Hate to Love You (27 page)

James’s bathroom was ultra-modern, tiled from floor to ceiling in sand-coloured marble. The Jacuzzi was enormous and the shower stall could fit all the tenants on Marcia’s floor. I washed my hands and smelled James’s aftershave, then I poured some on a wad of tissues and stuffed it into my handbag.

Pathetic Paisley
, my mind sneered, and I flushed it down the toilet.

I ran my hands through my wild hair and took a deep breath. Francesca and James would never know how much it cost me to say my polite goodbyes. Well, Francesca wouldn’t, anyway. When I came out of the bedroom she was gone and James was leaning against the breakfast bar, his arms crossed. I wanted to walk up to him, lace his hands around my waist and feel his lips on mine.

I practically ran to the front door.

When I got there I turned around. “Call me if you need anything for Ryan, okay?”

James straightened. “You can take him out in a few days if he’s feeling better.”

“Great, that’s...great. Thanks. I’m waitressing tomorrow and the day after but maybe Tuesday? I could take him to the cinema or maybe we could go the zoo or—”

I cut myself off; stopped in mid-sentence because I’d seen the look on James’s face before. Seen it just before he kissed me at Casa Escondida and seen it when his body was hard against mine. It was lust and longing and frustration.

I dithered, indecision rooting me to the spot. I had a choice. I could leave or I could try to talk to him and hope that he talked to me in return
.

I took a deep breath. “I hate myself for lying to you and—”

The oven timer buzzed loudly. Like a reprimand, it cut me off and broke the spell. James switched it off and when he turned around his face was neutral. Indifferent. He had turned himself off as easily as he’d turned off the timer.

I opened my mouth and James’s expression darkened. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“Well you’re going to,” I retorted. “I was eighteen and desperate. My parents were kicking me out and I was afraid of being on my own with a baby. Caroline taunted me. She revelled in my misery and I was full of hatred because she would have everything she wanted, including you.”

“So you decided I should pay for your misfortune!”

“No! I was drunk, not thinking straight, and the words popped out of my mouth. I was a scared, angry girl who did the wrong thing and paid a higher price than she ever imagined. A price I’ll continue to pay for the rest of my life.”

A muscle quivered in James’s cheek and he was silent so long I wondered if he’d heard me. What more could I say? I didn’t want to stop talking because he was finally listening. His face looked carved in granite and everything in his posture said he was reining himself in, but at least he hadn’t shoved me out of the flat.

“I’m overjoyed that Ryan really is your son,” I said. “You deserve to be his father in every way. And you are! Francesca gave me a copy of the DNA test.”

His voice cut across me like whiplash. “You think that wipes the slate clean? That planning never to tell me the truth should be forgotten? Coming back and convincing me you had changed, that you were honest and I could trust you knowing full well you had lied to me is acceptable?”

I stuck my hands on my hips. “No, but I think you should cut me some slack. I came clean even though I knew you would despise me.”

For a second I thought he would come towards me but he veered to Ryan’s doorway. “I’m going to check on Ryan.”

That was it? Nothing I had said made any difference? The anger I’d been incubating for the past few months became a full-blown outbreak.

“Go ahead, run away from me you self-righteous hypocrite.”

“What?”

I met his furious look with one of my own because I wasn’t backing down. No way. I was sick of paying the price, sick of feeling like crap. Guilt and regret had weighed me down for too long. They had taken hold and turned me into a weak, pathetic shadow and I was bone weary, tired of James’s superior attitude and his inability to forgive.

“You heard right. You’re a hypocrite,” I said. “You want to punish me for something I did when I was a scared kid but you refuse to judge yourself by the same rulebook. You married Caroline even though you lusted after me. You fantasised about her messed-up
teenaged
sister from the moment you met me. Even on your wedding day you couldn’t resist me, remember?

“Were you going to tell Caroline about your jealousy in the garden or our tender moment in the bridal suite? No. You were going to go on your honeymoon, screw her and think about me while you did it. Not very
honest
of you, James.”

I returned his scowl tenfold.

“You expected Caroline to forgive you and you got angry when she didn’t. Yet you’re so stuck up your own arse you can’t forgive me for a lie whose only victim was me. You enjoy feeling like God, judging me from a pedestal made out of condescending self-righteousness and—”

“That’s enough,” he said, taking an involuntary step forward.

The air swirled violently between us, charging the flat with angry currents. I flung my handbag and coat on the floor, clenched my fists and braced myself. One way or another my suffering was going to end.

Tonight.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Mine

James was taut with rage. “Go home and get some sleep. Try to wake up an adult in the morning.”

I didn’t move. “What’s got you so angry, anyway? You’re not the one who lost his son. Is it your ego? You hate it that I felt another man’s dick before yours. That’s why you can’t forgive me, isn’t it? You still want me in spite of everything but you’re too much the proud coward to admit it.”

James didn’t answer, staring at me as if the idea of wanting, needing me, was ridiculous.

I advanced towards him. “You’re going to answer me even if I have to beat it out of you.”

He looked down his nose. “That may be the way manipulative liars deal with their problems but it isn’t, and never has been, mine.”

“You supercilious bastard!”

Overpowering fury propelled me across the room and then I was banging my fists on his chest. Who the hell was he to look down his nose at me? To show me how much he wanted me and then turn his back? I was flawed, no doubt about it, but it was time I cut
myself
some slack. James could forgive me or he could pick me up and dump me on the pavement outside Matham Manor.

He shackled my arms to my sides. “Stop it.”

“Why don’t you make me?”

Why didn’t he feel the same way I did? Why wasn’t he falling apart, crippled by pain and tempted to throw away everything he’d gained because he’d lost
me?
It wasn’t fair that James could continue his life as if I didn’t matter to him, that he could dismiss me so easily while I’d never been able to, not even as a teenager.

It wasn’t bloody right!

I aimed a punch at his jaw and missed. I loved him; I hated him. I was hell and fury and a woman scorned. A cliché. Hell, I was
Caroline
, and James was looking at me like he’d looked at her that night in his flat. I stumbled away, clutching at my chest and searching frantically for my handbag and coat.

James yanked me back so roughly I cried out in pain. He was breathing hard and so was I, tears streaming down my cheeks. My chest slammed against his and he pulled me up his torso, two hands on my hips. Our foreheads banged together and I could have sworn I saw the colourful sparks we created. A low groan came out of James’s throat before he gave me what I craved, taking my lips with a violent, savage kiss. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t react. Couldn’t tell him to let me go.

“Don’t think you can do this to me and run away,” he growled, grazing my neck with his teeth.

“What about your date?” I cried, angry and miserable and jealous. “The woman you’re cooking for?”

“She seems determined to leave.”

He carried me into his bedroom and kicked the door shut behind us. And then we were in a tangle of unleashed anger, exhilarating and frightening in its power. I wondered if I had goaded him too far and then I didn’t care anymore because his hands were lifting and pulling, ripping my clothing in his haste to feel me. His careful reserve was gone and all his safety gauges switched off. Mine were too. I tugged and tore, bit and pushed and sobbed out the frustration of the past few months.

Angry gasps and half-said words ricocheted in the darkness as we struggled against each other. He cupped my head and brought my mouth up to his, and I heard a long, desperate sound. It was my voice and his, laced together in need and hunger, unable to express ourselves any differently. He kissed me harder, his hips grinding into mine until everything around us disappeared.

Were we on the bed or on the floor? All I knew was that it was dark and he was there and for that moment he was mine. Nothing else mattered except his demands in my ear, his hands caressing me, trying to touch me everywhere at once. His skin was hot, zapping me as I stroked him. Little exclamations that fuelled my own.

I grappled with his belt buckle and shoved his trousers down. He was commando tonight, springing into my hand the moment his zipper was undone. I didn’t have time to grasp him before his fingers were inside me, flicking the switch that turned the heat up higher.

I was so wet he let out a guttural groan, making me blush at my obvious arousal. Then I fit my hand around his shaft and found that he was just as eager. He was straining, slick in my palm and I wanted him inside me but it was too late. He’d hit the magic spot one too many times and I cried out into the darkness, into him, tears running down my face as my climax shook me.

Then his mouth was on mine and his voice low and fierce in my ear. “You’re mine.”

It was a shock to hear him say it out loud. He took my hands and pinned them to the bed, nudging my thighs apart and fitting himself to me roughly. I wasn’t sure if he was beast or man and I didn’t care.

I wanted to ask him so many things but I choked on the words, thinking of my past and all the pain I’d caused him. Of how my lie about Ryan had shaken him, hurt him badly and ultimately—

“Made me so angry I swore I’d never feel anything for you again,” he said.

I lifted my hips to take him deeper, gasping as he filled me.

“You were right,” he said, driving hard. “About everything. I wanted you the day we met and I want you now. I need you, Paisley. I’ve been through hell without you and I don’t care what your motives are anymore, I’m not letting you go.”

Anything I would have said was cut off by his lips, claiming me until I forgot everything but him. His hand on my breast, his lips on my skin, his cock demanding my response. His pace was furious, forcing me to keep up, forcing me to take him deep, and then deeper still. His anger remained, channelled into need so desperate I thought it might consume me, but all that mattered was that he didn’t leave me alone again, out in the cold without his heat to sustain me.

“Don’t stop,” I begged, over and over.

“Not bloody likely.”

He thrust so deep I raked my nails down his back. Our bodies were slick with perspiration, tight with passion, writhing and grinding against each other. We didn’t make love and we didn’t fuck.

We rutted.

Beasts, whittled down to our most basic forms, naked and nothing between us.

Oh crap
,
nothing between us?

I struggled, shifting my hips in an effort to regain my sanity. James shifted with me. I wanted to sit up but he didn’t let me, hands on my thighs to keep me in place, moving against him.

“No more barriers,” he said, shutting my brain off with a kiss, taking my tongue and twisting it so that I couldn’t respond even if I’d known what to say.

Tumultuous, angry passion had swept us from the sitting room and crashed us against the rocks. Now I felt like a sinking ship, listing to the side and getting helplessly submerged in deep, primitive need. This was James, showing me he didn’t care about the past, that he wanted the future and everything that went with it. No matter what.

He stopped moving, his engorged cock pulsing along with his heartbeat inside me. “Tell me if you want it too or this ends right now,” he said, sounding as far away from a coolly contained lawyer as possible. “You’re mine and I don’t share.”

“You’re the only man I want,” I panted. “Come inside me, James.”

“Say it again, that last bit.”

His wish was my command.

The sound of his pleasure was all it took to sink my ship to the bottom of the sea, where I confronted the sharks and discovered they were stupid and blind. And then I was submerged in ecstasy, crying out as I climaxed. I gushed like a fountain, covering his cock in hot fluid.

James froze, his head went back and his shoulders bunched. He drove inside me, pushing me all the way up the bed. The sound that came out of his throat was like nothing I’d ever heard before. Primal. Basic. Agonised.

The fiery spouts of his release coated my greedy walls, melting me into a mewling, panting, mass of pleasure. I clasped my muscles around him, squeezing him with tight, strong pulses. Wanting him to reach so far inside me we were melded together.

“Oh God... Paisley,” he moaned.

He looked at me so fixedly I felt he was seeing me through the dark, adding my sweat-soaked face to his arsenal of snapshots. He expelled his last hot spurt but continued to buck into me. It was as if he needed to imprint himself on every centimetre of my tender skin; use his cock to write the lines that said I was his and nobody else’s.

Gradually, his thrusts become longer, slower, and his head buried into my shoulder. James’s body settled heavily on top of mine, muscular chest crushing my breasts. Our breathing slowly returned to normal and we held each other, our mouths and hands expressing everything our voices couldn’t.

I thought he would roll onto his back but he didn’t, keeping us joined at the hips. That was fine with me; I wasn’t ready to lose that connection either. I don’t know how long we lay there, breathing in the heady scent of our passion.

“Sorry I was rough,” he said, sounding embarrassed.

I smiled. “I was too.”

He groaned and shifted on top of me to click on the bed lamp. “I may need to head back to hospital.”

I laughed and he kissed my lips, my neck, my breasts, laving my tender nipples with his tongue. “God, I love your nipples.”

Arousal made my pussy clench around his hardening cock. In response he withdrew, teasing me with a languid prod. I was flooded by our juices, so wet I wondered if he could even feel me, but I needn’t have worried. He was growing bigger, harder, expelling everything else but him.

All thoughts of savouring the moment and going slow were ousted by his raw need to sink into me and find himself again. I understood and gave him what he wanted—hell, I needed it too—letting passion sweep me up and carry me away.

Afterwards we lay trembling with the aftershocks. When I finally opened my eyes my breath caught in my throat.

“Do you see it?” I said, watching shimmering green energy mingle with vivid blue, glow brighter and slowly fade away.

James rolled me over until I was on top of him. “What?”

“Magic.”

I traced his forehead and his straight nose while he watched me, lips curved into a faint smile. I lingered at his mouth, thinking of the roar that had come from his throat and—Oh God, I’d sounded like a hyena! He smirked, teasing me with his eyes.

“Ryan’s a heavy sleeper.”

My cheeks felt warm. “He can sleep through that?”

“The pain killers help but he probably could all the same.”

“A boy of much talent, is Ryan.”

“Say it the other way.”

“A boy of much talent is...our son.”

James observed me, looking serene. He was happy, I realised with a start, and I was the cause. Self-doubt tugged at my burgeoning happiness. I was riddled with imperfection, and not just the swearing, brash and in-your-face kind. Or the little things people forgive about each other and shrug off as part of the package deal. The heaviness of my screwed-up, emotional baggage would ground a 747.

I wasn’t even highly educated or professionally successful to lighten the load. Sure, I’d had a lot of time to think lately and I wanted to study art when I could, maybe use my calligraphy skills professionally one day. But at the moment I was a struggling waitress with no career ambitions other than to pay the bills at the end of the month. I had no personal aspirations except to keep clean and never be far from James or Ryan again.

I wasn’t an accomplished, professional woman like Caroline.

“Thank God,” James said.

I stared at him, probing deep. “Are you reading my mind?”

“You think with your eyes.”

I frowned and he laughed. He sobered and pushed me onto my back, giving my shoulder a little shake. “No more lies.”

I looked away. “I almost fell off the wagon tonight before the hospital. I was miserable and angry, missing you like hell. I’ll always struggle with temptation.”

“And I’ll fuck you away from it,” he said huskily.

He punctuated his sentence with a kiss on my breast. I arched my back, wanting more. His hand splayed on my stomach, then lower, tantalisingly close to my pussy. Oh God, could I withstand another bout?

Oh yeah
,
think of those starving cows
, my mind sniggered.

James’s sudden tense expression brought me out of my gleeful anticipation. “Is there anything else you haven’t told me?”

“I’m a nympho.”

James didn’t smile. “Any skeletons in Valencia or a spouse in need of a decree absolute? Please divulge any complications.”

His formal language was endearing now that I understood what it meant. It was how he controlled the primitive male lurking under the surface, the one who wanted to take control when he was near me. I met his eyes, my heart beating faster at what I saw. No matter what I replied he wanted me regardless.

“No more lies,” I agreed. “But a few home truths. If you threw me out I was going to stalk you, sneak into your room or spy on you in that massive bordello bathtub.”

James relaxed. “Who says I wasn’t stalking you already? You never close your window at night even though you live on the first floor. Don’t you know how dangerous that is? And you’re oblivious to your surroundings after dark. I followed you one night to the salsa club and you never noticed.”

I gaped at him, amazed. “Plenty of women walk to the tube station at nine p.m.”

“I could’ve attacked you at any time, dragged you into an alley and done whatever I wanted.”

“Maybe you should have,” I teased.

James tightened his arms around me and scowled. “I never want to see you dance with another man the way you did with Tarzan. I’ve been taking lessons every weekend so you’ll dance with
me
.”

My eyes grew wide at the thought of James trying to learn salsa. Poor instructor. Then it hit me that while I’d been suffering, pining for him and unable to enjoy my favourite pastime, he’d been enjoying himself. I wanted to strangle him—until I realised he hadn’t been cosying up to other women as Francesca had implied but launching himself miles out of his comfort zone.

For
me.

“I do believe Ms Benítez is speechless,” James mocked, dipping his fingers inside me. “That’s just the way I like it.”