Crushed (Crystal Brook Billionaires) (5 page)

“Fuck it,” I said, gulping the last of the beer and tossing a few bills onto the table. Walking outside was like walking into a wall of sweat. It pissed me off more, so the first thing I did when I got home was run a cold shower.

The water was a jolt to my system, but did nothing to cool the heat burning inside of me. Claire. Dammit. I’d fucked up, hitting on a woman in mourning. How stupid could one man possibly be? Or was I just lonely? Hell, or just horny.

It had been a couple months since I fucked a woman. Especially a woman who caught my attention the way Claire did. Her eyes, filled with sadness and secrets. Her long fingers. I could imagine them wrapped around my cock. Lips. Where do I begin with those lips? Pillow soft. Within the first thirty seconds of her opening that door, I’d wanted to know exactly how soft they were. Wanted to feel them under mine. Wanted them to kiss their way down my torso. Wanted…

Fuck.

I lifted my face to the water, hoping to wash thoughts of her away. But they wouldn’t go, my traitorous mind making the visions of her even clearer. I could almost see her under the shower, the water streaming down her slim body, dripping from her nipples. I could see her dropping to her knees, her hand cupping my balls while she traced her tongue up the thick vein of my shaft.

With that vision refusing to leave me, I surrendered and took my cock in my hand. It’s not my hand, it’s her mouth surrounding me, warm and wet, just the right amount of suction. Her hands on my ass now, controlling how quickly I thrusted into her throat. The pain of her fingernails on my skin only heightened the arousal. Making me want her even more.

Focusing on the top half of my shaft, I intended to get off fast and rough, nothing gentle or tentative about this release. I pumped into my hand, which was her pussy now. Her hands were on the tile, holding her still as I pounded into her tight warmth, the slickness of her arousal closing around me.

Twisting the crown, I slowed it down, not wanting it to end so soon. Does she talk when she fucks? Moan? Cry out. Does she scream when an orgasm rolls through her?

I wanted to know.

Picking up speed again, I punished my cock for not knowing the answers. Gripping tighter, more urgently now.

Does she like it hard like this? What else does she like? Bondage? My hand making her ass pink? God, I want to know everything about her. Her fears and desires, her wants and needs. Her favorite ice cream. How that ice cream tasted as I licked it from her body.

I needed to know.

Our bodies slapping together, the sounds drowning out our rapid breaths. Her breath, the sound of her cries. Her face. I needed to know her face. How it looked when I first entered her. How it looked when I make her come.

Pounding harder now, my fist moved like a piston up and down my shaft. My balls tightened, clenching with the need to release. The edges of my vision turned white as I let go, imagining my semen racing from my body to spill into hers.

A guttural sound escaped my lips as thick ropey streams of cum escaped, only to be washed down the drain.

Lifting my face to the water again, I brace my hands on the tile wall, steadying myself.

Claire.

I made the water even colder, but still couldn’t get her out of my mind. I should be ashamed for using a mourning woman as the fantasy of my fist fest, but I’m not.

I still wanted her.

Why, I had no idea. But I was pulled to her as surely as a magnet is pulled to steel.

I needed her to be mine.

Claire

I
was sitting on the roof when Gwen got home. I knew she was in the house because I heard her through the cracked open kitchen window talking to our little brother. I’d been sitting on the rough tiles for an hour or so — since I returned home from the pub. After a quick hello to my parents, I’d managed to evade any more detection by family members, but it was only a matter of time before one of them came looking for me in the name of dinner being ready.

My two siblings conversed quietly, making it impossible to clearly understand so much as one word. After a couple minutes, the talking ended. I waited, cocking my head to pick up more noises from inside the house.

Behind me, the door to the bedroom opened. It wasn’t long before Gwen climbed through the window and out onto the little side roof overlooking the backyard.

“You found me,” I dismally said.

Gwen didn’t answer. Instead, she settled down next to me and drew her knees up so she could hug them.

I looked at her. The back porch light below us was on, and I could just make out her face.

“Isn’t it past your bed time?” I asked.

She smirked. “Everybody needs to get wild every once in a while.” She peeked at me. “I had two drinks.”

I scoffed. “I know you’re not as straight laced as you pretend to be. Remember, I know about that whiskey bottle you keep in the shop.”

“I only have a little bit of that at a time.”

“I’m not condemning you,” I answered, already feeling exhausted from talking. I spent the last sixty minutes, give or take a few, sitting by myself doing everything I could to not think. Having to suddenly use my brain almost felt overwhelming.

Gwen cleared her throat. “I was a real idiot back there.”

“It’s fine,” I quickly said.

“No, it’s not. I didn’t know that…”

“That I was falling in love with him?”

I directed my question to the dark treetops across the yard.

“Is that it?” Her voice cracked so much that it sounded like she was about to cry.

When I spoke, my own voice was dead. What came out of me were facts completely devoid of emotion. I’d done enough feeling for one day, after all. It wasn’t really a crime for me to suppress my emotions for a few minutes. They would be back with a vengeance in due time.

“I was falling in love with him,” I said, stronger this time.

I felt Gwen’s eyes on me.

I scoffed. “I don’t know why I said
was.
I’m still there, in that amazing place where love is planted and you’re watching it grow. That doesn’t change just because he’s not here.” I thought about it a bit more. “I’ll always be falling in love with him,” I softly added. “I’ll never get to tell him that.”

I’d gushed to my sister about Peter after our very first date. And I’d continued doing so for the next seven weeks, but it had never occurred to me to say those words. Although I knew them to be true, they were still taboo.

“I can’t imagine how hard that is, being right on the edge of having everything you want,” Gwen said.

I looked at her. Yes, that was exactly it. “A year or so ago, one of my friends had a miscarriage and people just didn’t take it seriously. They said things like, ‘oh, you’ll have another,’ or ‘everything happens for a reason.’ But she was so devastated and didn’t feel like she could mourn as she needed to because it wasn’t a ‘real’ child she had lost.”

“Is that how you feel? Like people downplay your pain because you hadn’t been together that long?”

Inhaling deeply, I nodded. “Yes. And then I feel stupid for hurting so much over the possibility of what we could have shared together.”

“I’m sorry I never met him,” Gwen whispered. “He sounds like a wonderful person.”

I looked down at where my hands were clasped between my knees. “I only knew him less than two months. So why would you have? I thought there would be all the time in the world to introduce him to everyone and anyone.”

I shook my head bitterly. The me of a couple weeks ago seemed decades younger than the me of right then. Now I knew time to be nothing more than an idea, a concept and word we use to put off whatever it is we don’t want to do right here and now.

Clattering came from in the kitchen below us. It sounded like dishes coming out of a cabinet or serving platters being put on the counter.

“Did you stay at the pub this whole time?” I asked.

“Yeah. I was talking with Owen.”

“I’m sorry I said that stupid thing about you flirting with him.”

“Thanks, but it’s all right. You’re, you know… you have a right to feel certain ways right now.”

I kicked a loose tile. “I’m probably just jealous of you and Jason and your pretty much perfect relationship.”

“It’s not all perfect. Trust me.”

“I get that. I know you fight like everyone else. What I meant was you guys are perfect together.”

“Oh.”

She quieted down — no doubt because she couldn’t deny that last comment.

My mind raced ahead, to the rest of the night. We would have dinner as a family, the five of us. Then I would go to bed and spend hours tormented by my dreams. After that, I would wake up and live through a day very much like the last one. Eventually, I would have to return to New York.

And then what?

I’d go to work each morning and leave each evening. I’d spend my nights and weekends trying to avoid any place Peter and I had gone to together. I would likely never walk down or even go near the street he had lived on again.

And on and on it would go. One day, I might meet a guy that piqued my interest. We’d go out. Maybe it wouldn’t really lead anywhere, but if it didn’t, there would be another man after him, and then another one after him. One day, I might even care about someone enough to say that I loved him.

But those words, though true, would still feel partially empty. Nothing would ever be like the excitement and possibilities — love — I felt for Peter. I knew this because nothing in my life ever had been that way.

After what seemed like hours of silence, Gwen spoke through the darkness. “Dad’s making ribs.”

Her simple statement made me smile a bit. I really couldn’t help it. For a brief second, hope flashed in my heart. I knew home was where I needed to be. No matter what happened. For as long as it was there I would keep going back to it, would keep drawing the smallest bit of strength and solace I could from it.

“Let’s go then,” I proclaimed, standing up and brushing the filth from my pants.

*

That night, there were no dreams, and there were no replays of past events. I was grateful. I slept deep and woke at dawn — no doubt thanks to having slept way too much the day before.

I need to go back to New York, was the first thing I thought.

I was still grieving. I would still be grieving for a long time. For the rest of my life, actually. But it wasn’t right for me to put my family through so much strain on my behalf. I’d lost my lover, but my sister hadn’t. Jason was alive and well, busy in New York doing two people’s jobs so that I could take a break from it all. It wasn’t right. He needed to be home, enjoying his life and planning his wedding. My sister needed her fiancée. They needed each other.

Life was too short and too uncertain. If you had someone or something good in your life, you needed to grab hold of it and hang on tight.

Since almost everything was still in my suitcase, it took only a couple minutes to throw together the random socks and bathroom products that weren’t still packed away. Once I’d gotten dressed and pulled my tangled hair back into a low bun, I realized with a start that I still had the actual matter of getting back to New York to deal with. Pulling out my phone, I did a quick search for tickets.

I sucked in a sharp breath. Last minute prices were steep, but it wasn’t like the ones for the next day were much cheaper.

“Fuck it,” I whispered, hitting the button to book a one-way flight for that afternoon. It was — somewhat shamefully — going on my company credit card anyway. Personal breaks were a legit thing at our company, something you didn’t have to pay out of pocket for. I just happened to feel guilty about it.

The entire upstairs was quiet, but by the time I got halfway down the stairs, I could hear what sounded like my whole family in the kitchen. My heart clenched a bit. Never since moving to New York City had I had a genuine ache for home. I missed it, sure, but I never felt absolutely desperate to return.

For a brief moment, I considered staying in Crystal Brook.

No, I decided. I’ll feel the same no matter where I go.

I needed to get back to work. I needed to stop being such a burden for Jason and my family.

On the last step, I froze. There, on the short table next to the front door usually reserved for mail and forgotten house keys, was a bouquet of white and pink roses, a sheer yellow bow wrapped around the vase. I could smell their sweet fragrance from ten feet away.

Walking up to the flowers, I gingerly ran my fingertips first over a pink petal and then a white one. A soft sense of peace washed over me. Never before had flowers had such an effect on me.

An unopened card sat next to the vase. I read the name then blinked and read it again. Claire.

It didn’t make sense. No one, other than my family and Jason, even knew where I was. Everyone at work simply knew that I was going away for a few days.

Eager to unravel the mystery, I ripped the white envelope open. The card was thin and square, with a simple heart sketched on the front. The handwritten note inside read:

To Claire.
From Owen.

I stared at the message… and then let out a chortle. That was it? Just ‘to’ and ‘from’? A man I had just met hoped to win me over with nothing more than a vase of roses?

I closed the card and looked at the flowers again. On second thought, it was nice that there was nothing else written in there. No phone number. No note asking me out to dinner. With the way it stood, I could just appreciate the flowers and leave it there. I wouldn’t have to actually call Owen and turn him down.

Though a man didn’t just send a woman flowers for no reason at all. No doubt Owen hoped that I would respond to the gift by seeking him out either online or through neighbors.

I felt slightly bad about it. Honestly. In another time I might have gone out with Owen. He was extremely handsome and seemed pretty nice. At that point in my life, though, I didn’t even want to remember that men existed.

Hopefully, he would take my lack of response in a good way. He would get that I wasn’t interested and leave it there. Move on. Forget there ever was a sullen girl named Claire who was incapable of even so much as smiling.