A WILDer Kind of Love (31 page)

No. He’s not in anguish. He’s in pain. And shame. He hid himself from you then came clean only because he had to. He shattered your trust, your friendship—

Your heart.

“Hell,” he gritted. “I was only there to visit, okay? Max Brickham is a friend. I had no intentions but to wish him the best with the club.” He dared another step. “Then I turned around, and saw you there…”

“And wasn’t that convenient?” she spat.

“You think that was pleasant for me? In
any
fucking sense of the word?” He pounded closer, baring locked teeth. “Do you think I kicked up my heels at seeing you there, your skin spilling out of that corset, looking like a goddamn Dominant’s dream?”

“But not yours.” She seethed it while flinging off the blanket, pivoting to fully face him. “You told me you didn’t want me. You told me to my damn face, that you wouldn’t even think about stepping into a dungeon with me!”

“No.” He leaned closer. “Not that I wouldn’t think about it. That I
couldn’t
. That I didn’t want to fuck up what we had already.” His hands spread, fingers jerking as if he wanted to reach for her, but he lowered them back into taut fists. “What I found with you, Tess…what we had…well, I’ve never done that with a woman before.” He looked away, peering out the window himself, as if he’d lost something out in the lake, too. “It was so…real. And honest. And so damn good.”

She gripped the edge of the window seat. Dipped her head to stave the tears before whispering, “Yeah. It was.”

“So do you get it?” he pressed. “Now? Even a little? How we couldn’t have turned off the D/s part of things? How it would have changed everything?”

Rain began to spatter the window behind her. A thousand thoughts were just as persistent, bringing a flood of…

Understanding.

Dammit
.

He was right. As much as she fought against the admission, it was true. Pieces of their first scene flowed back to her in longer ribbons of recall. The demands he’d made of her. The boundaries he’d pushed. The way he’d restrained her, filled her, been in complete control of her. She’d never have surrendered all that to Daniel Colton. With the griffin, she had nothing to lose. It had been the key to her complete freedom.

“But why didn’t you tell me?” She jerked her gaze up at him. “After that first session? Why, Daniel?” As more memory pushed in, fury drove her to her feet. “You
left
. You said you had ‘business out of town.’ What the hell?”

He finally lifted a fist. Pushed it against the frame of the window seat. “
That
sucked. It was wrong.”

“Damn straight it was.”

“I’m sorry, Tess. So fucking sorry.”

“Damn right you are.”

But it still didn’t provide her with an explanation. The jagged set of his face proclaimed he knew it, too.

“I…panicked,” he finally uttered. “I know it’s lame, but—”

“Lame doesn’t come close to it, mister.”

“I thought it was the best for
you
.”

Okay,
that
one was the lame kicker. But as Tess stood, debating
her
best choices for calling him on the bullshit, something equally outrageous occurred. Her stare locked once more with his—and she saw that he meant it. Every damn word.

“I panicked,” he rushed on, “because everything we shared in the dungeon that night was—” He shoved out another breath. “Well, it was fucking amazing, was what it was.”

“You sound surprised by that.”

A sheepish grin quirked his lips. “Surprised doesn’t come close to it, dear one.” As if using her own words
and
her favorite endearment weren’t panty-dissolving enough, he pivoted to face her, filling her gaze with his tall, graceful, not-an-inch-of-soft glory. Looking too damn much like he had when first approaching her at Catacomb—without his signature accessory. Translation: no more mask shadows to hide the intensity of his eyes, the determined lines of his jaw. Nothing to dilute how her body still responded to him like a tigress in heat, brutal and raw and hot…

“So surprised is a bad thing?” She zeroed her focus in on the offense, just to keep the confrontation grounded. Fine; the man flipped every lust switch she had, especially now that she realized her best friend was also the hottest lover she’d ever had. That didn’t change a damn thing about the
rest
of the truth he owed her.

“No,” Dan replied. “Not a bad thing. But that night, it also wasn’t a good thing.”

She scowled. “Do I want to know why?”

He pushed off the wall. Moved close again, his face given to deep contemplation. Just before he spoke again, he stroked her cheek with the back of a hand. “I approached you in that living room because I couldn’t bear to think of anyone else touching you. My concern wasn’t ‘brotherly’ or ‘friendly,’ Tess. The second I saw you, my blood was on fire and my cock turned to steel.”

Her lips popped open. After working her tongue between them several times, the heady shock of his confession subsided enough for her to squeak, “Oh. That’s…nice.”

“That’s
not
nice,” he flung. “I had no business approaching you, not when I knew I couldn’t give you anything lasting with this fucked-up psyche and this half-monster face, but I did it, anyway. I did it because I was selfish—because I didn’t want any other man to be responsible for your first experience in that dungeon.” His caress changed. He stretched his fingers along her jaw, curling the tips into her hairline. “No other man in that place knew you as well as me. Nobody else would have cared that everything about that night be as perfect as you’d dreamed.”

As if controlled by another, her arm rose. Her hand flattened to his face, mirroring his touch. “And it was,” she whispered. “Oh God, Daniel. You have no idea…”

“I have
every
idea.” He slid in tighter, fitting the rest of his body against hers. Tess’s breath left her in a quiver as each awareness struck her senses. Her breasts to his chest. His thighs around her hips. His cock notched to her cleft. “I have every idea because it was like that for me, too.” His breath warmed her forehead. “Getting to restrain you…hurt you…push you…” He tangled his hand in her hair, fisting the strands until she gasped. “Then getting to please you…arouse you…fuck you…”

“Heaven,” Tess whispered.

“Heaven.” His echo was thick and rough, resonating in the deepest parts of her spirit, not just her libido.
Shit.
You’re in trouble, girl.
Proof: she seriously played with ditching the vow about giving in to the lusties. Luckily, Dan resolved the challenge, pulling away enough to let her grab half a brain. “But it was a heaven I had to disconnect from,” he went on. “I knew it as soon as I laid you down in that aftercare nook and watched you sleep in my arms. I knew that if I waited until you woke up, I’d be tempted to lay you flat, spread you wide, and bury myself inside you all over again. And
that
, I likely wouldn’t have survived in anonymity.”

“You watched me sleep?” Dammit, that wasn’t supposed to
soften
her to what he’d done. Too late. Clear as if it happened now, she imagined him on the palette in the dungeon, watching over her sleeping form with that midnight intensity in his eyes.

“For a long time,” Dan confirmed. “That part, I was glad for. It firmed my resolve about not ever touching you as a Dominant again.” His hand wound in her hair again. The other he gripped to her waist, fisting the red cotton T-shirt she’d changed into when arriving here. “Being with you like that…every damn moment of it…was a seismic rift to my soul.
Tess,
”—he drew her in closer, cranking the heat between them again—“you were everything—
everything
—I’d ever dreamed of in a submissive.” A funny huff escaped him, tugging at his scars, signaling that he drew on thoughts that ran deep. “But I was damn sure that if I ever had you in a playroom again, I wouldn’t get so lucky about calling in favors from fate.”

The revelation yanked twenty seconds of air from her. As soon as her lungs relented, she blurted, “But you dialed again, anyway.” Literally. Her heart tripped over itself again, remembering how growly and impatient he’d been when calling her at the office.
I want to see you again, Odette. The sooner, the better.

“Yeah.” He actually smiled. “I dialed again. As fast as I could.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Little intervention, courtesy of your sub drop.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” His grin plummeted. “Oh. As in
oh,
hell
no
was I going to let that blister fester in your mind. You weren’t going to go through another day of feeling like that, if I could help it.”

She wanted to let her chest do more backflips from that—his angry protectiveness spoke to so many of the parts inside that had never been sheltered by anyone—but her heart had a heckler. A big, nasty, frustrated one, bellowing loudly enough to make her finally speak its message out loud.

“Then why didn’t you just tell me the truth then?”

She took advantage of his first reaction, a long second of caught-with-his-pants-down, to break free from his hold.

“Why’d you let me continue in the dark, Daniel? Why’d you let me keep thinking I was a slut, an idiot, or both to keep aching for a Dom I didn’t even know?”

“Didn’t know?” He dipped his head, underlining the question. “Do you really mean that, rose?”

“
Don’t
call me that.”

“Why?” He planted both feet, raising his posture to a warrior-like stance, fully primed to claim back the space she’d just spread between them. “Because it’ll make you remember everything else I called you…things that your body and your soul craved to hear, even from a
stranger
? Because it’ll make you think too much about what you did with that
stranger
?” Sure enough, he moved forward and pulled at her elbows, banding the bottom borders of her tattoos. As he forced her forward, he dipped his head, making it impossible to escape his stare. “Because it’ll make you realize that even if you’d never known me before we came together at Catacomb, you
knew
me…little rose?”

She breathed hard. Swallowed harder. Damn him! Every last syllable was the truth but she’d confess to murder before admitting it—before she’d give him one single
clue
about how deeply he’d affected her.

About how thoroughly he’d taken over her heart.

Every tattered piece of it.

“Tess.”

She didn’t answer him.

“Odette.”

Bastard. Bastard. Bastard.

“
What
?”

“Look at me.”

Her head refused. Even her heart refused. But as lightning flared beyond the window again, the thunderheads in her soul roiled, summoned by the matching storm of his. Like air and water and wind, she was a helpless element, called to action by her Master.

She lifted her head.

And clenched back tears once more.

Unable to ignore the raw emotion on his own face. The brick now embedded beneath his jaw. The contortions of his lips. The glass-sharp surfaces of his eyes, barely holding back the rain from
his
soul.

He twisted tighter into her arms. “You lied to me, too.”

She choked out a laugh. “About the plans for Newport? Right. That was a whopper, wasn’t it?”

“I had a right to know, dammit.”

“I know, Dan. I know.”

She tried to match him note for bitter note but couldn’t. She was too heartsick. Too heart
broken.
Too chewed up about the dumb things they’d held back from each other, too quickly transformed into the bricks of the wall that rose between them.

Or maybe he’d been right all along. Maybe the sex
had
messed everything up. Maybe this was the big joke from the Big Guy upstairs. Mars and Venus really couldn’t do it all with each other.

Why didn’t they just put crystal balls in every damn BDSM playroom?

She lifted both her arms. Dug one hand’s fingers into his shirt. Pressed the palm of the other to the center of his chest. For a moment, she simply reveled in the strong, bold beat beneath her hand.

Home
.

Ever again?

Or never again?

“It’s scary,” she finally rasped.

“What?” Dan replied.

“The wall.” She looked up, seeing that he got it already. “These are deep shadows, Colton.”

His jaw ground. “Yeah.”

“I can’t see past them anymore.”

She slid her hand to his face. This time, for the very first time, she ran her fingers directly over his silvery scars. He flinched. She yanked on his shirt. Persisting, persevering, forcing. Making him accept every inch of her soft exploration.

Making him accept her unspoken love.

“But you, Daniel…” she whispered, “you’re still right at home in the shadows, aren’t you?”

The heat behind her eyes, too unbearable, went to liquid—as the windows in his gaze shattered. She responded by pressing her whole hand to the waxy planes, letting his tears pool between her fingers, capturing every drop of the spirit he poured into her safekeeping.

“Come into the light with me, Daniel. Please.” She leaned up, kissing his mottled skin, rasping her entreaty into his ear. “
Please.
”

He didn’t answer. She didn’t care. She didn’t know how long they’d stood there, crying into each other as the skies wept outside, but it was long enough for Franzen to yell up from the living room. “Spook man! Dammit! Sometime this year, yeah?”

Dan dropped his head and yanked away. He still didn’t speak a word. Tess still didn’t care. His shoulders remained weighted, slinking from her in shame—until she yanked him up, forcing his reddened gaze to knot with hers again.

Forcing his lips to mesh with hers again.

She sucked at him. Bit at him. Slammed his mouth open so she could plunder him, lick him, taste him, adore him…love him. He stiffened. She didn’t relent. He moaned and grunted, sounds of agony and pain. She didn’t relent. As an incredible Dom had once shown her, the most extreme pain was often what a person needed for the hugest breakthrough.

He shoved away with a violent wrench.

His chest pumped. His fists coiled. He looked to her—once—taking just enough time about it to show that there was no more glass left in his gaze.