Chapter 13

Author note: I, Lani Lynn Vale, solemnly swear that there is NO CHEATING in this book...but looks are deceiving. So hang with me.

Rafe

A door banged shut one down the hall from mine, and I automatically looked up.

Then I froze.

Son. Of. A. bitch.

Seriously, could my life get any worse?

That, I thought, as I walked out of the wedding a few hours ago was before I heard Elspeth hastily clopping along behind me.

Now, I realized, that life could, in fact, get worse.

How, you ask?

By the woman that you couldn’t stop thinking about getting a hotel room not just in the same hotel as you, but also on the same floor. Right next fucking door to your own.

That would’ve blown big donkey balls if I’d had to hear them all night.

I would have to leave.

I couldn’t be on the same floor right next door to her.

I just couldn’t.

I took a step in her direction, then stopped myself.

Another step.

Two.

Three.

This was the worst idea I’d ever had. The worst.

Elspeth was in the hotel room that I’d rented for the night. Where was I?

Well, I was following the girl.

I’d seen her out of pure happenstance. I’d been in the hallway trying to get a hold of my sister. There had to be a reason that girl getting married to someone else hurt so fucking bad. Yet, again, my sister admitted that she knew nothing about ‘this Janie girl’ and to stop calling and asking the same question over and over.

And she was still in her goddamn wedding dress.

The only thing that had changed between then and now was the hair. It wasn’t up in the complicated bun that I’d hated. Now it was down around her face, cascading down her shoulders to about mid back. God, with her hair down? She was by far the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.

And the moment I saw her my gut clenched.

Fuck.

I took her in all over again, just as I’d done when she’d walked down the aisle, then stood next to that schmuck who was ruining my life for reasons I didn’t understand.

Her dress was a little more wrinkled than when she was standing at the altar, almost as if she’d been sitting down with it scrunched up around her waist.

The tiara that’d been in her hair was gone, and the shoes were as well. Her makeup was scrubbed off, and her eyes looked tired.

The ice bucket looked exceptionally large in her hands, making me realize that she was a small woman. I’d had my ice bucket in my hands earlier in order to read the words on it and had thought it small. But in her hands? No. It was big.

Which would mean she’d be small in my hands, too.

Her hips were round, her breasts perfect, and those lips!

The door slammed to the vending room, and I moved.

I couldn’t tell you why. It was a compulsion. Something my body was practically screaming that I had to talk to her. I had to ask her why.

Why the hell I felt like I was drowning with no fucking way to ever tread water again.

Like my legs had chains that weighed me down.

Each time I looked at Elspeth, I felt fucking sick to my stomach. But when I looked at Janie? I felt like I could breathe again. At least until today, when I’d watched walk down the aisle to another man.

Ever since walking out? I couldn’t catch my breath. I just knew something was wrong. I’d missed something. Something pivotal, and it was eating me alive.

I pushed through the door of the vending machine room and came to a stop. She was standing there, ice bucket in hand, staring at the wall.

My stomach clenched, and I took a step forward, letting the door close behind me. The moment the soft click sounded in the room, she turned.

And when her eyes lit on me, her mouth fell open and her eyes welled with tears.

“Rafe,” she breathed.

Why couldn’t I fucking remember?

I knew deep in my heart that this woman meant something to me, but I couldn’t figure out why. Nobody would fucking tell me why.

I knew that my memory was affected. But I remembered everything else. Everything but her or anything that had happened in the last six months.

This woman meant something to me. She meant something big to me, and I would figure out why.

I took a menacing step forward and she froze, her eyes rounding and her mouth parting slightly.

“Tell me why my fucking heart hurts,” I ordered.

Janie swallowed, the delicate muscles or her throat working.

“I…” she started, but then stopped. “I can’t.”

“Why?” I took another step forward.

“Because you’re engaged.”

Why did that matter?

“What does that have to do with why my heart hurts?” I took another step forward.

She licked her lips, and my patience snapped.

I was lurching forward and reaching for her in the next heartbeat.

She didn’t resist me. She didn’t fight. Didn’t scream and tell me no.

The minute my mouth was close enough, I took her into my arms and slammed my lips onto hers.

The minute I did, she started to struggle. Not to get away, though, but to get closer.

“I don’t care anymore,” I growled, pulling away from her lips only slightly. “You’re mine.”

Then there was no more time for talking.

She went crazy, biting, licking and sucking. Her teeth bit into my lower lip, causing my hips to jerk. Her fingernails dug into my shoulders. Her gasp stole my breath.

I’d give her every single minuscule drop of oxygen from my lungs if it meant this moment never ended.

I needed her with a ferocity that was scary.

My hands went to her lower hips and I started to yank up the multiple layers of her wedding dress.

There were seven layers. Count those. Seven fucking layers. Each one more light and slippery than the one before.

But I didn’t give up. Not that I thought I ever could.

I knew this was bad. This went against every fucking moral code I had. Every single one of them.

I had a fake fiancée that I was ‘supposed’ to care about in my room. I assumed she had her brand-new husband in hers.

Yet, neither one of us cared.

“Tell me,” I ordered.

She shut me up with a kiss.

I finished yanking up her layers and fisted the panties covering her lush ass. With a sharp tug, they were gone. In shreds at her feet.

The minute that scrap of fabric hit the floor, she was against me. My hands went to her ass, and I growled into her ear.

“Pull my cock out of my jeans,” I ordered.

She didn’t waste time.

She struggled with all the fucking material around her waist, but she wouldn’t be deterred.

Thirty seconds after my order was issued, she had my cock free, and I was slamming into her.

Everything about that feeling was right. Her smell. The way she fisted around my cock. The tightness. The slippery mess we were making. The way my balls pressed perfectly against her ass.

Every. Single. Fucking. Thing.

And, moments after that thought occurred to me, my memory returned with a vengeance.

Everything came back to me in a rush. Everything.

Our years we spent playing cat and mouse. The last nine months. Our first kiss outside her gate. The first time I felt myself inside of her. The way I came so hard I thought I’d died. Then began the betrayal.

Me losing my memory. Elspeth saying she was my fiancée when she most certainly wasn’t. And then Janie moving on when she found out—even though they were lies. Big fat fucking lies.

Janie finding someone. Janie moving on despite her obvious love for me.

And her not saying a goddamn word about us.

My kind hand turned punishing. My anger at her. At the situation. At Elspeth and at her stupid fucking husband.

***

Janie

“Why?” he grated out. “Why would you lie? To me?”

And, just as suddenly as he’d been there, he was gone.

I had his release and mine dripping down my leg, and I couldn’t get my head on straight.

But one thing I was absolutely sure of. This wasn’t the end. He knew something. Had figured something out. I could see it in his eyes, and I would never make the same mistake twice.

Today, just now, something happened. He became mine, and I became his. And there was nothing either one of us could do about it.