I just never expected that need to cut both ways.
I laugh and chug the rest of the whiskey in the bottle, only a few swallows, but enough to burn the whole way down. How much of this did I kill off in just the last few hours since the shower?
Fuck it.
I laugh again and toss the bottle at the wall. Grin as it shatters into a million pieces.
Just like all of my plans.
I can't go through with that video. I can't pull the trigger; can't break her the way I need to in order to make this work. And knowing Pamona now, I'm sure she would never agree to it anyway.
Fucking hell.
What did I do?
There's a knock at the door, and I snarl, "Go away."
"Farrow?"
I clench my jaw. Pamona.
I don't say anything else. I don't tell her to come in. I don't tell her to leave either.
The door creaks open slowly. Pamona sidles inside. Takes a glance at me, the bottle shattered against the wall, the glass in my hand. She crosses the room and plucks the glass from my limp fingers. Sets it on the desk beside me, then crouches in front of me, eyes on mine.
There's pity in her gaze. That's one thing I cannot stand.
I surge to my feet and pull her up with me. Wrap my hands around her shoulders, not tight enough to hurt. Just enough to hold her here. Make her see what she did.
"You've ruined everything," I say, my voice low and even and surprisingly steady. "Everything I spent the last five years working for. My life's goal. Ruined."
"Farrow, you've had too much to drink. You don't know what you're saying … "
"That night, five years ago. The night in the alley."
"I remember." She cups my cheek, catches my eye with a gaze so sincere and steady that it actually hurts to look at her. My chest hurts.
"That was the start of my path to failure. I thought it was the start of this plan, my way to revenge, but … " I shake my head. Rest my forehead against hers. "It wasn't. It was the start of my path to … "
"To what?" Her voice is a whisper between us.
"To you. To these feelings I can't control. To loving you even though I don't want to," I admit. Something tugs inside me and I can't resist anymore. I pull her against me and kiss her, slow and steady.
It feels different than before. This is a kiss without an agenda. Without a plan or a hidden plot. Without thinking about my past or her father's future, the demise I want to plan for him.
This is just me: a man, kissing her, a woman. The woman whose virginity I took. The woman who spent the last month caring for me, even as I tried to ruin her.
The woman I'm falling for.
This is love, and it hurts worse than anything.
Pamona kisses me back, softly, gently, like she's afraid I'll break. And maybe I will. When we finally pull apart, she rests her forehead against mine and smiles at me. "Thank you, Farrow," she whispers.
She doesn't say she loves me too. Another cut, another blow.
I laugh softly. Because of course she doesn't.
How could she love me? I kidnapped her. I tried to destroy her.
But she's tugging on my hand, drawing me toward the bed, and I don't want to think too hard about that. About how we wound up here and what I did to get her here.
She wants one last time with me before I have to let her go. I'm going to forget about the future. Live in this moment because I already know it will be our last time together.
We fall onto the bed in a tangle of limbs and lips and teeth. She bites my lip, and I groan softly. Tug free and kiss my way along her neck, her collarbone, her chest. I pull her shirt off and unclasp her bra. Kiss along her breasts, one at a time, and suck her nipples into my mouth, first one, then the next, circling my tongue against them until her nipples harden.
I cannot get enough of her smooth skin, her perfect body. She is gorgeous, perfect, untouched … And knowing that I was the first man to have her is hotter than I could have imagined.
I slide my way back up her body as she tugs my shirt off, and I let her explore me, her hands tracing my muscles as I kiss her soft, supple mouth, her long, graceful neck. I sink my hands into her hair and pin her against me, loving the way her curves meld against my body, her chest heaving against mine. I kiss her neck, sink my teeth into the sensitive spot below her ear, and savor her faint gasp, the way she clenches her arms around me, holds me closer. Her mouth feathers along my neck, hesitant, tentative, and yet so much more confidant than she was when we first started to have sex just a couple of weeks ago.
I told her she was a fast learner, and she really is.
When I finally pull off her jeans and spread her legs, I can't help sliding down to taste her pussy once more. The glorious, semi-sweet flavor, the way she pants and gasps as I work her with my tongue … I will never get tired of this. Feeling her give in to me, her resistance collapsing.
When she's wet and quivering, I part her legs, loving the way she immediately wraps them around my waist, drawing me to her hungrily. I have to stop her before we get too close. I reach into my pocket for a condom. I slip it onto my cock right before I plunge into her, her tight pussy contracting around me. It's all I can do not to lose it then and there.
I want to fuck her forever.
I want to make love to her forever. I want to never have to let her go.
I know I will, soon, and it only makes pull her closer to me. Kiss her harder, fiercely. Her mouth works against mine just as desperately, and her hips arch up in time with my thrusts when I start to move.
Her hands grip my back, my ass, her nails digging in hard enough to mark me. I'm probably leaving bruises on her ass as I thrust into her, slamming deep inside every time, my balls slapping against her. Neither of us cares. We want to leave marks. We want the other one to be stuck with the memory of us, long after tonight.
I already know I will be.
We finish at the same time, Pamona arching into me and groaning, her body quivering as she climaxes. I finish with a shout, calling her name, and she kisses me hard before I even finish, bucking her hips beneath me, clenching her pussy tight around my cock as though she wants to milk every last drop from me.
For a long time after we finish, I just lie against her chest, both of us covered in sweat, the scent of sex flooding the room around us. She holds me there, hands running through my hair, and neither of us needs to speak to know what we're both thinking about.
She's about to leave.
8
Pamona leaves today.
I've been up since dawn walking through the gardens. I can't stand to watch her wake up, eat breakfast with Betsy. Act like everything is normal, except for the fact that there's a car idling out front, the driver ready to take her to the airport. To her future without me.
After today, I will never see her again. I've already sworn that to myself. I'll leave her and her family alone.
But I don't know what to do now. Where to direct my attention. I've spent so long living for revenge, I feel empty without it.
Without her.
My body actually hurts, and I wonder if this is how my father felt when he died. Aching so badly for his lost wife that the pain was physical.
Finally, the sun reaches high enough to stream through the trees in the garden, and I abandon the little table where I watched Pamona sketch roses, just like my mother did all those years ago. I walk back to the house, steeling myself to face my fate.
But when I head upstairs to change, I notice something odd. On the door of the office, where Pamona caught me a few days ago, where we had sex in the chair and then I pulled her into the shower after, there's a note.
Watch Me.
Frowning, I open the door. The computer is on and a video file is open on the desktop.
Play, says a note taped to the screen. I stride across the room. Peel the note off, and sit down in front of the computer.
She didn't, I think, reaching for the mouse. She wouldn't.
Something unpleasant curls in my stomach. I don't want this anymore. I don't want Pamona to debase herself just for revenge. That would hurt her as much as it would hurt her father, and I can't stomach the thought of that.
But I hit play because I know I need to see this.
"Hi," says Pamona from the computer screen. She's sitting right here, in this room, and for a second, I turn around, as if expecting her to be behind me. Of course she isn't.
"I debated making this video," she adds, and I turn back to the screen to watch her. I study her curves, the delicate arch of her neck. The way her pert, supple lips part around these words. "But in the end, I decided that the cause was worth it. The risk was worth it. Whatever happens in my future from here, I accept it."
Pamona, please don't.
"I am Pamona Badiary. Daughter of Calvin Badiary. That man, my father, has ruined the lives of the Lochlans-his business partner Andrew Lochlan, his wife Meredith Lochlan, and his son, Farrow Lochlan."
I swallow hard around a lump in my throat.
"My father did terrible things. Things I never knew about. But now I know who he truly is. I understand the depths of his monstrosity, and a man like him, like my father, needs to be brought low. He cannot go on getting everything he wants in the world, when he uses and abuses everyone around him to get it."