MY BODY WAS stiff.
My breathing heavy.
I could still feel her thighs clenching around me. The girl who had gotten away. The spoiled princess I used to hate. Now a woman with swollen lips staring at me as if I’d just pulled her heart from her body and ripped it to pieces — smiling at me all the while.
I lifted my hands to cup her face. “Ray—”
“Don’t you fucking touch me,” she said in a harsh whisper as more male laughter sounded around us.
We couldn’t leave.
If I left, people would assume the shower was empty. They would know.
If she left, the same thing would happen.
We were trapped in a wet sex-filled Hell.
I couldn’t tell if the moisture on her face was tears or water from the shower spray. All I knew was I had to fix it. I had to fix that look. I had to make it better.
Because as much as I wanted to be that guy — the one who used revenge sex to make the girl who’d hurt him in high school feel like shit — I wasn’t.
Not with her.
She was…
She had been…
Would always be…
Everything to me.
All it had taken was a succession of vulnerable moments followed by vulnerable moments where I saw the girl I used to know shadowed by the girl she was forced to be, and I was lost.
“Ray,” I tried again, lowering my voice. She let me touch her this time, but she refused to look at me. “It’s not what you think.”
She shook her head and then covered her breasts with her arms. Her eyes zeroed in on her lacy black underwear floating by my feet. They probably cost more than my entire wardrobe, those underwear. It was a weird thing to fixate on.
“It’s fine,” she whispered. “We both wanted it. We both got it. End of story.”
I clenched my jaw and cornered her against the wall. “Don’t fucking say that, Ray.”
She jerked her head to attention; her face was indifferent, her pretty blonde hair was wet and sticking to her cheeks. She’d never been more beautiful than after we were together. It was why she’d broken me, because she’d allowed me to let her bloom then closed up minutes later.
And they said history repeated itself.
“What?” She shrugged a shoulder. “It’s just sex, right?”
I narrowed my eyes. “You’re better than that, and you know it.”
“You aren’t,” she snapped. “What’s this about revenge sex and one-night stands? You know what? You wanted your revenge.” Her lips trembled. “Congratulations, you just got it.”
“Ray—”
“Fingers crossed you got me pregnant!” she shouted over her shoulder, picking up her wet underwear and tugging them on. “Bonus points if you tell the entire staff that you fucked me in the shower!”
I didn’t want to say they probably already knew since she was yelling so loud.
“Ray, stop…” I reached for her.
She jerked away from me, yanked open the curtain, and grabbed her shirt. She pulled it backward over her head. Leaving her caddy and everything but her flip-flops, she ran out past a wide-eyed Jackson and Brax.
The door to the bathroom closed.
I slammed my hand against the tile again and again.
“Dude…” Jackson looked between me and Brax. “What the hell, man?”
“I didn’t know she was in here.” Brax looked pale. “I swear, I had no idea, but hey, at least you finally did the deed. Now you can move on and—”
I punched him before he could say more, nabbing him in the right eye at least twice before Jackson pulled me off him.
“Chill the fuck out, Marlo!” he roared. “You can’t just punch your staff members. You’re the director!”
“I’m murdering him!” I seethed as visions of Ray’s face played on repeat in my head. Her pleasure. Her soft moans and gasps while I filled her. And then her pain. So much pain.
“Whoa.” Brax held his hands to his face. “Shit, that hurts. Marlo, I didn’t know, and even then, why the hell do you even care? You just got the best revenge possible, and you have witnesses. Need I remind you that this is the girl who broke your heart and embarrassed you in front of the entire student body after sleeping with you in high school? So what. At least it’s a drama camp for high schoolers, and you guys are college graduates. You only have six more weeks of this hell anyway. Just leave it.”
I wiped my face with my bare hands and grabbed my towel, wrapped it around my waist, and then shook out my right hand.
“What’s done is done,” Jackson said in a calm voice. “It doesn’t leave this room, all right?”
“Yeah.” I exhaled a pissed-off breath that did nothing to calm me down. I could still feel her on my skin, taste her on my tongue, and no sane part of me wanted to keep quiet about how good it was between us.
About how good it could have been if I hadn’t let my anger rule my emotions.
I didn’t look back as I made my way outside the bathroom. Every muscle was taut as I angrily shoved the door open to my cabin and dropped my towel to get dressed.
It was going to be a hell of a long day.