Wanting.
Aching.
A thirst unquenched for far too long.
His thumb gently stroked the inside of her wrist. A light, almost careless touch that nonetheless sent a spark of fire tearing through her blood.
Her fingers on that same hand started to tremble. She needed to pull away—anything but let him continue to touch her.
Reese eased closer and caressed up her arm past her elbow to her shoulder. His touch shouldn’t feel so good. She shouldn’t want him so much. She shouldn’t want him to do more than touch her arm.
“Look at me, Nina,” he whispered.
She briefly closed her eyes to gain the strength needed to resist him. When she finally looked at him, that newfound strength evaporated like steam. She became lost in his gaze and opened her mouth to beg him to stop. To leave her be, because she couldn’t resist him. Not now. Maybe not ever.
Because as soon as he pushed against her boundaries just a little bit, reached for more than friendship, the walls she’d erected would shatter like brittle ceramic.
He pulled her closer, lifting a hand to the side of her neck. “I missed you like crazy. So many times I wanted to get on a plane and go to wherever you were. I waited to give you room. Don’t tell me my waiting was in vain.”
He lowered his head a few inches, mouth hovering over hers.
She could almost hear the time ticking slowly past.
His head dipped lower, and their lips touched. Nina released a soft whimper at the tail end of a shaky breath. Mentally and physically, she succumbed to the intense attraction that flared to life between them.
Reese tilted her head back as his tongue flicked against the seam of her lips, and the same hand that cradled her neck pulled her closer. With that slight encouragement, she curled her fingers into the front of his shirt using a tight clasp, as if letting go meant she risked losing her hold on him.
But Reese clearly wasn’t going anywhere. His mouth moved over Nina’s in a devouring motion, plucking at her lips and nibbling at the corners of her mouth.
The possessive kiss declared his ownership of her—as if she’d never stopped belonging to him during the entirety of the past ten years.
Reese slid his hands down her back and over her bottom, kneading each ass cheek while his searching mouth teased her with kisses that left her trembling on tiptoe and panting for more.
Cradling her bottom in his hands, he lifted her from the floor and walked to the sofa, their lips never once losing contact in the all-consuming kiss.
Reese eased her onto her back and settled firmly between her thighs. His erection lined up with precision against her core, and she shivered at the delicious sensations that pulsated through her lower abdomen from the point of contact. Grinding his hips as if he was already fucking her, he handed out a sample of what he’d do if black shorts and dark jeans didn’t keep them from skin-to-skin contact.
She came alive with sensation, breathless with anticipation and aching with longing and need. What would it be like to be taken by him? To lie totally naked and succumb to mind-numbing pleasure.
She kissed him harder and moved restlessly under him. His mouth lowered to her throat, and Nina arched backward so he could cover more surface. One hand smoothed up her belly under the tank top, igniting heat like a lit torch had been set to her skin. His fingers splayed out against her stomach and then squeezed her waist. His attack on her was gentle but unrelenting, and in the midst of this, his hips continued a slow-motion grind between her legs.
He scattered kisses on her neck and collarbone while that wayward hand at her waist eased lower and finally squeezed the throbbing flesh between her legs. Nina sucked air between her teeth and curled her fingers into the soft cushion of the sofa. The shock of what he’d done stripped away her ability to remain calm.
“You still taste the same, don’t you?” he rasped. His head went lower, and he kissed the tips of her breasts through her top.
Nina watched with half-closed lids as he pushed her shirt higher and licked her bared belly.
“I know you do,” he whispered shakily.
She watched with combined horror and anticipation as he kissed her hips and upper thighs over her clothes. With each caress of his lips, her inhibitions crumbled.
She half-heartedly pushed at his shoulders, trying so very hard to be strong.
One hand found her right breast while the thumb of his other hand played with her needy clit. Instead of closing her legs or pushing him away, Nina spread her thighs wider and listened to his satisfied groan as she submitted to his touch. He continued to stroke, and of its own accord, her pelvis undulated with each movement of his hand.
Stop! Her mind screamed, but the words never left her lips. Reese whispered something that sounded like, “Let me get a taste.”
She knew what he was about to do, and for a reckless moment, her open thighs went lax to accommodate him. To let him have his way. To be at his mercy and do what he wanted and do what she needed with every fiber of her being.
“No,” she whispered, a lame effort to refuse him that he couldn’t hear past his own heavy breathing.
She trembled on the edge of surrender, and then he mashed his face between her legs, and she almost came from the impact. Grabbing the back of his head, she moaned and arched her back. Her panties were sopping wet and damn near dripping with the evidence of her desire. The hands holding her legs open tightened as he dragged his moist tongue along the inside of her thigh toward its target.
But then a framed photo on a side table came into focus—a selfie she and Andy took on a beach in Australia. And just like that, she couldn’t. She found her voice and one word to stop him.
“No!”
The louder exclamation caught his attention, and he lifted his head, his dark eyes holding a drugged appearance.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t want to. I can’t.” She sounded panicked because that’s how she felt. What was she doing? You love Andy—not Reese repeated in her head, like a broken record.
Confusion filled his eyes as if he couldn’t comprehend her words. But he sat up, and Nina shimmied backward to escape. She jumped up from the sofa and stood a safe distance away, breathing hard, and so was Reese. The bulge in his pants made his desire as plain as her wet panties.
Nina ran her tongue over her swollen, throbbing lips. “Why did you do that?” she asked in a shaky voice.
“Why did you let me?”
She covered her face with both hands. Her nipples still ached for his touch. “God, Reese, what happened just now was wrong, and you know it.”
He stood angrily. “You think I give a damn about wrong or right where he’s concerned? You belong with me. That’s all I care about.”
“You are so damn selfish. You haven’t changed.”
“I’m selfish for what’s mine.”
“I don’t belong to you.”
“Lies, and you know it. What just happened was intense, and you didn’t want me to stop.” He came closer. “And I didn’t want to stop.”
“I am with Andy.”
“You don’t even love him.”
“Yes, I do!”
“Then say it. Tell me you love him.”
“I love him.”
“Say it like you mean it. I don’t believe you.”
“You’ll never believe me because it’s not what you want to hear!” she screamed, shaking.
Reese spoke calmly, enunciating every word. “I don’t believe you because it’s not true. You’re it for me, and I know I’m it for you, too. We can go back to where we were before, with all the excitement and passion that we had when we were young. It’s still there. I felt it just now.”
She blinked rapidly to stem the flow of tears that threatened to fall. “We were kids. I’m a woman now, and I…I’m with someone else. You have to accept my engagement. You have to, or—” she swallowed “—or I’ll cut you from my life. I can’t let you kiss me, and I can’t let you
say those things to me anymore. It’s disrespectful to Andy. So please stop, or I… We can’t be friends anymore.”
“I don’t want to be your friend. It’s not enough anymore. It never was.”
“That’s what you wanted. You made the decision to break up with me, and you made the decision to sleep with Kelly. But you can’t handle that truth because it makes you uncomfortable.”
“I’m not uncomfortable. I’m tired. You think I haven’t suffered enough? When does this end? All these years you’ve been dangling yourself like a carrot in front of me.”
Her eyes widened. “I have not!”
“Yes, you have. You already got me back. You cut me off for over a year.”
Nina stepped back from him. He had no idea how she’d suffered over the course of that year. What she’d been through. “We keep hurting each other. It’s not healthy,” she said in a dull voice.
“If it means being away from you, I don’t want to be healthy.”
Folding her arms protectively over her stomach, the memory she’d pushed down the farthest resurfaced. “Kelly’s not the only reason I left that night.”
“There was no one else, I swear to you, and it was just that one time. I never touched her again.”
She remained silent, staring at the floor.
His hands encircled her arms, and he forced her to look at him. “Nina, you have to believe me. I wanted you back the minute you came to the party. There was no one else and no other times.”
The desperation in his voice prompted her to speak. “I know.”
Confusion coated his features. “Then what are you talking about? What else happened?”
She took a deep breath and let it ease past her lips. “The reason I showed up at your house that night was because I had something important to tell you. I came to tell you…to tell you that I was pregnant.”
Chapter 12
Reese blinked once, then twice. “What?”
Nina withdrew from his touch and, numb with shock, he let her go.
“I came to tell you that I was pregnant. I didn’t know you were having a party, and I almost changed my mind. I knew the week before and chickened out after you said you didn’t want to be with me anymore. I had to finish what I’d come there to do, but I needed to work up the courage. It helped that you seemed so happy to see me.” She laughed a little, but the laughter was mixed with pain. “Then Kelly showed up, and you started acting so weird. I still intended to tell you. I was waiting for the right time. Maybe after everyone left...I don’t know. But before I could, Kelly cornered me and told me what happened between the two of you.”
Damn it, Kelly. He wished he’d never touched her.
“That’s why you cut me off.”
She nodded. “I was hurt at first, but then after I started to show, I couldn’t let you see me. I was sick a lot, too, while I was pregnant. It was a tough time, so that’s why I didn’t go back to college in the fall.”
Reese needed to sit, but couldn’t move. His knees might not support the walk to the sofa. “What happened to our…to our baby?”
Nina hugged herself and directed the words to the floor. “I miscarried two months later.”
He wanted to reach out and touch her but wasn’t sure he should. “Boy or girl?” His voice sounded strange—tight, like being forced to speak around a chokehold.
“A boy,” she whispered.
He’d never pined for children the way other people did. As a matter of fact, he’d never wanted any at all, but at that moment—in the midst of learning that he had almost become a father—an ache twisted inside him with such force he froze. He was almost a father, and Nina would have been the mother of his child.
Reese staggered over to the sofa, sank into the soft cushion, and buried his face in his hands. “You should have still told me.”
“Why?”
He lifted his head. “Because I deserved to know.”
“Do you have any idea how I felt coming to you with that news after you told me you didn’t want me, knowing you didn’t want kids on top of that? Then I found out about Kelly. How was I supposed to let you know about a baby when you’d already moved on after one lousy week? I wasn’t thinking about you, I was thinking about how I would get through that pregnancy.”
If he had ever needed proof that they were over, this was it. Her body wanted him, but her heart and mind did not. No matter her reason, she left his house without giving the slightest hint that she’d been carrying his child. Then she lost the baby and still never uttered a word.
While the littlest smile from her spread sunshine through his heart, he clearly brought only dark skies filled with storm clouds into hers.
“You were going to cut me out. You were never going to tell me, were you?” he said.
“I don’t know. I would have, eventually. But right then, I couldn’t.”
Reese stood, his body weighed down with the heaviness of his thoughts and what he’d just learned. “Does he really make you happy?” he asked, finding it difficult to form the words.
Nina twisted the ring on her finger in one full circle. He waited for her answer with nerves stretched as taut as primed guitar strings.
“Yes,” she said quietly.
No word had ever pained him more.
Adding to his regret for his actions, he now could add the loss of their unborn baby. How would their lives have changed if she’d told him what she came over that day to say? He’d never know. There were no sliding doors to show their life in an alternate universe.
“Good. You deserve to be happy.”
The lump in his throat was so unbearably thick, he almost choked on the words. He dropped his gaze. All he wanted was for her to be happy. No, that was a lie. He wanted to be the one to make her happy. It would break his heart to see her happily married to someone else.
He snatched up the keys he’d tossed on the table when he arrived and went to the door in a rush to escape. He couldn’t look at her anymore, knowing she’d never be his again. Knowing she’d suffered through a miscarriage alone because she couldn’t trust him and didn’t believe in him. And now she’d have kids with the man she was going to marry, who wasn’t him. His behavior had caused that.
To him, their togetherness was as inevitable as the shifting of night into day. Hope had kept him going all this time—hope he still had a chance, and they’d one day reconcile, but he knew now that wasn’t the case. His hopes had been nothing but wishful thinking.
Just accept it, a mocking voice whispered.
He rushed down the stairs to the front door.
“Reese…” her voice cracked. “We can still…I mean, our friendship doesn’t have to end.” She half-whispered the words as if she knew friendship status was insufficient.
He paused without turning. “I don’t want to be your friend, Nina.” He continued out the door.
If he’d known then what he knew now—that he would be sentenced to life without Nina—he would have never set her aside. He would have never slept with Kelly.
Then he wouldn’t have to endure this life-long sentence.
Nina curled up in the bed and squeezed her eyes shut. Cutting all ties was for the best. The hole in her heart had healed enough for her to forget and function while overseas, but if Reese remained in her life, he would disrupt her plans, and she’d eventually start picking at the scab. She couldn’t allow herself to be vulnerable to him again.
The phone rang, and she snatched it up—for one second thinking it might be Reese. Andy’s name flashed on the screen, but she didn’t have the energy to talk to him right now. She flipped the phone over on its face and let the call go to voice mail.
Her eyes shuttered closed as she relived the episode in the living room. The best thing that had happened to her body in a long time was having Reese put his hands and mouth anywhere he pleased. It had been so long since she felt that way, desire barreling through her like an eighteen-wheeler. She would have to take her shameful actions to the grave,
just like she would have to accept the end to their friendship.
If she hadn’t kissed him, he would have stayed firmly in the friend zone. The kiss gave him hope. But at least now he knew the truth. She didn’t just lose him, she lost their baby, too.
And deep down she knew, if she dared give an honest self-evaluation, she had never fully recovered from the loss of either.
Chapter 13
Spending the Fourth of July on the beach in the Golden Isles off the coast of Georgia was not originally on Reese’s list of things to do. Still, when his mother called and insisted he participate, he reluctantly agreed.
Oscar had wanted a “normal” holiday celebration, so Sylvie rented three houses on the beach for all of them. His parents stayed in the smaller one with Trevor, who’d come on the trip, too. Stephan and his family, Reese, and Malik and Lindsay occupied the one next door. On the other side of that one was where Ella and Simone and their spouses and children slept.
His mother had suggested he bring a friend, but he’d declined. Who would he call? There was no one he was interested in bringing around his family.
St. Simons Island was the largest island in the chain, and its untouched beauty made for a lovely escape from the city. Large oaks dripping with moss lined the streets, and with quaint shops, museums, golf courses, and the pristine waters of the Atlantic Ocean lapping at the white sand, there was plenty to do.
Reese stood on the beach in a pair of swim trunks, his open shirt allowing the gentle breeze to brush his exposed chest, a half-empty can of beer in hand. Unfortunately, he had the debatable pleasure of watching the happy family units comprised of his siblings and cousin, enjoying the beach, which brought stark attention to his singleness. As odd man out, he began to think he should leave early and save himself the misery.
“You can’t turn the meat from way back there, Sylvie,” his father said in an annoyed voice.
Reese glanced over his shoulder. Both his parents stood behind the huge grill, quite an interesting sight to see.
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