Episode 221
LOVE IS LIKE OXYGEN
River
Emily stands there, chest heaving, her face pale and strained. Her eyes are rimmed with panic, and she’s looking at me like I’m going to implode any minute.
Maybe I will.
“River—”
I hold up a hand to stop her.
I don’t want to hear it. Not now.
I know Sebastian. He had his eye on Emily the first night. In fact, I seem to recall the two of them disappearing at one point.
And Emily…
She was afraid Seb told me something.
It doesn’t take a genius to read between those lines.
“You slept with him, didn’t you?” My voice is cold, detached. Like I’m asking about something mundane and not the fact that Emily—my Emily—fucked another man.
She flinches as if I struck her.
“Yes,” she admits in a small voice.
Her confession slices through me like a cold blade.
“Why?”
“I thought we were over,” she replies. “I thought you didn’t love me.”
Her words hit me like a load of bricks. “You thought that because I didn’t say it before leaving?”
She nods, her face crumpling. “You left me alone, River. I was… Bloody hell. I was about to say I was vulnerable. But I wasn’t. I was angry. Needy. Fuck it all. I don’t like myself like this.”
I swallow hard, fighting the wave of hurt and betrayal surging through me. The room feels like it’s closing in, my heart pounding so hard I feel like it might burst out of my chest.
“You like yourself better when you’re sleeping around?” I say dryly.
She whips her hands to her hips. Clearly sorrowful Emily is no more.
“No! For the love of God, River, you can’t arrange a matchmaking event and expect the women not to test the waters.”
She’s not wrong. I’ve tested the waters myself. With Heather. And kind of with Misty, though I was trying to get information out of her at the time.
Hell, Seb has probably fucked all of them by now. That’s his way.
Still, I’m hurting. I feel betrayed.
I love Emily, but she’s not who I expected to fall for. Rachel was the one who drew me in the first night…but now she’s gone. Not that I blame her. She almost died on that catamaran.
Emily? She seemed uptight and haughty. Hardly my type.
But damn…
She turned out to be a lioness in the sack, and soon I found myself thinking about her all the time, wanting to know everything about her. She became my oxygen, my gravity, holding me together when everything else was falling apart.
And it all started because I was angry at Misty, I needed a release, and Emily was available.
Still…
“So you jumped into bed with the first man who showed interest?” My words come out harsher than I intended.
Emily flinches as if I’ve physically struck her. “Damn you! I told you I don’t like myself like this. I don’t like feeling unwanted, vulnerable. Yes, I went to bed with Sebastian—”
“After I took care of your blackmail situation.”
“Stop bloody interrupting me!” She’s on fire now.
Fine. So am I.
“Fuck you, Emily,” I grit out. “Fuck you all the way back to London!”
“Fuck you too,” she hurls back at me. “I told you I loved you, River. And you left. You bloody left!”
“That doesn’t mean I didn’t love you.”
“How the hell was I supposed to know that?
The silence that follows is deafening.
I run a hand through my hair. Anger roils inside me, but something else overpowers it.
Arousal.
I’m hard as stone as I regard Emily, her silky platinum hair around her shoulders, her blue eyes alive with wildfire.
Did I drive her to this? Push her into the arms of another man?
It will be the last fucking time.
I pull her to me, plunk her down onto the couch. “Take off those shorts.”
“Bugger off.”
Fine. I tug her over my knee.
Swat!
My hand comes down on her clothed ass.
She squeals and wriggles, but I hold her tight with my other hand. She struggles for a moment more before going still beneath me. The tension between us is thick, suffocating.
“River—”
I cut her off with another swat. Her slight gasp spikes my excitement.
“Quiet,” I command. “I’m not done.”
And I’m not. The rush of emotions—anger, betrayal, hurt—are all there, swirling inside me like a violent storm. But beneath all that is an undeniable hunger for Emily. A craving that won’t be satisfied until I reclaim her as mine.
I spank her again, harder this time. Her gasp turns into a moan that sends jolts of electricity straight to my cock.
“You think you can just fuck someone else and then crawl back into my bed?” I spank her again.
“Seems that’s exactly what I did,” she taunts me.
“Cheeky, as you Brits would say,” I growl low in my throat, delivering another sharp slap to her ass.
Her breath hitches, and she writhes on my lap.
Her defiance only adds fuel to the blazing fire inside me.
“Then you should have no problem accepting your punishment,” I say.
I spank her again, and this time, her moan is louder. She presses her hips down against me, the friction igniting a spark of pleasure that shoots straight through me.
“River…” Her voice is a plea, a demand, and a sigh all wrapped up in one.
“I know what you need, Emily. And I’m going to give it to you.”
Without a word more, I strip off her shorts and panties—not gently—in one swift motion. She gasps but doesn’t protest.
“I love you,” I say through clenched teeth. “I love you so much it fucking hurts. And Emily, I’m going to fuck you so roughly, so thoroughly, that you’ll never so much as think about another man again.”