Page 41 of Heart on Ice

“Kill you. How?” She looks at me with such confusion, and it’s adorable.

I walk around the island and slowly make my way over to where she is standing. “Showing me what I can’t have. By giving me an image that is going to be seared into my mind and every time my hand wraps around my cock it’s going to be this that I think about.”

Tension swirls between us. Issy swallows as her eyes rake over my body. I’m wearing nothing but a thin pair of pajama pants that leave nothing to the imagination as I feel myself thickening with each sweep of her eyes over me.

“I hate that you still look so good,” Issy whispers.

I run a hand down over my stomach cockily. “Yeah, princess, you like what you see?”

Then her brows pull together, and she looks like she winces in pain. “Missy Jenkins …” she says, and I still. The girl she caught me with that night. The worst night of my life, one night as well as many that I wish I could do over, and choose adifferent path. “I see her smug face, her spit glistening off your cock. She looks so triumphant that she’s the one on her knees for you.”

Shit.

There was so much going on that night that I never noticed what Missy was doing. “Issy,” I say her name, reaching for her.

She takes a step back from me. “That’s what I see every time I look at you. I can’t escape that night. It’s continuously on loop. I can’t forget that image or the feeling I had in that moment. It’s seared into my soul.”

Fuck.

I rake my hands through my hair. “You know I’m sorry about that.”

“I’m not trying to be a bitch, it’s just what I see when I look at you. And I don’t know if that will ever go away.”

Her words are like daggers in my heart. I’m never getting her back. She may have forgiven me, but nothing I do or say can erase that image from her brain. Issy will never see me as anything other than that moment in her life. The realization that the woman who still owns pieces of my heart will never want those pieces again is a crushing blow.

“I get it. How about I cook you up that bacon sandwich? Looks like you had a good night with the girls, and you’re going to need it. Go wash up and I’ll bring it up when it’s ready,” I tell her.

“That would be nice,” she says before staggering through the kitchen. I hear her curse and moan as she climbs the stairs to her bedroom.

It doesn’t take me long to make her the sandwich. I grab a bottle of water as she’s going to need that, and make my way up to her bedroom. The door is open, and when I poke my head into her room, she isn’t there.

“Issy?” I call out. The bathroom door opens, and she stumbles out of it, fresh-faced and in a black slip dress that seems as indecent as her underwear. “I have your sandwich.”

“Thank you,” she squeals before jumping into bed.

I walk over and place the water bottle on her bedside table and wait for her to get comfortable before handing her the plate. She takes it and takes a massive bite of the sandwich and moans. My dick thinks it’s for him, I remind him she’s not into us like that.“This is so good,” she mumbles around her bite.

“Glad you like it. I’ll see you in the morning,” I tell her.

“Wait,” she says. “Come, sit, talk, while I eat.” She pats the space beside her. Confused, I take a seat and watch her eat. “I don’t normally get this drunk,” she states as she continues to inhale the sandwich. “I’m just stressed.”

“Because of me?” I ask.

She chews on her mouthful before answering me, “Yes.”

“I don’t mean to stress you out.”

Issy waves my words away. “I know. This isn’t your fault. It’s a me thing.”

“Kind of is a me thing, too. I crashed into your life like a wrecking ball. You didn’t ask for any of this, Issy.”

“You didn’t deserve what happened to you either,” she whispers softly before reaching her hand out to me. I take it, linking our fingers together. “I’m sorry I’ve hated you for so long. Didn’t mean for it to take over half my life, but it did,” she confesses.

Dammit, Issy, my heart. “You don’t have to apologize to me.” I bring her hand to my lips and kiss it.

“I should have done it for Dad. He tried so many times to get us into the same room, and I wouldn’t. I couldn’t do it even for him and now … he’s not even here to see us try,” she says, bursting into tears.

Shit.

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