38. Thomas

CHAPTER 38

Thomas

I don't take my arm from around Clara's waist until we're in my car, and then I grip her hand like she'll slip away if I don't. It doesn't matter that she's on my right side, and flexing my hand around hers feels like being shot in the arm all over again.

I'm not letting go of her for the rest of our lives.

As I start driving us home, I expect Clara to just pass out. She seems tired enough. Besides that, there are layers of bruises on her right cheekbone and temple, her lips are chapped to the point of cracking, and I can hear her stomach growling every thirty seconds like clockwork.

But instead of dropping into sleep, she opens her mouth and tells me… everything. Her plan to turn her uncle's enforcer against him, copying my intimidation tactics on Morgan, the endless days and nights in her cell, wondering if her warning got to me in time. Paul, murdering her uncle inches away from her according to her influence. And finally, sending a house that had newly come into her possession straight to hell .

As horrified as I am at what she's gone through, I feel no small amount of… pride.

Then she says words I can't even comprehend right now. "There's a ‘boss' in London," she murmurs. "Before he died, Uncle told me. That's why he turned on your father. Uncle thought they'd make better money if they cut ties, but your father didn't want to."

It's too much to consider right now. A main branch in the UK? How could my father have never mentioned this? Did he end up breaking contact after the schism? And if so, why did this ‘boss' never come around to figure out what happened? The entire thing bodes ill, and after the night I've had, I don't have the energy to deliberate what it means for me and everything I know- knew - to be true.

Instead I focus on the road. My priority is getting Clara home, making sure she's not too badly injured, and loving her until every one of her tears has dried up forever.

I take Clara straight to my room, and she seems surprised but also too tired to argue. As much as I want to pull her straight into the bed, I guide her into the bathroom instead. She lets out a little squeak when I grab her around the waist and lift her onto the edge of the counter. I turn away from her only long enough to get the bath started.

In the warm bright light of the bathroom, I can better see the damage done to her face, and the redness in her left eye. Clara meets my gaze, and it's enough of a distraction that I gently turn her face away from mine, ostensibly allowing me to study her injuries straight on.

"Paul already checked for fractures," she says.

"Did he now," I muse without pulling away, and the edge of her mouth quirks in a smile before she winces .

"What happened to your head?" she asks, maybe to distract herself from her own pain.

"A bullet graze," I murmur, prodding the bones of her face as gently as possible. "I almost wish it was a more direct hit, so I didn't have to listen to Derrick Lindman gloat over nothing."

She sucks in a breath, and at first I think I hurt her, but when she turns her face to me, she looks horrified, not agonized. "He captured you?"

"For all of five minutes," I assure her.

"Did you…" she swallows. "Did you kill him?"

"Not quite." I stroke her uninjured cheek. I don't want to talk about Derrick. I don't want to talk at all.

When I kiss her, she hisses in pain. Immediately, she tries to hide it, tries to kiss me back, but I pull away and focus my mouth and teeth on the left side of her jaw instead. Clara whimpers, attempting to turn her face toward me, but I hold her firmly.

I'm not causing her more pain than she's already been through.

My fingers dance over the buttons of her shirt- the same shirt I took off of her three days ago. I lavish her cheek, her ear, her neck. The buttons are taking too long, so I tear the rest open and listen to them ricochet off the tile. As soon as she is bared to me, I kiss one of her soft white breasts and squeeze the other in my hand until Clara moans. She arches into me, her exhausted body desperate for some pleasure. Well, I intend to give it to her.

The bath is full now. I check the temperature of the water, then gently pull Clara off the counter and set her feet on the floor. With a quick tug, her shorts and underwear fall to the floor, and I lift her into the tub. She moans at the warmth, and sinks immediately into the water, all the way up to her chin. I let her soak for several minutes, cupping water into my hands and pouring it over her hair to properly wet it. Then I lather a bar of herbal soap in my hands and scrub her gently down.

She leans into my touch, her eyes drooping closed until I almost think she's fallen asleep. I stroke my fingers through her wet hair, happy to stay right here with her. But eventually the water becomes tepid. I stand, and Clara murmurs a complaint but rouses with me, standing so I can wrap her up in a towel and lift her back out of the tub.

Holding her soft, wet body in my arms, my chest aches. I came so, so close to losing this woman.

"Don't ever scare me like that again," I tell her, my lips against her wet hair.

Clara looks up at me, her eyes wide with confusion. "What?"

"Charging in without telling me your plan," I clarify. "Don't do it again."

Her brow furrows. "You weren't going to let me leave. Sneaking out was the only way I could think of to extend the truce, or stop my uncle, whichever came first."

"That wasn't your responsibility," I chide.

"It was!" she insists. "I told you not to stop using me."

I tighten my arms around her. I need her to understand this. If she hears nothing else I say, she has to hear this. "Listen to me, Clara. You were never a tool. Even when I treated you like one- I was wrong. I've been wrong for a long time. The fact that I made you believe you had to half kill yourself just to make my plan succeed-" I have to loosen my grip on her, just a little, or I'm afraid I'll hurt her. "I don't think I'll ever forgive myself for that, Clara."

And how many more mistakes have I made, or almost made, because people have never been people to me, but pieces on a chessboard?

Raleigh, whose relationship with me has been strained since she was born. I could've bridged that gap a thousand times, but instead I kept her confined, stifled. I might not have planned to use her strategically like our father did. But because I didn't know what to do with her… I let her do nothing.

Iris, who I trust implicitly, and who I thought trusted me in the same way, kept her love for Paul Zakharov a secret for god knows how long. Did she do that because she was afraid I would see that love as nothing more than an advantage?

Even Derrick, who I reminded at every turn that he only had what he had because it suited me- he bucked under my rule, wanted power he himself could benefit from. If I had done more to make him an ally instead of a pawn, would he have still turned on me?

Clara is quiet for a long moment, searching my face with eyes that are cannier than I ever gave her credit for. "If I was never a tool to you, then… what was I? What am I"

I hear the question the doesn't ask. What are we ?

"You're everything," I say simply, and kiss her unmarred cheek.

It's not enough, not for either of us. Clara wraps her arms around my neck, and I lift her right off her feet and carry her into the bedroom at last.

When I lay her down, her towel is all askew, revealing one of her breasts. I duck down, grazing her nipple with my teeth, licking the soft swell of skin, sucking and biting until Clara is whimpering for mercy. My hands slide up her thighs and under the towel, loosening it more. Her skin prickles with goosebumps, like she's coming to life under my slightest touch. I drag my palms higher and higher, up her stomach, over her breasts, peeling the towel away completely and baring her beautiful, sensuous body to me.

Clara meets my eyes. Her lips are parted- she's already panting, already starved for more. I keep our gazes locked as I pull my shirt over my head, and see the exact moment she registers the bruise that's bloomed over my stomach .

"Thomas…" she gasps, reaching out, but she stops her hand at the last moment. Afraid to hurt me more, maybe. I take her hand in mine and lay her palm flat against the bruise.

"Don't ever hesitate to touch me," I tell her. "I don't care if it hurts or not, I want your hands on me."

Clara's dark eyes soften, and she nods her understanding. I strip off my pants, and then there's nothing left between us.

I've had this woman more than once, but this time, I don't want to think of what I'm about to do as sex, or fucking, or ravishing. I don't want to take her for myself. I want to try to give back even half of what she's given to me.

I want her to understand that I'm making love to her, here in a bed I hope will be ours after tonight.

Slowly, ever so slowly, I roll my hips against hers, running the length of my shaft up and down her clit. I press my lips to the very corner of her mouth, trail kisses up her jaw, nip at the skin of her neck. I return to the silky soft swell of her breasts, marveling at how I've neglected them up until this night. I pinch and roll her nipples between my fingers, turning her spine to liquid, her guttural moans to cries. And all the while I'm rocking against her, building up her pleasure at a torturously steady pace.

Clara tolerates this for all of two minutes before she starts moving with me, pressing her hips up into mine, deepening the pressure between us. Her body, soft a moment before, is coiling around the point where our bodies are almost joined. She's close, so close.

I pull back, angle my hips- and only nudge at her entrance. Clara cries out at the burst of ecstasy and then deprivation. Her whole body is trembling under me, the muscles in her legs spasming with anticipation. I rock, pressing my tip a little deeper inside her. Clara throws her head back, her eyes squeezed shut, her knuckles white around fistfuls of bedsheet.

"Oh my god! Thomas- please !" she begs.

I push forward another inch. One of my hands squeezes her breast and toys with it in turn. Another inch, and Clara is almost sobbing for relief.

"Please, Thomas- please please please -"

I plunge into her, joining our bodies eternally.

Clara screams, her pleasure finally releasing. I pull all the way out, thrust in again. My pace is slow, measured, relentless. Each slap of our skin and crash of our hips drives me deeper, wilder. I want all of this woman, every last inch of her and every sound that she makes, every thought she has and feeling in her heart. I want her here, under me, around me, always.

My own body is howling for release, and I quicken my thrusts. Faster, faster, until I'm pounding into her at punishing speed.

I will drive out every evil thing that's happened to her, not only tonight, but ever.

When I slam into her when I come into her, I'm gasping in time with the heaving of her chest. Our bodies rock together as we ride the last seconds of our pleasure, drawing it out as long as we can, reveling in the heat and sweat between us. My fingers tingling, I run them through Clara's hair, remove sticky strands from her forehead. She's flushed and breathless, and so, so beautiful.

"You were never my tool- my pawn," I tell her again, and I don't care that my voice is hoarse.

I think of the empty spot on the display shelf in my office. The queen of the second chess set that I never commissioned, missing all this time. I could never find the right artist who had the right vision. How could I have known that the artist and the queen were one and the same, and that she wasn't made of marble or glass or wood, but flesh and blood? That she'd walk into my life and ruin it, ruin me, and then rebuild me better than ever ?

"You were always my queen." I swallow, stroke her cheek. "Stay with me. Be my wife."

Clara's eyes, dreamy with bliss, slowly widen as she realizes what I've just asked of her. She takes a deep breath.

But she says… nothing.

Her silence is too heavy between us. It's suddenly difficult to breathe this air. I sit up.

"Of course, if you aren't interested, you can leave any time you like," I say, in a voice I recognize as my blankest negotiation tone. I'm still inside her- it feels wrong to speak to her like this, formal, detached, like we're discussing a paltry business deal. But when I'm about to lose everything, it's my last line of defense.

Slowly, trying to feel as little as possible, I pull away and climb off the bed. Clara sits up, still staring at me, but still horribly silent.

"Whatever you choose to do, you're free now," I tell her, because that, above all else, she should understand. "We owe each other nothing."

It's a relief to look away from her. I dress quickly and leave the room. She can have my bed- I'm not sleeping at all tonight.