I clutched my hand to my chest, hoping to ease the cramp at my breastbone.
“We were ready to spend our lives together,” Amber said, somberly. “Remember?”
Reeve responded with a bitter edge. “I was ready to spend my life with you. I don’t recall that you were.”
He’d surprised her with a wedding. No warning. No proposal. It was probably one of the most dominant things I’d heard he’d done.
“I was scared,” she said. “You didn’t give me time to prepare. You know that.” Her voice caught and she had to clear her throat before going on. “Then you were scared. Scared to lose me, remember?”
She’d tried to run, and that was when he’d kept her from leaving, against her will.
“I remember all of it, Amber.” Regret thickened his voice. “And like any good history lesson, I’ve learned what not to do again.”
“Then let’s not repeat our past. Let’s be something new.” She fell to her knees in front of him, her hand on his thigh. “I could be different for you now. I’ve learned how to be different. I can be what you want now.”
I’d never seen her that submissive, that demure. Her hand moved up his thigh, nearer to the bulge in his lap.
This time he grabbed her upper arm. “I think you can see that I’m not interested.”
She glanced down in the area of his cock, which I assumed was soft. “Because you’re so tense. Let me fix that.” She rose and returned to massaging his shoulders.
“Amber, I’m tired.” Too tired to argue – I could hear it in his voice. So tired that he’d let her seduce him?
I didn’t want to watch.
Dammit, I didn’t want there to be anything to watch. So she wanted him. So she would be good for him. Well, I’d be good for him too. And I wanted him more than anything I’d ever wanted. I wanted him to push her away once and for all. I wanted him to be mine and only mine.
And I had the power to stop what was happening. All I had to do was stand up and decide to use it. All I had to do was claim him.
But I was transfixed with the spectacle in front of me, unable to act. Amber was stroking down his arms now. Even from where I was sitting I could tell that her touch was too light. Reeve preferred firm. The gentle caress would never help him relax.
Still he let her continue. And then she was leaning down to kiss his ear. And his neck. And his jaw.
And he wasn’t moving or brushing her away because, somehow, he’d found me in the darkness.
His eyes widened and they locked with mine, sending a bolt of electricity through me so heavily charged that my pulse thrummed everywhere along my veins. His gaze was a prison. I couldn’t move my focus from him, couldn’t move at all. Like a wild animal caught in the sight line of a predator, I was frozen and alarmed.
He sat forward, his legs tensing as if he were ready to pounce. Ready to chase me. My heart knocked louder against my rib cage. So loud I was certain that any second she’d hear it and discover me.
But she remained oblivious, while, in my periphery, I was aware of her still – of her hands sliding down his chest, of her voice when she exclaimed, “Looks like you’re interested now.”
So he was hard. And his eyes were still fastened stubbornly on mine.
It was less decision and more primal instinct that knocked me from my stupor. I leapt from my chair and darted noiselessly through the closest door of the building behind me.
He would follow – I practically felt him bound out of his chair after me. But he had to make his excuses to Amber then he had a pool to circle around and I had a head start. Once I was through this hallway, it was only a quick diagonal sprint across the common area before I’d be safe in my room. Not that a locked door could stop Reeve if he were determined.
I emerged from the hall and was three steps into the room before I saw him. He’d come in the other door, cutting me off. He stilled, ready to give chase if I fled from him.
But I didn’t run away. I walked toward him.
He met me and our mouths crashed together. He devoured me, and I consumed him. I inhaled him. I took him into my very self in deep gulps of tongue and lips, my hands wrapped so tightly around him, they were a vice grip at his neck.
He walked me backward until my back hit the wall and pressed firmly against me, locking me in place, his erection throbbing against my belly through the thin cloth of his swim trunks.
Gripping my ass in his hands, he tilted my hips to stroke his cock. “This is for you,” he said against my mouth, breathless. “Not her.”
“I know.” I pushed my body into him. “You moved her to the master bedroom,” I said, sinking my teeth into his jaw. “I thought you were sleeping with her. Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t?”
He gathered the damp strands of my hair and pushed them behind my shoulders. “I might have wanted you to think that I was.”
“You wanted me jealous.” I could have kicked him if I wasn’t so busy tasting every inch of his skin.
He lowered his forehead to mine. “I wanted you to realize that you still want me.”
I pulled back so he could see my eyes. “I always realized that I wanted you.”
“Shh,” Reeve mouthed, putting a finger over my mouth. I listened and heard a loud knock sound from the hallway he had entered through. Someone – Amber – rapping on a door.
He pulled me around the corner, hiding us in the opposite hallway. “She’s at my room,” he whispered. “The door’s locked. She won’t know I’m not in there.”