Chapter 2

Shit!

I gulped down the lump in my throat. He could not possibly know. But I wasn’t sure; that gleam in his eye said otherwise. I had felt a certain level of guilt over the years over what transpired between us that night Dale dumped me, five years back, and this had been my way to appease it and settle a debt. A debt he didn’t even know I owed him, and I would rather have it kept that way.

“Look, I don’t have much time. Could we just get right to the deal, and I’ll be out of your hair, and then, you can do your exercises or whatever else it is that you do,” I said obstinately.

He laughed outright. I wasn’t joking when I said he was a merry soul, although I wouldn’t hedge my bets when I say that was not true mirth in his tone. “You are an obstinate cookie, but I have this suspicion that only you can appease, and I want this settled, once and for all.” He paused, taking a deliberate breath before continuing in an accusing tone. “It was you, wasn’t it? That night at the costume party?” He stood up and reached down for me, yanking my cringing form to my feet before him. His grip on my arms tightened painfully as his face tightened with uncharacteristic ruthlessness, and then, he demanded, “Tell me it was you!” His breathing grew in ragged accents. “You, whom I held naked in my arms. Writhing beneath my own thrusting body as I took you. And I took you several times. More importantly, I took your virginity,” he accused outright, sending a wave of panic and something else shivering down to my toes.

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” I finally got out, between heaving breaths. His words shook me more than I could tell.

“Well, then, I’ll have to put this to a test the only way I can,” he said, a determined glint coming into his eyes.

“Wha—” I was hauled to my feet and pulled into his arms before his lips came down, sealing over mine and drawing all rational thought processes to a halt. I could only do what I did before. I melted in his arms and returned him kiss for kiss and then matched him as his kisses grew heated and almost frantic.

I knew instantly when he realised his suspicions were true. His arms tightened almost painfully, and the ferocity of his embrace took on a new meaning. He was a serious mass of contradictions. Openly jovial and carefree on the surface, but with hidden wells of passion that, when tapped, sprang out of control into one mind-blowing orgasm after the other.

He lifted me up and spun me around to place me on his desk before he broke off the ravenous kiss and stared down at me in awe. But I didn’t want the reality that would follow. No, I wanted the kisses that I had craved ever since that night I slept with him five years ago. I reached up and swept my fingers through the rich thickness of his overlong hair and gripped hard before I used it as an anchor to drag his lips back to mine. If all was about to get unravelled; I’d rather get my time’s worth now before I was dismissed to oblivion.

I swept my lips over his and pushed my tongue to plunder his luscious depths. He tasted divine just as he had back then. But I never really had the chance to truly appreciate him then. I had been drunk of pain and hurting out of my mind and he, well, I guess he had been just plain drunk.

I could surprisingly recall the whole night as clearly as if it were yesterday. Dale had rejected me right outside Justin’s apartment in the long private corridors that led up to his door, which vibrated with the thundering sounds of music blaring within. The party had already been swinging at full throttle, and we’d been late. I had been hurrying on before Dale tugged my hand to pull me to a halt. We’d been just a few steps from that door—just a few steps from the party within.

“What?” I’d asked hurriedly, for I hadn’t wanted to be even later than we already were. Justin’s parties were always a blast, and this one was a New Year’s costume party. But Dale seemed insistent that we stopped for a while to discuss something he felt was important. It had been important. I’d tugged off my mask so I could pay better attention to what Dale had been saying. I hadn’t been sure I was hearing it right. But then, what he said dawned. I was stunned to silence at first. Then just plain hurt. Wrecked with pure, unadulterated pain. Made more so knowing it had all been my fault. I had been the one to introduce Dale to my cousin. I should have known he would not have been able to resist her. No one ever could. But hearing what he had to say and then watching him walk away had torn my heart apart. I had mindlessly picked up the pieces and shifted the mask back into place, covering my pain ravaged face, and then, I had gone through that door and let myself into the biggest mistake of my life.

The most pleasurable mistake I had ever made.

One I had been longing for five years to repeat.

Justin’s hands lifted to frame my face before he abruptly pulled us apart.

“We need to talk,” he said through his passion-induced, pouty, red lips. There they were those delicious, red morsels I had so admired. I reluctantly raised my eyes to tear my attention away from more carnal pursuits and met his rapidly cooling, blue gaze.

I took one look at the stony expression that came over his features and knew I was done for.

“It was you,” he said with dawning conviction. “The woman I slept with on New Year’s Eve five years ago. I had thought it was you, but when I went to confront you the morning after, you snuck away like a thief in the night. You were blabbering about how sorry you were that you couldn’t make it to my party. You freaking lied to me, and I had let it go, unsure as I had been to begin with. Now, you turn up trying to buy me off with this offer of land banks? What do you take me for?”

That was left unsaid. By the both of us.

Still, when he put it like that, it sounded really shitty of me. But it had been just sex all those years ago. He was hot, smashed, and available, and I had been in a sorry state of mind. It had only been natural that I jumped his bones. Besides, it had been he who made the first move. Justin Kay, who had walked up to me with his drunken swagger and said, “Hey, babe, you look hot. Let’s have some sex.”

At the time, it had seemed like a good idea, but after four rounds or so, I began to see reason. I couldn’t have revealed who I was to him, and my mask had amazingly stayed put while I had all but performed a feat of gymnastics on the bed with him.

The thing was I had loved every minute of being with him. Walking away had been hard. But I still had the pain of Dale dumping me running fresh through my veins, so it wouldn’t have been fair to Justin for him to know I had blatantly used him to drown my sorrows.

Now, I shook my head at him. My brain on hyper drive, trying to locate ideas on how to escape my current predicament. I finally opened my mouth to refute his claims. Dishonesty was the only way out as far as I could see.

“Don’t bother!” he snapped at me, obviously getting an inkling over what I intended. He reached around me and tapped something then spoke in my ear, making me jump. “I’m off for the day, Kate. Please cancel my appointments,” he spoke to his receptionist before straightening up to stare down at me.

I moved immediately to shove him away. It was way past time I left. Whatever he had on his mind couldn’t be good for me.

But the man was built like a rock, and my hands on his hot naked skin appeared to have a mind of their own in moulding themselves over him, … all over him. I found myself unwittingly drawing closer, my lips reaching forward of their own accord to press onto the wonderful expanse of pure hot man.

“Stop that,” he muttered huskily in my ear. “Don’t think … you can … distract me. Don’t … think you … can get … out of this so … easily.”

I lifted my head and opened my mouth to retort, but his lips swooped down to cover mine in an open-mouthed kiss that reduced me to a puddle of pure heat right there in his arms. Our lips met in more and yet more heat-inducing kisses. And they were affecting him as much as me if the tent in his pants were any indication.

I got instantly greedy for more.

I wrapped my arms about his broad shoulders and did my best to heft myself up high enough to have him support all of my weight in his strong arms. It was about then that disaster struck.

It was about then that his mother burst through the door.