Controlled Response

Page 24

"I keep telling myself not to think of him as my brother anymore. Because he really isn't, not anything like what I remember. But he is. He is." And she couldn't help it, the tears were coming, the sobs, and she couldn't stop them. "Sometimes I just want it to be over. I want to grieve him all at once, rather than these bits and pieces."
Appalled at the words she'd said, bitterness gave way to something else. Oh, God, I can't do this here.
At her look of total panic, Lucas simply picked her up off her feet, right there on the sidewalk in front of the police station, and strode back to the limo. Cass wanted to protest, but she couldn't. The tears were overwhelming her. This was Lucas's fault. This whole well of emotions he'd opened up in her today and yesterday, it was spilling out now, in the place she could least afford the show of weakness.
As they approached the car, she remembered he'd sent Max off to find some lunch, but her gratitude for that did little to ease the pressure inside her. When he slid her into the second seat and got in, she struck out at him, intending to castigate him for treating her like some weak-kneed female. Only somehow she ended up clutching the T-shirt instead, gripping it hard enough to rip, as she tried to pull apart something other than her own insides. He folded his arms around her, brought her against the cotton.
"Goddamn it, Cass, let it go. Anyone can tell it's gnawing at you like a cancer. I'm not going to hold it against you."
She broke. Sobbed out the frustration and misery. She couldn't remember the last time she'd cried about it, because it hurt so much to do it. His hands were between them, pulling the borrowed shirt free of her skirt, as she hiccupped painfully. Now he reached beneath it and unhooked the corset, all the way down, just one of the ways he was easing the combustible emotions pouring out of her. She didn't try to stop him, though in hindsight she doubted he would have let her this time. His hands slid in under it, replacing the stiff stays with heat, the welcome touch of his fingers, molding over her bare rib cage, becoming a different form of support as she gulped in the air she needed for the sobs.
By the time she eased up, she was sure she'd turned her makeup into a raccoon's mask, but embarrassment was getting to be a lost cause with him. Repairing the damage to her pride wasn't worth the effort.
"Shh." Lucas was murmuring to her quietly, she realized, and had been doing so for a while. As she pushed herself up, trying to avert her face, he drew her back, wiping her eyes with the fresh handkerchief from the pocket of the coat she was still wearing. When she tried to take it, do it herself, he let her, but he kept her within the curve of his arm, stroking her hair, his other hand settling on her hip, holding her in a secure circle. He pulled the corset out from beneath the shirt, away from her body, and folded it on the seat beside him, out of her reach. "You don't need this. Not with me."
Exhausted enough not to argue, she leaned into him. Her breast mashed into his hard chest in a comforting way. There was nothing between them now, on several levels. She'd just revealed far too much to him, and there was an ache inside her she was tired of feeling. His body was solid heat, and the steady drum of his heart was a counterpoint to the erratic beat of her pulse. It reminded her that there was a way to assuage the loneliness and despair of all of it, at least for a few minutes. The way she'd wanted him to do from the beginning.
Surging up, she found his mouth with her own, awkwardly enough she thought she might have cut his lips with her front teeth. However, as she locked her arms around his neck and straddled him, she tossed aside control or finesse and demanded from his mouth what some deep part of her was sure only he could provide. No logic or rationality to it, those two things she'd always allowed to guide her life. She willed him to know what she wanted without words.
His hands slid under the shirt again, caressing bare skin marked with the impressions of the tight corset. Finding them, he spoke against her mouth, a soft admonishment as he stroked abraded skin. But he also brought her closer, and the first time both breasts touched his chest, she moaned in his mouth, her hand dropping down to push his jacket out of her way so she could feel him beneath his thin shirt. Cotton felt so good when it was fitted over a man's firm, hot skin, imbued with his scent. His arms circled her back, letting her feel the imprint of his fingers on her flesh, learning the curves of her, learning where she liked to be touched. If it was Lucas, she didn't care where, just that he touched her. She ground herself against him, against the unyielding hardness of his cock.
"Cassie," he said, his voice harsh as he wrapped his hand in her hair to hold her back a necessary inch, though his eyes were full of reassuring desire. "We're in front of a police station. We can't do this here."
"The windows are tinted. I need you to make me come. I need to come, and only you ... I only want you to do it. Make me do it. Here. With you inside me. Not any other way. I want you to just fuck me, the way you've been wanting." She wanted to be taken, swept away. Wanted to smell him and the vehicle upholstery, his suit, bite his irresistible mouth as he slammed her down on him. As she curved her long nails, stabbing him through his shirt, her eyes were half-wild, like a feral cat. Lucas suspected she wanted the wildness, all the world narrowing to just that and not any of the other nightmares she was facing.
"I don't want to just fuck you, and you know it. That's not what you want either." He caught her wrists, holding her. "Cassie, look at me. I want to make love to you. Take you into my bed and keep you there a few decades, savor every inch of you. Make you scream yourself hoarse, and mark every part of you as mine. Make you want to be mine."
"No." She shook her head. "That's not what I want."
"It's what you need." He made himself soften the words, though he kept enough steel in his voice to hold her attention, mindful of whom he was dealing with. "In a few minutes, Max is going to be back. He's going to drive us to your home, and that's what we're going to do."
"I haven't agreed to that." Her expression fired, but he saw fear behind it.
"You want me enough to take it how you can get it," he said shortly. "This is the offer that's on the table. You willing to take the risk that I'm right? That it will be hell and gone from just fucking?"
She stared at him, and her big blue eyes, the need in them, almost broke his resolve. He'd take her any way he could get her, too. Wasn't that a hell of a discovery? If another tear fell, he'd be a goner.
"You . . . can't. My sisters are there."
"Okay, then." Taking a deep breath, he considered that new variable, an obvious one that had been clouded by lust. "Then we go spend the afternoon with your sisters. I'll figure out an option for the evening. You keep some energy in reserve."
She nodded, her mind in obvious confusion. "Lucas, with them in the house, we can't—"
"Cassandra." He framed her face in his hands, held her captive. "I've had enough of playing games about this. You hear me? When I take you to your bed tonight, it won't be blatant or inappropriate, but! m going to be there for breakfast. I'm going to become part of your life, and theirs. We're going to see where this takes us. You deserve something for yourself. I'm that something. What better example could they have of what sex is supposed to be about, than a guy who's head over heels about their sister? Someone who is willing to stay for breakfast?"
She shook her head, trying to pull away, escape. "Lucas, you know I have absolutely no way to process the logistics of any of this."
"I'm the bean counter, remember?" He smiled, though he wanted to bring her back to his chest, if for no other reason than her generous breasts and the aroused nipples beneath his borrowed shirt were going to make him let go of any resolve at all and fuck her brains out in the backseat until the violent rocking of the car gave them away and they spent the night waiting for Ben to come make bail for them. "Let me deal with that. Don't let it be about consequences, worries, or how the world can suck and things go bad. For once, just take it." He gave her a fierce look. "Take the moment and see if it can lead to a lifetime."
"I don't know," she said uncertainly at last, so unlike herself that he wanted to hold her tight, in comfort this time. But he knew you had to close the deal before the opposition backed out. The most important thing was the signature on the bottom line, and the kiss he crushed on her lips now, bringing those delicious breasts back in contact with him, was a definite signature. With a flourish. So definite that he couldn't help crushing all of her to him, pressing the hard weight of his need between her legs, eliciting a provocative whimper from the back of her throat.
"I want to go home," she said again, gratifyingly breathless. "I need to see the rest of my family."
"Okay. One condition. You tell me about them. About you. Give me that."
When she started to shift, he adjusted her so she was no longer straddling him, but he kept her cradled in his lap. More important, it allowed her to stare out at the parking lot, the dismal landscape of the police station, rather than at his face, which he knew might help her talk about what was obviously difficult. But he linked his hand with hers, a simple sign of intimacy and support he hoped would help. She squeezed down on his fingers, and just when he thought he'd have to prod some more, she spoke.
"My mother was mentally ill." She gave a hopeless laugh. "The diagnosis just depended on what drug cocktail they fed her. By the time I was fifteen, I was caring for the kids.
She stayed in her bed all the time. My father was okay when I was little, but then he let his alcoholism get the best of him and became a here-again, gone-again presence. Only came back long enough to get her pregnant and then take off again. Which of course would screw up her meds schedule. One of the nurses took pity on me, told me about a birth control that wouldn't adversely interact with her drugs. I got it from a clinic, saying it was for me, and put it into her food after that."