The Bachelor Contract(38)

His hands. His mouth.

Focus!

Okay, so the bedroom had been ten steps forward and four steps to the right. She focused on the blur of color on the wall. She could do this. She slowly got up and took a step, directly onto her dress. When she dropped to her knees, her shoes, purse, and mask were all lying right next to it in a neat little pile by the bed.

Frowning, she knelt down and grabbed for the dress.

Why had Brant arranged her things for her? Probably because he was trying to be nice, right?

He’d made promises with his body that he had no right to make, let alone keep. Then again, so had she.

One night. That was it.

With a shudder, she pulled on her dress and tried to quietly zip up the side. Naturally it was the loudest zipper on the planet, so with every tug she was convinced Brant was seconds away from jolting awake.

Oh, God, this is bad, very bad.

“Leaving so soon?” His sleepy voice had no right to sound like sex this early in the morning.

Her fingers froze on the zipper. “I, um…” Tears threatened.

“I think pancakes,” he said in a bored tone. “Yesterday I tried the waffles.”

What? Why was he talking about breakfast foods?

“You can finish getting ready.” His gravelly voice was closer now, and then he was walking by her, smelling like sweat, sex, and really bad decisions.

“But—”

“It was fun, Nik.”

It. Was. Fun?

She opened her mouth to scream or at least give him a piece of her mind when he silenced her with a finger, followed by his mouth.

The kiss was angry. He was livid.

She sucked in a breath. “I don’t…” She shook her head in confusion.

“It was just sex, Nik. No need to get all tongue-tied, unless you want round four, and then I’m game.”

Her eyes burned as hot as her skin, embarrassment, sadness. It meant something to her; he meant something to her.

Used to.

She was suddenly glad she couldn’t see his face.

Hearing his voice, the anger, reminded her that the man who’d held her in his arms last night and made love to her early in the morning was gone the minute the sun rose.

Her Jekyll and Hyde.

She had nobody to blame but herself. It was easier to hate him. To hate herself. Than to allow herself to feel sad.

She clung to the hate, draped it around her shoulders like a blanket, and finally found her trembling voice. “I should get to work.”

“Okay.” He stepped away. His voice was emotionless. His stance casual.

She didn’t recognize this lifeless man. Life had destroyed him and replaced him with someone safe. Someone numb. Someone she still, somehow, loved.

He placed her shoes in her hands and guided her by the elbow to the door.

As she walked out into the hall she heard the door shut quietly behind her. She turned and stared at the white blur. And then the sound of glass breaking ripped through the silence.

She made it as far as the elevator before she burst into tears. She wasn’t even sure which buttons to hit, because she’d never been able to see the shiny one that said Lobby, meaning she had to run her hands along the buttons to feel the right one. In frustration, she just hit the bottom three and slunk to the floor in the corner of the lavish elevator, her shoes in one hand, her purse in the other.

The elevator dinged. Doors opened. She lost track of how many times.

And then footsteps sounded, and the familiar smell of peppermint and cologne filled the small elevator.

“Fuck.” Cole kicked something, she wasn’t sure what, and then he was on the floor with her, holding her while she sobbed in his arms.

* * *



Blood caked Brant’s fingers as he scrubbed the soap over the cuts he’d gotten from punching the mirror and then slamming the expensive lamp into a million tiny pieces.

It looked like his life, that lamp. Broken.

With a roar, he shut off the water and stomped into the bedroom, stripping the bed of every sheet and shoving them into the corner followed by the pillows.

She was everywhere. Impossible to escape. Her scent, her body.

And suddenly he was transported back. To the loss of her. The painful realization that what they had was broken. And that every single thing in his life was infused with a part of her, a part of them.

He’d gone and done the unthinkable. He’d touched her. He’d kissed her. He’d fucking invited her back into his prison—except the joke was on him, because when she stepped out, everything about her remained right along with him.

The doors slammed against his face.

Trapped. He was trapped again. With all the memories of what they had.

And the feel of her beneath him, on top of him, there wasn’t a place that existed on the planet where he wouldn’t feel her—where his body wouldn’t want yearn for hers.