You Own Me (8 page)

“No, Decker,” Elizabeth said, reaching out and grabbing his arm.

He tensed, but he didn’t move away.

His gaze cut to hers. “He hurt you.”

“A little.” Then she reached up and touched his cheek. “It’ll hurt me more if you end up in trouble over him. You’re right…he’s
not
worth it.”

He let Noel go, shoved him away so fast and sudden, the other man ended up tripping on his feet and crashing into a table before he promptly fell on his ass.

Elizabeth’s skin prickled, heat rushing over her as he moved in to stand next to her. “Touch her again, son,” Decker promised. “And you’ll find out. I might even break my record—and break
you
in forty-five.”

Slowly, ignoring the snickers coming from those around him, Noel rose, staring at Decker. “Threats go over real well with your parole officer?” he asked.

Decker tensed but she laid a hand on his chest and moved forward. “Probably as well as the video I’ll send to your boss will go,” she said, drawing Noel’s attention to her. When he looked at her, she nodded to the camera in the corner—one that had caught every last second on video. Holding out her arm, she bared the bruise already blooming on her skin. “Especially when I show her this.”

Her comment hit home. Noel’s boss spent a weekend a month volunteering at a women’s shelter—Noel bitched about it, and often, because he complained that he wouldn’t advance with her around because she kept harping on
civic responsibilities
.

“We’re talking about this,” Noel said, his voice flat.

She shook her head. “There’s not much to talk about. You wanted me to lose weight. I did.” Too many were looking at her now and she couldn’t believe she was spilling herself like this, but too much had been trapped inside her. For far too long. “You didn’t like my hair, so I tried to wear it the way you liked it. I dressed too
outlandishly
for you so I changed that, too. You wanted an open relationship. I was willing to try that. But I won’t let you insult the people who matter to me. And you will
not
threaten them. If Decker has
any
trouble, now, five months from now, five years from now, I’ll show that video to whoever you’re working for…then I’ll go to the cops.” With a brittle smile, she added, “Then I’ll post the damn video on
Youtube
…with a link to your
LinkedIn
profile.”

Jutting her chin toward the door, she said, “Get out.”

There were certain things in life that were just facts. They sucked, but they were facts.

Fact one—Lizzie had a bruise on her and that prick Noel had put it on her, just as certain as he’d put those angry tears in her eyes.

Fact two—as much as he’d like to batter the son of a bitch for it, he knew what would happen. No way was he going back to jail for this. If Noel had really
hurt
her, nothing in heaven or hell could protect the man, but Decker wasn’t relinquishing his freedom just yet.

Fact three—Lizzie was crying and that meant he couldn’t even go after Noel and threaten him.

With his lap full of angry, hurt woman, all he could do was hold her and stroke her hair.

And on occasion, if he let himself breathe a sigh of thanks that she’d finally dumped the ass, well, Decker was only human.

One small fist clenched in his shirt and he covered it with his, rubbing his thumb back and forth over her skin as he stared up at the ceiling. She curled in closer and he gritted his teeth, thought about every ugly, painful thing he’d ever been through—the worst beating he’d taken from his father. The way it had felt the first time they slammed the doors behind him. The fear he’d felt that one time he thought he’d
really
been cornered and he just might end up getting raped in jail.

Even that wasn’t enough to cool the fire in him, not when Lizzie pressed her face to his neck and continued to cry.

There was only one thing to be done for it.

He shifted on the futon she laughingly called a couch and stretched them out, rolling up on his side, but using his knee to keep her from cuddling in too close. The knee didn’t stop her. She just went with it until she was practically riding his thigh—fuck—and her face was still tucked up against his neck while she cried, which was killing him.

This was hell, he thought, miserably. His body was in full-blown
ready to fuck
mode, while everything else in him just wanted to do whatever it took to make her feel better. To stop crying. To realize she was better off without that user in her life.

That was why it happened.

That was completely why it happened.

Why when she sucked in a breath and looked up, his name a whisper on her lips, he didn’t steel himself the way he should have.

Why he looked at her and let himself touch her. He was trying to comfort her.

That was why he wiped the tears away and when she turned her face into his hand with a broken little sigh, he pressed his lips to her temple.

That was why he let himself kiss her again, a little lower on her cheek as a startled noise left her. “Decker…” she whispered.

“Don’t cry,” he whispered against her cheek. “He’s not worth it. He’s not worth
you
.”

She sniffled again and turned her face toward his.

She
did that.

Her lips glanced off his and maybe it wasn’t a real kiss, but it felt like one—or the closest he’d ever gotten to a real kiss from her. At least since before the day he’d fucked it all up and scared her. Scared her into taking off into the arms of somebody who’d just hurt her, bruise her, use her—

“Don’t cry,” he whispered again, rubbing his lips over her cheek before he went to kiss the tears away.

She lifted a hand to his cheek.

He went still.

When her thumb brushed over his lower lip, he shuddered.
Don’t do anything. Don’t. Just don’t…

“I remember when you kissed me.”

Hunger snapped its jaws around him, tried to swallow him whole. He battled it back. “That…” He clenched his jaw. “That was a long time ago.”

Her eyes fell away. “Yeah. Before. And you didn’t really want…”

She started to squirm, shoving at his chest. “Let me go.”

I can’t believe I even mentioned that.
Humiliated, Elizabeth tried to wiggle away but solid, muscled arms held her firmly in place.

“Let me go, Deck,” she said, turning her head so she didn’t have to look in his blue eyes. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought that up.”

There was one thing they didn’t talk about.

That day, the next day…and the three weeks that followed—three weeks that culminated in screams, then blood…then sirens. When all was said and done, Decker was arrested while she locked herself in a prison of her own making.

What was she doing?

“Let me go,” she said again, shoving at his chest when he still didn’t let go of her.

Instead, he rolled, twisted and shifting until he had her body tucked under his. “I didn’t really want what?”

Didn’t really—

The words clanged together, jumbled in her head, but they didn’t make sense. At all. At least not right away. She was too busy trying to remember how to breathe.

It wasn’t that Decker was crushing her. Oh, he was heavy, but he had his arms braced on either side of her so that most of his weight was balanced there, the muscles rippling, hard…and tempting.
No. Not tempting
, she told herself, almost desperately.

She couldn’t breathe because her legs were tangled with his and his hips were tucked in the cradle of hers and now…involuntarily, she rolled and she sucked in a gasp as she felt him throb against her, the hard, heavy length of his cock settling more firmly against her through the flimsy layers of her skirt, like the material wasn’t even there. His pupils spiked and unless she was just really, really losing her mind, that was heat in his eyes—she’d seen that look before.

She’d seen it directed at others. And that one time—

“I didn’t really want what?” he murmured, his mouth so close to hers, she could feel the caress of his breath dance across her lips.

“Decker.” She tore her gaze from his, tried to find something easier to look at, something a little less unsettling than his eyes. She found herself staring at the strong column of his throat—flames. They came from the phoenix that spread its wings out over his back. And the flames on his neck were throbbing—or at least the area right over his pulse was.

Which made sense, really. She had her hands flat on his chest and she could feel the rapid-fire beat of his heart, slamming away. “Let me up,” she whispered, a need, a dream, a desire she’d made herself forget twisting up from the depths of her soul. She couldn’t do this again.

“In a minute.” He dipped his head and she gasped as his lips skimmed across her cheek. “I just…” A harsh groan rumbled out of him and that groan seemed to make his entire body vibrate. His hips twisted, then rolled against hers at the same time and that movement brought an answering moan from her.

“Lizzie.” Her name was a rasp on his lips. She hadn’t heard his voice like that in a long, long time.

Shaken, she looked at him, feeling drugged and lost in the heat that had come out of nowhere.

His mouth brushed over hers. Once. Twice. Three times. And then he kissed a path to her ear where he caught the lobe between his teeth and tugged. “I want to kiss you,” he whispered. “Now…we can do one of two things. Either you tell me to stop, to go away…and I will. I’ll let this go and we’ll pretend it never happened.”

Even thinking about that made despair rise in her. It was so wrenching and so strong, she could barely breathe for it, but somehow, she found enough oxygen because she heard herself asking, “And what’s the second thing?”

“You can open your mouth and let me taste you.”

Now he lifted up, bracing his weight on his elbows and the shift in his position brought them more intimately together. She whimpered, instinctively bringing one knee up and arching up against him, seeking to deepen that connection.

Realigning his body atop hers, he rested one hand on her hip, started to drag it up, up, up, until work-roughed fingers rasped over bare skin. “Which one is it going to be?” he asked, his gaze locked on her mouth.

Heart pounding, head spinning, Lizzie stared at him.

She couldn’t find it in her to say the words.

So she reached up and fisted her hands in the dark, deep red silk of his hair, tugged his mouth to hers.

Lizzie tasted of tears and vanilla and coffee and her—she tasted exactly as he’d remembered, from that one faint, brief taste. Only so much better, a hundred times better, a thousand times more intoxicating.

Her mouth was soft, damp, hesitant under his and that was the only thing that gave him the patience to take his time. Teasing the soft curve of her lower lip with his tongue, he reached up, fisting his hand around the edge of the futon’s mattress to keep from grabbing at her.

Then she moaned and angled her head, opening deeper for him, her hands sliding down to grip his sides until short, neat nails were biting into his flesh.

She slid her tongue out to rub against his and his cock pulsed as though she’d been stroking him there instead of kissing him. And
that
image had him rocking against her, driving his cock against the heat that was already gathering between her thighs. She’d be wet, he thought, half delirious. Wet, and ready and he could make her come so hard…

A hundred times, a thousand times, he’d dreamed about this.

But—

Snarling, he tore his mouth from hers and jerked away, sitting at the far end of the futon. With hands that shook, he rubbed at his face.

Son of a bitch
.

“Lizzie…fuck. I’m sorry.”

A harsh intake of breath reached his ears and the last thing he wanted to do was face her, but that was what he made himself do.

The minute he turned his head to look at her, she surged up off the futon, moving across the small office to stand by her desk, head bowed, arms wrapped around herself. “Get out,” she said, her voice quiet.

Too quiet.

“Lizzie?” Wincing, he climbed off the couch. “Look, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

“Don’t.” The word was pure steel and it caught him off-guard, for a second.

But just a second. Because while Lizzie was soft and sweet, under all of that, she
was
steel. She always had been—he’d figured that out when he hadn’t chased her off within the first few hours of meeting her. Now, as she turned and looked at him, tears glinted in her wide, dark brown eyes, but nothing could hide the fury, and the hurt, in those eyes.

Fuck
, he thought miserably. Rising from the couch, he lifted a hand only to let it fall uselessly to his side. “Lizzie, I’m sorry. I didn’t—”

“I don’t want to hear it!” she shouted, cutting him off.

He had to duck to avoid the little potted orchid she sent flying his way. And damn, she still had a good throwing arm.

“Do you hear me?” she said, her voice starting to shake. “I don’t want to hear it. I
get
it, okay? Nobody wants me. No
fucking
body. I’m fine as a doormat for Noel as long as I let him treat me like shit, but he doesn’t want
me
. Neither do you. I get it. Okay?”

Stunned shock rippled through him as she shoved her tumbled hair back from her flushed face. Her eyes shot sparks as their gazes clashed. “I get the point. You’re a fucking hound dog and I know that. But I’m not good en—”

He caught the rest of her words with his mouth and when she went to shove him back, he caught her wrists, too. Sinking his teeth into her lower lip, he backed her up against her desk. “Not want you?” he muttered against her mouth. “Are you blind?”

She tried to turn her head and he tangled a hand in her hair, yanked it back. Her pupils flared, her mouth falling open on a startled moan. “Give me your mouth, Lizzie,” he said and then, without waiting, he took it, thrusting his tongue deep.