Love Beyond Words (City Lights, #1)(68)
“I didn’t mean to hurt him so badly.” He raised his head and wiped his tear-streaked face in the crook of his arm. “It was an accident. I just wanted him home safe with me.” He heaved a tremulous breath. “I’ll tell Julian everything. He won’t care about the money. He didn’t even notice it was gone. He’ll care that I’ve been suffering, putting myself in danger, trying to protect him. We’ll figure out a plan to get out from under Cliff. We will. Together.”
#
Julian was released the next day but much to David’s irritation, Natalie stuck to him like a burr. She was always over, taking care of him, spending the night, taking time off from work and school. Julian said fondly that she was nursing him back to health.
She’s not nursing him, David thought, she’s standing guard. From me. She knows.
His confession to Julian was prepared and ready, but giving it in front of Natalie was not in the plans. Finally, after four agonized days later, he couldn’t stay away. The hospital’s test results would catch up to him any minute. David needed Julian alone, to tell him everything before he heard it elsewhere and got the wrong idea.
David took a steadying breath and keyed open the door.
She was here.
He smelled her perfume again, stronger now, wavering in the air like the stink of rotting flowers. Muffled noises—laughter, and the pop of a champagne cork, unmistakable—came from Julian’s bedroom. They hadn’t heard him come in. The little beep of the security console had been drowned in their celebratory noises. But what celebration? David moved slowly, hardly daring to breathe, towards the bedroom.
The door was cracked open just wide enough for him to peer in, beckoning him to come and see. He couldn’t resist. The blinds had been drawn and the room was cast in a warm, yellow glow from one lamp by the bedside. In the dimness, two figures knelt on the bed, facing one another, naked and laughing and grappling lustily.
Natalie had a champagne glass in her hand—David couldn’t see a bottle from his vantage but he just knew it was Dom Perignon or something equally precious that she was carelessly sloshing on Julian’s bedspread. Julian didn’t seem to care, but laughed as he kissed her.
David’s breath hitched. He forgot about his confession and the old familiar, guilty thrill raced through him.
The pall of sickness was gone from Julian already. He was there, naked and hale, his lean body warm and brown in the dim lights, with shadows playing over his skin, delving into the sharp lines of his muscles. It had been a long time since David had had something to take home to his own bed. It was the one advantage to Julian having a woman around: images burned into his memory to be altered later. Mental Photoshop he called it.
David prepared for the lust that tightened his groin and made it throb with a dull ache. Instead it was his heart that ached as he watched the pair of them, oblivious to his presence, become lost in each other.
Natalie took a sip of the champagne, and bent her head to kiss Julian. It poured into his mouth and in the ignited fervor of their kiss, a trickle of it escaped. One shimmering trail leaked from the corner of Julian’s beautiful mouth and began a slow journey to his chin. David watched, transfixed, as this phenomenon that went unheeded by Natalie.
The unfairness of it all was like a kick to his stomach.
Julian was turned on—duped, David thought—by Natalie’s kiss, and he flung her onto her back. She squealed with laughter; the champagne flew from her hand to stain the bed sheets, and then Julian covered her body with his. He drove into her with a fury and David was afforded an unobstructed view of Julian’s thrusting form, his ass clenching and unclenching, while Natalie was buried, practically unseen beneath him but for her legs wrapped around his waist. At any other time it would have been the perfect scenario; hardly any Mental Photoshop needed.
But David stepped away from the door like a sleepwalker. He closed his eyes as tears stung them and gripped the back of a chair in the living room to keep from sinking to his knees.
It should be me…
David’s breath came in ragged gasps and he opened his eyes. The apartment was a blur through his tears and he struggled to breathe. I’m drowning, he thought and whirled around, searching for the door. He made his way over and stumbled from the apartment. In the hallway, he caught his breath and the agony twisted in his gut, simmered in the hot acid and boiled into a rage. Julian loved her.
The thought careened around his mind, popping and bubbling until his face burned. He realized his blindness. He had blamed Cliff, blamed himself for the awful predicament when all the while it was Natalie’s fault. She’d seduced Julian and convinced him to reveal himself. He’d said so himself. Hadn’t he told Len it was Natalie who’d convinced him to go public? She didn’t love him. She wanted his money and she f*cked him without appreciating who he was, and left David standing on the sidelines, watching her squander little moments of pure beauty in favor of her own satisfaction.
His confession forgotten, its reasons burnt to ash by his fury, David strode with a purpose toward the elevator. His earlier confusion and fear seemed silly. It was all so simple now.
#
Natalie was pleased her champagne kiss had fired Julian up as it had. He attacked her, pinned her to the bed and let his passion have free rein. And she accepted him fully, eagerly, clutching him as he rode her with animal lust, all remnants of his frightening illness having vanished.