Crash & Carnage by Emma Slate
Chapter 10
By midafternoon,the water was back on in my condo. The annoyance of the day melted away, and I was left with buzzy anticipation at the thought of seeing Boxer. My skin heated and my stomach flipped when I remembered how it felt to have his lips on mine, to be pressed against his strong, muscular form.
The promise of pleasure blasted through my veins, and I wanted his sweaty, naked body writhing over mine as we both erupted in pleasure. I knew it would be explosive when we were finally able to be together.
I slipped into a ruby–red satin dress that hit above the knee. It was sleeveless with an open back, and I couldn’t wear a bra with it. It was the perfect dress to seduce. It gave away just enough to entice, but also left enough of a mystery to create desire. It would tantalize and drive Boxer mad.
I twirled up my wheat blonde hair to get it out of my way while I did my makeup, something smoky and dramatic with a red lip that would inevitably draw his attention. We were playing a game of cat and mouse, but I was ready to be caught. I wanted him in my bed tonight. He’d been out of the hospital for a few weeks. He was running around with kids, so clearly he was feeling well enough for aerobic activity.
My cell phone rang as I slid the mascara wand through my lashes. Without taking my eyes off my reflection, I pressed a button and put Boxer on speaker.
“Are you on your way?” I asked in flirtatious purr.
“Linden, it’s your mother.”
Crap.
Her voice was frosty, and I swore I could feel the proverbial ice shards she was throwing at me through the phone.
“Ah. Hi, Mom.”
“You must be going out,” she said. “Do you have a date?”
“No. I’m going out with a friend,” I lied.
“That’s how you talk to your friends?”
“What can I do for you? I’m kind of on a time crunch here.”
“Who is this friend?” she pressed.
“Peyton. She’s a nurse I work with.”
She paused. “So, you’re not going on a date with that tattooed heathen?”
I lowered the mascara wand. “Tattooed heathen? Who are you talking about?”
“Don’t play dumb. It’s beneath you. Seriously, Linden. What are you doing with that man?”
“That’s none of your business,” I seethed. “How do you know about him? Hmm? Who did you pay to spy on me?”
“You forced me to pay someone to spy on you,” she stated, not even denying that she’d done it.
“You’re psychotic. You need psychological help.”
“Do not diagnosis me, Linden Evelyn Ward.”
“Do not ignore societal boundaries, Charlotte Rushford Ward Exeter.”
Rage stormed through my blood, and I gripped the counter as she verbally marched on, “You tell me nothing of your life. You gave up your position at Duke, dumped Jeff for no good reason, and then moved across the country. If I hadn’t called while you were packing up your things, would you have even bothered to tell me?”
“Yes,” I stated. “I would’ve told you.”
Probably. Maybe.
“You are my daughter, and yet we’re complete strangers.”
“You made it this way.”
“That’s not fair.”
“It is fair,” I insisted. “When I told you I got accepted to med school and I was going to be a doctor, you didn’t talk to me for six months. That was all you, Mom. You’ve never understood me. You’ve never tried to understand me. After Dad left—”
“Do not bring him into this!”
“He called me today. He’s been calling me every day this week. I haven’t heard from him in years, and he’s trying to get in touch now? Why?”
“How should I know?” She suddenly sounded tired.
A part of me considered telling her the truth about why I’d left Duke. About why I’d left an entire life behind. But my mother was mercenary. She’d used my weaknesses and vulnerabilities against me throughout my entire life. I didn’t trust her not to hurt me.
“Who do you have feeding you information, Mom?” My voice was soft but threaded with steel.
She paused for a long moment and then she said, “Jerry.”
My screen flashed, alerting me to the fact that she’d hung up on me.
I set my phone aside and placed my palms on the counter of the bathroom. My face was red and blotchy.
I’d never liked my mother, but in that moment, I truly loathed her.
My vision blurred with rage.
I stalked barefoot into the kitchen. I looked around at the stainless-steel appliances and the custom designed counter tops and cabinets. I suddenly hated the clean lines and spartan appeal.
This wasn’t a design aesthetic that appealed to me—it was just familiar. This was my mother’s style, through and through. I’d accepted it for so long I’d thought it was mine. I wasn’t original. I knew nothing about what I truly wanted or even liked.
I opened the cabinet that had a complete set of glazed white dishware. I picked up a plate. It was heavy in my hand, and I held it for just a moment before throwing it to the ground.
It shattered.
I picked up a salad plate and chucked it against the far wall. It put a massive dent in the drywall and then fell to the floor with a resounding crash.
Each broken dish fed my fury, until all the cabinet doors were open and empty, the remains of china littered across the wooden floors.
My heart thumped in my ears, savagely clawing at my insides with sharp talons, demanding to be let out. Demanding to destroy everything. Only in the aftermath of the destruction would it be calm.
I didn’t feel better. There weren’t enough plates in the homeware department of Harrods to make me feel better. My wrath was years deep, and it had blown like a volcano that had been dormant for generations.
A knock resounded on the condo door. I froze. My mind was static.
“Linden?” Boxer called through the door. He knocked again.
I surveyed the room and realized that I was so consumed with my meltdown, I’d forgotten he was on his way. I stepped over a pile of glass, mindful that I was still barefoot.
When I opened the door, I was greeted with Boxer’s warm smile. Without a word of hello, I grasped him by the lapel of his leather cut and pulled him inside.
“What the hell happened in here?” he demanded as he quickly surveyed the room and all the broken glass that I hadn’t had time to clean up.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said, my hands climbing up his chest, demanding, silently begging for him to ignore the room.
Boxer looked down at me, his expression blank. “What do you need, Linden?”
“Oblivion.”
He pushed the door closed with one hand, staring at me with steely eyes. Then he was on me. His lips against mine, his tongue in my mouth, his hands underneath my skirt.
“Turn around,” he growled.
I did as he commanded, not questioning his edict. He pressed me to the door and my palms flattened against the wood so I could keep my balance.
His hand snaked underneath my skirt as he delved for the place between my legs. His breath hitched when he realized I wasn’t wearing underwear.
I sucked in air when he slipped his finger into me from behind. I took it easily, welcomed it. I was more than ready. I was primed for sex. Anger was a powerful aphrodisiac that clouded my brain but ignited my body. I clamped around him in sweet agony.
Boxer removed his finger, and I moaned at the loss of him. His chuckle was dark, husky. It made my blood turn to liquid heat.
He fumbled with his belt, and then metal clanked against the wooden floor. I looked over my shoulder. His jeans were down by his ankles, and he was rolling a condom down his impressive length. His gaze met mine as he slowly lifted the skirt of my dress to bare my backside to him. He took himself in one hand and positioned himself at my entrance.
He slipped into me, filling me completely.
My breath hitched, and then I hissed in pain. One of my hands curled into a fist, and I beat the door with it. “More,” I demanded. “Give me more.”
Boxer thrust into me, his hands grasping my hips. I was wet, slippery, and he drove deeper.
He screwed me with abandon. I lost myself in him, in the feel of him between my legs.
I was so deliciously full. His scent engulfed me, mingling with mine. We made something new, a unique perfume of lust and sweat.
Closing my eyes, I pressed my flushed cheek to the door and drowned in desire.
His fingers reached around to the seam of my body, searching and playing, demanding I come for him. He was relentless, pounding into me from behind as he stroked me.
My skin tingled and for one moment, I froze, and then I clenched around him and rode out my pleasure.
He grasped my hips and speared into me a few more times before stilling. His chest covered my back and pushed me against the door. He dropped his forehead to my shoulder, his breathing labored.
My skin was flushed with pleasure and sweat. Warm from the inside out. The anger inside me had been a wildfire, but it had burned itself to ashes.
Boxer pulled away from me. I winced at his departure. I was sore between my legs.
He moved behind me and glanced at him over my shoulder. He was removing the condom, his head bent. He was still half erect, and even diminished, he was bigger than all the other men I’d been with. There hadn’t been many, but there had been enough to know how impressive Boxer was.
And he knew how to use it.
It was no wonder he was a savant when it came to women. It was no wonder they wanted him in bed.
Boxer tied off the condom and looked up to find me watching him. His gray eyes were clear, his expression blank.
He reached down to pull up his pants, which he’d left bunched around his ankles, but he didn’t button them. Without a word, he turned and walked out of the living room, clearly searching for the bathroom.
I looked around at the carnage I’d created. A part of me was ashamed that I’d let my emotions get the better of me. The other part of me, the larger, more vocal part of me, realized it had been necessary.
After a few minutes, Boxer came back into the living room with his pants buttoned and his belt buckled. He stared at me for a long moment. “What the hell happened?”
I raised my brows. “I thought that was obvious.”
“Linden.”
“Boxer.”
His gaze narrowed. “Something happened to you. What was it?”
“Why does it matter?” I demanded.
He didn’t reply.
My gaze dropped to his belly, and my breath hitched. “Did I hurt you?”
His smile was calculated to look amused, but I could still see the tension beneath it. “Nah, darlin’. I’m fine.”
“Show me your incision.”
“No.”
“No?”
“You’re not my doctor anymore. You’re fired.”
“You can’t fire me,” I commanded.
“Sure, I can,” he said. “What’s it called? Conflict of interest?”
I glared at him.
“You stopped being my doctor the moment my tongue was in your mouth.”
“Stop it.”
“Stop what?”
I walked to the door and opened it.
He raised his brows. “You holding that door open for a reason?”
“You were just leaving.”
“You used me for sex and now you’re kicking me out?”
“Isn’t that the way this is supposed to go?”
“If this was the way it was supposed to go, I wouldn’t have bothered putting on a button-down shirt and wearing my best pair of jeans. I wouldn’t have asked you to wear something fancy. You look dynamite, by the way.”
My expression didn’t change, and I didn’t move away from the door.
“Broom?” he asked.
“Hall closet,” I said before I could stop myself.
He walked to the closet and pulled out the broom and dustpan. And then he began to sweep up the mess I’d made.
I slowly closed the door.
He wasn’t showing any signs of pain, but I was instantly ashamed of myself. He was still healing, and I’d used him as my own physical playground. I’d unleashed my rage and demanded escape from my anger. His body had been a balm to my battered emotions. I’d never escaped my feelings using sex before.
He swept broken dishware into a few piles. I grabbed the dustpan and squatted down so he could sweep the rubble into it. It felt strange, what we were doing. Like all the boundaries and rules we’d erected had been shattered like the china the moment he’d stepped into my apartment.
I wasn’t the Linden he was expecting tonight.
“Sorry I ruined your plans,” I said.
“What plans?” he asked as he began to sweep again.
I walked over to the trash can and dumped the broken glass into it. “Your plans to wine and dine me.”
He shrugged. It looked deceptively casual. But something about his posture told me he felt anything but. “Don’t worry about it, Doc. You gave up the goods before I had to shell out a small fortune. I guess I won, in the end.”
The lightness of his words belied the truth.
“Boxer,” I said softly.
He kept sweeping even though there was no longer even a speck of china dust on the ground.
“Will you look at me?” I pleaded.
After a few seconds, he paused and met my gaze.
“I’m sorry.” My voice sounded small. “I’m sorry I used you the way I did. I’m sorry you walked in and I…”
“Couldn’t keep your greedy hands to yourself?” he asked with a forced grin. “It’s fine, Linden. Really.”
It wasn’t fine.
I was suddenly deeply ashamed of myself. Not because I just had mind-numbing sex with him, but because I had used him for my own personal needs.
Never in my life had I been so selfish.
He looked at me. “Do you want to talk about what happened now?”
“No.”
He handed me the broom, and I took it.
“Well then, I guess there’s not much else to say.” He headed for the door. “See ya around, Doc.”