Beyond Ruin (13 page)

Oh, God
she wanted to possess him, to feel the world at her feet tremble with the kind of beautiful release that only James Fitzgerald could give her. Her world with him inside of her would quake and crumble to the very foundation, render her completely spent.

He looked to her with eyes so filled with love, so deep in their affection for her that it arrested her heart.
I can’t do this!
Terror crippled her limbs like the branches of a tree in a wintery frost, hard but not unyielding to a vicious snap. Before her his eyes changed from sinking pools of lust to crystalline globes of fear.

“Natalie?” he whispered, fear encroaching in his voice. “What is it?”

“I want you,” she cried, the tears now coming freely to her wide eyes.

“I know, baby. I want you, too. God knows how much I want you.”

She sat up in his arms, eyes crying freely now as the sobs began. “I want you so badly, James. But you want the Natalie you met nearly a year ago, and I’m not her anymore.” The tears came like a sluice as images of herself naked and writhing with Joe Gallo in the bathtub came to mind. Images and memories of her desire to consume and be consumed by Audra Robertson. She wanted them still - and James - and would continue to want them until she had been raked clean of her desire for a most exquisite ruin.

“What are you talking about?
You are
Natalie. You are
my
Natalie.”

“No.” She scrambled out from under the weight of his body until she was out of arms-reach from him. “You won’t want me once you know the things that I have done.”

“Natalie!” he yelled, standing from the bed to chase after her. She was quick with her shirt, pulling it up over her body to cover herself again. But she only managed to make it three feet away from the door before he caught her. He turned her around and held her arms tight in his hands, demanding she look up at him and meet the intensity of his stare. “Marry me.”

The tears came easier than her own breath did. “Didn’t you hear me?”

“I heard you and I don’t care what it is you think you’ve done. Nothing could ever make me love you less.”

“You don’t know that!” she pleaded with him. “One day soon you'll see.”

“I’ll see what, Natalie?”

Her hands went helplessly to her head. How could she explain it to him? He could only see it. Seeing it would make him believe.

“You’ll see who I really am,” she whispered. “You’ll see and you’ll never ask me to marry you again. Not now, not on the terrace of Villa Montecito. You won’t want me anymore.”

“Natalie you’re hysterical. Please let me help you.”

“No!” she practically yelled, yanking free from his grip. Her world had spun too far out of her control to change it now. He had to see her for who she really was. Had to see that she was ruined. “I am calm!” She let him pull her deep into his embrace until her tears were wet stains upon his naked chest. Everything about him felt familiar to her senses, from the warmth of his skin to the lingering scent of his cologne. They calmed her until her breathing was rhythmic and steady again.

“I love you,” he whispered against her hair. “It’s not enough to just see you, Natalie. I need to feel you. I need your smile and your laughter. I need you to bring the light back into my world. Marry me.”

Natalie leaned her head back in his arms and took in the lovely blue-green of his eyes. “You’ll change your mind when you realize I have no light to give you, James. You’ll see it and you won't love me anymore.”

“That's bullshit, Natalie Harlow, and you know it."

She shook her head as she clambered out of his embrace. “If you still have love in your heart for me after you find out what I've done, then ask me again. But I don't think you will.”

"Baby, I don't understand-"

"Just.... wait. And see."

It was dark upstairs in the loft. Quiet and dark. Just Natalie, her thoughts, and a never empty glass of red wine. She sat with her back against the cabinets looking out towards their windowed view of Los Angeles asleep around them. In just a few hours daylight would break over the Eastern horizon and wake up the denizens of the city into yet another Friday morning. The phone calls would begin again. Emails would need urgent answering. And by the time the sun set that evening she and her business partner would be pitching the most epic of parties a secret sex club could ever hope to put on.

She startled when her phone went off, the sudden light of the display filling the dark corner of the loft like a shooting star in the middle of the midnight sky. It was a text message that had woken her phone from its rare evening slumber.

'Gentleman Twelve: Knock, knock.'

Natalie swallowed back a sour mouthful of wine. Then she heard it - the faintest of knocks coming from downstairs. Did she hear it? How much wine had she had? She couldn't even remember if she'd eaten anything with the wine. Curious, she hobbled up to her feet and clumsily made her way downstairs and into the foyer. One look through the peep hole confirmed the knocking hadn't been some sort of auditory hallucination. Wine glass still in hand, Natalie unlocked and opened the door, her eyes unable to look anywhere else but at him. He was leaning towards the threshold, one hand perched up high on the doorframe, his long body domineering the entryway. He was dressed down, a plain white tee shirt and jeans in place of his typical suit and tie. His honey colored hair was an unruly mess of waves atop his head, the kind that spoke of a long night of running his hands back and forth through it in consternation or deep thought.

"James, what?" She swallowed again in an attempt to push back the onslaught of feelings that threatened to purge from her face again. "What are you doing here?"

"I have spent the entire night going over in my head everything you said. And there was only one conclusion I could come to."

Natalie's drunk-on-wine heart suddenly leapt into a rapid beat. "What's that?"

"That I believe you." He straightened his posture and stood with his arms draped lazily at his sides. He shrugged and offered a small shake of his head. "You think you've done something so unforgivable that it would alter the very core of everything I feel for you. I don't know what that
something
is, but I believe you to be a woman of enviable integrity and strength. So if it is true and my heart will be altered beyond repair, then I want one final, happy memory of you before it ends for good."

It was the last thing she expected from him. And maybe it was the wine influencing her thoughts, but it seemed like the most natural thing in the world. Closure.

Natalie took a sip of her wine before crossing her arms over her chest and leaning against the doorframe, watching him the entire time. "So... you're what? Here for a booty call?"

"No," he said, but the way his lips curled into a devious smile gave him away. The moment passed quickly and his brows furrowed over his contemplative eyes. "When you miscarried..." He stopped briefly to take a deep breath. "That was the last night we spent together. I held you in my arms the entire night and whispered in your ear that everything would be okay in time. And the next morning Celine called and you and I came to an end. If I had a choice of last nights to spend with you, it wouldn't be that one."

It took less than a minute for Natalie to decide what to do. She set her nearly empty wine glass down on the floor just out of the way of the doorframe, and held her hand out to him. He silently took it and crossed the threshold into the condo, closing the door with his free hand behind him. Without a word spoken between them Natalie guided James through the living room, up the stairs and quietly down the hallway to her bedroom. Neither of them bothered with the light switch. Instead, Natalie crawled into the bed, held up the corner of the comforter, and waited.

James quickly disrobed from his jeans and slipped under the covers next to Natalie. She wrapped his arms around her as she turned in the bed until she had her back to him. They conformed together perfectly, his body the larger outline of her own, coiled and comforted in their shared space.

What the wine couldn't relax, his presence did. She tangled his fingers around her and hugged them to her chest, waiting for sleep to take her. The steady rhythm of his chest pushing so gently against her back as he inhaled and then receding as he exhaled lulled her into a peaceful calm. Ten, then twenty minutes must have passed, and still she lay awake in his arms, eyes closed and mind still.

"James?"

"Hmm."

"Are you awake?"

"Yeah."

"What are you thinking about?"

"You."

She felt him moving behind her, then closed her eyes when his lips kissed softly at the junction between her ear and jaw. She let go of his fingers and felt the encircling embrace of his arms around her relax enough to give her space to turn around so they were facing each other. She watched as his eyes traveled her face from the curve of her brow, down across the apples of her cheeks and to the ridge of her bottom lip.

"Are you sure this is what you had in mind when you knocked on my door tonight?" she asked.

"Why do you ask?"

"Oh, I don't know." She slid a hand beneath the covers and ran it down the hard length of his erection. James' eyes closed momentarily as his breath escaped him in a throaty moan, then reopened full of fire and desire. "Just a feeling."

"Don't act so surprised," he whispered. "I told you I was thinking about you."

"I'm not surprised." She encased her hand around him again and moved down then up the length of him. His eyes drooped with the heaviness of his own lust. His hips moved against her hand, pushing his erection deeper into her palm.

"If it's all the same to you," he began with a whisper, straining against his own desire, "I'd rather not."

Natalie's hand froze in its place. "Why?" She could feel the pressure of his blood pumping through his erection, radiating the movement against her skin.

"Because I won't want to stop."

Every muscle between her legs contracted with sweet anticipation. If this was going to be their last memory together, then it was going to be worth remembering.

Natalie sat up and tore her baggy shirt off her body as quickly as she could, ignoring the faint stab of cold as her once-warm breasts were suddenly exposed to the night air.

"I'm not going to stop you."

James pulled her back down onto her backside and had her breasts in his mouth before she could so much as take in the next breath. It was as if the hours between the penthouse bedroom and that moment in her room had never happened. He kissed down her center, creating a trail with his lips down to the tops of the several-sizes-too-big pants that hung from her hips. With this fingers looped in each side he tugged at the fabric until her hips and pelvis were exposed, naked as the rest of her. Her heart raced inside her chest as the fabric caressed down her silken bare legs and then disappeared off the bed.

Her center arched in anticipation of him. He crouched at her backside and folded her legs up in front of him before sliding his hands down the insides of her thighs, spreading her before him. Her hands clawed at the sheets on the bed, looking for anything tangible to squeeze the might of her anticipation into.

His tongue against her intimate flesh turned her world upside down and she moaned with a guttural inflection that sounded unlike herself even to her own ears. He lapped at the length of her and suckled her moistened bud with a most careful touch. As he lavished her center his hands met her fingers. She grabbed his digits with force and squeezed for an ounce of relief. She pulled him towards her and then buckled her hips against him, the repeated movements like a dance of wanting more and less at the same time.

I might die. Oh holy fuck I cannot
.

"Ah, fuck!" James yelled, breaking Natalie out of her reverie. "Baby relax. You're going to dislocate my shoulder."

She opened her eyes and nearly expired at the sight of him smiling between her thighs, her feet pressed firmly against his strong, broad shoulders. He climbed to his knees and crossed the distance of her torso from hips to lips.

"You're always so beautiful when you're about to come." He kissed her with breathless abandon, the taste of her raked lust on his tongue and lips. An arm swept under her backside and lifted, angling her perfectly. He joined their bodies effortlessly, gliding into her wetness like a perfectly cut key into a lock.

It took all of her strength not to come on the spot. She wrapped her arms around his body and pulled as tightly as she could as her hips rocked up and down against his own rhythm of pushing in and pulling out. James pulled away from her kiss and balanced his arms on either side of her head, resting his forehead against hers to watch her as they moved to release.

Her breathing pitched as she realized this could be it. The last time they ever made love. She fought against the intense desire to close her eyes and lose herself to sensation and abandon, opting instead to watch him as he watched her, seeing as his world came apart with each thrust.

"I'm here," he whispered hoarsely between thrusts. "I love you."

"I love you, too," she cried, and she could no longer keep her eyes open. She burst, suddenly blinded and winded in a frenzied release that had her fingers clenching at his skin, pulling and digging with unnatural strength. It was like being opened from the inside out, an exploding kaleidoscope of delirium that wrecked her body with wave after wave of splendor. When James followed her throat sang in celebration, her body rippling with rejoice and exaltation.

He stayed inside her until their breathing settled, his head buried in her neck as he held her. She could still feel his pulse resounding inside of her, echoing against the calming beat of her own pulse sparking the over-sensitized muscles between her legs. She was slick with sweat, warm all over and exquisitely satisfied.

When James finally lifted his head to look at her the smile of pure contentment on his face filled her with joy.

"I think we may have woken your roommates," he said with a strained chuckle.

"Good. I hope they're listening at the door. That's what I would do."

"So you like to watch
and
listen?"

Natalie dissolved into a fit of laughter. It was as though she was caught watching another couple all over again, her hands gripping the stone hips of a Venus statue in the garden of The Golden Palm while a Candidate and her bidder had animalistic sounding sex in the gazebo. That was the moment she realized she liked to watch, and it was a revelation, though one she hadn't yet had the opportunity to repeat since.

She was calmed by the almost dreamy look on his face. He was too handsome for words and positively devastating with the post-coital glow of happiness, but he looked at her like she was a fantasy turned reality, and it left her reeling.

"I want to marry you, Natalie Harlow."

"I told you. I've-"

"Done things," he finished for her. "So you said." He nodded as though he understood or even accepted it, but she knew better. "Tell me what you did that was so bad."

Natalie reached up and tucked a short lock of hair behind his ear. "I can't do that."

"Why can't you?"

"Because I've not finished doing it yet."

The skin between his eyes pinched. "What does that mean?"

She sighed heavily. She was confident no tears would come this time, that she could explain it to him as much as she wanted to without the hysterical crying she dissolved into earlier.

"It means that I started down a path that I can't turn back from. And once I've come to the end, that's where you'll decide you don't want me anymore."

He propped his chin up on his hand and eyed her with growing suspicion. "So this bad thing... it's something you
want
to do?"

"Yes."

"Even though you believe it will change how I feel about you?"

"Yes."

"Then why do it at all? Or to begin with?"

That was the $64,000 question. She shrugged and could think of no other answer than, "Because I can't help myself. I told you that I'm not the same Natalie who was Candidate Four."

"Oh, Natalie," he sighed. "Does it not occur to you that I would love you still even if you were at your worst?"

She shook her head. "No. How could you love the worst version of someone?"

"Because I love all the versions of her," he whispered before kissing at her cheek, "from the best," he kissed her chin next, "to the worst." He kissed her lips last and lingered there a moment.

"I guess we'll find out."

"Tell you what, Natalie-" They both winced as he pulled out of her. She welcomed the cool fresh air against her overly warm skin as he picked himself up from on top of her and sat at her side. She leaned against her elbows, unabashed by her just-fucked nudity, and looked up at him expectantly. "Let's make a deal."

"A deal?"

"If when the time comes it turns out that you're right - that I'll somehow love you less or not at all once I've found out what awful thing or things you've done - I'll buy you a Bugatti."

"James-"

"And if
I'm right
," he interrupted her, "and I still love you at your absolute worst, then you have to give me an answer to my proposal."

She wanted to be annoyed that he so obviously wasn't taking her seriously, but his self-assuredness was admirable, even if it was misplaced.

"You're that confident in your love for me?"

"Abso
fuckin
lutely," he said without so much as an instant of hesitation. "What do you say, Harlow, do we have a deal?"

What if he was right? What if, after discovering she wasn't the Natalie he fell in love with, he still loved her anyway? She wasn't sure she could forgive him were the roles reversed, especially given how much pain she still felt over the fact that he had slept with his soon-to-be-ex-wife and the resulting pregnancy, even though that happened
after
their night together at The Golden Palm and
before
their reunion five months later in Las Vegas.
He may have slept with her
,
but he never forgave her for cheating on him
, Natalie reminded herself. Was she really all that different from Celine Robertson-Fitzgerald? Natalie never deceived him into believing he was the father of her child for years.
That
was worthy of not being forgiven as far as she was concerned.