had sex. What makes you think I haven’t already had that itch?”
“Oh, I know you have,” he replied while closing the distance between us. “Just like I know you have it right now.” Vaughn smiled then, and it was that cocksure smile I both hated and missed so much. “My dick isn’t exactly forgettable.”
Tucking the hair that slipped from my ponytail behind my ear, I cast my gaze to the floor. The warmth between my legs kept building and building, and it was all I could do not to spread them. “You’re right, I…I couldn’t forget how good you felt inside of me,” I shyly admitted. “I couldn’t stop craving the need to let go. I wanted more.” The room became charged, and I knew soon, inhibitions would be a thing of the past if we both let go. I was panting by the time Vaughn ate up the distance, so when he caged me in by resting his forearms on the crib railing, I let him. “That’s why you should know…”
I heard the unchecked arrogance in his tone when he spoke. “Yes?”
Lucky for me, I knew just the cure. Snapping my gaze from the floor and seeing the lust in his own, I lifted on my toes until our lips nearly touched. “I’ve had better.”
I returned my heels to the floor and watched as he blinked. Then he took a stunned step back as his brain refused to accept my claim. “Come again?”
My lips pulled back in a snarl. “You don’t get to fuck my sister and expect my pussy to remain under your lock and key.” This time, I was the predator, and he was the prey as I stalked him across the room. Vaughn’s eyes were wide with fear as if I truly might eat him alive. “You also don’t get to waltz back into my life and start making demands. We don’t get to start over as if nothing ever happened. Once a cheater, always a cheater, and I’ll never forgive you.”
Hearing that, he seemed to recover as the shock cleared his green eyes, and rage darkened them. If I were willing, I’d admit to seeing that kernel of hope he held within them vanish. “And once you’re mine, you’ll never be anyone else’s. That I can fucking promise you.”
“Wanna bet?”
He made a sound of disbelief. Right in my face, the cocky bastard scoffed. “Why would I waste time when we both know I’ll be balls deep inside of you the minute you let your guard down? And when that’s no longer enough for me, I’m going to steal your heart again without breaking a sweat. Mark my fucking words.”
“You mean break it,” I corrected him without missing a beat. I refused to acknowledge the sorrow making my body tremble. I tried to stop it, but it was too great, so I let myself feel it as a reminder. “When sex is no longer enough for you, you’re going to break my heart again, not steal it.”
He winced. No longer smug, he reached for me, but I dodged his hold. “Pip-squeak, I—”
“Save it.”
For a moment, Vaughn looked like he wanted to argue, but then there was defeat in his eyes before he stepped around me. I didn’t move to stop him when I heard the automatic door slide open or dare to watch him walk away. Tomorrow would tell if it was just from me or from his son, too.
UNABLE TO FACE MY FATHER just yet, I didn’t go home when I left the hospital last night. Instead, I’d gone back to the beach house where I tossed and turned all night after cleaning up the glass from the vase Tyra destroyed. I hadn’t even felt the cuts and scrapes on my neck and face, but none of them had been major, anyway.
When morning came, I was back at the hospital, but I forced myself to stay away from the third floor for now. I couldn’t get the devastation in Tyra’s eyes out of my head. It called to the part of me I’d been forced to bury to protect her. And I couldn’t even tell her why. I seriously doubted she’d believed me anyway. I played the part of a monster a little too well for it to be anything other than real.
“You look like shit,” Wren greeted me as soon as I trudged into his room. Lou was nowhere to be found, and like a coward, I was a little relieved. I was in