on the bench near the jets. A fine mist wrapped around them, but it didn’t soak them and that worked. He thought. “I need to tell you something. You’re going to be mad at me. I . . .” He groaned as she hooked an arm around his neck. Slamming his head back against the marbled tile of the wall, he closed his eyes. “I told you, just a few minutes ago. It wasn’t just . . . um. It wasn’t just my dick talking when I said I’ve been waiting to touch you like this. That I wanted you for a while.”
All my life—
“Zach . . . ?”
He opened his eyes and made himself meet her gaze. He figured it would be better to play it down a little. “You just . . . hell, Abby. You were engaged and all. What was I supposed to do?”
Her hand splayed over his cheek as she stared at him.
“Ah . . . this . . .” She closed her eyes and dropped her head down on his shoulder. “Well. Um. I’m sort of thrown here, but okay. I figured out the fact that you weren’t exactly oblivious the second or third time you had your tongue down my throat.”
He cupped a hand over the back of her neck. “No. Not oblivious. I just . . . Don’t be mad at me. Abby, I saw what you had written in that damn journal. I knew you were planning to have an affair with somebody and I wanted it to be me.”
She stiffened.
Her hand fell away from his cheek.
Pain ripped through him as she pulled away and stood up. A few seconds later, she left him alone in the shower and he sat in there, eyes closed.
Had he just fucked it up for good?
Please . . . no. Just. No.
* * *
“He wanted me. I was engaged. Shit.”
It was only the fifteenth time she’d muttered that, or some variation over the past twenty minutes. Dressed in her woefully inadequate clothing, a blanket wrapped around her with her damp hair making her even more miserable, Abigale stood on the balcony, freezing her ass off and brooding. She could go inside, dry her hair, lock herself in the bedroom, but just then, she needed the space. So she stood out there, freezing and cranky and confused.
“Don’t be mad, he says.”
Swearing, she dropped down onto the chaise lounge and buried her head in her arms.
Don’t be mad . . .
She wasn’t mad, exactly.
She was . . . embarrassed. Sort of. She’d been so miserable and uncomfortable about the major lust-on she’d developed for her best friend, and he’d been doing the same thing for her. For . . . hell. A while. She’d been engaged for almost two years.
She was uncomfortable, but with herself. How hadn’t she seen it?
And she was aggravated, yeah, because he’d been nosing in the journal, but she wasn’t mad, really. That was just typical Zach. If she wanted him to leave something alone, she specifically had to tell him or keep it away from him.
The door opened and she lifted her head, shooting him a dark look.
He stood in the doorway, hands jammed in his pockets. His hair was still damp and while he’d tugged on a pair of jeans, he hadn’t buttoned them and he hadn’t bothered with a shirt, either. Lust and desire and all sorts of crazy needs hit her, so hard and fast that she just had to look away from him before she lost it.
Before she came up off the lounge and just jumped him.
“So are you done?”
His voice, hard and flat, was like a slap in the still air and she barely managed to keep from flinching. Shooting him a narrow look, she asked icily, “Am I done what?”
He averted his head, a muscle pulsing in his cheek.
Done.
What, did the jerk think she wasn’t allowed to be irritated? She wasn’t allowed to be confused or pissed? He thought she was out here having a sulk over nothing? Is that what he thought? Surging up off the lounge, she let the blanket fall as she stormed over to him. “Am I done what?” she demanded.
He turned his head and stared at her, but still didn’t answer.
She curled her hand into a fist and thumped it on his chest. “You think I don’t have a right to be aggravated, Zach? You think I’m out here sulking and I’m just supposed to stop at a certain—”