by Linnea May
I don’t know why I’m telling him this. I don’t even know who he is, and what he’s saying is obnoxious and mean, to say the least. But there’s something about him that pulls me in.
Something that pushes me to say things I normally wouldn’t say.
Something that makes me want to speak about the saddest and most tragic thing that ever happened in my life, something that left a mark, a wound that won’t heal any time soon.
Something I deliberately brought upon myself.
The mysterious stranger locks me down with his dark gaze, an even deeper crease parting his eyebrows now.
“I’m not joking,” I add, and he shakes his head.
“Never thought you were. Just wondering what ‘almost’ means. What happened?”
I let out a deep sigh, and before I know it, I’m bringing the bottle to my lips again. But this time he intervenes before I can take another swallow. His hand closes around my wrist in a tight grip and I freeze midmotion, stunned by his sudden move and the electric sparks his touch sends through my body. Unfamiliar heat radiates from his skin to mine, almost sizzling in an intrusive manner that has me torn between wanting to free myself from him and yearning for more.
“Talk first,” he mutters. “Drink after.”
I glare at him, furious and intimidated at the same time.
“You can’t tell me what to do.”
I sound like a stubborn child who’s been denied another piece of candy, and it appears he agrees with that assessment as he strengthens his lock on my wrist and pulls me toward him, almost causing the bubbly liquid to spill on my pastel dress as I’m yanked against his rock-hard chest. A feeble gasp is pushed out of my lungs as we collide, while he doesn’t even flinch.
“Yes, I can. And I will.”
I’m still too dumbfounded to react when he tears the bottle from my hand, taking away my only solace on this gut-wrenching evening.
“Hey!” I protest, firing another angry look at him.
A condescending smirk plays at the corner of his mouth when he juts his chin forward, beckoning me to speak. He lets go of my wrist, allowing me to distance myself from him, which I only do reluctantly. Normally an intrusion into my personal space like this would not only anger me but unsettle me in the most uncomfortable way. But when I move away from him, I feel something pulling me back, a warmth that promises comfort as much as distress.
“Tell me,” he urges. “Got left at the altar? Guy cheated on you? Did he come to his senses and broke it off?”
Anger forms a painful lump in my throat, preventing me from giving the response he deserves. His condescending tone infuriates me.
“Wrong,” I bark, narrowing my eyes as I fixate on him in a feeble attempt at reciprocal intimidation. “I broke it off. I left him!”
There’s an ugly flavor of pride in my voice. I’ve never heard myself say the words like this. Strong, unyielding and conceited, as if breaking off my engagement made me feel accomplished.
That couldn’t be further from the truth.
Chapter 3
Kade
“Can I drink now?”
I don’t like the desperation in her voice, but I let her have the champagne nonetheless. She’s a good girl for asking, even though the harried tone of her voice spoiled the request.
She fetches the bottle from my hand with a hurried caution, as if afraid to get burned if she gets too close to me. Her instincts are right about that.
“So, what?” I probe. “I was right? Guy cheated on you, you found out and kicked him out of the house?”
She frowns at me with puffed-up cheeks filled with champagne that she quickly swallows to snap back at me. “It takes one to know one!”
An unfazed shrug is all she gets from me for that accusation.
“But no,” she adds, weaving as she leans in closer. “Not that it’s any of your business, but no, he did not cheat on me. Jim never would’ve done that. I left him because I realized I didn’t want to marry him. It would’ve been wrong.”
“Jim never would’ve done that.” The way she spits those words out, laced with disgust, almost loathing, is a telltale sign of what happened between her and that Jim guy.
She lost respect for him. Respect for him and whatever she thought she had with him.
And he didn’t know how to win it back.
“Still doesn’t answer my question,” I insist.
Surprise flashes across her pretty features. “I just told you—”
“You told me you left him because you no longer wanted to marry him, but you didn’t specify why.”
She freezes, looking at me with a stunned expression. I can tell she wants to drink from the bottle again, but her arm lowers as quickly as she raised it, insecurity overtaking her face when she studies me.
“Was he too good for you?” I try to help her out.
And just like that, the scorn returns to her face, pinning me as she comes up with her response.
“Too good? Are you trying to insult me?”
So fucking cute. She doesn’t even know what I’m talking about.
Her eyes fixate on mine, waiting, provoking an explanation for my alleged insult. A regular person would see nothing but this expectation in her gaze. They would see nothing but a girl who’s waiting for a reply to her question.
But I am no regular man.
I can hear the silent call she sends out.
It’s a calling coming from a place deep within herself. A place she may not know exists because she’s never met someone who could show her, someone who understands, someone who sees her yearning and responds to it without judgment.
Of course, I could always be wrong.
There’s only one way to find out.
I step closer, lifting my hand with daunting intention. She flinches but doesn’t move away, not even when my fingers close around her throat. I’m not choking her, not even applying any pressure as my hand finds its place on her neck. Her eyes widen, but it’s not fear that’s written across her face as she looks up at me.
It’s bewilderment.
Her body tenses under my aggressive touch, but she doesn’t fight me. She doesn’t resist, doesn’t yell at me, doesn’t try to get out of my grip.
I watch closely as she’s flooded with emotions she can’t place. Her lips part and a gasp escapes in lieu of words, telling me everything I need to know.
I squeeze, just a little, just enough to provoke a reaction from her.
Her eyelids flutter and her gaze loses focus, shifting away from the world, away from the balcony we’re standing on, away from the light.
Away from me.
That’s enough.
My hold on her loosens, the tips of my fingers still touching the delicate skin of her pale neck when her eyes find their way back to mine. She’s flustered, a new red blooming on her cheeks.
She doesn’t need to speak. I can read it all on her face. The amazement spiced with delicious fear—a sensation she probably didn’t know existed.
I’m certain no one has ever touched her like this. No one has ever put her in this place, a place of apparent threat, of helplessness.
A place where all control is taken from her.
A place that scares her as much as it intrigues her.
“Why did you do that?” she breathes. Her voice is thin and shaky, but lacks the reproach I was fearing.
I move away from her, noticing the way her body sways with me, unable to resist the magnetic attraction I can now confirm to be mutual.
“Because you needed me to,” I say, offering no further explanation.
She bites her lower lip, still fighting to make sense of what just transcended between us. I expected her to object, to argue that she never asked for me to choke her out of nowhere, to unleash an unimaginative torrent of accusations that may be justified under the circumstances.
But none of that happens. I’m surprised to find her nodding, still biting her lip while she averts her eyes. I’m not going to mak
e it harder on her by probing and forcing her to phrase things she can’t comprehend herself. Yet.
But I’m not letting her get away, either.
“Jim never touched you like that, did he?”
She sucks in a sharp breath at my question before she shakes her head. “He was a nice guy.”
“But you don’t like nice guys.”
Her eyes widen as she looks up at me, a clear display of the realization that just hit her.
“I always thought I did. I mean, what’s wrong with a nice guy? Why would I not want to be with someone who’s treating me well? Who’s taking care of me? Someone who wants to make me happy? Who moves heaven and hell for me?”
I end her spate of words by closing in on her, slowly lifting my hand to grace the side of her cheek with the tips of my fingers, moving along her feminine jawline until I reach her chin. Using my index finger, I gently lift her gaze to mine while leaning close enough to feel her hot breath on my skin.
“Because nice guys don’t get you wet.”
Chapter 4
Lila
Holy shit.
His lips crash onto mine with voracious need, leaving me no time or room to review what’s happening to me. I’m light-headed, flustered, confused—and so aroused that it tangles my mind.
My heart stopped for a moment when he put his hand on my throat, when he choked me, when he played with the idea of a threat without actually threatening me. It was the weirdest thing. I was shocked at first, maybe even appalled.
How fucking dare he? Who does he think he is? Why did he think it was okay to do this?
But he didn’t think.
He knew.
His action was a response to something I did. Problem is, I have no idea what I did to elicit it. What scares me is not the fact that he closed his hand around my throat, but the fact that I not only liked it but provoked it. I called for him to do it—and I didn’t even know I did.
How can I send a signal without knowing? Am I that little in control of myself?
My thoughts keep racing in circles while our tongues entwine, mine merely reacting to his greedy demand. I taste the tobacco on him, something I wouldn’t normally like, but it melts perfectly with him. It gives taste to the heat that lingers between us, a magnetic pull laced with electric sparks and fiery passion.
I’m floating, my eyes closed and my lips sealed on his, while my hands seek something to hold onto. I don’t dare touch him, because he’s a stranger and I wouldn’t know how to do it right. How silly is that? We’re engaged in a passionate and intimate kiss, the kind I could only dream of until now, and I’m worried about my chaste hands on him?
He, on the other hand, does not seem tortured by such restraints.
The kiss started with a placid tilt of my head, only the tip of his index finger touching me. But it turns into so much more when his hands find my waist, entrapping me from both sides, holding me in place though I have no intention to run. A gasp mingles with our kiss when his fingers dig into my flesh, squeezing a lot harder than he ever did on my throat. The thin fabric of my dress provides little to no barrier between his rough hands and my bare skin, but even that seems to be too much for him.
I flinch when his hands travel down, his fingers trailing along the seams of my dress, approaching the hem just above my knee. Elene never specified what length she wanted me to wear for her wedding, so I opted for a dress that ends just above my knee, a length that’s been described by our mother as “just modest enough but still youthful.”
Another word comes to mind as this gorgeous man’s hands travel down my legs, finding the end of the dress all too quickly.
Naughty.
This is naughty. Wrong, even.
Naughty, wrong—and so damn delicious.
A sound erupts from behind me just as the tips of his fingers find the bare skin underneath my dress. I jump out of his embrace on instinct and, to my relief, his hands flee from my body as he bounces back himself. We part with sudden force, as if a bomb just exploded in our midst.
I recognize the sound before turning my head to check what caused it. It was the same sound that announced the handsome stranger just a few minutes earlier. The door to the balcony opened, letting out a beam of light, accompanied by another person. It’s a man, tall and dark, but a lot older than the one who just felt me up. Even in the dim shadows I can tell he’s casting us a polite smile, reading the situation just as it is.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t—”
“It’s okay,” the stranger, whose lips I can still taste on mine, says. He lifts his hand in a reassuring manner. “Joining us for a smoke?”
He sounds so nonchalant and unfazed, calm and confident, offering a cigarette to the intruder while my head is spinning with such violence that it makes me sick.
My eyes dart back and forth between the two men, my right hand tightening its grip on the bottle of champagne while I try to cope with the frightening speed of my heart rate.
Shit. I’m not feeling well. Not at all.
“Excuse m—” I manage to blurt out before hustling toward the door. My hand lands on the handle with unbridled haste, and I yank it open as if my intention was to scare anyone behind it. But all I want is to run away, to flee from the scene and pretend this never happened.
I don’t turn back once before stepping through the door and closing it right behind me. Squinting as my eyes adjust to the light inside the festive ballroom, I make my way to the restrooms, the only secure hiding place I can think of.
How could I? How could I make out with some random stranger at my sister’s wedding? How could I let myself get caught doing something so silly? The intruder must’ve been a business associate, based on his age and look, but I can’t place him for sure. He’s not a close friend, not a family member.
But what if he had been?
What if someone else had stepped outside? A friend? My mother? My sister?
What if any one of them had seen me, jumping up like a scared mouse after being caught in a hot embrace with a man whose name I don’t even know?
What if?
The shame would’ve killed me. The judgment, knowing what they would be thinking of me. My reputation is already hurt by what I did to Jim. They all had their own assumptions, and many of them involved me being unfaithful, even though no one but me knows how close I actually was to cheating on him.
It’s why this man’s assumption was so outrageously funny to me. Jim cheating on me? Try the other way around and you’re way closer to the goddamn truth.
My body is still in flames from the kiss, the unwelcome wetness between my legs a clear sign of my betrayal to a promise I made to myself, and to my sister.
The promise to be good. The promise to not cause a scene, to not get fucking drunk and stupid.
I broke that promise, and I got caught doing so. I don’t know how much the intruder has seen, if anything, but if he has—
“Lila!”
My sister’s voice interrupts my racing thoughts just as I was about to enter the hallway that leads to the restrooms. I take a deep breath before I turn around to her, only now realizing I’m still holding the bottle of champagne.
Shit.
Elene stands before me, looking more beautiful than ever in her white gown and the simple but pricey tiara that adorns her head. She got rid of her veil after the ceremony, but the tiara had to stay; it was handmade just for her and decorated with tastefully small but valuable diamonds. Just one of many perks to marrying a man who’s swimming in money.
She tilts her head to the side, her blonde hair falling down her shoulders in shiny waves.
“Are you okay?” she asks, her eyes jumping from the bottle in my hand to my face. “Where were you? What were you doing?”
Chapter 5
Lila
“I, er… I was just—”
“Have you been drinking that by yourself?” Elene points at the almost empty bottle in my hand.
My eyes flit to the bot
tle, examining it as if I’m seeing it for the very first time and wondering how it got there in the first place.
“This? No! No, I wasn’t!” I produce a half-ass lie.
Is it even a lie, though? Technically I didn’t drink all of it alone. That guy had a sip, too.
The expression on Elene’s face tells me she’s anything but happy with my current state, and the lame and stammered excuses don’t help at all. A crease appears between her thin eyebrows and her eyes narrow as she assesses me.
I don’t think she’s ever looked at me like this. She’s the younger of the two of us, and I’ve always been the responsible one. Reasonable, almost prudent. Boring. The one with the regular job and the regular boyfriends, the one who everybody thought would just get married, have kids, buy a house, do the normal thing at a normal pace.
She, on the other hand, was the wild one, the curious one, the rebel who went her own way and did whatever the hell she wanted. She was the one who worked as an escort for years and as a hostess at a kink club next. That’s actually where she met her husband—he was one of her customers.
Now she’s the one who’s married to a filthy rich alleged gentleman, while I’m the drunk and desperate single at her wedding reception who just got caught sticking her tongue down a random stranger’s throat.
“Do I need to worry about you?” Elene asks, her tone soft and understanding. She closes in on me, placing her hand on my shoulder in a calming manner while her gaze seeks reassurance that I’m okay.
“No, no, please don’t,” I respond, violently shaking my head. “Everything’s fine.”
She frowns. “You’re slurring, Lila. How drunk are you?”
I stiffen, my eyes locked on hers as I try to stand as straight as possible without weaving from one side to the other.
Easier said than done. Shit, why is it so hard to stand without swaying?
“I’m fine,” I insist, raising my hand as if to shield myself from her worry. “Everything’s fine. I can hold my liquor.”
“You’ve had too much.”
