It didn’t matter if there was more to his story or that he’d been honest with me when I’d asked or that he couldn’t really be blamed for loving a person that everyone loved, even me. All that mattered was that he’d said words to her that he still hadn’t officially said to me. I was the one who was supposed to belong to him. I was the one who deserved the sentiment, never mind my inability to say the words myself.
What mattered was that he’d said it to her, and that hurt.
I couldn’t be there anymore. Spinning away from him, I took off.
“Don’t walk away from me!” he yelled after me.
“This discussion is over!” I called back, not bothering to turn my head.
Again I felt his grip on my upper arm as he pulled me to an abrupt stop. “The conversation is over when I say it’s over.” The menacing warning in his tone caused my heart to flip. My breath stuttered, and I wondered if he knew it wasn’t just because he’d startled me or because I’d exerted myself.
The gleam in his eye said that he did.
I couldn’t stand that gleam. Couldn’t bear what it did to me, how it made me sizzle and melt like it was a branding iron on my skin.
I yanked my arm away. “I can’t talk to you right now.”
He grabbed me again, this time at both of my wrists. “You don’t have to talk. You just have to listen.”
Listening was even worse. He’d either say something I didn’t want to hear, or worse, he’d say something that I did. So I struggled to get away.
“Stop fighting me.” His grasp tightened.
But I was fierce. I was desperate. I had more on the line, and even though he would always be able to overpower me, I was determined to make him work for it.
Even in front of all the people around, he wasn’t afraid to take me on. I raised my arm and twisted underneath so that I was facing away from him, my hands trapped behind me.
“Goddammit, Emily, sometimes I want to throw you down and tie you up like you’re one of the calves.” With a grunt, he tugged my back into his chest and crossed his arms around me like he was a straightjacket.
I pushed against him once more, but it was useless. He had me.
He had me in more ways than one. Even though I was upset, his embrace made my stomach spin and my head grow light, and the expert way he’d overcome me begged me to yield.
Yes, he had me.
“Are you done now?”
I huffed but I’d given up struggling. With him, anyway. I was still struggling with myself. Still fighting against my wants.
“Good,” he said, his breath skidding against my ear. Thank God my shirtsleeves were long and he couldn’t see the goose bumps on my arms.
“Now,” he adjusted his grip, and I swore I felt his cock thickening at my ass. “Yes. I told her that I loved her. I told her I loved her but that things have changed.”
Things had changed. Everything had changed when he said those words to her. And to tell me about it while he was hard against me? It was wickedly unfair.
He was silent for a beat, as if he thought that what he’d said or how his body reacted to holding me should have some impact.
When I didn’t respond, he let out a sigh of frustration and released his grip.
I stumbled forward but managed to stay on my feet. It pissed me off as much that he’d let me go as that he’d restrained me in the first place. And it pissed me off that it pissed me off. I considered taking off again, but what would be the point?
So I stayed put, my back to him, rubbing my wrists, red from how tightly he’d gripped them.
“I told her I wasn’t the man I’d been when she left, Emily.” There was the barest hint of an appeal in his timbre. “And that she couldn’t walk back in here and expect things to be the same.”
I threw back my head and swallowed down a sob. If that had been all he’d said, if he’d left out the part where he loved her, maybe she would have heard it how he meant it.
But there’s something about that four-letter word that’s magical. It can erase everything else. So who could blame her for hearing only that? Who could blame me for noticing its absence when he spoke to me?
I twisted to look at him. “What else?”
He shook his head. “That was it. I didn’t say anything else.” His expression was unguarded. Open. It was maybe the most transparent he’d ever been with me, and even if his lips didn’t say it right then, his eyes urged me to remember he had, in his way, told me he’d loved me too. I could have been moved, if I’d let myself.
But Amber had opened up to me today as well. Either I let her words move me, or his. It was like a tug-of-war with my sympathies. Who could pull harder on my heartstrings? I’d have to choose. And I didn’t want to choose between them.
It was easier to just be pissed.
“Well, congratulations,” I said, sarcasm spilling from my tongue. “You’ve sure created a mess, haven’t you.”
His body tensed as he cocked his head at me. “How exactly do you figure that I’ve made a mess?”
“You led her on!” Behind him, a couple of the ranchers watched our argument with interest.
Reeve kept his focus directly on me, seemingly oblivious to everyone else. “I think I was pretty damn straightforward.”
“Pretty damn straightforward would have been you telling her that you wanted me.” He should have been the one to decide. Not me. I couldn’t.
I wouldn’t.
“After you’d made it abundantly clear that you wanted to be the one who told her?” He threw his eyes toward the sky. “Jesus, Emily. I’m damned if I did and damned if I didn’t. There is no winning with you.”