CHAPTER THREE
Alli brushed on some bronzer while we got ready in my bathroom. She let me borrow a tight leopard-print skirt that fit like a glove. She took the liberty of pairing it with a black off-the-shoulder top. I had a feeling Blake might be stripping this outfit off me with his teeth in a few hours. God, I wanted him to.
After two days of dedicated girl time, Alli was venturing out to get dinner and drinks with some friends so Blake and I could catch up. My skin was crawling from missing him so much.
We’d survived brief periods of separation before, but usually those were colored by me being totally pissed at him, which helped stave off the unbearable attraction I had toward him. All I felt toward Blake right now was epic longing, especially after the mind-bending sex we'd had in the office a few days ago.
I loved spending time with Alli, and I was glad for the time away from our respective boys if it meant reviving the friendship that we’d spent the past three years building. Between the Landon brothers, we had plenty to work through. I’d brought her up to speed with everything that had happened, from Blake blowing up my business deal with Max, to the total mindf*ck of having Mark show up out of nowhere.
Heath came up in our conversations with a frequency that made me question how much she was really appreciating their time apart. Tonight she’d been quiet, though.
“Everything okay?”
She smiled too quickly. “Yeah, definitely.”
I finished sprucing up, and when I walked out, Blake was lounging on the new living room set I’d purchased for the apartment. In a white collared shirt rolled up at the sleeves and dark blue jeans, he looked so f*cking delectable that I thought seriously about straddling him right then and there.
When our gazes locked, his jaw dropped a fraction. The feeling was mutual.
“You ready?”
I smiled. Alli joined us and interrupted my laser focus on Blake’s amazing body. He rose to greet her and brushed a quick kiss on her cheek.
“You look great, Alli. It’s good to see you.”
“Likewise.” Her smile was tight, seemingly strained by some emotion that was bubbling under the surface.
I tried to read her body language. Was she nervous or embarrassed about seeing Blake after the Heath situation in New York?
“So I guess we’re off,” I said quietly, trying to break the awkwardness that hopefully only I was picking up on.
We said our goodbyes, and Blake ran his hand down my back and gave me a gentle push toward the door. The power and suggestion of his touch had my skin tingling, my nerves alert. I was suddenly cursing our dinner plans when I wanted nothing more than to drag him upstairs to his apartment and rock his world straight into the dawn.
*
We stepped out of the apartment and Blake led me upstairs, his fingers interlaced with mine.
“Did you forget something?”
Before he could answer, we walked through the doors of his apartment and the smells of a home-cooked meal filled the air. Blake had cooked without any help from me.
“Whoa.” The kitchen was a mess, but by contrast the dining room table was neatly covered with several matching pottery serving dishes filled to the brim with pasta, salad, and bread. The room was dimly lit, the mood enhanced by flickering candles set throughout.
“I thought we could stay in,” he murmured.
“But I got all dressed up.” I leaned back into his embrace, letting his arms wrap around me.
“I'm glad you did. You look amazing. We'll be lucky to make it through dinner.”
I bit my lip and my appetite wavered. Blake was by far the most mouth-watering item on any menu, but I needed fuel if I was going to ravage him all night like I'd planned.
“Everything looks great. I can't believe you did all this by yourself.”
“I hope you like it.”
We settled down at the table, and he poured us two glasses of wine as I helped myself to a plate of Blake's soon-to-be-famous spaghetti Bolognese, so he assured me. I took a bite and was pleasantly surprised. Spaghetti was hard to screw up, but with as little cooking experience as he had, I was prepared for the worst. A comfortable silence settled between us as we ate, but I was still thinking about Alli.
“How are things going with Alli?” Blake asked, as if reading my thoughts.
I bit into my garlic bread before answering. Alli was in a tough place right now, both lovesick and heartbroken by her turbulent relationship with Heath. I wasn't sure how much I should say.
“I think she's just going through a lot right now. With Heath and the move.”
“The move?”
“She moved out of the condo.”
“I hope she didn't do that on my account.” His gaze rose to meet mine.
I shook my head, remembering Blake's once fervent insistence that I maintain some distance with Alli while she was involved with Heath. I had swiftly refused and ignored his wish, and thankfully that had been the end of the discussion. With everything I’d been going through at the time, the last thing I needed was to isolate myself from the few people I could go to for support.
“No. I think she needs some space to figure things out while Heath is gone. I don't think she’s had a chance to be very independent since she moved to the city.” I hesitated with the last thought. I wanted to tread lightly. Blake and Heath had their issues, but they were still brothers. I didn't want to cause problems between Heath and Alli if he didn't know about the move yet.
He nodded. “How's work?”
“Good and bad.”
“Oh?”
I finished my last bite of the spaghetti before choosing my words.
“I hired a marketing director. She starts Monday and Alli is going to help me bring her up to speed with where she left off.”
“And the bad?”
“I’m getting concerned with the security of the site. Sid is ready to pull his hair out. I don’t know what to tell him.” I risked a questioning look his way. I was approaching a subject he hated discussing.
He sat back and threw his napkin on the table. “You won’t give me access to the code, Erica. What the hell do you want me to do?”
“It’s not out of distrust, Blake. We need to be in control of the code for the long-term and you know that. Yet we all remain in the dark as to why we’ve been inexplicably and relentlessly attacked by this group.”
He stared past me, avoiding my eyes and the pleading in them. An uneasy knot formed in my stomach. I hated his secrets. They ate at me like my own once used to, before I poured my heart and soul out to Blake. Revealing my past to him had lessened the burden, but I didn't know how to make him trust me the same way.
“You want my trust, Blake. This is why I have a hard time giving it so freely. You keep things from me.”
“If I’m not forthcoming with information, it’s for your own good.”
“Can’t I decide what’s for my own good? Jesus, I’m not a child.”
He muttered a curse under his breath, moved to the living room, and sank into the couch.
I chose a seat on the other couch, unsure how the rest of this conversation would go. A safer, less sexual distance might be better if we were going to accomplish anything constructive.
“You said you would fix this. You promised me. And if it's not that easy, fine, but I deserve to know what's really going on here. Maybe I can help.”
He exhaled through his nose and let his head fall back on the couch. “You already know that I was a member of M89 when I was a teenager.”
“Yes,” I said quietly.
He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, avoiding my eyes. “What you don’t know is that I led the group with someone else.”
“Who?” My voice was quiet and tentative. I didn’t want to give him any reason not to tell me the things I so wanted—needed—to know.
“Cooper. His name was Brian Cooper.”
I paused. “Was?”
His jaw ticked. He pushed back his dark brown hair that had grown longer since we’d met and fell unkempt across his forehead. I wanted to reach over and fix it but didn’t want to interrupt the moment.
“He killed himself.”
“Oh my God.” I touched my hand to my mouth. No wonder he didn’t want to talk about this. “When?”
“After the group was busted for hacking the bank accounts, they brought us all in. Except I’d been out of the operation for weeks. Cooper had been a friend, and when we came up with the original plan, I was on board for hacking the Wall Street guys, but then he’d wanted to start in on individual accounts. Regular people who invested their hopes of retirement with these jerks, but beyond that, had no connections to their Ponzi shit. I couldn’t get behind it so I left the group. Our friendship was over, and obviously there was bad blood between us. When the Feds started questioning me…”
A heavy silence fell and my heart twisted. Blake was inextricably tied to the circumstances that had led to his young friend's suicide.
“F*ck, I don’t know. I was young and pissed off and everything happened so fast.” He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, as if trying to erase whatever visions had conjured there.
“It’s okay. Tell me.” I moved from the adjacent couch to sit next to him, wanting to be close to him but worried about what he might say. But I wanted to know.
“I told them the truth. And because I cooperated, I basically got off and the investigators put the pressure on him. I wasn’t trying to save myself, Erica. I just wanted to set the record straight. If I was going down with the ship, I wanted people to know what I stood for.”
“Baby…” The words caught in my throat.
Pain shadowed his gaze. Years of regret had kept him from telling me this the first time the site went down.
“They didn’t get far with him before he killed himself. That effectively ended the investigation. The funds were returned, and the rest of us got a slap on the wrist. Because we were all minors, they sealed the records. That's why most of what you read about me are just rumors. Only a handful of people really know what went down.”
“How did the group stay active after all of this?”
“It didn’t, but someone revived it a few years ago.”
“An original member?”
“I doubt it, but I don’t honestly know. I don’t run in those circles anymore, but based on them being a persistent pain in my ass, whoever is behind this new generation of the group is holding a torch for Cooper. They probably worship him like he’s some sort of goddamn martyr for the cause. What cause that might be is still a mystery to me.”
“Have you tried to reach out to them?”
“No. I don’t negotiate with terrorists.”
The frustrated anger I'd come to recognize whenever we spoke about the hackers replaced the pained expression on his face. Blake was powerful and incredibly talented, but these people had somehow rattled him. That they did scared me, because he might be my last and only defense against them.
“Doesn’t that seem like a hard line to take, considering how dedicated they are to ruining everything you touch?”
“We know their strategies. They’re predictable, so my team has figured out efficient ways to keep them out of our business. They’re vandals, but once you know their angle, you can outsmart them. I can’t do the same for you until you let me.”
“You’re not looking at the source of the problem.”
He sighed. “Whoever they are, they see him as a martyr. And I’m Benedict Arnold. Nothing about that will change as long as they exist.”
“I think you’re missing the point.”
“I’ll talk to Sid in the morning, all right? That’s it.”
The edge in his voice gave me pause. His vulnerability had disappeared, expertly masked behind his anger. But I knew better. He and Cooper had been friends once. Surely his death must have clung to him. Blake seemed to take personal responsibility for nearly everyone around him. I caught the reaction in his eyes when he spoke of him, but as quickly as he'd opened up, he’d closed himself off again.
I wanted to kiss him then, coax out the man I loved and soothe the pain that still lingered within him. I reached up tentatively and cupped his cheek in my palm. He turned into my gesture, placing his hand over mine and turning my palm up to kiss it gently before pulling it down onto the couch between us.
“Don't be mad at me,” I muttered.
“I'm not. I don't like talking about this.”
“You might feel better if you did.”
He groaned and rolled his eyes. I could feel him slipping further away from me at the suggestion. I slid my hand under his shirt, appreciating every ridge of his abs under my fingertips. I was determined to lure him out of this mood he'd fallen into. Nothing took me away from the cacophony of my thoughts better than being naked with Blake. I suspected the same was true for him.
“I miss you.”
His face relaxed and I smiled, relieved. He stroked my face reverently, tracing a path from my cheek to my chin. Before I could say anything more, he angled his lips over mine and took my mouth in a kiss. Soft and tender, the kiss quickly became heated. He pulled away abruptly.
“What?”
He looked past me. “I can't do this right now.”
“What do you mean?”
I straddled him the way I'd wanted to, my skirt inching up indecently high. I pulled him into another kiss. I arched into his chest, leaving no space between us, rabid for his touch. No sooner had I fisted my hands in his hair, he pulled back, disengaging my fingers and holding them gently by my sides.
“Erica, stop. I need…to cool off.”
Before I could question him, he patted my thigh gently, a signal to move off of him. Slowly I obliged. He retreated to the kitchen where he started to clean up. I joined him and started helping, but he stopped me.
“It's okay. I'll take care of this.” He paused and faced me. Leaning against the counter with his hip, he looked deceptively casual considering the tension that rolled off him. “Listen, I've got some work to do for tomorrow, and it sounds like you do too. Do you mind if we call it an early night?”
I searched his eyes for answers, but he seemed as cold and closed off as ever. I stared, stunned and speechless, swallowing hard as the rejection settled over me. Had I pried too much? Didn't he understand my reasons for wanting to know?
Everything I thought to say back sounded feeble, desperate, in my mind. Why don't you want to be with me? Why can't I stay? The thought of him answering those questions honestly scared me. I wasn't sure if I wanted to know why he didn't want me tonight.
*
My apartment was empty and lifeless with no signs of Sid or Alli to console the loneliness and hurt that washed over me. Blake had never shot me down before. I was dressed to kill and the man had a marathon sex drive. Somehow we’d survived the past few days outside of each other’s beds, but now he was pushing me away?
I dropped my purse on the counter and stood in the quiet darkness of the room, trying to figure out how Blake's confession about his past had driven such a wedge between us. I went to the bedroom and assessed myself in the mirror. I felt terrible. Blake hadn't just shot down a night in his bed. That he didn't want me cut me to the core, leaving me with a sick and hopeless feeling.
No. I couldn't let this go.
I headed back out, grabbing my keys on the way.
I let myself into Blake’s apartment but he was nowhere to be found. I walked down to his bedroom where I heard the shower running. I hesitated at the doorway leading into the en suite bathroom. Through the glass, I could see Blake’s hands pressed against the wall, water pouring down his massive unmoving frame. He was beautiful, despite the sadness that had crept over us and threatened our night. I took another step forward. He turned his head toward me.
I stood still, waiting for his reaction. He turned off the shower. My breath caught at the sight of him as he emerged. Under normal circumstances Blake was a sight to behold. Now, stark naked and dripping wet, he could not have been more impressive. A prime specimen of masculine beauty.
Goosebumps beaded his skin and his cock was as hard as stone, jutting out from his formidable frame.
What the f*ck?
“Blake.” My voice was barely a whisper.
“What do you want, Erica?”
His voice was flat, his face expressionless, as if I were a stranger. He toweled himself dry methodically.
“I—”
I had no words. My grand plan to sneak back into his apartment and seduce him, to not take no for an answer, had been shot to hell by the sudden realization that seduction might be a lost cause.
“Go home, Erica. I told you, I've got work to do.”
“Bullshit. Do you want to explain to me why you've spent the past ten minutes taking a cold shower and now you've got the biggest cockstand I've ever seen, but you're cutting me off?”
“I don't want to fight with you. Can we just call it a night?”
He passed me and headed into the bedroom. I followed him, determined to get answers.
“We're talking about this. If you're going to shut me down, you can f*cking tell me why.” My voice shook. I was losing my cool and wild scenarios swept through my mind. “Are you seeing someone else?” I asked, incredulous. What had transpired since our last time together in the office? Had I done something wrong?
He scowled and fisted his hands. “Jesus Christ. No. Will you just leave me be?”
His words stung. I hated him in that moment. How could he make me feel so small and insignificant with his indifference when I was here damn near begging him for intimacy? “You're right. I don't need this shit.”
He sighed. “Baby.”
I turned and marched to the door. Before I could reach it, he outpaced me and slammed it shut in front of me. He caught my elbow and spun me to face him.
“What do you want from me, Erica?”
My breaths came fast. My heart raced with anger mingled with my steadily growing desire. I couldn't decide which emotion would win or which I was rooting for. But I wasn't here to fight with him.
“I want you to f*ck me.”
His jaw tensed and his grip on my arm tightened painfully.
“Why don't you want me?” My voice was small, almost unrecognizable. I weakened in his grasp, and my anger gave way to something else. A raw vulnerability that Blake had uncovered.
His next movements were so quick I could barely distinguish them. He pushed up my skirt and ripped off my panties in one violent motion, stinging my upper thighs as the fabric tore across my skin. A second later he hoisted me up around his waist and slammed me against the door. And then he was there. Plunging himself so deep that I screamed. I arched into the door, raw pain tearing through my core. I whimpered at the relief that followed. He was with me again, finally.
He thrust again and I cried out. Heat shot through me, my body melting around his.
I softened when I sensed Blake's stillness. His body was frozen against mine, eerily still. I opened my eyes to meet his intense and questioning gaze. God, he was beautiful. And he was mine, but somehow over the past couple hours I’d lost him. I had to keep him with me, to show him how desperately I needed him like this.
“Don’t stop. Please,” I begged.
I raked my fingers through his damp hair, fisting the strands gently. Tightening my legs around his waist, I churned my hips, urging his movement. I only needed the slightest friction to set off my orgasm. I was already slick around him. He barely moved when a quiet moan escaped my trembling lips. Warmth crept over my skin and I shuddered, my sex rippling over his length, my gaze never leaving his.
His lips parted slightly, his eyes misted with emotion. “You're going to be the death of me, I swear it.”
I kissed him deeply. “Finish me. Don't make me beg,” I breathed into his mouth.
“God help me, I’ve never wanted anything more. You…this.” He pulled out and drove into me again.
I cursed, crying out with every punishing thrust that sent unimaginable sensations through my body. A blinding mix of pleasure, pain, anger, and love seized me, rocking me from one orgasm straight into the next. Unable to contain the frenzy that had taken over, I clung desperately to him, my mouth at his shoulder.
Every muscle tensed, taut and rigid, beneath my touch. My teeth pressed into his skin and I dug my nails in deep, scoring his flesh down to his elbow. My cunt tightened around him. He growled, quickening his pace.
“Look at me.” His voice was tense with need. “I need to see you.”
I harnessed all my strength to raise my gaze, meeting his. Taking in all his beauty weakened me in his arms, putty in his hands. Never mind what I did to him. This is what he did to me.
His eyes never left mine as he rammed me into the door with his final thrust.
I sucked in a sharp breath. “Blake!”
“Feel me. I want you to feel all of me, Erica,” he rasped. A strangled groan followed as he emptied himself into me and released the last orgasm my body could give.
We stood there only a moment before we collapsed to the floor. He rolled to his back onto the Oriental rug. I draped my body lazily over his, spent from what had just happened between us, but still needing the contact, to know that we were still connected, together.
We stayed like that, no words, no movements, until he slid my skirt up a fraction, thumbing the tender flesh where he'd removed the obstacle of my panties moments ago.
I glanced down, and his hands cupped my ass. “You're going to have bruises here too.”
I looked back up to find his mouth set in a hard line. “Why would I care?”
“Maybe you should care.”
I slid my hand up his chest. “I don’t know what’s going on in your head, but I wish you would talk to me. If you really don’t want to, I can live with that too. But don’t push me away. I can’t take it.”
“Is that what you call pushing you away? Using your body as a battering ram?”
I frowned at his description of what we'd just had. Sure, it was a little rough and I'd probably feel it tomorrow, but anytime we were together meant something.
I rose to my knees, straddled his thighs, and dropped my hands to either side of him. I tried to read his eyes but he avoided my penetrating gaze, worrying the reddened flesh at the crease of my thigh instead.
I pulled off my shirt and bra.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting your attention.”
Heat passed over his eyes. “You have it.”
“I like when you lose control like that, Blake. Don't turn it into something dirty and wrong.”
His cock hardened beneath my thigh.
“What if it is? Giving you bruises…freaking you out.”
“Is that why you've been cockblocking yourself all night?”
“What I feel…for you, Erica. With everything else that's going on, sometimes it's just too intense. I feel like I'm going to rip us both apart. I wanted tonight to be different. I really did.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “You deserve to be worshipped. Loved.”
I frowned, trying to figure out how my habitually domineering lover was slipping away from me. “I do feel loved. I like waking up to the memory of your hands on me, even if I'm a little sore. It's new for me, I'll admit it.”
“I scared you before though.” He held my gaze, daring me to say otherwise.
“Sometimes it does scare me, but I trust you.” I paused. “I like the things we've done.”
“Do you realize I haven't even begun to scratch the surface of the things I want to do to you?”
My breath caught, but I didn't waste time dwelling on the fear that rooted in my stomach. “Then let's dig deeper.”
I doubted the words even as I said them, my heartbeat picking up speed again. Blake was already pushing me past boundaries I didn't even know I had. I was keeping up pretty well, but now, knowing his desires were that vast and beyond me, I couldn't help but feel a little in over my head.
“No.” His voice was quiet but firm.
“Why?” I hoped I'd masked my doubts.
“Because this isn't right. I shouldn't want to…to hurt you or restrain you. It's f*cked up, and it's the last thing you should have to think about with everything you've been through. I realized that last time. I took things too far. The second I tied you up, I regretted it.”
“Then why didn't you stop?”
He was silent.
“Tell me.”
He sighed. “Because I knew I could calm you down, show you how to enjoy it.”
“And I did.”
“That doesn't mean anything. I shouldn't have challenged you that way.”
“I want to be challenged, Blake. If this is something you want, I want it too.”
“No, it's not going to be like that. Erica, you can put that right out of your head. You're not going down this road for me. You were…raped, for Christ’s sake. My compulsion for control when we're f*cking is the last thing you need. You're not the right person for this.”
A sickness punched me in the gut and my skin chilled. What if I couldn’t be what he wanted? What he needed? I could posture all I wanted to in the boardroom, but my need for Blake's love had rooted itself well beyond any conscious control. “What do you mean?”
He sat up, bringing us chest to chest, warming me with his body. He stroked my back. “I mean I need to figure this out, for you, for us. Obviously I don't know the first thing about how to turn this off other than avoiding you sometimes. Tonight was…”
“Talking about Cooper set you off.”
He closed his eyes, wincing at whatever memories played in his mind. He opened his eyes and kissed me sweetly.
“You're everything to me, baby. I don't want to move backwards and talk about the past. All that shit I have no control over.”
“Having control over me makes you feel better though,” I whispered.
He nodded. “I need to change that.”
“What if I don't want you to?”