He pulled back the covers, and she crawled into bed.
“Let me take care of you. I’ll still be here when you wake up.”
“Okay,” she whispered.
As soon as he disappeared, fresh tears hit her anew. She didn’t even know why she was crying. Her emotions felt like a tangled knot in her chest. She couldn’t differentiate one from the other. She just cried and let it out—everything that pained her, everyone who had ever hurt her.
Her father.
Her mother.
Celia.
Pace.
Jude.
Gates.
Avery.
Tara.
Stacia.
Eric.
Just a long list of people who had disappointed her and people she had disappointed. They all scrambled together, their faces morphing into one, until her tears were just a cascading waterfall of her pain. She unleashed it on the world, fighting with herself for even feeling. How dare I feel!
The tears ached and tore at her, but no matter what she did, she couldn’t escape the darkness that pulled her under.
Bryna awoke with a start.
She clutched at the sheets in a panic. Her eyes flew open. She couldn’t remember where she was, and for one blissful moment, she forgot everything. Then, it came back to her, knocking into her with a ferocious vengeance.
Her heart hammered in her chest, and she waited until it returned to its normal cadence before deciding to check the clock. 3:00 p.m. She had slept through most of the day. Sleeping had given her some perspective and made her more alert. She wrenched the sheet off the bed, wound it around her body, and wandered into the main living area of the penthouse. She didn’t know who she might encounter or else she likely would have gone in the nude.
But no one was out there. The blinds were drawn, so none of the afternoon light could filter into the room. Only one of the rooms off of the living space had a light on, and she walked in that direction.
Hugh was working in an office, as she had found him so many times in his Vegas suite. It was a comforting sight. At least some things hadn’t changed.
“Do you ever sleep?” she asked.
In a slow and desirous fashion, his eyes moved up her body covered in nothing but a sheet. “Only on weekends when I’m with you.”
“Come to bed,” she encouraged. “It’s late.”
“Or early. It is the middle of the afternoon after all.”
She walked over to him and let the sheet slit up one leg, as if she were wearing an expensive ballroom gown. “Come to bed,” she repeated.
Hugh grabbed her without pretense and pulled her in front of him, so she was seated on his desk. “I think I’ll have my bed here.”
He leaned forward and kissed her neck, savoring the taste to her shoulder. Then, he removed the thin sheet to expose her body to him. She didn’t cover up even though she felt bare—mind, body, and soul at this point. His lips moved to her breast, and she arched against him, willing him to devour her whole.
“I want you so much more than this, Bri.” He kissed his way to the other breast.
“What do you want?” She was sure she sounded like she was pleading with him.
“Everything.” He leaned her backward, so she lay across his desk. “Let go with me.”
His fingers trailed a line down her sides to grip her hips. His eyes roamed her body as he kissed down her navel. She sucked in a deep breath.
“I do,” she murmured.
“You come to me with worries, but you are still so far away.”
“I’m right here.” She ground her hips in a circle as a reminder.
“I know.” He sighed and sat back up before indulging.
She quivered underneath him, desperate for his touch, desperate to forget.
“I know how much you’re hiding, and I don’t know why.”
“Hiding?”
This conversation had shifted.
“Do you think I would start a relationship with you without knowing everything I could first?” he asked.
In confusion, Bryna sat up quickly. Her stomach dropped out, and fear seemed to reign over all other emotions. What did he know? How much did he know? And how did he know it?
“What?” she asked.
“I’ve been waiting all this time for you to tell me. I want you to admit who you are. I’ll still love you either way.”
Bryna startled. “L-love me?”
“I know.” He looked down and then up again into her eyes. “I couldn’t hold it in any longer. Of course I love you. I was lost when I first met you. I don’t care that you’re an eighteen-year-old college student. I don’t care that you told me you were going to Miami to hang out with your girlfriends when you were there for the play-off game. Did you think I wouldn’t notice the coincidence? There’s so much. I don’t care who you are or where you came from. I’m tired of the lies.”
She was slack-jawed at his admission.
“When I’m with you, I want you, not the illusion you’ve created,” he continued.
“I don’t know what to say.”
He knew everything about her, but she knew next to nothing about him. She hadn’t wanted to know. She had thought that was part of the arrangement. He was married, and she was his sugar baby. That was how this worked. She didn’t love him, and she certainly couldn’t say she did.
“I don’t expect you to say anything. I’m sure it’s all a shock, but I want you, Bryna,” he said, using her name for the first time. “Choose me.”
Haven’t I already done that by flying out here?
She swallowed. There was no other choice.
“I choose you.”
Hugh leaned her back against the desk and made his way back down her body. The intensity with which he consumed her revealed how much her words meant to him. She came, writhing on the table under his capable hands and practiced mouth. Her world slipped away, and she used the ecstasy of this dream to help her forget what she had left behind, to remind her why she had chosen this to begin with.
She heard a zipper, and then his pants hit the floor.
“Fuck, Bryna,” he groaned.
He maneuvered himself to her opening, and she felt the building pressure when he entered her in one swift motion. He wasn’t gentle with her, and she liked it. It felt like punishment. She needed it. She let it wrap all around her. She wanted him to be brutal, to fuck away her nightmares.
He rocked into her again and again, leaving nothing but the sound of their bodies slapping together in their wake. When Hugh flipped her over and forced her flat against his desk, she tried to push the image of Eric out of her mind. She had decided long ago that he didn’t matter. She needed to remember it again.
Hugh gripped her tighter, and she felt her own climax building, despite her dark thoughts. Or maybe it was because of her dark thoughts. She didn’t even know anymore. All she knew was that they hit that spot together. Both soared away to another place and another time, and her release left her in tatters once more.
THE NEXT MORNING, Bryna felt like hell. Even though she had slept for nearly a day straight, it hadn’t helped. She had bags under her eyes from crying, and her stomach was still in her throat.
She applied a healthy dose of makeup to get rid of the side effects of her unnecessary tears. She grabbed her phone and checked it for the first time since she had landed in New Jersey. She had three missed calls and five text messages from Eric. She sighed heavily. Great.
She opened the first one.
I know I fucked up. That wasn’t how I wanted to tell you that I like you. Please let me explain. I don’t want to lose you.
Bryna closed her eyes and fought back the wave of emotions that hit her. She couldn’t do this. She needed some time away to think about what she wanted to do. She had chosen Hugh last night, and right now, that was where she needed to be. She deleted the other messages before reading them and tucked her phone away in her purse. She promised herself she wouldn’t look at it again while she was here.