"I can walk, you know."
He placed me on the bed, following me down, rubbing his hard cock on my thigh. "Not after tonight," he said darkly, nipping at my neck as I laughed and squealed for mercy. He kissed me thoroughly then and the mood changed. He made love to me slowly and sweetly this time and I fell asleep in his arms, not waking until the sun was lighting the room in a soft, golden glow, welcoming us to a brand new day.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Brogan
The next few weeks went by simultaneously in a haze of bliss and a blur of regret.
Lydia came to work with me every day, exerting her feminine charm in situations I would have handled completely differently, and astounding me with the ease in which she achieved the positive results that likely would have taken Fionn or me weeks or months. She was that bright hummingbird I remembered-flitting everywhere, coloring my days with spirit and vibrancy, completely in her element.
And the nights . . . the nights were filled with bliss beyond my wildest imagination. Lydia learned what I liked as if my body was the subject and she was the most committed student who ever lived. I began to trust her in a way I didn't think was possible to trust a woman, which in turn allowed me to relax and enjoy the sensations she aroused in me. She always seemed to know when something was bordering on too much or when there was room to push me to greater heights, and I in turn, learned my own limits through my surrender to her. She had never been with anyone else, but in some ways, neither had I. In bed, I had never known true surrender, I had never known joy.
I felt hunger in the way I'd known hunger before, only this time I was even more insatiable. I knew I'd never be satisfied, never have enough, never be filled no matter how much I partook. She was a buffet of the finest delicacies life had to offer me, and I wanted to binge and devour every luscious morsel. I wanted to be sure that what I needed and wanted so desperately would always be available to me-I didn't want to feel this faint panic after every time we made love, the way I'd felt before when I'd had to scrounge for every small meal.
But that was the way of hunger, wasn't it? Even as it was being satisfied, there laid the knowledge it would need to be satisfied again . . . and again.
So I studied her body, too, worshipping every inch of her skin night after glorious night, learning the scents and textures of every part of her, not satisfied until she had an orgasm so intense she screamed my name. And then we'd sleep wrapped in each other's arms through the night.
And I knew I loved her. Deeply. Intensely. I had always loved her, even when I hadn't wanted to. But now it was different. I had wanted to give her the world when I was seventeen, and now I could. I had wanted to give her my heart, and now I could. I would. Every part of my heart.
And yet . . . I was still in the midst of cleaning up the mess I myself had created. I had Fionn take Lydia to dinner under the guise I had more work to do while I repaid her brother's debt to the mob in the form of illegal number crunching.
I hated it-it made me feel owned and powerless, and yet it was the price I had to pay to make up for the situation we were in. I just didn't want Lydia to know. I didn't want her to be burdened with the information, I didn't want the knowledge of illegal activity to put her in any more potential danger, and truthfully, I didn't want her to feel less about me. I was not the stand-up businessman she thought. And when we worked together at my office, solving a problem for a family who had no one else to turn to, she looked at me as if I were some sort of hero. I didn't want to tell her I wasn't. I was just a man who was still scrabbling and cheating and trying to justify the means to an end I was dreaming about so hard it felt like an obsession.
I wanted Lydia. I wanted her forever. And I ached for her to want me back. I wanted her to admire me, to respect me. I wanted her to love me. Me. She had loved me. Would she now? And sometimes, as I gazed at her in the moonlight of my bedroom, our limbs tangled together, our bodies intimately connected, I dared to hope she might.
I knew that once I finished this final job, Lydia wouldn't be in danger, and realistically, she could safely move back to her own apartment. Yet, I wanted her with me. She didn't seem in any hurry to leave, which gave me further hope she didn't want our time living together to end either.
We had both been distracted by everything going on and hadn't remembered to send someone to get more clothes for her, and so after work one day, I accompanied her to her place so she could pack a few more things.
I'd seen her apartment from the outside, a modest brick building in Brooklyn, but the inside was even more modest than the outside. When I saw the difference between where Stuart and Lydia lived, I wanted to beat Stuart De Havilland's arse even more than I had before.
What kind of arsehole let his sister live in a small, run-down studio when he lived in luxurious high style? I thought about Eileen and how I'd kick my own arse before I'd watch her struggle if I could do anything about it, if adjusting my lifestyle meant making things better for her. Then again, I'd done things I'd regret forever to make things better for Eileen. Maybe there was some sort of happy medium. Fionn enjoyed telling me I didn't always need to be so extreme. And yet I wasn't sure how to be anything else. Extreme had gotten me where I was today.
"Do you think we could spend the weekend in Greenwich?" she asked as she packed.
"Sure," I said distractedly, tracing a large crack in her wall with my finger and frowning. "Why?"
"I just thought it'd be nice to get out of the city, enjoy some sunshine," she said. She came up behind me, wrapping her arms around my waist and laying her head on my back. I dropped my hand from the wall and looked at her over my shoulder.
"Anythin' you want, Lydia," I said, my voice cracking before I cleared my throat. She smiled and pulled away.
I walked to her refrigerator and pulled the freezer open, noting two piles of Budget Gourmets and two ice trays, nothing more. I stared glumly at the small boxes of frozen food. Budget frozen food.
The first time I'd seen Stuart after I'd decided to take over his company, he'd been dining at one of the most expensive restaurants on Madison Avenue. I'd wanted to get a fix on him, find out what kind of life he was leading, how much he might be tempted to lose to me in a poker game. I'd found out he was already addicted to the lust of the game. I just hadn't delved any deeper into Lydia's life. If I had . . . would it have changed my mind? Would it have caused me to change course? I wanted to believe it would, but I wasn't so sure . . .
This though, right here, this was the life I'd interrupted. This was the life I'd set out to ruin.
I love you and you were living here and I hate myself for it. How can you not hate me, too?
If only I'd walked up to her at that party, like I'd mentioned to her in Greenwich. If only I'd found a way to let go of the past and returned to her and begged her . . . but no, I'd never beg. I'd promised myself I'd never beg again. And yet for Lydia . . .
"Are you hungry?" she asked, interrupting my thoughts.
I slammed the freezer door closed. "No," I said. "Ready?"
The expression on her face was mildly confused, but she smiled and we left her apartment and returned to mine. That night I made love to her three times, unable to get enough, unable to quench the longing, knowing somehow I was at risk of losing her, of being left hungry forever, and not being able to figure out why I was so gripped by fear.
**********
When the concierge at Stuart's apartment building called his line to announce me, the pause was so long I thought I was going to have to grab the phone and threaten Stuart to let me up. But just as I was about to do so, the concierge looked at me and nodded toward the elevators.
A few minutes later I knocked on Stuart's door and he answered as if he'd been standing right behind it waiting for me. "Stuart," I greeted, working not to grimace at the foul odor that permeated his apartment. God, had something died in here?
"What do you want?" he asked sulkily. I narrowed my eyes at him as he closed the door. He looked awful, far worse than he had the last time I'd seen him. Either this situation was severely stressing him out or he was consuming more drugs and alcohol than I'd imagined. Maybe all of the above. "I'm busy."
"No, you're not. Your only job these days, evidently, is drinking and doing a fuck ton of nothing."