“I never doubted you, Ky.”
“Don’t lie to me,” I say, my breath hitching on the word lie. “You can do anything else, but don’t lie to me.”
“Fine.” He bends slightly, so his mouth grazes my ear, and as he speaks, the piercing in his lip rubs against the tiny sterling hoop in my cartilage. “I came here because Lucas wants me to bring you back to Atlanta.” As he says this, his hands skim around to the front of my panties. “I came here because I know exactly why you left Brad in the first place.”
He starts to slide down my panties, but I close my hands around his wrists. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I demand, my nostrils flaring. “I’m not sure if you remember, but I’m not one of your groupies. And it’s really cocky to assume I left my husband because of you. We haven’t spoken since before I got married, babe.”
“Far from a groupie.” A sexy smile crawls across his face. “I’d never tell any groupies that staying away from them has been hell. I’d never tell them that I’m not leaving, no matter how much they order me to—I wouldn’t give a fuck about what they thought. But with you, Ky … well, you know how that goes.”
He dips his head, bringing his lips close enough to my face for me to feel his warm breath against the corner of my mouth. I suck in a gasp of air through my nose, but he stops me before I can release it, crushing his lips against mine. Even though the kiss is short, it’s anything but sweet. It’s possessive and rough. Hungry and painful and even a little mind-altering.
But it sure as hell isn’t sweet.
Wyatt pulls back, his chest rising and falling heavily. “As for you and Brad, don’t try to pull that bullshit on me, beautiful. We could go years without saying a word, and we’d still manage to fuck with each other’s head. So, no, I’m not leaving you.”
“What if I make you?” I ask, despite how the pit of my stomach curls into a mass of knots and tangles. God, it hurts. I let go of his wrists and move my hand up to trace my fingertips along his square jawline, shivering at the contrast between his faint stubble and my soft skin. “What if I don’t want you here?”
“None of that what-if shit, Ky,” he says roughly, pushing me back onto the bed.
As I slide backward toward the pillows, he follows, opening my legs in the process.
“If you wanted me gone, you wouldn’t have let me in. You knew it was me before you even opened that door.”
By the time the back of my head bangs up against the faded headboard, my heart is beating as erratically as it did that first night with him. He stops in front of me, his muscular body positioned between my thighs.
“What if I ask you to leave afterward?” I demand.
My fingers tremble as I drag his white T-shirt over his head. He takes it from between my hands and tosses it off the bed, where it hits the curtain before falling to the dirty carpet.
“You want to ask me to leave?” He lowers his head, so we’re nose-to-nose. While his thumb strokes my collarbone, he glides the rough pad of his index finger underneath the strap of my striped top.
“Maybe.”
“Then, you can go back to Atlanta and forget this ever happened.”
I consider his words for a moment, and then I shake my head. I don’t want to forget. “I can’t do that,” I say aloud.
He already knows I can’t, or he wouldn’t have come here to begin with.
He pulls my strap all the way down and sighs heavily when my breasts push up over the fabric. He pauses once, and that’s only to make me a promise. “Then, you go back to Atlanta with me.”
It’s not until late, right before we fall asleep with our arms and legs entwined, when I ask him the single question that’s been burning in my mind since the last time we spoke. “What’s her name, Wyatt?”
“Who?”
“Please don’t be stupid. You know who and what I’m talking about.” I can’t bring myself to say it out loud yet because it still burns a hole into the deepest part of my chest.
He brushes strands of inky hair out of my face. “Brenna.”
I roll out of his arms and onto my back, squeezing my eyes tight so the tears don’t fall. “I don’t want to ruin things for you.”
“You won’t. When I’m with you…”
He doesn’t have to finish because I know where he’s going. I know how he feels because it’s the reason I came to this hotel of all places. It’s the reason that I let him stay with me tonight. When I’m with Wyatt, I lose myself.
“Do you think we’ll be able to fix each other?” I ask.
The bed squeaks as he rolls over. When I open my eyes, he’s propped up on his elbow, staring down at my chest. He touches the blackbird tattoo that’s a few inches above my left breast, running his finger over it. “What’s it for?”
“Changing the subject?”
“Just until you tell me what the fuck it’s for.”
“You let me down, and I wanted something to remind myself that I shouldn’t be that weak, that I should be careful.”
Releasing a low groan, he drags his palm up and down his face before gazing down into my chocolate brown eyes. He takes me in for a long time, and I meet his gaze, studying the way his Adam’s apple bulges angrily in his throat each time he swallows hard.
“Why do you have to say shit like that?” he demands at last.
“Because I promised you last year that I’d be honest with you. If you want, I can lie to you if that’s what makes you feel better.”
As he shakes his head, I race my tongue over my lips.
“Now, it’s your turn. What’s going to happen to us?” I ask.
He kisses the blackbird and slips his fingers into mine. He frowns when his gaze lands on my other tattoo, the one of my ex’s last name encircling my ring finger. I got it as an act of defiance the day after I married Brad. Now, I regret it like hell.
“First, you’re going to get this fucking thing covered,” Wyatt growls. When I nod, he continues, “And no more blackbird tattoos. Fuck, get a bluebird or something because we’re going to try again, and we’ll get it right this time.”
I bob my head once more because I’m hopeful. I’m so in love with this man that I’ll try a million times to make things work. “Okay,” I whisper, “I’m in.”
Chapter One
Present Day
“Good god, he’s looking at you again,” Heidi says in a hushed voice. Swinging her slim hips to the techno version of Adele’s song pulsing through the nightclub, she sneaks a glance over my shoulder toward the booths lining the far wall.
I refuse to follow her gaze to the guy who’s been eyeballing us for the better part of an hour, and instead, I choose to toss back my drink as I lift my shoulders indifferently.
My closest friend gives me a dark look. “Kylie, he’s looking at you like he wants to peel off your jeans with his teeth. Like he—”
“Like he’s some stranger who’ll probably strangle me to death after we get back to his hotel room.” I lift my hand to my throat, which burns like Hades from the drink I just downed, and rub my thumb back and forth across the delicate bones. “Sorry, babe, not in the mood to get choked tonight.”
Heidi’s perfectly arched eyebrows join together, but I’m not sure if it’s because of what I just said or the DJ’s newest choice of song, “Judas.” She can’t stand that song. She hates it almost as much as she loathes her ex-neighbor who played a repetitive loop of Lady Gaga on maximum volume every morning for months.
“You’re so morbid, Kylie Martin,” she finally moans, emphasizing the last name—she’s been on me for years to change it back to my maiden name. She flips her mane of loose chestnut curls over her shoulder. “You need to have fun and not think about him and his giant—”
“Don’t even touch that subject with a ten-foot pole,” I say sharply. “And I’m not thinking of him.”
Heidi presses her purple-painted lips into a fine line, but she says nothing more. Her gaze refocuses on something else. I follow it, twisting my head a little, to take in an excessively tanned short guy, making his way through the crowd with two bottles of Shiner Bock held high over his head.
Even though I’m glad he’s distracted her from talking about Wyatt, I softly point out, “He’s not your type.” Heidi’s got a thing for ink and piercings—the more of both, the better—and Shiner Bock has neither. But then again, she did say she needed a change of pace this trip. Maybe this guy is it. “More than one beer usually means he’s here with someone,” I add, giving her a warning look.
Heidi lifts her thin eyebrow wickedly. “He’s here with those guys.” She jabs her finger toward a group of men across the club. “So, yeah…”
Before we came out to Bourbon Street tonight, Heidi and I made a deal, promising to come back to our hotel room together. But, by the way Shiner Bock’s face lights up when his eyes connect with hers, I know there’s no chance in hell she’s coming home with me.
And that leaves me alone.