Beneath the Beauty Page 5

  He raised his eyebrow. “My reputation precedes me.”

  “It does indeed.” She winked. “But Erin’s not here.”

  He ran a hand over his face, disappointed but ready to turn around when she stopped him.

  “Wait here,” she said, an almost playful expression on her face, hiding a smile.

  He saw smiles rarely enough, and never from a stranger these days. “What?”

  “Wait here for her to get back.” She glanced at the apartment. “I’m not sure I should leave you in here though.”

  “No, you’re right to not let me in. We’ve never met before. I can wait outside.”

  She grinned. “Okay, stranger danger. But trust me. Erin wants to see you. And she should be back any minute, considering. I need to get to work anyway, so the apartment will be all yours.” She had emphasized the last two words, as if she fully expected them to get busy in the small run-down apartment.

  Well, he was on board with that plan, except it had been twenty minutes since she’d disappeared into the back parking lot where residents needed a card to park. He’d remained in the doorway with an eye on his truck, determined to at least see Erin tonight. If she asked him to leave, well, then he’d go. But he had to make sure she was okay. He felt her unhappiness like a physical weight around his neck. He didn’t believe in that psychic aura stuff, but he’d had a sense of her feeling lost, alone, and he needed to try and fix that. Though maybe there wasn’t any woo-woo explanation for it. Her expression when he’d seen her last was emblazoned in his mind: shock, hurt, betrayal. Things he remembered feeling when Melinda had left him.

  He’d made Erin feel that way. Fuck.

  “Blake?”

  He jerked to the side, relieved to see Erin. He’d had a few words planned, but he was rendered speechless by the sexy black dress she was wearing. Electric lust shot through his body. He wanted to fall on her, to push her up against the wall and…

  But no. He could restrain himself. He already looked like a monster. He didn’t have to act like one.

  “Hey,” he forced out.

  “Uh…what are you doing here?”

  Her eyes were guarded, and shit, had she been on a date with someone else?

  “I came to talk about what happened today.”

  If possible, she seemed to shrink in on herself even further. “Can’t we talk about it tomorrow?”

  His eyebrow raised. “On campus?”

  That tugged a small smile from her. “Okay, I guess we know where that would end up.”

  He doubted he’d be able to keep his hands off her any easier inside her apartment, but he stayed silent as she unlocked the door and led him inside. The apartment was small and rather threadbare. A standard college apartment, modest but comfortable, with thick plaid couches and plywood furnishings and a small potted plant blocking the television.

  She caught his gaze. “We call him the Grumpy Geranium.”

  He tilted his head in question.

  Wandering over, she touched a finger to the pink petals. “I’m not sure how it got started. I think we were drinking. I’m not huge on the party scene, but I’ll go for wine coolers and a movie on Saturday night.”

  He hid a smile, imagining her tipsy. She was one of the most serious young women he’d ever met. He would like to see her more relaxed, more open. Of course, there was another way she became more lax, when they were in bed together…. But he wasn’t supposed to be thinking of that.

  “Anyway, we named this plant The Grumpy Geranium because he looks kind of mad, don’t you think?”

  He looked doubtfully at the flowers. They looked…pretty?

  She waved away the silent disagreement. “You had to be drunk. But basically he judges us until we’ve done all our homework and done the dishes and taken out the trash and then we can watch TV. He’s like a guard.” She rubbed a petal between her fingers before looking up, something strange and unsettling in her eyes. “You can sit down, you know. Sorry I didn’t say so sooner.”

  Nodding, he found a seat on one end of the couch. She perched on the edge of an ottoman. A far cry from the close embrace they’d shared at his house.

  Suddenly she looked ready to cry. His muscles tensed to go to her, but he wouldn’t push her, not when she’d made the distance between them clear.

  “I’m sorry about Melinda,” he said soberly. “I had no idea she’d stop by.”

  “But you knew she worked there.” The statement was flat, not a question.

  “Yes, I knew.” He took a deep breath. “As you may have guessed, we had a relationship. It ended. It’s over, with no chance for reconciliation.”

  “She didn’t seem to think so.”

  He shook his head, still a little mystified. “I don’t know why she thought I’d be open to that. But it doesn’t matter, because I’m not. I made that clear when you left. I’m just sorry you had to be put in that awkward position.”

  A wry smile touched her lips. “I suppose I brought it on myself, encouraging you to take the job.”

  “You had no way of knowing. I wasn’t even trying to keep it from you. There were some dark times when I first got back on U.S. soil. I try not to think about them.”

  Curiosity lit her eyes. “You dated her after your injury?”

  Ah shit. “Before. And a short while after.”

  “Blake. Do you know where Melinda is right now? Or where she was an hour ago anyway.”

  “No idea.” He frowned. “She didn’t talk to you about us, did she?”

  “No,” she said, and he felt relief. Then she added, “But I went to see you, and she was in your house, Blake. In your house, wearing your clothes and eating our takeout.”

  For a moment, he simply stared at her. Then he realized his mouth was hanging open. “Well, fuck. Why didn’t you kick me in the balls when you first saw me?”

  She shrugged. “I figured it wouldn’t make a lot of sense for you to be here if you knew there was a half-naked woman back at your place.”

  Shit. He rubbed his brow. Erin had been coming to see him looking like some kind of sex goddess, and she’d found Melinda there. How had Melinda even gotten in? Though he hadn’t changed the locks when she’d left. He’d never expected her to come back.

  “I had no idea she was there. I definitely didn’t invite her.”

  “I believe you.”

  “I swear I didn’t, Erin.”

  “I’m serious.” She sighed. “I do trust you, despite my occasional rides on the insecurity train. It just took me by surprise, that’s all. And then I got a little messed up inside. I never want to be that way, the jealous girlfriend asking where you went or who you were with.”

  “You have every right to be pissed, to doubt me—”

  “No.” She stopped him. “I never doubt you. I doubt myself.”

  He swallowed, steeling himself. “What’d the asshole do?”

  She smiled wryly. “Am I that obvious?”

  “It’s incredible that you trust me, especially after what you saw. I don’t think most people would have. I’m not even sure I could have so quickly. But there’s something that scares you too, and I don’t want you to have to hide that from me. You don’t have to spare me anything. I want to see all of you, everything.”

  Sly humor entered her eyes. “Is everything always about sex?”

  “Around you? Yes. I deserve a goddamn medal for not touching you in that dress.” She was liquid sex sheathed in desire, and he forced himself to recline on the sofa, stretching out his legs. Then he raised his eyebrows at her.

  She put her elbows on her knees. “This is dumb. I was dumb.”

  “Let me be the judge of that,” he said airily.

  A fraying throw pillow was lobbed at him. With a small grin, he caught it and tucked it behind his head, still reclined on the sofa that was too small for him. He’d rather be holding her, but she needed the space. Besides, the damned furniture might buckle and break if she so much as breathed on him.

  Look
ing far away, she said, “It was two years ago. Met a guy, started dating. The usual stuff. It seemed amazing. We got along great and we’d go to all these shows and museums…I couldn’t afford to go out much, but he was pretty loaded and insisted on paying for me anyway. He said it was being a gentleman, no big deal. I was so eager to go with him I didn’t really consider what the imbalance did to our relationship, the way he thought of me.”

  By slow degrees, Blake’s muscles tensed with her retelling. He’d expected to hear the story of some idiot boyfriend who didn’t appreciate her. Worst case, the asshole cheated on her. But he didn’t like the sound of this at all. A rich guy pulling a subtle power play, charming at the beginning… Yeah that could go downhill fast, and he already knew this story had an unhappy ending.

  “And the best part was—” The way she said it made it clear it meant exactly the opposite. “We came from the same hometown. Laredo. A small place but still big enough to have a few high schools, and I’d never met Doug before seeing him on campus. So that winter he drove us both back home in his Lexus, my stuff packed in the trunk alongside his. We were going to meet each other’s families.”

  She paused, looking a little lost.

  When the moment stretched, he prodded, “What happened, your parents didn’t approve?”

  Her laugh was hollow. “No, Mama didn’t approve. But it was worse than that. We stopped off at his place first. His mom and dad were pretty nice to me at first. Naturally they asked about me living in town, where my mom lived, what she did. And found out she used to be their cleaning lady.”

  Hell. He hadn’t even known her mother cleaned houses for a living. He could imagine that didn’t go over well with the uptight assholes.

  “Yeah,” she said, correctly interpreting his grim expression. “His mom was kind of shocked, but his father was downright rude. He kicked me out. At that point, Doug got really quiet. He didn’t defend me or anything. He drove me home and barely said a word.”

  Fuck it. She looked so small, so alone. He pulled her into his arms, pressing his lips to the crown of her head.

  She took a shuddering breath, but she allowed him to hold her, even curled into him. “When I told my mom about it, she flipped out, saying I had to stay away from the whole family. We fought and finally she told me the reason why she stopped going there. Apparently Doug’s father had hit on her…like really pushy. She said that’s as far as it went, but I don’t believe that.”

  A shiver went down Blake’s spine. Rape. That’s what they were talking about, and Erin had been in this guy’s house.

  “I talked to Doug on the phone that night. His dad had some other messed-up story about my mom stealing something. We fought about it. Then he stopped taking my calls. The bus ride back took six hours since I’d left my car here.”

  “The fucker,” Blake burst out, unable to hold it in any longer. When she jerked in his arms, he soothed her. “Sorry,” he muttered.

  She burrowed into his chest. “It’s good to hear someone say that. I was half afraid you wouldn’t believe me either.”

  “He didn’t bother you after that, did he?”

  “Nope.” She laughed roughly. “I thought we were just having a fight. I mean, they were big problems, but I thought we were serious about each other. So we’d cool off over the winter break and patch things up later. Except when I got back to town, he still wouldn’t answer my calls. And then I saw him on campus with another girl. He didn’t even look in my direction.”

  “Good riddance. Look, honey, I don’t know whether this Doug is a predator or just a guy stuck with a shitty dad, but you know, you know it wasn’t your fault or your mom’s, right?”

  “Yeah.” She sighed. “I know, but it’s hard to remember sometimes. And then with you…”

  The realization sank in his gut. Cold self-disgust settled in his bones. “And then I came onto you like that guy did to your mother,” he finished for her.

  “No,” she said, sounding surprised. “And then with you I can’t seem to let my guard down even though I know you’re nothing like him.”

  A grim smile twisted his lips. “Not totally different. I was still willing to use my position, my money to hold influence over you. I always knew it was wrong, but hearing about someone else do it… Fuck. There’s no question.”

  He was a bastard. He deserved for someone to kick his ass as surely as he wanted to beat the shit out of this Doug’s dear old dad.

  “Blake,” she said, turning to face him. “I was grateful for the job, but it was my choice to show up for work each day. You didn’t come on to me even when I wanted you to. You never pushed me to do anything at all.”

  Her sweet brown eyes met his directly, almost aggressively. She never flinched away from his scars, not in the beginning and certainly not now. Instead her expression was one of…tenderness. He hated to ruin it, but he couldn’t lie to her anymore.

  “Erin, I put an ad out for a housekeeper on a whim. I figured I might call someone in from time to time, but when I met you, I knew I had to see you again, so I set up a weekly cleaning schedule. Then that wasn’t enough, so I increased it to twice a week. I’m as bad as Doug, doing whatever was necessary to keep you near me.”

  “Why?” she whispered, sounding genuinely confused. It broke his heart, that confusion, that despite the strength that attracted him to her, she didn’t know her full worth.

  “God, Erin. You’re kind, you’re smart. I knew it from the first day when you gave a mean, scary-looking guy a talking-to. You told me you would clean the house…”

  “But you’d have to clean yourself,” she finished.

  “It had been a week since I’d showered,” he admitted. “So I went upstairs and felt like a new man. And when I came back into the kitchen, you’d heated up soup for me to eat.”

  “All those pizza boxes were disgusting.”

  “I was disgusting,” he agreed. Then softer, “Though I think I’ve gotten better.”

  A smile played at her lips. “No more forts made out of pizza boxes.”

  “You noticed those, huh?”

  “Yeah, you were a mess,” she said with fondness. “But you do clean up nice.”

  He smiled too, then sobered. “I have no excuse for that, Erin. And I would understand completely if you want to break up with me…in fact objectively I think you should. But if you’d stay with me…God…”

  “What?” she whispered.

  He racked his brain for the right answer, the perfect gift that would bind her to him. And came up empty. “Nothing,” he said roughly. “I have nothing to offer you. Only myself.”

  Her eyes filled with tears, and for a horrible second he thought she meant goodbye. Then she threw her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his. After a second of shock and pure relief, he crushed her to him, kissing her as if his life depended on it, because as he felt her cool hair brush away the ever-present pain in his skin, he did depend on her. He knew only pain, and she was freedom. He felt madness, and with her it was pleasure.

  He gathered her to him, reveling in the soft weight and warmth of her in his arms again. She moaned and ground her sweet ass against his erection. He shoved the slinky fabric of her dress up her thigh, savoring smooth skin and the thin slip of her panties pointing downward. His fingers followed the edge, meeting the fleshy outer lips of her sex.

  She gasped into his mouth. “Blake.”

  “Yes,” he grunted.

  And he gave her more, at once lighter and harder, faster and deeper, until neither of them could take it anymore. He found her clit and pinched lightly. She exploded around him, a lovely feminine moan of ecstasy, a soft rush of hot liquid against his knuckles and the tremble of her thighs draped over his own.

  He petted her softly as she came back down. His erection pulsed impatiently, straining against his jeans to get near her, but he forced himself to back up, to pull away before he impaled her. He had something to prove to himself if not to her. He could have a thoughtful conversa
tion with her. He could watch a movie all the way through. Everything didn’t always have to devolve into sex.

  So when she turned those lust-dazed eyes on him and smiled sexily, he pulled the DVD case out of his jacket and held it up like a goddamned shield.

  She blinked. “Phantom of the Opera?”

  “You always brought a movie when you came over,” he explained. “Since I was coming over, I wanted to bring something.”

  Her look was sweetly reproachful as she connected the characters. “Very subtle.”

  “Hey, it was either this or Beauty and the Beast.”

  “At least in that one they end up together.”

  “Because he turns back into a normal man,” he reminded her. “There are no happy endings for the beast.”

  Her expression dimmed. She crawled to him, straddling his legs with hers, and shit, how was he supposed to restrain himself like this? His dick was right there. A few layers of cloth could disappear and he’d slide inside her. She plucked the DVD from his fingers and tossed it to the side table.

  “What are you doing?” he choked out.

  She slid down to the floor between his feet. Her eyes flicked up, troubled and wicked. “Proving you wrong.”

  She proceeded to do just that, using her tongue and lips and breathy sighs to drive him to ecstasy. The truest form of pleasure, a pure and potent happiness that was not what he’d meant but so much better. He wanted this all the time; he wanted her forever.

  Beneath her seductive touch, he trembled with need, with hope. But he’d wanted things before, and they’d exploded right in front of him. He’d dreamed these things before and woken up alone.

  He tried to resist, to accept the satisfaction of having her in his arms without the promise of a future, but it overwhelmed him. Like a tidal wave it swept him along, dragged him under, further away until he couldn’t see the shore.

  There was only an endless expanse of him and her together, of sex and love and hope converging on the horizon. He was lost then, hips jerking upward in helpless thrall and coming copiously into her warm, waiting mouth. Dragging her onto his lap, he licked and suckled and teased her breasts until she rocked her hips down onto him. In barely minutes he was hard again, an aching erection ever ready to serve her need. It wasn’t even about sex then but sharing. None of it mattered without her, not the beauty or relief.