I Belong to You (12 page)

She won’t look at me, and I don’t make her. I don’t want to see what’s in her eyes. I just want to take away the sting and give her the full experience, the full erotic pleasure this can be—not just the shock and pain. My fingers tangle into her hair, lifting her mouth to mine, and I kiss her, and damn it, she doesn’t taste like anger as I expect. She tastes like forgiveness and understanding that I don’t deserve. It’s me who becomes angry now, me who knows who I am, when she still doesn’t seem to understand. Guilt, so much fucking guilt, claws at my insides, at my mind.

I wrap my arms around Crystal’s waist and lift her. Her legs close around my hips and I bury my cock inside her, the only place that gives me any peace. She leans into me, her arms clinging to my neck, her sweetly scented hair teasing my nostrils, the now-hot water blistering my back.

And I want it to. I want the punishment, understanding Chris Merit and his craving for the whip now in a way I never have before.

Tightening my grip around her waist, I pull her down on my cock, thrusting upward. She moans, and I don’t even recognize the sound that comes out of my throat in response. I force us into a rapid pump, counting with each of the motions. One, two, three, four. I grind and thrust until finally, finally, I find that place where everything fades into erotic sensations, and I expect Crystal to be this nameless body . . . but she isn’t. Somehow, some way, in the dark place of pleasure I don’t deserve, I am aware that it’s her. I pull her closer, cupping her backside, holding her tighter.

She leans back to look at me, as if she senses the desperation that I don’t want her to see, but can’t hide. I see no contempt or blame in her eyes. I see the same understanding I tasted in her kiss, and the rush of pleasure borders on pain. My balls tighten, the edge of orgasm coming with unexpected force. Another thrust, another pump, another sound I don’t recognize from myself follows.

My lashes lower and my head sinks to her shoulder, hers to mine. Spots sprinkle the darkness behind my closed eyes, the intensity of being inside this woman almost too much to bear.
She
is my escape, not the sex, and it’s a terrifying reality. I need her. I want her. I can’t seem to let go of her.

“Oh God,” she pants, her lips brushing my earlobe in a rocketing sensation I feel in my cock. “Mark, I—”

She spasms around me and I pull her down hard on my erection, thrusting hard and deep. My release comes in an intense rush, and suddenly we’re both leaning against the wall, and I barely remember when I pulled out of her, or when her legs left my waist to settle on the floor. Or why we’ve huddled into the corner.

When reality comes back to me we stand there, staring at each other, the awareness of what has passed between us far more forceful than the water pounding on my back.

Her hand comes gently to my cheek. “You didn’t make Ava kill Rebecca. Stop blaming yourself.”

“I just spanked you, and you’re comforting me?”

“Did you spank me because it’s erotic, or because you wanted to scare me away?”

“I don’t know,” I say, and it’s as honest as I’ve ever been. She’s as honest as I’ve ever been in every possible way, and I find myself needing to know this is real. That something in my life is real. “What I do know is that I invited Ava and Ryan into my and Rebecca’s bed, even though I knew that she hated my sharing her. And hated them in particular.”

Shock rolls over her face. “Why would you
do
that?”

“Our contract said I could make that choice.”

“That’s not an answer. Why would you do that?”

“Because she was breaking down my walls. I needed to raise them back into place—yet I hated sharing her. So I selfishly made sure the only people who fucked her besides me, never had a chance to take her from me. It was my asshole way of being possessive while I held her at a distance. But Ava wanted me, and I’m sure Ryan wanted Rebecca. I created the jealousy in both of them that led to Rebecca’s murder.”

“You really think Ryan was a part of it.”

“I know he was somehow involved.”

“
He’s
really what’s motivating your anger and need for vengeance, isn’t he?”

“I considered him a friend. He tried to bury me with the police. He did bury Rebecca, and I’m going to force him to confess.”

“How?”

“Don’t worry. Killing him doesn’t interest me. Even torturing him wouldn’t last. I have other plans. Like I said—tell me to leave and I will.” I push off the wall and exit the shower.

“Mark,” Crystal says, but I don’t want to hear her logic and reason.

Grabbing a towel, I dry my hair and wrap it around my waist.

“Mark,” she calls again.

I walk into the living area and roll the cart with my bags into the bedroom. There I grab a garment bag and set it on the mattress, and remove a suit, shirt, and tie.

I half expect Crystal to appear and tell me to leave, but she doesn’t. Maybe she doesn’t know what to say to me. But I need to know what she has to say, what she thinks. I need her forgiveness.

Like I need what I can never have. Rebecca’s forgiveness.

Twelve

Crystal . . .

I turn off the shower, replaying the first bite of his palm on my backside.
He spanked me.
I can’t get my mind around the reality of it—or Mark’s confessions. Far more emotionally frazzled than I let on, I wait, expecting flashbacks from the past . . . but they don’t come. They just . . . don’t. This experience hasn’t triggered memories, yet his harshness in his parents’ library did. It says something to me about what I felt from him then and now, and that explains how I was aroused, not afraid.

But what he did to Rebecca . . . I’d never tolerate such things, but his reasons, though flawed and even unforgivable in many ways, were honest. And I’m not sure he’s been honest with himself in a long time. I’m pretty sure I haven’t been with myself, either—and maybe that’s part of our bond. He admitted things to me that he hates about himself, and he’s claimed he needs us to be the one honest thing in his life. And I think that translates to his need to have someone in his life who trusts him, when he doesn’t trust himself.

And there it is. The reason I said “yes” to the spanking.

On some level, I’d known it was about trust.

Shaking myself, I step out of the shower. In a rush of activity, I dry off, attend to my hair and makeup again, and finally pull on tights and a red dress with a belted waist and a fitted skirt. With a deep breath, I prepare for whatever I might feel when my eyes meet Mark’s, and I enter the bedroom. He is nowhere in sight.

Exiting into the living area, I find him standing at the floor-to-ceiling window just outside of my dining area, which connects to my living room. He’s on the phone. “From what I understand,” he says, “the first thing the police did when Corey woke up from his beating was ask about me.” He pauses. “My thoughts exactly. I need my attorney here, not in San Francisco. I’ll pay whatever it takes to get the plane here tonight.”

Easing out of the room, I allow him privacy and return to the bedroom. Noting the open garment bag, I walk to it and stare down at the contents, contemplating all I’ve experienced this past hour. No matter what, I have feelings for this man, and I know in my heart that he needs to have a safe place to heal and to let go of his anger. I remove several suits from the bag and carry them to the closet, shove my clothes to one side, and hang up Mark’s things.

After finishing the task I come face-to-face with Mark, and I’m jolted by the dominant force of his presence. His blond hair is still damp, lying in ringlets around his classically handsome face, and his amazing body is perfection in a dark blue suit paired with a red tie.

He glances at the empty garment bag and the closet, then back to me. “What are you doing?”

“Making sure you know I’m not ordering you to leave.”

“Then you’re not as smart as I thought you were.”

“On the contrary,” I say, unfazed. “I’m not as shallow-minded as you apparently think I am. I can see beyond my own hand.”

He arches a brow. “And my hand?”

Unbidden heat simmers in my stomach, and I don’t understand this reaction—or many of my reactions to Mark Compton. Shoving it aside, I softly add, “I can see beneath your skin.”

His eyes darken as he steps closer, our knees brushing. “Who was he?”

“Who?”

“The man you went on the pill for.”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

I believe his need to know is just about being a control freak, and I don’t hold back. It’s not some golden secret, especially around Riptide. “Nathan Monroe.”

He arches a brow. “As in the new ‘it’ artist?”

“Yes, though I dated him while he was still a starving artist. When he found success, it went to his head. He became a conceited jerk. The only plus in his corner afterward, at least per my father, was that he could finally pay his own bills.”

“He hit big six months ago. So you broke up when?”

“Five months ago, and your mother cheered me on as I dumped him. She’d helped me get him some notice.”

He stares at me, his expression unreadable. “I’ve always said my mother is the biggest bitch on the hill, and the kindest flower in the garden.”

“I get the feeling her son has the same characteristics.”

“I’m no flower, sweetheart.”

My stomach flutters with the unexpected endearment.

“In fact,” he continues, “you’ve all but called me the same conceited jerk as your ex.”

A knock sounds on the door and, unwilling to let this end yet, I step so close that I can feel his body heat. “You can be,” I agree, “but the difference between him and you is that he really
was
a jerk. You use arrogance and control to hide the real you. But I’ve seen you. I know you.”

He stares down at me for several beats before his hand closes around the back of my neck and he crushes my mouth to his in a long, deep kiss. Then he says, “In a way, no one else has. No one. You know that, right?”

“Yes,” I whisper. “And you know I’d never betray that trust.”

The air shifts between us, and I can almost feel the bonds between us weaving tighter. “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have told you what I did in the shower, nor would I be standing here.” He leans in to kiss me again, his mouth almost to mine when his phone rings, and another knock sounds on the door.

We both groan. “I’ll get the door so you can get your call,” I say.

He sighs and releases me, reaching into his pocket to remove his phone. “Are you in Long Island yet?” I hear him ask before I turn down the hallway.

As I reach the door another knock sounds, and I ask, “Who is it?”

“Jacob.”

I unlock the door to discover that beside him is a pretty brunette with warm brown eyes who is dressed in black slacks and a black silk blouse. She extends her hand to me. “Hi, Crystal. I’m Kara Walker.”

I take her hand and, being someone who has instant vibes with people, I already like her. “Hi, Kara,” I say, stepping to the side to allow them to enter. The door shut, I ask, “Is Kara taking over for you today, Jacob?”

I don’t miss the slight flex of his jaw as he answers. “No,” he says. “We’re both escorting you to the hospital.”

Suddenly, Mark’s need to stay here to “protect me” hits home. “We need two escorts?”

“Better to be safe,” Jacob says noncommittally.

I cross my arms. “What don’t I know that I should?”

“The question is more like, what don’t we know that we should,” Kara replies, keeping her voice low, clearly to keep Mark from overhearing.

“That’s exactly right.”

We all turn at the sound of his voice to find him standing at the end of the hallway, the look on his handsome face as irritated as his tone is as he adds, “Stop worrying about an angry claim I made about vengeance after hearing Rebecca was dead. Start worrying about where the
fuck
Ava is. Answer that question, and this all ends. Then we’d have justice, and no need for two bodyguards.”

*  *  *

Mark and I ride to the hospital in the back of the Escalade, with Kara and Jacob in the front. Without the prior day’s snow to contend with, it’s a short twenty-minute drive. The silence in the vehicle is uncomfortable, Mark’s reprimand of Jacob and Kara sitting with us like an extra companion. Yet one thing stands out for me. The way Mark’s knee rests against mine, and the words he told me:
You’re the one thing keeping me grounded.
He’s on edge, and I’m guessing it’s about that phone call he took.

Jacob parks the truck and he and Kara open their doors. When Mark reaches for his, I grab his arm. “I need to talk to you alone for a second.”

His eyes narrow on mine for a moment before he calls out to Jacob, “We need a minute.”

Jacob and Kara shut their doors and seal us inside. Immediately, I turn to Mark and settle my hand on his leg. “What’s wrong?”

His attention goes to my hand on his leg, lingering there before I’m fixed in an unreadable gray stare. “Were you aware that I don’t allow people to touch me?”

Confused, I stutter, “W-what?”

“I don’t allow people to touch me. Except you.” He covers my hand with his own. “That first evening you picked me up at the airport, you kept touching me, and I let you. I didn’t know why then, and I don’t know why now.”

I’m still confused. “You mean no one after Rebecca went missing, right? She obviously touched you—as did previous partners.”

“I never let her touch me freely. It was part of the Master/submissive roles we played.”

Emotion wells in my throat at the certainty that to Mark, BDSM is far more than the pleasure and games. It’s a disconnect, a withdrawal from everyone but his parents. But then again, he lives in another state. Isn’t that a withdrawal, too?

“You know you’re inviting me to ask you why,” I say cautiously.

“Playing the Master role helps me control what I feel, and when I feel it. Except, as I said, with you.”

“I just happened to be in the right place when you needed someone.”

“I’ve tried to tell myself that, but there were other people just as present, and other ways I could have dealt with all of this. I kept returning to you. I
keep
returning to you.”

“Is that what’s bothering you right now? The way that I’ve seen more than you want me to see?”

“No. It’s about me having the control I need to ensure my mother doesn’t see too much of what I’m worried about.” His lashes lower and he inhales. “I don’t know what the fuck is the matter with me.”

I cover his hand where it covers mine, and the fact that he lets me means so much more than it had before. “It’s called being human,” I say. “It’s the curse and blessing we all face.”

He looks at me. “I used to believe I managed it better than others.”

“You do. And you’re demonstrating that by actually being in the moment.” I remind him of his own words. “What we deny owns us. You can’t control what you don’t first own and face. You simply delay the moment it owns you.” I tilt my head to study him. “You weren’t like this when I went to answer the door to let Jacob and Kara in. Did they overlook something that set you off?”

“It’s a general frustration that I’m paying so damn many people to get no answers. That, and the kid woke up before Luke got to the hospital. The police are questioning him, and I have no idea what’s being said.”

I think of the extra phone he keeps so guarded, and that, along with the sense of helplessness I read from him right now, feeds my worry that whoever he talks to on those calls is trouble waiting to happen. “Mark, about that—”

“It’s late,” he says, glancing down at his watch, and I have this sense of a door shutting. “Thirty minutes until treatment. We need to go inside.”

I don’t push, because he’s right. But I think Jacob is right, too. Mark’s navigating dark and stormy waters, and I’m either going to pull him out, or drown with him. I don’t know which.

*  *  *

Jacob and Kara frame us as we stop at the security desk by the private elevators and sign in. A few moments later we crowd into the rather small elevator. “Stay in the waiting room,” Mark orders them when we exit onto the treatment floor. “I don’t want my mother any more upset than she already is.”

“I’ll stand guard downstairs by the security desk,” Jacob says, “and let Kara hang out up here.”

Kara glances from me to Mark. “If you have to tell your parents I’m here, you can always say that Crystal and I bonded when Walker took over Riptide, and I’m working a job here at the hospital. It’s not a lie; I am. It just happens to be you. And if Crystal and I have coffee together, that will reinforce it.”

Mark grimaces but I nod. “Your mother is always after me to have a social life, so this is perfect. It works.”

He cuts Kara one of those steely gray stares. “I’m warning you. Don’t go feeding her with Blake’s bullshit, which I assume is yours as well. You won’t like the results.” His fingers close on my elbow and he starts walking out. “Let’s get to the room.”

“That was rude,” I say.

“It was honest, sweetheart,” he says. “I don’t give bullshit and I don’t take it.”

“Stop viewing me as some wimpy toddler who can’t make up her own mind and needs to be protected from her own shadow.”

“Wimpy toddler?”

He dares to look amused, and I’m pretty sure the sound that follows from me is a growl.

“Did you just growl at me?”

“Yes. I did.”

He leans in. “Save that for when we get home.”

I swallow hard on the word “home” and promise myself not to read more into our arrangement than a temporary sharing of a lot of naked moments. “Only if you save that attitude you just had for never.”

“I can’t promise that.”

“Then I can’t promise a growl later.”

His eyes darken, lips quirking slightly. “I can. Count on it, Ms. Smith. But right now, my mother needs us both. She doesn’t know there’s something between us, though, so we need to think through how and when to tell her I’m living with you. I don’t want her to think that if something goes wrong between us, she loses you. I don’t want you to think you lose her, either.”

“There you two are!”

Once again, Mark’s father has managed to appear at a pivotal moment in a conversation between us. We turn to find him approaching with a tray of coffee.

“One of the nurses went to Starbucks. I ordered everyone’s favorites.” He glances at Mark. “Your mom’s pretty eager to see you this morning.” He enters the hospital room and Mark is unmoving, staring after him.

Reading his apprehension, I reach up and rest my hand on his arm. “She needs you. She probably regrets last night.” I motion to the door with my head. “Come on. You kept me up all night—I need that coffee.”

He inhales, his broad chest expanding beneath his suit jacket. “Coffee it is.” His hand goes to my back and he guides me forward.

I enter the room to find Dana eagerly watching the door, her eyes touching me and then going beyond to settle on Mark. Giving her the moment she’s obviously seeking with her son, I go to where Steven has set the coffee tray on a rolling hospital table.

“White mocha for you, right?” he asks.

“Good memory,” I say, smiling, always charmed by the way he treats me like family.

He lifts a cup and glances at the writing. “Plain latte with an extra shot. This one is Mark’s. Dana didn’t want anything.”