by Megyn Ward
Our parents dying just made it easy for me to keep the ball rolling.
Easy for me to give in to him.
Indulge him, like I’m doing now.
As usual, I rationalize it all away.
It’s his bachelor party.
He deserves to have some fun. Blow off some steam.
You killed your mom and dad, so you owe him.
Stepping into my private elevator, I shake the last one off, even though that’s the only excuse that really matters. It doesn’t even matter that I never hear from him unless he wants something. What matters is that our parents are dead and it’s my fault. To make up for that, I’ll do anything. Give him everything.
And you have, haven’t you? Given him everything? You give until it hurts. Until you’re bleeding and that sniveling like prick has never even given you so much as a thank you.
Not. Once.
I told O to give Kyle whatever he wants, same as Briana. The difference is Briana’s made it clear that what she wants is to talk to me.
We haven’t. Not is a long time. That’s why she didn’t recognize my number when I texted her earlier. Because the way I deal with the fact that my little brother is marrying the woman I’m in love with is by pretending she doesn’t exist. That I never met her.
Kissed her.
Made her come.
I can’t do that if I see her.
Have to look at her.
Because I want her. I want her so fucking bad that just knowing she’s in the building is making it hard for me to think straight. Blurring the lines between what’s right and what’s wrong. Making me forget my place. My job.
Briana has always done that to me. Since the day I met her, she’s made it impossible for me to do my job. She pulls me off course. Gets me lost.
That’s why I stepped aside. Why I didn’t fight for her. Because she made it too hard for me to hang on to the guilt. Because Kyle wanted her, and I always give him what he wants.
Even if it kills me.
It’s better this way. Better for me to stay the fuck away from her. Because if I see her, I’m going to end up doing something that neither one of us is prepared for.
I’m going to forget who I am and what my place is in all of this and I’m going to take her back.
Eleven
Briana
2015
It takes a few seconds for my brain to catch up to the rest of me.
My mouth.
My tongue.
My hands.
By the time I come to my senses—that kissing Keaton Carver, letting him put his hands on me are both colossally bad ideas—it’s too late.
I’m lost.
It started out soft. Sweet. Like we’re a couple of teenagers, inexperienced and unsure about how we fit together.
I feel his tongue lick along the curve of my lower lip and my eyes flutter closed as I open my mouth to welcome him inside, a sigh pushing between my lips.
“Shit.” The word comes out on a groan, half frustrated, half irritated. Like none of what’s happening is okay with him.
By he doesn’t stop.
Something tells me he wants to, but he can’t.
He can’t stop.
Again—I’d be terrified if I had the sense God gave a potato, but I’m not. I’m never felt more secure in my life. Never felt safer.
The basket of clothes between us is swiped aside and I feel his hands close around my arms to pull me closer. Across his lap until I’m straddling it, my knees pressed into the couch, his hips trapped between them.
His arms slide around me—one of them wrapping around my waist, his fingers digging into my hip, while the other reaches upward to cradle the back of my head angling it to deepen the kiss. I moan softly, the feel of his tongue, licking and swirling inside my mouth pulling the sound out of me before I can stop it.
It turns, as quickly as it began. Shifts and slides into something deeper.
Darker.
The hand on the back of my head digs its fingers into my hair, tightening against my scalp while the arm around my waist grips me. Pulls me lower until I feel the bulge of his rock-hard cock pressing into the juncture of my thighs and I gasp at the heavy weight of him between my legs.
Keaton pulls his mouth from mine and gives me a long look before lowering his mouth to mine again. “Relax, sugar,” he says, giving me a quick press of lips before letting his mouth slide downward to follow the curve of my jaw. “It’s staying right where it is.”
He thinks I’m worried that he’s going to try to fuck me.
Worried isn’t exactly what I’m feeling.
I rock myself against him, lower lip caught between my teeth, so I won’t make any more embarrassing noises. “What if I don’t want it to?” I whisper, letting my head fall back on my shoulders, pressing the bad of my head into the cradle of his hand, when I feel the tip of his tongue trace its way up the taut line of my neck. “What if I—”
“Careful, now.” He growls it against my throat, his teeth grazing and nipping their way to my ear. “You’re making it pretty damn hard for me to keep pretending to be a gentleman.”
Nothing about Keaton is pretense—that much I know. There may be a million things I don’t know, but what I do know is real.
True.
I rock myself against him again. Even through our clothes, the hard press of his rigid cock grinding against my swollen clit is enough to push me to the edge. “Please, Keaton…” I wind my arms around his neck, threading my fingers through his dark hair so I can pull him closer. Urge him on. “I need—”
“I know what you need, sugar.” He murmurs it in my ear, the hand in my hair sliding down and around to cup my breast. “And I want to give it to you…” For some reason he sounds surprised by that. That he wants me as much as I obviously want him. “If you knew how much, you probably call the cops on me.”
I laugh, the sound of it slipping into a gasp when
his thumb feathers across my nipple and it tightens instantly under the thin fabric of my shirt. “ohmygod…” I whisper it, shifting on his lap, grinding myself against his cock, one hand clamped around his nape, the other in his hair. “Lower. Please—I need you lower.”
He mutters a curse against the side of my throat, the hand on my breast squeezing and pinching my nipple until it’s throbbing and swollen.
And then it slips lower. Down my torso to the find the button to the cut-off shorts I always wear to do laundry.
Yes.
He pulls the button free of its loop, tugging on the fly to pull the zipper down, widening the gap so he can slip his hand inside.
The tip of his middle finger skims the seam my pussy, groaning when he feels how wet I am. “Fuck.” His cock gives a hard jerk. “No panties?”
“Laundry day.” I raise myself on my knees, my hand slipping from around his neck to the front of his pants so can free his cock.
I’ve completely lost my mind and he proves it when the hand on the back of my head slips down to circle my waist, his fingers digging into my hips, holding me in place to keep me from jerking his pants down. “No,” he says, his tone rough, laced with something hard. Something that stops me in my tracks.
Despite what he said and the tone he used to say it, his middle finger pushes past the seam of my pussy to find my clit. “Why?” I whimper it, flexing and moving my hips against him. The bulge of his rock-hard cock pressed against me. The thick finger circling my throbbing clit. “I want—”
“Sorry, sugar,” he says softly. “This is it. As far as we’re going to go.”
It takes me a second to realize what he’s saying. What he’s telling me.
He’s telling me no.
I’m wet and willing in this man’s lap and he’s telling me no.
Another first.
“Stop,” I say, even though everything nerve-ending I have is screaming at me to shut up. To take what’s he’s offering, even if it isn’t enough.
He immediately goes still.
“Why?” When he doesn’t answer me, I let my arms slide from around his neck and my hands flop onto the couch cushions next to my knees. “Because I’m not your type?” I say, remembering what he said to me on the elevator last week.
Throat working and scraping, jaw clenched tight while he pulls his hand from the front of my pants. Bright blue eyes pinned to my cheekbone when the hand on my hip goes soft, no longer holding me against him.
“Sorry, sugar.”
I look at him—really look at him.
Tattoos. Five o’clock shadow. Hair that’s a little too long to be considered proper. Brilliant blue eyes flattened out by fatigue and something else. Something that looks like regret.
Oh, god. What am I doing?
Embarrassing the shit out of yourself. That’s what you’re doing.
I scramble off his lap, banging my knee against the coffee table and knocking his glass of cucumber water into his laundry basket in my haste to get away from him.
I fasten my shorts before dropping to my knees, flinging out my arms in a mad scramble to gather my clothes from the couch and floor in front of me. “You’re not my type either, you know?” I don’t know why I say it, other than the fact that I want him to feel as hurt as I do. As embarrassed and ashamed of himself as I’m feeling right now.
Somewhere above my head, he sighs. “Sugar, that’s—”
“I like guys who don’t have to call the women they’re with sugar or honey or baby because they’ve been with so many they can’t keep their names straight.” I pull myself to my feet, banging my knee for the second time. “I like guys who keep their clothes on in public and don’t invite strangers to pet them like a dog.” I’m being mean now, but I can’t help it. I’ve got a mean streak a mile wide and it comes out in full force when I’m hurt, and it only gets worse when I’m embarrassed by it. “And I hate tattoos.” I narrow my gaze at the ink on his neck. “I fucking hate them.”
I expect him to blast me back. I want him to because I deserve it. All he did was turn me down and I completely lost my shit.
He doesn’t say a word.
He just sits there, head tipped back just enough to see my face. Jaw tight. Tired gaze carefully guarded. Waiting for me to run out of shitty things to say.
“Stay away from me.” Basket gripped in front of me like a shield, I back away from him as fast as I can without tripping over my own feet and cracking my skull on that damnable coffee table.
He nods his head, his clenched jaw shifting just enough to let out a single word. “Alright.”
As soon as I’m clear of the coffee table, I spin my heel and run like hell.
Twelve
Keaton
I’ve slept with seven women in my adult life.
Seven.
All seven of them went down something like this. Hot, desperate fumbles in dark corners with women I barely knew. All four of them born out of something almost angry. Bitterness over the turn my life has taken. The loss I’d suffered. Where I find myself. My inability to change it.
Briana would’ve number eight and despite the fact that I almost fucked her on a couch in a public laundry room, it would’ve been different.
She would’ve been different.
She is different.
Hot and desperate—yes.
Fuck, yes.
But no bitterness. No regret. No anger.
Being with her would’ve been something else.
Something new.
Something good.
Because if I fuck her, I’ll want to do it again.
As soon as I recognized that, I shut her down as gently as I could because even though I can’t have her, that doesn’t mean I want her to hate me.
But she does.
She does hate me.
As soon as she realizes I’m telling her no—that even though I started this train wreck, I’m tying it off and letting it die—she gets angry.
I can’t blame her and even though every instinct I have is telling me to go after her. Apologize. Explain. Make her understand, I can’t.
Making her understand won’t change anything.
I’ll still be me.
She said some pretty shitty things and I don’t blame her because even as they were coming out of her mouth I recognized it for what it was.
Hurt.
I rejected her, and it hurt.
Not in the way most would think. Not because I turned down her offer to have sex but because despite the fact that everything she just said is true, she likes me. Made herself vulnerable to me and I rejected her.
Not her body.
Her.
I have a feeling Briana St. James doesn’t offer herself to very many people.
Not the real her anyway.
As soon as she’s gone I lean forward in my seat and drop my head into my hands.
I like guys who keep their clothes on in public and don’t invite strangers to pet them like a dog.
Fuck.
It’s like she was inside my head, reading off a checklist of all the things I hate about myself.
All the things I’m ashamed of.
Thirteen
Briana
2015
June
I’m ashamed of myself.
Not for kissing Keaton and not for asking him to… no. That was embarrassing but not shameful.
I’m ashamed of the way I behaved afterward. For the things I said to him when he turned me down. It was wrong.
I was wrong, and I want to make it right. Apologize, even though there’s really no apologizing for the things I said. The way I treated him. The problem is, he’s pretty much vanished.
At least as far as I’m concerned.
Amelia’s seen him around plenty.
“Saw your boyfriend this morning.”
Her proclamation stalls my fingers on the keyboard of my laptop. It’s two o’clock on a Tuesday afternoon and from the looks of her, she just got back from the pool.
Scowling at the screen in front of me, I ignore what she just said, even though my stomach is flipping and twisting around so hard, I think I might throw up. “It’s your turn to clean the bathroom.” Since it’s our names on the lease, we share the master bedroom, which has a private bath.
A private bath in desperate need of cleaning.
“Helllo.” She tosses her towel at me and it lands perfectly, draping itself across my laptop screen. “It’s been a month. Are you going to tell me what happened between the two of you or not?”
I threw myself at him like a shameless hussy and when he turned me down, I turned into every asshole frat boy who’s ever been rejected.
“Nothing happened.” I move her towel, dropping it on the ground at her feet before continuing to write my paper. I’m taking summer classes to justify not going home for break. “I told you before, he’s not my type.”
“Did he do something to you?”
The question, delivered in a hard, careful tone, snaps my head up. She’s standing over me, hands planted on her hips, dark gaze aimed at my face. “No.” I shake my head. Say it again when all she does is stare at me. “No. He didn’t do anything to me.”
That’s the problem.
She doesn’t believe me. She thinks I’m lying, either to protect Keaton or because I’m afraid of him. “I did something to him, okay?” Giving up on my paper, I close my laptop and set it aside. “He kissed me and…” I swallow the rest of. I don’t have to tell her Keaton had his hand in my pants I was on the verge of what felt like the hottest orgasm I’d ever had when he told me no. “when I tried to take things further, he turned me down flat.”
“Ouch.” Amelia winces, lowering herself onto the edge of my bed. “And?”
“And I completely lost my shit.” Sighing, I look down at my bedspread, tracing my finger along one of its quilted seams. “I said some pretty horrible things and I told him to stay away from me.” She doesn’t say anything, so I look up to gauge her reaction to my confession. She looks disap
pointed in me. “I want to apologize but I haven’t seen him around and—”
“Excuses.” She stands up and shakes her head at me. “Pretty pathetic ones if you ask me.” She picks up her towel and slings it over her shoulder. “You know where the man lives. If you were really sorry, you’d be banging on his door right now, begging for forgiveness.”
Amelia is the only person besides Claire who’s ever had the guts to stand up to me. Everyone else just defers to whatever I say. Gives me what I want. It’s why we’re best friends. What makes me love her. Right now, it makes me want to hit her over the head with my laptop.
“I can’t just—”
“Yes you can.” She interrupts me again, stacking her hands on her hips. “And I’m not cleaning the bathroom until you do.”
Fourteen
Briana
2018
Amelia wasn’t kidding. Distractions are her specialty. She threw herself into a waitress without a moment’s hesitation and knocked a tray full of shots into my jailers’ laps and was on her knees in front of them, using bar napkins to blot at their crotches within thirty seconds of my request.
Less than a minute later, I’m on the elevator.
Up or down.
I choose up because I reason that’s where Keaton’s office has to be. The king always positions himself at the highest point of his castle.
When the doors slide open on the third floor, I’m greeted by the same woman with the clipboard that stuck me in here in the first place, flanked by a pair of no-neck bouncers. She’s gorgeous. Long, dark hair. Large, expressive eyes behind a pair of dark-framed glasses. Flawless skin. Tight black pencil skirt topped with a white wrap blouse and the hottest pair of T-strap heels I’ve ever seen.
Her name is Ophelia. She’s Keaton’s assistant and according to Kyle, sometimes lover. He’s even hinted that there is something more between them. Something I probably wouldn’t like if I understood.
I can’t decide if I want to gouge her eyes out or ask her where she got her shoes.
“Save it.” I hold a hand up to stop her from talking when she opens her mouth. “I’m not going anywhere until I talk to him.” When she doesn’t say anything, I drop my hand. “Look, I know he’s here, so why don’t we save each other some time and aggravation and you just tell me where.”