Being Me (Inside Out #2)(64)

The elevator doors open and I rush forward, seeking privacy before I explode. The instant we are in the room, I whirl on him. “Don’t look at me like I’m some helpless pup that has to be coddled, Chris. That’s not what I need now. I need what you needed today. I need an escape. I need to know . . .” So much. Too much. “I need . . .” I have no more words. I just need.

Stretching behind me, I unzip my dress and shove it down my body, leaving myself in my thigh-highs and heels, and the dangling rubies. I’m desperate to push Chris over the edge, to make him take me the way he always does—passionately, completely.

Chris pulls me hard against his body, and he is hard where I am soft, strong where I am still weak. Yes. This is what I need. “Fuck me, Chris. Take me to that place you go and don’t be gentle.”

He runs his hand down my hair. “Not tonight, Sara. Not after you just told me that bastard forced himself on you.”

“It was two years ago, Chris.”

“Which you had to relive tonight.”

“Don’t do this. Don’t treat me like I’m breakable, or Michael wins.”

“I’m not treating you like you’re breakable.”

“You are, and if you do it now, you always will. It’ll change us.”

“No. One night is not a lifetime.”

“This isn’t just one night. It’s this night. It’s the night that—” The pain in my chest cuts off my words and I shove it away. “Pain that is pleasure. Pain that is an escape. I need just what you need tonight.”

“No, baby. I’m not going there with you tonight.”

“You mean you’re not going there with me ever!” I charge. “You’re afraid to take me there now. This isn’t going to work. He’s already ruined us.” I shake my head. “I need out of here. I need to go home.” I tug on my arms, but he holds me easily. “Let go. Damn it, let go!”

“Sara—”

My hands close around the sleeves of his jacket. “I knew this would happen. I knew if I told you, you’d be afraid to be you.” My cheeks are wet with tears. I don’t know why the hell I keep crying. “Just let me go, so I can get all the hell over with in one night, Chris. Let me go find my way of dealing with this again. My way without you.”

He backs me against the desk, his hands on my hips, his expression unreadable. He’s still so damn in control. I’m naked inside and out, and he’s no closer to letting down the wall this night has erected, than when I was fully dressed.

“Just let me go now, Chris.” My voice is a barely audible. I am defeated and beaten. “Please.”

His expression softens and he wipes my tears away. “Sara, baby, you aren’t alone. And I’m not going to shut you out.”

“You will. You are. You tried to shut me out today before you even knew about this. How can I believe you can go those places you need to go with me when you didn’t even believe you could earlier today?” My fingers close around his lapels, and the absolute torment I’m feeling is like gravel in my throat, and I barely find my voice. “And what if I need to go there now? I need to escape. I need to feel something other than what I’m feeling right now, Chris.”

He stares down at me, and I see the shadows in his eyes, I see the turbulence, a deep sea of emotions I don’t understand, and I fear we are both drowning. It’s too much. Everything feels like too much. “Chris,” I whisper, and it’s a plea for him to make this ache inside me go away. A plea for him to take me away like only he can do.

Suddenly, he’s picking me up and carrying me toward the bed. We go down on the mattress and he quickly shrugs out of his jacket and tosses it away. And then he’s on top of me. The weight of him, the sweet wonderful weight of him, is all that keeps me from completely losing my mind.

He raises up on his elbows and our eyes meet, and I am lost in the fiery depths of passion this man stirs in me. “Sara.” He whispers my name and the air around us shifts and I feel Chris everywhere, in places he isn’t touching me. A shudder runs through me and I pull his mouth to mine, drinking him in, burning for him.

Then his lips leave mine, and I physically ache with the loss of the connection. This man can hurt me so deeply. He could hurt me in a way I’m not sure I’d recover from, and it’s too late to stop it from happening.

As he starts to undress, I sit up to watch him. His gaze sweeps the jewels dangling on my nipples, bringing a welcome heat in contrast to the icy pit in my stomach. And I think that tonight just might be a new beginning for us, instead of our final destination.





Twenty-two




All sinewy muscle and masculine perfection, Chris presses me back down onto the mattress, his hands covering my breasts, fingers flicking the rubies. Little darts of pleasure rush from my nipples to the V of my body, where the thick ridge of his erection settles.

My hand curves on his face. “I need what you needed earlier today.” My voice is raspy, urgent, etched with the weight that today has been, and all it has revealed. I barely recognize it as my own. “Take me there, Chris. Please.”

“Where I needed to go was where I ended up. I was shutting you out, like I shut everything out, and you pulled me back. You made me see what was important. What’s real. You made me see you.” His lips brush mine. “See me now, Sara.”