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That's where I had seen him before. He had been on the yacht with me and Taylor. “What can I help you with?” Turning my back on him was a risk, but it was one I was willing to take. I was pretty sure he wasn't there to kill me. If he’d had a gun, he would have shot the moment I opened the door.
Something hit the mattress in front of me. Something small and glass.
I didn’t need to look too closely at it to know what it was. Every atom in my body wanted to pick it up and bring it to my face. To see if it still smelled like her. But I didn’t move.
“Aren’t you wondering where I got that?”
I remained still. He was looking for a rise from me. And if I didn’t keep myself under control, if I took the bait, he would get one. A bloody, violent one.
“I took it from Taylor’s bedroom. She tried to hide it from me, but…” a small, low chuckle filled the room. It wasn’t loud, but it seemed like it. I closed my eyes at the sound.
This man, this man who had barged his way into my hotel room, had been in Taylor’s bedroom. My hands closed into a fist. It was the only reaction I gave him, but it was the only one he needed.
“Did you think she was yours?” His voice was smooth, but it dripped with mocking laughter. “She was never yours. She was always ours.”
Ours.
He had said ours and not mine. Forcing my fingers to relax, I turned to him.
“So what are you?” The mistake hadn't been deliberate. It had been a total slip of the tongue. But it told me a lot about him. Reckless, careless. His anger was making him foolish. Mine would only make me stronger. “Her lover, or the police?”
He laughed. “You’re perceptive, but why can’t I be both?”
An image flashed before my eyes. Back on the yacht when he had been filling up Taylor’s champagne glass, she had given him such a dazzling smile that it had instantly filled me with rage. He had been there every time I had been with her. Hovering in the background, always there when I had opened the cabin door.
Always fucking watching.
“You can be anything you want to be, as long as you do it out of my damn hotel room.”
“It still smells of her, you know.” He ignored my outburst totally. “Tastes like her. You don’t want to know how many times I’ve slipped that thing between my lips. She’s sweet, isn’t she?”
“Yes.” I closed my eyes in an attempt to banish the images his words formed in my mind.
“Does it hurt you to know she was playing with you? Leading you on and the entire time was feeding me information.” More laughter filled the room, which suddenly felt smaller. Like a prison cell. “Taylor likes her pillow talk, you know.”
Something felt off, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. “Does she?”
“Oh yes, after I’ve pounded her into the mattress, she likes to talk. She’s been spilling your secrets. And your boss's secrets.”
“I don’t have a boss.”
He rolled his eyes. “I just wanted you to know that I have enough information now about you to take you down for a long long time, and Taylor will be my star witness.”
“Well,” I puffed my chest out, every inch the preening peacock, “I wouldn't know anything about pillow talk. When I finished with her, she was too busy shaking and catching her breath to want idle chit-chat.” I grinned. Ever the asshole, that was me.
His face went red. His lips pursed. And just like that, I knew I had hit a nerve. It was a kick to his masculinity and he knew it. It didn't matter if he had slept with her or not really, but I was beginning to doubt he had ever touched her. If she was able to talk afterwards, if she had enough breath left in her lungs to do more than whimper, then he clearly wasn't doing right by her.
I didn't want anyone else inside Taylor’s body but me, but if she had to sleep with someone, I hoped it was someone who could please her more than this piece of lanky shit standing in front of me.
“Judge?”
I turned to the door. It wasn't my imagination. Taylor was on the other side of that door. Her voice was unmistakable. She hadn't knocked, but she had called my name.
She was here.
Eyes narrowing, and just daring him to try something, I opened it, using my body to block her view into the room.
“Oh–” Her eyes raked down to my unbuttoned shirt and the tip of her tongue appeared between her teeth. Two red spots heated her cheeks. “Hi.”
