My gut turned to ice, which was curious because several inches below that the reminder of what had happened three nights before my wedding between Bryce and me was sending white-hot heat shooting into my pussy.
‘And that was the only reason you came? To see whether I would compound the mistake you thought I was making by marrying him?’ The whispered words left my lips with muted hope shrouding them. A hope that maybe he’d prove me wrong this time. Indicate that I’d been foolish to fear that deep down the reason I’d clung to friendship while secretly wishing for more wasn’t because he wouldn’t want more. That friendship wasn’t all we’d ever have.
And that I was desperate enough to cling tight to that rather than have nothing…because there was more.
‘Why else, rosebud?’ he asked softly. A little too softly. As if he knew the chaos running wild and unfettered through me. As if taunting me over it. He’d always been so good at that. Now, though, there was a dangerous edge to it that… God, turned me on.
Jesus.
I shook my head. A moment later, he stilled my movement by leaning forward to capture my chin in his hand.
‘You seem to be on some sort of journey of self-discovery for both of us, so let’s have it. Why else do you think I put a business deal I’d been working on for months on hold to fly five thousand miles to your wedding?’ he asked.
My tongue slid out almost of its own accord. Licked my lower lip. His gaze followed the slow, languorous movement with eyes that grew steadily heated.
After a moment when words still failed to form in my throat, his eyes rose to capture mine. ‘Would it be because the same night I warned you not to go back to Dan the Dickhead because he wanted you just for your money, you nodded that beautiful head and used that indecently sexy voice to reassure me that it was over? Did you not give me your word that you would end it?’
‘Bryce…’
‘There it is,’ he breathed. ‘That was the same tone you used that night. The one that curls around my cock and strokes me until I’m hard as a fucking rock every single time.’
My jaw dropped. ‘Bryce!’ My heart kicked at the fact that we were talking, really talking about the stuff we’d always seemed to skirt around. Even if it was just about the physical. For now.
‘You wanted honesty, rosebud. You assured me it was over, that you no longer belonged to another man, so I spread you out on my living-room floor and I finally got a taste of that incredible pussy, finally had the privilege of feeling your tightness around my fingers, of you gripping my hair as you screamed my name and came on my tongue. Only to have you go back on your promise to call off the wedding and marry the bastard three days later.’
The growled, hot words filled with deep censure robbed me of speech, shamed me and turned me on in equal measures.
His thumb rose from my chin, drifted at leisure over my lower lip as he continued to watch me with dark, hooded eyes. ‘You want to know if that changed things between us?’
I licked my lip again, my heart pounding with apprehension and a whole load of sizzling lust. ‘Did it?’
His hand dropped like a stone and he surged to his feet. ‘What the hell does it matter?’ he asked.
‘How can you ask me that? You know why it matters. You never answered my phone calls after that and I haven’t seen you for years! It’s not like you not to call me out if you think I’ve done something wrong.’
His eyebrows shot up. ‘If?’
‘Fine, when. Whatever.’
He spiked his fingers through his hair. Then he threw me another of those indifferent shrugs that seemed to find the centre of my hurt with bullseye accuracy. ‘I was busy. So were you. We were both busy empire-building, if I’m not mistaken.’
I scrambled to my feet too. ‘Don’t give me that. We were never too busy for each other before…before…’
‘Stop clinging to this idealistic version of what you thought we were or would be. You want the truth? I stopped trusting you after you stopped trusting yourself. After you went against your every instinct and married that bastard.’
Hurt lanced deeper through me. ‘How dare you?’
‘Oh, come off it. I know you. Sometimes maybe more than you know yourself. You think I didn’t see the doubt on your face when I walked into that church as you promised to honour and cherish? Not so deep down, you knew he was wrong for you, that you were making a mistake. And you married him anyway.’
‘So you chose to punish me for it?’
He exhaled harshly. ‘Damn it, I don’t have time for this.’
‘Really, then I ask you again, why did you invite me here? I may be stubborn but I don’t trespass where I’m not wanted. If you don’t have time for me or our friendship, then why did you agree to see me? You could’ve done what you did before and ignored my email, continued your grand empire-building. So why didn’t you?’
He stilled as if my words had turned him to stone. For the longest moment, we stared at each other across the living room. Then, driven by that same instinct that had started this reckless path of discovery, I slowly made my way towards him, aware of every cell in my body, every stretch of heated skin as I’d never been before. Also aware of his intense scrutiny as his gaze raked me from head to toe and back again.
I was treading dangerous, familiar waters. The same undertow that’d sucked me in that night, three days before my wedding, when I’d thrown caution to the wind and ended up almost drowning. This thing could blow wide open, be irreparably damaged.
But then…wasn’t Bryce already claiming we were beyond repair? That in not heeding his warning and marrying Dan I’d broken our friendship? For all I knew if I walked out of this apartment I wouldn’t see him again for another three years. Or ever.
So what the hell did I have to lose? A friendship I’d treasured while wanting more, only for it to fall apart anyway?
I stopped a mere foot from him. The intensity of the emotions vibrating from him wrapped around me but I didn’t let it deter me. I’d come through a very bitter divorce with a stronger spine and steely resolve never to doubt myself again. And now he was in front of me, six feet three inches of raw masculinity and long-denied secret craving.
A craving I’d received a quick, highly addictive but maddeningly brief taste of.
‘Why did you change the venue for this meeting? Didn’t you originally ask me to come to your office?’ I modulated my voice to that tenor he’d confessed minutes ago turned him on.
As if on cue, his eyes darkened, his jaw clenching as he struggled to remain unaffected. When he swayed just that tiniest fraction towards me, I knew I had him.
For how long remained a mystery, but right now, in this moment, he was mine. And I wasn’t about to lose my chance.
‘Is it because you wanted something else besides telling me everything you think I’ve done wrong?’ I didn’t give him a chance to reply.
A simple step and I closed the gap between us. A slow tilt onto the balls of my feet and I was sliding my palms over his rock-hard abs and up his chest. I registered the fierce pounding of his heart echoing mine. Felt and revelled in it.
‘Was it because you wanted another taste of me, perhaps?’ I whispered on a soft breath right before I let my lips brush the skin beneath his earlobe.
A deep shudder powered through him. ‘What the hell are you doing, rosebud?’ he rasped.
‘Dare,’