Page 9 of Her Every Fantasy

I sighed. ‘You don’t have to spell it out—’

‘No, rosebud, don’t do that. Don’t put words in my mouth. You know I’d have no problem calling you gullible if I thought you were.’

Something inside me clenched tight at the endearment. God, how long had I waited to hear it again? How often had I heard it in my dreams? ‘Well, I don’t forgive you, then. My generosity doesn’t stretch to making allowances for you barely showing up for me on that day.’

‘That day? You mean the most important, most magical day of your life, don’t you? The day when all your dreams came true?’

His sneer cut me sharp and deep.

And yet I couldn’t scream the yes that should’ve come readily to me. Because the day hadn’t been magical. Notby a long shot. And it wasn’t just because of Bryce’s barely-there attendance, although that too had contributed to the curious hollow in my stomach. I’d woken that morning, like all the days before, with doubts. Doubts which I’d let a smooth-talking Dan sweep away with promises of the one thing he knew I yearned for.Acceptance.I’d believed every yarn he’d spun. Every promise broken with a glib, sugar-coated excuse. Right until the scales had been cruelly ripped from my eyes.

The reminder both hurt and angered me now. And justified or not, some part of me held Bryce responsible for it. He’d been my crutch until I’d needed him most. Then he’d simply...walked away.

‘Just tell me, Bryce. Don’t pick now to be a damned gentleman and spare me from whatever it is you’re too afraid to spit out!’ I knew taunting him was dangerous. He’d changed. We both had. He no longer even tried to mask his feelings behind dry, acerbic wit.

When his eyes met mine, I knew whatever was coming would be unvarnished. But still I held his gaze, daring him with mine. ‘Truth,’ I insisted, girding my loins nevertheless.

His face turned hard and bleak but no less breathtaking for its austerity. ‘You really want to know? I came to find out whether you were really going through with it. Whether, after what you knew about Dan, you would still go anywhere near that bastard, never mind letting him put a ring on your finger.’

My gut turned to ice, which was curious because several inches below that the reminder of what had happened three nights before my wedding between Bryce and me was sending white-hot heat shooting into my pussy.

‘And that was the only reason you came? To see whether I would compound the mistake you thought I was makingby marrying him?’ The whispered words left my lips with muted hope shrouding them. A hope that maybe he’d prove me wrong this time. Indicate that I’d been foolish to fear that deep down the reason I’d clung to friendship while secretly wishing for morewasn’tbecause he wouldn’t want more. That friendship wasn’t all we’d ever have.

And that I was desperate enough to cling tight to that rather than have nothing...because there wasmore.

‘Why else, rosebud?’ he asked softly. A little too softly. As if he knew the chaos running wild and unfettered through me. As if taunting me over it. He’d always been so good at that. Now, though, there was a dangerous edge to it that... God, turned me on.

Jesus.

I shook my head. A moment later, he stilled my movementby leaning forward to capture my chin in his hand.

‘You seem to be on some sort of journey of self-discovery for both of us, so let’s have it. Why else do you think I put a business deal I’d been working on for months on hold to fly five thousand miles to your wedding?’ he asked.

My tongue slid out almost of its own accord. Licked my lower lip. His gaze followed the slow, languorous movement with eyes that grew steadily heated.

After a moment when words still failed to form in my throat, his eyes rose to capture mine. ‘Would it be because the same night I warned you not to go back to Dan the Dickhead because he wanted you just for your money, you nodded that beautiful head and used that indecently sexy voice to reassure me that it was over? Did you not give me yourwordthat you would end it?’

‘Bryce...’

‘There it is,’ he breathed. ‘That was the same tone you used that night. The one that curls around my cock and strokes me until I’m hard as a fucking rock every single time.’

My jaw dropped. ‘Bryce!’ My heart kicked at the fact that we were talking,reallytalking about the stuff we’d always seemed to skirt around. Even if it was just about the physical.For now.

‘You wanted honesty, rosebud. You assured me it was over, that you no longer belonged to another man, so I spread you out on my living-room floor and I finally got a taste of that incredible pussy, finally had the privilege of feeling your tightness around my fingers, of you gripping my hair as you screamed my name and came on my tongue. Only to have you go back on your promise to call off the wedding and marry the bastard three days later.’

The growled, hot words filled with deep censure robbed me of speech, shamed me and turned me on in equal measures.

His thumb rose from my chin, drifted at leisure over my lower lip as he continued to watch me with dark, hooded eyes. ‘You want to know if that changed things between us?’

I licked my lip again, my heart pounding with apprehension and a whole load of sizzling lust. ‘Did it?’

His hand dropped like a stone and he surged to his feet. ‘What the hell does it matter?’ he asked.

‘How can you ask me that? You know why it matters. You never answered my phone calls after that and I haven’t seen you for years! It’s not like you not to call me out if you think I’ve done something wrong.’

His eyebrows shot up.‘If?’

‘Fine,when. Whatever.’

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