Need You Tonight (30 page)

He considered her. “And that scares you.”

A statement, not a question.

“Yes.” She sat up on her elbow. “Of course it does. If you had hauled me off the bed
and slapped me for coming too soon, I probably would’ve let you and gotten more turned
on because of it. You covered my head with your hand like I was some whore you didn’t
care to look at, and I nearly came from it. You made me
want
the ugly parts. Why would I want that?”

His eyes went soft. “Baby . . .”

“I mean,” she continued, unable to stop talking now that the anxiety was bubbling
up. “I spent a marriage with a man who treated me like I was less than, who had the
ability to make me feel worthless with one well-placed insult. I don’t understand
why I’d want to be bullied in bed. Shouldn’t I want a guy to worship me or something?”

The corner of his mouth lifted. “Maybe you do, but that worship looks different than
what you thought. In my world, nothing is more precious to a dominant than his submissive.
I would break someone’s fingers if they tried to lay a hand on you without permission.
I did what I did with you because I enjoy it, yes, but I also did it because it’s
what you needed and craved tonight.”

She lifted a brow. “I needed and craved to be beaten with a belt and sodomized?”

“You asked to be broken. Kissing you from head to foot and telling you how pretty
you are wouldn’t have done that. You don’t trust people who are satisfied with the
surface. You’ve catered to them but you don’t trust them. It’s one reason you’ve been
so scared to put full trust in me. I needed to get to the woman beneath all those
coats of gloss you’ve put on. And you needed to see what I’m like underneath it all,
too.

“So take a good look and see, Tess. I’m a nice guy, but I’m also a sadist who gets
off on seeing those welts on your back. I’m a guy who likes grabbing you by the hair
and treating you more like property than a person in bed.”

She looked away and he grasped her chin, turning her gently to meet his eyes. “And
you’re a nice girl who didn’t deserve to be treated like you were in your marriage.
But you’re also the woman who gets turned on by being manhandled and likes a little
dose of humiliation in bed. A woman who just came three times because I forced her
down on the bed, fucked her in the ass, and demanded she obey. And there’s nothing
to be ashamed of about it because it’s real. And maybe this friend or that neighbor
would think it’s deviant or demented, but who the fuck cares?
I
love this side of us. Because where else in life do we get to indulge in the darkest
parts of ourselves without fear of judgment or censure? You couldn’t tell me one thing
you want that would weird me out. Truly. Even if I’m not into that particular thing.
This is a safe place to be exactly who you are—even the portions others would label
wrong. You won’t scare me away. And I’m not going to try to fit you in some box to
suit my needs. It’s why I waited for you to open the door to more before I just ran
roughshod over you, demanding you handle whatever I wanted to mete out.”

She stared at him, his speech seeping into her skin and settling into her bones. Acceptance
without judgment. No predetermined expectations. It was a completely foreign concept
to her. She’d jumped from box to box all her life, trying to morph herself into whatever
other people expected her to be.

And this man had just burned down the box.

“I don’t even know what to do with all that,” she said honestly.

He leaned over and kissed her, then tugged her closer to settle her against his chest
again. “You don’t have to do anything, Tess. Just close your eyes and rest. You can
worry about the rest tomorrow. Right now we simply bask in the afterglow.”

She smiled at that, but when she snuggled closer and let her eyes drift shut, she
knew she had far more to worry about than her newfound sexual desires.

She was about to get faux engaged.

To a man who was inspiring anything but faux feelings.

She was falling for him all over again.

And she wasn’t sure she had the strength to fight it anymore.

TWENTY-NINE

Tessa jolted awake, the morning light burning her eyes as she tried to figure out
what was going on and what all the god-awful noise was.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Kade groaned and rolled over, his arm thrown over his eyes. “What the fuck is that?”

She peeked at the clock. Right past six in the morning. “I don’t know. I think someone’s
at the door. I’ll go see.”

She hauled herself out of bed with a grunt, everything achy and sensitive from the
night before, and started to head to the front of the house but quickly realized she
was still naked. The loud knocking came again, and she shuffled to her closet to grab
her robe. Kade was climbing out of bed behind her when she made her way toward the
living room.

“Who is it?” she asked, wishing she had a peephole.

“Police,” a voice called. “We need you to open up.”

Police?
What the hell?

Maybe something had happened in the neighborhood. There’d been a few break-ins two
streets away a month ago. She knotted her robe around her and opened the door. “What’s
going on?”

Two officers, a man and a woman, stood on the other side, wearing matching stern expressions.
The man spoke first. “Ma’am, we need to know if Kade Vandergriff is here.”

She blinked. “What? Why?”

The female cop stepped forward. “We have an arrest warrant, ma’am.”

Tessa’s heart climbed into her throat.

Kade walked up behind her, wearing his jeans and wrinkled T-shirt from last night.
“A warrant? What the hell for?”

“Mr. Vandergriff,” the male cop said, and Kade nodded. The cop walked toward Kade,
his hand on his gun belt. “We need you to step outside and come with us. You’re under
arrest for assault and battery of a Mr. Douglas Barrett.”

Tessa’s mouth fell open. “
Doug
? No, wait, there’s been a mistake. Kade didn’t hurt anyone.”

The male cop moved past her, unhooking his handcuffs from his belt. “Well, Douglas
Barrett disagrees and spent the evening in the hospital getting patched up from a
beating he claims Mr. Vandergriff is responsible for. He also claimed you threatened
his life.”

“A
beating
?” Kade said as the cop snapped handcuffs around his wrists. “I didn’t hit him.”

The cop began the Miranda warning and ignored Kade’s protest.

Panic welled in Tessa. She looked to Kade who appeared to be either intensely calm
or intensely pissed, then tried to implore the female officer. “Nothing happened.
Doug’s my ex-husband and is making this up.”

“Not my call, ma’am,” she said, all business.

“Tess,” Kade said, dragging her attention his way. “Call Reid Jamison, he’s my lawyer.
Tell him what happened and to meet me wherever they’re taking me.”

She grabbed a scrap of paper and pen from a drawer in the entryway table and scribbled
the information down as he rattled off a number. “Okay. Reid Jamison. God, this is
ridiculous. I’m so sorry. Doug must’ve—”

“Doug’s doing what he always does. Lying. Don’t worry. We’ll get it sorted out.”

He seemed confident that it’d be resolved easily, but worry rolled around in her gut
like a heavy boulder. Nothing was ever simple with Doug. He wouldn’t do this if it
was a quick fix. There was more to it. She knew him too well.

Tess watched with dread as they tucked Kade into the back of the squad car. The cops
pulled away, and she put in a call to Reid. He asked for details of the night before,
and she told him the quick version of what had happened.

“Okay, Tessa,” he said, as calm as a judge. “I’ll head out that way. You should probably
go there, too, to give a statement. You’re a witness to what really happened last
night.”

“Right. Of course. I’ve got to get dressed then I’ll drive up there.”

She said her good-byes and hit the End button on her phone. She hustled to her room
and grabbed jeans and a sweater. She tugged her clothes on and ran a brush through
her hair. But when she pulled the door open to go to her car, Doug was standing on
the other side. And he looked like absolute shit—eye swollen and bruised, lip split,
surgical tape over one of his eyebrows.

She recoiled. “What the hell are you doing here?”

He smirked, which looked macabre with his cut lip, and walked past her into the house
without invitation. “We need to talk.”

“You need to get out,” she said, staying by the open door as he took a spot on her
sofa. “I don’t know what happened to you or who did it, but you need to go tell the
police that it wasn’t Kade.”

“Oh, but it was. Didn’t you see? He laid me out on your front lawn last night. I even
have a witness who saw it happen.”

She stared at him, her heart sinking as she remembered the shadowed figure near Doug’s
car last night. “You’ve lost your goddamned mind.”

“And I’ve heard Vandergriff has a nasty little custody fight on his hands. You’d think
he’d be more careful with his anger. I mean, who would trust him with a little girl
when he can’t control his temper or his fists?”

Her whole body went cold.

“Shut the door, Tessa,” he said evenly. “Like I said, we have a few things to discuss.”

Her bones felt like they would splinter she’d gone so stiff, but she managed to reach
out and slowly shut the door. When she heard the click, it felt like she’d just locked
herself in a cage with a venomous snake. On wooden legs, she made her way into the
living room and sat down in a chair. “Why are you doing this? Haven’t you done enough
to Kade?”

“Ah, poor Kaden Fowler, always getting in my way when it comes to you. He should know
that’s not going to work for me.” He pointed to his battered face. “I’m willing to
go to any lengths to handle my business.”

Her jaw clenched. He’d probably paid some bum to beat the shit out of him. “I’m not
with you anymore. He’s not in the way of anything.”

“No, maybe not, but you are. Do you know how much of my congregation I’ve lost over
the last year because of the scandal you created? Not just because of the rumors that
I cheated but because I got a divorce? You know how long I preached about the sanctity
of marriage and how it was a sin to give up on that sacred bond. You made me look
like a hypocrite and a fool. The church has lost a lot of money, Tessa.
I’ve
lost a lot of money and respect. And that’s on you.”

“You
are
a hypocrite. I told the truth. If you didn’t want scandal, you should’ve kept your
dick out of other women.”

His eyes narrowed. “You talking like a whore now, too? I know Fowler has made you
his bitch. What kind of sick shit have you gotten into with him?”

Her fingers tightened on the arms of the chair. “What are you talking about?”

He pulled folded pages from inside his coat and flattened them on the coffee table.
In them, though the images were hazy from being shot through her sheer curtains, was
Kade standing over her, her hair looped around his fist, as she crawled for him.

Her stomach lurched. “You fucking bastard. You
watched
through my windows?”

He shrugged. “No, but you know how Marilyn is, always the reporter. She came with
me last night because she really did want to apologize for the bad blood between you
two, so she stayed behind when you sent me off. But when she went to knock on your
door, she saw what was going on and was worried for you. She snapped a few cell phone
pictures for evidence in case you wanted to press rape charges. But of course, she
figured out quickly that you weren’t saying no to him.” He leaned over the coffee
table as if examining them closely. “But really, it’s hard to tell. If the press got
ahold of these, Kaden would have lots of explaining to do.”

Everything in the room was spinning, her skin like ice. Assault charges and hard proof
that Kade was rough with women. He may never see his daughter again if all this got
out. She swallowed past the jagged knot in her throat. “What do you want, Doug?”

He gave her a sharp-toothed grin and slapped his thighs. “Now, we’re talking. There’s
my practical Tessa.”

She wanted to vomit on his expensive shoes.

“I will drop the charges and give you these pictures if you agree to come back to
Atlanta with me. You’ll give Marilyn an exclusive interview and tell everyone that
I never cheated. Tell them that you were the one who strayed in the marriage because
you’re into this demented S&M shit. But you’re ready to come back to me, get help,
and work on putting our marriage back together. And you will
beg
my forgiveness in front of the congregation on the live Sunday broadcast.”

The walls around her seemed to shrink inward, pressing on her. He wanted her to go
back to Atlanta with him? She’d rather be dead. But if she didn’t do something, Doug
would annihilate Kade’s chances with his daughter and his reputation. She couldn’t
do that to Kade. Wouldn’t. Last time she’d had to make a choice between herself and
Kade, she’d chosen the easiest path for her. But she refused to hurt the man she loved,
maybe had always loved, again.

“I can’t be your wife again,” she whispered, almost more to herself.

“Sure you can,” he said, malice underlying his easy tone. “You know how to put on
a happy face. You’ll get your nice house back, a generous allowance in your account
each month. You can drop this ridiculous pauper’s lifestyle you’ve been trying out.
I’ll even throw some money at your precious charity. All you’ll need to do is turn
your head and keep your mouth shut if you see something you shouldn’t. Isn’t that
what you’re setting yourself up for with Kaden anyway? You get to be his little whore
and he takes care of everything for you? You strive to be useless. It’s always been
your career goal.”

She lifted her head, wishing she could kill him with the look she shot at him. “If
you think so poorly of me, why do you want me in your life again? Get Marilyn to divorce
her husband and marry her.”

“Marilyn will never leave him. He has more money than I do. Plus, she’s stated publicly
that she’s an atheist. I can’t have that in my church. And maybe I won’t need her
around anymore anyway. I’m thinking you may be more fun to be around now. I tried
to treat you well before, respect you like a wife. But I see now that you needed something
different. If you want to be treated like my whore, I can happily oblige you.”

The up and down look made her feel like bugs were running over her skin. She wrapped
her arms around herself. “You will never touch me.
Never
. Do you understand? I’ll go with you, but you’re not ever allowed in my bed.”

He smiled. “That’s going to get mighty lonely for you. We’ll see how long you last.
But I can agree to that for now, if you come with me this morning.”

“Now? I can’t. I need to go to the police station and see Kade. Tell him I’m leaving.”

“No,” he said, standing and smoothing his slacks. “You don’t get to talk this out
with him. Pack a suitcase. We have a flight that leaves in two and a half hours. He
can figure it out. He’s used to you walking away from him to be with me.”

The statement was like a slap across her cheek.

“And if you think you actually mean something to him, you’re deluding yourself. Men
don’t marry women they fuck like dogs. They use them. That’s all he’s doing with you.
You’re his temporary diversion. Another slut will step up in line behind you.”

She ignored the insults he was lobbing her way. “I’m not telling anyone anything until
you drop the charges and give me those pictures.”

He smiled. “When we land in Atlanta, I’ll call the police station and will give you
the pictures then. You can also verify that Marilyn deleted them from her phone.”

“Fine.”

“Now go pack. I don’t want to be late.”

She pushed up from the chair to stalk toward her bedroom.

“And sweetheart—”

She turned to glare at him.

“I so can’t wait to see you on your knees in front of the congregation. I’m starting
to see the appeal Kade finds in putting you in that position.”

“Fuck you, Doug.”

“I’m sure you will. Soon,” he said with smarmy confidence.

She was glad she didn’t have a gun in the house because, right now, life in prison
was sounding worth it.