Christmas at the Castello(6)

 

He slid his arms under her knees, picked her up and strode through the  apartment to his bedroom. It was a big mistake to take her there, he  knew. If he did, he would never get her out of his head. It was his bed,  his space he'd created when she'd left him hollow and broken. To let  her violate it again was surely unwise, but he wasn't thinking with his  head-he was thinking with another body part entirely.

The play of the moonlight through the skylight was all he needed to  absorb his wife's jaw-dropping beauty as he deposited her on the bed.  She was everything he'd ever wanted, everything he could no longer let  himself want. Not after this.

He stripped off his pants, shirt and tie and slid on a condom. Diana  was staring at him as if he was a beast on the prowl, and he liked that.  Liked when she was at his mercy. He straddled her, pinning her to the  bed with his heavier weight. She looked brazen with her dress half-off  and her eyes full of desire. He ran a hand from her throat to the heat  between her legs, pushing her dress up to her waist. Her lips parted in  an unspoken message. The urge to kiss her, to take possession of her  sultry full mouth, was so strong it nearly consumed him. He swallowed it  back, clamped his jaw down hard on the need. If he did that, this  bedroom would never be his own.

"Coburn?" Diana lifted her hand to curve around his nape. Her dark eyes  were confused, questioning. He closed his against the emotion he saw  there because now it was too much for him. Now it threatened to singe  him beyond repair. He allowed her fingers to bring his head down toward  her parted lips, but at the last minute he turned his head and buried  his mouth in her throat. She went rigid beneath him. He captured her  nipple in his mouth to distract her, his hand moving down her stomach to  ready her silken flesh for him. The stiffness left her on a low,  reluctant moan.

That was when he took her with a powerful, driving thrust. She  accommodated him easily. She had been built to take him. He had to close  his eyes to hang on to the moment, to focus on the pleasure drawing the  act out would bring both of them, or he would have been lost, she felt  that exquisitely good. Like returning to heaven.

That last thought in particular drove him forward, a mixture of anger  and need behind his powerful thrusts. He slid his palms under her hips  to take it deeper, until she squeezed her eyes shut and he knew it was  so good for her it was almost too much. He slowed it down then, gentled  his movements despite the emotion raging in his blood. When she relaxed  beneath him, he angled her hips with his palms and stroked to that place  inside her that gave her the deepest, most satisfying release. Her body  clenched around him, reaching for it.

"Please."

"Look at me."

She opened her eyes. They were glazed, drunk with the promise of  ecstasy. He gripped her hips more firmly with his hands and moved inside  her with deliberate, pleasure-inducing strokes designed to give her  release. When she came, he saw the whole thing happen in her ebony eyes.

He waited until her breathing slowed, her eyes cleared and she was  fully with him before he sought his release. He wanted her to remember  every minute, every second of this when she was with someone else, when  some other man claimed her beautiful body and he was relegated to a  footnote in her life.

He wanted it to be so good he'd ruin her for anyone else. Wanted her to know the agony of wanting something you couldn't have.

Her eyes fluttered open to stare into his. He wrapped one of her long,  elegant legs around his waist and took her with deliberate, deep  insistent strokes that dismantled any last bit of composure he saw on  her beautiful face. When it became too good, too exquisite to take, he  arched his back and let the release consume him. His brain faded to  black. Nothing but the pleasure raging through him could touch him.

He lay there, supporting part of his weight on his palms until he  recovered himself. Diana's satiny limbs were wrapped around him, her  scent filling his nostrils. Long moments later, when his breath had come  back, he registered her stillness beneath him. Levering himself off  her, he studied her stricken face. She had expected this to change  everything as it always had. She had expected to crack his shell.         

     



 

He rolled off her and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Fury  sizzled through his blood as he stood up and stared down at her. "Was  that a good enough performance for the memory book? Or should we do it  again?"

Her face lost all its color. She sat up and pulled her dress down to cover her. "No," she said slowly, "that was perfect."

"Good." He waved a hand at the shower. "I'm going to clean up. Feel free to join me."

But she didn't. He knew she wouldn't. When he emerged from the shower  ten minutes later, she was gone, just as she'd been gone the last time.  He took one look at the bed, threw on some clothes and walked out into  the dark, quiet night. If he'd thought it would feel good, this victory  over her, it didn't. It felt as if he'd just impaled himself on his own  sword.



Diana wasn't sure how she got to Beth's house. Didn't even know she was  crying until she'd pulled her keys out on her friend's doorstep and was  fumbling while trying to get them into the lock, her gaze too blurred  to see. Her palm pressed against the door as she jammed the key in  harder. The door opened from the inside, sending her tumbling across the  jamb.

"Sweetheart." Beth caught her forearms and steadied her. "What's wrong?"

The tears turned into a torrent, sliding down her cheeks unchecked. "I am s-so s-stupid."

Beth pulled the door shut, retrieved her keys and guided her into the cozy little living room. "You saw him, I take it?"

She choked back a sob at that vast understatement of what had just  happened. She had just had steamy, intensely uninhibited sex with her  soon-to-be ex, who'd tossed her aside afterward as if she meant nothing  to him.

Beth's lips tightened. "I'm getting us some tea, then we talk."

Diana kicked off her shoes, curled up on the sofa and grabbed the box  of tissues sitting on the coffee table. Images from the night flew at  her like jagged pieces of a puzzle that didn't make any sense in her  head. She hadn't consciously gone to that party tonight to have that  showdown with Coburn, but it was clear now that unconsciously she had.  Her heart hadn't mended since that night she'd walked out on him. She  still wasn't over him, and worse, she'd been holding out some hope he  might still love her.

A sitcom Beth had been watching blared from the TV. She sat watching it  with unseeing eyes. Had she been hoping Coburn would confess he felt  the same way? That that was the real reason he hadn't initiated a  divorce?

She swallowed hard. What a stupid, blind woman she was. She had set  herself up for that tonight. Set herself up for Coburn's masterful  demonstration of just how little he cared. Because after what he'd just  done to her? Those flashes of emotion she'd thought she'd seen in his  eyes must had been figments of her imagination. Evidence she'd used to  justify the need to be in his arms again. Because being without him had  been as if a part of her was missing and she couldn't seem to get it  back.

Was that a good enough performance for the memory book? Or should we do it again?

His brutal words ripped at her insides. Bile rose in her throat. She  might have been sick if she'd had anything more than a couple of hors  d'oeuvres in her stomach. She swallowed the nausea down, pushing it  away. How had she let herself do that after a whole year of telling  herself she couldn't be anywhere near him? Where had the measured  rationality she was known for in her work been when she needed it most?

Beth came back, handing her a steaming mug of her favorite peppermint  tea. Her best friend since med school sat down on the other end of the  sofa with her own mug of tea. "Tell me what happened."

Diana pushed her disheveled hair out of her face and gave her nose one  last swipe. "I saw him and I was so ready to be cool and composed, and  then I just- I mean-" She let out a long sigh. "I'm still in love with  him."

Her friend grimaced. "And there's a newsflash."
         

     



 
She pressed her hands to her temples. "He gave this toast to Annabelle  and Tony that ended up being all about us and, God, it was awful.  Everyone was staring at us."

Beth's eyes rounded. "He did not."

She nodded. "Then he insisted on going back to his apartment and talking."

"What is there to talk about? You two are getting divorced tomorrow."

"He was angry. He accused me of running away from our problems. He said  I was a spoiled little rich girl who'd run back to Daddy when the going  got tough." She threw her friend a despairing look. "But honestly, how  many more times could we argue about the same things? It was getting  toxic."

"You tried, Di." Beth's gaze softened. "I watched you try, I watched  you suffer, but you are just two very different people with very  different ideas of what you want out of life."