TRAP (The Billionaire's Rules, Book 15) (3 page)

A feeling that this was the man she should be with.

“You already made your point,” Brayden said. “Or Cullen made it for you, I suppose.” Even in his bruised and battered state, he was still gorgeous, Lanie realized.

His strength was still evident, even after everything he’d been through that day. He looked rough and ready, and she found herself responding physically to him despite herself.

“Cullen didn’t make any point for me,” she said. “He was defending his family from someone he thought was threatening them.”

“I didn’t realize you were family,” Brayden said, his eyes uncertain.

She nodded. “His wife, Ivy, is my cousin.”

Brayden gave a slight shrug of his powerful shoulders. “Okay, well…I suppose I deserved it, then.” He put his hand on the back of his neck and rubbed, making a face. “So what do you want to tell me, Lanie?”

“I didn’t have anything to do with that recording that you were sent.”

At the mention of the recording, Brayden’s eyes went flat and cold. “You mean that wasn’t your voice on there, telling the whole world that I fucked you without consent?”

“That audio was edited. It was taken completely out of context.”

He stepped closer to her now, his eyes hardened. “You went and spilled personal information about our relationship during my weakest moment, when someone had already taken advantage of me over that exact subject matter. And you expect me to believe you had no idea they were recording you?”

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you happened,” Lanie said. “I was upset after you said that we weren’t friends, and that I’d just done sexual things to you and that was all it was. I was crying, beside myself, and that’s when she came and talked to me. I didn’t know she was recording me—“

“She? She?” Brayden said, leaning towards her now. “Who was it? Who recorded you?”

Lanie hesitated. The look in his eyes frightened her a little. “What are you going to do when I tell you?”

“That’s not your business, Lanie.”

“It is if it involves me, Brayden.”

“Lanie,” he said, his jaw clenched. “You need to tell me who recorded you. This is my livelihood you’re messing with right now.”

She took a deep breath and stared into his eyes, not flinching or backing down, even though his intensity scared her. “I’m not messing with you. I’m trying to get you to let me in and trust me a little.”

He broke into a bitter smile. “Trust you?” he laughed hollowly. “Sure, I should trust the woman who fucked me and then ran around telling my enemies and ruining my reputation and career in the process.”

“You’re an asshole,” she said. “Fuck this. And fuck you, too.” She spun and began walking quickly away from him on the street.

“Shit,” she heard him mutter from behind her. “Lanie,” he called out. “Lanie.”

“Fuck off!” she yelled back without looking. She began walking faster. “I’m glad Cullen punched you!” she yelled out without turning around. “You deserved it! I should have let him keep hitting you!”

Tears were streaming down her cheeks again. She shook her head.

Shit. Why did I go back for more?

Why did I think he could ever be decent for even a second?

And then his hand was on her forearm, tightly grabbing her from behind. She spun around and slapped his rock hard chest. “Let go of me!” she screamed. “You are scum. Entitled, arrogant, shitty, misogynistic asshole!” she slapped his chest again.

“Are you done?” he said, his voice sounding almost amused.

“No. Let go of me. This is so over.”

“Lanie,” he said softly. His eyes were looking at hers and she saw that something had changed, but she couldn’t quite say what.

“You hurt me,” she whispered.

He reached out with his free hand and stroked her cheek. “I never wanted to hurt you. Ever.”

More tears spilled down her cheeks. “Then why did you?”

Brayden swallowed and she saw pain in his eyes. “I’m broken, Lanie. You don’t understand and you never could understand that about me.”

“We’re all broken in some way,” she told him.

He shook his head. “Not like me.”

“Brayden, I just wish you’d have given me a chance.” She felt so much anger towards him, but another part of her saw his beautiful eyes, and there was kindness there that she’d suspected existed. Only now she saw it clearly.

“Everyone I ever cared about went away,” he said, his voice choked.

“What do you mean?”

“It started when I was a kid,” Brayden told her. He shook his head. “My father left when I was so little I hardly remember him. I can just remember him holding me once, bouncing me in his arm and the smell of his cigarettes on his shirt. I still remember the sound of his laugh and that smell of cigarettes.” Brayden let go of her arm. His eyes got a faraway look to them. “And then, when I was about six, my mother married a new guy, and they had three kids together. I was just some kind of afterthought to them. Sometimes I wondered if I even existed at all. It got so bad, I honestly thought about just ending…” he shook his head, voice trailing off without explaining the obvious. “When I was twelve, my mother and stepfather and my half-siblings up and moved to a different city and left me behind, left me with my aunt and uncle that I hardly knew. My aunt and uncle took me in but I was already a teenager and they were doing it out of obligation.”

“That’s terrible,” Lanie said. The pain on his face was the most honest thing she’d ever seen out of him. His laidback hipster persona was gone, and so was everything else.

Now, she saw only a wounded boy.

Brayden swallowed, struggling to maintain his composure. “When I was about fourteen, fifteen, I started getting taller and filled out. Girls started noticing me. I was somehow getting attention from all of these people, but I knew in my heart that it was all fake. None of it would ever last. And I was sure that I’d never give anyone a chance to disappoint me the way I had been. At seventeen, I moved out on my own and got my own place. I had girls there—a different girl every day of the week, practically. It felt good to be wanted, to be physically close to someone,” he said. “But I always knew that it couldn’t go beyond that.”

Lanie reached out and touched his cheek softly. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

He gave a wry smile. “Life isn’t fair,” he said. “I’m okay with it now.”

“Are you?” she said, looking straight into his eyes now.

He blinked, his brow beginning to wrinkle. “Yes, I am.”

She shook her head slightly. “I don’t think you’re okay with any of it,” she said. “Who wants to live their life alone, separate from everyone else just so they can avoid being hurt?”

Brayden pulled back. “You don’t understand. It’s not a choice for me.”

“It’s always a choice,” she replied.

Brayden’s jaw set and she saw some of the hardness come back into his gaze. He almost looked like he was shaking, but it was so subtle that it was practically invisible. Still, Lanie could sense the energy radiating off him, like a bomb about to explode.

“You need to stay away from me,” he said. “I’ll never do anything but hurt you, Lanie. You’re too good, too pure, and I’ve already fucked you up enough. Just go and have a good life and find some nice guy to settle down with who’ll treat you the way you deserve.”

“Or maybe you could just treat me the way you know I deserve,” she told him.

Brayden scratched at his jaw. “See, you don’t get it, Lanie. I’m trying to tell you that this could never work. My life is always going to be this way.”

“You’re not pushing me away to protect me from you,” Lanie pressed.

“I’m not?” he said. “Then tell me just what it is I’m doing.”

“You’re pushing me away to protect yourself…from me. You’re afraid I’m going to disappoint you like everyone else did.”

Brayden took a step back as if he’d been physically struck. His eyes widened and he looked more stunned than he had when Cullen had punched him. “You don’t know me as well as you seem to think,” he rasped.

“I know enough,” she said confidently. “But the thing is, I don’t need to protect myself because I can take the risk of being hurt by you, Brayden. Can you take the risk of being hurt by me? Maybe I’ll surprise you.”

He looked down momentarily and seemed to genuinely consider her question. Finally, he looked up at her again. “You’ve already surprised me,” he said.

“Now it’s your turn,” she said, smiling. “Surprise me, Brayden.”

He swallowed and nodded, his eyes getting a little wet and glassy now. “I don’t know why you’re bothering with me after what I’ve put you through, Lanie.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Lanie said. “You’ve got me, Brayden. You’ve got me.”

And then suddenly he’d taken her around the waist and pulled her in tight to his strong body, and he was kissing her passionately, his lips like burning fire against hers.

She moaned, feeling his need and desire all at once, the hardness of him—the intensity of everything that had been held back.

Finally, Lanie felt all of Brayden coming to the surface, and it was wild and electric and scary, but amazing all at once.

She gave into his kiss.

She gave into everything.

* * *

N
one of it mattered
.

The destruction of the company and his career.

The horrible things that had been said and done, the hurt feelings, the fears.

All that mattered was now. His body. His hands on her bare breasts as Brayden pulled her down onto the massive bed beside him.

They were in his incredible penthouse apartment, and dusk had changed the light to dark, but the cityscape blinked around them, three hundred and sixty degrees of bright lights showing in the magnificent windows that ran the length of the bedroom and the apartment itself.

Brayden rolled on top of her, their nude bodies intertwined, covered in a layer of sweat. “I need to get inside you,” he said. “I have to feel you.”

She felt his hardness, and it was like a piece of hot lead against her lower belly, resting just above her sex.

She was wet—had been wet for days, it seemed.

And she opened her legs wide, stretching her thighs out as far as she could, moaning as he lifted his torso and then slid himself against her moist, throbbing mound of flesh that parted to allow him entrance.

“Oh God,” she cried out, as he went inside smoothly, pushing against every layer and making the bursts of pleasure explode like fireworks.

“Fuck, you’re so tight and wet,” he whispered, his mouth just centimeters from hers.

His eyes stared into her eyes, and there was no more mistrust in them anymore.

She smiled a little hesitantly. “Is it real?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“Oh God, I want it to be,” she said, feeling his hips begin to move slowly.

More fireworks exploded inside of her.

“It is,” he told her again, moving more quickly.

His hips slapped against hers, his hard cock sliding in and out, fucking her so perfectly that she could hardly stay inside her own skin. She cried out, and the pleasure was so intense that it bordered on pain—rode the edge of the unbearable.

“I’m going to come,” she gasped.

“Come for me,” he said, and then his lips were on hers, his mouth clamped down, breathing in her breath as she came, her entire body thrusting, grabbing his back and clinging to him as if for dear life.

She came so hard that she felt her eyes roll back in her head.

In that moment, they were one, complete, no separation between the two bodies or the two souls.

Lanie knew it was crazy, but she also knew it was real.

When she was done, sweaty and panting, Brayden started to fuck her again, pounding away at her juicy, throbbing pussy. Sweat dripped from his forehead and landed on her neck and breasts.

The sheets were soaked.

“Oh, God,” she said. “I’m coming again, Brayden.”

“I’m going to shoot everything I have inside you,” he told her.

And then he did—he pushed his shaft all the way deep into her and she cried out yet again, as he slid in, in, going so deep it touched everything.

She felt him shuddering in his release, his body as tight and carved into stone as hers had been a moment before.

He arched his back and groaned, shaking.

She felt him pulsing within her, and she was finishing too, the last vestiges of her climax rolling off her in ebbing waves.

Brayden rolled off her, landing heavily on the mattress beside her then. They were both breathing heavily, and now he was laughing a little bit as his hand reached for her hand.

Lanie felt her hand enveloped by his warm, strong fingers, his palm crushing against her palm, and she shivered pleasantly.

“I’m never going to lose you again,” he said softly. “Understand?”

“You promise?” she said, trying to see his eyes in the darkness.

He leaned forward and came a bit more into the light reflected from the window. His eyes were clear and true. “I promise.”

She nodded and sighed.

Brayden began stroking her hair lightly. His fingertips felt like heaven against her hair and then trailing down her forehead. “That’s nice,” she said.