The Rebel's Own(6)

Ryan felt like a sad puppy as he watched Bailey walk away from him. Still, with this view he could see how the dress clung to her well-shaped body, molding to her like a caress. She wasn’t skinny, but she wasn’t plus-sized either. She was delectable, he concluded.

“What were you doing?” Clara squeaked.

“I was flirting with a very beautiful woman,” Ryan said as he took Bailey’s stool. He needed a drink and then some if he was to deal with Clara’s hysterics that night.

“Why would you try to embarrass me like that?” she huffed in a jealous rage. “We are a couple!”

“Maybe you should have said yes when I asked you to marry me,” he grumbled.

“Well, I’m saying yes now.”

“Too late, I think I just spotted my new lover.”

“I’m your girlfriend!”

“No, you are not. I need us to be clear on this. You and I are not in a relationship and haven’t been in one for years. You tell people we are and I let you. For all these years I have never said anything to the contrary. I have even behaved like a choirboy. But enough’s enough, Clara. It’s time we stopped this façade,” Ryan growled, his last thread of patience tearing. He shifted on the bar stool, uncomfortable. It felt like something was digging into him, and when he reached into his back pocket, he found a room key.

“What’s that?” Clara asked.

“Nothing. Just the valet ticket,” he lied.

“But we arrived in a hired limo.”

“Matt didn’t,” he said, almost aggressively. “I think you should take the limo home, and I will stay with Matt tonight.”

“You’re just going to find your whore!” she spat out.

“And I think you should move out,” Ryan added angrily.

“It’s my apartment!”

“Then I think I should move out.” Ryan walked past her, Clara’s words echoing in his head. Was Bailey really a call girl He couldn’t imagine the sort of scandal that would follow if he was caught with a professional. But the room key card burned into his palm, and for a second, his senses left him. And it was in that second that Ryan made a decision that would change his whole life.





Chapter Four





“He’s not coming,” Kennedy groaned aloud to her empty hotel room, frustration making her pace in circles around the penthouse suite that Matt had booked for her. “Maybe I came on too strong. Or maybe that parasite Clara dragged him away.”

Kennedy had to control her physical response to cause Clara bodily harm. She had learned that Clara was the one who picked her out to be Ryan’s prom sacrifice from Matt. In Kennedy’s book, that made her just as guilty as the man who had robbed her of her innocence.

Meeting Ryan again in the bar had been maddening. The chemistry was still there. The pooling of heat between her legs, the tremble in her thighs, and the inability to catch her breath was proof enough. She didn’t want to feel all these things; she’d rather be aloof, indifferent. But just because she was doing this out of duty didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy it. This time she was in control, and the only person that was going to be used this time around was Ryan Carville.

Kennedy’s heart jumped with a start when she heard a noise at the door. She took a step forward then stopped suddenly. She realized what would happen once she opened the door and let Ryan in. There was no turning back from this.

But wait, he had a key. She could let him come to her.

Kennedy sat back on the sofa and picked up her wine, kicking her bare feet up casually on the coffee table in front of her. She looked away from the door as it opened and stared out the window at the city lights. She caught a whiff of Ryan’s cologne. His scent had tortured her body and her resolve when she spoke to him at the. He had a natural musk amplified by the cologne, making him exude a strong healthy male animal scent.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she asked, her voice almost a whisper.

A nervous tremble began in her stomach and bled outward to her hands, and Kennedy had to put the wine glass down before she spilled the rich liquid on her rented dress. She got to her feet and walked towards the floor-length window, still not chancing a glance at Ryan.

“You’re beautiful,” she heard him say, his voice low and husky, sparking an arousal that hummed and shimmered through her veins.

Kennedy felt a bolt of desire surge through her when his hand came in contact with her bare skin. She realized with a chill that she was back in Charleston High’s parking lot on prom night. The need that she felt back then coursed through her again now, echoing that forbidden yet vivid memory. The sighs and moans that escaped her lips as he kissed her neck and shoulders were just the same. The frightening need to be possessed by him, to be touched, kissed, and loved, brewed a storm within her. Kennedy could feel the atmosphere thickening around them.