And for a flicker, I let her.
For a flicker, I imagine what it would be like to bury myself in someone who isn’t forbidden, who isn’t Kate’s best friend, who won’t destroy me when it all comes crashing down.
But then.
Her laugh is wrong.
Her perfume is wrong.
Her touch is wrong.
Because she isn’t her.
Brooklyn’s face slams through my skull like a bullet, the way she looked at me in my kitchen, eyes glazed, voice broken when she whispered please.
My hand closes around the woman’s wrist before she reaches higher. Hard. Too hard. She flinches, eyes going wide.
“Not tonight,” I growl. My voice doesn’t sound human.
I shove her hand away, stand, and the chair scrapes back like a warning shot. The men at the bar watch, but no one says a word. They know better.
I stalk out of Club Z, rage in my throat, guilt in my veins, her name pounding through my head like a curse.
Brooklyn.
Brooklyn.
Brooklyn.
The cold night air slams into me when I push out of Club Z. I want it to strip me clean, burn her perfume off my skin, but it doesn’t. Nothing does. The bass still thunders in my chest, the woman’s laugh still scratches at my skull.
I round the corner—And stop.
Brooklyn.
She’s leaning against the brick wall like her knees gave out, shoulders heaving, mascara bleeding down her cheeks in black rivers. Her hands clench her dress, her knuckles white. She looks at me like I put the knife in her chest and twisted.
“Brooklyn.”
“Don’t.” Her voice cracks, jagged as broken glass. “Don’t you dare.”
I take a step, but she recoils like I’m the fire and she’s finally realised I’ll burn her alive.
“You told me…” Her throat works around the words, tears spilling faster. “You told me you didn’t want anyone else. Thatthis—whatever the hell this is—wasn’t just…” She chokes on the word, spits it out anyway. “Sex.”
Her breath hitches, sharp and shallow. “And then I see you—” Her voice splinters. “With her. Letting her touch you.”
My hands flex at my sides, aching to grab her, drag her back where she belongs, force her to look only at me. But I can’t. Not when she’s looking at me like I gutted her.
“It wasn’t—” My voice is low, raw. “It wasn’t what you think.”
“Then what was it, Dean?” She laughs, ugly and wet. “Because from where I was standing, it looked like temptation.”
Her words hit harder than any fist I’ve ever taken. She’s not wrong. I let it happen for a breath too long. I faltered.
But I can’t let her think anyone could take her place.
I move closer, and she tries to push past me, but I cage her in against the wall before she can. My palms slam against the brick, my body a barrier she can’t slip through.
