by K. A. Linde
Her eyes followed those hands she knew all too well, going up his arms to his bare chest and into that gorgeous face. His forehead was lined from exertion, and sweat beaded his brow. She couldn’t break her eyes away as he thrust over and over into the girl crushed up against his bed.
The world tilted, and she felt the bottle drop out of her fingers. The glasses crashed to the floor, shattering as they hit the ground. The bottle collided with the floor seconds later, and amber bourbon splashed up onto her legs and soaked into the carpet.
How long have I been standing there, watching Eric fuck some other girl? Why is he fucking a girl? Why do I feel like I’m going to throw up?
At the noise, Eric stilled his movements and looked up. His eyes locked with Bryna’s across the room. “Fuck!”
The girl’s head popped up. Bryna’s mouth dropped open.
Audrey!
“WHAT THE FUCK is she doing here?” Audrey yelled.
Bryna stood there, shell-shocked. She had no idea what to say. There wasn’t anything to say. Yet she couldn’t move. Her feet were glued to the floor.
Everything was happening in slow motion. Eric was moving away from Audrey. Audrey looked up at him in shock because he’d stopped.
Still, Bryna said nothing.
“Bri,” he whispered desperately into the silence.
“I,” she croaked. Her vision shifted, and all the emotions from the day crashed together as one. “I didn’t know.”
She wanted to run from the carnage of her life, and she had never been a runner. She had always faced life head-on and catapulted forward through adversity. But this…she couldn’t face. She didn’t even know why, but she needed to get out of there.
“Sorry,” she muttered absentmindedly. The word tumbled from her lips, unbidden. Then, she bolted through the door.
She couldn’t handle this right now. Not with everything else. Her stomach was roiling. It didn’t make sense. This was Eric.
Gay Eric.
Fucking his ex-girlfriend like he was most definitely Not Gay Eric.
She took the stairs, two at a time. Her heart rate skyrocketed as she nearly tripped over the final stair in an effort to escape the reality of what she had witnessed in Eric’s bedroom. She retrieved her high heels and purse from where she had left them and made a dash for the exit.
“Bri,” Eric called out to her.
That was followed by a high-pitched, “Are you fucking kidding me right now, Eric?”
Bryna couldn’t even think about this. Couldn’t think about the fact that Audrey was in Eric’s bed. Couldn’t think about what this meant for her friendship with Eric. Couldn’t think about why she felt like her heart was shattering into a million tiny pieces.
Pushing the door open, she stared in anger as the drought that had pervaded Vegas for so long finally cracked. The curtains opened in the heavens, and water rained from the sky, threatening to flood her desert home. But it didn’t matter that she had blown her hair out or that she had on fresh makeup or that the rain might ruin her designer clothes. All that mattered was getting away.
She located her keys, punched the unlock button, and watched the lights flash at her. Bryna dove into the downpour and rushed for her parked Aston Martin. She was soaked within seconds. The water ripped at her body with a ferocity that matched her own temper. She yanked the door open to her car and tossed her purse and high heels into the passenger seat.
Eric called her name again from the front door, and she made the mistake of looking back. He stood there, silhouetted in the doorframe, in nothing but a pair of dark jeans. He hadn’t bothered with putting on a shirt in his haste to get to her.
She gulped. She couldn’t do this. She shook her head. Her wet hair smacked against her face. He didn’t appear to care as he barreled out of his house and into the rain. He cleared the distance before she even remembered she was supposed to get into the car.
“Where are you going?” he yelled over the beating of the rain on the pavement.
“Home.”
He slammed his hand against the door to her car. “Goddamn it, Bri. What are you even doing here tonight?”
She jumped as her door closed. She was at a loss for words. He had followed her.
“You said you were exhausted,” she said.
“You said you were going to be at Posse all night.”
“Yeah, well, Stacia decided to ambush me and tell me she’s dating Pace, so I thought coming to get drunk with you was a better alternative.”
“Stacia and Pace?” he demanded.
“At least I’m not the only one shocked by the information.” She closed her eyes against the rain. “I guess I should have known there was a real reason for you being exhausted tonight. I didn’t know you had plans.” She gestured to his house.
His eyes stormed over. “Bryna—”
“I should go,” she cut him off.
“No! Why didn’t you run to your millionaire, Hugh?”
“Are you joking? Why were you fucking her?” she screamed, unable to hold back the rage boiling inside of her. Her hands were trembling. “You said you were gay!”
“What?” he yelled. “I never fucking said that!”
“Yes, you did! At the national championship game after you kissed me!”
He had said it…well, all but said it.
“No fucking way!”
“When you and I first met, Gates said that you’d told him you were gay!” she shrieked.
“I never fucking said that to him. He said you were trouble and a hot mess. That it would be smart for me not to be interested in you. I thought he meant you were a slut and a bad person. That’s why I treated you like shit all last semester. Then, I got to know you, and I realized that wasn’t the person you really were. It was the person you showed everyone else.”
Bryna’s jaw locked. She couldn’t believe Gates had said that, that he had told her Eric was gay, so they would stay apart.
“Then, what the fuck were you talking about at the national championship game?”
“Audrey!” He threw his arm out at the house. “I’ve kept her a secret from everyone. I thought you knew we were still sleeping together.”
Bryna’s mouth dropped open. She stepped away from him. “You’ve been sleeping together this whole fucking time?”
She didn’t know why it shocked her. It wasn’t like she hadn’t slept with Andrew and then Hugh, but still, it did. She had been so sure that Eric was gay that she couldn’t even reconcile this information with reality.
“I thought you knew.”
“No!” she shrieked. “No, I never fucking knew.”
He reached for her, and she backed away.
“Don’t touch me.”
His hands went into his soaked hair, and he turned his face up to the sky. He let loose a primal growl. When he met her eyes again, he looked determined, focused. “You said you wanted a guy who could take care of you and that we would never fucking happen. You said that you would never be comfortable dating me or any guy.”
“I was comfortable because you were a nonthreat! You were gay!”
“Fuck!” he cried. “I backed off because I didn’t want to scare you. I wasn’t sure what was happening or if you were really the person I wanted. Everything was just happening, and then you ground it to a stop.”
Everything seemed to become crystal clear. The reason he had been pissed about her kissing him in front of Audrey. The consequences to her actions for that night. The way he’d seemed to notice her but kept his distance.
Fuck, I’ve been blind. Horribly blind.
“Why are you so angry anyway?” he asked, stepping closer to her. “Why did you break that bottle, looking ready to murder someone?”
“I am shocked!”
“Don’t lie to me!” he yelled at her. “Tell me why.”
He moved into her space until she was leaning against the hood of the car. Rain still poured down between them.
“Tell me.”
&
nbsp; “No!” she yelled. She pushed against his chiseled chest, wanting desperately to keep herself together.
“Tell me the truth, Bri.” He stared at her. “Tell me it’s because you want me.”
“No.” She defiantly shook her head from side to side as her heart beat in time to the rain.
“Well, I can’t keep lying. You might be able to pretend, but I can’t.”
“This is insane! You were the one upstairs, bending some bitch over your bed!” she spat at him.
“I was ending things with Audrey tonight!”
“It sure as hell didn’t look like it!”
“I couldn’t do it anymore. I was ending it, and then I was going to tell you the truth, whether or not you wanted to give up the bullshit. I can’t pretend anymore. I don’t know what the fuck this is, but I’ve wanted to do this for too damn long without any excuses in our way.”
“Do what?” she screamed. Her lungs felt raw.
She was so angry, and he looked furious.
Then, he pushed himself against her, buried his hands into her soaking wet hair, and kissed her lips with all the pent-up sexual tension coursing between them. She beat against his chest as he demanded a reaction from her. She hit him twice more, and then her mind seemed to forget why she was resisting. She didn’t want this to stop. Slowly, she relented into his kisses.
Water poured down their faces, mingling with their kiss. She moaned against his mouth, and their tongues met in perfect unison. This was their third kiss, but for the first time, she truly savored him. He tasted like pure heaven. A touch of everything that was right in her life. He pushed her arms up around his neck and covered her body with his own. They molded together, both soaked through.
A bolt of lightning tore through the sky in the distance, and thunder crashed overhead. They both jolted at the interruption. Eric glanced up at the sky and then back down at Bryna. His smile was one of pure joy. Like he wouldn’t want to do anything else or be anywhere else in that moment.
His lips were on hers again. Harder. More desperate. Seeking out the one thing that she couldn’t give to anyone. Yet it was perfection. Every nerve in her body was attuned to his touch.
This was what she had always been missing.
Yet her emotions roiled through her body. How can he kiss me like this after he’d had his dick in some other girl? If he had wanted to be with Bryna, he’d had a million opportunities to tell her the truth. Yeah, she had said she wasn’t comfortable with him, but then when she was comfortable, he could have told her the truth. The truth was at his fingertips at every opportunity. He couldn’t pull this bullshit because she had caught him with his ex. She couldn’t pull a one-eighty on her life when there was so much fucking uncertainty.
Bryna wrenched out of his grasp. He gave her a questioning look, and then she reached back and slapped him clear across the face. His head snapped to the side, and he ground his teeth.
“Don’t touch me,” she repeated. Her voice was hoarse. She held the tears back with the force from her will alone.
Eric staggered a step back in shock. She used that opportunity to grab the handle of the door, and she pulled it back open.
“Bryna, please,” he begged. “Don’t go. Let’s try to work it out.”
“What is there to work out? You said it yourself. We both know this is never happening, and you’re going to regret this in the morning.” She threw his words back in his face.
“Let me explain,” he pleaded.
She couldn’t let him. Even if she wanted to listen and make things work, she couldn’t. It would never work between them. The last six months of their relationship, the supposed ease of their friendship, was all a lie. One big lie.
“You’ve explained enough.”
She sat down in the driver’s seat and then pulled out of his driveway. Her heart was beating a million miles a minute. It wasn’t until she was around the corner that she let the tears fall freely. Once they started, she couldn’t get them to stop.
BRYNA PULLED OVER TO THE SIDE of the road and parked her car. Shuddering deep sobs wracked her body. She had no idea she could even cry like this, that tears could even flow so freely. Her heart of ice had cracked, shattered, melted, and it was currently sitting in a puddle at her feet.
She didn’t even know what she was feeling. She was so angry with Eric for sleeping with Audrey, for being with her all this time. Yet she was angry with herself for being angry with him. She had been with someone else this whole time, too, but he had known. She had never kept Hugh a secret from Eric. She hadn’t kept anything a secret from Eric.
It was all even more fucked up because Eric had thought she had known all along about Audrey. And they had both kept their distance because of one stupid fucking night at Posse when she had been a mess about Jude, and Gates had pushed her and Eric apart.
Part of her wanted so desperately to turn the car around and go back to him. But the other part kept replaying the image of him fucking Audrey in his bedroom over and over again. How can I get over that?
“Why?” she whispered helplessly into the silent car.
For over a year, she had worked under the assumption that he was gay. She had opened herself up to him, only to have a wall slide back over her heart. Even though she had deceived herself, she still thought it was Eric’s fault. If he was falling for her, he should have said something. She couldn’t listen to her own heart telling her she had fallen for him.
Her hands were still shaking when the tears finally dried up. The rain was slowing to a drizzle. She forced herself to start driving again. She needed to get away and process.
Pulling out her cell phone, she ignored the missed call from Eric and dialed Hugh’s number.
“Hey,” Hugh said.
“Hey.” She thought her voice was strong, but she still sounded weak and vulnerable. She hated Eric for making her like this. It went against her nature.
“Are you okay?”
“I just…need you.” She didn’t know what else to say.
“I’m working out of town. Is it urgent? Are you hurt?”
Only emotionally. “No.”
Hugh sighed heavily into the phone. “I wish you’d tell me what’s wrong. You keep your secrets so close to your heart. Just let me in,” he pleaded.
If only I could tell him the truth…but what’s the truth at this point? She had lost sight of it in the chaos.
She bit her lip and decided to tell him as much as she could. It wasn’t like she could go into explicit detail about Eric. “I got into a huge argument with two of my best friends. I know it probably sounds dumb,” she admitted softly, “but I don’t think things will ever be the same. And it’s all my fault.”
That last part took her off guard. She hadn’t even known she was going to say that, but it felt true. She could have prevented the argument with Stacia if she had accepted Pace, but the thought of doing that made her want to throw up. She could have prevented the argument with Eric if she could accept his feelings, despite what had happened with Audrey, but that didn’t seem possible either right now.
“It’s not dumb,” Hugh said understandably. “If it has upset you this much, then it’s important.”
She swallowed back her tears at his words.
“I’m in Atlantic City. I’ll fly you out to see me, so you can get away from everything. How does that sound?”
“Really great,” she admitted.
She couldn’t think of anything better than escaping the reality of her life right now. She’d had to confront everything head-on recently, and she didn’t know how much more she could take.
“Good. I’ll have someone make all the arrangements. Try to relax, and you’ll be with me soon.”
Five hours later, a car picked her up from the airport and drove her to Hugh’s resort in Atlantic City. Though she had been groggy on the plane, she hadn’t been able to sleep, no matter what she had done. She was even more alert in the car. She couldn’t escape the images flashing through h
er mind or the reality of what she had been through.
When she arrived, Hugh was waiting for her in the lobby. She couldn’t believe he was awake. With the three-hour time difference, she couldn’t believe she was still awake.
“Why are you awake?” she asked.
“As if I could sleep after that call.” He pulled her into his arms and kissed the top of her head. “Come on. You look like you need to sleep.”
“I’m not the only one.”
He laughed. “It’s morning here, love. I have to work.”
“Work when I leave.”
“I would love to do that.” They hopped into the elevator, and Hugh inserted his key to take them to the top floor. “But I can’t neglect my responsibilities. It’s nice to have you here. I’d travel with you everywhere if I could.”
She smiled at his words but didn’t respond. Her head was too clouded with other things, and she was tired.
They reached the penthouse where Hugh was staying. It was dark inside, and he didn’t bother to turn the lights on as he guided her to the master suite. The bed was enormous and unbelievably inviting.
“Why don’t you rest?” he suggested. “You’re dead on your feet. You can tell me all about what happened when you wake up.”
“Wait,” she murmured. She ran her hand down his tie. “Aren’t you coming with me?” She didn’t want to be alone tonight even though her mind told her it was the smart thing to do. She didn’t want to listen.
“You know I’d love nothing more, but I have to work.”
He pulled back the covers, and she crawled into bed.
“Let me take care of you. I’ll still be here when you wake up.”
“Okay,” she whispered.
As soon as he disappeared, fresh tears hit her anew. She didn’t even know why she was crying. Her emotions felt like a tangled knot in her chest. She couldn’t differentiate one from the other. She just cried and let it out—everything that pained her, everyone who had ever hurt her.
Her father.
Her mother.
Celia.
Pace.
Jude.
Gates.
Avery.
