Page 25 of Release Me
Staying sober tonight simply wasn’t an option. Not when I’m surrounded by loved up couples who can’t keep their hands off each other. Mind you, my hands weren’t much better. I’m sailing dangerously close to the wind—without a life jacket. There’s no way I’d send her home with just a driver though. Not that I don’t trust our staff—they’re all vetted and vouched for. I’m simply not ready to say goodbye yet.
I guide Rebekka into the back first, my palm steady at the small of her back. She slides across the cream leather, and I drop in beside her. The door thuds shut behind us. The city noise dulls to nothing, replaced by the smooth purr of the engine and the faint creak of leather as she shifts, pulling her dress down over her thighs, but not before I get a glimpse of a lace topped hold up and an inch of smooth, satiny skin.
The urge to slip my hand beneath her dress renders my dick solid in seconds.
Fuck.
We sit silently for a few moments as Dublin’s familiar landmarks whizz by.
I don’t have the words to cover what almost happened tonight. What I’d still love to happen tonight. What unequivocallycan’thappen tonight.
Eventually, she breaks the quiet. ‘Did you tell him we were out together?’
‘No.’
Her head turns, those stunning jade eyes find mine in the dim light. They’re sharp. Searching. ‘Why not?’
I swipe a hand across my jaw, the admission already burning my throat.
‘I couldn’t bring myself to say the words, “she’s with me”, because it wouldn’t have sounded like an alibi. It would have sounded like a claim. And no matter how much I fucking hate it, you’re not mine to claim.’
Her lips part. ‘I wish I was,’ she admits. Her breath hitches, and I want to kiss the sound straight from her mouth.
I lean in to whisper in her ear, close enough that I’m certain my breath will brush over her skin. ‘If you were mine,’ I pause, wetting my lips, ‘I would worship the very ground you walk on.’
‘I bet you say that to all the ladies,’ she says, but she doesn’t pull away from me. ‘With lines like that, it’s no wonder you have a different one every week.’ I think it’s supposed to be a joke, but there’s a slight edge to her tone. She stares intently down at her lap.
‘Firstly, I’ve never said that to anyone but you. Secondly, it wasn’t a line. And thirdly, if you must know, I don’t have a different woman every week, though admittedly, there have been… a few.’
‘It kills me,’ she whispers. Her voice cracks. So does myheart. An image of her flinching last night when Scarlett mentioned me dating flashes to the forefront of my mind.
I never meant to hurt her.
It never occurred to me that she felt as deeply for me as I do for her.
I place a finger beneath her chin and tilt her face until our eyes meet. Hers are wide, woeful, but blazing with raw heat. The desperate longing in them mirrors my own. ‘I lose myself in women because the only woman I truly want is already taken.’
She draws in a ragged breath, jolting away from my fingers like she’s been electrocuted.
The silence that follows is brutal.
Callaghan drives on, eyes forward, a professional mask in place. The air in the back seat, though—it’s alive. The space between Rebekka and me sparks like a live current. We’re one wrong move from an explosion, and the consequences are deadly.
Ten minutes later, the Bentley pulls up outside her apartment block. Anthony’s apartment block. The tower looms above us, a gleaming wall of glass and steel framed by polished marble columns. Discreet uplighting washes the façade in soft gold. The double doors are smoked glass, their brass trim polished to perfection. I’ve been here a thousand times before, but never just with her. And never like this.
I step out first and circle to her side, offering a hand as she emerges.
She freezes, then blinks up at me. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Walking you to your door,’ I answer simply.
She stares at my hand for a long apprehensive beat before slipping her palm in mine. The crackling sensation of her skin on my skin is a given now, but it doesn’t diminish the intensity. If anything, after my admission, it’s only heightened it. We walk into the lobby and past the concierge. Two vastorchid arrangements in chrome vases punctuate the space on either side of the lift doors. Cameras blink red in every corner, silent sentinels to the secrets hidden within these walls. The security guard nods in recognition. The lift doors haven’t even properly closed before he plucks his phone from his pocket. Another one of Anthony’s spies, no doubt.
I look down. Her hand is still in mine. It looks tiny, feminine, and utterly fucking fabulous. I drop it reluctantly, then glance up at the tiny red light glinting above me in the corner of the lift ceiling.
If we gave into this attraction between us—even once—would it be enough to quell some of the sexual tension that permanently suffocates me any time we’re together?
Anthony is a shark. I’m surprised he hasn’t smelt the blood we have permanently pumping for each other already. It’s painfully obvious. Zara spotted it months ago, which is why she was shocked when I asked her to bring up the pancake mix for Rebekka this morning. Zara knows what an ass Anthony is to Rebekka. All my family do. But that doesn’t mean they’d condone an affair.
