by Amber Bardan
“I’m sorry I’ve been so caught up in myself with the wedding, honeymoon and everything else that I didn’t notice something was up with you.” She sighed into my hair. “I should’ve realized coming back here would bring up emotional stuff for you.” She let me go. “And I didn’t know things weren’t going so great with your work. It’s okay to vent about things even if you don’t want help.”
I nodded. She was right.
“Next time let’s chat before it gets to here, yeah?”
“Yes, Mum.” I ran a finger under my lashes. “Tell—” I stopped, I couldn’t ask her to tell Avner anything for me. I’d done the damage there myself. “Say bye to everyone for me.”
“I will.” She smoothed the front of her white dress that was the teeniest bit too tight in the middle. Yeah, Europe had a way of shrinking a girl’s wardrobe. Mine was only just fitting properly again.
“I’ll be back to help with the cleanup in the morning.”
“Don’t worry about that.” She smirked. “I totally do have people to do that for me now.”
I shook my head and smiled. “Okay, then I’ll see you at lunch on Sunday.”
“Bye, babe.”
I waved, and went to collect my bag from the front sitting room.
* * *
Ringing emanated from inside my tiny party clutch. I popped the clasp of the bag and glanced at the unknown number on the screen. “Hello?”
“Emma, this is Dean Waldolf.”
My eyes widened in the darkened room, and I stumbled backward onto the arm of a sofa. “Mr. Waldolf.”
“I’m going to be blunt—”
I braced.
“—I’ve been in two minds about calling.”
I took a deep breath. “So why have you?”
“I read your article more thoroughly.”
I leaned forward. “You did?”
“Yes, and let’s just say I’m more than a little impressed.”
My heart fluttered. “Thank you.”
“Emma, I’m going to need full disclosure. What is your involvement with Guardian Technologies?”
I glanced at the door. “I know the proprietors. There’s no professional involvement.”
“And your relationship with Avner Malfacini?”
I swallowed. “He’s a friend of a friend, that’s all.”
The phone remained silent for long, painful moments. “I’d like to speak with you further. Are you able to meet at my offices in Melbourne?”
“Yes, actually, I’ve just moved back to Melbourne.”
“Excellent. Call my assistant on Monday, and she’ll schedule a meeting.”
“I will,” I said quickly. “And thank you.”
“No need to thank me yet,” he said, and then the line went silent.
I glanced at the screen, heart galloping. Did that really happen? I fell back onto the sofa on top of the pile of coats, and took a breath deeper into my lungs than I’d been able to take in weeks.
Maybe everything wasn’t ruined.
Maybe I had a chance after all. The weight pushing on my ribs eased. I scrambled up and went to the powder room.
The reflection in the mirror was horrific. Mascara smudged under my eyes, and a dirty rivulet ran through my makeup. I took a wipe from my purse and cleaned myself up.
My cheeks glowed pink.
I put on lip gloss. The whites around my blue irises were red. My hair fuzzy at the temples where I’d sweat while dancing. But I could still go back out to the party. I didn’t have to leave.
I could apologize to Avner. I’d meant to torment him. Meant to make him think if it wasn’t him there’d be someone else for me tonight. Cruel, because I knew full well that’d be the thing to drive him mad.
To force his hand.
But there was no one else.
I couldn’t pinpoint why—but there was no one else I wanted. Not today and probably not tomorrow. A wanting heaviness groaned in my pelvis just thinking about him. Just imagining what it’d be like with him.
But you can’t coerce a person’s true feelings.
I took out my phone and opened up Messages. The only thing I could settle on to type was, I’m sorry.
I held my breath and hit Send, then put everything back into my bag.
The door clicked.
I stiffened. A huge masculine presence entered. Without a single glance I smelled him, felt him, heard the sound of his deep breath.
The lock clicked.
I glanced up. Avner stood behind me in the mirror. I took a breath to speak, not sure what I’d planned to say.
His hand closed over my mouth.
I gasped into his palm. His body pressed into my back.
Something in me softened.
I’d become so sharp. Determined to cut anyone who came too close. But Avner was a blistering furnace. Hot. Consuming. Unstoppable. Even a sword will melt when you apply enough heat.
Right then I was smelting.
“Do I have your attention?” he asked fast. So fast his English warmed. Words dipped not in true accent, but with a cultured smoothness that rolled right between my legs.
His gaze caught mine in the mirror—dark, hungry, impatient.
My heart thundered, but my pussy grew slick. Wet from the hand clamped over my mouth, wet from the body shoved against my back, wet from the promise of what Avner might do.
I nodded under the pressure of his hand.
He lowered his head, gaze still locked on mine. “Remember when we met on the balcony?” The damp heat of his breath warmed my skin. “I planned to fuck you,” he whispered. As though that was a secret. As though I hadn’t been the one luring him to my bed. Even if he didn’t hold me still, his eyes kept me pinned in place. “I planned to use you. And believe me I would’ve used you, Emma.” His stubble scraped my ear. I shivered, shuddered, almost convulsing in his arms. From the sound of my name—the way he spoke it, and the flashing visceral image of being used. “I’d have used you hard, and you’d have loved it.”
I sucked in air, and that air tasted of him.
His grip loosened a fraction. He shuffled closer so my spine bent. My back arched against him. “But the moment I found out who you are, that changed. I don’t use friends.”
His hand slid from my mouth. My bottom lip tugged down. My heart dipped as though I plunged in a carnival attraction. Don’t let me go. But he didn’t—he grabbed the front of my throat in a gentle grip. “So, I’m not going to use you. I’m going to have you.”
Have me?
I couldn’t speak, couldn’t respond. Couldn’t ask what the hell that meant. All I could do was listen, my hips shifting.
Need crawled through me, seizing me in a desire so sharp, if not for his hold on my neck I’d have doubled over.
“I wanted you to know what you were getting into—I’m not an easy man.” He said that last part softly, and with awareness I wished for myself. “I’d planned to go slow. To make you beg for this.” His lips brushed my cheek, his mouth soft, his breath searing. “But you’ve demanded the worst of me.”
I froze, hardly breathing.
“This is your chance.” He released my throat. He no longer held me, but his body still pressed against mine, and he watched my reflection. “Walk out of here and let me know this is done, because if you stay another moment, there’s no going back.”
Walk away? My knees sank, I grabbed the edge of the vanity, and I don’t know if that was deciding to stay, deciding to be had, but when my eyes met his again, it was all the answer he required. His hand clamped back over my mouth. I didn’t get the chance to think why, and he yanked up the clinging skintight back of my dress. He shoved his hand between my legs from behind. My legs stumbled wider.
He c
upped my drenched, soaking pussy. “Fuck, do you ever wear underwear?”
I sucked breath through my nose. Tension burst in my core.
He tugged me backward, urging my head against his shoulder as he moved his hand in front of me and rubbed between my slippery, hairless folds.
Pleasure radiated from my swollen clit. I cried out into his palm. He growled into my hair, shoving two fingers inside me. My pussy clenched around his swift invasion. My hips flexed—for more and for less. My eyes squeezed closed. He curled his fingers inside me, hitting a tender spot in my vagina that plunged me deep in agonizing need.
My eyes flew open. I grabbed his wrist grinding against my pelvis. He moved his fingers, just a little. A tease—a tease like I’d teased him. But expertly. He tortured me, expertly. Bending and stroking hooked fingers in my flesh. His thumb brushed my clit and the precipice of orgasm arrived. I caught one glimpse of myself, stretched and possessed—tan hand engulfing half my face, eyes wide, nostrils flaring—before my vision splintered and I came.
His hold intensified on my face. I screamed—for real screamed into his palm. He held me up while my thighs twitched. I convulsed, orgasm rippling and stretching through me. I contracted around his fingers, and it made them seem bigger, harder. He continued to move, extracting more pleasure, wringing stifled cries from my chest.
My nostrils opened and closed with frantic drags of air.
His erection ground against my back.
My limbs went limp, and I held on as he toyed between my legs. He pulled his fingers out of my pussy and rubbed his whole saturated hand over my sex as though he owned it.
He released my face. I fell over the vanity, catching myself with palms flat on the stone top, then pushed my ass out. Pushed myself against his crotch. Rubbed up on him like a hungry kitten. He caught a handful of my butt cheek. In the vanity mirror I had the gift of seeing him look, his face twisted with lust, at my ass.
Seeing him look where he palmed my cheek. Where he pulled back and observed my cunt. I stared in the mirror and waited for the moment he finally took me the way I’d been dreaming about.
And I didn’t give one fuck if it was bent over in a bathroom.
I needed him now.
He met my gaze again, then tugged down the back of my dress. No. I spun around, and took hold of his shirt. My biceps shook. Not again. I wouldn’t be put off one more time. He grabbed the sides of my face and kissed me. Hard and deep, with long plunges of his tongue and wide sweeps of his lips. He kissed me urgently—as though he’d stored up years’ worth of longing for this one kiss. He moved a hand from my face to push against my back, and clutched me tighter to him.
So tight the only breath I caught was the breath from his lungs, and it was so sweet. My arms went around him, holding on like we could fuse.
He released my mouth. My head spun, my lips tingled, and I still held on. I wouldn’t let go this time. Not for anything.
He held my waist. “Get your ass to my car.”
I blinked slowly up at him. Did he want to do it in a backseat?
“I have to take care of something. I’ll be right there.” He handed me the keys from his pocket. “Go now.” He gave my waist one last squeeze, leaned in, but didn’t kiss me, just rubbed his cheek on mine and inhaled.
The scrape sent shivers down to my toes.
He pulled away and left the bathroom. I sighed, smoothed down the back of my skirt and went outside.
Avner
My friend had always been perceptive. Today was no different. He waited in his office before I could summon him.
“I said no.” He sat behind his desk, a glass of amber liquid clutched in his hand.
I entered and took the seat across from him. I had to take a seat because my energy still charged hot and hungry, and it was all I could do to think outside of it.
“You said the two of you were becoming friends.” He took a gulp and bared his teeth a moment. “I told you Emma is important to us. What have you done, Avner?”
“Done?” I gripped the arm of the chair. The wood creaked. “I’ve done nothing—yet.”
“I said no.” His glass knocked down. “I told you to leave her be.”
I leaned forward, slowly, and set my forearms on his desk. The energy I’d felt before still sizzled, but morphed—volatile. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten, I do not defer to you.”
He stiffened. Haithem might appear to be the head of our operations. He had the looks for television screens, the voice for public speaking and desire to be seen. But the two us right here in this office, we knew which of us was the more dangerous in this equation.
Haithem would be dead a thousand times over if it weren’t for me.
He shook his head. “In all the time I’ve known Emma, I’ve never seen her like this. What did you do to hurt her?”
She’d been hurt tonight. I’d seen her hurting. Just like I’d seen her hurting when I left her apartment. That was the only reason I’d found the will to leave. The only reason I hadn’t dragged her to a bedroom and fucked her without care.
“Haithem.” I leaned back, energy fizzling out. “Emma’s hurting because there are things she needs to feel.”
Pain rose thick under my ribs. I knew that to be true. My own hurts sat heavy and persistent in my chest, and when I’d seen hers at her apartment in the pained way she’d cupped me, in her cold attempt at seduction—something changed.
He expelled a breath and dropped his head. “Why her?”
My jaw set. “Why Angelina?”
His head snapped up, his eyes sparked. “I know why Angelina, I asked you why Emma. Why of all the women in the world must you do this with her?”
I sighed. He said that as though I’d had a social life all these years. As though Emma wasn’t the first woman I’d been introduced to in my own name in as long as I could remember.
I’d wanted her, yes—lust at first sight. Maybe I’d been drawn by the idea we were linked through friendship. A link to the real world.
But that wasn’t it.
“She—” My head pounded. Why’d she possess me like this? I saw her face that first night, her hand on my shoulder. Then the look on her face when I’d spoken—dreamy eyed, as though I were a fantasy.
Her fantasy.
That fantasy blasted through memories of faces that looked on me with apprehension and fear. Blasted through images that most plagued me—images of despair.
I’d bleed to see that dreamy look again. To fulfill that fantasy.
I couldn’t take away her hurts any more than she could take mine. Those pains can never be fixed by someone else—but someone else can make you want to try.
Haithem’s brow furrowed. We hadn’t spoken like this in a long time. Since college. Before both our lives took terrible turns.
“She makes me feel what I must too.” My throat burned as I spoke. The failures of my past had cost me everything, and this time I wouldn’t fail. Wouldn’t fail to win her over. Wouldn’t fail to protect her. Wouldn’t fail to have her look at me that fanciful way again.
Haithem’s expression smoothed, that spark fading. “Then I say this as your friend—I’m afraid this will not go well for either of you.”
“It’s too late to change this.” There was more to everything now. Even if I could be prepared to walk away, abandoning Emma was no longer an option. I took my phone from my jeans and handed it to Haithem with the footage of the bartender’s confession displayed.
The sound crackled through the office.
“She called me for help.” I squeezed my fists. “She yelled for help, and I’m the one who heard her.”
Haithem set the phone down, and ran a palm across his jaw.
“I found her. I saved her.” I took the phone and shoved it into my rear pocket. “And I will be the one
to see this through and protect her.” My muscles bristled with adrenaline. Neither Haithem nor anyone would interfere. “She’s mine now and I’ve been patient as long as I can, so she will accept it.”
Haithem snorted. “My friend, that woman will never accept what you want from her.”
He didn’t know her the way I was beginning to. “She will not only accept it—she’ll yearn for it.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Haithem sank back into his chair. “Because the difference between you and me, whether you care to admit it, is that you are not available.”
My jaw locked. Guilt swelled. What he said was true. “We wouldn’t be having this conversation if I had nothing to offer.”
“Maybe you have something to offer, Avner, but you cannot offer everything. When I had to choose between Angelina and everything else—I chose her.” He picked up his cup and drained the remainder. “I’d choose her every fucking time. Can you say the same about Emma?”
My teeth groaned—I couldn’t. There was more than Emma I had to consider. But for the first time, she was all I wanted to consider.
“You will be the one Emma finally gives her trust to, and you will be the person to break it.” He pushed his glass away, and his words went quiet. “If the choice ever arrives, it will not be her. You’ll choose Rebecca.”
Pain burst in my chest before the hurt receded into my lungs. There was no denying the truth. The full weight of my failures, past and present, bore down on me.
“You’ll always choose Rebecca.”
The sound of her name renewed my ever-present agony. He was right. But there was another truth Haithem didn’t seem to recognize—Rebecca wouldn’t be back.
And finally I saw a way through that.
“Emma needs me.” I took a breath. “She just doesn’t know it yet.”
Haithem’s warning caught me halfway out the door. “You think you’re saving her, but you’re going to be the thing to break her.”
Chapter Eleven
Emma
I hit the button and the passenger window glided down. Chill air fanned my cheek, but not surprisingly the pulsating tension remained well and truly in the car with us. I glanced at Avner. He gripped the steering wheel in both hands, staring ahead without so much as a peep at me. He held his body stiffly—as if braced for impact.