The Owner of His Heart (15 page)

***

When he said that, Layla could feel herself growing slick with want for him again. She couldn’t believe it. As much as she despised him right now, she still burned to have him inside of her. His fingers hadn’t been enough. Nothing but having him fully embedded in her folds would be enough to satisfy her aching need.

But she shook her head against the rough desire burning through her, making her breasts feel heavy inside her bra, which he then proceeded to strip off of her. It was gone before Layla could even think to protest its removal. He took one pebbled nipple in his mouth, swirling his tongue around her large aureole, and applied so much pressure with his clamped lips that it walked a thin line between pleasure and pain.

She arched underneath him and he responded by pushing a knee between her thighs, making her open wide for him before he slipped inside of her with a long, slow thrust that set her teeth edge it felt so good. He lifted one of her legs over his shoulder, angling himself so he hit her G-spot every time he rocked into her. Then he stared at her hard and angry, until she came a second time.

“How many times do I have to make you come before you admit it?” he asked.

She stared back at him then, eyes defiant. “You might be able to control my body, but you don’t control me. I had every right to come here and ask questions, especially if your brother and I used to date. I don’t know why you want to keep us apart, and I don’t care, but I’m not going to stop looking for him until I find out what happened ten years ago.”

She had thought he was angry before, but nothing compared to the look that came over his face when she said that.

Without warning, he pulled out and flipped her over. Her tank top stretched and twisted to accommodate her new position, and the next thing she knew, he’d pushed her butt into the air, entering her from behind, his passage ensured by the fact that she was dripping wet from the two times she’d already come for him.

“You want to know what happened?” he asked from behind her.

But when she tried to raise up to look back at him, he pressed her chest into the bed, pinning her there even as he stoked the fire inside of her with his merciless thrusts. “No, stay there.”

She wanted to fight him on this, but he felt so thick inside of her, filling her up again and again as he slid in and out of her wet tunnel. She had to use all of her concentration to resist coming a third time.

“You want to know what happened?” he asked again, from his now fully dominant position over her.

“Yes, I want to know,” she said, tearing up. He wasn’t just punishing her for going behind his back to find his brother, he was humiliating her, and she was letting him, because Nathan, more than anyone she’d ever met, made her feel powerless, like she couldn’t control her thoughts or body when he was in the room.

He bent over her, fingering one of her nipples as he stroked into her with slow, deep thrusts. “Here’s what happened. You dated Andrew, and pretended you were too good of a girl to let him touch you. But one night when he was out of town, you claimed to love me, let me fuck you in that window seat you dreamt about, then we moved to this very bed, where I fucked you two more times. Then when Andrew returned the next morning, you went right back to him like nothing had ever happened between us. Because you are a beautiful liar, who used to get off on having two brothers chase after you before you fell and conveniently forgot every duplicitous thing you had ever said or done to me. That’s what happened.”

Even without having her own memories of the events, she knew what he said to be true as soon as the words came out of his mouth. And she understood now the vague feeling of guilt that always cropped up when she tried to get him to talk about their past.

She again tried to look up at him, but he kept her pinned, breasts pressed to the cool covers, while he rutted her from behind, like an animal. Finally he yelled out and spilled into her, nearly overflowing her hot tunnel with his load. She came, too, then, unable to fight it any longer, and she tremored around his cock, all but drinking in his seed as he released wave after wave of it inside of her.

She thought that would be the end of it, but he remained hard inside of her. “Say you’re mine,” he whispered, his voice harsh and ragged.

***

Nathan knew he should have let her go after the third time. He had never taken any woman that roughly, and he realized he was out of control at this point. If he had any sense of self-preservation, he’d get up, zip his pants, leave the room, and put as much distance between him and this woman as possible, considering she drove him crazy with both lust and anger.

But the animal that was in control of him now wouldn’t let logic intercede. He wanted her. He wanted her on his terms, without fear of having his brother steal her away again. “Say you’re mine.”

“Nathan,” she said, gasping for air underneath him. “Please let me up.”

Coming back to himself a little bit, he released her, pulling out of her and sitting back. Then he waited to see if she would say the words he needed to hear or if he’d need to provide her with yet another example of how very much he owned her body.

But when she sat up and turned to face him, her wrists still bound to the bed post, he realized his mistake, because there were tears in her eyes. And just like that, she reversed the power between them.

“I hurt you,” he said. He released her hands from the tank-top handcuffs. “I’m sorry I did that. I’m sorry I hurt you.”

“No.” She folded her arms over her breasts and clasped her hands underneath her chin. “You didn’t hurt me.”

“You’re lying. I did hurt you.”

But she guided him down to the bed, and arranged it so they were facing each other with their heads on separate pillows. “I just want to look at you. Just lay here with me, okay? You didn’t hurt me, I promise you. I would have told you to stop if you were hurting me.”

“Then why are you crying?” he asked. On one hand he wanted to bury himself inside her and punish her some more for seeking out his brother behind his back—again. On the other hand, he felt like punching himself for causing her any pain. It was hard, he was discovering, to feel like someone’s victim and protector at the same time.

“I’m crying because I hurt you,” she said. “And I’m sorry.”

She scooted closer, and pressed her soft lips to his. “I’m sorry,” she said again.

And this time it was she who guided his him inside of her, stroking her hips against his in penance for something she couldn’t remember doing. “But I know myself well enough to know I didn’t lie to you. My father used to tell the women he dated that he loved them just to score more money off of them. He broke a lot of hearts, and I promised myself back when I was a little girl that I would never pretend to love someone. Love is a beautiful gift, and I don’t toss that word around lightly. I never have. So if I told you I loved you, I must have meant it.”

“Don’t say that.” He shook his head, fighting the ray of hope that lit up his heart before he could contain it.

But she shook her head, too. “No, I have to say this, because you need to understand. I love you now, and I’m sure I loved you then. I’m sorry if I wasn’t strong enough to leave Andrew for you.”

Compared to the angry, primal sex they’d just had, Layla’s soft velvet strokes against his dick shouldn’t have excited anything within him. But he felt his balls tightening as she conquered him with the one word he hadn’t been prepared for.

“You don’t have to love me back,” she said, her breath hitching as her own orgasm built inside of her. “I understand why you can’t love me the way I love you, but I need you to know how I feel. I do belong to you, but only because I love you now, and apparently, I loved you back then. I’ll always love you, Nathan.”

That declared, she kissed him, and his orgasm burst through him, touching every nerve in his body before he released into Layla, kissing her back with all the love he’d been trying to deny ever since she’d come back into his life.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

FOUR times proved to be too much for Layla, and sleep began to overtake her, even as Nathan pulled out of her. But he gently shook her awake before she could drift off and whispered, “Let’s go” in her ear.

She pulled her clothes back on, feeling awkward and raw inside and out. She could barely look Nathan in the eye after what has just transpired between them and when she rose from the bed, her thighs and vagina protested, sore from not one but four sessions of the most intense sex she’d ever had.

She peeked sideways at Nathan in the car, but his face revealed nothing.

“I’ll send Kate for your car,” he said. Then he didn’t speak again until they were back at his loft and she’d come out of the bathroom after taking a shower.

“You’re in pain,” he said, noting her ginger steps as she walked over to the bed.

She winced. “Yeah, we might have overdone it.”

“I’ll take a shower, too, then we need to talk,” he said.

She was already curled up under the silky sheets, her head nuzzled into his glorious pillows. “Okay, I’ll be right here when you get out,” she said with a yawn.

After the terrible weekend of sneaking around and keeping things from Nathan, and the big confrontation in the Sinclair guest cottage, she must have truly been spent because she fell asleep at once, not waking up until several hours later.

This time when she opened her eyes, though, she was greeted with the surprise of a gray wall blocking her view of the rest of the loft. Nathan had shown her the retractable walls cleverly embedded into slots strategically situated in various spots around the place, so he could create rooms on the fly around the office space or the bedroom. But so far they’d never had occasion to use them. For someone who claimed to value his privacy, Nathan had yet to really insist on it.

But when she woke up, the wall had been pulled and she could hear Nathan talking to what sounded like two men on the other side of it. She climbed out of bed. Her nether regions still felt a little raw but her curiosity won out over any physical pain she was experiencing at the moment.

She slipped a sundress over her head and tied her hair back in a low puff before venturing out into the common area where Nathan sat in the living room with two silver-haired men dressed in suits. When they saw her, they both stood.

“Ms. Matthews,” one of them said. “It’s my pleasure to meet you. I’m Bernard Wright and this is my partner, Graham Hastings. We’re Mr. Sinclair’s lawyers.”

“Hi,” Layla said. “It’s nice to meet you both.” But she gave Nathan, who remained seated on the couch, a quizzical look. What were his lawyers doing at his apartment on a Monday night?

“We’re done here,” Nathan said to them. “You can go.”

The two men nodded. “If you have any questions about the paperwork, just give us a call at the office,” Graham said.

“Would you like to stay for dinner?” Layla asked. “It’s the least we could do. You came all the way over here.”

Nathan regarded her with amusement in his eyes. “They can’t stay, Layla. They were just about to leave.”

“Yes,” Bernard said. “It’s best we go, but congratulations Ms. Matthews. Again, call us if you have any questions about the paperwork.”

He indicated what looked like four copies of a rather thick contract sitting on the coffee table. Then, despite their invitation to come to them with questions, they headed out the door before Layla could ask them any.

“What was that all about?” she asked Nathan once they were gone.

“How are you feeling?” he asked. “Still sore?”

“Just a little bit,” she said. “But why did your lawyers just congratulate me?”

“Sit down, Layla.” He moved to the side, so she could take a seat beside him.

Layla sat but she stared at the contracts as she did so until it occurred to her: “Oh my gosh, are you letting me out of the other contract? Is that what this is all about?”

“Yes,” he said. “This contract makes the other one null and void.”

She gasped and threw her arms around his neck, kissing him all over his hard-edged face. “Thank you! I’m so happy you’re doing this.”

“Wait, Layla.” He stopped her kisses, cupping her shoulders to keep her in place. “This contract makes the other one null and void on the condition that you marry me.”

She leaned back from him. “What?”

“It’s a very generous pre-nup. If you sign it, not only will the other contract be null and void as long as you’re my wife, but in the event we end up divorcing, you’ll be very well taken care of.”

“Oh, wow, you’re seriously pitching this to me.” Layla moved away from him, realizing the full extent of his plan. “You think if you let me stay without some legal claim, I’ll leave you for Andrew.”

He didn’t answer, but the tic in his jaw was all the answer she needed. “And does the contract also have a clause that if we get divorced, then I still have to leave town?”

“I wouldn’t care to share a city with my ex-wife, especially if she—” he broke off, but Layla didn’t need him to finish to understand. If she left him for Andrew, then yes, she’d once again be forced to leave Pittsburgh.

She shook her head, “You really don’t trust me.”

“It’s not about trust, it’s about continuing this relationship under terms I can deal with.”

She stood up. “No, it’s about trust. I love you and you don’t trust me at all. Why would you want to be with someone you don’t trust?”

“I don’t want to be you,” he yelled, also standing up. “Don’t you get it? No, I don’t trust you after what you did, and because of that, I don’t want to be with you. But I’m obsessed with you. If I could figure out a way to not be, believe me I would have employed it six ways to Sunday already. Sign the pre-nup, Layla.”

And just like that, they were back in front of her apartment building, with him demanding she consign their relationship to a legal document. “No,” she said.

He pointed at her, his face turning vicious. “Don’t say no. You know how ruthless I can be. And you know I will get my way with this.”

“Not this time,” she said, pointing right back at him. “I understand what’s going on now, and I’m not going to let you do this to us.”