hands along my ankles and then my calves. “Who’s to say what’s normal and strange? Nash is probably too much for one person anyway.”
He laughs again, but then the room grows quiet as he strokes my legs, and his gentle touch is the last thing I remember before sleep takes me.
11
It’s well after midnight when I hear Ellis coming back in from Hanna’s guest house. Watching him cross the yard toward the house, I’m seething, anger building from thinking about them together. I’m sitting in the living room when he sneaks in, the lights still on so he knows I’m there. After stepping in, he takes one look at me, showing no emotion as he passes through.
“I told you she was off limits,” I snarl. He freezes in the doorway, glaring at me with a cold, cynical expression.
“Since when do I take orders from you?”
“This isn’t a joke, Ellis,” I snap, standing up and crossing the room to get in his face. He’s so fucking smug, like he knows everything. I used to admire that about him. Now I hate it. I hate his confidence, and I especially hate how he has me so pegged, like he thinks he knows me.
“Does it look like I’m fucking joking, Nash?”
“You are a joke,” I mutter. Okay maybe that was the vodka talking, and I completely deserve the harsh, hateful glare he sends me. He should punch me. Knock me out. I would, but he doesn’t because this is Ellis, the calm, collected man who never loses control. Well, almost never.
“Fuck off, Nash.” It’s all he gives me before he tries to leave, but I’m not ready yet. I still have so much I need to say, things I need to get off my chest.
“Stay the fuck away from her,” I shout at him, crowding him toward the corner of the room.
“You’re the same reckless kid you were three years ago, Nash. You don’t deserve a woman like her, and after what I heard last night, she’s better off in my hands.”
The next moment is a blur as I drive my forearm against his throat and shove him against the wall.
“This isn’t Amsterdam. I used to think you were a fucking god, now all I see is a lonely man with no one because he never got over the one person he couldn’t have. You’re pathetic.”
He snarls at me, and I think for a moment he’s not going to fight back. His eyes are glued on mine, and I get lost in those dark brown orbs. Memories come flooding back. This was my friend. I trusted him, and he blinded me. He manipulated me at a time when I was vulnerable, and I gave in. And now, my stupid, naive heart thuds a little harder in my chest as he has the fucking nerve to look hurt. No, he doesn’t get to be hurt. Not after what he did to me.
My grip against his throat loosens, and before I know it, he gains control, grabbing my arm and in a struggle, he manages to get it behind my back, flipping me around and shoving me against the couch. He’s pressed behind me as he folds me over the back. I let out a snarl as I fight him, but every time I move, he shoves my arm up farther, sending a jolt of electric pain through my shoulder.
“Calm the fuck down,” he says, using that deep authoritative voice I remember so clearly.
“You want to call me pathetic?” he says, seething as I feel his lips against my ear. “I’m not the one in denial here, Nash. You can blame me all you want for what happened, but you know as well as I do you fucking liked it. I’m not going to make you feel better about how much you loved my cock, Nash, and I’m sure as fuck not going to put up with your little tantrums about it. You walked out of my life, and I didn’t follow you, just like you asked. So why did you hire me, huh?”
“Did you tell her about us?” I ask.
He winds his arm around my throat, pulling me up so I’m flush against his body. I hate the way my heart nearly drops to the floor with that familiar old feel of his rippled chest and thick biceps. I hate the way I love it.
Then he whispers harshly into my ear. “No, I didn’t fucking tell her. Because when I’m with her, we don’t