by Thorpe, Elle
Only the Beginning
Only You, #4
Elle Thorpe
www.ellethorpe.com
Copyright © 2019 by Elle Thorpe
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Editing by Emmy from Studio ENP.
For my beautiful sister, Michela. Here’s something to read during 2am baby duty.
Contents
1. Bianca
2. Riley
3. Bianca
4. Riley
5. Bianca
6. Bianca
7. Riley
8. Bianca
9. Riley
10. Riley
11. Riley
12. Bianca
13. Bianca
14. Bianca
15. Riley
16. Riley
17. Bianca
18. Bianca
19. Riley
20. Bianca
21. Riley
22. Bianca
23. Bianca
24. Riley
25. Bianca
26. Riley
27. Bianca
28. Riley
29. Bianca
30. Bianca
31. Riley
32. Bianca
33. Riley
34. Bianca
35. Bianca
36. Bianca
37. Riley
38. Bianca
39. Riley
40. Riley
41. Bianca
42. Riley
43. Riley
44. Bianca
Epilogue
Sneak Peek! Only the Positive
Chapter Two
Also by Elle Thorpe
Acknowledgments
About the Author
1
Bianca
“Fuck, you have great tits.”
I checked my watch. Wow. What a compliment, and not even ten minutes into the date. I fought to keep from rolling my eyes, and instead, smiled tightly at the dickhead sitting across the table from me.
He was a handsome dickhead, with his dirty-blond hair and chiselled jaw. His collared white shirt clung to a muscular frame, tanned skin on display where he’d left several buttons undone. Not just several. Half his shirt, really. I could see the tops of his abs. He obviously thought it was sexy, and maybe his shit come-on lines, if that was what that had been, worked on some people. Maybe he just flashed that fake white smile, told women their tits were great, and they threw their underwear at him.
Vomit.
“You wanna get outta here?” he asked, voice smooth as silk.
“What?” I stuttered. Was he serious? Our waiter had barely had time to take our entree order. “What about dinner?”
He shrugged, and then one eye kind of half closed, and he went back to smirking at me.
I stifled a laugh. Was that supposed to be a sexy wink? It looked more like an eye twitch. Suddenly, I regretted every single one of my life choices that had led to this moment.
“Sure, we can eat. If you really want.”
What I really wanted was a drink. And to yell at my best friend for making me come on a ridiculous Tinder date anyway. I should have known better than to take advice from someone who had been with her husband for ten years and had probably never even downloaded a hookup app.
“Excuse me for a moment.” I picked up my bag and carried it to the bathrooms, pulling out my phone while I locked the stall door behind me. At least it was nice in here. The tiles were black marble, or at least imitation marble, and the fittings glinted silver under chrome lights. Sitting on the closed lid of the toilet, I called Reese.
“I hate you,” I moaned when she answered.
“What did I do?”
“You made me come on this stupid date! The guy’s opening line was to tell me my tits were great, and he’s already giving me the come-on. He’s probably going to ask me for anal before we even get to dessert at this rate.”
Reese snorted on her laugh. But I was serious, so it didn’t seem all that funny. “I should have never come.”
That sobered her. “Why not? You keep telling me there’s nothing between you and Ri—”
“Don’t say his name!” I cut her off, imagining one hand on her hip and a frown creasing the space between her eyebrows.
She sighed. “B, he’s one of our best friends. His name is going to come up.”
“No, he’s one of your best friends.”
“Come on, you know that’s not true. He cares about you, and you care about him, in some weird, demented sort of way. Not that anyone else would know it with the way you two go at each other like pit bulls in a dogfight.”
I sighed. She was right. But I wished she’d stop. She was only making things worse. Every time his name was said out loud, all it did was make me think about the last time we’d been together. And all the times before that.
“You’re thinking about him, aren’t you? B, you gotta stop this. You and Riley—”
“Aaaah!”
She was rolling her eyes for sure.
“Fine. You and the man who shall not be named, you can’t keep doing whatever the hell you’ve been doing for the past ten years. Just tell him you love him and live happily ever after already.”
Jeez, she was over the top. And I was supposed to be the actress. Maybe I should get her a job on my show. “You said it yourself, Reese. All we do is fight.”
“And fuck.”
My cheeks heated at the thought. Yes. We fucked. A lot.
“We don’t work. We can barely be in the same room as each other without a screaming match breaking out. Yeah, there’s chemistry there. There always has been. We scratch an itch for each other from time to time. But chemistry isn’t the grounds for a relationship.”
There was a moment of silence, then, “I know.”
“Are you pouting?” I asked with a laugh. I knew our friends wanted Riley and me to get our shit together, but it was never going to happen. There was nothing between us. Nothing but history. And history should stay in the past. “Look, I’m ditching this date.”
“No, wait. Stop. You know I’m Team Riley but I’m also Team Bianca. Tell me, once and for all, there’s really nothing there between you two, and I will never mention it again.”
Ugh, the woman was exasperating sometimes. “There’s nothing between us,” I said truthfully. “I mean it, Reese. I need you to have my back. You know I have no willpower around him. I need a boyfriend. I wouldn’t still be having casual sex with him if I had someone else. That’s why you made me come here, remember?”
“Right. No more sleeping with Riley. I shall never speak of the two of you again. Now get back out there and give that guy a proper chance. Maybe he was just nervous.”
I doubted the dickhead had ever been nervous. And I also doubted Reese would never speak of Riley and me again. I’d told her just last week that I was done giving in to my basic urges, which was why I’d agreed to come on a Tinder date. Riley and I hadn’t dated in ten years. It was time to put whatever we were to each other to bed. To start acting like grown adults. Not horny twenty-somethings who hated each other but couldn’t keep their hands to themselves.
But goddammit. Was the dickhead waiting for me in the restaurant really the answer? Riley and I might have spent years arguing, but he’d never leered at me the way Dickhead had.
“Okay, I’m going back to deal with Prince Not So Charming.” I laughed, though it sounded fake even to my own ears.
I said goodbye to Re
ese and pushed open the bathroom door. I’d been in there for ages and I semi hoped my date might have given up and gone home. I slid my bag strap up on my shoulder, flicked my hair back off my face, and lifted my head.
And froze. My gaze collided with familiar brown eyes, and heat swept through my body like a wildfire. I swore quietly under my breath.
Riley.
This was exactly why he was the man who should not be named. Because everything about him, his name, his beautiful face, his smouldering gaze—everything about him scrambled my senses. I’d never been able to think straight around him. There had always been something between us. Something so damn strong it had a force of its own. Something strong enough that it had withstood ten years.
I faltered. Images of the last time we’d been together flashed in front of my eyes. His lips on my neck. My legs wrapped around his back. His cock buried deep inside me and my orgasm roaring through my core.
Fuck.
I had to stop this. My date was waiting for me. And, with a start, I noticed Riley was on a date of his own. The realisation hit me like a punch to the stomach. The woman across from him chatted happily, not seeming to notice that he’d been staring at me since I’d walked out of the bathroom. Jealousy flared in my chest. It wasn’t like we kept each other updated on our lives, but surely Reese would have told me if he was seeing someone. Her husband was his best friend after all. She had to have known…
I couldn’t stop staring, his eyes holding me to the spot. The air between us crackled with an energy so tangible I could practically see it. I shook my head slightly. Get a grip. He wasn’t mine. He hadn’t been mine in so long, I had no right to be jealous. Dragging my gaze away from him, I pulled back my shoulders and made my way to my table.
I knew he was watching me. And despite knowing I shouldn’t, I liked it.
2
Riley
“Do you know her?”
I whipped my head back to focus on my date. Cora. The woman from the office of the construction company I worked for. I didn’t go in there much, just a few times a month to drop off paperwork. But she always flirted with me, and she was gorgeous, with long auburn hair and big green eyes. She’d lined them in black tonight, and her lips were plump and red. She was a flat-out siren, really. Just…not the siren I wanted.
“Uh. No,” I lied. “Sorry. She just looks like someone I know.”
“Isn’t it funny when that happens? When I was in high school…”
Her voice faded into the noise of the restaurant, and I smiled, nodded and occasionally made encouraging sounds when she paused for breath. She was a talker. But that was fine, because I wasn’t.
Cora filled me in on her entire high school experience while I fought every muscle in my body. Every instinct screamed that Bianca was close by. I curled my fingers around the tabletop, digging my fingers into the hard wood, struggling to keep myself out of her magnetic pull. It was an almost painful feeling by now. Being in the same room as her but not touching her. It was the same physical ache that hadn’t let up for even a minute since she’d broken my heart ten years ago. Fuck.
Cora excused herself to go to the bathroom, a welcome relief, and I reached for my phone, listening to the voicemail message Low had sent me earlier in the week.
“Listen, bro. Reese would kill me if she knew I was telling you this. But Bianca was over here last night, and, well…she told Reese she doesn’t want to do the fighting hate-sex thing you two have been doing anymore. She said it’s holding her back, and I’m sorry, man, but I think she’s right. She’s holding you back, too. Have you even dated at all in the past decade? You’re going to end up one of those old men who sits on his porch and yells at the neighbourhood kids if you keep this up. Just…I don’t know. Branch out. Leave B alone. You guys have been there, done that. It didn’t work. I know it’s not my business, but maybe it’s time to accept that. See you at football on Saturday.”
I stabbed the cancel button. I’d listened to the message probably fifty times the day he’d sent it. At first, I’d been pissed off and ready to storm over there and tell him exactly where to shove his shit advice. What did he know about Bianca and me? We were…complicated.
But the more I’d listened, the more my anger had dissipated. Nothing he’d said was a lie. Every time I saw her, we somehow ended up in an argument, or we ended up not talking at all and just started ripping clothes off. There was no middle ground. Nothing solid to build on. Just the glimmering memory of something magical that had turned sour.
A loud scrape of a chair caught my attention, and I took the opportunity to swivel backwards, my gaze landing on Bianca’s lithe frame. She was shaking her head at her date, her expression full of irritation. I picked up my wine glass, forcing myself to take a sip and remain seated. I didn’t like the way he was leering at her. He said something back to her, then she threw her hands in the air and stormed away from him.
I frowned, though pleased she was ending her date. The guy was a complete tool. Who did he think he was anyway? He looked like an over-tanned, washed-up Hollywood wannabe who was past his prime. But I didn’t like that she was upset. I followed her with my eyes until she disappeared around a corner into the depths of the restaurant and I lost sight of her. My gaze narrowed on the over-buffed jerk she’d been out with. He didn’t try to go after her. Just pulled her plate of food across the table and started eating. I let out a long breath, trying to calm the protective urge to go after her and make sure she was okay. If Low’s message was true, and I had no reason to doubt him, Bianca didn’t want me around. I’d half-heartedly tried this before. Avoiding her. I’d tried it many times, actually. But she was like a drug I couldn’t quit. And she seemed to feel the same about me. Every time I’d managed to leave her alone, inevitably, she’d turn up somewhere I was, and we’d fall back into our same old routine. We weren’t together. We hadn’t been since we were barely older than teenagers. And yet we couldn’t seem to get out of each other’s bubbles.
Cora leant in and raked her fingernails gently across my forearm. I hadn’t even noticed her return. She had her breasts pushed so high they practically spilled from her dress. What the fuck was wrong with me? Sitting here, pining away over a woman I’d never been able to have. A woman who clearly didn’t want me, not for anything more than to argue or have sex with, when there was a perfectly viable alternative right in front of me. One who was giving me every signal in the book that she was a green light.
“Listen, Riley,” Cora said, her voice sultry. She looked up at me through lowered lashes and licked her tongue over her lips. It was supposed to be a seductive move but did nothing for me. “I’m not going to beat around the bush. I don’t need this to be some epic romance.”
I paused. “Okay.”
“You understand what I’m saying?”
Oh, I understood. I just wasn’t sure I wanted to do anything about it.
But then I heard Low’s voice in my ear. “Leave B alone. You’re holding her back.” Tension threaded through my back. That was the last thing I’d ever wanted. I never wanted to be someone who held her back. She was a star in an inky-black sky. If she wasn’t allowed to shine, the nights would be dark.
I nodded to Cora. “I understand.” Fucking hell. Grow a pair, Riley. I was single. Cora was single. She wanted this. And maybe it was what I needed. I hadn’t slept with anyone but Bianca for most of my adult life. I’d put her on a pedestal. Staying faithful to a woman I wasn’t even in a relationship with. It was fucking ridiculous.
I held my hand out to Cora, and she gave me a million-dollar smile. Then I led her to the door, like I took women home every day. Other single men in their thirties did this? Didn’t they? Screw it. I was doing it. I could do a night of casual sex with someone other than Bianca. Pussy was pussy. A tight wet hole to get off in.
Even as I thought it, I knew I was full of shit. I couldn’t pull that sort of attitude off. But I continued the internal pep talk anyway. Change is as good as a holiday. You
have to move on with someone else eventually. Get back in the saddle. All the clichéd metaphors I could think of.
I held open the restaurant door, then put my hand on the small of Cora’s back as I walked her to her car.
“My place?” she purred, pushing herself against my chest in the dimly lit car park.
She was warm and soft where I was hard, and it was on the tip of my tongue to say yes, when a shiny red convertible parked in the next row over caught my eye.
Bianca’s convertible.
I stepped back, running my fingers through my hair. Hadn’t she left? But if her car was still here, then maybe she was, too. And so was that jerk she’d been on a date with. Unease settled over me. She hadn’t wanted to be near that guy. I didn’t want her near that guy.
All thoughts of going home to have meaningless sex with Cora disintegrated. I had to find Bianca. Just to make sure she was okay. Even though we fought all the time, she was still my friend. Sort of. At the least, Low and Reese would have my head if I told them I’d just left when she could have been in a dangerous situation.
I opened the door for Cora, and she got in. “Follow me home?”
I shook my head. “Maybe next time.” I was an asshole. I knew I was giving her mixed signals. I expected her to spit fire at me, but to my surprise she just shrugged.
