“I don’t like the way you say it,” I interrupted.
Her eyes dropped to my mouth. There was a breath of silence. The barest breath of space, and her body swayed the slightest bit in my direction, before she blinked, snapping her eyes back to mine. “I’m sorry, I’m just taken aback, because I don’t even know your actual name”—
I cut her off by taking hold of her hip and pressing her back to the wall. My mouth landed on hers rougher than I’d ever kissed her before. I swallowed her gasp before her hands trailed into the hair at the base of my skull and pulled me to her. Her back arched, pressing her body even tighter to mine. Into the kiss I poured all the irritation and pain she’d caused me over the past day, as well as every moment I’d missed her over the past few months.
She took it all and gave it back. An echo of desire and pent-up anger.
Hooking her leg around my hip, she rocked against my erection. A groan rumbled from deep within my throat.
I needed her. Every breath was full of her. It was like she was sinking into my cells carried on the oxygen filling my lungs. I just wanted more of her. I wanted to give her more. Let her have everything, even as I knew I wouldn’t be enough.
I couldn’t give her enough.
One of her hands moved down my chest to wrap around my waist, and she let out a frustrated whine as if no matter how she tried there was too much space between our bodies.
I gripped her thigh, my fingers digging into the bare skin of her leg.
I was about to pick her up and bring her to my room, when the elevator doors opened and the sound of a family with young children filled the hallway.
Sadie and I pulled apart, no longer able to pretend we were somewhere private instead of the somewhat hidden alcove around her hotel door.
She breathed in deeply, the daze in her blue eyes gradually fading. It was very quickly replaced by an outrage that didn’t seem entirely directed at me.
Turning back to her door, she dug into her skirt pockets and then held her hair away from her face as she looked on the carpet by her feet. She snatched her key card up from where she’d dropped it.
She didn’t look at me, didn’t say anything to me, just mumbled, “Oh myfuckingGod,” and disappeared into her room.
Leaving me to wonder, just how much I’d fucked everything up.
Chapter 6
Sadie
Iwaited in my leggings and tennis shoes under the awning at the hotel’s front entrance. My sweatshirt was almost too thin for the breeze coming off the ocean and the gray clouds overhead. I was running through my second round of,Where the fuck is Jamison?When a white Jeep with a black top came to a stop in front of me. Jamison leaned across the center counsel and extended one long arm to push the passenger side door open from the inside. I tightened my jaw willing myself to not find every fucking thing about him sexy—not his tousled sandy brown hair, or the sunglasses on his long straight nose. And definitely not the lopsided quirk of his lips like he was unsure if it was okay to smile at me.
Which, annoyingly, I didn’t know if it was okay either.
Maybe if he hadn’t ruined my fucking night with that...kiss. Could I even call it that? When just the memory of it shot electricity through my body and made me gasp.
On one hand, clearly he wanted me. But on the other, he didn’t want me the way Ihadwanted him. He wasn’t yearning for a relationship or partnership with me. Maybe he’d ached for my body the way I did his—I’d had to unpack my vibrator to fall asleep, and even then, I’d woken up in the middle of the night from a dream that was part memory, part fantasy.
I still could not believe that that man and the older brother to the man my sister was marrying was one and the same. Mike’s description of the loyal brother who had given up an education at his dream Ivy-League school to be more help to their mom, did not line up with the same guy that claimed to have “an early morning” in order to not spend the night.
Texting Alicia as soon as my alarm went off that morning to report the man from the airplane and Fuckboy Lawyer were the same, was quite the reveal. But then admitting how he’d kissed me and I’d lost my damn mind had been equivalent to my most embarrassing walk of shame. I could tell that she was pulling a lot of best friend love and patience—and probably empathy considering the roles had been reversed not too long ago—when she warned me to be very clear about what I wanted.Can you trust him?she’d texted.
I didn’t have an answer for her.
I slid into the passenger seat instantly greeted by the rich scent of coffee filling the car.
“Sorry I’m late.” He ran his hands up and down the steering wheel before gripping it. “I grabbed us lattes.”
I had never seen him behave with any uncertainty. Usually, he was abrupt and direct. He held a command of every room.
Yet, I had him on his back foot.
The question was, did I care?
I took the cup he held out to me, careful to not let my fingers brush his. “I only had time for the little single serving machine in my room this morning.”
