Carae's Touch (Long Line of Love, #4) (22 page)

"And the fact that you're expecting her to prove her love while not feeling the need to prove yours," Bancroft said.

He stared at Bancroft. "Is that how you see things?"

"I'm betting that's how she sees it and that's what counts."

D
riving to dinner three hours later, Brandon noted how quiet Carae was. "Are you all right?" he asked as he held the restaurant door open for her.

"This is probably as good as it's going to get," she said.

Damn. They didn't speak again until they were seated opposite each other at one of his favorite restaurants. "I need to talk to you," she said.

He sipped his seltzer water. "I'm listening." 

"Not here."

His anticipation rose. Was she finally ready to tell him she was pregnant? "Would you like to change our order to take out and go home to talk?"

She shook her head. "No, we need to talk, but I'm not sure how you're going to react to what I have to tell you."

Sensing her need for reassurance, he reached across the table to place his hand over hers. "You can tell me anything, Carae."

"I hope you mean that, Brandon."

"I do," he assured her, eager to make it as easy as possible for her to tell him she was pregnant.

"Then let's have dinner first. We can talk later in private."

He resisted the urge to insist she confide in him immediately and sat through

what felt like the longest hour and a half of his life. Finally, they left the restaurant and he sat on the love seat in his living room watching her pace in front of him. "I'm ready to listen when you're ready to talk," he told her quietly.

She took a long deep breath and turned to face him. "This is so much harder to say than I thought it would be."

"Would it help to know how eager I am to hear what you want to tell me?"

She took another deep breath, shook her head, and spoke slowly. "She asked me to tell you that you misunderstood her."

Certain that she had been about to tell him she was carrying his baby, her words confused him. He stared at her. "What? I misunderstood who?"

"When are you going to tell me about her?"

"What?"

"When are you going to tell me about Rissa?"

How the hell had she gone from about to tell him she was pregnant to insisting he talk about Rissa?  He sighed. "This isn't the conversation I thought we would be having."

"It's the one we...I need you to have."

"I know, but—"

"Before you say you're still not ready, I think you should know that she thinks it's time."

He frowned. "Who thinks it's time? Lelia? Tempest? Benai? Who thinks she has the right to dictate when I should discuss anything?"

"No. Not them.''

"Then who? I know Avan—"

"Rissa."

"What? Who? What did you say?"

She took a deep breath before turning to meet his gaze. "Rissa."

"What?!"

"You're probably going to think I'm nuts, but she's been talking to me."

"Who's been talking to you?"

"I know it sounds crazy, but the night you first...were intimate with me, I was sound asleep. She woke me up and urged me to go to your bedroom and she urged me to stay so you could...for the second time. Since then, she's...for lack of a better word, talked to me several times."

"You're saying Rissa has talk to you?"

"Oh yes."

He shook his head. "She's talked to you, but not to me?"

"She wanted to."

"Then why haven't I heard from her?"

"She's tried but she said you weren't open to hearing her."

Recalling the many months he'd long to hear from her, made nonsense of her claim. "The hell I wasn't."

"I found that difficult to believe too, but I'm only telling you what she told me. She said your unwillingness to hear her, along with your no longer wearing the ring you never got a chance to give her, was how she knew you were ready to move on with me."

He stared at her, struggling with emotions he wasn't sure how to handle. He shook his head and turned away.

She reached out to catch his hand. "There's something else she wanted me to tell you."

"I don't want to hear it, Carae."

"I know what I've said has been hard for you to hear, but it's important."

He pulled his hand from hers. "I said I don't want to hear it and that's what I meant."

"Brandon, please. She begged me to tell you this."

The thought that Rissa would reach out to a stranger while shutting him out, hurt far more than he could bear at the moment. That pain made him far less diplomatic than he might otherwise have been. "What part of I don't want to hear it are you having difficulty understanding, Carae?"

"Are you telling me you're not going to listen to what I need to say to you?"

"Not if it includes you're trying to tell me what happened between me and Rissa."

"Please don't misunderstand. That's not what I'm trying to do, Brandon. I'm trying to tell you what she wants you to know."

"I don't want to hear it."

She stared at him with a glimmer of tears in her eyes. "Are you serious?"

"Damn right I am."

"I do not believe you. Every time I attempt to get close to you, you shove me away. You don't want to hear what I have to say? Fine. I have nothing else to say to you except goodbye."

He heard the frustration in her voice and knew she was close to being fed up with his inability to deal with his issues. Although he didn't want her to reach the point where she gave up on him completely, he felt a sense of betrayal that Rissa had reached out to her but not him. "Carae, I know this is difficult for you, but—"

She shook her head. "We've moved beyond difficult. We're now in impossible territory. You were so right and I couldn't have been more wrong. I have news for you. I have issues of my own and can no longer spend my time trying to deal with your excessive baggage. I'm going down to the lobby to call a cab and I'm going home."

He resisted the urge to ask her to stay. They were clearly incompatible. The sooner he accepted that fact, the sooner they could get over each other. Or so said his mind. His heart had other ideas. "I'll walk you down stairs and wait with you."

"That won't be necessary."

"I'll do it anyway," he said coldly. Despite himself, he was annoyed and hurt at how easily she'd thrown in the towel. He followed her into the bedroom.

She looked at the clothes they'd bought earlier. "Actually, there's nothing of mine here," she finally said.

"I bought the clothes for you with no strings attached. They're yours to take. Please take them."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. I am."

He watched her pack. There were so many things he wanted to say to her, but none of them felt appropriate. So even though he knew he was making a mistake, he said nothing. But allowing her to walk away without any effort to show his feelings made no sense.

The one thing they had in common was their mutual desire. At the moment, that's all he had to fall back on. When she moved to walk past him, he caught her hand and turned her into his embrace. Without giving her much chance to protest, he bent his head and brushed his lips gently against hers.

Her warm, immediate response lifted his spirits. He kissed her lips slowly, making an effort to keep his passion in check. The goal was to be tender and considerate, hopefully showing her without words how deeply he cared about her. But the feel of her lips and tongue moving against his and her warm curves pressing eagerly against his body, made controlling his desire and need for her difficult.

Easing her against the wall by the door, he slid his palms down her back and under her clothes to palm her bare ass. When she trembled, he rubbed his body against hers and slowly pushed his tongue between her lips and into her mouth.

Kissing her with a heated passion that made him burn to be deep inside her, he ground his hips against hers allowing her to feel his cock hardening.

Sucking on his tongue, she rubbed herself along his shaft while curling her fingers in his hair. The need to be inside her overwhelmed his senses. Releasing her ass, he slid his zipper down allowing him to free his cock.

Deepening his kiss, he pushed up her skirt, eased her thong aside, and rubbed himself against her stomach.

She gasped, shuddering.

Tearing his mouth away from hers, he rubbed his thumb over her clit several times before slipping two fingers inside her. Finding her wet and ready, he eased his fingers out, bent his knees, and slowly pushed his cock deep into the warm, wet pussy he wanted to brand as his exclusive property.

She moaned, sliding her hands down into his jeans to clutch his ass. Rocking her hips, she forced the last inch or so of him into her tight, sweet pussy.

Oh fuck. There was no feeling in the world more exquisite or sublime than having his bare cock buried deep within the tight channel of the woman he loved and adored. Overcome with desire, he lifted one of her legs, pressed her against the wall, and wildly thrust in and out of her in a mindless need for satisfaction.

With her eyes closed and her face lifted, she parted her warm lips, meeting him stroke for stroke. Undulating her beautiful body, she fucked herself on his cock with a single minded purpose that fueled his passion and left him struggling the hold back his climax until she'd come.

Fingering her clit, he rubbed it hard and fast as they fucked each other with an ever increasing roughness. Just as he feared he couldn't hold back any longer, she finally dug her fingers in his ass, shuddered, and came only seconds before he lost it and jetted his cum inside her.

Her soft, warm hands caressed his ass, almost as if to encourage him to pump every drop of his seed inside her. If only she cared enough to tell him she was pregnant. But even her failure to confide in him wasn't enough to ruin his mood. With his eyes closed, he leaned against her, taking slow deep breaths in an effort to hold onto the euphoric feeling as long as possible.

He kept her pressed against the wall with his cock still inside her until she finally pushed against his abs and drew her hips back, allowing his deflating cock to slip from her body.

When he stepped back, they stared at each other in silence.

The cool look in her gaze disheartened him. "I hope you don't think that or whatever the hell you were chanting changes anything between us."

He frowned. "What?"

"You were speaking Tsalagi and I have no idea what you were saying."

Neither had he since he hadn't even been aware he'd said anything.

While he tried to formulate a response, she turned and walked into the master bathroom, closing the door with a decisive firmness. When he heard the water turn on, he went to one of the guest bathrooms to take a quick shower.

With his hair still damp, he returned to the master bedroom to wait. She left the bathroom ten minutes later.

Although he wanted to beg her to stay, he remained silent.

"Will you carry my bags?" she asked.

He nodded.

She walked out of the room without speaking again.

Fuck!

After deciding that giving her a few days to think things over might be the way to go, he picked up her bags and left the room. They went down to the lobby in silence.

The urge to hug her and beg her to please bear with him a little longer was difficult to resist as he held the cab door open for her. However, the look in her eyes assured him doing so would be a waste of both their times.

Nevertheless, once she was seated, he reached in to take both of her hands in his. He kissed them, rubbed each against his cheek, and then stepped back. "I want you. I need you. I do love you," he said.

"I'll believe that when you're ready to really talk to me, Brandon. Not before."

"I have to be in New York at 8:30 tomorrow morning for the first of a series of business meetings that will keep me there until late Thursday night. Will you have dinner with me on Friday night?"

"You expect me to wait until then?"

"I can't get away before then."

"Cancel the meetings."

"I can't. They're with important clients."

"I guess that tells me where I stand with you. Your relationship with her was too important for you to discuss with me. Now your clients are more important than setting things right with me. Clearly I don't matter much to you."

"That's not what I said or meant."

"It's what I'm hearing. I can almost guarantee that I won't be interested in hearing anything you have to say by Friday night. Now, I just want to go home and begin the process of forgetting that I ever met you." She sat back, looking straight ahead.

He closed the cab door and went inside. Back in the condo that had never felt like a home because he'd never shared it with Rissa, he felt more alone than ever. Of course he could call any of his brothers and they would come. But none of them would be able to do anything about the new gaping hole in his heart. Certain he would never recover from this latest hurt, he sank down onto his bed. Although he felt bone weary, he resisted the urge to sleep; afraid he'd spend the night lost in one nightmare after another.

C
arae was surprised that she made it through the entire taxi ride without Rissa imploring her to give Brandon another chance. When she arrived home she found Jim sitting in the living room watching a movie. He glanced up, saw her face, and immediately turned off the television. "I didn't expect to see you tonight," he said patting the seat beside him.

Dropping her bags at her feet she walked across the living room to sit beside him.

He put his arm around her shoulders. "He didn't take the news that he was going to be a father well?"

"I didn't tell him."

"Sooner is better than later," he said in a quiet voice.

"I'm not telling him at all."

"Unless he's abusive, dangerous, or a major dickhead that's not the way to go."

"It is if I decide it is."

"What about his financial obligation?"

She shook his arm off her shoulders and rose. She walked across the room to stare out the window. "I can manage without his financial help."