Sleeping With the Opposition (Bad Boy Bosses) (16 page)

He repositioned her in his arms and slipped one hand into her panties to touch her. She gasped and bit his collarbone. God, she was warm and so wet. He put two fingers in her and let her ride his hand until her nails dug into his shoulders, her body went rigid, and she started clenching. Then he couldn’t take it anymore.

“Stay right there.” He let her down long enough to reach down for her purse.

“Front pocket,” she murmured. “
Hurry
.”

She stepped out of her panties as he rolled on the condom, and then he spun her around. “Keep it closed,” he whispered into her ear, placing both her hands flat on the door between them and a club full of strangers, and then he grabbed her hips and pulled her ass closer. “We wouldn’t want anyone coming in now, would we?”

Her head tipped back with a long groan as he entered her from behind. If someone tried to get in here now it would be
really
awkward, because there was no way he was stopping.

“Leo.” He loved when she said his name like that, all throaty and desperate for more of what only he could give her. “Go deep and hard. Please.”

“There’s not even another option,” he said through clenched teeth. He gripped her hips a little harder, but even though he’d promised hard and deep, he wanted it to last and so he went as slow as his own stamina would allow, so that they could both feel every blessed inch of the moment.

The intensity built to insanity levels quickly, and when he couldn’t keep up the teasing pace any longer, he dragged her back around to face him. “I need to be looking into your eyes when I go,” he said, lifting her legs around his waist and cupping her ass cheeks in his hands.

He gritted his teeth as he slid back inside her, and lost himself in the sheer perfection of it. After this morning, he’d been certain that he and Bria were over. His marriage shouldn’t be a battle, and part of him had welcomed the end, because it had been so hard and hurt for so long…

And then she’d been there in the crowd, looking up at him like they still had their own fight to finish, and he’d realized that even if he won the boxing match, it wouldn’t help him find peace. He would only ever find that with her.

And now she was in his arms, and he refused to believe it was the last time. He shoved away any and all thoughts of the end. There was never going to be an end to them as long as they loved each other.

He poured all that love into her now, praying it would be enough to help her realize that no matter how painful love could be sometimes, they were always going to be better together than they were apart.

When she cried her release into his mouth with an open kiss and her heels pressed into the small of his back, urging him on, he braced a hand on the door by her shoulder and pumped into her harder. He let out a shout and didn’t care who might be on the other side, listening.

When the maelstrom let up, he ducked his head into her shoulder, taking deep breaths. After a slight hesitation, her fingers slipped into his hair just like she used to do.

Although he hated to let the moment go, they couldn’t stay here much longer. “We need to go home,” he murmured against her lips, with one last squeeze just to be sure the feel of her would stay with him—notwithstanding that he was destined to go to his grave carrying her touch branded on his skin and her scent in his nostrils.

She finally nodded, eyes closed, breathing heavily. “I know.”

“And we still have to talk.”

“I know.”

Chapter Fourteen

He tipped her chin up. She blinked and gasped. “Leo, your face.”

He grimaced. “That bad?”

It wasn’t that she hadn’t noticed the blood crusting the corner of his lip and the cut at his eye, but other things had been more overwhelming to her up until this moment, and it hadn’t completely registered exactly what he had done to himself.

She patted the lump starting to rise on his cheekbone, right under his eye, wincing for him.

“It doesn’t hurt as bad as it probably looks,” he said. “But I suppose I should get cleaned up.”

He let her legs down slowly and stepped away, waiting for her to adjust to standing without his weight to bolster her against the door. She clutched the door handle, her legs trembling, and watched him walk across the room and disappear through an open doorway. She heard the flush of a toilet and the rush of water spilling from the tap, but still didn’t move.

When Leo returned, he’d pulled on his boxing shorts and cleaned up. His face and chest were still wet, which only highlighted the bruises that were already starting to show up.

He took one look at her expression and the softness of love and satisfaction immediately faded. Guilt flooded her. Leo had never known the meaning of the words “fear” and “insecurity” until she had thrown his concern and love back in his face like it meant nothing to her, when it meant
everything
. It was the
only
thing.

“I’m okay,” she said hurriedly. The thought that he might think she regretted this again, that she would reject him again, made her heart ache. He needed to know that it was never
him
she’d wanted to reject, despite her frustration with him and her fears about the future.

The flush of their risky, daring lovemaking cooling on her skin, Bria finally pushed herself off the wall. Leo quickly bent to pick up her panties. She held out her hand for them, heat creeping up her cheeks, but he shook his head.

“Allow me,” he said with such a look of intensity she felt it in her bones. He dropped to one knee before her and looked up expectantly.

Biting her lip, she placed both hands on his shoulders and lifted one foot after the other, then let him draw the silk up her calves. His hands were warm and callused, a little scratchy on her skin, which only made her shiver and her insides clench. When he leaned in closer and kissed the soft, sensitive part of each thigh, she groaned and leaned back against the door again, arching her hips when his mouth found the core of her, and his tongue licked at her pussy.

He didn’t lift his head until she was wrung out and unable to stand on her own. His low chuckle burrowed through the erotic haze as he finally stood and took her place against the door so that she could finish getting dressed without worrying someone would come in.

Despite the chill in the night air, he changed into a loose pair of running pants and only a T-shirt. She supposed he was still running hot from the fight…and maybe their other physical activities. Bria herself still felt flushed, too, and the feeling wasn’t going away.

They didn’t talk much on the drive home—Leo had brought his car to the club, so there was no making out in the backseat of a taxi—and yet the persistent pulse of desire didn’t fade with the passing street corners, and surprisingly her fears didn’t kick in to hobble her. In fact, she clenched her fists in her lap to keep her hands to herself while he was driving—but it was obvious that she wasn’t the only one who was having trouble. The short glances he slid her way were fiery, and the buzz coming off him was practically audible. Was it the adrenaline from his fight that had ramped him up?

No, she’d done that to him. And she wasn’t sorry.

“Stop the car,” she said.

He groaned and glanced over at her, then quickly back to the road. “I love being an exhibitionist with you, sweetheart, I do,” he said with a throaty chuckle. “But don’t you think we’ve had reckless sex enough times for one evening?”

“That’s not what I meant. You were right, we have to talk, and I don’t want to wait.” She blushed because she was feeling urgent and desperate, and the idea of pulling over into the darkened shadows of some deserted parking lot and banging hard and fast was actually pretty damn appealing right now. Maybe more so than waiting like responsible adults to make love in their soft, safe bed.

She gritted her teeth. That’s exactly the reason they had to do this now. If he touched her again, they wouldn’t talk until morning, and by then, she might have lost her nerve.

“Are you sure you don’t want to wait until we’re home?”

Technically, they weren’t far from their place now, but traffic was heavy, and she couldn’t make it. She didn’t even want to go there. That felt like the wrong place for this, where every corner and shadow contained memories of their history. Their hopes for a life together were in that house and as much as she loved it, she didn’t want to go back there until they’d had the discussion they needed to have…and decided once and for all if they were both going to be able to stay.

“Please, Leo.”

“Okay, let me find someplace safe to park.” He turned down a couple of short streets, and she realized where he was headed. A few minutes later, he pulled into the back lot to Mr. Russo’s restaurant and turned off the car.

Bria took a deep breath and shifted in her seat to face him. He was shrouded in darkness, and she couldn’t tell what he was thinking or feeling.

“Bria, why did you come to the fight club tonight?”

“Why did
you
go to the fight club?” she countered, then raised her hand and stopped him from answering. She already knew. She’d driven him there.

Seeing Leo take those punches like he’d been looking for an excuse to get hit had broken something inside her. Something she might never have admitted to if she hadn’t seen the bleak look in his eyes just before he’d noticed she was there.

Losing a baby had been the most devastating experience of her life. She’d thought that going through it without Leo’s emotional support was the worst that could happen…until she’d found him in that boxing ring, punishing himself for failing her.

But wasn’t she just as guilty of letting her fears get in the way of helping him when he’d needed her? Would he have finally let her in and shared his feelings sooner if she hadn’t been so self-absorbed in her own anguish?

There was so much to say that all the words jumbled into one another, bottlenecking in the back of her throat until she couldn’t get any of them out.

“Everything will be okay,” Leo said, although for the first time, he was the one who didn’t sound so sure.

“What if we can’t have children?” she asked in a thin voice.

“Are you saying you would be willing to give it another try?”

The thought caused her throat to close and she gasped for air. Her heart pounded in her ears like the ticking of a bomb. She shook her head. “Oh God, Leo. I…I can’t.”

He cupped the back of her head and pulled her closer, leaning across the seats of the car to press his forehead against hers. “Shh, it’s okay.”

“You say that now, but how will you feel in five years when I still can’t go through with it, or even worse”—her voice broke—“when we’ve tried again and lost another baby?”

“I would
never
blame you, if that’s what you mean,” he said tightly, and she knew she’d offended him by comparing them to her mother and Frank. “And I promise that I’ll never run away to the boxing ring and leave you to suffer through the hard parts alone.”

“You don’t know what it was like. Frank and my mother loved each other, too…in the beginning. She was so happy with him, and he absolutely adored her. Everyone would comment on it.”

“Guys like that can make the world see what they want it to see, but what goes on between a couple between closed doors is very different, and you were just a kid—”

“I know that, Leo. Don’t you think after four years practicing law, I know that?” She closed her eyes. “My mother would sometimes sing to me when we’d had a really nice day while she put me to bed. But after she met him, she would sing all the time. She sang in the kitchen, and she sang in the car driving me to school. It was like she came alive after she met him.” Bria took a deep breath. “Exactly the way I feel when I’m with you.”

Leo frowned.

“But after the miscarriages, she stopped singing. I always thought it was because Frank had gone cold. But what if she was the one? What if she stopped singing because she just couldn’t lift her voice over the pain anymore, and Frank drifted further and further away because he didn’t know how to help her?”

Leo suddenly got out of the car.

“Where are you going?” Her mouth dropped open as the door slammed shut, and she peered out the window as he came around the back of the vehicle to her side and yanked open her door. “What are you—?”

“That’s not going to happen to us,” he said vehemently. He pulled her out of the car to stand before him.

She sagged against the door. “How do you know, Leo? You dream of a big family….”

“There are other ways to bring a child into our lives if we really want one. But that’s not even the point. I didn’t marry you because of the Plan. I married you because I love you, damn it. That’s never going to change.” His gaze was dark and intense, and he shook her gently by the shoulders as if to drive his point home. “And so long as you love me, too, I would be happy if it were just the two of us for the rest of our lives.”

She looked deep into his eyes, searching for signs of hesitation…but there were none.

Her fears weren’t gone. She could feel them there like ants crawling over her skin, but she was able to keep it contained because Leo had helped her to manage her grief. Leo had proven that love was stronger.

“Let’s go home,” she said. “Together.”

He smiled. “Does this mean that I don’t have to negotiate with you for dates, and we aren’t going to divide up the house?”

“It means that I know I’ve been ridiculous, but I love you more than anything and—”

He leaned forward to kiss her, hard. “I know, sweetheart. God, I’ve always known that. Why else do you think I’ve been so stubborn?”

She chuckled. “Because you just can’t give up or fail at anything?”

“Not true. Not everything’s worth so much time and energy. There comes a point where giving up isn’t failure, it’s smart. It’s self-preservation.”

“Are you sure you didn’t get to that point with me?”

He kissed her again. “That point doesn’t
exist
with you. I’m not going to say it was easy, that it didn’t even occur to me. But when it did, all it took was one glimpse of your eyes, one word from your lips, and I was in deep all over again.”

“You never really lost me, you know. I think I lost myself for a while.”

“If it ever happens again, just remember that if you hold on to me, at least we’ll be lost together.”

They barely made it inside the house before Bria was tearing at Leo’s shirt, and he was just as desperate to touch her.

They started in the front foyer, careering off walls and furniture, struggling to get the rest of their clothes off without letting go of each other.

“Upstairs,” he murmured against the nape of her neck, and swept her off her feet, practically sprinting for the stairs.

She clung to him and let out a squeal of laughter. Joy and relief filled her until she thought her heart might burst with it.

Leo laughed with her before tossing her on the bed so that she bounced, and when he came down on top of her, the light in his eyes was so bright, she knew she’d made the right choice for her future. She’d chosen love.