Chapter Twelve. Rowan #2
I stare at him, blinking and processing. How dare he try to make me feel bad when he’s the one who screwed me over? It takes everything I have not to scream this at him, and yet it will do me no good. If I tell him I went into his desk, I’ll be shut out even further than I already am.
“Exactly, lesson fucking learned.” I hate the tears that burn and the regret that aches beneath my breastbone. Even worse, I despise that everything I need to move forward is on that ridiculous barge outside when a few weeks ago I thought it was the person standing in front of me.
“I’ll hand it to you, Rowan. You put on a good fucking show. Had me convinced you were as into me as I was you. Blinded me. But that was the plan, wasn’t it? Use me. Get insider knowledge to help whatever cause you think it is that you have.”
“That’s rich, and more along the lines of something you’d do.”
“Agreed. That’s why I never saw it coming. Tale as old as time.”
“Do you hear what you’re saying?” I shout at him.
“That I slept with you, that I … fucking cared for you … all for some type of corporate espionage?” I emit a sarcastic chuckle as his words add insult to an injury I’m certain he has no idea how deep it is to begin with.
“You’re the one who did this. You’re the one who—”
“You’re hiding out in a boathouse instead of being at your own engagement party.” His chuckle drips with condescension.
“Goodbye, Holden.”
“Not this time.” Just as I begin to walk away, he spins me around by my bicep and has me pinned against the wall at my back.
His chest is against mine and our lips are inches apart.
He smells like whiskey and soap and everything I find myself dreaming about in my sleep and then hating myself for doing so the minute I wake up.
“You’re not walking out of here without a fucking explanation over what’s going on. ”
“Fuck. You.”
“Such eloquence coming from a mouth I’ve fucked before.”
“I hate you,” I grit out as my nipples harden and body aches. “Is that a good enough of an answer?”
“Enough to marry him?” He lifts a lone eyebrow as our eyes hold each other’s stares.
He leans in painstakingly slowly and brushes his lips against mine. I yank my head from side to side, refusing to fall under his spell. Needing to stand my ground.
And losing the battle with each second that passes.
“What would happen if someone walked in right now? How would you explain that one away?” he murmurs.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” I fight with words while my body fights against enjoying the feel of him. Against craving the feel of him. “Anything to be the villain.”
“Can’t change who I am so I might as well be one.”
And with those words, that threat, with his hands cuffing my wrists on the wall at either side of my head, he slants his lips over mine, the kiss unleashing a desire so violent inside of me that I struggle to breathe.
I struggle against it—thrash my head from side to side and try to pull myself off the wall, but Holden just takes what he wants from me. The warring emotions. The all-consuming sensations. The unyielding need.
He’s the master of deception but in this moment so am I because I’m deceiving myself into thinking I don’t want him. That I’m not throwing my morals and sensibility—my dignity—out the window for one more taste of a man I shouldn’t want but can’t seem to walk away from.
And when I cave, I fucking cave. Go big or go home. Somehow, he senses the game has changed because he releases my wrists and dives his hands into my hair, bringing my mouth to his.
My fingers fist in his shirt until the kiss turns into a greed-laced warfare of skin and scratches. Of heat and hunger. Of desperation and devastation. Of gluttony and a reminder of just how starved I’ve been.
It’s not enough.
It never has been.
And I want more. His taste. His touch. His heat. Of him.
His hand slides down my torso and inches my dress up my thigh until his fingers find purchase. The wet heat between my thighs and the knowledge of his touch has me thrusting my hips into his hand and against the pressure of his fingers.
A loud noise sounds just outside, and it jolts me to the here and now. To the reality I must face and the future I’m forging to create.
My hands are on his chest and my anger resurfaces. At him for reminding me what I’m missing. At me for being weak. At this whole fucking situation I wouldn’t be in if it weren’t for my asshole brother and the empty promises of the man before me.
“Stop,” I whisper-yell. “Just stop.”
He takes a step back, looking over his shoulder to where the sound came from, but his shoulders heave, his Adam’s apple bobs, and he runs a hand through his hair. The chuckle he emits is one of disbelief and frustration.
“You have his ring on your finger, but you—this body, those lips”—he cups the apex of my thighs with one hand and then sucks on the two fingers he had between my thighs and groans, his eyes never leaving mine—“this pussy? They only want me. It’s only wet for me.
So make me understand, Rowan, why you’re denying yourself what we both know to be true. ”
Desire riots right beside fury and I let the tears I’ve been fighting all day come.
“Don’t you dare talk to me about truth.”
“Fitting you’d say that,” he mocks.
Tell him you know.
But I don’t.
Tell him you fucking know.
Can’t.
“I know ab—”
“Rowan? You in there?” the not-so-distant voice of Chad’s mother calls out.
I startle and look over my shoulder, almost as if the sound has shocked me back to reason.
I was going to tell him I knew.
I look back at Holden as I take a step back.
You broke my trust.
I ignore the confusion that flickers and fades through his eyes.
You took the one thing I gave freely and broke it.
It has nothing on the ache in my heart.
“I see you found the cuff links,” I say and take another step back. “Do me a favor? Forget I ever left them for you.”
And with a heavy heart and a head even more muddled, I walk out of the boathouse and back to the barge.
To a party where I have to pretend to be happy.
Around people when all I want is to be by myself.
Great.
Just fucking great.