Crushed (Crystal Brook Billionaires) (28 page)

“Oh.”

“Yeah. You look great. I’ve never seen you so dressed up.”

I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. He still hadn’t started the car, and I found that I didn’t want him to. Despite my earlier irritation over Gwen calling him, now that I was in his presence, I didn’t want to leave.

Owen cleared his throat. I turned away and looked out the window despite there being nothing to see in the darkness but dark, misshapen bushes.

“How has it been going?” he asked.

“Good, good.”

I winced. I sounded like a robot.

“So, um, I wanted to tell you something.”

My faced snapped towards him.

“Gwen told me that you guys saw me recently… with a girl.”

I took in a sharp breath that was dangerously close to a gasp. Could Gwen really not keep her freaking mouth shut for one day? And when on earth was she finding time to meet up with Owen and gossip?

“Okay,” I said since I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“I just wanted you to know that girl was my mom.”

I absorbed the information. “Okay.”

“Gwen didn’t tell you that?”

“No,” I tartly responded, then turned around to take another look at the offending party. There she was, still sleeping away like she’d just got done celebrating her twenty-first birthday.

“Oh. Maybe she wanted me to tell you myself.”

I played with the clasp on my clutch. “I guess. Wait. I’m confused. When were you and Gwen talking about this? And why? And why did she think you were going to tell me?”

“Because… she knows how I feel about you.”

“Oh.” I stared down at my lap. “This is kind of weird and awkward.”

“She came to see me at my house. She invited me to her wedding and… she asked me not to give up on you.”

“What the fuck?” I whispered.

“You’re mad.”

“I…” I bit my lip, holding words back until I figured out exactly how I felt. After a few moments, I still couldn’t unscramble the emotional mess going on inside of me.

“I don’t know,” I finally answered. “God, she’s sneaky.”

“Yeah, she kind of is.”

“A taste of my own medicine, I guess,” I muttered.

“What’s that?”

“I’ve meddled my fair share in her life,” I explained. “It must run in the family.”

“Ah. Gotcha.”

I swallowed hard. “I want to ask what your response was when she said that, but I don’t think I have a right to even know.”

“Oh, Claire.” Owen shook his head. “Don’t say that.”

“I need to. I can’t give you anything good, Owen.”

“Relationships aren’t always about mutual giving. Sometimes one person ends up giving more because the other person happens to be in need. And I’m not just talking about romantic relationships here. I’m also talking about friendships.”

My fingers tangled together in my lap. “I get that. Yeah, it’s true…”

“Do you want to hear what I said?”

I let my head drop forward. “I don’t know,” I moaned. “I don’t know how I feel anymore. All I know is that I still think about Peter all the time. He’s always on my mind… but so are you.”

Owen was silent. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I looked at him. His face was barely visible, but there didn’t seem to be any hints of upset on it.

“It makes sense,” he said. “Don’t beat yourself up for any of the things you feel. Whatever is going on inside of you is right.” He reached for me, then pulled his hand back. “Maybe accepting those feelings and thoughts is the best thing you can do.”

The day at the river came back to me. It was the first time I hadn’t fought the grief. I’d allowed in to encompass me. I’d waited for it to suck me under, and when it hadn’t, I’d been amazed.

On top of that, I’d come out feeling somewhat lighter. The grief was still there, yes, but it was easier to live with.

“It’s like you read my mind,” I whispered.

Owen’s hot gaze fell on me, pressing against my skin.

“I love you, Claire.”

Elation rose in my chest, bubbling up and spilling forth, popping out of me like the cork from that champagne bottle Gwen had been carting around with her.

But a second later, all the air got sucked out from the car. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I could only panic.

Owen kept going. “You don’t have to respond, and I don’t expect you to say it back to me. But I’ve been going months with this secret inside of me. It’s the way I feel about you, the things I seemed to know from the moment I first set eyes on you.”

That moment came rushing back to me full force. Owen, standing on the front stoop of my childhood home. His presence had come like a bolt of lightning. He’d reminded me so much of Peter it had been crazy. I’d been lost in that remembrance, tied down by it.

But Owen hadn’t. He hadn’t been stuck in the past at all. He’d been right there, taking in what was happening. His eyes had gone wide the second he saw me. That much I remembered well.

This whole thing was painful… and it was probably about to get more so.

I couldn’t resist myself, though. I had to know, even if the truth would destroy me.

“What did you know?” I asked through a cracking throat.

“That you and I…” He sighed and ran his palm over his face. “Forget it. Oh my God. I shouldn’t have said anything. This is about you, Claire. I should have just kept my mouth shut. I should have just tried to be your friend.”

“You have been trying,” I whispered.

“Yeah, and I suck at it.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not so good at it myself.”

“So we have that in common.”

“Owen,” I said through gritted teeth. “We’ve already started this conversation, so let’s just finish it before my sister throws up in your car,” I added, trying to lighten the mood and lift some of the anxiety crushing me.

“I’ve said too much.” He shook his head. “I’ve gone too far.”

I clamped my jaw together. “Yeah, maybe you have. I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t do anything.”

I pressed my fingers against my eyes, not caring about smearing my makeup. “I’m sorry about this whole thing. I wish I could love you, Owen. I wish I could open myself up. I wish it was all that fucking easy.”

He didn’t say anything.

I wryly laughed. “The best part about you is you’re not even pushing me. Despite the fact that you say you love me, you’re not trying to make me change my mind. You’re not saying ‘let’s try’ or ‘I can make you feel better.’ You really are amazing.”

“It’s not like I don’t want to say those things.”

I stared sadly at my lap. “Can you take us home now?”

A long stretch of silence.

“Yes,” he dully responded, turning the car on. “To your parents’?”

I gave that some thought. It was closer, but I didn’t want to risk waking everyone up. “No. To Gwen’s house.”

We crept down the road. The streets that had once seemed so comforting to me now felt barren and cruel. They’d turned into the same creatures New York’s streets had. Their sidewalks were traitors, their trees conniving. They’d promised me joy and opportunity, but they’d given me nothing but heartbreak.

So where in the world could I go? Where could I escape the agony?

I couldn’t. What Owen had suggested was true. I needed to accept the pain, needed to make peace with it.

Owen turned the headlights off right before turning into the driveway.

“Let me help you with her,” he said, speaking for the first time since leaving his house.

“Okay. I’ll go unlock the door, and we can carry her upstairs.”

Fumbling, I hurried to the front door. My throat burned. My eyes burned. My heart burned.

I’d cry once he was gone. For the next two minutes, though, I needed to somehow keep it together.

Leaving the door open, I crept back down to the driveway. Owen was pulling Gwen from the car, and I stepped over to help, wrapping my arm around her waist.

She stirred and made some noise as we shuffled up the walkway.

“We can just put her on the couch,” I said, eyeing the steps that suddenly looked as tall as Mount Everest.

“Are you sure? I can carry her upstairs.”

“Oh, wait. Put her in the downstairs bedroom.”

“Okay.”

I led the way, carving a path for the room that I crashed in on the nights I stayed over.

There was enough moonlight coming through the window to see the furniture, so we tiptoed over to the bed and laid Gwen down. Still moving gingerly, I pulled her shoes off and crept out of the room, closing the door behind me.

Owen waited in the hall. I walked past him, not wanting to risk having another conversation that might wake Gwen up.

He followed me to the front door. “Should we let Jason know she’s down there?”

“He’s not coming home tonight. He’s staying at a friend’s. The whole luck and everything… you know, how he’s not supposed to see her on their wedding day?”

“Ah.”

I held onto the doorknob but didn’t pull it shut. Owen hovered nearby, not willing to go, and I did the same, not willing to tell him to get out. The night pressed in thick around us, thanks to the many things that had happened and been said.

Everything would be different now. Yet again. And that seemed to be life’s way. It was always turning and showing a new face, a new side to itself I could have never predicted it possessed.

I tried to open my mouth, but my tongue felt so thick. And it didn’t want to talk to Owen anyway. It wanted to kiss him, to find its way around his mouth and body and forget everything that had happened.

He said he loved me… and I didn’t have a real response to that.

My body did though. It craved him more than it ever had before. It cried with the need to feel Owen’s skin, hot and sweaty and pressed against it. To fill him inside me. His lips around my nipples. His cock deep in my throat as I brought him pleasure. I craved it all. Needed him.

“Owen,” I began. “I…”

I looked into his eyes, barely visible in the darkness of the stoop. He took one slow step forward. His hand raised halfway up. Hesitant. Questioning.

“I just want you to touch me,” I gasped. “And I hate it. I hate it so much.”

He shook his head, reached his hand up to trail it across my shoulder and down my arm. “Oh, Claire.”

I closed my eyes, trying to block out the assaulting thoughts. The fears. The worries. The memories. I wanted no more of them.

I just needed to feel Owen’s touch, to forget that anything existed but the one moment we were suspended in.

His fingers dipped lower, into my palm, and I grabbed them with my own and pulled him closer. His mouth fell against mine, hungry and ready. His tongue snaked in between my lips, exploring my teeth. I opened my mouth wider, allowing him to take whatever he wanted.

His chest pressed against mine, bumping me back against the doorway. I grabbed at his waist, reached my hands behind and under his light jacket, trailing my fingers across his warm skin.

I just want to forget. I just want to forget.

Was I saying the words? Or were they only just playing on repeat in my head? I couldn’t tell. All of reality seemed to be blurring. Owen picked me up, and I wrapped my legs around him. My dress hem slid up, and the brisk air tickled my thighs.

Owen moved slightly forward, and my back hit the door frame again. With a groan, he let me slide to the floor, then he was on his knees.

I cried out as he pulled my panties aside and his mouth covered me instead. My fingers were in his hair, pulling him closer as his tongue sank between my folds. Pure pleasure wound its way through me when he took my clitoris between his teeth. One finger, then two pressed inside me, his knuckles skimming my walls, finding the place that drove me crazy.

My back arched, a cry coming from my throat as his tongue ran over my sensitive, burning flesh. My eyelids fluttered as he scissored me open, giving him more room for his tongue. He didn’t stop when I came, my hand over my mouth, keeping his name inside my lips. When I climaxed again, I was crying, the sensations tearing through me, wave after wave of it.

When he stood, his lips were on my mouth and I tasted myself as our tongues stroked and danced. I wanted him, needed him so badly. My fingers clawed at his pants, tearing them open, wrapping my fingers around his cock.

“Taste you,” I said, sinking to my knees, taking steel and silk between my lips.

He growled as I took him deeper, working my tongue around the tip.

“Claire.” My name was a gasp.

“Don’t talk,” I desperately said, licking down his shaft. I looked up at him, pleading for him to listen. “Just for a little bit. Let’s say nothing.”

And he didn’t. He just looked down at me as I took him back into my mouth. The fire inside me flared, then died as he stepped back and said, “I can’t.”

My throat constricted as I kneeled before him. There was nothing to say. What was I even doing? The man had just told me he loved me, and instead of responding, I attacked him with my mouth.

And not in the way you were supposed to after someone tells you they love you. No, my actions were a reflection of lust. Or maybe something truly vile. Maybe they’d been born out of the desire to forget he’d ever said those three meaningful words. Fuck them from existence.

He tucked himself back in, then reached out a hand, helping me to my feet.

“I-I’m sorry,” I stammered, leaning back against the door again, my legs too shaky to stand.

He pushed my hair back from my face. “It’s not that I don’t want to.”

I looked away from him, choosing to stare at the dark floor instead. “Yeah, I get that. I was just…” I shook my head. After a few more seconds of that, I knew I had to say something. “I guess I should go check on Gwen.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, the words strained. “Are you staying here with her?”

“Yeah. It’s probably part of my duty as maid of honor… and as a sister.”

“Right.” He looked down. “I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

Finally, I looked at him.
Don’t go.

I bit my lip, biting back the words. Even if we did have sex again, the next morning I would want him to leave. I knew that. I wouldn’t be able to bear the thought of waking up and looking at him, of feeling like I was now trapped in something I wasn’t ready for.