Page 66 of Lust
But when the light of her hope died its final death, she pinned him on his stomach, kneed him between the shoulder blades, forcing his face into the mattress. She wrenched his arm back in a stronghold.
A metallic cricking rent the air as something cold locked around his wrist. She yanked his other hand behind his back and cuffed his wrists together before rolling him to face her. She straddled his thighs. The wild woman looking down at him was a thing of primordial beauty. Her hair came loose from a braid. Electric brown eyes. Flushed cheeks.
But the fear and hate were not Liza. This was not the woman he’d dreamed about being in this very bed. This was not his fantasy. She was an avenging Valkyrie, ready to smite with no mercy. He couldn’t even lift his arms to protect himself. Her time for pulling punches was over.
She curled her fist, drew it back—
“Stop!” he shouted. “For the love of God, just stop and let me talk.”
“There’s nothing you can say.”
“I love you.”
She physically jerked. Blinked.
Silence.
His heart hammered in his chest, rattling his ribs, but he pressed on. “I’ve always loved you, Liza. Always. Never stopped. Never will.”
Her face crumpled. “You’re using me.”
Suddenly shock lit up her face. She glared at her palms. Little pebbles of yellow started gathering along the crease lines. The defiant burn of her gaze turned wild and panicked.
In a heartbeat, Joe knew what to do. He spoke calmly, voice low and soothing. “Barry Bonds: 2986 games; 762 home runs. Come on, repeat it.”
Every iota of Liza’s body language said she would rather choke on her own vomit than acquiesce.
“You know this works,” he insisted.
She held his gaze and then spoke through a raspy throat. “Barry Bonds: 2986 games; 762 home runs.”
He nodded. “Hank Aaron: 3298 games; 755 home runs.”
She repeated, and then he moved to the next statistic. They went down the ladder of all-time baseball statistics until no more yellow appeared at her palms. She kept mumbling the stats to herself, eyes wary on her palms, then disappeared into his ensuite. He heard the faucet turn on a moment later and dropped his head back on the bed with a heavy exhale.
Her footsteps shuffled next to the bed, but he kept his gaze on the white ceiling.
“I was using you,” he admitted. “I thought I could steer you away from your family. I thought you were too good for them and they didn’t appreciate you, but I didn’t know the whole story. I do now. Listen to me. I was tearing it all down to get rid of it. Liza. I’m on your side, now.” He paused. He forced the next words out with a trembling voice. “I can’t sleep without dreaming about you. I smell you, and I go weak at the knees. I see you, and I can’t function. I had to leave the city to become better and failed. I even tried to attempt a normal relationship to get you out of my head, but it never worked, and that’s because it’s always been you, wrapped around my heart.” He slid his gaze back to hers. “Iloveyou, Liza Lazarus.”
As though snipped by scissors, the thread holding her composure unraveled. Her eyes watered. Her lips flattened. Fear. That’s what he saw in her eyes. She was on that raft, floating away, afraid to drown in her sea of overwhelming emotions. Disbelief, pain, incomprehension—it all warred on her face, drawing her brows together so tight they became two straight slits across her forehead. When she spoke, it was a heart-rending confession.
“I thought I’d never hear that,” she rasped, sobbed. “Ever.”
“Hear what… that I love you?”
She tried to hold it in, but a sob burst out. Her chin dropped. “I thought I’d never get it. From anyone.”
Aw, hell.Shit. “Liza. You’ve always had it. From me.”
“I didn’t know!” Her voice tightened, almost accused. She dropped a knee on the bed and then hit him on the chest, but there was no power, only tears. Tears she’d likely never shown anyone. But him.
“Come here,” he urged. “Kiss me, and you’ll know.”
She climbed onto him and pressed her lips to his. He pushed back until their teeth knocked, and then they kissed as though starved. A sharp pinch. A taste of copper. The snare of his wrists and strain of his shoulders as he arched to meet her. He barely noticed any of it through the ecstasy of feeling her mouth on his. He would kiss through the end of the world if it was her fused to him like this. Her sweet, heady taste hit his system. Euphoria. Bliss.Desire. He groaned, or maybe she did. He tried to deepen the kiss, but she held him captive beneath her, at her mercy. And, fuck, that made it hotter. Shewantedhim.
“Liza,” he rasped, begged, chasing her lips as she pulled away.
But she was gone, lost in another world that started somewhere around his neck and jaw. She twirled her intrepid tongue over his skin, inducing a thready sigh from his lips.
