if it meant prolonging this euphoria. His hips drove in hard, slamming into her and she held on, squeezing her legs around his waist while she rode his every thrust, surrendering to the cavalcade of emotions he made her feel.

“Dom…Dom…” she panted, chanting his name like a pagan prayer, her beautiful sounds hailing him her deity as he felt her walls growing tight, her orgasm bearing down on him like a force of nature. “Come for me, Eden,” he demanded, his voice threaded with raw emotion. And her body, the all too willing supplicant, came undone at his command. The force of her orgasm consumed her, engulfed her in a blaze of white hot pleasure that blinded her to anything else. She felt him, heard an almost tortured groan choke him as he came deep inside her.

He took her two more times before dawn broke over the horizon, and Eden readily spread her legs for him, forgetting everything else that should’ve mattered for another dizzying ride on his roller coaster. When it was over and the world righted itself, she silently marveled how she’d gone nearly a year and a half without sex to having it a handful of times in the span of a few short days. But then that spoke more to Dominic’s potent sexual appeal than her lack of available partners. He had a sway over her that she could not shake, no matter how hard she tried. And she
was
trying. But as exhibited, her attempts at putting distance between them always led her exactly where she was not supposed to be—in his arms, in his bed—a cycle that was so hard to break.

She needed to leave. Find her robe and steal away before her hypocrisy made itself known. He wouldn’t know she was gone until much later, and by then, Eden would’ve had time to shower and process things before she had to face him again. At least then she would be better prepared to face the awkwardness she knew would come. A little dignity would do her well considering she’d exhibited very little of it so far. Easing out of his restrictive hold took some maneuvering, but once she sat up, a cursory glance in his direction gave her pause. His breathing was controlled, his chest rising and falling steadily in sleep. He looked exhausted, and Eden figured it had more to do with the jetlag than the explosive sex they’d had. It took far more to satiate Dominic’s unquenchable carnal hunger, Eden remembered all too clearly. She crawled off the bed. Her bathrobe lay strewn on the floor in the empty space between the bathroom and bed, stripped from her body, and tossed haphazardly in the heat of passion. She slid into it, wincing when her shoulder gave a protesting twinge. More painkillers, she thought silently, tying to sash before disappearing inside Liam’s nursery.

* * *

He watched her avidly. Transfixed like a man sentenced to a lifetime of blindness, and her brilliance, her breathtaking beauty, was the last thing he was permitted to see. She smiled so ravishingly that he envied his son for putting that smile on her face. She was dressed simply in dark rinsed jeans and a sleeveless chiffon blouse. Hair that he’d threaded his fingers through in the heat of passion, tumbled around her shoulders in loose waves. Her feet were bare as she toddled along in the green grass with Liam between her legs teaching him how to walk, her words of encouragement soothing the happy boy as his legs buckled and he stumbled. It was nothing at all like the childhood he’d had. He’d once believed in his undying cynicism that she would abandon Liam in the same way that Dominic himself had been abandoned. He’d set her up to fail long before giving her the chance to prove herself. But he’d seen in so many ways that she was nothing like his mother; there was no comparison between the two. The love and peace that he’d never received, she gave to their son in abundance, without reservation and Dominic treasured her for that alone.

There was so much that he could learn from her, so much that he
wanted
to learn, to
know,
but those wants were inconsequential, paling in light of the damage he’d caused her. It pained him to remember her anguished confession when she’d said that he had created her demons and Dominic had known. How could he not when he had been the architect of her torment? But to hear those words from that beautiful mouth, to know that he’d instilled fear in her heart gutted him. Somewhere in hell he knew his mother was cackling, knowing the cycle of her abuse was still very much alive in the son that she’d hated more than life itself. But it was a cycle Dominic was determined to break.

He understood a little more now the reason why he had never been able to cure himself of his obsession with her. Why he’d gone to such lengths to have her. That moment five years ago when he’d seen her on that stage, untouched by his sadism, ignorant to the predator that he’d been, there had been meaning in that moment. Meaning that he was only now beginning to understand. His darkness had been drawn to her light, enticed by that very thing he hadn’t known he’d been searching for until he found it in her. His Eden. In her, laid the garden of his peace. In her year long absence from his life, while she had thrived and lived to become this woman who challenged him in all things, Dominic had been aimless, prowling around restlessly like a beast without his trainer. And when she’d returned, he’d done the only thing he knew how to keep her at his side. His recent trip to Greece had been enlightening, his longing for her had been physically and mentally unbearable, so much so that he’d cut the two week long trip short; the private jet couldn’t have brought him back fast enough. Sliding back the French doors, he moved towards them. She had her dark head down, so absorbed in Liam’s antics, that she didn’t see him approaching until he stood only a few short feet away.