Unbreakable (City Lights, #2)(25)

“Wait, wait, wait,” Cory said. “Are you telling me you and he don’t…I mean, he didn’t…even after you became engaged? Is that typical?” My silence was answer enough and he whistled low between his teeth. “Is he crazy?”

“No—”

“He has to be. To have you and not…” He gestured helplessly. “Jesus, Alex, you’re gorgeous. Smart. And so incredibly sexy…”

“You think I’m sexy?” I asked. I couldn’t help it. Call me pathetic, but it had been years since Drew had even come close to saying something like that. I felt a thrill race down my spine just to hear the words.

“Are you kidding? You’re stunning. If you and I…I mean, if we were…” Cory shifted against the wall and laughed. “You can tell me to shut up and put me out of my misery. Any time now.”

I didn’t laugh. I didn’t even smile. The pain—a strange, hollow pain I’d refused to acknowledge existed—swelled in me, like an old wound.

“I don’t want you to shut up,” I told him. “It’s nice to hear. I’ve gone for so long not hearing things like that, not being touched or being intimate with someone else for months on end. I do yoga constantly, and I tell myself it’s to help relieve the stress of my job. And that’s mostly true. But I also think I do it because I’m trying to remain in touch with my body. To breathe life into it, to move blood through it, because I feel like I inhabit only my brain, and my body feels so cold and empty. If that makes any sense.”

“Yeah,” he said gruffly. “I get it.”

I blinked, his low, gravelly voice pulling me from that strange reverie. What I’d said…I didn’t realize I’d spoken the truth—a deep, buried truth—until just this moment. I didn’t have words to put to the aching feeling of loss I felt every single night when I went to bed beside my fiancé, untouched but for an affectionate peck on the cheek, until now. I’d said it all out loud, but not to Lilah or another close friend, but to Cory Bishop, a man I’d just met, and shame twisted a knot in my stomach.

“I shouldn’t be talking like this. Drew is a wonderful man. There’s not an unkind bone in his body. Any woman would be lucky to have him. I’m lucky to have him. Maybe I’m just selfish or spoiled, but I want…”

“What?” Cory’s eyes bored into mine. “What do you want, Alex?”

In fractions of a second, my imagination took off and ran wild. The strong, workman’s body I admired in Cory was now naked and strong in my mind’s eye. The lines of his muscles were sharp and deep, his smooth skin darkened here and there with tattoos—I was positive he had a few—and those large hands of his…I saw them—felt them—on my body, touching, grabbing, taking. And I was there, with him, my head thrown back, my hair messy and spilling down for him to tangle in his fists. I was his, captured and used by him in any way he wanted. And there was nothing sexier, nothing that felt so good than to submit to him, to let him do whatever he pleased, because letting him do as he pleased was precisely what I wanted…

I snapped to, and nearly gasped aloud. Dear God, what the hell is wrong with me?

I scrambled to remember what I had been saying. “Nothing. No, I don’t want anything. To get back to sleep, maybe. I’m starting to get a little punchy.”

He nodded once, a strange, inscrutable expression on his face, and for one terrifying moment I imagined he’d seen himself in my daydream. Then he smiled gently and tapped his shoulder. “Be my guest.”

I wondered if I could trust myself, but a cold, rational thought told me that my erotic daydream about Cory was the product of fear and exhaustion, and nothing more.

I inclined my head toward his shoulder, but he enveloped me back in his arms instead, and I knew at once that the sense of pure contentment I felt being there had nothing to do with being scared or tired. Nothing at all.





Chapter Ten: Day 3


Cory



For the first time since the ordeal began, I actually slept. I slept holding Alex, and woke with her safe in my arms. It was the best sleep a man could hope for, locked in a bank with armed madmen under unforgiving fluorescent lighting and a concrete slab for a bed. Damn this woman and damn my stupid heart for glomming on to every negative word she’d spoken about her fiancé the night before.

Her fiancé. Speaking of madmen. He’d have to be certifiable to sleep next to this woman every night and just…what? Do nothing? Insanity.

My arm tightened around her and a thoroughly base thought crept into my brain. She’s mine. In here, at least, she’s mine.

Of course, that wasn’t true. Alex didn’t belong to anyone but herself. I almost laughed out loud to think what she’d say to such a declaration of ownership. I could see her brow wrinkle in a scowl and a wry smile would turn up one corner of her mouth, and then she’d let me have it, unspooling some big lecture on the pigheadedness of men, and I would just listen to her talk and talk…

I gave myself a shake and then swore under my breath. I was too far gone if I was fantasizing about her lecturing me.

This has to stop. You’re deluding yourself and when this is all over, it’s going to wreck you if you don’t get a grip now.

I nodded, vowing to keep my distance more. To talk less about personal shit—Christ, had I really told her how I liked to hold hands?—and focus more on getting out. Starting now.