Breathless Series - (15 page)

How she got through the night, Alyssa couldn’t say. The next day she had a few meetings as well as an interview with an online author’s forum, all which were publicity for the upcoming books. Alyssa wanted to cancel everything. She wanted to go flipping crazy. Most of all she needed someone to talk to because she didn’t understand what was happening. She hesitated in calling Lucas. Usually he was the one who called and when he was away, they kept in touch via email, text or chat. After seeing the gossip article, Alyssa deliberately avoided any of his messages. There was no way she was meeting him for their usual weekend together, she vowed.

Alyssa managed to make it for all her day’s appointments even though she was cringing inside and wondering how many people had seen that dumb article in the gossip mag. As the days went by and the time drew nearer for the release of her books, Alyssa felt none of the excitement she’d once felt about the major event. As far as she was concerned, she wished she’d never gone into the contract, never even met Lucas. She’d always known he’d leave her but she’d never expected it to be like this. How could he have treated her so callously by getting on with his ex behind her back? It didn’t make any sense but the last thing Alyssa wanted to do was confront him about it.

That evening her phone rang and she recognized his number. Looked like he was back in town. Perhaps back from another of his romantic trysts with his now-on ex? Alyssa drew in a harsh breath and told herself to disregard the call. But the next moment she felt childish and sighed, picking up the phone and saying, “Hello, Lucas.”

“You’ve been ignoring my messages,” he said. Alyssa felt like a fool the way her heart lurched at the sound of his voice. Deep and stirring enough to make a woman’s belly tie in knots no matter what he was saying.

“I’ve been busy,” she said dully, her chest suddenly aching. She couldn’t breathe properly and for a moment she was afraid a sob would choke out. She wanted to scream at him that he was a cold, cruel bastard for hurting her the way he had, but she found the words stuck in her throat.

“I know. But not that busy surely. What’s really wrong, Alyssa?”

Alyssa’s control snapped at the gentle tone. “What could possibly be wrong, Lucas? I mean, it’s not like we have a proper relationship where I can actually feel hurt that you lied to me and are now back with your ex-fiancée!”

There was a pause. “You saw the magazine article.” It was more a statement than a question.

“Yes!” she snarled, even as she hated herself for losing the control he seemed so capable of holding. “Someone was so kind as to send me a copy in the mail. Maybe some Good Samaritan who thought I needed to know the truth. What baffles me if the fact that left to you, I’d be kept blissfully in the dark. Why didn’t you just come right out and tell me it was over?”

“Because it’s not,” Lucas said calmly.

Alyssa expelled a shocked breath. “So you expect us to go on as normal now that I know you’re back with Sara?”

“You’re still my sub until I say otherwise, Alyssa.
And now’s hardly the time to jump to conclusions. I’m five minutes away and once I arrive, I want you to be waiting, presented to me as normal.”

“No,” Alyssa said, hating the way her heart jumped just imagining what he was telling her to do. To be waiting, kneeling in the normal position with head bowed and arms resting on thighs, bottom set on her heels.
And naked, of course.

“No?”

Alyssa could hardly keep herself from shivering or her voice from having a slight tremor as she said firmly, “Lucas, I know this is far from a normal relationship. I can make no real demands but I did expect that at least, fidelity was part of the package. I’m sorry, but I can’t let you in.”

“Not even to straighten things out? I don’t appreciate the fact that you’re so willing to believe the worst of me.”

This time, Alyssa gasped in anger. “You’re talking as if I didn’t see it with my own eyes. Not unless you tell me the photos were doctored. But they weren’t, were they? You did spend a few days with Sara in Aspen just last week while I was here thinking you were off on one of your business trips. Smooth, Lucas. Really smooth. Too bad you never knew there’d be nosy photographers to catch you and your snow-capped frolics with dear Sara.”

“Nastiness doesn’t suit you, Alyssa,” Lucas told her, his tone as calm as ever yet edged with steel. “Now I’m outside your door, and I expect you to open up at once. What needs to be said has to be done face to face.”

Oh God, Alyssa thought, her heart sinking as she stared at the locked doorway, her hand clutching the phone to her ear. If she felt so frightened all of a sudden, so why was there also a trickling of desire between her legs? To make matters even worse, she had a dreadful feeling he was about to break up with her. Was that what he meant by saying things face to face? Alyssa couldn’t bear to see his face and hear him say the words to confirm her deepest fears.

“Please, Lucas,” she breathed, shoving her fingers through her already messy hair as she backed into a nearby wall for support. “I can’t cope with any of this right now. Look, I get it. It was always Sara; somehow I sensed this. You never liked to talk about her or your past relationship with her. You never let me get close enough to know the real you. And then I did the unthinkable by falling in love with you so I can’t blame you for making the choice I never had the nerve to take a long time ago.”

“And what choice is that?” Lucas asked, voice now low and very, very hard even through the phone line.

Alyssa sighed raggedly. “It was never meant to last as long as it did. A few weeks of kinky passion, and then it was supposed to be over. I wasn’t looking for long-term either, not with a certified playboy. And seeing you with Sara…well, it makes it all the more convenient to finally put an end to this whole…arrangement. I can’t be your sub anymore, Lucas. It was fun while it lasted, but now we’re through.”

“Alyssa.”

She could hear Lucas draw in a harsh, furious breath and it made her quake foolishly. She saw the door handle twist and it only made her feel even more torn between an irrational fear and longing.

“I told you in the beginning that you had to trust me,” he said gruffly yet with a deep throb in his voice that made her ache. “Do you trust me, Alyssa? If you do, then open this door
right now
.”

Alyssa chewed on her bottom lip for a few seconds. She wasn’t even sure how she got to the door but the next minute she was holding it open with the phone still stuck to her ear.

Lucas stood there, his eyes narrowed and dark as he lowered his phone and then walked in as Alyssa backed away, her heart pounding and her eyes wide and staring.

“You do know you’re in for a whole lot of discipline, don’t you?” he murmured as he shut and locked the door behind him.

Alyssa gulped. How could she still want him so bad when she knew what kind of man he was? He hadn’t even denied about being with Sara. And now she’d made the dumb mistake of letting him in, knowing fully well that if he pulled her into her arms right then, she’d probably be powerless to resist.

“I don’t see how that’s possible since I’ve done nothing wrong,” Alyssa said with a proud tilt of her chin. “You made your choice, Lucas – and you chose Sara. I can’t see why I should be punished for your misdeeds. What kind of Dom does that make you?”

His eyes glittered dangerously and the next moment, he was grabbing her shoulders and shoving her hard against him. Alyssa gasped, her phone falling from her limp fingers as she clutched at his chest. She must be so weak and crazy to feel like putty in his arms already, her head swimming with his masculinity that surrounded her like a mist. She stared up through her lashes at his face, the hard planes even sharper and more chiseled with both anger and desire.

“For starters, I didn’t
choose
Sara. And I don’t know who must have sent you that magazine but I’m betting its Erin. Ever since I got together with you…”

“Erin Meriwether?” Alyssa said with a huff of disbelief. What had the pretty actress – another of his past paramours, got to do with all this? Alyssa felt her temples start to ache as everything started to get too much for her.

“Yes,” Lucas said, shaking her slightly as if to hold her attention. “That’s the life I live, Alyssa – women would do anything to keep themselves relevant in my life – and in my bed. Erin never got over the fact that I wasn’t with her but chose to be with you. She’s known how close we’ve gotten and must have sent that magazine just to hurt you. And as for Sara – do you really think I’m back with her? Do you really think I could treat you so callously?”

Alyssa’s eyes closed briefly in pain. “I don’t know, Lucas. Sometimes I feel like I don’t even know you at all. And then the photos – “

“Damn the photos. What you saw was Sara and I together but not up to anything. So we went for dinner and she was at my home – but trust me it wasn’t for a romantic get-away,” he said on a growl. And then with a harsh sigh, he let her go, turning to push his fingers through his hair. Standing there in his impeccable three-piece suit, Alyssa couldn’t help admiring the sleek, panther-like lines of his body and feeling her own treacherous frame start to quiver with need for him even as she wondered at her lack of pride. Lucas Edge could very well be a cheating, heartless cad and still she couldn’t help panting for him.

He swiveled round to face her again, his eyes pained and angry but she could tell the anger was directed mostly at himself. “I should never have agreed to meet Sara at my home in Aspen. When she made the suggestion, I should have flatly refused but she obviously needed my help and I couldn’t just turn my back on her.”

“No, of course not,” Alyssa murmured, keeping the sarcasm from her tone as she hugged her arms protectively around her frame. She blushed at the dark look on Lucas’s face.

“So she needed your help. How nice. May I ask with what?”

“You may, but I can’t tell you,” Lucas said drily. “Suffice to say that Sara was going through a rough patch and needed a friend, and just for a few days I tried to be there for her if not for her father’s sake, but then for what we had in the past as well. But that was over a long time ago, Alyssa. I know I never really talked about it but the truth is, there was never much to tell anyway.”

He cupped her face, his eyes pinned over her accusing expression. “I wouldn’t ask you to trust me if I didn’t think I was worth it, Alyssa. And I apologize if I haven’t done enough to warrant I keep that trust. The fact remains that Sara and I broke up a long time ago because she couldn’t handle the pressures she was facing, not just relationship-wise but in her family life as well. Demands from her pushy father who always wanted her to take a bigger role in the company…and then of course, the matter of being my sub and how she found it hard to deal with my needs on top of everything else. I never know the kind of stress levels she was getting to handle till it was too late and she’d walked off a steep edge. A few wrong turns with the worst kind of friends for advisors – and she almost died. That’s all I can tell you, for now. Suffice to say, I spent a few days with her to talk her through a trying period of her life as she tried to piece things back together. I never imagined there’d be photographers lurking about.”

“But if it was all just an innocent thing, why didn’t you tell me about it? Why let me find out like this?” Alyssa said, her tone pained.

Lucas smudged a thumb across her bottom lip, his eyes shadowed, his gaze like a silken web on her skin. “Forgive me. I just didn’t want to bother you. What we share…sometimes I just want to lock the outside world far away from us so that when we’re together, nothing else matters. I thought I could handle the issues with Sara and still keep it away from anything to do with us. But you have to promise me that you’ll always believe in me, Alyssa,” Lucas added firmly, his gaze compelling as it held hers that moment. “You must never allow yourself to doubt my integrity. Having you think the worst of me is not really my idea of a fun thing to happen.”

His head swooped as he made to capture her lips, but Alyssa’s head turned to the side, her eyes troubled. “But there’s another thing that’s bothered me about Sara – and what Drake said about her that night you took me to his club. What did he mean about Sara and why you’d stopped coming there because of her?”

Lucas sighed and shook his head resigned. “You really want to hear the grisly details, don’t you?” He sighed, cupped the back of her head, and continued, “People always assumed that it was Sara who broke off the relationship. However, I was the one who said it was through. So in a night of spiteful vengeance, she went back to the club behind my back and allowed herself to be punished and then claimed as another Dom’s property. She not only had very public sex with this Dom, but other people as well.
A right fucking orgy. And all just to get my attention. What it managed to do was convince me she wasn’t meant for me. And now there’s you.”

“Me?” Alyssa said doubtfully, refusing to melt even when his hands smoothed down her face to encircle her throat, his hands warm and possessive. And against her belly prodded by an unmistakable hardness. It thrilled her to feel his arousal, and yet a part of her still held back. Was she to take his explanation at face value? She’d already forgiven him – she just wasn’t sure if she could give up her whole heart right now. She still felt too vulnerable.

“Keeping me outside on your doorstep wasn’t very nice, Alyssa,” was his way of reply. His thumbs stroked her jawline, before he swept his hands out over her shoulders, pushing the straps of her dress off her arms. What the hell’s wrong with me, cried Alyssa inwardly as her nipples instantly hardened when he exposed her breasts by pushing down her spaghetti top.