Free I Belong to You by Lisa Renée Jones Page B

past a large living area, I pause in the center of the massive kitchen, leaning on the black rectangular island counter. My head drops toward my chest and I start counting to keep myself out of my own head, so I can walk back into that bedroom. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
    “Mark.”
    I squeeze my eyes shut as Crystal’s voice stirs an odd sensation in my chest that somehow eases the ache in my gut. Desire rockets through me, and I tell myself it’s about fucking and control. I need it, and she’s my safe zone outside of the club.
    “Are you okay?” she asks when I do not speak.
    When our gazes meet the jolt is as unwelcome as it is intense. She feels it, too. I see it in the slight widening of her eyes, the way she curls her fingers into her palms on the counter across from me.
    “You were furious with me a few minutes ago,” I say. “Why are you standing here now?”
    “I’m not one-dimensional. I can be furious and worried at the same time.”
    Unable to squash my intrigue over the unknowns of her past, I agree. “No, you aren’t one-dimensional. Nor are you simply a rich girl who wants to prove something to daddy.”
    “Thank you.” She crinkles her brow. “I think.”
    We fall into silence, a hum of electricity charging between us. “I still go back to you saying ‘The End’ to me a few minutes ago. You meant it this time, too. That doesn’t translate to you standing here.”
    “Neither does much of what you do, where I’m concerned.”
    “You’re absolutely right. It doesn’t. What does, though, is sticking to ‘The End.’ What doesn’t is how badly I want to drag you into another room and fuck you right now.”
    She shakes her head. “It’s not me you want. It’s someone who’ll sign a contract and be your outlet and bridge to control. You left that bedroom thinking about the impossibility of a reason for Rebecca’s death, beyond your self-blame and guilt. You need that bridge.”
    There is banked pain lacing her words, and a hint of the earlier anger I’d seen in her eyes. I could make those things go away by telling her what she’s said isn’t true. I could tell her she’s gotten under my skin. But I don’t even know who the man beneath the surface is right now. I’ve destroyed two women. Crystal doesn’t deserve to be number three.
    “Is everything okay?” my father asks from the doorway, repeating Crystal’s earlier words.
    “Yes,” I say, my gaze lingering on Crystal before I push off the counter, hands going to my hips. “We’re ready to talk to Mom about what’s been going on.”
    “We are?” Crystal asks, sounding surprised. “Tonight?”
    “We can’t risk her finding out from somewhere else,” I explain.
    “She’d feel betrayed,” my father adds.
    Crystal gives a choppy nod. “Yes. I can see that. But I am not looking forward to telling her.”
    “None of us are,” my father says. “Right now, though, she wants us all to eat together. And since it’s the best chance we have of getting some food down her, I say we wait until after we’ve finished. I don’t want to jeopardize her appetite.”
    “I’m all for getting food down her,” I say. “She’s skin and bones.”
    “I’ve been force-feeding her what she does eat,” Crystal adds. “The nurse suggested some high-calorie protein shakes. I tried that, but she hates them.”
    My father starts to turn, then pauses. “By the way, Crystal, Larry Prescot called me just before you got here. You won him over. Thanks for calming him down before he got to Dana.”
    “My pleasure.”
    He disappears into the hallway and I grab Crystal’s arm. “How okay is Prescot?”
    “Very.”
    “How can you be sure?”
    “I threw out my father’s name—something that I normally would never do.”
    “But?”
    “I was on the phone with my father when the receptionist buzzed to tell me that Prescot had arrived for our meeting. My father overheard and insisted that I drop his name. I reminded him that I’m