Rule's Property(27)

"Courtney," he demanded flatly.

She continued to fiddle with the contents of her drawer as if she were alone in the room.

"Courtney," he said again. "Look at me."

With an ostentatious show of reluctance meant to piss him off, she turned to face him. And it worked for a split second until he saw what lurked in her eyes. And then his temper died as his heart clenched. Need. Pure and simple. Need. For him. Knowing he wasn't the only one feeling anguish, he swallowed as his muscles relaxed a small bit. "Come on, baby. Let's go home."

Exhaling a sad sigh, she shook her head.

At her obstinate refusal, he attempted to temper both his voice and his impatience. "Sweetheart. We'll work this out, but we're going to need some privacy to do that."

"There's nothing to work out," she said softly, looking at the floor.

"Well, since you're my wife, I'm going to have to disagree."

Her eyes lifted. "That's not your choice, Nick. I get it a say in this."

Pissed now, he sucked in oxygen through gritted teeth. "No, I don't think you do."

Her eyes sharpened. "Don't be that way."

He ground his back teeth together as he braced his legs apart. "I'm losing patience here, so get anything you might need. I'm ready to go."

"I'm not going with you."

Every muscle in his body tightened again. "I believe you're mistaken."

Hesitantly, she shook her head.

Nick took a deep breath and tried not to lose it. He tried to remember that Courtney thought this was for his own good. She was wrong about that, but still, he needed to be gentle with her. Where the hell had he been when lessons on gentleness had been given? He gritted his teeth and attempted a calm tone. "Has it occurred to you that my mother obviously knows about us? She wants us to be together, babe. She loves you and wants to keep you in the family. She's smart. She probably figured out years ago that I had it bad for you. Why the hell do you think that I was the first person she called every damn time some kid started hanging around you when you were in Florida?" As he said the words, he realized he was only now beginning to understand the depth of his mother's past manipulations.

Nick straightened to his full height when Courtney's face paled. When she remained silent with a tightened face, as if she were digging her heels in, he pushed off the door and paced toward her. "We can play this a couple of ways," he threatened, pretty much losing patience entirely and looking for her immediate compliance. "You can grab some more stuff if you need it and come home with me where you belong, or I can stay here tonight," he paused for a moment. "With you. In this room." He let her absorb that statement before continuing, "Trust me, my mom would love it if that happened. She'd be pushing for a wedding in the morning, you know she would. You want that to happen?"

Her brows furrowed and her eyes began to swim with tears, a look of misery crossing her face. "Why are you doing this to me?"

He steeled his guts against her distress. Did she really think he was going to simply let her go? He wasn't going to lose her. He. Would. Not. Lose. Her. Unable to hide his feelings, he asked in a curt voice, "Are you kidding me? Why are you doing this to me?"

Pink highlighted her cheekbones. "You know why."

This time, it was Nick who shook his head. "You're not thinking straight. I'm tired of waiting. Get your stuff."

She stood completely still for a moment, looking dazed. "You wouldn't sleep in here with me," she dared. "Not with your mother in the house. It would be way too embarrassing. For all of us."

Nick locked his eyes on hers, fighting both arousal and temper. He knew she was trying to call his bluff, bless her baby heart. She needed to learn and she needed to learn now: He never bluffed. "Try me," he issued the challenge in a tone that demanded her instant capitulation.

As she stared back at him, obviously struggling for control, Nick knew the exact moment when she realized she'd lost this particular fight. With a graceful motion that tied him in knots, she turned away from him, went to her closet and took a small bag from the top shelf.

He let out a slow relieved breath, refusing to think about how badly things could have ended.





Chapter Ten





Courtney beat Nick to the tower by a full seven minutes, extremely pleased with herself. As she raced across the penthouse, she'd had plenty of time to run to her original suite of rooms and lock her bedroom door against his possible intrusion. Possible, right. He'd be trying to get inside her room any second. After changing clothes, she began unpacking her bag, not because she was happy to still be here, but because she didn't want her clothes to wrinkle.

The loud banging on her door made her jump, even though she'd been expecting it sooner or later. "Courtney. Open the damn door."

She looked at the door while she tried to breathe evenly. "No. I'm here where you wanted me to be. Now go away," she responded loudly enough for him to hear but keeping her tone below a shout.

Unfortunately, Nick had no problem shouting. "Open. The. Door. Now."

"Go. A. Way." Pushing the syllables out one at a time as he did, Courtney sank down on her bed and waited, knowing damn good and well this was another battle she was going to lose.

"You want me to break down your goddamn door?" he asked, changing tack, his voice coming out almost pleasantly.

"No, I do not," she answered back with a false sweetness.

"Then make a choice. You've got five seconds."

Courtney's pulse began hammering.

"Five." The word came our harsh and threatening. He sounded even angrier than she'd thought he'd be.

But she didn't think that Nick would break down the door.

"Four."

Could he break down the door? He probably could, but he'd only have to get it repaired later.

"Three."

Shit.

"Two."

Courtney opened the door and glared at him. Her eyes narrowed when she saw the key in his hand. "You've got a key to my room?" His expression was pissed, but his stance appeared casual. He was barefoot, obviously having kicked his shoes and socks off while he'd counted outside her door, and the fact that he'd started stripping was making her heart race even faster.

"Yeah. I could bust the door, but why not use the key?"

"So you lied to me?" she asked. "Were you trying to scare me? Didn't you think the threat of using the key would be bad enough? You had to threaten to bust down the door?"

He shrugged as if unconcerned and took a step forward while she took a step back. "All's fair in love and war."

She studied him a moment, seeing the steel in his demeanor that he was making little effort to hide. Suddenly tired of the heartache, about half of the fight went out of her. "So is it love or war?" she questioned him softly.

His eyes narrowed as he pocketed the key. "I think it's love but evidently, you want to make it war." Courtney's heart raced triple time, both from the look in his eyes and from the knowledge that he could unlock her door anytime he cared to.

She stiffened her spine as Nick took another step forward and then another until he'd backed her up against the wall. He lifted one of her hands and held it above her head, pressing his torso into hers.

He stared down and she couldn't miss the fire in his eyes. Holding her hand captive against the wall, he pushed against her. His muscles were tensed, his body rigid when he spoke. "I'm about to show you how much I love you, how wrong you are to want to get away from me, but I have one thing to say to you first." His inflection changed on the last few words and Courtney heard anger in its purest form infiltrate his tone. When he fell into an aggrieved silence she swallowed and braced herself for whatever was coming. His eyes pierced into hers and then he continued in a forceful hiss, "If I ever catch you driving that fast again, you're going to live to regret it, understand me?"

His tone turned so antagonistic that she froze, not moving or speaking.

"You understand me, Courtney? I swear to God, you take a chance like that again, I'll personally peel your pants off your little ass and spank you so hard you'll be blistered for a week." Her lungs seized up at his air of menace. His features darkened and grew even stormier. "Got me, babe?"

Courtney swallowed hard, thinking about her choices. She knew she'd been somewhat careless, but she wasn't about to admit to it now. "I was being careful. I know how to drive," she shot back, belligerence only a heartbeat away.

His gaze became even more pointed and his jaw flexed in pure, unadulterated anger. "Wrong fucking answer." With that, his strong arms hauled her away from the wall and over to the bed. She began to yank on her hand and dig her heels in as he backed down on the bed to sit. It was useless, he was too strong, and as he pulled her down and over his thighs in the classic pose of a spanking about to happen, Courtney began to struggle in earnest.

"Let. Go," she enunciated loudly and clearly, thrashing her head as she pushed her legs, trying to get away. It was impossible. Nick laid one brawny arm across the back of her thighs to hold her in place.

"You're never going to drive that fast again, understand me?" he pushed out in a pissed, labored tone.

Courtney couldn't move her legs at all, and panic began to set in as she tried to swivel her body toward his to get her butt away from his line of fire, but his grip was too strong. "I want a divorce!" In an effort to get him to stop what he was about to do, she repeatedly drummed one arm on his leg until she realized that it was futile and that she was only bruising herself. When she felt him drag her satin tap shorts down and scrunch them around her thighs, exposing her naked butt, she went wild. "Stop it! Goddammit, Nick, stop it!"