Steal(Seaside Pictures Book 3)(12)

She exhaled, eyes filling with tears while her body shook with rage. “I’m clean. You know I’m clean.”

“So stay clean, and you get a door. The math isn’t hard, Ang. No drugs equals privacy. And any sort of drugs or rule breaking means your ass is on the first plane back to LA.”

“You treat all your clients like they’re your children?”

“Only ones who clearly need parenting.”

“Pretty sick words for someone who’s seen it all, huh Will?” She jerked her tank top over her head and tossed it on the floor between us, she may as well be throwing down a gauntlet.

I kept my jaw locked.

My stare indifferent.

“All right.” She hooked her fingers into her shorts and shoved them down her long tan legs, stepped out of them and waited. Baiting me.

I wasn’t going to bite.

I knew her game.

And players weren’t given unlimited lives.

With a scowl, she clenched her fists and then dropped her bra.

Topless.

I flinched.

I didn’t mean to.

So when she tugged her black boy-shorts next, I forced my eyes not to blink. They burned as my entire body demanded I lick and swallow her whole.

Then go back for seconds.

My smile was cruel when I wanted it to be loving.

I hated myself in that moment. For allowing her to make me that man, the one who would break her.

When I knew all she ever wanted was love. Acceptance.

But we were too far gone.

With a sigh, I slowly approached her, then knelt, bracing her hips with my hands like I was going to press a kiss to her belly button, I ran my hands down her hips. Her body gave a jerk as her head fell back, her fingers dug into my hair.

I winced at the contact.

It would be too easy.

But there was a giant past between us.

A river of sins separated us.

I slid my hands down her perfect legs, then grabbed her discarded clothes and stood. “I think you dropped these.” I brushed a rough kiss to her cheek, and brought my lips to her ear. “Go to bed, Ang.”

Breathing ragged, she grabbed the wad of clothes from my hands and stumbled backward, tears filling her eyes.

No door slammed but I imagined that if she had one, it would have splintered into a thousand tiny pieces as I turned on my heel and walked into my own room, body stiff as a board.

Brain reeling from the encounter.

And in need of a cold shower.

Or twenty.

I might loathe the woman.

Hate beyond words.

But one thing rang true — she was absolutely heart-stompingly — beautiful.

And at one time — she’d been mine.

Those hips.

Those breasts.

Those legs wrapped around me.

Mine. Mine. Mine.

Until she was someone else’s completely.

And I had nothing.

I pounded the wall with a fist and slowly made my way to the bathroom, jerking the knob full blast on cold.





I BLINKED UP at the white ceiling, willing the tears to dry. Praying they wouldn’t slip free — because once they were loose there was no stopping the onslaught of emotion that would follow, the devastation, the earth-shattering realization that nothing would ever be the same between us. Not if he could help it — and not with me constantly pushing him.

But at least pushing him got me a reaction that proved he wasn’t a complete indifferent sociopath.

I refused to let him get to me.

With a sigh I turned onto my side and stared out the window imagining a different time a different place, where he was by my side — and promised to never leave.

That and the way his hands ran down my skin like he was getting ready to worship me the way he used to.

Only his face hadn’t been filled with wonder — disgust was more like it.

I clung to the anger like a blanket. It was the only way to sleep, the only way I was able to close my eyes and pray the sickness in my chest away.

Anger forced me to focus on doing my job and getting as far away from my past as possible.

Weakness would just make me sad.

It would make me that — weak;

And I knew where that road led.

It led me directly back to all the things that turned me down that road in the first place.

Not being good enough.

Pretty enough.

Funny enough.

Weakness led me to a false sense of strength.

And my number one weakness had always been Will Sutherland.

It was possible — to give so much of your heart and soul to a person that you lost who you were.

I became a different person with him — a person I thought I needed to be in order to compete in our world. A person our world told me I had no choice but to become in order to stay relevant.

I punched my pillow one last time and attempted to sleep.

Two hours later, when sleep still wouldn’t come, I padded my way into the kitchen and made coffee, then laid my head against the couch and thought about the way his lips felt on my ear.