Chapter 13 #2
I roll my eyes. “They’re just having fun with me because they’re trying to screw with you. They’d do it to anyone you dated.”
He watches me, his head slightly tilted. “No. They. Love. You.”
There’s an intensity in Owen’s eyes, like he needs me to see and understand. But the welcome I’ve received makes no sense. This family is incredible. After twenty-eight years of shallow interactions and dismissals, what are the chances they’d be the first to want me.
“I don’t understand how they even thought we were together to begin with.” He opens his mouth to argue, but I refuse to be bowed, to pretend that we both don’t know the vast disparity between us. Our backgrounds, our education, our bank accounts. “We’ve already established you’re out of my league.”
“We’ve established no such thing.”
I continue like I didn’t hear him, even if his words make goosebumps sprout over my arms. “I’m not the type of girl someone from your family marries.”
“I don’t see—”
“It just goes to show they’re all desperate for you to settle down.”
He takes one long stride, bringing our bodies flush as he glares down at me.
“I’m only going to say this once. They believed it because it was believable.
One look at you would be enough to make anyone believe I wanted you.
But then you spent three days showing everyone how wonderful you are.
I’m not surprised they’ve spent the past three years wishing I’d get you back.
You aren’t good enough for my family. You’re better. ”
I stare up at him in shock. His pupils expand, slowly overtaking the green until only the shades of blue are left. I drop my eyes to hide the riot of emotions shooting through me.
He doesn’t let me take the easy way out, wrapping a large hand around the side of my neck and using his thumb under my chin to tilt my face back to his. “Do you understand, Thea?”
The way his eyes flick to my throat tells me he feels my answering gulp against his hand, but I manage a nod.
“Good,” he says just above a whisper.
His eyes slowly move back up my face. The light blue is gone now, too, leaving nothing but his blown pupils and those rings of navy.
Dark and dangerous in a way I’ve never seen him.
I expect him to walk away. He made his point.
Instead, the hand on my neck tightens, a flex of his muscles that shoots straight to my core.
“I dream about you, you know?” His words coast against my lips.
My eyes widen. “You do?”
He pulls his lower lip between his teeth and a strangled whimper escapes me. His breath catches in response, and when he looks at me, there’s a new hope in those depths. “I do. Every few months, like clockwork, there you are. My subconscious loves to torture me.”
“Torture you how?” I ask. The breathiness of my voice should embarrass me, but I can’t regret this conversation and the way he’s affecting me.
“You don’t want to know that.” There’s a hesitancy to his tone, like we’re playing a game, and he doesn’t know where out-of-bounds starts.
“What if I did? Want to know.”
He can’t stop now. If he walks away and leaves me like this, I’ll never recover. I’ll spend the rest of my life in a constant state of anticipation, waiting to hear the things Dream Owen and Dream Thea did in the middle of the night.
“Are you sure?” he asks, his voice still cautious, but he chuckles when I nod with too much enthusiasm.
The hand around my neck moves into my hair.
“It shows me these curls, wrapped around my fist.” He tugs lightly, and when I tilt my head back, his other hand runs down to trace the line of my throat, then down my body to my leg.
“These legs have been wrapped around me plenty of times, too.” His fingers play with the hem of my sleep shorts.
“Is that all?” I ask.
He licks his lips, that smirk growing into a grin at my goading. “Not even close. You don’t want me to get started on those lips. The unspeakable things they’ve done to me.” He drops his mouth to my ear. “I wake kicking myself for not learning what you tasted like when I had my chance.”
“Why didn’t you?” The question rang in my head all the time. There was plenty of tension between us that weekend. I knew he wanted me, but he never made the move.
He pulls back, a crease forming between his brows. “I was paying you to pretend. I wouldn’t have put you in that position.”
The fact that I hadn’t even considered how inappropriate that would have been is another sign of just how much better he is than me, contrary to what he believes. He’s the best guy, kind and genuine. The complete package. Way too good for an emotionally unavailable, unemployed hot mess.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t have a small piece of him.
I look at him, my fingers curling in the fabric of his shirt. His eyes flare, the blue barely there, when I tug him another inch closer. “Are you always this good, Owen?”
He lets out a ragged breath. “Hard to remember what good even is right now.”
This is the tipping point. The moment where I decide what’s next.
I can still walk away. We can pretend like this is nothing, another moment of the act we’ve been putting on for his family.
But he’s so close, and that scent—the sweet, earthy smell mixed with something so uniquely Owen—is short-circuiting my brain.
No warnings from best friends or requests from sisters could compel me to walk away from him right now.
I push up on my toes, our lips mere centimeters apart. “Then stop trying.”
He groans and wraps his hand back around my neck, hauling my mouth to his.
Sparks shoot through my veins, setting every atom on fire.
I slide my hands through his soft hair, tugging at the root and giving him back every ounce of passion he pours into the kiss as our mouths open in unison.
He tastes fresh, the sharp minty bite of toothpaste flooding my senses, like he’d been planning to go to sleep before getting the request for help from his cousin.
His hand slides down to my leg, wrapping around my thigh and hitching it over his hip as he grinds against me, hitting the perfect place that shoots off fireworks behind my eyes.
This isn’t how I’d imagined Owen would kiss.
I’d assumed he’d be sweet and sensuous. But this?
It’s a claiming, and I give myself over to him willingly.
I rip my mouth away from his, letting my head thud on the doorframe as his low moan echoes around us.
Owen never stops, moving his mouth down my neck with nipping bites and the smooth run of his tongue.
He bites the sensitive spot where my neck and shoulder meet and I moan again, both hands settling on his waist as I pull him against me hard.
“So much better than my dreams. God, your taste,” he pants into my skin.
A shaky breath escapes me. “Pretty fun down here in the gutter, isn’t it, golden boy?”
He yanks back so quickly that I would fall on my ass if it weren’t for the frame behind me and the strong pressure of his hand on my thigh.
Those fingers flex so tightly I wonder if he’ll leave marks, and part of me relishes the thought of walking around tomorrow with the evidence of Owen’s desire for me written out on my skin.
But the anguish in his face is enough to toss a bucket of cold water over my libido.
“You are not the gutter, Thea.” The shock and anger in his tone make me want to disappear, to melt back into this wall until I’m a part of the hotel.
I force a laugh, pushing lightly on his stomach. The tree of a man doesn’t budge. “It was a joke.”
“I don’t think it was,” he says.
“Yeah, well, maybe that’s because you have no sense of humor.
” The insult—my obnoxious, destructive attempt to force attention away from my insecurities—hits its mark.
His beautiful face crumples and he nods, looking away from me.
I remember too late his reaction when Gabriel made the same comment our first night here. “Owen, I’m sor—”
“No, you’re right.” He lets go of my leg, and my foot lands on the floor with a thump.
He doesn’t move away, both our chests still heaving and his expression somewhere between resignation and betrayal. I stare, desperate to come up with a way to heal the wound I inflicted but unable to think of anything that wouldn’t leave me bleeding out instead.
A squeak sounds down the hallway, and we both jump. When we turn, we spot Camila, eyes glued to us with delight on her face. Before we can speak, she twirls on her toes like a prima ballerina and shoots around the corner.
Owen groans. “Camila’s the biggest gossip in the family.”
“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit,” I mutter, pacing the hallway.
He grabs me by the arms, forcing me to stop. “I’ll go after her and make sure she keeps her mouth shut.”
I scoff. “Sure. How do you control the family gossip?”
“She didn’t see anything. We were just standing close.” By that point is left unsaid. “I’ll make sure she knows there’s nothing between us.”
There really is nothing between us besides a single—scorching—kiss. So why does it hurt when he confirms it?
“Plus,” he continues, “we’re the closest in age. I’ve got plenty of blackmail on her.”
His devious smile is so at odds with his normal hometown hero facade that my knees go weak all over again.
“Please don’t let her ruin this, Owen,” I say. “I can’t do that to Addy. Promise me.”
His smile fades. “I promise.”
With one last glance at my lips, Owen jogs off after Camila.