“I have,” she insists quietly, her wet, hazel gaze settling on my cheek. “Just not with someone else.”
I suddenly understand that her embarrassment has nothing to do with me and everything to do with the fact that she was moaning and shaking in my lap no more than a minute ago, riding my hand and begging me to make her come and she almost did.
In front of a total stranger.
For the first time—with me of all fucking people.
Knowing that, I feel my annoyance over her reaction at being caught with me dissolve under the weight of something else. A feeling I’ve never experienced before. Something savage and so close to feral it scares the shit out of me.
“Allister never…” I already knew that. Women like Millie need slow. They need time. They need to be unraveled and that son of a bitch is too egotistical and lazy to put in the work when it’s so much easier to take what he thinks he’s entitled to while blaming his ineptitude on her. If he everdidmanage to get her off, it would’ve been purely by accident. When she gives me a miserable head shake—one that confirms what I already knew—I nod. “What about your partners beforehim?” Allister is bad enough. Thinking about her with someone else—anyone else—is enough to choke me. When all she does is keep staring at my cheek, I feel my stomach drop. “How many men were there before that dumbfuck?”
“One.” She whispers it before lifting her gaze to find mine. “Almost. There was almost someone.”
Me.
She’s talking about me.
Holy shit.
“It’s not a big deal,” I tell her quietly. “Not if we don’t make it a big deal, right?” Again, I don’t know who I’m trying to convince, her or myself.
“Right.” Nodding her head, her gaze shifts past mine. “You feel sorry for me now, don’t you?”
I do.
I feel sorry for the fact that she wasted two years of her life on someone who didn’t care enough to even tryto make her feel good. And I feel cheated. Because it should’ve been me. Could’ve been me if I hadn’t been so stupid. It probably wouldn’t have changed anything but at least she would’ve known that Allister was a lousy lay. That she deserved better.
“Seriously, Monkeybone?” Instead of telling her so, I give her one of my shitty smirks. “You’re smart, beautiful, and rich—what’s there to feel sorry for?”
That quiet smile of hers makes another appearance. “One of these days you’re going to run out of stupid M words.”
My good girl.
That starts with the letter M.
“Doubt it,” I tell her, doing everything I can to keep my tone light. “I’ve got a pretty impressive vocabulary for an averagely intelligent bartender.”
When I say it Millie rolls her eyes. “You’re never going to let that go, are you?”
“Nope.” I flash her a wide grin. “You ready to snorkel?”
She gives me a reluctant nod. “But what if…”
“What if Mateo tells someone?” I finish for her, fighting the urge to hunt him down and rip his fucking head off, just to keep him quiet about what he saw. Terrifying and completely irrational, but here we are. “That’s what we wanted, isn’t it? For people to think?—”
“We’re fucking.” A faint smile tugs at the corners of her mouth before her gaze finds mine.
I’m in over my head.
So far over my fucking head with this woman that I can’t even see the surface.
“Exactly.” Dropping my hand away from her face, I give her thigh a brief squeeze, signaling her to stand. “I can’t say for certain, but I’m pretty sure he bought it.”
THIRTY-ONE
The last three days have been the most funand frustrating of my life.
Fun because they’ve been a whirlwind of activity. Snorkeling. Parasailing. Horseback riding. Afternoon cocktails by the pool. Dinners at Davino’s. I’ve had more fun in the last three days than I’ve had in the last twenty-eight years.
