by Amelia Wilde
Maybe it will be as useful as the experimental treatment I didn’t get her into.
A knock comes at the door while I’m packing. So they got my awkward little resignation text, the kind you send when you were never really working for someone in the first place. It’s tempting to pretend I’m not in the room, but I’m a grown-up, damn it.
Besides, a perverse part of me wants to say goodbye. Even without knowing whether it’s Sutton or Christopher—I want to see whoever’s on the other side of the door one last time.
I open the door, and Sutton stands there looking like sunshine, vibrant and so bright it’s hard to face him. A half inch of scruff from a long day of work, some of it spent in the sun. Hercules in the flesh, powerful and unreachable and just a little bit mortal.
“Did you come to say goodbye?”
He prowls into the room. That’s his answer, but I already know he didn’t come to say goodbye. This isn’t the kind of man to break my heart and make it easy to leave. Is that what I find so appealing about him? Or maybe it’s the way his muscled body looks in a suit. Hard to say. There’s a lot to love about Sutton Mayfair, for some other woman. Some woman who doesn’t have a plane to catch tomorrow, even if it makes my stomach drop to think about.
His blue gaze lands on my suitcase and then moves away. An obstacle, to a man who must take pleasure in tearing them down. It’s strange that I’m hoping he succeeds even while I steel myself to fight him. That’s the kind of perversity that comes from having parents that loved and hated each other. From being the rope they tugged back and forth for almost two decades, leaving me frayed at both edges.
I might hate the way Christopher pushes me away, but at least I’m used to it.
“How’s your mother?” Sutton asks, throwing me off guard.
That’s probably on purpose. Some kind of battle strategy. Make her think you care about her. Then do something terrible. “I talked to her this morning. She tried to make a kale smoothie but forgot to put the lid on the blender, so it sprayed everywhere.”
His gaze meets mine, so direct and clear it steals my breath. “I thought that might be why you’re leaving. If she weren’t feeling well.”
“She’s doing great,” I say lightly. “Kale is a cancer killer.”
He watches me without a change in expression.
“That’s what her herbalist says.” And suddenly it’s too personal to talk about, vegetables and remission and the sinking fear that I’m going to lose her, too. That’s when I’ll be all alone. When you’re forever held taut from both ends, the most scary thing is to be let go.
Steady blue eyes seem to know that. “There’s unfinished business between us, Harper. It’s not over because you sent a text message.”
He doesn’t ask me to stay. Maybe he knows that would make me run faster.
“I’m sorry if you thought…” I have to clear my throat, pretending to be stern and unfeeling. I’m playing a part right now. The part of Christopher. “If you thought there was something between us. It was just a little fun. A little…kissing.”
My denim shorts might as well be made of flimsy lace, my black tank top completely see-through. That’s how it feels when he looks down my body at the places he touched. At the places he kissed—especially between my legs.
His gaze lingers there, and I turn liquid. It’s a travesty to call what he did to me kissing. He turned me inside out. Made me feel golden and silky and hot. There’s alchemy in his fingers and his tongue. He turned me into a river of precious metal.
That was before I sent him a text that said, Thanks for the memories, but I think it’s best for all of us if we part now. PS. I’m keeping the library book.
He settles on the edge of the high, lace-trimmed bed. It should be incongruous, a rough man against something so delicate. It should be ridiculous, instead of like he belongs there. “Do you know, I thought you were in love with Christopher? When I first met you?”
My throat is suddenly dry. We can invest money and destroy buildings. We can change the landscape of a city, but God, not talk about our feelings. That isn’t how it’s done.
Sutton doesn’t care how things are done.
“You could have asked,” I manage to say, my voice only a little shaky. “I would have set you straight. There’s nothing between us.”
He laughs, the white of his teeth bright in the quiet shadows. Only a small lamp on the nightstand lights the room, and it can’t compete with Sutton. “There’s something between you. But it’s the same way you couldn’t see the table and the walls. You didn’t know me then.”
And he knows me now.
I’m afraid to ask. It’s really better if I don’t know the answer, if I only wonder and worry forever, but whenever there’s trouble, I have a way of falling into it. “So what’s between us?”
“Oh, lots of things. Probably love is one of them. Hate, too. Those things go together more than they should. But damn, there’s a boatload of chemistry between you two.”
There’s chemistry here, crackling in the air between Sutton and me.
“We’ve never—”
“Of course not. Anyone can see that. Christopher wouldn’t be walking around trying to tear apart the world with his bare hands if you had. Only a certain amount of denial feels good. The rest just fucking hurts.”
I lick my lips, and his gaze tracks my tongue. “Which one was the hallway?”
Only then do I realize I’ve been walking toward him, walking closer without realizing it. Almost two feet away right now. He’s a burning sun, and I’ve been cold for so long.
“It hurt,” he says, soft and almost dangerous, “reading the text.”
He isn’t diminished by telling the truth. That’s a trick I’d like him to teach me. It doesn’t make him seem weak, that he’s been hurt. Not with his shoulders this broad and his hands this scarred.
It makes me seem powerful, instead.
Powerful enough that I can reach out and touch him—the backs of my fingers against the scruff of his cheek. Soft when I stroke down. Prickly when I push back up. There’s terrain to be explored, to be tested against the will of my body.
My voice comes out a whisper. “I think you did come to say goodbye.”
Not with words.
His eyes tell me no, that he’s not giving up on this, but his body leans into me. That’s something you don’t think about, that the sun doesn’t just burn. It wants to warm you. I let my hand fall to the angle of his jaw, to the place where his shirt opens and reveals bronze skin.
I close my eyes, letting myself feel the joy that threatened when I heard the knock. If I’m honest with myself, there had been joy when I sent the text—thinking he would come for me. Hoping he would. If I could believe in love and trust and sex, if I thought any of it could last, I would have done more than hope. I’ve seen where it leads, and I don’t want to do that to him.
Maybe we can have one night.
You don’t face a lifetime of humiliation and hurt after one night, do you?
His eyelids are heavy now, because he knows what happens next. Some part of him came here to do this with me, because it might be the last chance. It could be the last time I see him, which makes my chest hollow out. That’s the empty space where promises could go.
He hooks two fingers in the waistband of my shorts, bringing me flush against his body. My stomach sucks in and then out, in and out, in and out, sensitive skin brushing bare knuckles. “Are you nervous?” he asks, his voice calm and deep.
It makes me laugh, how un-nervous he seems. I’m made up only of nerves, strung together with dreams and desire and a penchant for trouble. “We’re going to do it in a bed, after all.”
A small laugh. “To spice things up,” he says, echoing me.
The words seem less like a joke now. More prophetic. The library counter had been spontaneous and wild. This is different, almost unbearably intimate.
This close I can see the pale striations set into his blue eyes. I could da
bble in a thousand shades of blue and never capture them on canvas.
With a sharp pang, I know that I’ll keep trying anyway.
It will be my new life’s work, this sky.
I don’t see him move. We’re too close for that; I feel him shift against me. Then his hand cups the back of my neck. His lips meet mine. I suck in a breath, drawing the scent of him into my body. He uses the moment to part my lips. There is no coaxing, no preamble. His lips bite over mine, telling me exactly how our bodies will move. His tongue presses inside, insistent. Gentle, his mouth tells me. I’m going to be gentle with you. His hand tips my head back, making it easier for him to reach, keeping me from going anywhere. Gentle and implacable.
It’s like we never stopped that night in the hallway. This is what could have happened after, his tongue still salted from my body. His hand cupping my breast, his thumb and forefinger finding my nipple. A squeeze, enough to make me gasp. And harder, to whimper.
“I want you naked,” he murmurs against my lips.
He’s already had me with my skirts around my waist, leaning back against wallpaper. And he’s had me bent over a library counter. It’s more revealing to let him draw the black tank top over my head. There’s nothing underneath. No bra. Only my skin, flushed with arousal. My nipples hard and ruched from the way he touches me. I jump when those calluses brush the smooth curve underneath. It doesn’t stop him. He does it again, to see the way I move.
“I—I want—” I don’t know what I want, only that it hurts. Is this the good hurt he was talking about? It’s not exactly pain. It’s more like I’m going crazy.
“I’ll give it to you.” He bends his head to my breast, using his palm at my lower back to pull me toward him. His lips on my breast make me jerk—not away. I move closer. And then his lips close on my nipple, wet and hot and somehow bright. A cry comes out of me, a high pitch, a keen that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It sounds like grief, but it feels like heaven. He runs his teeth against my sensitive skin, and I gasp.
What a terrible deception. That he would give me what I wanted, but it only makes me want more. Is this how he feels about money, about power, always needing more?
A knock at the door makes me jump out of his hold.
He lets me. That’s the only way I could have gotten free of those hands that have held wood larger than my body. His eyes narrow on mine, not even glancing at the door. “Tell me you have room service coming.”
I shake my head. “It could be Bea.”
Except she would have called before coming down. Or invited me up, if she knew I was planning on leaving Tanglewood in utter despair, for her to comfort with wine and a fancy cheese plate. Hugo really does make the best cheese plates.
“Stay here,” he says, curt, like maybe it’s his hotel room instead of mine.
“I can answer the door,” I say, except there’s a cool breeze on my breasts. I’m not wearing a shirt, which is probably a good reason not to greet visitors right now. The black tank top somehow disappeared, so I grab a pillow and hug it to my body, facing the door.
Sutton opens the door and faces the newcomer with no surprise.
From the angle I can’t see who it is, but I know based on the low, angry voices that come next. From the cadence of the voice and the rumble of sound. From the excitement in my chest.
“Let him in,” I say, because I don’t want another fight.
Or maybe that’s exactly what I want.
29
Competition
Christopher’s dark gaze finds my bare shoulders. He makes a sound like a hiss. I could have touched burning-hot iron to his skin to produce that sound. I want him to see what he gave up those years ago.
Not enough to drop the pillow.
Sutton closes the door and leans against it, apparently content to obey me. Even if I said the wrong command. Maybe that’s what he’s doing, teaching me a lesson.
“Is this what gets you off?” Christopher demands, looking every inch the powerful businessman. This is how he’d be across the smooth cherry table in the boardroom, negotiating a contract, establishing terms. “You want two men panting after your pretty little body?”
It feels like the answer should be no, but the little flip in my stomach means maybe yes. Is that wrong of me? My desires aren’t anything straightforward and numerical. I could paint them, these feelings. They would look like Cleopatra, but she wouldn’t be seductive and knowing. She would be afraid. I’m over my head with these men.
Christopher prowls toward me, and I clutch the pillow tighter as I evade him. It means giving him a glimpse of my bare back, but it’s better than being cornered. He keeps coming at me. I keep stepping back, until I hit something warm and breathing and unmovable.
Sutton.
I’m between both men, caught with only a pillow to cover me. Christopher’s eyes are completely merciless. He doesn’t feel sorry for anything that happens next. When I glance over my shoulder, Sutton looks a little kinder. Enough that he runs a gentle hand along my side, soothing, settling me for whatever comes next.
“What are you doing?” I ask, but it’s not a direct question. Not only for Christopher or for Sutton. It’s for both of them. For the room, which has closed me in.
“Nothing you don’t want,” Sutton murmurs in my ear. When he speaks like that, it’s easy to see why someone would do business with them. They’d stake their entire livelihood on a handshake with this man, his word worth more than a thousand other signatures.
And still my vision wavers, the whole world wavy and ocean-like. Underwater, that’s what I am.
“Drop the pillow,” Christopher says, and he sounds the very opposite as Sutton. The opposite of reassuring. He’s pure danger like this. “Let’s see what we’re paying for tonight.”
A slap on the face couldn’t have surprised me more. I step back into Sutton’s embrace, holding the pillow tighter. “I’m not a prostitute.”
He gives me a cold smile. “I’m not going to leave cash on the dresser, Harper. For many reasons, not the least of which is that you don’t need the money.”
If he had coaxed me for hours, I would have held on to the pillow. This Christopher, I know very well. This Christopher I know how to fight. I toss the pillow aside, casually, as if I’m naked in front of two men every day. “I wouldn’t be a prostitute, even without my trust fund.”
Christopher’s gaze doesn’t drop. He stares into my eyes hard, like he’s saying a thousand things without words. There are probably equations and pie charts in his head. “But I’m still going to end up paying for this.”
“What does that mean?” I ask, even though I know. I’ll pay my own price.
Sutton strokes his hand down the side of my neck. His mouth follows the same path. No wonder he was able to tame a wild horse. I would have followed him to the stream. Would have crossed the county to keep his hands on me. “You tell me to stop,” he says softly. “Tell me to punch Christopher in the face. Whatever you say, that’s what happens.”
Heady, that’s the feeling of power. Addictive. Terrifying. “What if I’m wrong?”
“There’s no wrong,” Sutton says.
Christopher’s lips twist. “If there’s no wrong, then there’s no right.”
I could kill him, this man who was my stepbrother and my former confidant. This man who controls my fortune. Yes, I could strangle him easily and feel relief.
But not before I lose my virginity to him.
“I’m surprised you would share.” I could be speaking to either of them, but it’s Sutton who could have demanded we never answer the door.
Sutton who could have insisted Christopher go away.
His lips move against my neck, an enticement all their own. My skin tightens beneath him. “Do you remember what I told you the first day? In the boardroom? I don’t mind that you have unfinished business.”
Make him suffer all you want, as long as you don’t go home with him at the end of the night. That’s what
he said about the gala. Is that what he thinks about tonight? Except I won’t be going home with either of them. “Unfinished business,” I say, unsteady. “Is that what we’re calling this?”
Christopher’s eyes flash. “How generous of my business partner.”
Words fall like pebbles into a large lake, almost soundless. Deceptively small. “That’s what I did with the library, isn’t it?” Sutton’s voice is low and faintly mocking. “You wanted it but didn’t have enough. I helped you do it.”
“Helped.” Christopher tastes the word, sounding hard and accusatory. He looks at the places where Sutton touches me—one hand on my arm, his other on my waist. His mouth less than an inch from my neck. I can feel the soft caress of his breath. “This is how you help.”
“Do you want her?” Sutton says, sounding unconcerned. The way you would ask if someone is having a nice day, polite indifference—you could almost think he doesn’t care. If not for the erection hard and throbbing against my ass.
“I’ve always wanted her.”
The words should be sweet. Maybe for another woman they would be, but they only make me angry. They make me furious. Not the snake-hair kind of fury. This is sly and seductive. It ripples along my skin, turning me into someone else.
Someone who turns her face back to meet Sutton’s lips.
I start the kiss, but Sutton is the one who takes it deep. It’s not a show, the way he licks inside my lips like he’s trying to taste my essence. He must find it, because he groans into my mouth—soft, like maybe he doesn’t want to make that sound. I bite him for it, because my body is wild and feral and wants him to make the sound again.
Only a small part of my mind listens. Any second now the hotel door will open and close. Christopher will leave. For so many reasons he’ll leave. Even putting aside the fact that he never touched me after that night in the art gallery, even ignoring the tense competition between the two men… threesomes aren’t something men do, are they?
Frat boys talk about it at school. Two women, that’s what they want. Bonus points if they’re twins. But never two men, not for ones as confident and commanding as these. They would kill each other, which maybe is the point. This is a gladiator match, and I’m the arena.