FIFTEEN
GWYNETH
This week had been the craziest week of my entire life. Starting with getting jealous of a man I had no business getting jealous over. Rift was not mine, and I had been the one trying to set him up with my very single friend Chelsey, yet seeing him flirt with her made me irrational and angry.
I was rarely angry, and I was never irrational over anything.
Secondly, my fiancé, the man who was supposed to be there for all the important moments in my life, decided the most important fundraiser in my life wasn’t very important to him.
When he said he wasn’t going to make it to the gala, it felt like a bullet to my heart. And then when he basically thrust Rift on me as if he couldn’t get out of going with me quick enough, it was enough to almost break me.
He wasn’t working, or if he was, my father was clueless about it, but he had better have been working because it was the only thing I would even consider forgiving his behavior for.
Sadly, it had been a week from that moment at the bowling alley, and I hadn’t yet had a chance to tell him about my feelings toward the things going on in our relationship. That alone should have said something. The fact that two people, who could barely find the time to see each other, were considering marriage was kind of ridiculous.
Then my father had come over using the excuse of looking at some broken pipes I had mentioned to Mitchell in hopes he would stay home and take care of it, and the entire time Father was here, all he did was talk so highly of Mitchell. I couldn’t break his heart by ending our engagement, even if I knew staying with Mitchell would break mine.
My father was richer than God. He could have hired every plumber in the area to come and fix my semi-broken pipe, but he didn’t. Instead, he came over himself and spent that time talking about Mitchell and me, which told me one very important thing …
My father knew I was looking for reasons to stay with Mitchell, and he was trying his hardest to give me those reasons.
And then I opened the door to find Rift standing there in a suit that was surely made for his form, and somehow, everything that bothered me sort of melted away.
How did he do that?
It wasn’t the first time he had taken my mind off my stresses, and I couldn’t lie to myself. I liked it.
The look in his eyes when he let his vision travel over my body. The flirty grin on his lips when he finally met me eye to eye, and the way his words moved over his tongue when he told me things Mitchell would never.
You look edible.
Why wasn’t my fiancé saying and doing all the perfect things?
Why was I finding a stranger harder and harder to disregard?
And why did I find myself having the time of my life with Dylan when I couldn’t even find an ounce of excitement during the rare occurrence of spending a night out with Mitchell?
It was different with Dylan.
He paid attention to the things I felt passionate about. Through the night, he had listened intently as I explained in detail the reasons for the gala and how it would benefit the children at Savannah Hope Hospital, and then later, when he thought I wasn’t looking, I watched as he quietly slipped a donation into the donation box.
I didn’t know how much it was for, but it didn’t matter. Already, it was more than Mitchell had ever done.
The fact was, Dylan was somehow more of what I wanted in a man than my own fiancé was. He made me laugh so much my stomach ached and waltzed me around the room like he was proud to have me at his side.
And the women. They stared like he was a hunk of sweetness their bodies craved, and God help me, I understood their staring and their smiles. And now, I understood what he was capable of doing to woman’s mind and body, which meant I couldn’t continue to put myself in the path of such a great temptation.
I’d given in to him, and it made me feel sick to my stomach and high on life at the same time.
As soon as I stepped into my apartment after the gala, I closed the door behind me and rested my back against the door. I felt as if my legs had somehow transformed into putty.
“Dylan,” I whispered his given name, letting the syllables on my tongue tickle my lips.
I could still feel his hands on my body from our dancing. I could still smell his fresh cologne on my dress. Hear the sound of his voice when he basically told me he wanted to sleep with me.
I could still taste him, still feel his whispers and his lips against the side of my neck.
He was everywhere, and I couldn’t shake him off.
What was wrong with me?
Why wasn’t I calling Mitchell and telling him that his best man had kissed me and basically asked me to have sex with him?
When my mother cheated on my father, it devastated him, and I swore on all things that I would never be the kind of woman she was. But in the back of the limo, with his mouth on mine and his tongue twisting in ways I didn’t know were humanly possible, I had become the exact thing I swore I never would.
That was why I wasn’t calling Mitchell.
Calling him would be the same as admitting I had become my mother. It would be confessing that my darkest nightmares had come to light.
I was a whore.
I was a cheater.
I let another man kiss me, and I didn’t stop him. Instead, I kissed him back. And worse than that, I loved every single second of it.
He said the right things. Touched the right places. Kissed the perfect spots to make me melt. He was everything I hoped Mitchell would be, showing me exactly what I was missing.
Dropping my clutch on the table beside the door, I let my fingertips caress the top of my sweetheart neckline, dipping into my dress just enough to touch the tip of my swollen nipple.
I closed my eyes and envisioned Dylan.
His mouth.
His grin.
His eyes.
The way he looked at me like he was seconds away from throwing all caution to the wind and ripping my expensive dress from my body.
My hands moved lower, my palms sliding over my breasts and roaming down my stomach until I was moving in on the area between my thighs that had throbbed all night long.
But tonight, alone in my apartment and feeling sexier than I had in a long time, I would touch myself.
No.
Dylan would touch me.
At least, it was him once I closed my eyes.
My teeth dug into my bottom lip as I pressed on the tulle of the bottom of my dress until I could feel the heat of myself through the folds of the fabric. I gasped at how sensitive and excited my body felt, and just as I was seconds away from doing the exact thing Dylan looked like he wanted to do, which was remove my dress, Mitchell interrupted me.
“What the hell are you doing, Gwyn?”
I jumped, tugging my hands from my body as embarrassment swarmed over me.
“Mitchell, you’re home!”
He had surprised me.
“Obviously. Want to tell me what the hell is going on right now?”
I moved away from the door and dropped my hands to my side. My body was primed for any sort of attention I could get, and since Mitchell was the one man in the world I was allowed to get that attention from, I moved closer to him.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I grinned, playing coy.
My voice was deeper than I expected, thick with arousal from another man, but Mitchell didn’t have to know that. I could never tell him. I had to forget about it and never let it happen again.
After a night of being praised by Dylan, who was also the most gorgeous man in the room, I felt beautiful and confident. I felt as if I was a siren, able to seduce the man who was supposed to love me beyond measure. Able to find satisfaction in the arms of the man who was about to lock his life with mine for forever.
I moved closer to him, resting my palms against his chest and looking up at him from beneath my lashes.
“Were you touching yourself at the door?” he asked, his expression disgusted instead of turned on.
His expression should have stopped me, and it came close as the power of his disgust put a chip in my confidence. But I wouldn’t back down. I was determined to change his expression.
“What if I was? Would you like that?” I asked, sure he would soften for me and pull me into his arms tightly the way Dylan had earlier in the night.
That was not what happened.
Not even close.
Instead, he leaned back and turned his face away from mine.
“Gwyn, what is this about? You’re acting like a …” He stopped.
I pulled back, feeling as though I’d been smacked in the face even though he didn’t say the word I expected he wanted to say.
“Acting like a what, Mitchell? Like a woman trying to have sex with her fiancé? Is that what I’m acting like?”
A whore like my mother.
The words moved through my mind, and I squashed that thought quickly.
His obvious disgust with my actions hurt me. His denial frustrated me. And more than anything, the fact I gave in so easily to another man infuriated me.
I wanted Mitchell.
I wanted him.
I really did.
No.
I just wanted.
I needed something to extinguish the fire burning inside me.
A fire lit by a man who was not my fiancé.
A fire flamed by a man who was so untouchable it sickened me.
A flame so high I could feel it licking at my core, caressing my breasts with its heat, and setting the space between my thighs ablaze.
“Just forget it,” I snapped, reaching down to pluck my heels from my feet. “I’m going to take a shower and go to bed.”
I turned away from him and started toward our room, but before I could, he grabbed my wrist and pulled me back to him. My heart thumped against my chest as I waited for him to apologize for his behavior, when I was the one who really needed to apologize.
I waited for him to rip my dress from my body while I closed my eyes and pretended he was someone else. I was already dying of guilt, so why not add in a little more by thinking of another man and maybe finally getting the orgasm I’d been denied since Mitchell and I started sleeping together.
But he didn’t do any of those things.
Instead, he asked, “Did something happen between you and Rift?”
I was not expecting that, but a tiny spark inside me raved briefly at the idea he might feel jealousy over another man. It was a stupid emotion we were all guilty of, but it was something. I would take anything Mitchell would give me if it meant showing me he cared just a little.
I pulled my arm away, feeling triumphant, guilty, and insulted at the same time.
What kind of woman did he think I was?
What kind of woman was I?
I wasn’t my mother!
I was my mother.
Even if I was thinking about my attraction to another man.
Even if I was feeling it.
I should never have acted on it.
Never.
“Of course not! How dare you even ask me that!” I lied, feeling nausea roil around in my stomach.
His expression cooled, and he let me go free.
“I’m sorry I asked. I know you’re exhausted. It’s been a long night. Go take a hot shower and maybe you’ll feel more like yourself.”
I nodded, unable to respond to him because if I had responded, I would have told him that tonight, with Dylan, I had felt more like myself than I had during my entire relationship with him.