27. Skye
Skye
“ H e’s got you glowing,” Maya says, squinting at me over her steaming chai latte.
I pause mid-bite, yogurt-dipped spoon hovering in the air like a white flag. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” She waves the mug toward me. “You’ve got that post-orgasm glow. Which is suspicious, considering you haven’t been getting any.”
I glare. “Wow. Bold accusation.”
“Bold but not wrong.”
I stuff the spoon in my mouth and shrug.
She sets her drink down with a thud. “Skye. You’re smiling. Like all the time. You’re humming in the kitchen again. You lit a candle last night that wasn ’ t part of a spiritual cleansing ritual. And I saw you check the hallway three times yesterday before your coffee arrived.”
“I did not.”
“You did.”
“Maybe I thought it was going to be late. People get murdered over late coffee.”
She narrows her eyes. “You were hoping he delivered it himself.”
I roll mine dramatically. “Okay, detective.”
Maya crosses her arms. “You’ve been glowing since he sent the first text. And now it’s just… escalating.”
I want to argue. I do. But the thing is… she’s not wrong. I have been smiling more. Humming. Daydreaming. Not because I’m delusional enough to think things are fixed. But because he is trying and I am falling all over again.
The text. The gestures. The gym membership. The peonies.
Because when a man like Reece Blackwood looks at you like you’re his entire world, it’s very, very hard not to fall straight back into orbit. Even if that orbit almost destroyed you once.
“You’re doing that look again,” Maya says softly.
“What look?”
“The one that says, ‘I’m fucked, but I’m pretending I’m not.’”
I sink back into the couch and drop my head against the cushion. “It’s infuriating.”
“What is?”
“That he’s doing it right. That I’m not mad at him. That I’m mad at myself for not being mad at him.”
“Maybe because you don’t actually want to be mad anymore.”
I close my eyes. The truth of that sits heavy in my chest. I don’t want to be mad. I don’t want to keep replaying the moment he told me to leave. Or the look on Archer’s face. Or the sting of silence that came after.
But I also don’t want to give in too fast. Don’t want to hand my heart back to a man who’s only just realized he’s holding the match that burned it down.
“I’m trying to be smart about this,” I say. “Trying not to confuse the effort with the endgame.”
“Skye.” Her voice softens. “He’s not trying to win. He’s trying to show up. For you. And I think maybe he always wanted to. He just… didn’t know how.”
I turn my head and meet her eyes. “You think people like him can change?”
She pauses, then nods. “I think people don’t change for the world. But they do for the one thing they don’t want to lose.”
I swallow hard. My phone dings from the coffee table. It’s a new message from Reece.
Just a photo of a bookstore window display, new arrivals in historical romance. One of the covers features a heroine in a ridiculous red ballgown.
Reece: This looks like one of the ones you said leave you hot and bothered.
I bite back a grin.
“You’re already gone,” Maya says, watching me.
“No, I’m not.”
She shrugs. “Maybe not completely. But you’re slipping. And we both know it.”
I close the message thread and toss the phone onto the couch cushion between us. But even as I try to breathe through the chaos in my chest, the truth rings like a bell in my head. I am already so far gone there’s zero hope for me at this point.
I should’ve known it wasn’t an accident. No one like Reece Blackwood ends up in a dusty corner bookstore on a Wednesday afternoon just by chance.
But I’m too distracted by the glossy stack of romances I’ve just picked up to notice anything’s off until I round the display table and see him.
Leaning against the poetry shelf like sin made flesh.
Dark jeans. A black sweater that hugs his broad chest like it was sewn onto him. One hand shoved in his pocket, the other trailing lazily along the spine of a Bukowski book he has no intention of buying.
He looks up. And fuck me. That smirk. Like he’s been waiting for this exact moment.
“Fancy seeing you here,” he says, voice low, sinful, the kind of tone that curls inside your bloodstream and makes it hard to walk straight. My mouth goes dry.
“What are you doing here?” I manage.
He shrugs. “Browsing. Or maybe fate.”
My heart thuds. He steps closer. My body responds before my brain can catch up, heat surging, thighs tightening, breath stalling.
“Pick up anything good?” he asks, nodding toward the books in my arms.
I glance down. The cover on top is Scandalous Nights with the Duke . Naturally.
Reece raises a brow. “Purely for the plot, I’m sure.”
I clear my throat. “Absolutely.”
“Mm.” He steps in close. Too close. Close enough that I can smell the cedar and smoke of his cologne. Close enough that I feel the heat radiating off his skin.
He reaches out with control, brushing a lock of hair off my shoulder. He lets his finger trail along my collarbone. Gently. Lingering. Like he owns every inch of me. I forget how to breathe.
“You miss the way I touched you,” he murmurs, voice like velvet. “How I owned this body.”
My nipples harden instantly. My core clenches so tight I nearly drop the stack of books. I open my mouth, but no words come out. He leans in, his lips ghosting the shell of my ear.
“Do you still touch yourself the way I taught you?”
A small, involuntary sound escapes me—half gasp, half moan. His hand slides from my collarbone to the strap of my tank top, thumb brushing just beneath it.
“You still get wet when you think about me between your legs?”
I nearly collapse. He pulls back just enough to meet my eyes. His are dark. Hungry. But patient.
The bastard.
I hate how badly I want to press my thighs together. How desperately I want him to say fuck the slow burn and drag me into the stockroom and ruin me. Instead, he trails his index finger slowly, torturously, down my bare arm.
From shoulder to elbow. Elbow to wrist. He doesn’t grab me. Doesn’t kiss me. Doesn’t even break eye contact. Just that single finger, grazing my skin like he’s painting his name across my body in invisible ink.
“I bet you’re soaked right now,” he whispers.
I bite my lip so hard I taste blood. My body’s humming.
Humming isn’t even the right word. No, I’m buzzing, vibrating, barely able to stand upright. My panties are drenched. My breath is shallow. My pulse pounds between my legs. And still, he doesn’t touch me anywhere that would break his perfect little game.
He just looks at me. Possessive. Hungry. Like I’m dessert and he’s waiting for permission to indulge.
My hand twitches. I want to grab him. Drag him into the stacks. Rip his clothes off and beg him to fuck me until I can’t remember why I ever left. He leans in again, his lips brushing my cheek this time. But just barely.
“Not yet,” he whispers. “You haven’t chosen me. Not really.”
Then he steps back. And walks away. Like he didn’t just wreck me with a single goddamn fingertip.
I stand there for a solid thirty seconds. Shaking. Breathing hard. My legs trembling like I just came from a spin class. And then I look down at the books still clutched in my arms.
I make it to the Uber. Barely. I don’t remember ordering it. Don’t remember walking out of the store. I float on shaky legs and adrenaline, my skin still tingling from the whisper of his touch.
The moment the car door closes behind me, I crumble. Not visibly. But my thighs clench together so tight I could snap steel between them.
Because I am wrecked . Soaked. Ruined.
The seat belt crosses my chest, but it’s the ghost of his voice I feel. You miss the way I touched you. Do you still touch yourself the way I taught you?
I press my knees together harder, gripping the fabric of my dress with white knuckles. I’ve never in my life wanted to be fucked so badly. And I’ve never wanted to slap someone for leaving me like this.
By the time I get home, I’m so far gone I don’t even take off my shoes. I toss my purse, lock the door, and beeline to the bedroom like my body’s operating on pure instinct. I strip down in seconds, dress pooled on the floor, bra flung at the door, panties soaked through.
I fall onto the bed and reach for my vibrator like it’s a lifeline. Because my body is aching . Every nerve on fire. My clit so sensitive it pulses when the air hits it.
I turn the toy on, low setting first, just to start. But the moment I drag it over myself, I moan. Loud. Desperate.
My back arches off the bed and my thighs shake. I picture his mouth. His hands. The heat in his eyes as he told me I wasn’t allowed to have him—not yet. That I hadn’t chosen him. I think about what would’ve happened if I had.
I imagine him pressing me against the bookshelf, pulling my panties to the side, sliding two fingers into me while whispering how tight I still am.
How he’s going to fuck me right there, with the dust and the scent of old pages all around us.
How he’d make me come and then make me beg to come again.
The toy buzzes faster. I roll my hips into it, gasping now. It’s not enough. I push harder. Faster. My thighs tremble. My breath catches. The orgasm crashes into me, sharp and shallow, more frustration than release.
I lie there for a second, panting, raw, unsatisfied. Because it’s not him. It’s never going to be enough until it’s him. The toy falls out of my hand, dropping beside my now useless, soaked panties. I stare at both.
And then… I do something stupid. Or maybe brilliant.
I grab my phone. I snap a picture. The pink vibrator. The pink lace panties with the obviously soaked crotch. My sheets rumpled and the very obvious evidence that I’ve been desperately trying to fuck the need out of my system.
I hesitate. Just for a second. Then I hit send.
Me: This is what you did to me. I still came. But it wasn’t nearly enough.
Then I toss the phone beside me, still breathless, still aching. And wait.