Dammit, Kerris, why didn't you listen to me?
His front door slammed. Lynda was gone. Sofie had drifted back off to sleep, and he was headed for a much-needed shower. Walsh stepped under currents of life-giving liquid force coming from every direction.
Seeing Kerris was more dangerous than anything he had done over the last year. He dropped his forehead to the tile wall of the shower, swallowing against the pain of her living with Cam as his wife.
"Nice butt." A pair of pale, slim arms slid around his chest. Fingers twisted and pulled at his nipples.
Behind him, Sofie wore only a mischievous grin. Even naked and sliding to her knees in front of him-nothing.
"Sofie, get up." He tugged her arm as gently as he could, pulling her to her feet.
She fell back to her knees, reaching for him again, that wicked, who's-a-bad-girl gleam still in her eyes.
"I said get up." His voice was sharp, like the water pinging against the shower wall. He closed his eyes against the hurt he'd caused on her face. "I mean, not this morning, Sof. I'm still upset about finding … "
"Lynda," she supplied helpfully, standing up to reach for her shampoo and lathering her long hair. "We didn't actually have a threesome, so chill."
He hated this intimacy with her. The fact that they were having a conversation in his shower. That her shampoo sat proudly beside his body wash as if it belonged there. Her underwear nestled by his boxers in the top drawer. Her shoes sat under his bed. And he had no one to blame but himself.
"Sof, we need to talk."
"Okay, so talk."
"No, not that kind of talk. A real, grown-up talk."
"Can we talk on the plane?" She rinsed the shampoo from her hair, blocking one of his showerheads. "Are we on the Bennett plane?"
"No. Dad has it in Hong Kong." Walsh tried to keep his tone even. He really did. "I don't remember inviting you to go with me to North Carolina."
"Walsh, we're together." Her hands slowed their lathering. "I don't need an invitation, do I? And Trish can get me on the flight easily enough."
"I want to go alone." He stepped out of the shower, as much to get away from her as to get dressed.
"I bet you do," she said, low enough for the water to almost drown her out.
"What'd you say?" He reached for a fluffy towel and glanced back at her, still in the shower.
"I can understand you wanting to go alone." Sofie amended what Walsh knew he had heard. "I just have a little break before I have to be in Paris, so I thought we could spend it together. Besides, I haven't seen your family in ages. Not since the wedding."
He dried off and got dressed, barely paying attention to what he put on or tossed into the personalized Louis Vuitton luggage his mother had given him a few Christmases ago. Not seeing his mother had been the hardest part of staying away from Rivermont. Guilt settled hot and heavy in his chest.
This was the first year since his parents' divorce that he'd spent so little time with her. Even though his father had insisted on custody when he was growing up, wanting him to have a New York private school education, Walsh saw his mother several times each month, and spent every summer with her, traipsing all over the world to Walsh Foundation camps and orphanages.
"I love your Pegase." Sofie entered the bedroom and eyed his roll-on. She slipped on a silk robe from his closet.
"I'm taking that with me," Walsh lied, extending a hand for the black silk robe he rarely wore.
"Oh, I … I've never seen you wear it, so I thought it was okay." She handed it to him and slipped on one of his T-shirts instead, inhaling. "You always smell so good, babe."
"Thanks." Every word reminded him how deep her feelings went, and how much this breakup would hurt her. They had been friends and he had screwed it up with sex.
"Look, Sof, I need to go, but we really have to talk when I get back."
"Well, I was gonna drive you to the airport." Sofie scrambled to slip on the designer jeans she'd worn last night. "Lemme just find my keys. I know they're somewhere around here."
"Don't bother." He slapped his watch on. "Pierce is taking me."
"Who's Pierce?" She paused in her search for the keys.
"My dad's driver."
"Oh, well, I um, guess I'll see you when I get back from Paris." She deflated like yesterday's party balloon. "If you don't mind, I'm gonna hang here for a little bit then."
He did mind. He wanted her to go to her own overpriced apartment and vacate his when he wasn't here, but these were the small intimacies he'd allowed over the last year. He couldn't snatch them all back because he'd had an epiphany waking up with a strange woman in his bed.
"Whatever." What was he? A thirteen-year-old girl now? "I'll wait for Pierce in the lobby."
"Wait." Sofie grabbed his wrist. "I don't even get a good-bye kiss?"
By all rights, he should be pouncing on Sofie at every opportunity. Five eleven. Body most women could achieve only through surgical enhancement. Blond hair down to here, and legs up to there. He leaned down and kissed her, knowing this might be the last time.
"Mmmmmm." She pressed her perfectly perky breasts into his chest. "I wish we had more time so I could send you off properly."
What could he say to that?
"I'll see you when you get back from Paris, Sof."
"K, I love you."
He saw see the vulnerability in her eyes. He couldn't fake it this morning. He nodded once, brushing past her, hurrying to the door. As much as he didn't want her, she still deserved better than this.
She was in love with a real asshole.
Chapter Twenty
The dreams are getting worse, Cam." Kerris poured fabric softener into the washing machine, pointing to the basket behind Cam on the dryer. "Could you pass that to me?"
"I told you I've got it under control, babe." He passed her the basket, a stiff smile on his face and a frown on his forehead.
"Sweetie, you were screaming last night." She reached for his hand. "And crying."
"I wasn't crying." Cam jerked his hand away like she was a hot stove.
"Okay, maybe you weren't crying." Kerris turned away to open the dryer, giving him the privacy he needed to compose himself. "But you were definitely upset."
"Did I … " Cam leaned his hip against the washing machine, training his eyes on his scuffed boots. "Did I say anything?"
"I couldn't make it out." Kerris frowned, reaching again to hold his hand. He let her. "Maybe you should talk to someone."
"Pffft. What, like a therapist?" Exasperation twisted Cam's handsome face. "I'm not some circus freak."
"I didn't say you were. Just talk to someone. If not a therapist, or me, maybe Jo."
"Or Walsh."
His name fell like a tree into the washroom.
"Oh, I didn't think about Walsh since he hasn't been around much."
Her voice was even, right? She sounded normal?
"He's coming to the party tonight."
Kerris forced her face into submission, not allowing it to show surprise or concern.
"You didn't tell me Walsh was coming."
Kerris leaned into the dryer, retrieving warm towels and giving her face time to recover from the shock that she'd be seeing Walsh for the first time after so long.
"That's not a problem, is it?"
Did Cam watch her closer? Was she paranoid?
"No, of course not. I hope I have enough food."
Cam laughed, grabbing her from behind and pulling her out of the dryer.
"Walsh is a big guy, but he doesn't eat that much."
"No, of course not." She tried to laugh, too, and must have come close enough. "I thought maybe he wouldn't be coming alone?"
Cam hoisted her onto the dryer, making her squeal. He nudged her denim-clad thighs open to stand between them, leaning in to nuzzle her neck.
"Only him, I think." Cam freed the buttons of her blouse, slipping in to caress her breast with a possessive hand. Kerris leaned into his palm, begging her body to respond the way it had with Walsh. Guilt and shame clenched her muscles tight, ruining any chance of arousal.
It wasn't that she didn't enjoy sex with her husband. It was fine. Better than she'd ever hoped after what had happened with TJ. And on good days, she could set her guilt aside long enough to enjoy the closeness between her and Cam. If she'd never experienced the lava rush of liquid fire that invaded her body at the mere brush of Walsh's mouth, it would have been … fine. She wouldn't have known it could be like that. That compulsive wanting, needing, longing, that connection of soul through a thin layer of skin.