“No more,” she whispers. “No more.”
This time, I kiss her with the hunger I felt, the need to have her again. With my hands framing her face, I held her as she struggled to break our mouths apart. “Goddammit, Skye! Kiss me back!”
Then the tear slid over my thumb and I’d known…it really was over, really done.
“Don’t do this.” Looking down, I see her hands are flat against my chest, pushing me away. Every time we’d come together before, her words might have been telling me to go to hell, but her fingers had always been pulling me closer. I doubt she’d even known she was doing it, but I was well aware.
I step back, and watch as she wraps her arms around herself, closing her body off from mine. I’ve really lost you.
“I love him,” Skye says and the burn in my chest increases. “I don’t know if he’ll take me back or not, but I have to try.”
“You haven’t asked—”
She shakes her head. “I haven’t really talked to him since that night.”
That night. The night I’d wished I’d been Rhett. I’d been the one with her body pressed tightly against mine. The night she’d been so lost with him that she hadn’t even noticed when I left. That’s what I did, you know…I watched as Rhett ran his hands over her body. Like some voyeur, I’d watched as he’d commanded her to look at him, demanded she say his name when she orgasmed. When she did? I left. Her words so faint I almost didn’t hear them with the rain still hitting the windows. They’d hit me hard. There may have been a storm raging outside, but it was nothing compared to the cyclone known as Skye that had me running for cover with my tail between my legs.
“Love isn’t real,” I say out of the blue. “It’s all bullshit.”
“I used to think that too—”
“But?”
She peered out the window between the slats of the blinds as if her words would be out there. “But now I think it was just me. “ She looks at me. “I pretended it wasn’t real because I was scared of being left again.” She sighs. “Love always left me, left me alone and feeling abandoned.”
“It always ends, because the facade is too much work to keep up.”
“You really believe that, Jaden?”
I nod.
“I did, too.”
My pulse picks up as she turns and walks back toward the door.
“What changed your mind?” My voice came out low and the need to clear my throat was strong.
When she so carelessly took hold of the doorknob, like my heart wasn’t about to pound out of my own fucking ribcage, I fought not to go to her and beg her not to leave.
And there was the smile I needed so desperately. Beautiful. Had I ever told her she was beautiful? Yeah, I had, when my dick was buried inside of her, and I’m not sure that counts.
“Someone told me that I was easy to love,” she says shaking her head. “I’d always thought the opposite.”
And…she walked out of the same door she’d used to walk into my life, leaving me more confused than I’d ever felt. My attraction for her confused the hell outta me. The off the fucking charts sex confused the hell outta me. And the thought that I regretted having said it was only sex between us, and it could never be anything more, truly confused the fuck outta me.
The urge to go after her was so strong that my quads began to cramp. Okay, it could’ve been the leg day yesterday making itself known, but I don’t think so. I felt like going to her and telling her…like telling her…she was easy to love. That thought? It was the reason I didn’t leave the safety of my office walls. Skye was too easy to love.
Chapter Eighteen
**Rhett**
These trips to Pasadena were going to break me. I can’t believe—okay, I can believe, that Ryan left rehab and went on a bender. It had been too good to be true when I’d seen him completely sober on the family weekend. I hadn’t seen Ryan sober in…well, in years.
What I hadn’t planned on was having to come down here and go looking for him myself. The therapist I’d spoken to on the phone told me that there was nothing I could do—it was on Ryan’s shoulders not mine. That by stepping in and cleaning up his messes over and over, I was enabling him to continue down this fucked up path he was on. Most likely? True. But, he was still my brother and even though I say it’s the last time every damn time I know I’ll still go to him when I think he needs me. Needs me? Ry needs nothing but the fucking bottle just like our old man, maybe even more so.
My ears pop from the plane changing altitude as the pilot prepares for landing. Looking out the window, I wonder when I started seeing this place as home?
“Can I get you another seven & seven, sir?”
I notice immediately when the stewardess leaves her hand on my shoulder as she leans much farther down than necessary, giving me quite the view down her shirt. Wendy hasn’t been very coy since I boarded the flight leaving Pasadena. She’s flirted with me shamelessly and I know flirting without shame. I see it every day at work. The girls make it an art form at the club. The club. Thinking of going back to work tomorrow has my stomach turning—
“Can I get you anything, sir?” Wendy asks again.
I shake my head.
Nate told me that Skye works the same shift I do tomorrow. He’s also told me that she hasn’t been herself all week. I know I haven’t either. Ever since the threesome.
It’d started—rather I started it, because I wanted to prove to her that she was wanted. Crazy ass woman thought I’d taken my time with her because I wasn’t attracted to her? That couldn’t be the farthest thing from the truth. My way of thinking was that slow and steady wins the race, right? I wanted to win Skye for good. I’d known almost from the beginning that I wanted to be able to call her mine. I know it goes against her feminist attitude, but I’m just being truthful. Wanting Skye as mine for the long haul is what kept me from taking what I knew she’d given me so much sooner.
I thought I’d give her something Jaden hadn’t given her. A threesome. What I hadn’t expected was to want to kill the man when he had his hands on her skin. I’d hated him for knowing what it was like to be inside of my woman. I’d hated her for having her mouth on his cock even though I’d told her to do it. And most of all, I’d hated myself when I’d started fucking her with him there only to prove to Jaden exactly who Skye belonged to.
Jesus, it’s been over a week, and I haven’t reached out to her a single time. Nightly, I fought with myself when I wanted nothing more than to call her and tell her everything about Ryan, about how I missed her, and how I wanted to give us another try. Pride kept me from making that call though and maybe a little bit of fear. She’d cheated on me with that asshole—actually we never said we were exclusive, and we’d done nothing more than kissing. No wait, we’d done a shit ton more. We’d talked—really talked and I’d told her things I’d never shared with anyone before. That nothing was a whole lot of building a foundation for a relationship. Skye shook the hell outta that foundation, but I think we can move on and just keep building…if she’s willing to try. I’d swear on everything she’s worth it.
I’d pushed her into it that night with Jaden. Dickhead. Running my hand through my hair reminds me I really need to get it buzzed again. I’d given her an experience that she’d never forget. I wish I could forget. Not that I’d want to forget the way it felt to finally have her in my arms, being buried deep inside of her, or when she unraveled around me with my name falling from her lips. She’d told me that her pussy was mine because that’s what I’d demanded of her, but I wanted to hear that all of her was mine. We are so much more than the sex we’d had. We both deserved more than we’d given each other.