“Oh yes I am.”
“Ripley, you tricked me. I was pissed off.” His voice shakes with passion. “There are reasons I’ve kept my hands off you and now—”
“Now I’ll make that a lot easier for you. Let me go!”
Even in the muted light, I watch the color leach from his face. “I shouldn’t have spanked you like that. Out of anger. Christ, it was your first time. I should have held you—”
I interrupt him with a hiccup, more moisture leaking down my face and he just watches, visibly devastated. So much so that his hands drop like they weigh a thousand pounds and he stumbles to the side, clearing a path to the door. And I take it, running down the hallway barefoot to the thankfully empty changing room. Blindly, I grab whatever possessions I can find that belong to me or Alana, bundling them to my chest and leaving once again.
For a moment in the hallway, I’m disoriented and turned around, but with Mase only a few yards away in our room, I make a break for the second closest room, knocking on it and hoping like hell Alana is on the other side.
When she opens the door, I’m so grateful to see her familiar face, my knees dip. Her eyes are kind of stunned, teeth marks embedded in her lips. I want to know every single thing that happened to her—and I will find out, so I can make sure she’s okay—but right now, my flight instinct is screaming at me to get away from the source of my pain. “I have to go,” I whisper, imploring her with my eyes. “I have to get out of here. Now.”
Concern transforms her dumbstruck expression. “Oh my God, Rip. What happened?”
“I’ll tell you later, just…please drive me home.” I shoot a nervous glance down the hallway. “Now?”
“Of course.” Alana turns in a circle and crouches down to drag her robe up off the floor, wrapping it around her naked body. Then she closes the door behind her and follows me toward the emergency exit. “Wait,” she calls behind me. “I need my car keys.”
I dangle them over my shoulder without slowing down and a second later, we’re roaring out of the parking lot in her car, leaving my shattered heart behind.
6
Mase
I watch through the front window of the drugstore as Ripley glides down the aisles, her nose wrinkled in thought. She’s as beautiful as ever, her red hair in waves down the middle of her back, an ice-blue sundress hugging her delicious body…but something is wrong. There’s a hitch in her stride that isn’t normally present. She keeps shaking out her hands and second-guessing everything she picks up.
I wonder how she would react if she knew I was watching.
She’d probably give me the finger—and I’d deserve it.
Fuck. Every time I blink, I see her mouth open, moaning. I feel her nails raking down my back, her inexcusably tight pussy rippling around my johnson. I thought I was fucked up over my niece before, but ignorance was bliss compared to this. I’m ruined for anything and everything else this world has to offer. There’s only her.
And I sure as hell ruined her back, didn’t I? Not in a good way, either.
I hurt her. Made my sweetheart cry.
She gave me the best night of my thirty-eight years and I left angry handprints on her ass in return. If another man had laid hands on her in frustration, they would be at the bottom of a lake right now with their feet encased in cement. My self-loathing is so goddamn heavy where it sits on my shoulders and chest, it’s a wonder I could get out of bed this morning. But I needed to see her. When I woke this morning, there was an intuition churning in my gut. A sense that I need to see her right the hell now.
I busted inside her without a condom.
I came deep and my intentions were so primal in that moment, I’ll be shocked if she isn’t in a delivery room in nine months.
My dick is hard thinking about it, my tongue thick in my mouth.
Didn’t I know this would happen if I took her? That my obsession would inflate into something almost predatory and insatiable?
Yeah I knew. And here I am, salivating over the sight of her while keeping my eye on every other man in the drugstore, daring them to come within ten yards of what’s mine so I can put my size thirteen boot up their ass.
I’m the last person Ripley wants to see and that causes a cavern to open in my stomach, but when she walks out of the store a few minutes later clutching a brown paper bag to her chest, I have no choice but to step out from the shadows. Into her path.