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I can’t help it, my body tenses at her words. Something about the way she says them, which is part resignation and part determination, scares the crap out of me. “I am?”
Amelia laughs and it goes straight to my dick, her sensuality curling around me like delicious sin.
She pats my arm. “Yes. I’m Tink and you’re Beck and that’s how we’ll always be.”
This feels like a trap and I don’t see the way out or even what the danger is. I get the absurd feeling that I know how a fly in a spider web feels now.
“I am going to head back to the city tonight.”
Surprise moves through me, her comment seeming to come from left field, and I set my glass down on a table close to me and turn back to her. “Why? You never mentioned it before.”
Amelia juts her chin out stubbornly as she places her hands on her hips. “I have a date tomorrow.”
I fold my arms and for a split second, I’m sure I see hunger in her eyes as she looks at my chest. I’d lost my jacket earlier that day and my shirt sleeves are folded up my forearms, showcasing the tattoos there. When she blinks, the desire I thought I saw is gone and I want to smack myself upside the head for grasping at something that doesn’t exist.
She has a date. Of course she does. Amelia is beautiful, smart, driven, and sweet, which to any man with a heartbeat is a heady combination. It is only a matter of time before some asshole sweeps her off her feet and takes her away from me forever. “Who with?”
“Nobody you know.”
“Name?”
She folds her own arms, her temper flaring and, sick prick that I am, my dick gets harder, and I have to take a step back so she won’t feel it. This isn’t us, but I can’t help being combative about this and she’s no better. It feels like she’s pushing for a reaction from me, and I don’t know which one to give her. How I truly feel, which is sick with jealousy and the desire to tell her she can’t go, or be the friend she loves and tell her to be careful and wish her luck. The last one sours my stomach.
“I’m not telling you his name.”
“Fine. I’ll ask Ryker to find out.”
Ryker is a technical wizard, and the fact he owns the biggest social media company in the world doesn’t hurt.
Amelia closes her lips in a tight line and breathes through her nose as if she’s a raging bull. She has a mean temper, which is how she got the name Tinkerbell. We’d watched Peter Pan together. Because she was petite like the character but played with the boys like Tink did, and had a mean temper when riled, I’d decided in my wisdom to start calling Amelia that and it had stuck.
“Don’t you dare.”
I lean forward, putting my face close to hers and her breath hitches in anger. “I dare.”
“You’re an asshole sometimes.”
“Agreed. Now tell me.”
“Why?”
I’m stunned silent for a second at her question and the soft almost hopeful way she asks me. “Because I’m your friend, and it’s my duty to make sure you don’t date assholes.”
I don’t know what I said but it’s like the light goes out behind her eyes, her whole body seems to sag in defeat.
“No. I’m not your duty, Beck, and I can take care of myself.”
She turns on her heel and walks away, heading for the cabin where she’s staying tonight.
For a second I’m unsure how to proceed, but then my protective instincts get the better of me or at least that’s what I tell myself. I see a flash of her hair as she rounds the corner and slow my roll, trying to get myself under control before I confront her again. I don’t want to push her away, but the thought of any man spending time with her, touching her, kissing her, makes me unhinged. Every move I make these days seems to be the wrong one, and for the first time in our friendship, I don’t know which way to go.
I hear her door slam shut and sigh, running a hand through my hair as I raise my fist to knock. I pause as the sound on the other side of the door hits me in the chest.
Soft sobs, muffled by the distance. Anguished and desperate and I caused them, and it kills me. I might be a hard ass, arrogant, and self-involved but never with Amelia. She’s the one person in this world who truly knows my every secret. Who I’d lie down in the road and die for, and because of me her heart is breaking.
Without conscious thought, I turn the doorknob and push open the door. She is lying face down across the bed at an angle, her body shaking as she cries into the pillow. She has no concept that I’m here, her cries drowning out the sound of my entrance. Her skirt is shucked up her legs and I have to drag my eyes away from her sexy as fuck legs to her shoulders, which shake uncontrollably.
I don’t think, I just move on instinct, sliding on to the bed behind her as she gasps and looks up.
