“You should come over to swim. Naked.”
“Naked, huh? Is that a requirement?” I’d been naked under the sheet at his spa. The memory of it set my stomach fluttering. His hands on me had been beyond amazing, but even just being bare in his presence, being stripped, vulnerable – that feeling was amazing as well. Amazing and terrifying, without his threats, but also because of them.
Reeve leaned against the back of my couch and braced a hand on either side of him. “It’s a preference.”
“Of yours.” I toed off my tennis shoes and set them in the hallway to my bedroom.
“I believe of yours too. Except, you’re playing games with me.”
“No. I’m not.” Since he was watching, I pulled my tank over my head and tossed it past him to the back of the couch. The sports bra I wore underneath was supportive but revealing.
“Uh-huh.” He grinned, but the look on his face suggested he despised my teasing as much as he welcomed it. Eyes locked with mine, he picked up the sweaty shirt, brought it to his nose, and sniffed.
Some people would find that disgusting. Some people would not be turned on by the way his pants seemed tighter than they’d been a moment before. Some people would not be fantasizing about the other vulgar, vile things that a man like Reeve got off on.
I tried to pretend that I was one of them. “Perv.”
He grinned and gave me a pointed look. “You were the one who looked about to come just now.”
“Oh, honey, don’t even think that you can imagine what I look like when I come.” I only thought to regret the words when I heard them hanging in the air after I’d said them. Reeve’s expression twisted, dark and sinful, and I knew he felt provoked. Why wouldn’t he? That was exactly what I’d been doing – testing him. Baiting him. Daring him.
He stared at me intently, like a lion hunting its prey. Studied me so long and so hard that I could swear he saw past my façade, past my skin and bones and internal organs. Saw past whatever it was that made up my physical structure and into the parts of me that were cryptic and complicated and concealed. Saw into the parts of us we had in common – the dark parts, the broken parts, the Amber parts.
Maybe it was too ugly to look at for long because he turned away first, circling around the sofa toward my bookcase. “Tell me something,” he said, overtly switching gears. “What’s with you and Chris Blakely?”
He’d been watching me at the Expo, then. Before he’d come outside after me.
His question about Chris was spoken casually, but it was purposeful. A more naïve woman might have missed it, but I was too experienced with men like him. He wanted me to know that I was in his sightline. That this was what it meant to be part of his life. That he would monitor me, if he felt like it; he’d rule me. And he expected me to submit.
I couldn’t decide if that freaked me out or thrilled me.
So I played coy. “He’s an actor. We’ve worked together on occasion. I guess we’re friends.”
I walked into the kitchen and got a glass from the cupboard. Chewing my lip, I filled it with filtered water from the sink and debated full disclosure regarding Chris. On the one hand, Reeve might be asking about him because he already knew I’d had a past with him and he wanted me to admit it.
But no one knew about that.
And there was the other reason he might be asking – maybe he didn’t want me to find out what Chris knew about him.
It was a long shot, but since I hoped to contact Chris for more information about Missy at some point, I decided the less I said the better.
I drank some of my water then set the glass down and leaned across the counter to watch Reeve. His fingers trailed across the spines. I couldn’t see the exact books, so I tried to think what was there. My Katherine Hepburn autobiography. My copy of Rebecca.
He stopped and pulled one from the shelf then flipped through it lazily. This one I recognized from the cover. PostSecret: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives, one of my coffee table books. I collected them and had so many that most lived on my bookshelf rather than on my coffee table. This particular book was a printing of blog posts that shared secrets anonymously. Parts of it read like my diary, and I’d marked several pages with Post-it notes so I could easily come back to them. Reading it had always felt comforting.
Seeing it in Reeve’s hands, though, wasn’t comforting. He flipped through the pages, stopping on the ones I’d tagged. Chuckling at some. Growing somber at others. At one, he lifted his head toward me and nodded slightly as if confirming what he’d just thought, what he’d just read.
I ran through several confessions I knew by heart, trying to imagine which it had been:
Again and again. Used.
I’m more scared of court than I was when he almost killed me.
I would do absolutely anything in the whole world if I thought it would make her happy.
Whichever ones he was reading, any of them – all of them – were private. Too private for him to know they spoke to me. Yet, I didn’t stop him. I let him sink one layer deeper under my skin.
It was bad enough that he was in my apartment – in an apartment that I paid for myself. His presence reminded me of a time when everything I owned had been given to me by men. The things I had now, though small in number and worth, were all mine.
Trying to distract myself from the anxiety Reeve’s invasion caused, I asked, “Why do you want to know about Chris anyway? Do you want me to fix you up? He’s got a fiancée, you know.”
Reeve shot me a glare. “Cute.”