It’s a little after three thirty in the morning when I turn into my cul-de-sac and see Millen’s car parked at my curb, a stretched-out body behind the steering wheel.
My anger toward him hits me like a freight train. How dare he turn up at my house and wait for me to get home? Where’s his fiancée? Why isn’t he with her?
I shut off the car and hop out, clicking the locks as I hoist my purse over my shoulder and quickly walk up to my porch and through my front door. His car door slams shut and steps on the concrete path soon follow.
I should lock my door. I should keep him out and continue living in my world of denial where Millen is the worst man on Earth who played me like a two-dollar whore.
Instead, I have a moment of stupidity where I keep walking into my house, dropping my purse on the couch and continuing until I’m in my kitchen, pulling down a tumbler and my bottle of Glenfiddich and pouring myself a healthy dose of courage, which I’ll no doubt need.
I refuse to look at him although I know he’s now inside, the click of my front door lock echoing through the empty hallway.
Again, we’re in the same space, alone, with nothing and no one to stop us doing anything. Except his doting fiancée waiting at home…
“Kenz…” he breathes, and just the sound of his voice has my heart skipping and my breathing speeding up to double-time. Then I remember how humiliated I felt when Lana joyously introduced me to him.
“Why are you here, Millen? Shouldn’t you be with Lana?”
He ignores my words and crosses the room, stalking toward me and closing the space between us. He presses forward until my back hits a wall and I literally stop breathing.
“I know I shouldn’t be here. My life is ordered. Everything is organized and planned. Fucking invitations have been sent out, deposits paid. All of it.” He doesn’t ease into it—he lays it all out there for me, no fucking about, no preamble.
I muster all the strength I have in me, shoving his shoulders back with my hands and ducking under his arm, desperate to get much-needed distance before I go postal on him. But then this whole clusterfuck of a situation overwhelms me.
I lift my chin defiantly; my voice not as strong as it should be, mirroring my wavering resistance to this man. “You need to leave. I don’t want to see you.” That’s a total lie, and the softening of his expression says he knows I’m full of shit.
He lifts his hand between us, his palm cupping my jaw as his thumb sweeps across my lips. “I’ve finally got you alone with no chance of interruptions. We need to have this out.”
I splutter, my mouth dropping open. Then I remember the humiliation, the hurt, and confusion and the second-guessing, all caused by this man.
Squaring my shoulders, I push my arms between us and shove him back, unsuccessfully. He barely moves.
“When someone asks you to leave, you do it. It’s not a yes or no answer, Millen. It’s a pretty straight forward request to get the fuck out.”
His steel eyes stay fixed on me. How does he do that and look hotter than he should? He presses into me, and I lose the ability to think straight. “I don’t want to see you, Kenz, but I need to. It’s like this burning ache inside of me. I see you, and I want to be near you. I lie in bed at night thinking of you and needing to touch you. Every time I can’t have you, can’t touch you, I fight the urge to drag you off and sate this need to kiss you, to do more than kiss you…” His hands grip my hips, his arms wrapping around my waist, holding me in place against him and his hard everything. Whatever this string is that connects us, it’s unbreakable. It’s a force unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. The harder I push away, the stronger the pull back to him is. Whenever we’re in the same room I feel powerless, unable to stop what we both know is going to happen next.
It’s like the giant elephant in the room. A big Dumbo in the corner I try to ignore but ultimately know I’ll have to acknowledge. Him, me, us together… I’m going to become the thing I vowed I’d never be. The person I never wanted to be. The thing he said I wasn’t, but we both know I’ll be regardless.
His voice drops to a low, sexy rasp, the same tone that won me over that first night together. It has me melting into him when I should be running in the other direction. “You completely and utterly intoxicate me. You just have to breathe and I’m reeled back in.” He leans in closer until he’s all I can see, all I can feel. My resistance is wavering but I know I need to stay strong, for myself and my sanity.
He says, “You don’t even have to do anything to make it happen because I’m a lost cause when it comes to controlling anything about the way I feel about you.”
“This is wrong. This is crazy. This is—”
“This is something bigger than the both of us.”
“You should go. You needto go,” I whisper, desperation dripping from those three little words. My eyes beg him to step back and walk out the door just as my heart—and body—scream the exact opposite.
“You’re right. I should stay away, but what I should do and what I’m going to do are two totally different things.” He dips his head and brushes his lips against mine with a tenderness I’ve only ever experienced with him. “I want to do all the wrong things right with you.”
The words are like a wrecking ball, smashing through the hard shell of my resolve and exposing my Millen-sized soft spot, the one I was trying to protect all along.
He rests his forehead against mine, looking deep in my eyes, conflict and a warring conscience reflecting back at me. I fight to keep my hands at my sides, my fingers curling into tight fists, my nails digging into my palms. He’s everywhere. He’s everything I shouldn’t take but desperately want to have, and still I breathe him in.
I dig deep for one last shot, a last-ditch effort to stop the inevitable. “You can’t have something you’re not free to have, Millen. We can’t do this. Your ring on her finger—”
“This?”
“Us…”
“There wasn’t supposed to be an us, Kenzie. I didn’t think that far ahead. I didn’t expect to meet someone—meet you—and get completely sidetracked.” He looks down between us as he brings his hips closer, pressing into mine.
“But it did happen, Millen,” I say, exasperated. “As much as you try to fight it—ignore it, even—there was an us. That was until you ghosted me then walk into the bar with a fiancée.”
He sighs. “You were a complication I didn’t see coming.”
“A complication that’s easily fixed by you turning around and walking. out. the. door.” My eyes drop to his mouth of their own volition. Why can’t I control myself around this man?
“Fuck it,” he mutters before grabbing my head and smashing his mouth to mine.
I jerk my hands to his chest and shove him back, my gaze narrowed as my anger passes the point of no return. I said I’d never be the other woman but every part of my being pulls me to this man.
Is this how my mom felt? Did she have this same feeling of helplessness? If give in to temptation, I’ll be going against the most important thread in my moral fiber.
The air in the room changes, the rumble in his chest telling me he’s done with waiting. His breaths come hard and fast, his steely eyes pinned on mine, his expression determined…possessive.
I know if he kisses me again, it won’t stop there. There’s no way I can resist him a second time. If I cross that line, nothing will stop him—us.
He closes the distance between us, pressing me back with his body until I’m crushed against the wall. I lift my hands and grip his biceps, fully intending to push him away as he lowers his head. The moment his tongue touches mine, I’m gone, done for, incapable of anything but feeling, touching, breathing. My nails bite into his skin through his tee, my head immobile from the tight grip he has on my hair. Unable to hold back, I moan into his mouth, my hips lifting to grind up against the hard ridge in his jeans.
Tearing his mouth from mine, he jerks my head to the side, exposing my throat to his lips as he licks and nips his way down to my collarbone. Needing more, craving more, I push him back, catching him off guard. With space between us, I drop my hands to his belt, roughly pulling it free and lowering the zip.
He strains his neck to latch his mouth onto my skin, growling against it, sucking hard, no doubt leaving a mark that’ll be tough to hide. I don’t care though—my only thought is getting all barriers between us out of the way.
Releasing the grip on my head, he drops a hand down to his hips, roughly tugging his pants and underwear to his thighs. Then his fingers grip the front of my shirt, ripping it open and sending the buttons flying. Cupping my breasts with his hands, he unhooks the front clasp of my bra, pushing it apart and wrapping his lips around my aching nipple.
“Fuck,” I moan, knocking my head against the wall. I don’t register the pain, far too consumed with the feel of Millen’s mouth and the warmth of his body threatening to burn me alive.
I make quick work of lifting my skirt up. Widening my stance, I part my legs, needing him to touch me there.
Wrapping my arms around his waist, I score my nails down his back until I grip his ass, pulling it hard against mine, loving his groan vibrating over my skin at the contact.
“I need to be inside you,” he mutters, grazing his teeth against my stiff peak and burying his face in my neck. “I’m gonna bury myself so fucking deep you’ll feel me for days and remember I was there.”
I can’t think straight when he talks like that. My sole focus is touching him, feeling him, taking out all of my anger and frustration on him.
His hand drops between my legs. Yanking my underwear aside, he grips his cock and parts me with the tip as he runs it up and down before catching my entrance, bending his knees, and driving himself home.
I cry out at the intrusion, the room filled with the sound of our skin slapping together. His fingers grip my hips like he never wants to let go, the push and pull no doubt leaving marks.
Just that thought makes something inside me snap. I hook my leg around the back of his thigh and wrap my arms around his shoulders, thrusting against him, the act turning almost violent with anger, frustration, the desperate aching need to punish him growing with every curse and grunt he mutters against my neck.
“Shit, I can’t. This is… this will…”
“Fucking take it, Kenz. Feel me. Feel what you do to me.”
The words are my undoing. I tug his head back and attack his mouth, my teeth digging into his bottom lip as my climax consumes me. One hard, deep thrust later, he’s groaning long and loud as his hips start to slow, his movements controlled as he glides in and out, bringing me back down to Earth.
Reality hits the moment he pulls out. It’s one thing to do it when I was none the wiser, but now I know he’s unavailable and I couldn’t stop myself from taking everything he gave me and giving it right back.
Needing space from the powerful force that is Millen, I shut myself away in my bathroom. I quickly pull off my work clothes and clean myself up before throwing on some clean underwear, some yoga pants, and a clean tee.
Making my way back toward the living room, I half expect to find it empty. I come to a stop when I see Millen perched on the arm of my couch, his head down, his hands hanging loosely in front of him.
“I didn’t expect that to happen,” he says, lifting his eyes to meet mine.
“You and me both,” I say, truthfully, my voice as flat as my soul right now. “But it did, and I didn’t think it was possible, but now I actually feel sorry for her.”
His brows bunch together. “Why?”
I ignore the question, instead deciding to get answers of my own. “Why her? It would almost be forgettable if it was anyone else.”
“Kenz…”
“She hates me almost as much as I hate her. She blames my mother, and I blame her father for the decimation of both our families.”
His face softens and I almost wanna punch that adorable look right off his face. “I didn’t know.”
“Well, you do now,” I reply tersely.
His voice drops, regret and resignation dripping from every word. “It’s complicated.”
I throw my hands the air with a scoff, unable to hide my frustration at this entire situation. How did a simple meeting in a bar lead to this? “I bet it is.”
“It’s not like that,” he continues, getting up from the chair. Hearing that, I’ve had enough. I stand and storm toward him, stopping when we’re toe to toe, chest to chest, so close it’s as if we’re breathing each other’s air. How does he manage to rile me up with very few words?
“Oh please, explain to me how it can be anything but exactly what it looks like. Three months ago, you were here, flirting with me, charming me, unable to ignore this super intense connection between us and sharing what I thought was the best physical experience of my life. Then you disappear and I get that—hell, I was even a little freaked out about the feelings I had after just one night together. But now you’re back, and all I really want… what I need to move past all of this…” I flick my hand between us. “. . . is for you to just tell me the fucking truth. If I was a regret, tell me. If I was a last-ditch fling to make sure you were doing the right thing, yes, it’ll hurt but fuck, I’ll probably come around and accept that. You made me become the other woman and turned me into the one thing I told you I never wanted to be.”
“I’m sor—”
“Please don’t. Sorry is a word that’s easy to say but not so easy to show.” My voice cracks, my throat tightening despite everything in my being wanting to stay strong and show no emotion.
I swipe at my eyes and drop into my arm chair, knowing I’ll lose it completely if I look at him. That won’t do either of us any good.
His feet move and the front door clicks open, my heart seizing in fear that this could be it.
Then there’s nothing. No lock closing. No footsteps—just total silence. When he doesn’t say anything, I almost think I’m imagining it. Lifting my head, I’m pinned in place by the look of absolute determination in his eyes.
“I meant what I said, Kenz. Back then and now. I will explain it all, but I can only leave if I know you believe me.”
“What?” I bite my lip, not sure whether I want to hear whatever he’s about to announce.
“Everything I felt, everything you felt, everything between us—it was real, as real as me standing in front of you right now. It was the most real I’ve ever had in my life, and it’s something I’ll never forget.”
“Why’d you do it then? Why didn’t you call me? Why didn’t you come back?” I take a deep breath, knowing that when I ask the next question, I won’t be able to hold back. “Why are you engaged if what we had was so real?” I throw my questions at him like rapid-fire bullets, not giving him a chance to explain but continuing to shoot. Offense is often the best defense.
“Because I had to,” he replies, and it’s as if the world stops spinning. The room is deathly quiet. Of all the things he could’ve said, that was not what I’d expected to hear.
What do I say to that? I sit there, staring at him like I did the first time I saw him, like the first time he sunk inside me and tilted the axis of my entire world.
The look on his face does me in, and before I know it, I’ve crossed the room, stopping in front of him. Unable to stop myself, I reach my hand out and place it on his forearm.
“I need you to tell me what that means,” I say softly.
“If I’ve learned anything from all of this, it’s not to fuck around and think about maybes or what ifs. It’s better to live in the now than not live at all, and when it comes to you…” He moves in closer, and I’m mesmerized by the determination in his steely grey eyes.
He crowds me in, his chest pressing against mine, the heat of his body threatening to engulf me whole. Dropping his gaze to my hands, he tangles his fingers with mine and slowly glides up my sides, our linked hands grazing the sides of my breasts. He doesn’t stop until both of my arms are above my head, his one big palm imprisoning them. “I can’t stop touching you, and I don’t think I ever want to.”
“Just walk away, Millen. It would solve everything.”
My breathing comes hard and fast now, my eyes unable to look away as his lips lower to brush mine. “When it comes to you, I’ll do anything you want… except that. Never that. I need to make sure I’m the only man who gets to touch you…” He presses his hard cock into my stomach, and I have to bite back the responding whimper threatening to escape my mouth.
“The only man who ever gets inside you.” He grinds his hips up as he drags the tip of his tongue over my jaw and down my neck before sinking his teeth into the groove of my shoulder. My entire body trembles against him as his lips curve up against my skin. “Come away with me…”
I pull back and meet his eyes. “Millen…”
“Three days. You and me. No outside world. Just the two of us. Give me three days, Kenz.”
“Where would we go?” I ask.
“Leave that up to me. Just be packed and ready on Friday morning next week. I’ll take care of the rest.”
“Why, Millen? You’ve given me no reason whatsoever to trust you. You appear out of nowhere after vanishing into thin air, and now you’re asking me to go away with you knowing you’ve got a fiancée waiting for you at home, a woman who hates me just as must as I despise her.”
He steps closer but I stand my ground.
“None of this is what you think, Kenz. I’ll tell you everything you want to know, but I need to escape my life for a while. I need to get away from it all, and I want to do it with you.” He shifts so one of his hands rests on my hip, holding me to him. “I thought about you every single day. You don’t know how much I wanted to see you again. Lana told me we were going to her dad’s new bar, but I didn’t know it was the same one until we got there. Then I knew I had to see you, even knowing it could hurt you. I want to make up for that. I need to make up for that.” He dips his head so his face is all I can see. “Three days, Kenz. That’s all I’ll ever ask of you. If you send me away after that, then I’ll never bother you again.”
My gut twists at the thought. This was a man who I had grown to outwardly hate and inwardly crave.
“That’s all?” I ask with a raised brow. Can my head—and my heart—handle three days with Millen Ross? Today has proven I can’t resist him, so can my conscience cope with giving in to a taken man with a waiting fiancée left at home?
Before I felt like the decision was out of my control; now, it’s as if he’s giving me the option. Realigning my moral compass, so to speak.
Somehow, I think it’s too late for that.
“It’s the last thing I’ll ever ask of you. I need you to understand.”
“You could just tell me now.”
“I want seventy-two uninterrupted hours with you and only you in the middle of nowhere. Nothing getting in our way. No job, no family, no friends, no fucking expectations. Just you and me.”
I take a deep breath, my answer escaping my lips before I can even think. “Three days.”
“That’s all I want, Kenz. I want to make this right.”
I nod, my throat so tight I don’t trust myself to speak.
“There’s one last thing,” he says, a quizzical expression morphing his features.
“What’s that?”
“I won’t be inside you again until you admit it’s me and only me you want.” My mouth drops open. Did he just… There’s no way I heard that right. Needing to take back control of this conversation, I decide to offer my own terms because I may have already compromised myself by succumbing to Millen earlier, but I have to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Especially if he’s not going to explain himself.
“No sex, no kissing, no touching. Separate beds, separate rooms,” I state, knowing that I’m probably fighting a losing battle.
He doesn’t reply. Instead he breaks the rules by placing a soft kiss on my neck and stepping back, letting me go and leaving me bereft. Lost in sensation my silent words of protest stay frozen on the tip of my tongue. Instead of saying any of them, I simply watch as he walks straight out my front door without another word.
What the hell did I just agree to?