18. Rule #18 When a beautiful woman wants you to seduce her in a sex club, don’t make eye contact with your best friend’s daughter.
Matis
There are hundreds of very good reasons as to why I cannot kiss Amelia. I have spent countless hours in the last two weeks deliberating and obsessing over every single one. And no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to work out a good enough reason to break these rules.
Until I tasted her lips.
Now this is my reason.
The way she hums delicately into my mouth. The way her lithe frame clings to mine. The ways she furrows her brow and squeezes her eyes shut as we kiss like the feeling is so good it hurts.
Suddenly, all the reasons are nothing but distant murmurs in the back of my mind.
As she hangs from my frame, letting me kiss her so deeply it feels as if I’m crawling inside her, her back slams against the closed door.
It gives me a surface to press her into with my body, and my hips grind against her of their own accord.
My cock is reaching for what it craves. It’s been desperate for her since the moment she uttered those words: I am a woman with needs and desires.
You don’t think I know this? I have noticed what a woman Amelia has grown into.
But it doesn’t make any of this easier. It doesn’t matter that my attraction to her only started this year.
It doesn’t matter that I would have rather cut off my own dick before touching her back then. I feel like a deviant all the same.
But her body in my hands now feels like the body of a woman. Her supple curves. Her perky, pebbled breasts. Her ravenous lips and hands.
“Amelia, we can’t—” I start, only to be cut off by the sound of a tapping on the other side of the door.
“Mel? Everything okay?”
Julian’s voice has me leaping away from his little sister as if she is suddenly made of fire. She stares at me wide-eyed as I quickly pace away from her.
We’ve been caught already.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
My back is to the door when Amelia opens it and lets out a heavy sigh. “Yeah, we’re fine.”
I turn to find Julian staring at me with rigid skepticism, and I don’t blame him. He suspects something inappropriate. Me taking advantage of her. Hurting her. And to see someone worried for her safety with me is sobering. Not to mention excruciating.
I’m supposed to be the one protecting her. That is my job. My only job.
“I heard the door slam,” he says, looking at her to gauge her expression.
“That was me,” she mutters. “We were just having…an argument.”
“An argument?” he asks.
“It’s my fault,” I interject. “I shouldn’t have invited her date here without her consent, and she’s mad at me. Rightfully so. I will go down there and handle it. I’m sorry, Amelia.”
I’ll give her credit. She holds up the act. Practically growling at me with a scowl as I pass them both by to reach the hallway, I love that she’s working so hard to keep her brother from knowing what we were just doing.
But it doesn’t settle my concerns at all. In fact, it makes them worse because this is the reality of it all. Amelia and I would have to keep our relationship a secret. We couldn’t let people find out—and eventually they would find out.
A relationship? With my goddaughter. What the fuck am I even thinking?
Before I know it, I’m walking down the stairs toward the main level of the club. I glance up to find Olivia and her brother looking impatient at the bar, and I’m swarmed with guilt.
Time to put on a smile.
With a charming but apologetic grin, I walk toward the siblings. “I hope you two will forgive me. I didn’t realize Amelia would be so swamped with work. I don’t think she’ll be able to join us tonight.”
Jacob instantly deflates. “Oh really?”
“Well, that’s disappointing.” Olivia looks at her brother. “I should probably go with you back to the apartment then.”
Judging by the hopefulness in her tone, she’s secretly wishing her brother would let her stay with me, but that is the last thing I want at this point. I need her to leave. Then I need to get back to my place and try to figure out what the fuck I’m going to do next.
I’ve crossed a line you can’t uncross.
And I can’t just move on with another woman after that.
“I’m exhausted anyway,” Jacob mumbles. “I think I’ll just…grab a cab back.”
“I’ll come with,” Olivia replies.
“No, you stay,” he argues, and I hide my wince.
“Look, there she is,” Olivia chirps excitedly.
Glancing up, I see Amelia coming down the stairs. She looks nervous and agitated as she scans the bar for Jacob. When she spots us, I turn my gaze away to avoid looking into her eyes.
I’ll never look at her the same after feeling her body like I have now.
“Hey,” she mumbles softly. Looking at Jacob, she touches his arm. “Sorry I can’t hang tonight, but maybe we can just have a word outside?”
As the two of them walk toward the door, Amelia avoids my eyes. Jacob turns back toward his sister with a downcast expression. “You stay. Seriously.”
Merde.
“Come with me,” I say to her politely. Instead of taking her down to the sex club, where it’s dark and sexy and just too much for tonight, I lead her to a comfortable sofa in the back of the upstairs bar.
It’s purple crushed velvet and currently unoccupied so I guide her to sit as I take the seat next to her.
It’s the perfect place to let her down. Not something I ever have to do.
I try to maintain small talk. I even try to flirt, smiling and holding her eye contact like I normally do, but nothing feels right anymore. I am not the same man I was before I went up to that office.
The flirtatious, excited look on Olivia’s face tells me she thinks this night is going somewhere it most definitely is not. She pats the empty space between us. “Come closer.”
I grin uncomfortably as I inch closer to her.
Why am I so terrible at this? My entire life has been spent inviting people into my bed, not pushing them away from it. And Olivia is so beautiful it feels like a crime to deny her.
The whole reason I invited her here was to seduce her. My plan involved taking Olivia to a room in this club and letting her touch distract me from the one person I can’t have. But that all feels so futile now.
Now that I’ve kissed Amelia. Again.
Olivia draws her finger down my arm and leans closer. “So when do we get to see the lower level? I want to see your favorite place in this club.”
My laugh is soft and slow. “Every part of this club is my favorite.”
She smiles as her eyes meet mine. “Then show me every part. I can be very accommodating.”
“Olivia,” I mumble, capturing her hand as it starts to trail down my chest. “You are an incredibly beautiful woman.”
Before I can continue, she leans so close her lips brush mine. It takes me by surprise, and I pull backward, searching for words to cover my strange reaction.
Just then, a pair of familiar eyes steals my focus. I watch Amelia walking across the room without Jacob, and she sees me sitting with Olivia. Shooting me a look of jealous disgust, she marches angrily up the stairs.
My heart falls.
Olivia turns to see what I’m staring at so appalled and spots Amelia. Then she turns back toward me.
“Oh…my God,” she mumbles as realization washes over her.
“What?” I ask as if she didn’t just see that entire interaction.
“It’s her.” Olivia sits upright, putting distance between us as she laughs to herself like I’m not in on the joke.
“What about her?”
She stands with a huff. “I think you know, Matis.” When I stare at her dumbly, she practically shouts.
“Amelia! I’ve been throwing myself at you, and you would have been all over me too, but now…
” Pacing away, she shakes her head with frustration.
“I had a feeling there was something between you two.”
My gaze rakes over the club to be sure no one heard her just say that out loud. “There is nothing between me and Amelia,” I lie as if I didn’t just have my tongue down her throat moments ago.
Olivia freezes and levels a glare at my face. “You’re a terrible liar.”
That’s not what I want to hear, because if I’m a terrible liar, it’s only a matter of time before everyone in Paris knows.
Standing from the couch, I pace toward her. “Listen, Olivia. There is nothing between me and”—I lower my voice—“Amelia, because there can be nothing between us. She is my goddaughter.”
Her face screws up in disgust. “She’s practically a child, Matis.”
“You don’t think I know that?” I whisper-shout, leaning toward her.
“I have to tell my brother. He has to end things with her,” she says, grabbing her purse in frustration.
There’s an instinctual part of myself that wants to stop her, but then I think… What’s the harm? There is really nothing between them anyway. Amelia was never going to be his.
Because she’s mine.
No. That nagging voice at the back of my mind was wrong.
“Olivia, wait.” I reach for her but it’s futile. She’s already gone, marching out of the club. The second woman this month who left me because of my infatuation with a girl I shouldn’t be attracted to.
Defeated, I rake my hands through my hair.
But I can’t go upstairs to confront Amelia, and I can’t stay here. So with nowhere else to go, I walk out front and call a cab to go home.
My bed proves to be just another torture chamber. I toss and turn, hearing Amelia’s words in my head. Everything she said echoes in my mind like a song I can’t get out.
I don’t want someone else.
I am a woman with needs and desires like everyone else.
And then my lovesick admission to her: I ache for you.
I’ve opened a door I can’t close.
My only options now are to move far, far from here in hopes that I could find some relief from this torturous desire.
Or…the unthinkable. To give in. To indulge in everything I want with Amelia.
But like I said: unthinkable.
And yet…leaving her forever…unimaginable.
Whatever we decide, it won’t be solved here, lying alone in this bed. It’s time Amelia and I put this ridiculous thing between us to rest. We need to face it head-on. Have a hard conversation and decide together that we cannot let this go any further.
It can’t wait until tomorrow.
Throwing off the covers, I climb out of bed and put on the same clothes I tore off when I got home. Then I run off into the night, hailing the first cab I see.
If nothing else, I know one thing for certain. I need to see her.