17. Rule #17 When he says we can’t, show him that we can. #2
Why the hell would he do that?
In a rush, I rip the fabric off my brother and toss it all onto the table. Pins fall to the floor as I dash out of the room and down the hall. The entire time, my head is spinning.
He wouldn’t.
Would he?
Bring my date to our sex club.
Our. Sex. Club.
I’m not sure what Matis is up to or why he would do this. Especially after Saturday night. Sure, he did freak out a bit after the kiss, but during the kiss, he was clearly enjoying himself. So why on earth would he think today is a good day to bring our dates into the mix?
Unless…he really wants to drive a wedge between us. He’s so afraid of being alone with me again because of the way I acted that night that he’s pushing Jacob toward me.
Why the heck did I ask him to kiss me?
I reach the main level of the club, hoping and praying that they have restricted their presence to this floor where things are tame and fully clothed. Far less open fucking up here, which is to mean none.
By some grace of God, I spot Olivia and Matis at the bar. She’s standing so close to him that they look like one person, and he’s smiling. It’s that fake, flirtatious, charming smile.
When I reach the bottom of the stairs, Jacob steps in front of me with a look of nervous terror on his face that is actually pretty cute.
“You’re here,” he says as if I’m a raft in the middle of an endless ocean.
“The question is…why are you?” I ask, trying to infuse humor into my tone.
“Matis invited us. I sort of thought you knew.”
“I didn’t, but that’s okay,” I reply with a big fake smile.
Matis’s kind gray eyes find me across the bar, mid-laugh with his date. I catch a flinch of something like regret before he turns back toward her.
What is he doing?
“Want a drink?” Jacob asks innocently, as if I don’t own the fucking place.
Okay, I’m clearly mad. Pissed even. Fuming and completely unable to just brush it off and move on.
“I’d love one. Can you just…give me one moment?” Putting a finger up toward Jacob, I know I’m completely blowing it with him, but I don’t care. I have some things to get off my chest. What? I don’t even know.
With fury and frustration in my eyes, I march over to Matis.
“Bonsoir, Amelia,” he says in his bullshit, charming accent.
Stupid, sexy accent.
“Can I talk to you for a second? Upstairs.”
His brows shoot upward. Then he glances cautiously at Olivia. “Sure. Would you excuse me a moment?”
She nods with a shrug before shooting me a tense glare as if she thinks he somehow belongs to her and I’m stealing him away. She doesn’t even know him.
I know everything about him.
Stomping my way up the stairs, I feel Matis behind me, and I don’t stop until we are in my office at the end. Once he walks inside, I slam the door behind him.
“What on earth are you doing?” I bark at him before the latch even catches.
He spins on me in bewilderment. “What are you talking about?”
“You just invited my date to the club without talking to me about it first?” My hands are perched on my hips, and my blood pressure is spiking, growing hot in my veins.
“I thought you’d be pleasantly surprised,” he replies with his hands up.
“Surprised?” A thousand thoughts and a million feelings brew up inside me like a tornado, and so many of them are things I am not brave enough to say.
“Don’t you like Jacob?”
I answer only with one heavy breath after another. Then I spin on Matis and pace away from him in anger. “Of course I do.”
The words that come out of his mouth next only fuel my panic and fear. No matter how soft and sympathetic they are spoken.
“Then you should be with him, Amelia.”
My feet stop their pacing. “So that’s why you brought him here,” I state.
Even in my silence, my emotions grow. Humiliation, desperation, and anger. But more than anything, the one that makes each of these terrible sentiments glisten like a sheen of something beautiful over something ugly…is love. Adoration. Heartbreaking affection.
I still love Matis more than I have loved anyone, and I probably always will.
And there’s nothing I can do about it.
With rage-fueled tears brimming in my eyes, I spin and march toward the door. “Fine!” I bark. “I’ll go back to Jacob.”
Before I can reach the knob, he puts himself between me and the exit. “Wait, Amelia, please,” he begs.
“What, Matis? You want me with him, don’t you? That’s what you want!”
“I can’t have what I want!” he bellows in return.
With a flinch, I gasp, frozen in place as I stare up at him. “What…do you want?”
He huffs, running his hand through his hair. “I think it was pretty clear that night, Trouble.”
“Then…why did you bring them? Why—”
“Because I am trying, Amelia,” he replies, sounding erratic and desperate. “I am trying to get over you. I am trying to want literally anyone else, but all I think about is you. And your lips. And your eyes. And your soft skin.”
He takes a slow step toward me, and the world ceases to spin altogether. I’m staring up at the man I love, hearing him tell me how much he wants me, and I’m sure I’ve hit my head or entered an alternate reality altogether.
But when I reach for him, he pulls away as if I’m poison.
“I didn’t ask for this,” he says with anguish as he turns away from me.
“You think I did?” I snap. “You think I want the only man on earth I am attracted to to be the one man I can’t have? You look at me like I’m a child, Matis.”
He turns back with a sardonic laugh. “You might as well be.”
“But I’m not!” I shout. “I am twenty-five years old. Matis, I am a woman with needs and desires just like everyone else.”
He groans at my words, putting his face in his hands. “You’ll find someone else,” he mutters. “You have to find someone else.”
“I don’t want someone else.”
There is still so much distance between us, it might as well be miles. All I want is to erase it, but I can’t force him to let go of his reservations. I can’t ask him to kiss me again. He has to do it on his own.
“Tell me to go downstairs, and I will. Tell me to leave with Jacob, and I will. The whole reason I even started seeing him was to get over you. I was so desperate to be rid of this crush, so if you tell me right now that there’s no hope for us, I will leave, and I’ll never bother you about this again.
I’ll never ask you to kiss me or even walk me home. You’ll be free of me.”
With his back to me, he stands in tormenting silence. Judging by his heavy sighs, he’s in contemplation, and after the moments stretch and stretch and stretch, I give up.
“Fine,” I mutter with indignation. I try to sound tough, but I’m only a girl, and my voice quivers as I rush toward the door.
This time, I get my hand around the knob and turn it to pull it open. It only opens an inch before Matis slams his hand against it, forcing it shut. He’s hovering over me as I turn toward him.
I can’t tell if he’s about to yell at me or drop to his knees and cry. But then again, I don’t understand anything that’s happening anymore.
So when his next words leave his lips, they knock my world off its axis entirely.
“Free of you?” he whispers. “Amelia, I ache for you.”
Until the day I die, I will remember the sound of his voice as he uttered this sentiment. The wounded need in his husky tone.
“Then why?” I plead as I reach for him, only for him to put a hand up to stop me.
“Because we can’t,” he replies. “We can’t, we can’t, we can’t.”
With every echo, he inches closer. By the time he whispers his last we can’t, his mouth is only a breath from mine.
So I do what any normal woman with a beating heart and good sense would do. I latch a hand around his neck and haul his mouth to my lips for a passionate, earth-melting kiss.