Page 28 of Threaded Lies

Rhett shifts on his feet, his eyes flickering to Holden and then back to me. “What do you want?” he asks.

“For you to shut the fucking door on the way out. Don’t believe I stuttered.”

Rhett meets my eyes and I give the subtlest of nods to him that it’s okay for him to leave. I can read his hesitation one of two ways—that he wants to protect me or that he’s afraid what Holden’s going to say to me will be derogatory about him.

Sadly, I don’t think it’s because of the first.

“Uh—sure,” Rhett states, his shoulders squared as he moves past Holden in what can only be described as threatening.

But Holden doesn’t even flinch or look his way. His only visible response is the ticking of the muscle in his jaw and his unflinching stare.

Rhett shuts the door behind him but he stands just outside, looking in the small window to my office as if he’s hoping to see something. Holden glances over his shoulder and that’s all it takes for my brother to finally leave.

But it’s when Holden turns to face me again that I know I’m screwed. That I know the true meaning of undeniable attraction. The want to step into him and take what I thought was mine and now what I loathe was is just … there.

Betrayal.

That’s what he did to me and what my body seems to be continuing to do.

He steps toward me and I take a step back.

We’re in my office, blinds open, on display for anyone to see who dares to walk by and yet here we are, a foot apart, desire snapping between us as ferociously as our hatred.

“Ignoring me? Refusing to come to my office? I thought better of you than that,” Holden said, the low tenor of his voice rumbling through the confined space. “More professional. More … everything.”

I hate that his words eat at me. That they burrow beneath my skin and cause guilt when I have nothing to feel guilty over.

“Says the man who has tried to fuck me out of everything I deserve—literally and figuratively.”

“Fuck you out of everything you deserve?” He snorts. “Seems like you’re getting exactly that by marrying Chad.”

“Jealous?” I taunt.

“The anger. The bitterness. Is there a reason, Sunshine, that you seem to have forgotten who and what we were together?” He angles his head to the side.

He reaches out and I jolt back, my shoulders hitting the wall behind me. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Reminding you just how good we are.”

“Good? I can’t even be in the same room with you anymore.” My words are strong but my inner resolve questions my strength.

“Hmpf.” He trails a finger down the side of my cheek as I inhale a shaky breath. “Funny seeing as how you used to beg me to be inside of you.”

“Fuck you, Holden.”

He chuckles and the sound rumbles in my chest. “Doesn’t seem to be part of the plan anymore, now, does it?”

“Ah yes. You and your plans. You talk a big game, Knight. Too bad you don’t know how to deliver.”

My yelp is instantaneous as his hand encircles my neck like a necklace—his thumb beneath one ear, fingertips against the other. A sign of ownership, of frustration … of desire. My pulse thunders against the pads of his fingers and his cock grows hard against my thigh. “We both know I damn well deliver.”

We can’t be here like this.

Not in my office where people can see.

Not at TinSpirits where people can know we were … whatever we were.

Not because he betrayed me.