He got his hands under my shirt and pulled it off over my head. He dropped a kiss to the top swell of each breast and I saw the feverish, burning look in his gaze as he watched us move together. This was about him forgetting what made him mad; this was about him trying to set down the guy he thought he had to be in this place. Being with me made him feel like someone else too, and when he snaked clever fingers between my legs, pulled me even farther to the edge of the sink where I was already precariously balanced, there was no holding out against the flood of sensation.

I whispered his name and came apart in his arms and he bared his teeth at me and did the same. Only a guy who looked like Race could make going over the edge—shuddering his release—look that good. I panted against the side of his throat as he smoothed a hand over the top of my head and down to the ends of my hair.

“All better?” Now my voice was husky and full of sex.

He laughed a little and moved his hands around my back so he could unhook the clasp of my bra.

“No, but you make it easier to forget how shitty things around here can be.”

Well, what girl didn’t want to hear that from a gorgeous guy as he picked her up and carried her off to ravish her some more? Being with him was supposed to be about making me feel right and normal, but I wasn’t going to complain if I could return the favor.

Chapter 10

Race

I HURT EVERYWHERE. EVERY single spot on my body that had suffered a blow from heavy hands, every part of my body that had been used to defend myself, just ached all the way down to my bones. I felt battered and bruised everywhere, from the inside out.

The only place that didn’t hurt or ache was the spot on my chest where Brysen’s head was resting. In sleep, her ear was pressed to the thump of my heart and her hand was curled around my waist. She was like the cool side of the pillow. Like frost on a windowpane, soothing all the bumps and bruises. Where I should be burning up with all of her sexy and honeyed nakedness pressed up against me, instead I felt like she was a refreshing breeze cutting through the smog and pollution that typically flooded my lungs. Her white-blond hair felt like raw silk where it rubbed against my skin, and with zero effort she had my eager body stirring under the covers.

Since she stayed the night, let me have at her without question while I tried to work out all the dark shit in my head, I thought the least I could do was pull the bed out and let her sleep in semicomfort. Not that I let her get that much shut-eye. There was something unique about her. Something about the way she was when she was with me that made me want to get into her, take her apart, see everything she was working with and put my hands on all of it. She was like the best puzzle, the hardest problem I had ever tried to figure out, and it made me like her more than I already did.

I was just thinking about the best way to wake her up, wondering if she would freak out if I skipped all the preamble and just put my mouth between her legs. So far she had surprised me. She seemed down with whatever I wanted to do to her, do with her, but considering we had just scratched the surface of all the ways I wanted to mess her up, I still didn’t know how far she was willing to let me go or where her hard boundaries were. I don’t think I had any particular boundaries where she was concerned, and that made my blood thick and my dick hard.

I was running my hand down her side, thinking she felt like all the luxury and finer things I had long since left behind, when my chance to seduce her awake was blown by my phone screaming at me from the floor where it was tangled in my pants. I was used to the damn thing going off at all hours of the day and night. People wanted to give me money or take my money all the time and they never paid attention to a clock. What I wasn’t used to was my mother calling me—ever. That was a ring tone I hadn’t heard in months and months, including the time I had the life nearly beaten out of me by Novak’s thugs and I ended up in the hospital. She had firmly joined the Race-is-a-worthless-piece-of-shit bandwagon as soon as my father had declared me persona non grata at the Hartman castle. She had no clue what kind of man my father really was and saw no issue with believing him and whatever lies he told to justify disowning me and taking away every penny I had to my name.

Brysen muttered something and her eyes fluttered open to look at me. I saw her take a second to take stock, realize where she was, then she stacked her hands under her chin and looked out at me from under a tangle of pale hair.

“Are you going to answer it?”

I hadn’t, and now it was ringing again.

“I don’t really want to.” She was naked and draped across me, my face hurt, and my dick was hard. There were a hundred and one other things I could think of that I would rather do than answer that phone.