Love Triangle Six Books of Torn Desire - Willow Winters Page 0,215

my mind. All the images that’ve been burned into my memories start attacking my brain from different angles. The feel of his lips against mine, his fingertips dragging up my thigh. The taste of his peppermint breath and the smell of his sandalwood skin. The view of the Strip and the view of him stripping. His velvet voice in my ear.

Brian gets out of the car and walks around to my side. He opens it and holds out his hand. I’m trembling as I slip my hand into his, scared to go into the building that holds so many painful memories that all trickle back to one unforgettable night.

Becker and Jill get out of the backseat and join us. Jill’s wide eyes meet mine, and she reaches for my hand and squeezes it in silent reassurance. Tears spring to my eyes, but I won’t let them fall. I can’t. I’m here with Brian, to meet his brother, to make new memories—as desperate to wash away the old ones as I am to cling to them.

We walk through the doors toward the elevator, and it’s all very familiar as the ball of anxiety in my stomach feels like it may burst. Brian pushes the button to call the elevator. We get on the same car I traveled down that morning I left Mark’s place, and the haunting memories are right at the surface, filling the back of my throat with nausea. That same feeling of giddiness mixed with shame the last time I rode this exact elevator rushes over me.

The hotel only goes up through the twenty-third floor. When I got on the same elevator car with Mark, he pressed the button for the forty-seventh floor. The top floor. The penthouse. He told me there were other suites up there, too, and when we exited the elevator, we turned to the right and entered the door in the corner, the one marked 4701.

I assume Brian will press any button from twenty-four through forty-six. Never once does the idea enter my mind that he might hit forty-seven, and when he does, a searing pain squeezes my chest. I don’t want to be so affected by this—I don’t want to hold that connection between Mark and me so close to my heart still, not after all this time has passed, not after I’ve started a relationship with another man, not after I’ve started falling for another man.

But I do.

I take a deep breath, pushing away the images of Mark slamming me up against the mirrored elevator wall, shoving down the feel of his mouth on mine, our breath mingling and our bodies craving.

When we get off the elevator, I assume we’ll turn to the left. It’s the only option. When we turn to the right and Brian leads me to the door marked 4701—the same door I walked through just over a month ago, my heart stops. My ears buzz. My chest hurts. My stomach lurches.

It’s not possible.

“Your brother lives here?” I ask, my voice trembling. I sense that Jill is somewhere behind me, but she can’t have any inkling of what’s going on in my head.

“Yeah,” Brian says as he turns the knob and pushes open the door. He might’ve nodded to answer my question, I’m not sure—I can’t bear to look at him, can’t bear for him to see all the emotions my eyes surely hold, can’t bear the thought of going through the door and facing what—who—is on the other side. Instead, I focus my eyes on the door, trying everything in my power to forget, to let it go, to push one leg in front of the other and act like everything’s normal.

But it’s not.

I fell in love with a rock star the last time I was here. How the hell was I supposed to know I’d fall in love with his brother next?

Chapter Sixteen

When Brian pushes open the door, every nuance from the night I last passed through this same door rushes back to me.

Jill pulled out her press pass plus the pass she borrowed from a friend for me after the show, and voila…we were backstage.

She led me through a series of hallways before we landed in front of a door with a temporary sign that read VAIL. She flashed her pass to the guard like she’d done this a million times, and I followed suit. My hands shook as I held up my pass. The guard eyed me for a second as nerves danced around my