“You found me,” she murmurs.
I should say something. We should talk. We shouldreallytalk.
But like the fool that I am, I don’t say anything, because being this close to her, being alone with her again after all this time, sets my blood roaring.
I rush at her, pinning her against the wall and taking her face in my hands as my mouth comes down to meet hers. She kisses me back eagerly, not a hint of hesitation as her trembling fingers curl around the back of my neck.
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” I breathe against her mouth, and she nibbles at my lips. “I… I should be better than this.”
“You think I don’t want this?” She pulls me closer, pressing her body wrapped in that fucking sexy blue dress against me.“You think I haven’t dreamed of you losing control the minute you saw me again?”
My mouth comes down on hers again, although I know damn well at any moment someone could round that corner and the whole game would be up. Here, at my daughter’s fucking graduation party, I’m in the arms of her best friend like a dirty old man.
“Take me home,” Amber murmurs, gazing up at me. “I want you to take me home, and take me to bed. I missed you so much.”
I let her go with a heavy breath, hands braced against the wall either side of her. “Amber, we need to talk.”
“I don’t want to talk,” she says, her mouth hovering close to mine. “No talking now. I just need you to fuck me.”
My hands curl into fists as I try to maintain my self-control. “Amber, we can’t do this.”
“How many times did you watch our videos?” Her lips curl into a smile against mine as I suck in a breath. “How many times do you think I watched them?” Her hands drop to my belt. “Do you know how many nights I lay in my bed, watching those videos and making myself come, dreaming of you?”
“Amber.” I put a shaking hand to her cheek, and she nips at me, taking my lower lip between her teeth. I groan at the sensation and push her back against the wall. “Honey, we… we can’t.”
“But you want to.” Her hands run down my back, to my ass, and she grinds herself against me. “Do you know how wet I am right now, thinking about you?”
I’m a good man. I’m better than this. I am fucking better than this.
Except I’m not.
Because I lean into her, kissing her ferociously, cupping her breast in my hand, earning me a sweet little whimper. I want nothing more than to put a hand between her legs and see justhow wet she is for me. She opens her legs to grind herself against my thigh, and gasps into my mouth. “Theo,” she murmurs, in that tone I’ve missed so much, the voice that’s been the star of my dreams every single fucking night. “Theo.”
The moment is shattered when a firework goes off above our heads. I jump away from her, and in the showering light of the falling embers, Amber’s lips are full and parted, her hair dishevelled, her dress riding up her thighs. She’s beautiful, and she wants me. I should see that. I should see her. But all I can see as I look at this woman who just begged me to take her home, are all the people out there, the people who love us, finding out what I’ve done to her.
Amber gives me a slow smile, and reaches for me.
“Come back here,” she says, and bites her lip.
“I can’t.” I want to fucking die at the look she gives me.
She lowers her hands, frowning, shaking her head. “I-I don’t understand-”
“Honey, we can’t do this. I’m… I’m sorry. But…” I run my hands through my hair with a growl. “We just can’t do this.”
“You don’t want me?” She asks in a shaky voice, and I want to say yes, I do want her.
I want to say that I want her more than air because the past two years have been fucking torture. Because I never stopped thinking about her. Because I watched those videos every single fucking day, even the ones I knew I should erase, where she’s moaning my name and I’m roaring hers as I come. That I lay awake at night aching for her warmth against my chest. That waking up every morning alone is miserable. That I fuckingcriedwhen she got engaged. That my heart belongs to her because I’m a fool who fell for her in the space of 72 hours.
But I know that if I don’t finish this now, it’ll never be done, not for her. I’ll always be the good man, the one who got away, the one who she dreams about. No man will ever measure up,not if I don’t destroy that image she has in her head. I can’t hold on to her. She can’t keep me.
It needs to stop. So I end it, the only way I know how.
“No, I don’t.”
Amber gasps, her eyes dropping from mine. Her hand flies to her mouth, and I hate myself.
“Amber, I’m sorry, but… you’re too young. You’re a girl. You don’t know what you want.”
