“She’s not a tease,” he growled.
“For me she is,” I insisted. “She knows how insane it will make me to spend the next two nights in the room beside the two of you with nothing standing in the way but the lack of an invitation. She trusts me not to cross the line without one.”
“I don’t trust you.” The words came out between gritted teeth. “You stole her from me once. I won’t let you do it again.”
I frowned, confusion and hurt curling through my gut. “I would never try to take her away from you. You know I’ve wanted you to be together for years.”
“What about you?”
What about me? I might never factor into this equation. I was painfully aware of that. It would hurt to watch them be a couple without me, but I would never do anything to keep them apart. “You and Gabi are a package deal for me. I get both of you, or neither. There’s no other option.” He held my gaze, searching for a duplicity he would never find. I meant every word. “I know you’re still in love with her. So am I. But what about us, Connor? Do you still want me? Because fuck knows I still want you.”
“Connor?” We both turned towards the sound of Gabi’s voice as she joined us. “Is everything all right?”
“Everything’s fine.” The words said one thing, the tremor in his voice said something else. “Here’s your champagne,” he said, handing over the glass. Gabi ran a finger along the glass, the thick layer of condensation a sign Connor had spent much longer than necessary talking to me.
She sidled closer to Connor, her gaze shifting from him to me and back again. “It’s time for dinner,” she told him, finally. “Let’s go take our seats.”
Connor nodded, smiling at her. Without another word to me, they walked away.
SIXTEEN
______
CONNOR
A single lamp bathed the room in a warm glow, just enough to be able to see Gabi’s face resting on the pillow. We lay side-by-side under the covers, facing each other. Close enough to touch, but not.
My hands itched to test the softness of her skin, the curves hinted at beneath the thin material of her tank top and cotton shorts. I’d put on a pair of pyjama pants before joining her in bed but hadn’t bothered with a shirt. Every now and then her gaze would caress my body with a sleepy sort of hunger, lingering on the edge of the sheet covering me to the waist.
By all rights, we could have been making love. We could have spent hours exploring each other’s bodies with our lips and hands. Wrapped ourselves up in each other and the pull that insisted our time apart had come to an end. Yet, those last few stubborn centimetres remained between us, and we both knew why.
The door to Law’s room was closed, though still unlocked. Not that it mattered. When we’d left the restaurant to come upstairs an hour ago, Law had been firmly entrenched at the bar with Frank and a few of their friends. Frank had been thoroughly enjoying his final night as a single man and showed no signs of leaving. Though Law’s gaze had been trained on us as we left, we both knew he would stay by the groom’s side until he called it a night. With any luck, he’d manage to pour Frank into bed sometime in the early hours of the morning. Even when he did return, he’d said he wouldn’t come into our room without an invitation and, despite my claims to the contrary, I did actually trust him. He’d made mistakes, yes, but he’d always been an honourable man at heart.
“Gabs, do you ever regret walking in on me and Lawrence all those years ago?” My voice sounded gravelly in the dark, as if there were still parts of me that didn’t want to know the answer to such an old and loaded question. “That kiss, it wouldn’t have happened twice. You and Law might have stayed together. He would have been your first lover. Maybe you would have made it work.”
She smiled softly, tucking one hand beneath her cheek. “I met the first boy I made love to a few months after I started Uni. We dated for about seven months.” Her gaze drifted away from me as she looked backward through time, her smile sweet and nostalgic. “He was a virgin as well and our first time was a clumsy mess, but we couldn’t stop smiling afterward and we got better with practice.” She turned her attention back to me. “It didn’t last but, I have no regrets. As for you and Lawrence,” she continued with a dour expression, “it would have happened again, and again. As many times as it took for me to find out.” With a quiet sigh, she rolled further onto her back. “Or maybe, given enough time, Lawrence would have found a way to tell me what he wanted. Which would have been preferable to what actually happened, but the result would have been the same.”
The scars left by those wounds had faded now, but I’d never really forgiven myself for hurting the one person I’d loved more than anything else. “I’ll never stop being sorry for what I did to you.”
Reaching out, she stroked her fingers across my cheek. “I forgave you a long time ago. It’s time you forgive yourself.” There was a long pause. “Do you wish I’d reacted differently when I found you?”
I shook my head against the pillow. “Never. We were too young, too inexperienced.” That was true, despite how much time I’d spent in the months afterward fantasising about it, aching for it, spilling into my own hand at the thought of it. “It would have felt good at the time, but it would have turned into a total mess later.” Lifting a hand, I traced an index finger over the back of her hand. The light, soothing touch took the edge off my craving.
“Have you ever done it?” Her voice was so quiet I almost didn’t hear her.
“Been with more than one person at a time?”
She nodded.
“I’ve had the opportunity,” I admitted, “but I never went through with it.”
Her eyebrows rose. “You weren’t tempted? Even to find out what it’s like?”
Maybe it was the darkness of the room that allowed me to say the words. The truth is easier to admit when you’re blanketed by shadows. “I was tempted once,” I told her, “when a boy I didn’t know I was in love with offered me the chance to drink, from his lips, the kiss of the girl I loved with every breath.” The words Law spoke that night would forever have the power to bring me to my knees. They promised everything I’d ever wanted, from the one person who wanted me to have it. “The roles for my personal threesome fantasy were cast that night. No one else will do.”
Gabi stayed silent for a long time, though I saw the sheen of tears in her eyes. “Is that really what he said to you?” she whispered, her voice thick with emotion.
Nodding, I threaded my fingers between hers until my palm pressed to the back of her hand. “I know it was cheating because you never consented to it, you didn’t know it was going to happen. But in that moment, when he offered to share the taste of you, it didn’t feel like cheating. It felt like… a gift.”
