Temptation’s Edge (31 page)

Have to leave.

He shook his head again. He couldn’t just leave her. It was wrong, to leave after the night they’d had. Without seeing to her, making sure she was down from subspace. To make sure she was okay.

He wasn’t okay.

Fuck.

He stepped backward, his bare foot coming into contact with his jeans on the floor, and beside them the sketchpad. He bent down and took the pad in his hands, glancing at the sketches there. He’d almost captured her.

Almost.

He looked once more at where she lay quietly on the green sofa. She was naked, and so damn gorgeous it made his chest ache. How could any woman look like this? Flesh over bone in perfect, rounded proportion. And her face…His fingers ached to reach out and touch her cheekbone, her closed eyelids. Her red lips. But he wouldn’t do it. Couldn’t do it.

And Christ, her scent was all over him.

He gently pulled a throw blanket over her still form before he picked up his jeans, took them along with the sketchpad into the bathroom. Stared at himself in the mirror.

He was a fraud. Posing as some responsible dom when he was about to leave this woman after he’d played her only a few hours ago. Without checking to see how she was doing. Oh yes, he was leaving.

Love her.

No.

Impossible. It was
him
, for God’s sake! He could not do this. To himself, maybe. But certainly not to her. He would fuck it up royally, just like he had with Ginny. Just like his father had with his mum. It was in the genes. It was in the lousy fucking example he’d been given of what a man was. He may have spent the last number of years trying to learn to be a better man than he used to be. A damn sight better than his father, sure. But it was the bounds within the roles of BDSM, those rules involved in being a responsible dominant, that kept it all in check. Those were the boundaries in which he could function as someone in command of himself. If he were to have more with Mischa those roles wouldn’t always be present and he…he wasn’t certain what might happen. He couldn’t risk it. That in itself would be a loss of control to some degree he hadn’t ever experienced. And letting go control…Well, that would be a disaster for him. And more importantly, for Mischa.

He would not do it. He’d come too close already. Taken things with her too far. His own damn fault. Unforgivable.

His chest felt like a raw, open wound as he slid his way into his jeans, ripped the sketches from the pad and held them carefully as he made his way back into the living room to find his shirt, his shoes, his coat. He took one last look at her, so damn lovely it tore at him.

His hands were fisted at his sides, the one hand crushing the edges of the sketches as he watched her sleep for as long as he dared. When he knew he couldn’t possibly take it any longer, he turned away, opened the door and walked out.

Mischa woke knowing something was wrong. It wasn’t simply the absence of Connor’s big body next to hers. He could have
been in the kitchen, the bathroom. But somehow, even before she opened her eyes, she knew he wasn’t.

The pain began instantly. Why would he have left, if it wasn’t what she’d been dreading nearly the entire time they’d been together?

She made herself get up, pulling the throw blanket around her bare shoulders. She didn’t remember how it had gotten there—they’d gone to sleep naked. Pressed together.

She bit her lip against the tiny sob that wanted to escape.

She moved into the kitchen, rubbing her eyes, trying to clear the grainy blur from lack of sleep. If he’d left a note for her the most obvious place would be on the high bar counter. There was nothing there. Somehow, she’d known there wouldn’t be. And yet, she made herself check the coffee table, the bathroom mirror, the front door.

Nothing.

The emptiness threatened to open its yawning mouth, to suck her in. She steeled herself against it.

Don’t be dramatic. It could be anything.

She knew it wasn’t true even as she dialed his cell phone, which went right to voice mail.

“Connor, it’s me. Mischa. I just…was wondering where you wandered off to this morning. Okay. Call me when you get a chance.”

She sounded so casual. What a good little actress she was. What a good little liar. Because beneath the words, the tone, she was a fucking mess. Barely fending off collapsing into tears.

No.

This was exactly what she’d never wanted to do. To turn into Evie. She was not that person. She was a hell of a lot stronger than that.

She could almost smell the stench of stale pot smoke in the air.
Could almost feel the birdlike bones of her mother’s arm as she helped her into the bathtub after too many days of lying on the couch. Evie had always looked so utterly blank during one of her dark times. No expression as the silent tears would wash down her cheeks.

Sometimes that was the scariest part of it all—that her mother had been so rendered numb it was as if she wasn’t
in
there anywhere. Just…gone. Leaving a nine-year-old Mischa—or eight- or seven- or even six-year-old—to try and handle everything.

She shivered, the cold biting deep.

It was damn hard at the moment to remember her strength. Maybe she couldn’t do this alone.

She picked up her phone again and dialed Dylan’s number.

“Hello?”

“Dylan, it’s me.”

“Hi, Misch. What’s up?”

“Do you know, by any chance, if Alec has talked to Connor this morning?”

“I don’t know. Alec left early, and I haven’t talked to him other than a brief text a few hours ago. Why? What’s up?”

“He was…He was here last night.” She had to pause, her throat going tight.

“Misch?”

She drew in a long breath. “This is probably just me being paranoid.”

“Okay,” Dylan said slowly. “I might believe that if I’d ever witnessed you being paranoid.
Ever
. Just tell me what’s going on.”

“Nothing.” She took a breath, tried to keep her voice from shaking. “It’s nothing. We were together last night and we…I finished his tattoo. And then…” She stopped, biting her lip. “Dylan, I feel like an idiot. Because I know better, you know? I do. And this is just…stupid beyond belief. He’s probably at
home working. He probably forgot to tell me he had to get an early start.”

“He didn’t say good-bye? Leave you a note?”

“No. Nothing.”

Nothing. That’s what I have.

That chasm threatened to open up and swallow her again.

“I don’t like this,” Dylan said. “Let me call Alec and—”

“No, please, don’t do that. It’s bad enough that I’m being foolish in front of you.”

“Oh, honey, you’re not being foolish. Alec won’t think so, either, I promise.”

“Just…let’s give it a little more time. I’m sure he’ll get my phone message and call me back later. I’m being stupid.”

“Did he play you last night?” She heard the sharp edge in Dylan’s voice.

“Well, it was more early this morning. Just some spanking. Nothing too heavy.”

“Misch, these guys—Alec’s particular circle of friends—are
always
playing heavy, no matter the pain level, or even the absence of pain. They are very serious players. The dynamic is always there.”

“Yes,” she said, more meekly than she’d wanted to.

“Then he’s an irresponsible asshole to take off without doing proper aftercare. This is not okay. And I’m sorry to be ranting. Are you all right? Do you need me to come over?”

“No, don’t disrupt your schedule. Like I said, he’ll show up sooner or later. I just need to chill.”

“Are you sure? It’s not a problem. I can be there in twenty minutes. If you’re bottoming out I should come—you shouldn’t be alone.”

Mischa ran a hand through her tangled hair. “Please don’t worry about me, Dylan. I can handle this. I’m a little raw, but I’ll be fine. Maybe I just need to wake up, have some tea.”

“Well, call me later. Let me know what happens. Let me know if you need anything.”

“I will. Promise.”

They hung up, and she felt like more of a liar than ever. She’d lied to her best friend. She was absolutely not okay. And she knew already that Connor was not returning her call. Not now. Not ever.

She spent the day wrapped in the same small blanket, staring at the television. She rarely watched TV, but the only other option was reading, and she knew she didn’t have enough concentration to take in anything she might read. She could have drawn. But drawing, even looking at her sketchpad, after what had gone on that morning, was out of the question. She may as well just pierce her heart with a kitchen knife and be done with it.

Instead, she drowsed her way through several old black-and-white movies, an animal documentary, spent twenty minutes at a time flipping through channels, barely aware of what she was looking at.

By the time the sun was going down, the evening sky paling, the television making a blue-washed flicker against the tall windows, she still hadn’t heard from him. And as ridiculous as she knew it was, she called him once more.

“Connor, it’s me again. Mischa, in case you’ve forgotten who I am. Which you have, apparently.” She sucked in a breath. “Shit. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound so…Anyway. Call me, okay?”

She slammed her cell phone a little too hard on the coffee table.

God damn him!

She tried to shake it off—she hated being angry. It wasn’t a constructive emotion. But she was pissed.

Her phone buzzed and she grabbed for it, her heart thrumming like a small caged hummingbird in her chest.

Dylan.

She couldn’t talk to her. Couldn’t face her sympathy, or even her being enraged on her behalf. She let the call go to voice mail.

She got up, then, went into the kitchen and found a bottle of wine. A good California Cabernet, probably much too good for what she had planned for it, but she’d repay Dylan later. She opened it, took it back to the sofa and curled up with it in her lap. She stared at the TV as she drank, one swallow, then another, straight from the bottle.

It was an ugly thing to do; she knew that. But this was what she needed right now. To stop thinking, dissecting. To make herself numb. Not like Evie.
Never
like Evie. Just for a little while. Just for the night. She would allow herself this one thing. Tomorrow she would get back to her life. Business as usual, with her in control.

She tilted the bottle, took another long pull on it. She was right; the wine was excellent. Even drinking as fast as she was, she could taste it. But she got no pleasure from it. Not even from the small buzz that was loosening her muscles already.

She had a feeling it would be a very long time before anything felt good to her again.

When she woke up with the new day’s sun shining too brightly into her bone-dry eyes, she knew she’d been right. She felt like absolute crap. She was hungover, stiff from spending an entire day and night on the sofa—and hell, much of the night before, too. And that deep, aching dread of Connor’s absence was like a weight on her chest, threatening to crush her.

I won’t have it.

No, today she would pull herself together. She’d start with a shower.

She got up, dropping the blanket, and moved into the bathroom. She turned on the taps, avoiding her reflection in the big pewter-framed mirror while she waited for the water to heat. When the room began to steam up, she stepped in.

The water felt surprisingly nice, the warmth seeping into her skin, easing her aching head as she let it run over her hair.

It was then the tears started.

She moved her face under the warm spray of water, let it wash away the tears. She didn’t want to acknowledge them. She was not that girl—the girl who cried over a man. Who fell in love and had him fucking leave her.

She was not her mother.

Her hands flew to her stomach, an unreasonable fear rising like bile in her throat, but she knew she couldn’t be pregnant. They’d practiced safe sex, and she’d been on the pill since she was seventeen. She let her hands drop, feeling foolish. But Evie had had her heart broken even after Mischa and Raine had been born. She’d been broken over and over, every time she opened her heart to another man who eventually stomped on it.

Just like her father had. Like Raine’s father had. And now, despite her best efforts, it was happening to her.

The tears grew hot, scalding her eyelids. Hot with anger. Hot with fear—the fear of what this made her. The scorned woman.

Connor.

She could see his face behind her tightly shut eyelids. Almost too handsome if it didn’t have that rugged edge: the square chin, the strong jawline, and the scar beneath his eye to set off the lush mouth, the dark lashes, the gleaming green and gold eyes.

She’d sworn she’d seen emotion in those eyes. But then how could he just take off without another word to her? Without even telling her it was over?

“God damn it, Connor,” she muttered.

She pulled back, shook her head, steeled herself as she swept her wet hair from her face.

She was not having this. She would not be so damn weak. She would not waste her life, not one more breath, on tears over this man.

He was dangerous. She’d known it right away. And hadn’t heeded her own instincts. She’d told herself she could handle it. It had been a lie all along.

He was far too dangerous for her to stay in Seattle. She couldn’t see him, not before she’d really had a chance to pull herself back together. Even though right now it felt like that might never happen.

She booked her flight using her laptop. Amazing how quickly one could buy a plane ticket, make a quick escape. A few minutes later she was tossing her clothes into her suitcase, carefully cleaning and packing up the tattoo gear she’d let sit out all night. Irresponsible of her. But that’s what he did to her. He turned her head, made it impossible to think. And that was exactly why he was such a danger to her. She could lose everything, being distracted by him. Her business, her success, everything she’d spent her life working so hard to build. Everything that made her feel she had some value. The things in her life that kept her safe.

She waited until she’d called a cab before she sent Dylan a text explaining that she was leaving immediately for the airport, promising to be back in time for the wedding. She felt terrible leaving Dylan with only a few weeks to go and still so much to be done. She felt selfish. But she also felt it was a matter of survival, at this point. She knew Dylan would be understanding, but she couldn’t bring herself to talk to her. Couldn’t bring herself to say out loud what she was going through.