Sympathy for the Devil (20 page)

       “Well, the road to redemption is a long, perilous one. You’ve got a ways to go.”

       A glint of amusement warmed his icy blue eyes. “That nun lifestyle must be coming back to you. That look of piety’s back in your eyes.”

       “And you’re still a whore,” I retorted instantly. “Centuries pass but you remain the eternal, ever-calculating slut.”

       Pierce reached out a long finger and stroked it over my knuckles. “I keep chasing after you. I guarantee I’ll stop being a phenomenal slapper if I have you.”

       I stared out of the window, ignoring how much I wanted to curl my fingers about his. “No, you wouldn’t.”

       “Yes, I would,” he insisted. “Why do you think I’m here?”

       “I don’t know the way your mind works.” I sighed tiredly. “The very idea of knowing scares me stupid. I have no idea what you want me to do. I have no idea why you’re here.”

       He gazed at me as if it were obvious. “Because of you.”

       My brain didn’t register what he meant. “What have I got to do with it? This isn’t my mess.”

       “I’m doing this for you,” he told me quietly. “I want you and me to be together, and doing this, getting West and Toni back together, making amends, will make that happen.” He held my gaze, willing me to confirm his belief. I felt irrationally angry.

       “Why does this have to be about your personal gratification? Why can’t you do this because you feel guilty at least, not because I’m some prize at the end of the race? Do this because you’re sorry, because you’ve ruined a perfectly good relationship, because you know you’ve done wrong and this is your penance.”

       “That goes without saying. My punishment is being without you, having you hate me. It may be selfish, and it may be about my personal gratification, but I want to be with you.”

       “Wouldn’t it be more of a punishment if you made all the concessions in the world and still didn’t get to walk off with me into the sunset?”

       “That’d be pointless,” he argued. “This has made you just as miserable, and it wouldn’t have if you didn’t feel the same way. Cari, I
love
you. I’m doing everything I can to make things right again, for Toni, for West, for you and me.”

       I wanted to believe him. I wanted to think that if I wasn’t in the picture, a sense of nobility would have reared within Pierce and he’d still do this, make amends whether or not he thought he’d have a chance of a loving relationship at the end of it all. I couldn’t.

       “You know what, Pierce?” I said in a shaking voice. “I don’t think everything would even begin to be enough for what you’ve done.”

       His face drained of colour, and his eyes widened suddenly, as if he couldn’t quite comprehend the words that had emerged from my mouth. He stared at me incredulously for such a long time, I felt I couldn’t hold his gaze. I had just ripped apart his last glimmer of hope, and looking somewhere else did not lessen the feeling of being crowned the biggest bitch on earth.

       “Okay, then,” he said, sounding so lost I felt tears rush to my eyes. “Right.” He cleared his throat and got to his feet. “I understand, I just hoped that… Just talk to Toni for me, convince her to let me talk to her on the phone and I’ll explain everything to West.” I glanced up, and he swooped down to press his mouth softly to my brow bone —my favourite kissing spot. “Bye, Cari.”

       It was the most irrational I have ever felt, when he turned and walked out of that café without looking back once. What gave him away was the instant he stepped out, he threw a cigarette into his mouth and tried several times with a trembling hand to light it. I searched within me for some sort of triumph. I had successfully ejected Don Freezer from my life, with him still wanting me. All those girls who had wanted the same, all those daddy’s girls who thought he’d be malleable, and I’d done it.

       I remembered when I first met him, red eyed and scowling from a hangover until he’d looked at me and started to laugh. I’d known it then, right to the curl of my toes with the delight that I had made that beautiful, Swedish-looking puff pastry grin at me. When he walked into Kate Farrell’s party looking like an advert for Chanel and stared at me as if I were a rare delicacy that would give him eternal youth. I could feel it in the oiled warmth of his hands on my skin, the feel of his lips on my belly, the hardness of his chest as he’d crushed me into a kiss so intense, I’d seen stars behind my eyelids. Our horrific first date, and the pain in his eyes when I’d told him we hadn’t a hope in hell. The need in his face when he had asked me back to his flat at the end-of-term party. The weight of him on top of me, the heat of him inside me. I had felt it in his kiss when we’d said goodbye the next morning —God, I had felt it so deep I could taste that kiss even now. He had been trying to tell me, showing me how much he had come to love me. Because he knew how much I would despise him when he came back, and he had still done it! Why? Why the fuck?

      
“People leave, Cari,”
he’d told me with a break in his voice.
“West has been the only constant in my life. He’s like my brother.”

       What a weird sense of self-preservation from a man with such obvious abandonment issues. He had told me. Would the same frosty Pierce have accepted my no and left? Did I believe he loved me? I shook my head. I was an idiot. Clearly he was going to cause me more emotional trauma, but I was in far too deep to consider that a bad thing. Being with him had to be a vast improvement on the way I felt now.

       I leapt to my feet and chased him to where he was crossing the road, heading back to his car. He’d just thrown his cigarette to one side and I grabbed his hand with one of mine. He turned around, his eyes narrowed in that Pierce-about-to-give-hell way when he saw it was me. I took my other hand and curved it around the back of his neck, stepping closer as I went on tiptoes to meet his mouth with mine. His mouth softened in shock at my about turn, but he suddenly just kissed me back. My relief turned to joy which turned to delighted enjoyment which dissolved into the horniest I have ever been in my entire life. His arms tightened around my waist, pulling me hard against him. It was only the continual blare of horns from cars speeding by that we realised where we were.

       He pulled back and looked down at me. “Tell me that wasn’t a goodbye, enjoy-your-penance kiss?”

       “Don’t you dare ever walk out of a place without me!” I growled.

       “Never,” he said with an amazed, shy smile. “Does this mean you and I…?”

       I gathered at the material of his shirt, bunching it into a fist. “You’ve got so much stuff to sort out.”

       “I know, I know, and I’ll deal with it,” he said earnestly. “You’ll be there, right?”

       “With a habit on,” I replied dryly.

       He stroked a finger over my cheek wonderingly. “Cari, I…”

       I put a hand over his mouth. “We sort out Toni and West, then you tell me anything you like.”

       “Love you,” he mumbled through my fingers.

       My hand shook, and my eyes misted. I removed my hand and whispered, “C’mere, whore.”

       We kissed all the way back to halls, ignoring people who were tutting around us. Until the moment we kissed, I honestly hadn’t reckoned with how much I missed his touch. His hands filtered from my hair, my neck, to my waist then back up to my hair. Almost like he was checking I was real.

       We finally got back to my room I shared with Phoebe. Pierce pressed me against the door with a rather delicious-sounding groan to take my mouth again. I loved that he hadn’t shaved for a few days, his stubble rubbing my skin into uncontrollable need. I felt cooler air on my chest and realised he’d pulled my top down to my waist. I tore my mouth from his to lift his T-shirt over his head, which he did for me swiftly, throwing it carelessly to the side. He curved his arm around my waist, bracing me against the near-furnace heat of his naked torso. I carelessly traced my fingertips over his collarbone, over the bumps of his pecs, the rigid stiffness of his nipples into the definition of his hips along the line of his waistband. My pussy clenched involuntarily, recalling how he felt rocking deep inside me. He pulled my hands firmly from his body, not to be mean but to release himself from his jeans, letting them crumple around his ankles. He untied my panties and threw them to the side. He barely let me manoeuvre around him to scramble in Phoebe’s bedside drawer for condoms. (A night we’re not talking about. Ever.) I opened the foil packet and, with my eyes on his, I started to smooth the latex over him. He felt so hot in my hands, pulsing under my palm. The latex tore. I made an O with my mouth.

       Pierce removed it with an impatient sigh, kissing me again. I felt the swollen head of his cock rubbing wetly, nuzzling at my opening, scalding me with its heat. “I can’t wait,” he explained gently.

       At the back of my head a little voice was telling me I was being a numpty, but my body didn’t care. I wanted to know what the bare feel of him would be like inside me. I gave the barest of nods and wrapped my arms around his neck, feeling the dampness of sweat gathering on his skin already.

Pierce grabbed me by the thighs and urged my legs around his waist. He gripped my hips tightly then pulled me down hard onto his cock, spearing into me deep. I yelled to feel him inside me, thick and unbelievably hard. He said my name on such a reverent sigh, I think I fell in love with him right then. My arms tightened around his neck, my hands cupping his head, my fingers curling into his hair, trying to stroke as much of him as possible. I shuddered as he started to move within me, the door rattling with each thrust. Pierce moved his head down to bite and suck at my neck, his hands bruising as they massaged my breasts, every tug of my nipples sending a charge of energy to my pussy. He pressed his hand against the door with a grunt, as if he couldn’t quite take my weight. My thighs felt slippery around his waist, my clit rubbing on his pubis. He increased the pace of his movements, now roughly fucking me. He felt unbelievable inside me, velvet steel stroking my pussy rapidly, my juices sliding over him and down his thighs. His mouth met mine again, drawing my tongue into his mouth so he could suck on it. It drove me mad, I was moaning each time his balls ground against my swollen lips. He started shoving faster, his breathing turning harsher. I was trembling all over, muttering incoherently beneath his lips.

       “I fucking love you,” Pierce groaned into my mouth.

       I came, his words, his touch, him —all of him —made my whole body explode with such pleasure my nerve endings were near painful with sensation. He pumped his hips rapidly before a delicious, wet, warmth coated me. We stayed like that for a few minutes before Pierce shuffled us to my bed and we collapsed onto my mattress. I felt irrationally bereft when he pulled wetly out of me and made himself more comfortable. He kicked off his jeans and trainers before he turned to his side and curled up to me. My skirt and top were around my waist, but I didn’t care.

       “One day, we’re going to take our goddamn time,” he vowed.

       I smirked, then panicked as my phone vibrated.
Oh, God, please don’t let it be Toni
. Phoebe had sent me a text.

      
New pad is amazing! Be home in half an hour to finish packing. xx Phoebs.

      
Pierce watched me carefully as I scanned the message. “You’re going to run, aren’t you?”

       “Why would you say that?” I asked neutrally, leaning over him to place my phone on my bedside table. I dug out my keys, which were pressing an unattractive hole in my thigh.

       Pierce trailed his hand along my bare arm. “Because you find an excuse to leave when you think I might be able to tell how you feel about me.”

       “We just had sex. I haven’t got the energy to do anything, let alone run.”

       Pierce touched his mouth to mine in a lingering kiss. “I’m sure Phoebe will enjoy catching you naked, then. Unless it’s an exhibition you both take part in.” He gave a leering lift of his brows.

       “Sexist!”

       “Like you didn’t know.” He blinked slowly. “Is it Toni?”

       I sighed, rubbing my hands over my face. “She’s not going to understand.”