Hardwired Read online

  “Oh.”

  “Are you happy now, boss?” he asked, pointing his fork at me.

  He was kind of cute when he was annoyed and confessional.

  “Well I’m not happy to hear that in particular, but I’m happy you told me.”

  I replayed the two meetings at Angelcom through my mind with the new knowledge that Max was in constant competition with Blake, eager for any opportunity to overtake him. My business was about to become irrevocably tied to Max. I now harbored very rational fears that my association with Blake could become problematic at some point, but Max wouldn’t have known about our relationship if I hadn’t told him.

  When the check came, Blake handed the server his card before I could reach for my purse. I let it go and excused myself to freshen up.

  When I emerged, I made my way toward Blake, who waited at the elevators. He stood with casual grace, his hands in his pockets, his suit straining in all the right ways, reminding me of the rock hard body beneath it. I could focus on almost nothing else as I passed by the long elegant bar and its patrons, but a face along the way caught my attention.

  I stopped in place, suddenly gripped with an all-consuming panic that drowned out the noise of the crowded restaurant. My heart beat ratcheted out of control. An icy pain rushed through me, seizing my body from my lungs to my fingertips.

  I steadied myself on the wall beside me, seemingly unable to move forward another inch while the face of the man I recognized turned in my direction, as if he sensed me watching him.

  Dressed in a tailored pinstriped suit, he looked like anyone else at the bar having a drink after a long day, but I knew better. After a few seconds, his face twisted into a smile as recognition dawned.

  He remembered me.

  After three years of looking over my shoulder, never knowing when I might see him again, I had come to believe I never would. Without a name, he was a ghost, a memory so excruciating that I’d spent years trying to convince myself he’d never existed at all. Yet here he was, a living nightmare come back to haunt me. I cursed myself as the irrational thought struck me that talking with Liz had somehow conjured him back to life.

  I vaguely remembered hearing Blake call my name before he was at my side, taking me by the arm to break me out of my trance. He came into focus, and I tried in vain to mask the fear that plagued me.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, his face lined with concern.

  “Nothing.” I caught his hand and pulled him toward the elevators.

  After a few attempts to get me talking in the car, Blake seemed to give up. We stepped into the cool air of his apartment and I made myself at home at the wet bar in the living room. I filled a cut glass lowball to the brim with ice and some smoky amber liquor from one of the many bottles in his collection.

  I sank into the couch and pressed the cool glass against my forehead, willing away the frenzied thoughts that had taken over. I wanted to banish each and every one of them. Tuck them away where they no longer felt like my own, or better yet, where I might forget them entirely. I took a healthy gulp from my glass to hasten their journey.

  I shouldn’t be here, but I couldn’t be alone right now, and sharing square footage with Sid didn’t count. I needed a powerful distraction, and Blake had always been supremely helpful in that department. He sat on the coffee table across from me, holding my legs between his. He stroked the sensitive skin above my knees, but my body was numb, unable to process even the most basic desires that Blake inspired in me.

  “Talk to me, please,” Blake said evenly.

  I stared past him, giving him nothing. Sharing my past with Blake seemed impossible, but something sparked to life. A little part of me wanted to break down the wall that kept my past safely hidden from the present.

  “There’s nothing to talk about,” I said, unsure how I could even begin to tell him, even if I wanted to. I could barely handle the onslaught of emotions that had been terrorizing me since leaving the restaurant.

  “That’s bullshit. You looked like you’d witnessed a crime scene in there.”

  “I was remembering one.” I regretted the words as soon as I uttered them. My body tensed with a different kind of fear. Blake would never look at me the same again. He would know someone had taken his pleasure from me, and that in my stupid, young ignorance, I let him.

  Silent, he waited for me to continue. I forced the rest of the drink down, waiting for the relief it promised. If I told Blake now, he’d either head for the hills, or maybe he’d care, though I couldn’t imagine why. It dawned on me that if we had any chance for a future, he’d have to know.

  “We were freshmen. I went with some friends off campus for a weekend party, and we ended up at a frat house. The place was mobbed. We danced, we drank too much punch. I barely ever drank, so I was obliterated by the time I got to the bottom of my cup. I wandered away from the group. A guy there, he…” I trailed off, lost in the memory I’d so carefully buried.

  How could I possibly explain how naïve I had been, to follow a friendly stranger to the bar that we never found, like a child being lured with candy? Then to be so intoxicated that I could barely fight him off, my refusals lost in the chaos of the party that raged inside.

  The man I saw tonight was the man who had taken my innocence, leaving me violated and sick in the bushes where Liz finally found me. Years of preserving myself for a first love, or at the very least, a buzzed night of mutual consent, had all been for naught, and the shame had kept me silent.

  “I tried to fight him off,” I whispered. This time, I couldn’t swallow away the tears that fell free down my face. My limbs felt weak and heavy, weighed down by my past and the reality that losing whatever I had with Blake to it would be a crushing blow.

  Blake’s jaw clenched, and he sat back, raking his hands through his hair. The momentary separation from his touch physically hurt, the places where our skin had met ached for his return. I needed the contact as an affirmation that this new knowledge wouldn’t color how he felt about me. A sickness twisted inside me at the thought.

  “Are you happy now?” I laughed weakly through my tears, wishing Blake would respond.

  His expression was frozen with a nameless emotion.

  “I’m damaged goods.”

  “Stop.” The authoritative bite to his voice gave me pause.

  “Stop what?”

  “You’re not damaged, Erica.”

  I swallowed hard, wishing I could believe him. “I’m simply stating the obvious. It doesn’t make sense for you to want to be with someone like me anyway. You should be dating socialites, models, not someone like… me.” My voice caught as the words left me.

  “I’m not interested in dating models.”

  “Well, that makes no fucking sense, you realize that? I’m a mess. I mean, just look at me.”

  “I do. Frequently, in fact. You’ve been driving me crazy for days. I can barely sleep at night.”

  “And now?”

  “Now, I have you. No roommates, no crowds, and you’re trying to come up with every reason to scare me off. If you think this changes things, you’re wrong.”

  I looked away, helplessly fighting the tears that just kept coming. When he sat next to me and pulled me onto his lap, I went willingly, wanting to feel him close again. How he could still want me, I would never know. He wrapped me tight in his arms, cocooning me to his chest until my tears ran dry.

  “You’re stunning,” he said.

  Nuzzled into his shoulder, I shook my head. “How can you say that after what I just told you?”

  “Because it’s true. Erica, one horrible experience doesn’t define you. If it did, I doubt you’d want to be with me either.”

  “But I do,” I said.

  My hand slid over his shirt to feel his heart beating a slow and steady rhythm. I knew nothing about his heart, but something inside of me wanted to deserve it then. What would it be like to have his desire, and his love? Suddenly my feelings for Blake began to overwhelm the painful
memories he’d coaxed out of me moments earlier.

  He lifted my hand and brushed his lips softly over my fingertips. “I want to be with you too, baby.”

  In that moment I felt like we had been together and known each other far longer than we had. I had shown him a part of me, and he was still here with me despite all of it. Inch by inch, he caressed me, claiming every expanse of bare skin with a quiet tenderness I’d never known, healing me with his hands and lips. The pain and the numbness gave way to relief, and then, to a familiar warmth that simmered below the surface.

  I tipped my head back, a silent plea for his kiss. Somehow, he’d broken through my walls, overwhelming my senses with the pressing need to be possessed. His smell, his taste, and his primal hunger—I craved them all. His lips met mine. Tentative at first, then more sure. I explored the depths of his mouth, tangling my tongue with his, ravenous for him. He met me with equal intensity. He shifted me so I was straddling him, pressing our bodies together so they were flush. A soft cry escaped my lips at the sudden contact and the fervency of his movements. Then he stopped, fisting his hands to his sides.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m wound too tight, Erica.” His head fell back on the couch and he swallowed, the notch in his throat moving with the action.

  I wanted to kiss him there, but I needed to figure out where his head was first. “So?”

  He squeezed his eyes shut and his body tensed beneath my touch.

  “Touch me,” I begged. I fumbled with the buttons of his shirt, unable to wait any longer for his skin on mine. Running my fingers over his chest, I leaned in to taste his throat, relishing his scent and the saltiness of his skin.

  “Wait,” he said through clenched teeth.

  I pulled back obediently. “Why?”

  My heart sank and the sadness crept back as the silence grew between us. After everything I’d shared with him tonight, I’d been foolish to think that we could go on like nothing had happened.

  I searched his eyes. A flicker of emotion passed over his features before he looked away. Was it fear?

  “I want you, Blake.” God, did I ever. I shifted, unable to ignore the uncomfortable ache between my thighs.

  “I want you too. I’ll probably lose my mind if I can’t be inside you tonight.” He exhaled a shaky breath. “I just don’t want to… freak you out.”

  “I’m not a china doll. I promise you won’t hurt me.”

  He closed his eyes again, his hands unmoving on either side of us, as if he could block out the temptation to touch me that way.

  Appreciating every hard ripple of his abdomen, I trailed my fingers down his chest, following the soft hairs that disappeared under the band of his pants. I reached for the clasp, but before I could release him, Blake caught my wrists, holding them steady while he breathed hard.

  “I want to feel you lose control, Blake.” My body pulsed, my self-control hanging on by a thread. I wanted nothing more than for him to take me the way he wanted to, the way I needed him to.

  He caught me by the waist and stood, lifting me effortlessly. I wrapped my legs around him as he walked us to his bedroom. The room was dimly lit by two wall sconces, the near darkness enveloping me like the warmth of his body.

  He shut the door behind us and pinned me to it with a growl. I took in a sharp breath when my back hit the hard wood of the door. I bit my lip and tightened around him, wanting everything he could give me. The thin straps of my dress fell down my shoulders, a welcome invitation for him to release my breasts one by one, taunting each peak with his tongue and then his teeth. The sharp edge of the sensation cut through me. I whimpered his name, begging for more.

  He lowered my feet to the floor and freed me from the dress, leaving me bare and shameless as he kneeled before me, trailing hot wanton kisses from my ankle to the folds of my wet sex now clenching in anticipation. He draped my leg over his shoulder, opening me to him. The friction from his stubble on my inner thigh almost unraveled me on the spot.

  I ran my fingers through his hair and tightened my hold when he took me in his mouth. A fire began to grow in my belly after only a few strokes of his tongue. God, his mouth had talent all its own. He centered his focus on the tiny bundle of nerves that had my whole body tensing, climbing to the edge of release. His strokes came harder and he sucked my clit with a fervor that took my breath away.

  My vision went white as I went over the edge, a free fall into a shuddering climax that had me nearly collapsing in his arms.

  Before my knees could give out, Blake caught me, my body, soft and yielding against the hard lines of his. He kissed me, slow deep kisses that quelled the tremors of my recent orgasm. My hands splayed over his exposed chest and pushed off his shirt, greedy at the chance to touch him freely, the way I’d wanted to for days. His skin was on fire, stretched tight over every taut muscle that seemed to struggle with impressive restraint. I ached to have him completely. Unrestrained. Raw.

  “Blake, if you don’t fuck me soon, I’m going to lose it, I swear.”

  His lips curved under mine and he brought us to the bed. He undressed quickly, his muscles flexing with each effort, each motion a promise of the power he could wield. I waited, not so patiently, as he retrieved a condom from his pants and slid it onto his admirable length. I cursed myself for making us wait, for keeping us from this place where we both fiercely wanted to be.

  Right when I expected him to join me, he caught my thighs and pulled me to the edge of the bed, spreading my legs around his waist and notching himself at the slick flesh between my legs. His eyes were dark. His breath hissed as he thrust into me in one hard, singular motion, digging his fingers into my hips.

  I gasped at his depth, letting my body acclimate to being so completely overtaken by his. I closed my eyes for a minute to absorb it all, the perfection of how he felt inside me.

  When he didn’t move, I opened my eyes. His expression was tense, the line of his jaw rigid. He ran his hand from my hip to my knee and pushed away a fraction.

  I made a small whimper of protest. I hooked my ankles and pulled him closer, deeper. “This is how I want you.”

  “Erica—”

  “I don’t want you to hold back. I want all of you, Blake.” Desperate, I arched into him. The need to feel him moving inside me, ravaging me, was relentless. Whatever he thought I couldn’t take was exactly what I needed. “Please,” I begged.

  He released a shaky breath and pulled back slowly. Then he drove into me, hard and deep. I cried out. My back bowed off the bed.

  Just like that.

  I met his rapid thrusts, now fierce and unapologetic, as my cunt tightened around him. My entire body trembled in a seemingly perpetual state of climax. I reveled as he pushed deeper and deeper, hitting a tender spot inside me that I never knew existed until he created it.

  I gripped the edge of the bed, adding even more leverage to his efforts. Just when I thought I couldn’t take any more, he lifted my hips off the bed, bringing the contact to a new level. I fisted my hands in the sheets.

  “Blake, oh God. Yes.” Unintelligible cries poured out of me as I melted around him, pleasure rippling out from my core.

  Blake tensed. Every plane of his body turned to stone, his breath ragged as he came in a rush.

  “Erica, fuck.” He threw his head back, his fingers marking my skin.

  He stilled inside me while my body quaked with the aftershocks of his sheet-clawing brand of sex.

  Wasted from the release, I lay boneless and satisfied. After a moment Blake climbed in the bed, pulling me up against his side. He curled his arms around me and nuzzled into my neck.

  “Erica?”

  I hummed, huddled against his chest.

  “Are you okay?” he murmured.

  I looked up into his eyes, dilated from our passion but filled with concern. My heart twisted, and I struggled to fill my lungs on my next breath.

  “I’m more than okay.” I swallowed over the knot in my throat. “I’ve neve
r been with anyone like you Blake. I—”

  The next words caught. He touched his fingertips to my lips and pressed a soft kiss there, stealing the unspoken words. I was falling for Blake, harder and faster than I’d ever fallen for anyone.

  He kissed along my jaw and then found my mouth, soothing me with long and deep strokes of his tongue. While gentle, the act lit the fire in me again. My hands roamed his body, appreciating every breathtaking curve of his anatomy. I couldn’t get enough of him, whether it was looking at him or sleeping with him. The need to claim him overwhelmed me. My caresses became more urgent. I tugged him closer and he shifted over me, bringing the weight of his body above me.

  “You’re insatiable,” he murmured between kisses, teasing my lower lip between his teeth.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” I arched into him. The more he gave me, the more I needed.

  “Why the hell would you be sorry?”

  “It’s too soon,” I said, feeling him harden between us as the words left me.

  “I can go all night, if you can.” Stretching my arms above me, he interlaced our fingers together. He held me captive, a state that heightened my senses and had me tingling again from head to toe.

  Being with Blake intoxicated me in every way, and my addiction to him solidified with every toe-curling orgasm he delivered. I wrapped my legs around him, my arms powerless, and urged him to me.

  “Is that a challenge?” I teased, tempted to put him to the test.

  “Yes,” he said. His voice was raw with lust as his lips crashed down onto me.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I woke in the morning, wrapped in Blake’s soft down comforter and the memories of the night. I stretched out onto Blake’s empty side of the bed. Sunshine poured into the room, and I smelled coffee brewing. I got up and picked out a plain white T-shirt from one of Blake’s closets to cover myself. In the bathroom, Blake had laid out some toiletries for me. I smiled. Most girls had to work their way up to that.