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“Do you really want to talk about that?”
“I’m just wondering…”
She trails off and a long moment passes. I don’t move, but I hear Rayla walking over to the couch and dropping down. I hear Tanker walk into the room and leap onto the couch, his little paws scrabbling at the fabric. I hear Rayla talking to him in cute baby babble, showing me know what an incredible mother she’s going to be.
“I guess we’re going to try and ignore this, then,” she says after a long time.
“What do you want to know?”
“You know how you said you felt about me?”
We should stop. We’re getting too close to dangerous territory. But I’m pulled in too deep, submerged in my obsession.
“Yes.”
“Did you feel the same about Millie’s mother? She said you weren’t very close. Millie, I mean. You told her that.”
I nod. “She asked me a question when she was ten years old. She asked if we’d had a fairytale relationship. So I told her the truth. No, no we did not. Millie is the best thing that ever happened to me, better than any success in my writing career, better than any story. But she was not planned. I told her that, and I told her I loved her. I didn’t regret her one bit.
“But no, no, no, Rayla. I’ve never felt for anybody what I feel for…”
I clench my fists tight, squeezing them so that the tension moves through my forearms and my shoulders, even my neck. Everything is tight and ready to blow.
“I don’t understand it,” I growl. “One look at you and I knew. I knew straight away. It’s like I’ve been waiting my whole life to meet you. I have this emptiness inside of me, Rayla, this fucking hole. Maybe it’s because I was raised like an animal and had to claw my way up for a chance to be something more. Maybe it’s because I’m broken. But when I looked at you, the second I laid eyes on you, there was no hole. There was just…”
“Peace,” she whispers.
She’s far closer to me than I thought, her voice purring beneath the rain.
I turn and stare down at her. She’s a touch away, her hands clasped in front of her, her bottom lip prisoner to her teeth.
“You need to stop doing that,” I growl.
“Doing what?”
“Biting your goddamn lip. It drives me insane. It makes me think...things I shouldn’t be thinking. It makes me think you’re soaked down there, and all I’d have to do is…”
I step forward and raise my hand, gliding it along her thigh. She whimpers and shivers as I get higher and higher, as I bring my hand to her sex and rub my finger against her clit.
“Oh, fuck,” I growl. “You’re so receptive. You’re so damn horny. Your body needs my seed, doesn’t it, angel?”
“Yes, yes,” she moans. “I need you so—”
The alarm blares through the cabin, ringing so loudly even the storm seems quiet. I step back as a thought occurs to me, pounding into my head, twisting through me, and making me ache inside.
Meeting her eyes, I can see Rayla’s having the same thought. It’s written into her expression, etched into the way she’s looking at me, into the wideness of her eyes and the fear quivering there.
“Is it Millie?”
Chapter Fifteen
Rayla
I sit in the living room, staring down at my feet, as guilt barrels through me. Twisting up my insides, crushing through everything I am, through everything I thought I was.
A loyal friend, a good person.
But it happened again. My desire for Roman exploded and suddenly it was like I wasn’t even in control, with the need pounding through me, deafening me to everything else. When he pushed his hand against my sex, my resolve melted and my core grew sopping wet, and then as he rubbed, I knew I was going to cream soon for him.
But then the alarm blared. Somebody was in the house.
“Of course it wasn’t Millie,” I murmur, shaking my head.
One of the doors blew open in the storm, setting off the alarm. Roman has fixed it and adjusted the alarm’s settings now.
“She would’ve used her key.” Roman laughs gruffly from the other side of the room. “I guess we’ve got guilty consciences, don’t we?”
I look up, my gaze roaming over him. He sits in the armchair, leaning back, his strong jaw tense and his iron hair messy from where he keeps rubbing his fingers through it. He holds Tanker in his lap, absentmindedly stroking him. When our eyes meet, he turns to the window, to the lake, as though he can’t stand to look at me.
Shivers course me because I know why he can’t look at me. He gets too excited, the same way the excitement blares up inside of me when I look at him.
“Yes, I’d say so.” I sigh. “It’s so wrong, isn’t it, Roman?”
