The Love Trap by Nicole French

30

Iawoke that morning like I had every morning for weeks now—as if I had been out for a month, not just a night. Eric and I had fallen asleep in the middle of the alpaca rug in the living room again, a wool blanket thrown over our naked bodies. We’d destroyed at least one pillow the night before, and possibly ruined a throw blanket with candles. Gingerly, I touched a small burn on my wrist. Wax play wasn’t for the weak of heart.

Catharsis.

Eric’s one-word call to action over the last several months. His mission, for both of us.

The demons that Eric and I had needed to be appeased, and every night that’s what we did. For his part, Eric was more, ah, creative than he had ever been, more than willing to indulge those random moments when one of us needed things to be a little harsher than before.

But it wasn’t just that bittersweet purging that continued to heal us through the spring. It was also the renewed sense of purpose we both gained as the weeks passed—Eric in finally taking full control over his family’s generations-built company. Me, strangely, at the Met, where I had found the people I’d never known I needed.

Cora Spring, editor in chief.

Art Nguyen, head curator.

A whole table full of connoisseurs, donors, designers, planners—all of them people who lived and breathed fashion. They fervently embraced the passion I’d always told myself was just a hobby, despite the fact that it was where my heart had been my entire life. For the first time in years, I went to my “work” with excitement, not just duty. And now, as the big day approached, I was dreading that it was going to end.

I lay on Eric’s chest, listening to his heartbeat and watching the skin over his pulse. Tick, tick, tick. Slow. Rhythmic. For now, he was completely relaxed. Peaceful, or closer to a bomb? If it was the latter, when would he go off?

As if he knew I was watching him, Eric stirred, and his heartbeat sped up. “Mmmm, g’morning, gorgeous. Good God, did we really not make it back to the bed last night?”

I smiled into his chest. “It’s a good thing the rug is so soft. You’re a good pillow too.”

Eric rubbed his hands up and down my bare back, fingertips calloused from even more rock climbing these days. “You’re in a good mood.”

“It’s a beautiful day. Spring is here,” I murmured, nuzzling that delicious divot between his pecs. Mmmmm, man cleavage. You really can’t beat it.

He chuckled, then pulled me fully on top of him, stretching the length of his hardening body under me. “The cherry blossoms popped two weeks ago, Lefferts. Don’t you walk by them every day on your way to the museum?”

I shrugged, more interested in the way the muscle rose under his collarbone slightly as it tensed. I kissed it. “I saw them. But today, I appreciate it.”

Eric jumped when my teeth closed lightly over his collarbone, but his hands slipped over my back and down my ass. “Don’t start something you can’t finish.”

“Pretty sure finishing is your problem, not mine.”

I jerked when his hand found my ass with a loud swat.

“Ah!”

“I think you know I finish us both off just fucking fine, pretty girl. Every single time.”

“Prove it.” I wriggled over the part of his body that would help him do just that.

Eric hissed with desire. But instead of rolling me over and spreading my legs like I knew he wanted, he flopped back on the floor. “Don’t you have the walk-through this morning with the florists? I have a meeting with the CEO at nine.”

I groaned. It was true. I hadn’t really anticipated all of the work that went into taking Celeste’s spot on the gala planning committee for the last two and a half months. Though the rest of the team had been working on it since last summer, it was still legitimately a full-time job.

Now the actual event was nearly upon us, although we were still waiting to hear whether or not Carson had accepted Heather’s invitation to act as her escort. Eric was starting to think his original plan of a society coup was the better idea. I was too busy drowning myself in seating arrangements to think about what I would do if my biological father did in fact show up to what was otherwise going to be my version of dream prom.

Repression, kiddo. Ah, there was Dad—my real dad—mimicking Dr. Jean’s admonishments as my de facto conscience.

I sighed and mentally pushed them both away. “Cora won’t sign off on anything unless she sees it herself, but yeah, I’m supposed to be there. And don’t forget, you absolutely have to be here by four for the final fittings today. Take the train if you have to. Traffic is going to be murder at that time.”

I rolled reluctantly off Eric and started getting up, holding the blanket around my body. Eric stretched his long, blissfully naked limbs out on the carpet, doing absolutely nothing to hide his still-present erection.

I bit my lip. Damn. There was literally nothing more I’d like to do than ride that particular train right now.

But, no. Duty called. And we had a day ahead of us.

“All right. Shower now. Sex later,” I said.

“Who says we can’t have both?”

Talk about a change in direction. But before I could argue, I was hoisted over Eric’s deceptively broad shoulder and carried upside down toward the bathroom at the end of the hall.

“Well, hello, there,” I said as I flopped against his back. “What do we have here?”

What we had was a view of two perfectly formed buttocks, the product of a nightly rock-climbing habit and excellent Scandinavian genetics. So, of course, I did what any sensible, red-blooded person would do in my situation. I took a bite.

“Ow!” Eric hopped the rest of the way into the bathroom and flipped me back onto my feet. He set me on the counter and landed a kiss that was more bitter than sweet. “You little vixen. You’re going to pay for that.”

I tipped my head up, making my neck available to the delicious scrape of his stubble. “Mmmm, no time like the present, Mr. de Vries. Unless, of course you’re out of stamina after last night. Did I wear you out?”

He shoved me against the mirror with a bang, pressing his considerable and now rock-hard cock against my thigh. It slipped between my legs, almost like it had a homing device for exactly where it wanted to be.

But though I rocked toward him, rubbing those dark, eager spaces against him, Eric didn’t thrust in the way I knew he wanted to. Instead, he held back, watching me slip over his silky length instead.

“Or maybe,” I said as I tilted my hips, deliberately looking for trouble, “you’re just finally getting your fill of me.”

Immediately, I was pulled off the counter and spun around to face the mirror. Eric delivered a harsh slap to my ass before slipping one hand around my throat to brace my jaw, the other to pin my arms behind my back. I stared at us in the mirror, enthralled with the look of myself completely at the man’s mercy.

“You and your smart damn mouth.” He twisted my face to his and stamped a thorough kiss on my lips. “One day I’m going to wash it out with soap. Maybe today.”

“For swearing too much?”

“For talking about yourself like that.”

He kissed me again, and again, and again, until I had no more breath for self-deprecating comments. He turned my body around until I was facing him, then started walking us both toward the shower. Opened the glass door. Turned on the Rainshower. And suddenly I was making out with a god, all soaking wet, six feet two inches of him pressed against me beneath the warm spray.

“Oh!” I cried as his teeth found my neck, and he sucked all over again. The man really was a vampire. “Take it easy, Edward Cullen. I can’t have a neck full of hickeys in front of every fashion photographer in the world on Monday.”

That, of course, only made him suck harder. “Don’t tell me what to do,” he growled.

As he lifted me up, I arched against him and wrapped my legs around his trim waist, finally welcoming what I sought. He slid inside, slow enough that I was practically punching his shoulder, begging him to lose control.

Let go, I wanted to cry out. Please, Eric. Let go of everything. He may have preached catharsis, but he still bottled up so much.

“Are you still thinking about photographers, pretty girl?” He pulled out, then inched back in again. Considering his size, it took a while.

I squeezed my eyes shut, but I could barely put together a coherent sentence. “Mmphmm.”

“That’s what I thought.”

For a moment, I wanted to see him break. I wanted to see him lose himself in me the way I felt like I was trying not to lose myself all the time.

The muscle under his neck ticked more. “Jane.”

I opened my eyes. The shower was full of steam, and in it, with water streaming over his chiseled features, Eric looked like Poseidon, rising from the deep.

“Stop thinking,” he ordered. “Let go.”

I threaded my hands into his hair and yanked. “You first.”

Every muscle he had flexed. Then he thrust forward, and this time, he didn’t hold back.

“Eric!” I shouted, my voice echoing off the marble and glass.

“Yesss,” he hissed as he pummeled into me, his forehead smacking on the stone right beside the back of my head. We were both going to have headaches later, but I couldn’t have cared less.

I reached out, looking for something to help me balance while he ravaged my breasts, while he ravaged me. Even like this, even when we were being relatively tame by our standards, Eric was still savage. I loved it, but I needed something, anything, to hold on to. My hands only found slick walls and shower doors, my feet the sides of the tub. Goddammit, this used to be easier, didn’t it?

Suddenly, we were both slipping and sliding, banging to the floor with several painful bumps.

“Ow! Fucking hell!”

“Watch it!” I squawked when I slid into his elbow, my knee smacking his jaw in the process.

After flopping around the tub for more than a minute until we were finally standing again, the moment, as they say, had definitely passed. Eric just glowered at the shower nozzle like it was somehow its fault he hadn’t been able to finish.

The muscle under his jaw looked like it was about to split open.

“You…you okay, there?” I ventured.

Just like that, the strange, sullen spell was broken. Eric’s face resumed its normal implacability—a new mask, I noted with a bit of resentment.

Instead of answering, he just grabbed a loofah behind me and started furiously washing himself off. As, you know, one does with their sexual partner in whom they were six inches’ deep only a few minutes before. Without finishing.

But while he seemed to have moved on, I absolutely had not. As Eric scrubbed, I stared. Water streamed over his rippled abdomen, the clean lines of his chest, the sculpted curves of his buttocks and thighs. He might have been a statue had he not been so…alive.

As was I, I realized. As was I.

“This is bullshit. We barely fit.”

His voice echoed abruptly off the marble walls. I was still engrossed by his, ah, equipment, which, though no longer quite up to where it had been, was still considerable.

He stopped scrubbing.

I looked up. Okay, I was caught. “We’ve made it work before. Like two days ago.”

“You had an Easter egg on the back of your head from how hard you slammed into the marble.”

My smirk widened into a smile. “I don’t remember complaining.” I stepped close and reached out to touch those abs. Maybe I could still get a matching bump this time.

But Eric just shook his head and went back to rubbing his stomach raw. “It’s too small. This whole place is too fucking small. You don’t feel it?”

I wasn’t sure what to do with that. This bathroom wasn’t exactly small. Enormous, really, by the standards of New York. You could stand in the center, and when you stuck your arms out, you didn’t even hit the glass door.

Besides, since when did he care about space when it came to fucking?

“You didn’t seem to mind small apartments before,” I ventured. “Even your place in Boston now is just a one-bedroom.”

“That’s because it was just me living there,” he said. “What the fuck did I need with space?”

“Space isn’t needed exponentially with an additional person.”

“Isn’t it?”

“And this place isn’t exactly tiny. By New York standards, it’s a palace. I mean, really, look at our counter. We have two sinks. Two.”

“I don’t want that,” he spat, tossing his arm out with disdain at the sink. “I want a counter so big in every bathroom I can lay you out like a buffet whenever and wherever I want. I want to be able to fuck my wife in the shower without toppling into the bathtub like a couple of drunk college kids. And I really want to stop feeling like half the fucking city is pressing in on me because I live in a goddamn cage I share with fifty other people.”

On that bitter note, he appeared to be finished as he practically hurled the loofah at the wall and proceeded to stalk out without another word. I stood there for a moment, taking extra minutes to wash and condition my hair, not to mention let the man cool down.

Well, you wanted him to let go, didn’t you? I honestly had no idea if that was Dr. Jean or my dad speaking that time. As subconscious avatars go, they were irritatingly conflated.

When I had deemed the temperature of the room acceptably cooler and my hair acceptably cleaner, I turned off the shower and got out. Eric stood at the far end going about his business with slow, concerted movements, though clearly struggling to see himself in the fogged mirror.

He was waiting for me to get out.

“I like this apartment,” I said. “I like this bathroom. I like this marble sink.”

A stormy gray gaze found me. “It feels like a cage,” he said. “Not all the time. But sometimes. Just like everywhere else.”

Ah. Now we were getting somewhere. If I was struggling to let things out, Eric felt like he was trying to get out but couldn’t. It made sense, I supposed. He’d lived in one sort of cage from approximately eleven or twelve on, later on, others of his own making. And then, of course, there were the two weeks in January when he was literally in a jail cell. Shit. Why hadn’t I thought of this before?

Some people found New York claustrophobic, all these people crowded onto one small island. Eric had grown up here. It had never occurred to me that now, especially, he might feel the same way.

But what did that mean? Would he want to leave the city? The idea made my heart speed up about double its speed. I loved this apartment. I loved this life—well, I’d come to love parts of it, anyway. Mostly, I loved this home, this first home that was really mine, mine. I loved it because I had made it with this man. So, if he wasn’t happy…I’d move, of course. But it would break my heart a bit to do it.

Eric turned, holding a razor in his hand. For a split second, I imagined snatching it from him and slicing it across my wrist just to feel the fiery sensation rip through me.

Speak your truth, Jane. That one was Dr. Jean for sure.

But before I could say anything, Eric spoke first. “Do you like this building, Jane?”

I sunk to the edge of the counter, unsure of how to voice everything swimming in my head. “Um, yes. Yes, I do.”

“Do you, really? The Upper West Side? Seventy-Sixth Street? Or would you rather move downtown, to somewhere less, I don’t know, yuppie or whatever you’d call it? God knows it would be an easier commute for me if you wanted to get a place in Soho or Tribeca or something.”

I considered the idea. A few months ago, I might have jumped at the chance. But again, that word home kept coming to mind. Everything that we had made together.

“I like it here,” I found myself saying. “But if our place is too small—”

“It is,” Eric cut me off. “That’s why I bought the rest of the building.”

He turned back to the mirror and continued drawing the razor down his other cheek in straight, sure movements, not even bothering to check the reflection for my response.

“What do you mean, you bought it?” I finally managed to croak.

He rinsed the razor matter-of-factly and tipped his chin to scrape underneath it. “Last year. Before I showed you the apartment. I bought the building.” He shrugged. “I allowed the current tenants to live out their leases, but you must have noticed the building gradually losing bodies. I let the security team have the unit below us last year when those tenants moved out. I’ve just been waiting for the leases to run out on the apartments below them while I decided what to do with it all.

I considered the facts. Considered that I’d never really taken the time to get to know our neighbors, so why would I have noticed they were gone. Considered that he had done this without even asking me.

“What if I said I hated it here?” I asked. “What if I said I wanted you to sell the place and that we needed to live in a hovel in Brooklyn? The New York housing version of PBR?”

Eric shook out his razor again and chuckled. “I’d probably take you up on the former, but the closest I’ll go for a hovel is Nolita, pretty girl.”

“You’re such an Upper East snob.”

He smirked, but didn’t argue. “I want a house, Jane. Like the one I grew up in. Or yours. Not some rat trap we share with five or fifteen other families. I want a real home for anyone we want to be in it.”

Children. It was an unspoken promise. We hadn’t talked about it yet, but one day we would. One day when our loss wasn’t quite so acute.

“Why…why now?” I asked.

Eric finished shaving, and with slow, measured movements, rinsed his razor and laid it carefully on the sink. When he turned to look at me, I didn’t notice the blade. Didn’t even consider what it would feel like if I scraped it over my forearm or the inside of my thigh. The only metallic gleam I could see was the determination in Eric’s steely gray eyes.

“Because we’ve got to do something, don’t we?” he asked. “With any luck, in less than a week, this will all be over. We need to look beyond it, don’t you think?”

“I…I guess?” I wasn’t quite so sure.

“One way or another, it will be done. That’s a promise.”

What does that mean? I wanted to ask. What are you going to do?

But I found I didn’t actually want to know. I was getting stronger, but I didn’t want to ruin the beautiful light of the morning with shadows.

“Okay,” I said as I wrapped an arm around his neck and pulled his lips to mine. “Let’s make this our home for always.”

His mouth curved into a smile, the smile I didn’t see as much anymore, but which still made my knees weak and my soul tremble.

“Sounds like a plan, pretty girl,” he said, his voice a warm hum that vibrated through all of me.

We’ve got to do something, he’d said. It was a refrain in my mind as he turned us around and placed me back on the counter, ready to finish the job he’d started under the streaming water.

Yeah, I thought as I welcomed him home. We do.