And then I see us.
Me sitting in his lap with my dress riding up my hips as we made out in a club. Then us drinking at another bar and kissing again while he felt me up in the dark.
That’s when we got really drunk. I then remember us in the elevator, and I wake with a start.
The elevator.
I remember us in the elevator at the Bellagio. Ethan had just booked the room and we were on our way up to it to have sex.
My God, I’m starting to remember.
We started kissing in the elevator and that when we had the idea to have sex right there. No not we.
It was me. It was my idea.
That was our first time and from there we went wild.
We went up to the room to drink some more. Then we had sex again.
We were so drunk but in this weird state like we’d gone to some alternate dimension and that was real for us. Ethan started telling me about his grandfather and his business. He said he needed to be married. He looked at me and said we should get married and I agreed as if we were talking about food.
The night was wild before, but it got wilder after that as he tried to orchestrate the wedding of my dreams.
He booked a minister and hired out the top floor of a restaurant because I liked the view of the sky. That’s where we got married and because in Vegas you can do anything, we did exactly that. We had a photographer, florist, pianist and even a chef who made us our first meal as husband and wife.
We danced to Unchained Melody as our first dance by the time our quickly put together wedding was over; we had a wedding album ready with pictures to go.
It was when we got back to the hotel that we fell in bed again. Then as soon as we finished, we started all over again. I don’t know who fell asleep first, or maybe we both did at the same time.
That was what happened. All in one night.
I rest my head back on the pillow, beads of sweat trickling down my face as sexual heat flushes over my body.
I remember and now I don’t know what to do about it.
I was drunk but I remember how I felt as Ethan took me.
The soreness between my thighs is testament that we’d slept together even before he confirmed it. Now I know what happened I have the memory of how I got so sore. We did everything and he tasted everywhere.
I lie there in my thoughts again until I fall asleep.
The front door closing is what wakes me, and I reckon Shelby just left.
I get up with the memories playing in my head and check my phone to see if there are any messages from Ethan.
Surprise, surprise there’s nothing there.
It’s Sunday morning and barely seven. He’s probably still in Vegas with some woman or two in his bed.
The thought makes me sick, and tears sting the backs of my eyes.
I’m going to go crazy before this is over. I know I am.
Ethan is going to push me over the edge, and I won’t know what to do to save myself.
I make my way downstairs to get some coffee and the doorbell rings when I get down to the last step. The sound makes me jump but I calm myself.
I almost think it’s Shelby, but she has a key to the apartment.
Given the day and time, there’s only one person that could be.
But could it be?
I find myself rushing to the door and when I pull it open and see Ethan standing there, my heart squeezes.
He’s here. That means he wasn’t far behind me in travel.
I’m happy to see him. At the same time as I look at him I recall what we did in perfect clarity.
The memories hit one at a time and all at the same time.
Much of what we did was the drinking, but Shelby was right. there were some parts of what happened that were real. So that changes everything and I’m not sure if I’m ready to let him know yet that I remember.
I remember.
And now I know what it’s like to be his.
Chapter
Eighteen
Ethan
As I stare back at my wife who looks equally surprised and relieved to see me, the two things I’ve had on my mind come back to me.
The first is I remember everything. Every little thing in detail of our drunken sexcapades and the adventures that transpired as a result. The memories came back within an hour after I put her on the plane.
The second thing stems from the first. I figured if I remembered and we both drank the same as each other, chances are she remembered too. The memory did something more to me I never expected, and I didn’t know how she was going to react when she next saw me.
“You’re here,” she mutters.
That voice. It drifts over me, speaking to my inner desire to forget logic again and indulge on the southern belle.
“Of course. I told you I’d come. Gonna let me in?” I raise a brow.
“Of course.”
She steps aside and I walk in. This is the first time I’ve been inside her home.
The first thing I notice is the place looks and smells like her. Like roses and honey.
The décor from what I can see is every bit her too. Her walls are wallpapered in a soft silky cream and her lightings are gold. The floor is wooden and polished, and I can see wooden chairs around the breakfast table in the kitchen.
“Do you want some coffee?” she asks closing the door behind her.
Coffee. It’s a simple question. I had a horrible flight and I had to wait for four hours to get said flight. I haven’t eaten properly since the day before last so I should drink some coffee. Why I’m stalling is I don’t know if it’s wise for me to be here longer than necessary when I myself am not sure how to act around her.
I take her in dressed in a silky pair of pink pajama bottoms and a white camisole top. Her hair is piled on top of her head in a messy bun, and she looks like she did in school.
She bites on her bottom lip, and I remember how plump and delicious those lips feel in my mouth and around my cock.
“Yes.” I hear myself say and I’m not sure if I would have had the will power to say anything other than that.
“Cool, I’ll make you some.”
My eyes automatically glue to her ass when she turns and leads me into the kitchen where I’m greeted with the aroma of cookies, and I think banana bread.
There’s a loaf that looks like it could be that on the table.
“Shelby made me breakfast,” she explains. “She has a real sweet tooth like me.”
“I saw her in the parking lot.” Shelby didn’t see me, or if she did, she played the good actress.
“I’m still not sure if you have anything with sugar or cake, but if you want, I could cut you a slice.” Her cheeks fill with color, and I narrow my eyes as I wonder if she remembers what she said to me as she licked my abs.
I’ve never had a woman practically devour me the way she did and it’s not something I’m likely to forget.
I could say the best sugary thing I’ve had is her and she was sweeter than the honey I’ve decided to compare her to, but I hold back. There are serious things to talk about.
“I’d love a slice. I do have sugar. Not a lot but I like a little sugar from time to time.” Which is exactly what I said to her on our fateful night.
The enhanced color of her cheeks and the flush that races down her neck suggests she does remember. Now I’m wondering what she’ll say when I ask her if she does.
“Okay.” She nods and I sit, taking off my jacket.
Within a few minutes she has a steaming cup of coffee before me and a slice of banana bread which I devour first. I’m going to need sustenance to talk to her.
When she sits before me with her own cup of coffee, I drink a good amount of mine and set the cup down.
“I didn’t expect you to come so early, or at all,” she states. At least she’s honest. “You couldn’t have been travelling too far behind me.”
“I told you I’d come. I got a flight a few hours after you did.”
“But you were there for Denver. I know I ruined the weekend.”
“You didn’t.” The damn weekend was ruined before it even began, and I don’t even want to hear Denver’s name right now.
When I got back to the suite, there he was in the living room having sex with one of the strippers. I walked in on them. His wedding is this coming weekend and I’m already conjuring excuses to miss it. I’m not a saint, but I’m a cop. Maybe it feels like being witness to a crime and not saying anything, but I don’t know if I could watch him get married to a woman who deserves better and hold my silence.
Bryce was in my room completely knocked out. Thankfully no one was in there with him, and he didn’t wake up when I grabbed my stuff.
I had no desire to stay or be in Vegas any longer than I needed to be. God knows what the guys will get up to tonight.
“I’m sure there’ll be more excuses to go to Vegas in the future.” I nod and decide to get down to business. “I talked to my lawyer about us.”
That’s what I decided to do instead of running around Vegas trying to see what I could do to fix our disaster.
“Please tell me the lawyer wasn’t Bryce.” She sulks.
“No. The lawyer is definitely not Bryce.”
“Oh good.”
“Anyway, he said we could have the marriage annulled with a week from us signing the paperwork. He’s getting everything prepped and should have it over to me by Tuesday evening, so I’ll bring them around on Wednesday morning if that’s okay.”
“Yeah. That works.” Her forehead wrinkles as she brings her dainty, perfectly manicured fingers together. “What do we tell people until then Ethan, and after?”
“I don’t know. I’m still thinking. Maybe we could ride it out until then and come up with some excuse for the split.”
“So, we act married?”
“Act?” As if we have to act.
“You know what I mean.”
I sigh and set my elbows on the table. “Bree, I don’t know. Of course, it would have been easier if we said nothing but now that we have, I don’t know what the right thing is. Riding it out seems like the viable solution unless you want to deal with the craziness of the truth.”
“Maybe you’re right. It’s just a little over a week. I can ride it out until then.” She looks reluctant. “I’m not sure if I could deal with the craziness of the truth.”
Or the craziness of the alternate versions of us. That’s what it felt like. I feel like I got sucked into one of those tv shows were they show you what your life could have been like if you made a different choice or some little thing was different.
The thing I’m having a problem with is the alternate versions of us were enticing. She was and I liked myself that way. That guy I became suddenly had a dream. Even if it was for that night. The dream was her and do anything for her.
I need to leave before I go crazy. I don’t even think I’ve been here for five minutes and listen to me.
In the same breath, I really do want to find out what she remembers. Wanting to know is eating me alive.
We’re at natural pause in the conversation where the only things left to talk about are the night we spent together and that house she wants.
Straightening up I down the rest of the coffee and she straightens too.
I look her in the eye, and she instantly looks guilty and swallows hard. She looks away and reaches for the loaf.
“Do want some more? I don’t know what Shelby was thinking making me so much food.”
When she reaches for the cake knife, I reach for her wrist and hold it down.
Her full lips part and the color now drains from her cheeks. I watch her pulse quicken and her breaths became uneven as nerves fill her.
“You remember, don’t you?”
“What?”
She’s already giving herself away.
“What do you mean by what?” I knit my brows together and give her a ruthless stare. “You know what I mean?”
“I know what you mean but… no I don’t remember anything.” She stutters out the last few words. “Just what we talked about.” Which was nothing. We didn’t really talk about anything much.
Should I even remind her I’ve known her since she was ten, we went to school together, and I’m also a high ranking cop? If I don’t know when she’s lying by now I never will.
When Bree lies her little nose twitches, she automatically tucks her hair behind her ear, and she starts blinking. She just did all three.
Common sense should tell me to leave this alone, but I’ve never been one to listen to things like that. Definitely not when it comes to Bree Dawson. No not Bree Dawson.
That certificate she should have in her suitcases has her listed as Bree Carson now.
“Do you remember anything?” she asks tentatively.
I play the devil I am and run my thumb over the silky skin of her knuckles. Unlike her I’m not going to lie.
“Yes.”
The deep green of her eyes darkens, and I’m reminded of how she looked at me when she kissed me.
“Oh, well maybe I’ll remember too at some point.” She tries to move her hand away, but I keep it there.
“Stop lying.”
She wrinkles her nose and frowns at me. “Why would you think I’m lying. If I say I don’t remember, then I don’t remember.”
“And I was born yesterday. I can see you remember. So, the real question is what are you afraid off?”
I’m opening all the boxes of hell. Pandora’s, the can of worms, and everything like that.
There’s no need to say that to her when I know what she’s afraid of. It’s me.
It’s whatever she feels for me and me for her. It’s that unsaid, invisible thing that’s always existed between us I’ve purposely tried to shun away.
It’s the same thing that made her get on that plane to Vegas in the first place, not whatever I owe her.
Again, I should leave this alone, but curiosity is getting the better of me and when I get like this, I’m like a dog with a bone who just can’t let go until I get what I want. In this instance I don’t actually know what I want but I’m going in the direction my dick is taking me.
“I’m not afraid of anything.”
I release her and I realize what’s grating on my nerves. It’s her attempt to deny the night we have. If she claims she can’t remember then it’s like it never happened, when it fucking did.
That’s okay. Two can play at this game.
I stand and reach for my jacket.
“You’re going?” she stands too.
“I have things to do.”
“But I need to talk to you about the house.”
“No.”
Her mouth falls open. “You’re turning me down?”
Like I could. “We’re not talking about the house until you remember the night you spent with me. Until then the house is off the market. But the clocks ticking and my million awaits”
“That is ridiculous, Ethan what does the house have to do with my memory? And so what if I don’t remember?”
“You heard me. Those are my terms. Unless you want to confess now, that’s what we’re doing.” She’s not going to say shit. Her stubbornness is one of the other things I like about her. She’ll be stubborn until it kills her and even then, she’ll hold on tight to whatever it is she’s holding to.
Hell would freeze over, and you’d have to pry it from her pretty little cold dead fingers for her to let go.
So, Bree does exactly what I expect her to do when she says, “I have nothing to confess.”
“All right then Mrs. Carson, I guess I’ll be seeing you on Wednesday. If not before.”
Her lips part into a delicate O and I walk away, leaving her to her thoughts and me to mine because we crossed the line and whatever is happening between us is only just getting started.
Chapter 19
Ethan
Logan stares back at me over his cup of coffee when I fi
nish filling him in on my events in Vegas.
We’re sitting in the back booth at the new-ish coffeehouse we’ve been going to for the last year. Today is the first I’ve seen him since I got back from Vegas.
I had to see my mother first who I told the truth to. Even though she was excited that me being married means getting the business she was worried about me. It’s understandable given she’s a veteran of a terrible marriage and a person who got married for all the wrong reasons—being pregnant with me.
I’ll also be seeing my grandfather at lunch time to discuss that. His is another conversation I’m not looking forward to because he’ll be happy for me, and I’ll have to lie to him.
“What the hell are you going to do?” he asks, setting the cup down.
Of course, I told him the truth too, but I didn’t need to. He guessed right.
I chuckle. Better to laugh than wallow in sorrow.
“Well, I have things in motion for the annulment, so it looks like that’s what I’m going to do.”
“But you don’t want to do that,” he surmises like the friend he is who can see straight through to my complicated mind.
“I never wanted to get married, Logan. Okay that’s a lie. When I was with Amelia I did. I thought I’d finish college and that’s what we’d do. It felt simple and like the next step. This does not because it’s me and Bree.”
“Bree who you liked well before Amelia,” he deduces again. Now he’s just showing off.
“Logan it’s complicated when it comes to Bree.”
“Why?”
“Are you kidding me? You actually sound like you want me to stay married. Sure, I’ve fulfilled my grandfather’s terms and conditions, but I was planning to fight him tooth and nail.”
“I know you were, which is why I haven’t mentioned that part. I’m focusing on why the reason is you have this situation with Bree.”
“And you’re reasoning is?”
“You suppressed your feelings for her for some God knows why reason. You never said and you’re still not saying.”
At first I didn’t know why I was doing it. She really did irritate me at first when we were kids, but that was part of the same reasoning.
Out of Bounds: An Enemies to Lovers Romance (Sinful Bachelors Book 2) Page 11