Rapturous (24 page)

“You gonna tell me where you were all night when I was looking for you?”

“We’ll talk about it in the morning.”

“Addison…”

“In the morning, Hayden, but I do have one thing I need to say to you right now.”

“What?”

She swallows hard and takes a deep breath. “You’ve
had me followed for the last time. Do you understand me?”

“I was out of my fucking mind worrying about you.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

“No, you’re not,” I say with a chuckle. “You knew I’d go mad looking for you, and you dropped off the radar anyway.”

“That’s not why I did it. I wasn’t trying to make you crazy.”

“Well, you did. I was losing it imagining you in an unsafe situation with nothing
I could do to protect you.”

“Give me a little credit, will you? I’m not an idiot. I’d never put myself in danger on purpose.”

“Sometimes it’s hard to tell what’s dangerous in my world, sweetheart.”

“You have nothing to worry about.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. With you, I have everything to worry about.”

“Aww, Hayden. You’re such a romantic. Who knew?”

That makes me laugh when I would’ve
said that nothing could make me laugh tonight.
 

“No more surveillance. I want to hear you say it.”

“Fine,” I say begrudgingly. “No more surveillance. Now can I kiss you?”

“I wish you would.”

I prop myself up on one elbow and gaze down at her precious face for a long time before I lower my lips to meet hers. Addie’s arms encircle my neck, and I end up on top of her for the sweetest, sexiest
kiss of my life. All we do is kiss. Our hands remain stationary even as my cock throbs against her soft belly. I can feel her love in every stroke of her tongue, and her fingers in my hair soothe and calm the rage that lives within me.
 

The rage is exhausting, but I don’t remember a time when I didn’t carry it with me. I remember the red-hot heat of it from the first time my mother OD’d when
I was five. It’s intensified with every subsequent incident until it’s as much a part of me as my blue eyes and dark hair. Sometimes I think the rage is partially responsible for my success as a filmmaker. I feel things more deeply than other people do, and that intensity comes through in my work. What I feel for Addie runs through me so deeply I’ll never be free of it, and I don’t want to be.

I ease back from the kiss, running my thumbs over her sweet face. “I care about you more than I’ve ever cared about anyone. No matter what else happens, I need you to know that.”

Her eyes shine with unshed tears. “I do know, Hayden. I’ve known that for a long time. I love you so much. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. I wish you’d believe me when I tell you that.”

“I want to.”

“You can.”

“I’m trying.”

“I know you are.”

“Tell me where you were tonight.”

She rubs shamelessly against my hard cock. “Aren’t there other things you’d rather do right now than hear about my night?”

“Just tell me you didn’t let any other man touch what’s mine.” I’ve never said such a thing to a woman before, and to me it’s almost bigger to admit she’s mine than it was to admit to myself that I love
her.

“I didn’t let anyone touch me.”

The relief I feel at hearing that trumps every other emotion I’ve experienced during the last insane twenty-four hours.
 

Her legs curl around my hips in invitation. Her wet heat on my cock is irresistible, and I slide into her slowly and carefully, knowing she has to be sore. Whereas last night was about ravenous hunger, tonight is about sweet love. I almost
have myself convinced that I could be satisfied if this is all it ever is for us, sweet vanilla sex with the woman I love.

If only I didn’t know how much more is possible. But for tonight, for right now, this is more than enough. It’s more than I ever hoped to dream possible. She moves with me in an effortless rhythm, her internal muscles snug around my cock, her heat searing and branding me
as hers. It’s true. As much as she’s mine, I’m hers. I can no longer deny that, and I don’t want to.

I find the hem of her gown and drag it up and over her head. Her lovely breasts bounce with every deep stroke of my dick. That plus the way the tips tighten into hard beads before my eyes mesmerizes me. Everything about her mesmerizes me. This, right here, is what it means to make love. I didn’t
think it would be different, but it is. It’s night and day. It’s my whole heart, soul and body engaged at the same time. It’s what I would’ve said I didn’t want until I had it, and now it’s all I want.
She
is all I want.
 

She digs her nails into my back, which is sexy as fuck. Everything she does is a turn-on. Her scent turns me on. Don’t even get me started on those little noises she makes when
I’m deep inside her. God, I love them. I push my hands under her to grab her ass cheeks so I can go even deeper. I pull her open to take more of me, and she comes immediately.
 

I’m not nearly done with her, so I ride the waves of her orgasm and keep her coming by not letting up on the pace. She feels so good that I’m tempted to let go and give in to the need that has me right on the edge of losing
my shit. But I want one more from her first. I slow down, press deep inside and stay wedged tight while her muscles work me over. If there’s ever been anything that feels better than being inside Addie, I haven’t experienced it.

Bending over her, I draw her left nipple into my mouth, licking, sucking and biting until it’s standing up tall. Then I do the same to the right side.

“Hayden,” she
whispers.

“What, baby?”

“I want you to train me. Teach me. Show me what you want.”

I shake my head. I can’t. I just can’t.
 

“Please,” she says, her eyes filling. She grasps my face and forces me to look at her. “Please.”

“No.” I begin to move again, faster now, angry at myself and her. She’s asking for more than I’m able to give. If she ever knew what I really want, she’d look at me with
fear in those beautiful eyes. I couldn’t bear that, so I take the coward’s way out. I fuck her hard until she comes again, and this time I give in and take my own pleasure, losing myself in her.

I come down on top of her.

She wraps her arms around me, her tears wetting my face. “Why?” she asks softly, so softly I almost don’t hear her. “Is there something wrong with me?”

“God, no, baby.” It
kills me that she would think that. “Everything about you is right. You’re perfect just the way you are. I’d be crazy to mess with perfection.”

“I want to be perfect for
you
. I don’t want to be put on a pedestal to worship and admire. I want to be your equal. Your partner.”

“You’re my equal in every possible way.”

“But I can’t be your submissive.”

“No.”

She pushes on my shoulder. “Let me
up.”

I withdraw from her, and she gets up. “Addie—”

“You need to go now, Hayden.” She disappears into the bathroom, the door slamming behind her.

“Fuck.”

Chapter 13

I take a long hot shower as tears stream down my cheeks. I hate him and love him and want him and hate him. My emotions are a big disaster that circles around one exasperating man. I stay in the shower until the hot water begins to wane. My heart aches along with every other part of me as I towel off and
put on a robe.
 

Certain he’s long gone by now, I leave the bathroom and find him sitting on my bed, his head in his hands. He got as far as putting his jeans back on, but his chest is still bare. His defeated pose goes straight to my broken heart. Knowing he’s hurting as much as I am makes it more bearable. But why is either of us hurting when we both know what we want? That’s the part I can’t
seem to reconcile no matter how hard I try.

I sit on the bed next to him and put my arm around his shoulders.

“I couldn’t leave it this way,” he says after a long silence.

“That’s an improvement from when you ran away.”

“I don’t want to hurt you, Addie, and I hate that I keep doing that.”

“Then don’t. Tell me what’s stopping you from giving us a real, honest chance.”

Releasing a deep breath,
he sits up straight.

I keep my arm around him, needing the contact and hoping it helps to prop him up, too. He wants to tell me. I can see that. But he shakes his head. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“When you say that, I want to punch you, and I want to make it hurt.”

A ghost of a smile occupies his lips. “I wouldn’t blame you if you did.”

“You’re not being fair to either of us.”

“I’m sure that’s
how it must seem, but I’m actually thinking of you when I tell you it’ll never work. I’ll disappoint you more than I already have. I don’t have the settle-down-with-one-woman gene, Addie. Look at my dad—he’s on his fourth wife, and because all they do is fight, I expect he’ll be telling me any day now that they’re splitting. And my mom—three husbands, three divorces. That’s my gene pool. The
Roths don’t do monogamy or the kind of lifetime commitment you deserve.”

“That’s utter bullshit, Hayden. You’re not your parents. If you were, you’d be in rehab with five kids to support. But you’re not. You’re their polar opposite, and you can’t even see that. You’re a successful, productive, healthy man who has many of the same friends he had in high school. You’ve never touched a drug, you
drink only socially, and you take care of everyone and don’t even realize it.”

“What does that mean?” He looks genuinely baffled. “Who do I take care of?”

“
Everyone!
Your mom, Sebastian, Flynn, the Quantum team, me.”

He shakes his head. “I do not.”

“Hayden.” I wait until he’s looking at me. “You do, too. Everyone looks to you for direction at work—and not just when filming—and your mom would
be dead without you. You’re a caretaker. It’s who you are. It’s what you do. But who takes care of you?”

“I don’t need anyone to take care of me.”

“Everyone needs someone. Why won’t you let your someone be me?”

“Because!” He gets up and stalks to the glass door to my deck. Hands on his hips, his every muscle rigid with tension, he says, “You think you know me, but you don’t. You don’t know
how hard it is for me to…” He buries his hands in his hair, as if he wants to tear it from his skull, and then drops his hands to his sides, his shoulders sagging in defeat.

I get up and go to him, placing my hands on his shoulders and touching my lips to the indent between his shoulder blades. “What’s hard for you to do?”

“This! Us. All of it. I don’t know how to do this, Addie. I’ve never
done it. I’ve never seen it done. I’ll fuck it up so bad, and then you’ll hate me for real, and I couldn’t bear that. I just couldn’t. If I lost you…”

I slide my arms around his waist. “You won’t lose me, Hayden. I promise that no matter how badly you fuck it up, no matter how ugly it might get, you’ll never lose me.”

“You can’t make that promise. You don’t even know what you’re saying.”

“Tell
me what I don’t know. What big, dark secret are you keeping from me that’ll prevent us from making a go of this?”