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“I love you,” he whispered harshly at my ear, and my breath caught. He’d said it in so many ways, but never directly. Never so forcefully. Never in such a way that I had to take it as a gift rather than a fact, where I had to accept it and languish in it. Every thrust of his cock painted the words inside me. Every rock of his pelvis against mine.“I love you,” he said again, like a creed. “I love you so thoroughly it feels like you’re in my DNA. Like you must be part of my genetic code because there’s no part of me that isn’t linked to you. My love for you is so consuming on the inside that there’s barely room.”He moved a hand to my throat and pressed it against my windpipe ever so slightly, slowing the oxygen just enough to make me heady and weak.Or maybe that was from the sweetness of his talk.“My love for you is so ferocious, so dominating that I’m possessed by it. It changes who I am. It makes me someone different and yet I’m more who I’ve always believed I am than I ever have
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CHAPTER 24I slipped out of Reeve’s room early the next morning, without a message, without good-bye. He’d assume I didn’t want Amber to see me in his room, which was true. It didn’t need to be discussed. More importantly, I’d already said good-bye to him in the way I’d wanted to say good-bye.The sun was still low on the horizon when I’d finished packing my bags. I didn’t want to see her, but Amber hadn’t given me any details about my flight. Waking her early would at least feel satisfying.But when I got to her room, it was empty.What’s more, her bed, though rumpled, didn’t look really slept in. Like, maybe she’d gotten in, but hadn’t stayed there. And when I looked around the room more closely, I saw that the vanity was clear, and her makeup and toiletries were in disarray on the floor nearby.The hair on the back of my neck stood up. It was too soon to panic, but I had an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.Then I remembered Tabor. He’d been on guard all night, and I hadn’t
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“It could have been her.” She’d been angry when she’d gone to find me. Neither Reeve nor I had any way of knowing if she’d been to her room after he’d left her at the pool. She could have gone in and made the mess herself.“It could have not been her, too,” he said, and my stomach knotted so tightly that it nearly caused me to double over. He eyed me sympathetically, like he wished he could hold me, and I wished he could hold me too. Wished that was all it would take to make this anxiety ease.But both of us knew that whatever would erase this dread, it wouldn’t be found in each other’s arms.Reeve rose from the floor. “Tabor,” he said, pointing at the guard cowering outside the door.The bodyguard once assigned to protect me, stepped into the room. He didn’t say anything, his expression conveying his distress and remorse.Reeve seemed apathetic to Tabor’s anguish. He strode up to the young man, murder in his eyes. “How long were you asleep? Tell the truth and the only thing you’ll lo
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So I spit out the idea that had tossed around inside my head all day. “He told me last night that he’d… well, he said he wouldn’t let anything come between us. He said he’d handle anything or anyone who did. Amber wanted me to go home and that was going to come between us.”Again, he asked, “What’s your gut telling you, Em?”“My gut says that something fucking happened to her. I’m scared out of my goddamn mind.”“About Reeve. Do you trust him?”I rubbed my fingers across my forehead, remembering that he’d been dressed when I’d come to him that morning, remembering how he’d dismissed me when I’d asked about it.Remembering the night I’d spent with him and the things he’d said and the things I’d felt.I’d been in this quandary once before – torn between loving him and the things Reeve was capable of. I didn’t need to examine the conclusions I’d come to again.“I do trust him,” I admitted honestly. “But that doesn’t mean he didn’t do something to her.”I didn’t eat or sleep all day. Fili
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But now she was really gone, and her voice was silent and I’d never felt so lost or alone.It was a sign of what needed to happen next in my life. It was finally time to move on.Footsteps sounded behind me, and when I heard someone sit two chairs down, I didn’t need to look up to know it was Reeve.I let out a long slow breath. “It’s over.”“Yes. It’s over.” He sounded as tired as I felt. “We just have the scattering of the ashes, if you still want to do that, but when you’re ready. No rush.”I looked at him, really looked at him, for the first time in weeks. Maybe the first time ever. When I first saw him, I’d thought of him as mysterious and dangerous, a playboy who cared only about himself and his own wants and needs.That wasn’t the man sitting with me now, a man who cared for me in ways that I’d never imagined a man would. Ways that weren’t sexual or materialistic.“I mean us, Reeve. I mean it’s over between us.”If he were the type, I imagined that he would have rolled his eyes
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I didn’t even consider backtracking. It was time to lay everything out on the table. “Yes.”“Why?”“Because she told me to and that’s how it worked between us – she told me what to do, and I did it.”“I don’t get you, Emily.” That simple statement pushed the knife farther into my gut. I’d thought that he was the one person who had understood.“And that just validates why we don’t belong together.”He shook his head, rocking backward as though he were too angry to continue the conversation. Just as I thought he might turn to leave, he twisted back at me. “How do you still let her have that much power over you? She’s gone. You’ve been released. But you’re like a victim with Stockholm syndrome, still defending her, still looking to her to tell you what’s ‘allowed.’ When will you see that you don’t need her to tell you how to feel about things?”I hadn’t cried throughout the entire service, and suddenly, now, my eyes burned and my throat constricted. “You’re one to criticize someone for u
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CHAPTER 26It took two days before I could spend any real time out of bed. Three days before I managed to get dressed. On the fourth day, I forced myself to be productive.I spent the morning on e-mails and reading a new script from my agent that was, for once, not terrible. Then I began working through the boxes. It was early evening, and I’d finished unpacking almost half of them when Joe stopped by.“I wanted to make sure you were eating,” he said, holding up two boxes of Chinese take-out.“I’m more interested in that bottle of wine you have tucked under your arm. But, please, come in.” I gestured toward the dining room and headed to the kitchen for a corkscrew, plates, and wineglasses.“Sorry, I wasn’t really dressed for company,” I said when I returned, referring to my ensemble of yoga pants and a tank top.“I don’t know, I think you look pretty cute.”“Oh. Well.” I tucked a hair behind my ear and studied him as he uncorked the bottle of Riesling. His hair had grown out since I’d
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“That’s not at all obvious,” I teased, then paused, debating whether I should say more.I decided I owed Joe everything I knew, even if it some of it hurt to talk about. “You should probably know that Reeve is planning to go after him as well. I don’t have any details, but it was his intention when we last spoke.”“Damn,” he said, stunned. “That’s not going to start a war or anything, is it?”“Not my circus anymore.” But my stomach churned, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t just my dinner digesting.“Well, even if Reeve manages to take care of Vilanakis without getting himself killed, it won’t free any of the women he’s helped enslave.”“So they’ll need to be rescued,” I said definitively, ignoring that he’d just put a label to the cause of my stomach pain. “Like Maya.”“I think so. Yeah.” His brows furrowed and he stared at his hands, growing somber. “Though it seems I’m not always good at recognizing which women need to be rescued from the ones who don’t.”He peered up at me, his expr
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