Come to Me Recklessly (31 page)

“You’re my happy place,” I whispered, my hands in fists where they were twisted in his shirt.

His voice was still raw, but he chuckled, his response woven with suggestion. “Oh, I think I have a pretty good idea about your
happy place
.”

“Ew.” I smacked him lightly.

He laughed more, hugged me as tight as he could, even though he felt weak and feeble below me.

“Love you, Stew.”

“Love you more.”

“Not even possible,” I said.

The door swung open. “What’s going on in here?”

All that anxiety came barreling back, and I straightened myself to look back at Ben standing in the doorway.

“Oh, you know, just bonding with the big sis,” Stewart said and he lifted a sarcastic brow. “Giving her all the congrats in the world for finding the love of her life.”

I bit back laughter, but a short shot of it escaped and I clapped my hand over my mouth.

Stewart cast me a knowing smirk, while Ben just frowned. Then he set his focus on me. “It’s getting late. We should get out of here. Head home.”

Yeah. It was time. As loath as I was to do it. But somehow I didn’t feel quite as guilty as I had this morning.

“Sure. Give me a second.”

He lifted his chin and shut the door.

I stood and leaned over Stewart, a good-bye kiss to his forehead, squeezed his hand. “Get better, Stewart. I need you well.”

He cast me a somber smile. “Good-bye, Samantha.”

I left his room and went around and told our families good-bye, giving thanks that I would just have to turn around and throw in their faces. I promised Stephanie we’d spend the rest of the day together tomorrow after I got off work before she had to return to California, and left my mother with an apologetic glance that she couldn’t yet understand.

Then I got in my car and followed Ben home.

Ben pulled into the garage. He didn’t spare me a glance when he climbed from his car. He just left the garage door open and went inside.

I parked my SUV behind him on the driveway. I wouldn’t be staying, so there was no point in pulling into my spot.

In an attempt to gather my courage, I sat in the car, battling with the guilt that churned in my stomach. Resentment and bitterness only agitated it. All of it was mixed up with the joy that Christopher’s touch had brought back into my life.

It was difficult to put my finger on any one emotion, this distorted loyalty at odds with what every part of me wanted to claim as my own.

I hated hurting Ben. But it was clear I’d come to the crossroads. So yeah, maybe I’d already taken a sharp right-hand turn, and there was no doubt I should have handled things differently. Even then, I was one hundred percent certain that no matter if Christopher had come back to me or not, I still would be in this exact same spot getting ready to do the exact same thing.

It was time to put an end to what never had been there in the first place.

Night had fallen, the sky dark and quiet when I climbed from my car and headed inside. At the edge of the front room, I came to a stop when I found Ben standing in the middle of it, facing away while he held on to the back of his neck with both hands.

I knew he knew I was there, no words spoken, but somehow the silence said it all. Hostility ate up all the air in the room, leaving us flailing in this limbo that pushed against my resolve.

“Ben,” I chanced, taking a step forward, his name sliding off my tongue like an apology.

He whipped his head around, brown eyes hardened with anger. “Are you trying to make me out to be a fool?”

Caught off guard, I stumbled back. “I…”

What could I say?

“I’m sorry.” It held a finality Ben clearly didn’t want to hear.

He spun all the way around, his head cocked to the side as he slowly approached.

My heart rate ratcheted up by a hundred knots when he released a maniacal laugh. “You’re sorry? That’s it?
You’re sorry?
” He laughed again, this time incredulous. “All these years, I’ve protected you. Taken care of you. And this is the thanks I get? You making me look like an idiot in front of our families? You think they couldn’t tell you were acting like an ungrateful bitch?”

Anger ate up my insides, and I flung my hand in his direction. The cut of the diamond glinted off the lights. “Is that what you think this is? Protecting me?” Fisting my hand at my side, I shook my head. “This isn’t love or protection, Ben. This is you trying to force me into what you want. Did you forget our dinner last week? I told you I wasn’t ready.” I blinked across at him, hoping he’d understand I’d never be ready, and I lowered my voice. “I don’t want this. I’m sorry, but I don’t want this.”

But my softened tone did nothing to calm him.

“You mean you don’t want me.” He scoffed, his hands propped on his hips as he swore toward the floor. Then he redirected his disgust back to me. “What is it you think you want to move on to, Samantha? Someone who doesn’t give a shit about you? Are you so ignorant that you don’t see what else is out there waiting for you?”

I squeezed my eyes shut against the assault.

Wow. So I knew he could be a jerk. This might have been the first time I realized he was a straight-up asshole.

He didn’t stop or hesitate, just spat more of his contempt at me. He sneered. “Ever since you ran into that Moore bitch, you’ve been acting crazy. Did you let her fill your head with lies? With stupid, foolish ideas?” He inched closer, tilting his head with each step. “Did you see him? Is that what this is about?”

He stood up taller, intimidating, with the intention of making me feel small. “All these years, I’ve protected you. Do you know what from? From assholes like him. You want to know what the real world is like, Samantha? You want to know what guys like Christopher Moore do when you’re not watching?”

Ben almost smiled. “He wasn’t just sleeping with Jasmine behind your back. I could never bring myself to tell you before, but I think it’s time you knew. Every party, Samantha… every party and he was fucking someone else. Long before your parents even found out about the two of you, back when you had some little girl’s fantasy that you’d found your soul mate. He had you so unsuspecting you never even picked up on what was right under your nose.”

A flood of insecurities came pouring in, and I shook my head. “No.”

“Yes.” He took another step forward, backing me into the wall. “You belong here. With me. Don’t think for a second you’ll ever find anyone better, because you won’t. No one could care about you the way I do. No one will love you like me. Definitely not someone like Christopher Moore.”

Confusion billowed through me, and I was shaking, unwilling to accept his words, but unable to erase them all the same. They blistered beneath my skin, a sickness that ambushed my heart and mind. I forced them aside.

“No,” I said again, but it was an anguished whisper. And I hated Ben, hated his words, hated his voice. I didn’t want to hear. I just wanted to escape.

The ring on my finger felt like it weighed a million pounds. So incredibly wrong. I was a rattled mess when I grappled for it, fumbling as I tried to work it over my knuckle. The gold band was too tight. A strangling noose I had to rid myself of before it snuffed out my last bit of hope.

I refused to honor Ben with the truthful explanation I had planned to give, couldn’t even look at him as I shoved the ring I had clenched in my hand against his chest. “I don’t want this,” I said again. The last word cracked.

He squeezed my hand in a crushing grip, the diamond cutting painfully into my palm. “Doesn’t matter if you take that ring off, Samantha, you know you belong to me. Pull yourself together and get over this childishness. You’re just embarrassing yourself.”

My breath left me on an exhale filled with all my disbelief.

Arrogant prick.

I jerked my hand from his grasp and opened it out between us. The ring dropped to the floor. “That’s where you’re wrong. I never belonged to you.”

I held my tears until I made it to my car. I didn’t mean to cry, didn’t want to, but I couldn’t hold them back. I drove to Christopher’s house, clutching the steering wheel the entire time, trying to see through all the bleary anger and hurt Ben had spewed my way. A flicker of that old, nagging distrust was trying to reassert itself, the one that was born the night I’d found Christopher with Jasmine. I didn’t want those fears to rule me, but they wouldn’t be silenced quite so easily.

I just needed to see Christopher and everything would be okay.

I skidded to a stop at the curb, yanked at my keys in the same second I threw it in park. I ran up the sidewalk. I just needed to see him. Feel him. Be reassured that all of that was in the past.

Because I already knew. I already had the burden of carrying the most vile of memories. Christopher fucking the one girl whose life’s goal had been making mine a living hell. Closing my eyes to see the image that had been forever ingrained in my mind was torture. But I’d forgiven him. Accepted the past for what it was, anticipated the future for all I expected it to hold.

Believed in Christopher for who he was today.

Impatience had me hammering on his front door, and it flew open with all the intensity I’d pounded into it. Relief gushed from me when I saw him standing there, and it only made the tears pour faster down my face.

That was all quickly replaced by Christopher’s panic. “Samantha… baby… what’s wrong?” He grabbed me by the outside of my shoulders, dragging me in the door. He kicked it shut, his hands running all over me as if he were searching to find out if I was hurt. “What did he do… what the fuck did that asshole do? I swear to God, I will kill him, Samantha. What did he do?”

“He… he was at my mom’s. H-h-he had a ring.” I could barely speak, the words tumbling out in a mess of embarrassment and shame. “He didn’t even ask…
he didn’t even ask
. Everyone was there, Christopher.”

“What?” Christopher’s hold tightened. “He didn’t even ask you what?”

“To marry him. In front of everyone he got on his knee and put it on my finger.”

His attention flashed to my finger, barren of the evidence of Ben’s coercion. Frantic, Christopher pushed me up against the wall, half-crazed, half-demanding. “I won’t let him have you, Samantha. He can’t have you. You’re mine. You’ve always been.”

By the waist, he lifted me, pinning me to the wall with the hard planes of his body. I could do nothing but wrap my legs around his hips. He rocked against me, the friction of his jeans igniting that fire, the threat of Ben fueling those flames. He buried his face in my neck as if he didn’t want to see, his bite aggressive as he turned to nip at my jaw, at my chin, moving to my lips. “Told you I wouldn’t let you go. Not ever again.”

His frenzied voice ached with regret.

“Never,” I told him, grinding myself on his erection that was pressed tight between my thighs. I felt desperate to erase the distance Ben had tried to wedge between us.

Christopher seemed even more fractured over it, unable to fathom the idea of what Ben had tried to force on me.

“I just got you back and he’s trying to take you away.”

“I’m here… I’m here.”

“Here,” he said as if a demand, tearing at my clothes, overwrought as he rushed to palm every inch of exposed skin. My shoulders were pressed to the wall, my chest heaving with harsh breaths. He pushed up my shirt and dragged off the cups of my bra. My breasts felt heavy and full as he looked on them with a stuttered groan. He splayed his hands across my back, dragging me forward, and his hot mouth was there, drawing my nipple into its warmth, sucking hard before he turned to the other.

I bucked, my hands fists in his hair.

He wrapped an arm low around my waist, his body leaving mine for a fraction of a second, and without setting me down, he dragged my shorts and panties from my legs. Fumbling, he pushed his jeans and underwear down around his thighs.

Without warning, he thrust into me.

I cried out from the perfect invasion.

No condom.

No heed.

Christopher took me completely.

Recklessly.

I clutched his shoulders while he drove into me, every pitch and roll of his hips possessive and demanding. My back slammed into the wall with every relentless, earth-shattering drag of his body.

And I knew he was fucking me like he’d promised all those months ago. Marking me. Ensuring I would never
forget
.

Emotions strangled me, my love endless and overflowing. Without question. At the same time, some piece of Christopher’s love seemed just out of my reach, doubt Ben had spurred infiltrating the space that had seemed so solid when I walked out the door this morning.

Jumbled words left me as Christopher pounded harder and faster. Declarations of love and need and an inkling of the fear that Ben’s words held an ounce of truth that had chased me back here to his doorstep.

My fingers dug deeper into the muscles that bowed and flexed on his shoulders as he devoured me. Taking me whole.

I refused to let go.

Christopher gripped my hips, and his hands slipped around to my bottom. He spread me wide, burying himself so deep I was blinded. No longer could I discern what was light or dark. What was inside or out. What was right or wrong.

Because he was everywhere.

I was fractured by the orgasm that tore through me, a cutting bliss that sliced open every last insecurity that had been bred in me, every doubt and uncertainty I’d ever harbored ripping free.

Christopher jerked and cried out, his body going rigid as he pulsed inside me. Every barrier down. Every wall destroyed.

He gasped for air, clutching my sides. He pressed his mouth against mine, the words ragged. “I love you. I love you so fucking much.” His forehead dropped to mine. “So fucking much.” The last sounded like an apology.

And I was stripped bare, overwhelmed and exposed in all my vulnerability. It all overflowed, the emotion that had sent tears streaking down my face gathering as a knot in the center of my chest. A sob raked up my throat.

“Did you want her more than me?” It killed me to ask, but I had to know. “All the time you were with me, did you want her?”