by Lindsey Hart
“What’s wrong with dubious food truck food?”
“Argh!” Ambi finally lost it and did stomp her foot. “You can’t! Trey! This is my name on the line here. No one would like this. No one!”
“I paid you to plan this. If I want it here, we’re having it here.”
“You paid me to plan it. Did you just hear yourself? Me. Plan it. Paid me. I say that this is not the venue. If you want it, I’ll give you the money back minus what I already spent on the cake and we- can- uh- call it a day.”
“Why are you starting to stutter, Ambi? Are you thinking about that cake?” Trey couldn’t help it. He was asshole number one, but he was also sporting a hard-on the length of his arm and he needed, like he’d needed the night before, to push Ambi into seeing something and admitting something that she didn’t want to either see or admit. “Or maybe you were thinking about last night.”
That did it. Trey knew right away he’d pushed Ami too far.
“God!” She yelled as she picked up her tote and stalked across the hall. She didn’t exit out the way she’d come since he was standing in the doorway and she would have had to walk past him.
She went in the other direction. To the doors at the back of the place that were clearly labeled with a glowing exit sign overhead. Ambi threw open the door and charged down the hallway that ran past the main area to the back exit doors. The click, click, click of her heels resounded through the place with anything but finality. On the way down that hall were the bathrooms and a few select other rooms.
It was too perfect.
Which led Trey to believe, as he chased after Ambi, that she really didn’t remember, or recognize the hall. They were both pretty drunk that night, but seriously? How could she not remember? The place looked exactly the same.
Trey caught up with Ambi just as she was rounding the corner that led past the washrooms and the rooms that had the janitorial supplies. The few offices for the place were on the other side of the building, down the hall that branched off at the entrance.
They were far from that now. They were the only ones in the building. He had about forty-five minutes left of the hour he’d been promised.
He wasn’t going to waste it.
“Ambi!” Trey reached blindly for her hand and missed, but he caught the hem of her coat. He tugged hard and she let out a shriek as she went tumbling back.
He’d caught her off guard. She didn’t expect him to tug her back, that much was obvious. She stumbled, rocking on her sky-high heels. Her tote went flying, hitting the cement with a dull smack. Ambi let out a second, less dignified, slightly louder shriek as she tumbled backward. The horrified sound echoed off the walls and ricocheted off the floor.
Trey opened his arms and caught her. She didn’t hit the floor. She hit his chest. Hard. Her shoulder bumped his throat and her flailing hand hit him square in the face. Her entire body melded along the length of his. And he was pressed right up against the delicious curve of her bottom.
“Trey!” She flailed out as she struggled to break free.
There was no way he was letting her go. Instead, he scooped her up into his arms and carried her the few feet to their final destination. She thrashed against him, protesting the entire way, calling him a pig and an asshole and telling him he was as ugly as the back end of a cow with the runs. That one was quite inventive, he had to admit. He mentally cataloged it away for future use.
He didn’t set her down until he threw open the first door on the right and plunged them both into darkness. He let her go then, when she had nowhere to go, since he carefully stepped in front of the metal door and flicked on the light- a bare bulb that plunged the small, dank space with the rows of vertical shelves stocked with cleaning supplies, the mop basin on the floor, and all the mops and wheeled buckets, back into shiny yellowed life.
Recognition lit up Ambi’s face in an instant. No, not recognition. Resignation. She’d known where they were the entire time and she hadn’t once cracked. There wasn’t even a hairline fracture in that mask of hers.
“Welcome back,” Trey purred.
Her eyes widened until they nearly popped from the sockets. Her nostrils flared like she could scent more than just the smell of cleaning chemicals and old mops.
“Welcome back to what?” she seethed, even though he knew full well that she knew. “This place looks like a dump. You stuffed me in some janitor’s closet. Congratulations.”
The light was there in her eyes and she couldn’t smother that the way she shut everything else down. She glanced around and he waited for that split second of fear that would tell him that he should let her out. That despite everything, she wasn’t lying and didn’t actually want him. He would never, ever force her to do anything that she wasn’t willing to do.
She didn’t rail at him and tell him to let her out. She didn’t tell him that she’d rather eat poop than get close to his dick ever again. She didn’t tell him that she hella-regretted those orgasms from the night before.
No. Instead she sucked her bow lip into her mouth and munched on it until he figured the tender skin cracked and flooded her mouth with the taste of copper. She finally released it then, red and swollen.
Trey realized then that he had a problem since he just about came in his pants just from watching her do that much. She was like a drug. Heady. Addicting. Something he couldn’t quit. Something he didn’t want to quit. She might be just as dangerous and toxic. He wasn’t quite sure if either of them were going to get out of whatever they were doing unscathed.
“Welcome back to the first place we ever made love.”
As Ambi’s eyes darkened and her lips thinned out, he wasn’t even sure he’d make it out of the janitor closet alive.
CHAPTER 14
Amberina
She knew. She knew about the hall. She hadn’t recognized the address, but she knew the place as soon as she got close. By the time she pulled up, she was a hot mess on the inside. She knew why Trey picked it. She knew why he’d brought her there. She knew exactly what his game plan was. Except her game plan was not to let him in. Not to show him that she cared. Not to give anything away. Her game was that her poker face needed to be kicked up into overdrive AfrickingSAP.
She’d almost made it out. Out into the fresh air and her car, where she could have yet another meltdown. Out where she could scream her lungs out right after dragging in gulps of air into her burning, painful lungs since she hadn’t taken a full breath the entire time in the hall. Out into the fresh, cold air that would clear her head of the memories shimmering and floating on the surface like oil on water.
She’d just about made it.
And then Trey, like he’d made a habit of doing, pulled her back.
Pulled her back and plunged her right back into a past she didn’t want to remember because it was shared with him. She wanted to keep moving forward. Without him. Without needing him or wanting him. Without the memories assaulting her.
He made that impossible.
He was blocking the door. They were in the same freaking closet they’d ducked into back in college when they’d gone to a friend’s wedding. The friend had been Trey’s. She barely knew Trey and didn’t know his friend, but he’d asked her to go and she’d agreed. The wedding was horribly boring. The hall was just as bland back then. The whole thing really was like a bad high school reunion. The fifty-year kind, not the fifteen or twenty. Everyone under the age of eighty had been bored out of their tree and the only reason everyone over eighty wasn’t bored was because they all left after the dinner to go to bed.
So pretty much everyone at the wedding proceeded to get smashed. It got a little out of control. Ambi remembered Trey leading her out of the place, down the back way to finally get the hell out of there. They were both more than buzzed. The plan was to get out into the parking lot and call for a cab or walk until they found one.
Instead, they’d found the janitor’s closet.
Annnnd the rest was history.
Not
the good kind of history either.
The kind of history that she couldn’t get past, because instead of storming the door, kicking Trey in the balls until he dropped and she could get past him and then spitting on him as he was down, Ambi couldn’t move. She couldn’t move a muscle.
Her mouth opened. Worked. Closed. Worked again. Nothing came out. Her jaw just flapped stupidly, like a flag on a windy day. Except she was sure that even a flag would have made some noise. She stood there speechless. Absolutely. Struck. Stupid.
“I hate you.” There. At least that was something to say. She wanted to congratulate herself on her achievement.
“Do you though?” Trey asked cockily. “Because to me, it seems an awful lot like you actually don’t. Like you’re just saying that. To me. To yourself. Except you’re not convincing anyone. Not me. Not you.”
“What do you want?” Okay, that wasn’t so bold. It came out plaintive sounding and pathetic, a little whiny even. No back pats for reaching new pathetic lows.
Trey blinked at her with those eyes she freaking used to love so much. God, his eyes. She hated his eyes because she couldn’t stop being enthralled with them. They were there in her mind. She could never banish them. She knew the exact color and pattern. All the flecks and dots.
“That’s obvious, I think. I want you.”
“You- you…” Come on, Ambi, you can do it. You can spit it out. “You can’t have me.” There. Was that so hard? More back pats for you.
“Why not? I can clearly see that you want me too. I know we have a past. I know I was a dickhead in it, but that’s done now. If you give me another chance-”
“No. No more chances. I can’t afford to keep giving chances over and over. I shouldn’t have it to give it either. It should be earned. Tricking me into this and dragging me back into this room, hoping to score and get lucky isn’t going to work.”
“Well…” Trey cleared his throat. “I know that your brand of humor isn’t like other people’s and neither is your brand of romance. I could try to wine and dine you, impress you by whisking you away to Spain or something on a private jet, throw money at you, throw expensive jeweler and designer shit around, but I know you don’t care about any of that. You’re just you, Ambi. You loved me even when I had no money and you didn’t know that I’d ever have any. You saw me. You saw me for who I was. I asked you to that wedding and it sucked, but that night, in this very janitor’s room, was one of the best days of my life. I didn’t bring you here today hoping that I’d get lucky. I brought you here because I wanted you to remember. I wanted you to know that I never forgot. I haven’t forgotten a minute of it. I don’t want a chance just to get in your pants, Ambi. I want the chance to prove to you that I deserve another chance. I want to love you properly this time. I promise that I would never hurt you again. I would never abandon you. I would never fuck it all up again.”
Ambi stood her ground, but she could literally feel her resolve weakening as the seconds ticked by. She didn’t want to give Trey another chance. Not when he’d hurt her so badly the first time. She didn’t want to let her guard down and put herself out there. She didn’t want to risk her fragile, wounded heart. She didn’t want to, but she knew that she already was. She was doing all of those things. She’d never actually stopped. It wasn’t just deep down, that knowledge, shoved to the back of her mind and the bottom of her heart. It was at the forefront, a current that was sweeping her away, a current she was drowning in.
She tried to shake her head, but everything was frozen. She was paralyzed except for the sting welling at the bridge of her nose and burning at the backs of her eyes. She was mortified. She didn’t want to break down and cry. She didn’t want to show an ounce of weakness or give Trey that part of herself. Her brain and her body were clearly at odds. Her head told her no. Her heart was too scared to give an answer. Her body though, was the worst traitor. She couldn’t stop loving Trey. She couldn’t stop wanting him, especially not after what happened at her apartment. She’d been perilously close to losing control and she’d had to put a stop to it.
No matter what way a person spun it, coming in second place next to money, inheritance, a thriving company, privet jets, big houses, fast cars, and oh yeah, more money, really sucked. Then again, everyone made mistakes. Everyone.
She couldn’t blink the tears away. They came, scalding and fat, tracing their way down her cheeks. Once they started, they couldn’t be contained. They flowed in twin rivers, dribbling off her chin and splashing onto the dirty concrete floor below.
Trey was there. He was there, his big hands cupping her cheeks, so warm and tender. She wanted to push him away, but she couldn’t quite find the strength. He leaned in, his delicious scent cloaking her like a comfortable blanket. At the feel of his tongue on her jaw, she froze. He licked away the stream of tears, starting at her jaw, up her cheek, all the way to her lashes. He placed a delicate kiss on her closed eye. It was like a whisper of a butterfly wing. She let out a shuddery sob as he trailed hot kisses over her nose, onto her other cheek. He kissed away her tears before he dropped his lips to hers.
She groaned into the kiss. He was sweet passion and painful regret. His lips were salty from her tears, but she sipped at them anyway, drinking from the forbidden chalice.
Trey’s hands smoothed over her shoulders and traveled down over her jacket. Her hands were moving too, tracing a similar pattern over his coat. Her fingers found buttons at the same time his did. Their tongues tangled as her jacket fell from her shoulders and dropped to the floor. Trey sucked her bottom lip into his mouth as he went to work on her pants. She moaned as her finger fumbled with the button of his pants. They kept kissing each other, mindless with desire and heady pleasure until suddenly, their clothes were in a heap on the floor and her feet were no longer on said floor. They were wrapped around Trey’s very toned, very muscular, very naked waist. He spun then, ramming her up against the metal door. The thing was absolutely freezing, and she let out a little yelp.
“You okay?” Trey’s hands tightened on her waist.
“It’s just cold.”
“I promise it won’t be for long.”
The implication of what they were about to do washed through her. It happened so fast. One second, they were wearing clothes and she hated Trey, then bam, she was naked, and she wasn’t sure that she hated him at all. In fact, what she felt wasn’t even close to it.
“You are on the pill, Ambi?” Trey asked.
His cock throbbed against her stomach, long and thick. She glanced down because she couldn’t help herself and the sight of it, the tip engorged and swollen an angry red, made her head spin. It also made her womb clench up, her stomach ball into a mix of knots, her thighs tremble, and the space between them throb.
“I- you know- you know that I am.”
“I don’t know anything.” Trey insisted. He dropped his head and nuzzled her neck, trailing his hot tongue near her earlobe.
“Yes, well, I am. Still have the same- er- problems. It helps a lot.” From the time she could remember getting her cycle, the cramps had been unbearable. She’d actually been on the pill since she was fifteen. It was the only thing that toned down the excruciating pain. She felt her face heat up. “Of course, you wouldn’t know that. I- it’s been-”
“Too long.” Trey sucked her earlobe between his teeth, and she groaned.
“Still. If we’re- if we’re doing this-” She still couldn’t really believe that they were. Doing it. About to. In the same spot where they’d first done it back in college. Except this time, she wasn’t at all inebriated and neither was Trey. He’d planned the whole thing. Maybe there was a romantic bone in his body after all. And yeah. Not that bone.
“I’ll pull out.” Trey’s hot breath blasted all over her ear and the side of her face. She shivered violently. His cock kicked between them. Obviously, he liked the idea as much as she did. As much as she shouldn’t.
Fucking. Snowstorm.
If it wasn’t for that storm,
Trey never would have ended up at her apartment. He never would have been there. He would never have gotten naked. She would never have gotten partially naked. His tongue would never have sucked on her lady bits. Through her freaking panties. His fingers would never have ended up inside of her. He would never have driven her wild, reminded her of what she’d been missing with that little sampler, and leave her all restless and wanting more.
She did remember how well they used to fit. She remembered how Trey could make her feel like anything was possible when she was in his arms. How those arms were really the only place she’d ever truly wanted to be.
Trey crushed his mouth to hers, bruising her lips Was it so wrong to give in? Was it so terribly wrong to give him a second chance?
“Are you sure?” Trey asked, pulling back, panting. “Because I seriously need to know now, Ambi, if you don’t want this. I feel like your body is telling me that you do, but your head is saying something different. Only you can hear that though. You have to tell me. I don’t want to rush you. I don’t- I just don’t want to hurt you.” There was such anguish in Trey’s voice that it bit straight into Ambi’s soul. It sealed the deal for her.
This was Trey. The Trey she loved. The Trey she’d never stopped loving. She was safe with him. She was going to take that leap. The leap into that scary, unknown abyss and trust that he’d catch her before she fell. All she could do was trust. It wasn’t enough all those years ago, but maybe, just maybe, they were different people who’d done a whole lot of growing up and it could be enough in the present.
“Yes.” She looked right into Trey’s gorgeous eyes. “Yes, Trey, I’m sure.”
CHAPTER 15
Amberina
Trey’s lips were on hers the second the words dropped from her mouth. His tongue parted the seam of her lips and his taste- the masculine tang of him, mixed with the faded sweetness of rich coffee and a hint of cinnamon, gum maybe- flooded her mouth.