Jenn Bennett - Bitter Spirits

It was far better than anything his debauched brain had ever imagined.

Her breath became ragged. Flesh smacked. Freckled breasts quivered and bounced hypnotically. The moment she faltered, thighs shaking with effort, he angled himself farther down on the cushion beneath her and took over, vigorously pounding up into her as she arched over him.

His mind emptied. He was nothing but a body serving to meet her pleasure. And when that pleasure finally gathered strength and crested, her eyes locked with his. The look on her face was so vulnerable and open, and God help him, somewhere in the back of his barbaric, dull mind, he thought: This one. Her. Only her. No one else.

Her eyes closed. A long, soulful wail broke from her mouth. She came so intensely, so ferociously, he was almost jealous. The absurdity of this thought was washed away by his own brutal need. His turn, now—thank God.

She was boneless, weightless, ready to collapse. “Not yet,” he said. “Hold on.” He lifted her up and down on his cock in time with the pumping of his hips, reviving her. She shuddered and squeezed around him again, another orgasm taking them both by surprise. And as she bucked in his arms, sobbing, every muscle in his body tensed in anticipation.

His pleasure crashed through him, surging forward. He held her hips down and came into her endlessly, a glorious, blinding moment of complete surrender that he felt in the base of his spine, the pads of his toes, the tips of his fingers.

When it faded, he was gasping for breath below her, muttering broken Swedish that he knew she couldn’t understand, but damned if he could reach for the words in English. Funny that his mind had trouble making the switch, when it was usually second nature.

Her head lolled against his neck. He stroked her hair as their hearts slowed, finally finding the right words in the right language, which he whispered against her cheek. “Everything I have is yours. My home, my body, my protection . . . my heart. All of me.”

One salty tear slid down her cheek. He captured it with a swipe of his tongue, and this started an avalanche of great, convulsive sobs. He didn’t ask why. Just folded his arms around her, pulling her into the rocky cave of his body, and waited for the crying to stop. And when it did, he held her until she fell asleep in his arms. Somewhere inside his blackened heart, he knew it would be the last time.

AIDA BARELY SAW WINTER THE REST OF THE WEEK. A FEAT, really—and an ironic one, at that. She was staying under his roof, sleeping in his bed, and yet she was never alone with him. He was gone when she woke every day. Sometimes he’d eat dinner at home, but by the time she’d rush off to do her show at Gris-Gris, then rush back afterward, he’d already be on his way out again. She waited up for him until the wee hours of the morning, but he never came to bed. On the third night, she found him sleeping in his mother’s old bedroom; he claimed he didn’t want to wake her when he got home.

Aida spent more time with Astrid, and with Bo. Good grief—even Mrs. Lin spent more time with her when she stopped by to check in and bring almond cookies.

Aida knew Winter was avoiding her. He was mad because she was leaving—maybe mad that he’d said those things to her that night they were together. Everything I have is yours. At the time she’d thought he meant it. Now she worried it was merely a lover’s oath, said in a moment of passion, forgotten the morning after. And yet the words hounded her thoughts days later. She felt silly for letting them affect her, sillier still for wanting to believe them. But she couldn’t help but wonder if she’d been able to say something back, would he be avoiding her now? Would she still be going to New Orleans?

She wanted to talk to him, but she didn’t know how.

On her next-to-last night in the city, she followed him into the kitchen after dinner, where he was talking to Bo at a large prep table that sat in the center of the room.

Aida felt the temperature change as she stepped across the doorway; the room was humid and warm with earlier dinner preparations. “I am leaving in a day,” she announced to Winter’s back. “Are you going to refuse to look at me until I walk out the door?”

His body stilled, but he didn’t turn around to face her. The cook did, however—and after shelving the plate she’d been washing on a rack above the sink, she mumbled something in Swedish, then scurried out the door, wiping her hands on her apron.

Bo coughed into his fist before scratching the back of his neck. “I’ll . . . just be in my room.” He gave her a sympathetic look as he passed.

The heels of her leather pumps clicked on black-and-white checkerboard tiles as she walked around the table. Steam puffed from a simmering pot on the stove behind her, where bones from their meal were being used to prepare stock for tomorrow.

“If you’re angry at me, I wish you’d just come out and say it.”

He still wouldn’t look at her. Just gathered the paperwork that was spread out on the table. “I’ve been busy.”

“Liar.”

His hand flinched. “What do you want me to say, Aida—have a great trip? It’s been nice knowing you?”

“It’s not easy for me, either. I’m not jumping with excitement to leave. I’m dreading it, if you want to know the truth. I don’t want to go.”

Mismatched eyes slanted toward hers. “Then don’t.”

“I have to.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s my job. I’ve made a name for myself. Try to understand. I used to beg for work, now clubs are seeking me out. I’ve been given this window of success—if I squander it, I might never have it again.”

“You said yourself that you don’t want to do this forever.”

“I don’t. But what am I supposed to do? I just lost everything I’ve saved for the last few years—”

He tossed the paperwork on the table. “Oh, for the love of God, you know I’ll replace that. I’ve probably got it in petty cash in my study.”

“Of course you do,” she said bitterly. “Because it’s nothing to you. Do you have any idea how hard I struggled to save that? Years of scrimping, choosing second-best, doing without, only to have all of that brushed aside as your petty cash?”

“So I’m to be penalized because I have money?”

She waved a hand in frustration. “This isn’t about money. It’s about my independence—my life. Who I am. I won’t sacrifice everything I’ve worked for on a whim.”

“I thought you lived in the moment.”

“I do—but I’m not careless. I plan for my future.”

“Then plan for it here,” he said, planting both palms on the wood as he leaned over the table and spoke intently. “The Bay is where you were born. This is your home.”

“I don’t have a home.”

“Then make one.”

“I will. That’s what I’m trying to do—I’m trying to save, but it’s hard.”

“You know what I think?” he said, biceps straining his suit as he crossed his arms over his chest. “I think this isn’t really about money at all.”

“It’s about my money. My pride.”

“And what if you were to find out that you do have money. Yours.”

“I’m not looking for a handout—how many times do I have to say that?”

He started to reply, then thought better of it and shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t want you to make a decision to stay because of money. I want you to want to stay. I told you how I felt. You obviously don’t share those feelings.”

“What do you know of my feelings?”

“I only know what I see when I look in your eyes. What I hear when I listen to the emotion behind your words.” He paused, then spoke in a lower tone. “What I feel when I touch you.”

Her throat tightened. “And what do all those things tell you?” She meant to sound tough, but the words came out reeking of desperation.

“They tell me that no matter what you might feel, you are too stubborn to take a risk when it comes to your heart. Because even though you accuse me of being weighted down by my past, you’re the one living in yours.”

“Me?”

“I might be depressed and angry at times, but I didn’t stop living after the accident. I picked myself up and kept working. I didn’t let my family down. I didn’t abandon my clients or my workers or my staff.”

“And that’s exactly what I’m trying to do!” she argued.

“Here’s the difference: I don’t work because it would make my father happy. I work because I enjoy it—me—and because people are counting on me.”

Was he insulting her? She wasn’t sure. “I enjoy what I do.”

“Do you really? You enjoy hurting yourself? You enjoy giving yourself scars?”

She struggled for a breath. Her voice cracked. “You said you don’t mind them.”

“I don’t and you damn well know it. But you told me you use the lancet because it’s fast. You wouldn’t have to use it if you were spending an hour with one client, calling up one spirit, for the same amount of money you make calling up a dozen in front of an audience.”

“I can’t do that until I’ve saved enough money.”

“How many years will that take? Five? Ten?”

“I d-don’t know.”

“But you won’t accept a loan? What if it came from an outside source? People get loans from a bank every day. That would hurt your pride so much?”

Good grief, he was exasperating, trying to talk her into a trap. “This isn’t about my career,” she complained. “You want me to stay for us.”

“Hell yes, I do! Guilty.”

“But if I stay, then I lose my career momentum. And how long will we last, Winter? Ask yourself that. You’ve already tried marriage once, and you said yourself it wasn’t working, even if the accident never happened. You told me you weren’t interested in anything more than a fling because of your marriage.”