Stolen Desire

“That’s right; I’m having another man’s child, he’ll be looking for me…wait, how did you know I’m having more than one?” I rolled my eyes at her as I kept her body pinned beneath mine.

She looked at me questioningly until I saw realization dawn in her eyes. Then she did the oddest thing. She sniffed me, actually lifted up off the bed and buried her nose in my neck and inhaled. Her eyes were wide on mine when she leaned back. “You, it was you? Cousin Wyatt, what have you done?”

Chapter 17

Jamie

Oh hell, the hot pussy robber is cousin Wyatt? Can’t be. I must’ve fallen down some deep dark hole for this to be true. I stared up at him and tried my best to hide the fact that my heart was aching. I took in his face without seeming to, drinking him in because I’m stupid.

I couldn’t stop the tears that coursed down my cheeks. I wasn’t sure if they were tears of anger, joy, or relief. “I don’t understand.” It was as much as I could get out past the lump in my throat. I looked away from him, from the heat in his eyes that made no sense.

The last time we saw each other, he’d rejected me in the most brutal way possible and then disappeared. It had taken me years to get over it; in fact, I don’t think I ever really did, not until I met the doctor at the hospital where I worked and only then it had been a slight infatuation that had more to do with his bedside manner and his soft-spoken attitude.

He was the complete opposite of this one. This brash, bold, overconfident man who’d stolen my heart when I was too stupid to protect it or to even know that it needed protection from him, the man who’d been a part of my life since as far back as I can remember. The man who’d ripped the heart out of me and stomped it into dust.

As I looked up into his beautiful eyes, eyes that always made me tingle with the heat I sometimes thought I saw there, I remembered that last night. It was my sweet sixteen, and I’d spent the day being pampered and polished from head to toe.

Mama had made a spa date for us girls only, and then I’d got my hair done and my first mani-pedicure. It was also the first time daddy had allowed me to wear makeup. I was feeling so grown up, especially when I put on the white low rider jeans and the short pink peasant blouse that showed off my flat stomach.

My excitement was off the charts that day because Wyatt had made it home just in time to celebrate with me. He’d been gone a lot in the last year or so, and I’d lost all hope of him making it back in time, even though I’d dreamt of him every night for months leading up to the day.

I’d made up my mind that I was going to give myself to him that night. After all, he’d owned my heart since forever. I was never too sure, though, about what he really felt for me. Sometimes he acted like a disgruntled older brother, and then there were the times when I’d catch him looking at me with this intense look in his eyes.

He’d always look away when he noticed me watching and change the subject or act in some way that threw me off. I’d seen too the change in our relationship the last year or so. Whereas before I used to run and jump into his arms when he came back from being gone too long, lately, he seemed a bit standoffish.

So that day of the party, when I ran and jumped into his arms, wrapping my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist, I’d felt the tension in him and was even more alerted by the haste with which he’d put me back on my feet.

There was no twirling me around with that wide gorgeous smile of his, no peck to my lips as he held me close and told me how much he missed me. This time he’d given me this absent smile and asked me something mundane about school or some such tripe.

I remember my chest getting tight and my heart beating erratically. My first thought was that maybe he’d brought someone home with him and didn’t want her to see him being overly familiar with his little cousin. The thing is, I hadn’t felt like his little cousin in quite some time.

All that night, no matter how he tried to put me off, I kept well…throwing myself at him, something that still mortifies me even to this day. “You’re thinking about it, aren’t you? That night.” His finger came up and rubbed my cheek gently. I looked away, not wanting him to see how much I was still affected, how much his rejection still hurt.