Into My Arms - Lia Riley Page 0,16

opens old doors, wandering those sealed off wings. God, who knows what he’ll find. I’m not even sure if an actual heart remains in my chest or only ash drifting through charred empty space.

Those mismatched eyes consume me and orgasm number three takes over, the water like a thousand tiny tongues licking at once, carrying me to a place within myself that I’ve never been. I didn’t know anything could feel this way and the intensity is scary.

Z hasn’t laid a finger on me, but that doesn’t mean he’s not touching me.

I sink down, spent and shaking. The French idiom for orgasm is la petite mort, translated literally to “a little death,” and yeah, I’ve died a little, but am also more alive than ever before. It’s as if I’ve slammed back into the world, a place where colors exist and there are things to look forward to and smile about. For too long I’ve ignored this place because I am tired of being let down. But tonight I feel.

I fucking feel.

When the tears come, I can’t hold back, collapsing against the hot tub with a moan pulled deep from within my body, almost animalistic. The ragged keen fills the night and I press my face to the stone and release everything pent up inside me for the past few years. I cry and cry until I’m wrung physically and emotionally dry.

Z lifts me from the water with two strong hands. Gently, he drapes the robe over my shoulders and gathers me like a child, cradling me against his hard body as he strides into the house, up the stairs. It’s not until we’re entering my room that I realize…he’s touching me.

The shock of his skin against mine radiates into my bones.

I don’t say a word. I barely breathe as he settles me on the bed, awkwardly yet tenderly plumping a pillow beneath my head.

“I’m sorry about that.” I wipe my eyes. “Tears are sort of a buzzkill.”

“It was gorgeous,” he murmurs. His tone is gentle, so utterly out of character that this could be a dream. For the rest of my tenure at Zavtra Tech, I’ll be haunted by a stunningly real fantasy about the time my sexy boss whisked me away for a dirty weekend.

“You touched me.” I eye the thick bulge in his suit pants. He doesn’t seem to mind.

He freezes; his face is ashen, as if he is suddenly on the edge of collapse.

“Wait.” I rise to my elbows. “You didn’t even notice, did you?”

“The sight of your tears—” He breaks off, scrubbing his face. “No thought entered my mind except getting you into my arms.”

“Wait, that’s good, though, right?” I push through his obvious misgivings. “You conquered. Everything you were afraid of was simply in the mind.”

After a long pause, he frowns. “How optimistically American.”

I inhale deeply, willing myself to calm down even as anger surges through my chest. We were so close to something, a truth, and he retreats to the safety of sarcasm. “What does that even mean?”

“The way you bandy around words like conquer, fear. As if one moment is enough to erase years of…” He growls in frustration. “What is inside you that made you weep as if the heavens were ending? Tell me that, Bethanny.”

“You know what?” I sit, pulling the robe tight around me as if that will serve as de facto armor. “Stop. It’s not my turn for twenty questions. I held up my end of the bargain downstairs and now I expect you to honor yours.”

“You want a secret.”

“Yes. One that you’ve never told anyone else.”

“Very well.” He sits on the edge of my bed, scowling at the wall. He doesn’t get close. Whatever moment he had of being able to be near me, to touch me, is gone. “I shall tell you one that will make you want to leave. How much you imagine you know of the world’s darkness. How much you believe you’ve experienced.”

I shove my damp hair behind my ears. “Don’t presume to know about me or my pain.” My annoyance flares; the simmering temper that has been my near-constant companion of late is back. “You flew me to this place, asked me to do things of an utterly personal nature, and I did. I trusted you. Then I ask for a single thing in return and you make a mockery of it. And worse, you tell me how I feel doesn’t matter. You know what? I don’t need to have you diminish