Taunt Me (Rough Love Book 2) (12 page)

“So go,” I said, losing patience with his obscure threats. “Leave me alone. I don’t want to make any more mistakes.”

“I won’t let you make mistakes. But I still think I’ll need to fuck you every once in a while. I wish it wasn’t that way. Jesus, I’ve tried to convince myself—” His features twisted and rearranged themselves, a fleeting show of emotion. “I’ve tried to stay away, but now that I’ve had you, I’m going to need more. I’m going to need to fuck you a few times a week at least.”

His calm, entitled proclamation momentarily befuddled me. He’d just finished telling me that he wouldn’t have a relationship with me, that I
shouldn’t
want a relationship with him, but he’d help himself to my body whenever he pleased? It was fucking insulting. Fucking ridiculous.

“Fuck you,” I said, pushing him away.

“You don’t think it’s a good idea?”

I stalked into the living room, trying to put distance between us. “I think it’s a horrible idea. If we’re not going to have a relationship, what’s the fucking point?”

“The fucking point is the
fucking
,” he said. “I like
fucking
you, and you like being
fucked
by me, as evidenced by your participation last night.”

“The only reason I let you fuck me last night was because it’d been too long for me. I’ve been too busy at school to get laid. Too busy to hook up with anyone.”

“Aside from your professor,” he said in a snide tone.

“I want you to leave.” I was tired of his mockery, his condescension. Yes, I’d fucked Price last night. Yes, I’d enjoyed myself, but it didn’t mean anything, and it certainly wasn’t a mistake I’d repeat again. “I want you to give me the key you used to get in here, and then I want you to leave.”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “I’ll leave when I fucking want to leave.”

“I’m not sleeping with you again, ever, so you might as well fuck off.”

“You’re wrong about that, Chere.” He started toward me, force and masculine beauty. “You’re going to sleep with me whenever I fucking want you to.”

I spit out more words, attempting to shield myself from his will. “You can’t make me. You can’t have me if I don’t want to give myself to you. I won’t let you back into my life after the way you left.”

He took my arm and dragged me over to the living room window. He jabbed a finger, pointing across the street. “You see that building? Count up to the sixth floor, the corner window. That’s where I live. That’s where I watch you sometimes with a pair of hunting binoculars because you never shut your drapes. If I want to be in your life, I’ll be in your life.”

The word “hunting binoculars” chilled me. Not just binoculars. Not the ubiquitous telescopes that nosy New Yorkers used to “look at the stars.” He’d used
hunting
binoculars.

“Are you serious?” I said, pulling my elbow from his grasp. “You’ve been watching me?”

“You didn’t believe me when I told you last night?”

“You said you knew what I’d been doing. You didn’t say you were staring at me through binoculars.”

I took another step back from him, and looked out at his apartment. Sixth floor, corner. Holy shit, all that time I cried for him and missed him, and searched the Internet for blond, sadistic designers to try to find him, he was across the fucking street with his fucking hunting binoculars.

“This is fucked up,” I said. “You can’t—You shouldn’t— People aren’t supposed to act this way! I can’t believe you spied on me.”

“I was trying to protect you,” he snapped. “I wanted to be sure you were okay.”

“How does perving on me from across the street protect me? I think it invades my privacy. I think you’re a psycho creeper.”

He didn’t like that I called him that. His eyes narrowed and his chin tipped up.

“You might show a little more respect,” he said. “I was very generous with you over the course of our association. I gave you some of the best fucking sex of your life.”

“Well, that’s over. We’re over.”

“We’re not over. I still want to see you sometimes. I won’t make a lot of demands on your time.”

He reached to touch my cheek. I pushed his hand away but he only grasped my wrists and overpowered me, trapping me against the couch. As he held me with his body, he ran his fingers down the line of my jaw.

“I’ll make you feel good, Chere. I know how to make you crazy. I know what you need. What you want.”

I shook my head. He was too close. He was too strong and hot and tempting. His eyes met mine as his hand moved down my neck, his thumb resting on my pulse. “I’ll make you hurt and fight and come,” he said in a soft, lurid tone. “I’ll make you tremble and cry, and then I’ll hold you afterward until you feel better.” His other arm slipped around me, a firm band. A prison. “Then, when you’re all better, all exhausted and fucked out, I’ll leave. I won’t interfere with your school, or your work once you graduate.”

Once I graduate? That was months from now. Did he imagine I’d be his eternal fuck buddy, waiting at his beck and call? I started to twist in his embrace.

“Don’t fight me, starshine,” he said. “You know it’ll be good.”

Good luck, starshine…

“No. No, not again. I want you to go,” I said, pushing at his chest.

“I will. Just tell me when I can see you again.”

“Never! You can never see me again.”

I struggled in earnest now, but his arms were longer and stronger. His body was a rock against mine.

“Let go,” I snapped, pushing against him. “I’m not fucking you again.”

His features twisted in irritation. “I thought you weren’t in the escort business anymore, but if you need me to pay you, I’ll pay you. Either way. Whatever will make it happen.”

I lost what remained of my patience and slapped his face twice, way harder and more forcefully than he’d ever slapped mine. I raked his ear with my nails before he caught my hands and held them. I kicked him instead and he tackled me, upended me and covered me on the living room floor.

“I’m not your whore! I don’t want your fucking money.” I writhed under him, trying to free my arms from his grip. The bottom of my robe parted and I could feel his erect cock through the fabric of his pants.

“I can’t fuck you right now,” he said, and I could have sworn he was laughing. “Stop flirting.”

“Get off me,” I shrieked.

Within a second, he was gone. He stood and jumped back, out of kicking distance. I lurched to my feet and fixed my robe, and glared at him as I retreated behind the couch. I started to yell at him again, for him to leave, to get the fuck out, but he held up a hand.

“Don’t scream at me.”

I clasped my hands over my mouth, fighting tears I absolutely would not shed. I stared at the man who’d commandeered so much of my heart, against my will, against my better judgment. He’d consumed so much of my life. I couldn’t let him have any more. Even if, deep down inside, I wanted more.

“I’m not going to scream at you,” I said from between my fingers. “But I need you to go. I
really
need you to go.”

“Okay,” he said, very calmly and very coolly. “But I need you to comprehend something. You and I are not over.” He walked closer to me. I shook my head and scrambled back until I was trapped against the window.

I stared at his intent expression, his broad shoulders, the ladder of muscles leading up to his chest. I thought of his poetry and the way he’d taken over my body in those hotel rooms. I thought of the pleasure, the longing he planted in me. I thought...maybe...

But no. No, no, no.

“You have to leave.” Tears spilled over, panic in liquid form. What if he stood there forever, looking at me like that, making me want him when I didn’t want to want him? “You left me!” I said. “I wish I’d never met you. I wish you’d leave me alone.”

“Chere—”

“Go away! And if you spy on me, I swear to God, if you look at me through your binoculars or follow me around, I’ll call the fucking police. I’ll report you. I’ll take out a restraining order.”

He held up his hands, his strong, powerful fingers spread wide in protest. “Chere,” he said. “Don’t freak out.” He reached to wipe away some of my tears. “Stop crying. Listen to me.”

I shoved his hand away. “No.”

“You’re overreacting.”

“I want you to go. You’re crazy and scary and controlling.”

“Yes.” I heard his sharp agreement through the frantic whoosh of blood in my ears. “Yes, I’m controlling, but I would never, ever hurt you.”

“Really?” I glared at him in disbelief. “You’d never hurt me? You’re a fucking liar. You left me! After everything, after you took over my heart and my life, and twisted up all my feelings, you
left me
.” I grasped at my chest. “That hurt me
so much
. It hurt me way more than you can ever understand. I loved you, but now I hate you. You’ve already hurt me as much as anyone could be hurt, and I survived it. Now I just want you to leave me the fuck alone.”

I stood there clutching my heart, trying to collect myself. I hadn’t meant to reveal so much. I hadn’t meant to give him the pleasure of knowing how deeply he’d injured me. I hadn’t meant to tell him that I loved him. He didn’t deserve to know.

He watched me a moment, then pursed his lips and turned away. “I’ll go get my shirt.”

He put it on, buttoned it up and tucked it in like any normal man. He looked normal, but he wasn’t normal. He wanted too much, demanded too much. Stalked me too much and scared me too much. He gave me orgasms that clouded my reason, but I wasn’t going to let that happen again. He put on his socks and his shoes without a word, gave me another taut glance, and walked to the door.

“Thanks for the fuckfest anyway,” he said. “It was epic.”

The door shut behind him, and he was gone from my life, forever, for the second time.

Shit.
The key.

By the time I got home, her drapes were closed, every one of them. I put the binoculars in one of the guest room closets. I wasn’t going to need them anymore.

So, Chere wasn’t inclined to welcome me back with open arms? Okay. Understandable. Hell, I shouldn’t have gone back in the first place, I
definitely
shouldn’t have fucked her, but now that I had, I wasn’t going to deprive myself. Those breathless hours we’d spent through the night, before her angsty emotions caught up with her…

Well, they were worth it, even if her defensive, distancing words had followed.
I wish I’d never met you. I wish you’d leave me alone. You’re crazy and scary and controlling.
All the blather about police and restraining orders. I knew she didn’t mean any of it, but she’d been pretty damn angry.

My little fighter. She’d always had a temper.

It pleased me that Chere hadn’t lost any of her spirit, that none of her defining qualities had changed. Her hair color had changed, sure, and she’d pretty much lost that whore look she used to have. But God, the splendor in its place... Her curly, dark hair, her bold features, her eyes like liquid toffee. Her freckles. That pert, strong chin.

I lay back on my bed and undid my pants, took out my cock and stroked it to hardness. I had work to do, a meeting tomorrow, but I had a little sexual tension to take care of first.

Today sucked, but last night had been amazing, perhaps the most magnificent sexual marathon of my life. The way she resisted at first, the way she fought me and melted into me at the same time. Then...when I pushed inside her... My fucking God.

I worked my cock slowly, sensually, pulling hard with a firm grip.
This is for you, Chere.
I took my time, thinking back to the softness of her skin, the cinnamon scent of her hair. I didn’t want to come too quickly. There was so much to remember. So much to look forward to when I won back her trust, which I fully intended to do. I wouldn’t attempt to enslave her as I did in my darkest fantasies, or interfere with anything she was trying to accomplish. I’d just fuck her in that rough, intense way she liked, for our mutual satisfaction.

After I came like a storm, and cleaned myself up, I sat and scrawled some words on a stark white page. I placed it in an envelope, and wrote her name and address on the front.

You’re so beautiful.

It wasn’t enough, and someday I would do better, but for now it was the only poetry I had.

Andrew looked down at the parts and pieces spread out in front of him.

“Chere, I swear to God we’re doing this wrong.”

“Read the directions again.”

He held the flimsy paper up to his face and squinted at the tiny writing. “You read them. I can’t make out a word.”

“Your eyes are younger than mine.”

He leaned back against the doorjamb and tossed down the paper with a sigh. “Why are we changing the lock again? If the building manager already changed it?”

“Because Price used to own this apartment. He might be tight with the manager. He might own this entire building. He might have been the one to send the locksmith.”

“You sound kind of paranoid,” Andrew said.

“Of course I’m paranoid. He was stalking me the entire time he was gone. I’m sure he’d love to have another key to my apartment, and if he knows the people who run this building...”

My friend looked skeptical. “He had a key for two and half years, though, and he never used it.”

I glared at him. “Whose side are you on?”

“Your side, darling.”

“And we can’t really say if he used it or not. Maybe he came in here all the time while I was away.”

At my quiet huff of outrage, he bent back over the directions. “Okay,” he said with feigned confidence. “We’ll figure this out.”

I leaned over the directions too, trying to calm down. I shouldn’t have been bitching at Andrew. He’d come over in a flash when I told him I needed him, even though he’d just returned last night from his rent-boy excursion in Vail. He was sun bronzed and wind burned and full of racy tidbits about his time with Mr. Recaro.

I hadn’t told him as much about my reunion with Price. I left out the night-long carnival of perversity and stuck to the basics: that he’d shown up out of nowhere and let himself into my apartment, and freaked me the fuck out.