Page 59 of Ruthless Game

“That was almost too easy,” I remarked, stealing a moment to stroke her still reddened ass before I popped open the bottle and squeezed some lotion on my hand. “This is going to be cold.”

Carefully—more careful than I’d been with her in so long—and gently—with a tenderness I hadn’t shown her in years—I spread the lotion over her skin, massaging it with my fingers and thumbs. She gasped in shock, then moaned in relief, and although my sated dick got hard again, that wasn’t what mattered in the moment. No, it was the calm contentment in providing comfort for the woman I’d wanted to hurt so badly less than an hour ago. I hadn’t felt so settled in my own skin until I began to soothe hers. As I worked the cream into her, and felt her relax under my hands, I thought to myself: I could do this forever, too.

21

Emma

Could you die from not being allowed to come?

More importantly, could you die from emotional whiplash?

Because I felt like I was dying. Lawson kept making my heart soar, only to shoot it out of the air and leave it bleeding on the ground—and then run over it for good measure. I’d told him he could only have my body, and I’d meant it.

But then he’d called me his.

Said “mine” so quickly, it was like the word lived in his bones.

Told me he couldn’t live without me.

And it destroyed every plan I’d made to give him nothing but my body so I could protect my heart.

I’d been his once, just like he’d been mine, but as I lay on the bed, head down, ass up, as he massaged lotion into my ass after he’d walloped it for so long I’d gone numb, I knew the truth. Belonging to someone shouldn’t come with this much pain. Even if that pain came with comfort so sweet it stung.

As Lawson worked the cream into my skin, he hummed to himself. It was the same tune he used to hum me to sleep with. Back then, whenever I asked him what the song was, he’d distract me by kissing me, or completely shut down, until I stopped bothering. But there was something about the ease I felt in his hand, that I sensed from him, that made me try again.

“What’s the song you’re humming?”

His hands paused, resting on the curve of my ass.

“’You Are My Sunshine,’” he said quietly. “My mom used to sing it to me when I was little. She always sounded so sad.”

He sounded sad saying that. Lawson’s mom had left when he’d wound up in the hospital, and hadn’t bothered to show up to his father’s funeral years later, or ever to reach out. Lawson hated her in a way that used to scare me—although I guess I now knew what it felt like, being loathed by him so completely and obsessively. With his mom, it was different; he just stopped thinking about her and barely talked about her.

But for him to sing her song …

I didn’t want it to, but once again my heart yearned to wrap itself around Lawson and squeeze tight, to mend whatever hole was in his heart. He’d said he wanted us to move on, and be together without the past getting in the way. Was that even possible? Was that even what I wanted, to be with someone who believed so fully that I’d betray him, he refused to even let me say differently?

His hands started back up, the massage digging deeper into my glutes, and I moaned despite myself. I hadn’t felt this cared for, this safe, since … well, since that night.

Whore.

I shut that memory down with a quickness, fully focusing on the sensation of cool cream and warm hands on my sensitive skin. The connection buzzed between us, only aided by touch, not created by it. It was its own force, its own electrical current, and maybe it was no good fighting it.

“Okay.” Lawson spanked my ass lightly. “All done. Let’s go to bed.”

He stripped out of his clothes before climbing onto the bed and tugging the covers out from under me and then over both of us. I didn’t get a chance to lay there long before he was pulling me into his arms, so my head was tucked against his shoulder, my breasts pushing against his chest.

“Goodnight, Starburst,” he said on a yawn.

I didn’t have the heart to correct him this time. Instead, I lay there, surrounded by him and the scent of sage and salt, and I tried to figure out how I’d gotten here—and how the hell I was going to get myself out. Lawson kept humiliating me with my body and then showering me with praise until I wasn’t sure which way was up, and if I didn’t end this, there was going to be nothing left of the Emma Schwartz I’d worked so hard to become.

Once his breathing had deepened and I was sure he was asleep, I lifted his heavy arm off my body and crawled off the bed, as quietly as I could. My brother’s future was still up in the air, as was my reputation, and Lawson was still using him to coerce me into being with him. My only option was to find something bigger to hold over Lawson’s head, so he left us alone.

Left me alone.

You don’t really want that, my inner voice told me, but that voice was a pot-stirring bitch, so I ignored her, turning instead to his desk. There was a haphazard pile of history textbooks. One had the title The History of the West with a Post-it note stuck to it that said “horseshit.” I smiled. Lawson had always given our teachers in high school a hard time for being so “Western and white-centric.” He’d once told me he liked history because if you were the one who created the narrative and spread it, you were the winner. It would be nice, though, if the people and societies who controlled the narrative didn’t suck so much. Jeffrey had called him woke for saying that, and it hadn’t been a compliment.

At that thought, I stopped smiling and turned back to the job at hand. There was nothing incriminating in the top drawer, just old receipts for pumpernickel and chive cream cheese bagels from the bagel shop, a grocery shopping list, and a Post-it note in someone else’s handwriting that said, “Hey, asshole, don’t forget to buy laundry detergent.” Probably one of the roommates I’d met earlier.