to remain celibate for the rest of my life?
Yes, I haven’t wanted anyone else these past years, but I’m a woman and Drake fills his suit the way he used to fill his uniform—fit, virile, a man at the top of his game. I’d have to be dead to not feel the zing of electricity through the cobweb-strewn parts of my nervous system.
And there’s no escape from him. From his deep stare, dark and penetrating, from the past we share, convoluted and confusing, or from my aborted plan and the explanation I owe him.
I try to slow my breathing as I follow his long strides, his broad shoulders and dominating height obscuring our direction. This is what I wanted—his attention. All I have to do is plead my case and hope to salvage something, even if it’s just my dignity. So why do I feel ready to concede the fight and flee the ring?
Drake
MY PULSE SPRINTS like an excited fucking puppy as I lead her from the staff entrance and along the corridor towards the lift and the Faulkner’s private suites. That I’m even taking her to the hotel rooms I only use if I’ve been working late or if I’m entertaining a date sounds an air-raid siren in my head.
A warning the glutton for punishment in me shuts out.
But Kenzie and I going upstairs isn’t a date. The selfish part of me wishes ‘us’ were that simple.
In truth, there is no ‘us’.
The achingly familiar visceral blow provides a perfect reminder to my dick, which had perked up the minute I’d seen her in the restaurant.
My army discipline helps to dispel images of all the filthy sexual things I’d like to do with her—things she’d run from if she knew. As it is, I’m tempted to drop to the carpet and pump out a hundred push-ups to put myself on the safe side of exhaustion.
Because the woman standing across the narrow corridor from me, her guarded hazel eyes shooting me cautious looks, may as well be a nun, she’s so untouchable.
And pissed.
I’m a bossy bastard when the need arises, and McKenzie Porter ignites that need like no other. I slowly inhale. A fucking stupid move that drags her subtle feminine scent into my head, where it has no place being and maximum potential to test my restraint.
Why is she here, in the flesh? Not just the dream version—the one I’ve spent considerable time with over the years. And what the hell was tonight about?
I open my mouth to ask again and then clamp my lips together. She’s freezing, her body still trembling. At least I can no longer hear her teeth chatter.
Instead I scrub at my hair and try to work out her stunt with the dessert. She’d wanted to get my attention, she’d said. Well, all she had to do was walk into the same room. If I were a heat-seeking missile, she’d be the sun...
‘I’m sorry I messed up your date.’ A flash of vulnerability, of bravery, ghosts her eyes and I want to tell her she can gatecrash all my dates.
Whoa... I haven’t spent all the years I’ve known her keeping her at arm’s length just to screw it all up in one move.
‘You didn’t. It was pretty much over.’ She interrupted the tail end of a satisfactory evening of good company, excellent food and the potential for meaningless sex. Pity a five-minute conversation with Kenzie eclipses a hundred meaningless encounters, as evidenced by the surge of testosterone I’m currently battling, my body as attuned to her presence as high-voltage power lines to an approaching rainstorm.
I force my mind to the mundane, willing my libido to obey orders. Sharing army barracks and tents with thirty other men helps to master control of the body parts that have a life of their own. And the technique, one I’ve practised a thousand times in her presence, reminds me of the first time I saw her, a mere thirty seconds before my best mate caught her eye.
I swallow the bitter taste with a silent curse. I’ve tried, but I’ve never been in control of my feelings for this woman—the intervening years, her falling for and then marrying Sam, and then losing him, may as well count for zilch.
I want her.
I’ve always wanted her.
And it’s never been an option.
That’s why I’ve stayed the hell away. Not only have I always coveted my best friend’s woman, but Sam is no longer here to punch me in both of my two faces, as I deserve.
And what I definitely don’t deserve is Kenzie.
The guilt and self-disgust turning my stomach deals with my hard-on. Yeah, not happening, bud.
The lift arrives and we step inside the brightly lit and mirrored cell. I lock down my trapped-inside emotions behind the neutral facial expression of my reflection while I wonder how the fuck I’m going to manage the next thirty minutes until I can get rid of her without taking a cold shower.
‘Have you and Ashley been dating for long?’ she asks, leaning up against one wall, her beautiful eyes huge and tinged with doubt. ‘I hope she’ll forgive you for cutting things short to...deal with me.’
Deal with her...? Can she read my fucking mind? See all the filthy ways I’d like to deal with her? Does she know that she stars in dreams that jerk me from sleep, leaving me soaked in sweat and harder than steel? I’ve had stern words with my subconscious, but it’s persistently twisted.
‘We’re not dating. Just casual.’ All my interactions with women over the years can be classified that way. Anything more serious would have demanded comparisons I knew deep inside would only highlight the gaping chasm between reality and the fantasy of what might have been with this particular woman.
I look away, feigning fascination in the digital display that tells me I only have thirty more seconds to endure being this close to her in an enclosed space, which may as well be a torture chamber. I slow my breathing to ward off the head rush and slide my eyes over the source of every erotic fantasy I’ve had since the day we met, forcing myself to look beyond the perfection of her combination of features.
‘You’re pale.’ With cold, fatigue or something else? I curl my fingers into fists to stop me from pulling my jacket tighter around her frame and buttoning it up to the neck to protect her from my lecherous stare. I grip the handrail. I only have so much self-control—another reason staying away was easier.
She shrugs. ‘I’m okay.’
I scour her face for clues. Then my stomach plummets as if the lift were descending, not ascending. Is she ill? Is that what she’s come to tell me? She could be dying for all I know. Outside what I struggled to ignore while Sam was still alive and what I’ve pieced together through social-media stalking in the three years since his death, she’s a stranger.
Because I’ve kept her that way in order to atone and for self-preservation.
Panic subsides as I remember the dessert. She came with a mission. I know she had a passion for cooking. But she and her autistic sister, nine years her junior, live in Bath. A long way to deliver dessert.
Another surge of adrenaline traps my breath. Is Tilly sick? Do they need help? Money? Am I the only person she can turn to? I swallow razor blades. Have I neglected her? She must miss Sam. She’s far too young to be a widow. And too fucking beautiful.
My heart stutters frozen as another thought occurs: I have no idea if she’s seeing someone. Three years is a long time for celibacy. I fight the urge to make fists, the idea of some worthless bastard laying his hands on her souring a perfectly satisfactory Michelin-starred dinner.
Enough.
One glimpse of McKenzie Porter and my regimented life turns to chaos. I suck it up. Repeat the mantra: thoughts,