Brinley
Present day
“I think maybe I need some rules for tonight,” Marston says.
“Rules?” My voice cracks. We’re back in the limo and moving slowly through traffic on the way to the nightclub. I don’t want rules. In fact, what’s the opposite of rules? That’s what I want.
Marston nods, his gaze flicking up to mine before dipping to my mouth again. “I don’t know where the lines are, and I’m sitting here wondering if half the things I want to do and say are allowed.”
I laugh. “You literally just bought me the nicest lingerie I’ve ever owned. Say what you want.” I scoot closer and trace the back of his hand with my index finger. His hands were always big and rough, but they’re a little bigger and surer now, just like the rest of him. I wonder if they’d feel the same on my skin as they used to. “Do what you want.”
His smile is tenuous, but his eyes are all over me. “Ten years later, and you’re still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. And I can’t stop thinking about kissing you again.”
My breath catches. “Yeah. You’re definitely allowed to say those things.” I shift forward and bury my face in the side of his neck, breathing him in, then skim my mouth up to his ear, nipping lightly and making him groan softly. “You’re definitely allowed to kiss me.”
His hand tangles in my hair and he brings his mouth to mine, kissing me deeply and with the kind of hunger that mirrors my own and only makes me want more. Something in the back of my mind warns me that I shouldn’t be doing this until we have a conversation, until I come clean about what happened after he left, but I tamp that down. I kiss him back and funnel all of my fear and guilt and worry about the future into that kiss.
When he tears his mouth away from mine to kiss my neck, I realize there is some honesty I can offer, and the confession bubbles out of me. “I knew you’d be here. That’s why I was at the bar. Tonight wasn’t really a coincidence.”
He looks into my eyes, and I want to pour my soul out on the floor of the limo, if only to be free of the weight of my secrets. But then his lips curve into a smile that reminds me so much of the boy I loved and lost that I know I won’t say anything tonight that could hurt him.
“I looked you up and knew your latest project was reopening today. And then I stalked social media to find out what clubs you liked in Vegas.” I swallow. “I wanted to see you. You probably think I’m crazy.”
He shakes his head, something like awe on his face. “Sometimes crazy is good.”
I don’t even realize we’ve stopped until the driver opens my door and offers a hand to help me out.
“You can leave those here if you want,” Marston says, nodding to my bags.
There’s a promise in that offer—our night doesn’t end at the club—and the hours ahead glimmer before me with possibility. Reluctantly, I retreat from the warmth of Marston’s arms, and he follows behind me. On the sidewalk, he holds me close, leading me around the line in front of the club and right to the door. He flashes his ID to the bouncer, who checks his list, then lifts the ropes to let us through.
Marston doesn’t lead me to his table but toward the mass of dancing bodies. He pulls me into his arms, his hands slipping from my hips—lower. I can feel the hard length of him through his dress pants. Just holding me turns him on, and I know if he were to slide his hand under my skirt, he’d find the same was true for me.
“Tell me why you came,” he says against my ear. His mouth brushes lightly there, and at first I think it might be an accident, but then his teeth skim across my earlobe and he sucks it into his mouth.
A shiver runs down my spine, and that touch of his mouth undoes me. Reaching up, I thread my fingers into his and roll onto my toes, bringing my mouth to his ear. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you, and I decided it was time to prove to myself that I’d worked you up in my mind to be something you weren’t.”
He dips his head, pressing his hot, open mouth against my neck just below my ear. “Had you?”
I shake my head. “The second I saw you walking toward me, I felt it again.” I try for a second to figure out how I can explain what I mean by that, but he just nods and returns his mouth to my neck.
“Tell me I get you all night.”
“I don’t want to be anywhere but where you are.”
The song is somehow both fast and sultry, and it makes me think of silken sheets and frantic hands, candlelit bedrooms and desperate mouths, of the slide of sweat-slicked bodies and passion. I miss passion. My thighs clench together, and I squeeze my eyes shut.
When he twirls me around, I instantly miss his heat, but then he pulls my back to his front and presses his palm flat against my stomach. This is good too—the hard length of him behind me, the heat of his breath on my neck.
I don’t know what I’m doing here or why I thought seeing him would help me figure out what’s next for me at home, but I can’t regret it. I’ve missed feeling this—adored and beautiful, a way only he has ever made me feel. Maybe it’s as simple as chemistry, but what we have has always seemed more than attraction. Like the stars waiting behind the clouds. Like the promise of the sunrise after a long night. Like the sea rolling into the shore. Inevitable. Fated.
When the song ends, I step out of his arms. My whole body is tense with need, but it’s a delicious kind of torture, and I’m not in any rush for it to end.
He nods to the table. “Drink?”
“Yes,” I breathe, relieved to break the intensity of this moment.
We return to our booth to find all the food has been cleared away. Alec and Savvy are huddled together on one side. Alec notices us first, but doesn’t bother putting any space between himself and my friend.
I catch Savvy’s eye. “You two having fun?”
She grins. “Of course.” The music’s louder than it was when we left, and she has to shout to be heard. “Why would we choose anything else when fun’s a choice?”
Marston holds my hand as he slides into the booth, pulling me in beside him and wrapping an arm around me. Savvy’s eyes track the movement, and her smile stretches wider.
“Savvy’s never played at a blackjack table before,” Alec says, leaning toward Marston.
“Only the computer,” she says with a shrug.
“You’d love it,” I say, smiling. “Do you want me to take you to the casino?”
Savvy shakes her head and waves me off. “Alec’s going to take me. I’m sure you two will be okay here,” she says with a wink. “Text me if you need me.”
“Same,” I say, reaching out to squeeze her hand.
Savvy climbs out of the booth, Alec behind her, then stops suddenly. “But first, let me see the new shoes.”
I scoot to the edge of my seat and stick out one foot.
She groans, hand to her chest. “Those are fucking hot, girl.”
“Marston bought them for me.” I throw a smile over my shoulder for the man in question. “Even though I told him not to.”
“You lucky bitch!”
“She deserves it,” he says.
Alec slides his arms around her, pulling her back to his front and whispering something in her ear that makes her grin.
“Shoe shopping and then the casino,” Savvy announces. She waves goodbye with a wiggle of her fingers.
“Behave!” I call after her.
“Don’t behave!” she calls in return.
“I think Alec is smitten,” Marston says.
I shift around so I’m looking at him. “I hope so. Savvy deserves a night with a guy who treats her like a queen. She hasn’t had enough of that in her life.”
Marston quirks a brow. “What will you think if Alec takes her shopping and buys her shoes, designer clothes, and jewelry?”
“Can he afford it?”
He chuckles. “And then some.”
“I’ll think it’s great. He wants to spoil her, and she deserves to be spoiled.”
Marston tucks a lock of hair behind my ear before leaning forward and asking, “So why is it so different when I do it for you?”
I’m saved from trying to explain when the server appears at the table.
“What can I get you two?” he asks.
“I’ll have a martini,” I say. I started with vodka. Better to stick with it.
“The special edition Maker’s,” Marston says. “A double.”
The server gives a sharp nod and then heads toward the bar.
Once we’re alone, Marston looks at me with heavy-lidded eyes. “I assume you want to stay for a bit? We can always join Alec and Savannah in the casino.”
“Staying sounds good. This is a change of pace for me.” I look around the club. “Is this your scene? Wild nightclubs where you can barely hear yourself think? Women scoping you out from every side of the room?”
His lips quirk. “Jealous?”
I return his smile. “Not as long as I’m the one sitting here with you.”
He looks around, as if he’s barely bothered to register the space before now. “It’s not how I spend all my leisure time, but I enjoy the scene with the right company.”
I lean forward. I don’t want to miss a single word he says.
“Can’t hear me?” he asks.
“Barely.”
He wraps an arm around my waist until I’m thigh to thigh with him. Any closer, and I’d be in his lap. “Better?” he asks against my ear.
I straighten as a shiver runs down my spine. He’s so close I can smell his cologne. The heat from his leg warms mine. Memories of his hand on me commingle with my promise to spend the night with him, and it all tangles up in a ball of need that sits low in my belly. “Better,” I say.
The server returns with our drinks, and I take two long swallows of mine.
Marston settles one hand on my thigh and cradles his bourbon with the other. He watches me from over the rim of his glass as he sips.
“What else can I get you, sir?” the server asks.
Marston’s hand slips under the hem of my dress, his fingers curling around my inner thigh. The feel of his warm, calloused hands tugs on that knot in my gut—loosens it until all that fear and heartache and hope and longing unravel.
In this moment, ten years ago doesn’t matter. Tomorrow doesn’t matter. Only this.
“I think we’re fine for a while,” he tells the server, his voice low as his hand drifts higher.
I know the server can’t see us, but he’s standing right there, and my cheeks burn with the knowledge of where Marston’s hand is headed.
“Of course, sir,” the server says.
Marston sets down his glass and angles toward me in the booth, his hand creeping a little higher on my thigh. He studies my lips for a long moment before slowly lowering his mouth toward mine. “I’m going to kiss you again,” he whispers.
“Good.” I’m the one who closes the distance between our mouths, and I moan at the contact. His kiss is a sweet relief. I didn’t work him up to be better in my mind. I’d forgotten the electric charge between us, that rightness.
He cups my jaw in his big hand and tilts my head back, taking my mouth fully in a heady exploration of tongues and lips and need. I’m entirely his.
His hand slides farther up my skirt, and when his fingers brush against my panties, I know exactly where I need this night to go. I need this and him. I need . . . more.
“You wanted me to think about you in these?” he asks, tracing the scalloped edge of the lace with his fingers. “I can’t stop thinking about it.”
He kisses his way from my mouth, along my jaw, back to my ear, and those fingers slide into my panties. He hisses out a curse when he skims my wet center.
My thighs part in invitation. Yes. This. Please.
“Is this what you came for, Brinley? Is this what you needed?”
I meet his eyes. It’s dark in here, but not so dark that I can’t see the hunger in his expression. But I don’t need any light at all to know. I can feel it in the way he strokes me.
He holds my gaze as he slides a finger inside me. My breath hitches. My body squeezes around him. He pumps in and out, his palm giving me delicious pressure against my clit. He’s barely touched me, but I’m so close, sitting on the razor’s edge of pleasure and release and unsure which way I want to fall.
Part of me is aware of the club music booming around us, but I can hardly hear it because every one of my senses is wrapped up in him—the way he smells, his powerful arm braced between my legs, the sound of his breathing growing rougher from nothing more than touching me.
I’m not the kind of girl who gives a man free rein of her body in the middle of a club. Not the kind of girl who can get off in a dark corner when anyone might look over and guess what’s happening under the table. But tonight, I want to be. If the man is him, I want anything he can give me.
I reach for him and trail my hand along his powerful thigh, higher.
He nips at my earlobe. “Not yet,” he growls. He slides a second finger inside me, and my muscles clench tight around the welcome intrusion.
My mind flickers to the first time he touched me like this—at the creek on my parents’ property, the trees the brightest shade of green all around us, the smell of spring flowers in the air. I was clumsy—nervous and inexperienced—but so in love. It was new and exciting and as exhilarating as this moment.
This is so different . . . and yet, at the root of the arousal, at the root of the pleasure, it’s the same. It’s him. It’s the inevitable and the impossible.
“You feel so good against my hand,” he says. “You’re so fucking wet, I’m liable to make a fool of myself right here.”
My lips part, and I drag in a ragged breath as my whole body goes tighter.
“That’s it, baby,” he murmurs, giving me a fraction more pressure. “Let go. Let me feel you come.”
“I can’t,” I whisper. I don’t know what I’m objecting to—where we are, how crazy this is, or what I should be doing this weekend instead of being here with him.
“All you have to do is enjoy. I’m losing my mind thinking about tasting this sweetness I feel on my fingers. Are you going to let me do that? Can I strip you bare and kiss you here?”
I don’t know if it’s the words or if my body just can’t hang on anymore, but suddenly, I slip. Dive. Fall. Every muscle goes tight, clenching, then pleasure shoots down my spine so violently that my hips buck off the seat.
“Fuck, you’re so beautiful.” He kisses up and down my neck.
I survey the club. It’s dark, and no one’s looking our way. But still . . . “I can’t believe we just did that.” I bury my face in his neck and laugh. “Holy shit.”
He strokes me gently again, and I shudder with aftershocks of pleasure. “I’m ready to crawl under the table and get a taste of this.”
My cheeks blaze at the thought—not from embarrassment but from the shock of realizing I just might let him. “Are you this wild with all your girls?”
He stiffens then pulls back. “I’m not going to pretend I’ve been celibate all these years. Have you?”
I swallow hard. Thinking of the days after Marston left, of college, of boyfriends and disappointing one-night stands, of Julian. “No.”
He shakes his head as if he can see the shame on my face. “Don’t do that. We’ve had lives while we’ve been apart, and neither of us needs to feel guilty about that.” He kisses the corner of my mouth. “But no,” he whispers, skimming his mouth along my jaw to my ear. “To answer your question, I’ve never done anything this crazy. Never felt as wild for anyone as I feel for you.”
Swallowing, I cautiously step into the treacherous waters we’ve been dancing around all night. “I always wondered what it’d be like to see you again,” I say. “I thought you might come back one day.”
“I did. Once,” he says, and everything inside me freezes. “I’d finished my first year of college and I caught a Greyhound to Orchid Valley all the way from California. You were having some sort of party at your house. The back patio was full of people, and there you were in this pink sundress, your hair pulled up, holding someone’s baby.”
Holding someone’s baby. He saw me holding Cami. She was the first baby I’d ever held. The only one I held for years. In those first few weeks, my inexperience was terrifying, but by the time Marston would have seen me, holding Cami was second nature. “You were there?”
“Boys like that move from one girl to the next, Brinley,” Dad said. “He’s already forgotten about you. And even if he hadn’t, you think he’d want you now? This is the worst nightmare for a boy like that.”
I never fully believed those words, but they must’ve taken root on some level for this revelation to shock me so much.
“You looked absolutely stunning, and I was so distracted by the sight of you that I didn’t even notice your dad coming up beside me.” He draws in a long breath. “He told me if I cared about you at all, I would leave town and never come back. He said he’d lost a daughter already and he’d sooner cut you off than lose you to me.”
The blow I feel at those words is as familiar as my father’s sneer. His threats to cut me off worked for years—until I finally cut myself free—and I can’t help but wonder what would have come of my life if Marston had called his bluff.
“I argued at first. I’d come all that way and . . .” He looks down at his bourbon, his jaw twitching. “I left the house and went into town, thinking I’d catch you later, but his words kept echoing in my head. I decided I needed to go. It’d been a year and you looked so happy. You were doing fine without me, and I didn’t want to ruin your plans.”
“So you left.” I don’t mean for my words to sound like such an accusation, but they do. I was incredibly lonely during those years—isolated from my friends, trying and failing to prove I could hack it as a mother. If I looked happy, it was because I was holding Cami. She was the only light in my life. Even now, when life has gotten so much better and there’s so much good around me, she still shines brightest.
“It was the right choice, wasn’t it?” he asks. If I tell him the truth—that I wish he’d stayed, that I wish he’d at least let me know he’d cared enough to come—it might break something in him that I have no right to break.
I offer a small truth instead. “It was the only choice.”
“I thought that—” He cuts himself off and shakes his head. “Never mind. I don’t want to talk about that tonight.”
Me neither. I lean forward and press a kiss to his throat. “What do I have to do to talk you into taking me somewhere more private?”