Wreck the Halls

He made a harsh sound. “You’re going to wait until you stop missing me to talk? If you miss me a fraction of how much I miss you, that won’t happen. Not in a million years.”

The door trundled open. They didn’t move for a full three seconds, then stepped in at the same time, facing forward. The door closed, the elevator beginning to descend. Before Beat even slapped the emergency stop button, she knew what was coming. She sensed he was going to do it—but she still gasped when the metal conveyance ground to a halt.

“Melody, I’m in love with you.” Beat took her by the shoulders, turning her to face him and tipping up her chin, giving her no choice but to stare straight into the storm taking place in his eyes. “I will love you for eternity.”

A sob tried to rip her throat open. “Beat—”

“I hope you know I was lying.” His fingertips left her chin, delved into her hair. “Did you really think I would be upset that you made us official on national television? I would have proposed to you if they hadn’t brought out my father.”

Every word out of his mouth set off reverberations in her breast, like a gong being banged repeatedly. “I knew I was missing something. I knew you wouldn’t hurt me like that.”

“Good.”

“I understand why you cut me off in front of him. You wanted him to leave me alone. But I want you to imagine if I’d done that to you, instead of treating you as my teammate. We could have faced him together, instead of letting him break us apart. You put your walls up and shut me out. It’s the trust, Beat. I need to know you’re not going to . . . to hurt me. That I’m not going to get blindsided every time you want to protect me. Odds are, with all this attention we’re getting, something like this could happen again and I don’t feel . . . secure anymore.”

“What would you have done? If he showed up at your door and pumped you for money to keep my family’s secret?” He paused, intently searching her face. “You’d have paid it and the cycle would start all over again. All I could think about was protecting you.”

“I don’t know what I would have done. But I do know that I would have talked to you about it.” Her voice started to break. “You have no excuse for leaving me dangling for three days. All it would have taken was a phone call. A text. You could have come to see me when the cameras shut down for the day. You didn’t do any of those things.”

“He’s the worst part of my life, Mel,” he said through his teeth. “Now I was bringing it down on your head, too? I fed you to the lion. Being with me was hurting you.”

“No. Being apart is worse. You know it is.”

“You’re right. I do. God, do I fucking know.” He dropped his mouth to her neck, rubbed his open lips up the soft slope of tendons to her ear, kissing the lobe, the space beneath. His big hands lifted to grip her hips, guiding her backward toward the elevator wall. “I haven’t slept in three days. I lock myself in the bathroom and watch you on my screen like an obsessed fan. Maybe that’s what I am.”

Melody’s nerve endings were beginning to shoot sparks, her lungs laboring to draw breath. As soon as Beat’s hips pinned her to the wall, she knew. Resistance was futile. Even her frustration with him, with the whole situation, was making her more desperate for that wild and enduring connection they shared. To feel it everywhere. Bathe in it. She’d gone three days thinking she might never feel it again, starved of it, and now her body wanted to gorge.

“I hear what you’re telling me,” Beat said, grazing their lips together, his eyes zeroed in on her mouth. Tortured. “You need complete trust or nothing at all. A partnership. Full disclosure always. I’ll give that to you. I need to give you that.”

“I want to believe that.”

“Please.” He captured her mouth and her neck went limp, requiring his hand to cup the back of her head. He held her up, while his lips opened over hers, slanted, then took her with long, devastating strokes of his tongue. “Believe in me again, Mel. I’m so fucking sorry.”

“I know,” she whispered, kissing him back hungrily. “I know you are.”

“I’m your boyfriend. Fiancé. Soulmate. Call me all of them. Or just one. I’ll take one.”

The ache that had burdened her for the last three days swelled up like a life raft, pushing her ribs out from the inside. All the time she’d spent doubting herself, staring at her phone and hoping it would ring, the emptiness. If he’d trusted her the way she trusted him, they would have avoided it all. “I can’t right now.”

He growled brokenly against her mouth. “Maybe I’ll make you say it.”

Her intimate muscles contracted, leaving wetness behind. They were a mile into dangerous territory now. Past the point of no return. His erection was thick and ready between their bodies and her stomach cradled it, rubbing side to side. Unconscious, desperate moves of a woman in love, even when she’d been wronged. “Maybe I . . . want you to try.”

Beat moaned above her head, his hands raking down her breasts, squeezing them roughly in his hands. “You’re not taking me back,” he rasped, dipping his head to lick her hard nipples through her thin sweater. “But you’re going to let me fuck you?”

“Yes.”

“Are you trying to hurt me back?” he demanded against her mouth.

“No. No.”

“Of course, you wouldn’t. Not my perfect Melody.” His kiss was filled with longing, his hands trailing down the front of her body, fingertips tucking beneath the hem of her skirt to raise it up, up and over her hips. “Although I would let you, wouldn’t I? I would beg for whatever you’d give me. Love, pain, forgiveness.”

“I don’t know when I’ll be able to offer those things. And this isn’t going to solve anything,” she whispered, her fingers wrestling with his belt. She unfastened the buckle, sliding free the button of his pants and dragging down the zipper over the bulging crotch of his briefs. “But I can’t help wanting to feel close to you.”

“I’m going to get so close.” His mouth was back on hers, kissing her feverishly, his fingertips diving past the waistband of her panties, parting her flesh with his middle finger, finding her clit in one stroke. “There’ll be nothing but us.”

He would get close. He would, but it would be a temporary fix.

And she was starved for that fix.

“Now,” she gasped against his mouth. “Now, now, now.”

“God yes. But only because you’re wet enough.” He boosted her up against the wall with nothing but a roll of his hips, hooking his index finger in the material of her panties and dragging them to one side. “I take care of you. That’s what I do.”