The Other Man (27 page)

“Well, he came straight to my house the day you beat him.
 
Did I ever tell you that?”
 
I shook my head.
 
She had not, because we never talked to each other.
 

Because crazy.
 

“Well,” she continued, “he was bruised and bloody, and I saw him come out of your house that way.
 
I’m part of the lawsuit.
 
A witness, since I saw that it was clearly you that beat him up, since he came out of the house and only you and he were home.”
 

“That’s hearsay,” Kevin piped in quietly.
 
“You weren’t there for the event, so nothing you have to add has any relevance, in court or in life.
 
You have no idea who else was in that house.”
 

She glared at him and shrugged jerkily.
 
“I guess we’ll see, won’t we?”
 

“Why are you telling me any of this?” I repeated, my tone very careful, as it usually was when I dealt with crazy people.
 

Her glare moved to me.
 
“I’m telling you this because if you don’t want me to testify, I’ll be happy to stay silent . . . for a price.”
 

I barely managed not to roll my eyes.
 
“Not interested, Deborah.
 
You have a nice a day.
 
We were just on our way out.”
 

“You’ll be sorry,” she said to my departing back.
 
“I won’t make this offer to you again.”
 

I didn’t say anything snotty back.
 
All she got from me was silence.
 

I figured Kevin would comment on that exchange, but he didn’t say a word, just drove us to the movies, pretending like it hadn’t happened.
 

I was fine with that.
 

CHAPTER
 

TWENTY-SEVEN

I was dreaming.
 

I was in bed on my stomach.
 
My lacy underwear were being pulled down my hips in slow, gentle tugs.
 

I squirmed a bit as they were freed past my thighs, down my knees, then poof, gone.
 

Hands started rubbing at my feet, running a big thumb up the soles, then knuckles ran down the arch.
 
Special attention was spent working at the sensitive pad below my toes, knowing just where to target, lulling me with a rough, addictive touch.
 

I knew those big, skillful hands.
 

They were Heath’s, of course.
 

Who else would I be dreaming about?
 

I moaned into my pillow as he massaged his way up to my calves, digging deep into the muscle tissue.
 

When he reached my thighs, I pushed up on my elbows and knees, rising a few inches from the bed.
 

This was my dream, after all, and I was in the mood for more than a massage.

I felt his knees wedge between mine from behind, denim abrading against my bare skin, keying me up.
 

His chest pushed into my back as his hands snaked down under my shirt, fondling my breasts, his lips brushing lightly against my nape.
   

Desire hit my bloodstream like an opiate, overtaking my senses with one strong pull.

He didn’t take my top off, just wrenched it high on my collarbone and out of his way.
 

He palmed my tits roughly right as I felt his tip nudging my sex.

I arched my back, legs spreading wider, welcoming him, a willing lamb to the slaughter.

He bit down on my nape and shoved into me hard.
 

And that’s when I knew.

Oh God.
 

This wasn’t a dream.

But it was too late.
 
I was too far gone for it to matter, one way or the other.

We rutted mindlessly, quick and savage.
 

I had my sheets in a death-grip while he surged into me, again and again, hips slamming against my ass with each downswing.
 

He made jarring direct contact, then pulled out, rubbing, dragging along my walls until only his tip remained, then slamming in again.
 

It was so good.
 
I couldn’t form a coherent word, not in any language, but I didn’t need to.
 
The cadence of begging was pretty universal.
 

He was still pumping into me, his pace relentless, when I lost it coming with loud cries.
 

He jarred deep, rooted there, and came in big, tangible spurts, my cunt milking each one of out him, our bodies in perfect sync.
 

The silence was punctuated only by our pounding hearts and gasping breaths for a good long while.
 

He stayed inside of me, his breath punching against one sensitive shoulder blade, his hands braced in fists on either side of me.
 

God, I wanted him again.
 
The first time shouldn’t have happened, and here I was, ready to submit to a second.
 

I whimpered when he started to pull out.
 
It was a protest.
 

He ignored it, dragging himself free even while my slick flesh tried to suck him back in.
 

“Miss me?”
 
Heath’s voice was clear and sharp and right next to my ear.
 
His tone was lethal, like he was delivering a blow.
     

Some vicious feeling tore through me.
 
Something strange, an incongruous mix of rage and relief, of savage comfort.
 

“You said you wouldn’t be back.”
 
My voice came out wrong, not how I’d intended.
 
It was supposed to be accusatory, but instead was imploring and delicate in a way I found intolerable.
 

He had left.
 
Left
.
 
I had
nothing
to feel guilty about.
     

“That’s not what I said.
 
I said I didn’t know
when
I’d be back.”
 
As he spoke he was climbing from the bed.
 

I dropped flat to my stomach as light flooded the room.
 

“We need to talk,” he growled at me.
 

I rolled onto my back just in time to watch him stride, still in his jeans, into my attached bathroom.
 

He peeled the condom off, dropping it into my little bathroom wastebasket.

I didn’t look away while he cleaned himself off and tucked his spent member back into his boxers.
 

At some point he’d taken his shirt off, and he didn’t bother to zip his jeans.
 

I enjoyed the view while he came back into the room and started to prowl.

But more than his spectacular body caught my attention as he moved around my room, shooting looks at me every few steps, like he couldn’t help himself.
     

He was off, more than usual off.
 

There was a darkness in his eyes, a great black void of it, that called to me, to some integral part of me, deep down inside the marrow of my bones, that I hadn’t even realized existed.

It was heady.
 

I was witnessing some new level of his rage, and it did nothing so much as draw me in further, even when I knew that all I should be doing was sending him away.

“You got rid of ’Tato,” he growled, moving out into the hallway, then back into my room again.
   

I sat up, drawing the sheets to me, covering my nakedness.
 

That caught his attention, and he stopped pacing, just in the doorway, his eyes on the sheets.
 

“He’s at Raf’s,” I said defensively.
 
“He’s Raf’s dog as much as mine.
 
It was his turn.”
 
This was kind of the truth.
 
Part of it, anyway.
 
Raf loved that dog as much as I did, and he’d taken him without a qualm.
 

But the reason I’d sent him there, of course, I wouldn’t be sharing with Heath.
 
’Tato wouldn’t stop barking at this new guy I’m seeing,
would not go over well, I knew.

He seemed to catch the hint of deceit instantly, though, going by the way his demeanor suddenly changed.
     

His lip curled, eyes running over me in a way I didn’t like.
 
Like he was only just seeing me then.
 
Like he’d only now noticed something about me that he found unpleasant.
     

“I know about that other man.”
 
His tone was more than accusatory.
 

It was disgusted.

My entire body stiffened.
 
How dare he?!
 

“That was fucking quick,” he added quietly and vehemently.
   

It was a short sentence, not many words, but somehow it was enough to convey something so much worse than accusation or disgust.
     

It told me he was wounded.
 
Like I’d hurt him badly.
 

Like I’d done something
wrong
.

Like
I
was the bad one here.
 

That set me off.
 

“Excuse me?” I spat at him.

“I do not excuse you.”

That had me cursing at him.
 
Loudly and fluently.
 
Losing my cool.
 
Completely.

“He’s not the other man,” I snarled.
 
“
You
are, and that’s all you’ll ever be.
 
I don’t know what I was to you, but you were
never
my man.
 
That wasn’t what we had.”

One second he was nearly in the hallway, the next he had me pinned to the bed, moving so fast it made my head spin.

“That’s a
lie
,” he growled into my face.
 
“And you’re not a liar, Lourdes.
 
I think you only tried to pull off that one because you’re lying to
yourself
.”
 

I tried to buck him off, but that only had him moving his hips, seating himself more securely against me, our bodies flush.
 
I felt the hard bulge of him growing with every movement, grinding crudely into my pelvis.
 

And I felt my temper going.
 
Felt myself losing it.
 

“You left,” I spat at him, all of my bitterness, every ounce of my ire in those two words.
 

He shuddered on top of me.
 
“I didn’t want to.
 
Can’t you see that
I didn’t want to?”
 

His voice was pleading, and the tone of it was like balm to my rage, calming it instantly, and though my feelings were every bit as volatile, they were no longer as uncomplicated as the wrath I’d been feeling mere moments before.
 

“You left,” I said again, but the tone had changed completely, so that now I was pleading back at him.
 

He groaned, a pained noise, and started kissing me.
 

I let him.
 
No, not let.
 
Welcomed.
 

I sucked at his tongue and didn’t stop him even when I felt his hands between our bodies, freeing his rock hard erection.
 

It sprang free, slapping into my thigh.
 
He gave me time to stop him as he reached into his pocket, ripped open a condom, and rolled it on.
 

I didn’t stop him.
 
Didn’t even consider it.
   

His hand guided his tip slowly to my entrance.

God, I’d forgotten how impossibly hard he was.
 
How big.
 
How perfect.
 

That first time, I could have blamed on being on the edge of sleep.
 
On thinking I was dreaming.
 

I had no such excuse for this round.

As soon as his hand slipped out from between our bodies, my legs snaked firmly around his hips.
   

He gripped my hair in both hands, still kissing me as he stabbed into me with one heavy thrust.
   

He didn’t hold my wrists captive, for once, didn’t bind them.
 

Left free, my arms curled around his shoulders, clutching him to me.
 

He slammed our bodies against the bed, over and over, his jeans abrading against my inner thighs as he drilled me deep into the mattress.

At some point his hands left my hair and went down to my hips.
 
He ripped his mouth away to watch me as he rose up onto his knees.

He grabbed my ass in both hands and lifted me into his possessive thrusts.

My hands, which had been forced from his shoulders, moved to my own body, gripping the sensitive mounds of my breasts into my palms, pushing them together, giving him a hell of a view.
 

It did not go unappreciated.
 

He tensed and heaved on top of me, getting close.

The lights in the room were bright, and so my view was unimpeded as I saw him start to lose it, the coldness going, the wildness overtaking his beautiful, broken eyes.
 

His jaw went slack, gaze boring into mine, taking me with him, dragging me under, straight into the heart of this madness we shared.

If it was up to me, and it wasn’t, I’d have slept after that.
 

I knew we needed to talk, but it was the middle of the night, and my body had just been exhausted.
 
Twice.