Page 52 of Synced to Us

A line forms between Dee’s brows. Sitting this close, I can count her lashes and every aspect of beauty in her face. She says, “You’re out of your mind, you ridiculous human being. You think you’re like that glorified gambler? I don’t see it. And I’m a smart fucking gunslinger in the investment business, so you better take my word for it. What I see is a man who is keeping his family afloat despite his own career blowing up in front of his face. A man who, despite all the odds, refuses to stop sending money to his family regardless of how he has to then live because of it. You’re not giving up, Wyn. You’re not walking away. You’re not that man.”

It takes a lot of blinking to keep the rise of emotion from leaking out of my face. “You’re not obligated to say any of that.”

“Because of our deal?” she murmurs, inching closer. Her fingers dance along my cheeks.

Dee’s eyes shine in the darkness. A flash of her from earlier fills my vision—the way she threw her head back and laughed at something Lucy said while I waited for drinks at the bar. I was amazed how, with cute women attempting to distract me (women who’d be more than happy with a quickie in the bathroom), I was tracing the line of Dee’s jaw from across the bar instead. Mesmerized by her mouth and wishing I could’ve known what was so funny that her shell dissolved and the true Dee shone bright. And I wondered what it would take to get her to smile like that at me.

I rasp to her now, “There’s no one here. You don’t have to pretend or say nice things to make me feel better.”

She responds with a quiet tone, “Do you consider me the patronizing type?”

Breathe, fucker. Dee’s so close. Her salted, flowery scent commands my senses. My gut clenches, and my buddy down there pokes for attention. “I consider you to be the kind to do your job very well. You’ve been fantastic at playing my girlfriend in front of my family. But it doesn’t matter now. My brother touched you, and now I must lay him to waste. The jig is up. You can drop the act.”

Her thumb scrapes along my jaw while her focus travels to my mouth. “I’m not acting anymore, Wyn.”

I’m pretty sure she feels my Adam’s apple bob. “What are you doing, then?”

“I want you to touch me like I’m touching you.”

I stiffen in her hands. My entire body stills to the point that I’m a statue dipped in bronze and goddamned hard. Luckily, I scrape together enough words. “Say that again.”

“You heard me.” Dee’s lips curve up. “I’ve found the one man fully aware of my past and has never tried to make me feel ashamed, or slutty, or less than because of it. I may have been blind to it before, but this entire time, you’ve treated me like the businesswoman I am. You’ve given me respect. That turns me on.” Dee unclips her seatbelt, pulls her legs under her, and rises, her nose brushing against mine on her way up as she pushes me back into my seat and straddles me. “I don’t want to hold it in any longer.”

“If—” Damn, my brain’s desperate for a dictionary. Her tits are right there. “If this is your way of—of saying thank you for what happened back at Dockside, you don’t have—have to—” shit, she’s found my weak spot at the back of my ear. “Reward me with this. I know you don’t—”

“Wyn?” she murmurs into my skin.

“Yeah?”

“Shut up.”

Dee raises her head, brushing my nose with hers. She tilts back ever so slightly, as if waiting. Asking for permission.

As if she knows I’ll fall for her.

“Dee?”

“Hmm?” Her eyes glitter deviously.

I raise my upper lip. And with a voice so low, it resonates in the leather surrounding us, I demand, “Come closer.”

She does.

19

Dee

Witnessing Wyn angry, growling, and wet outside Dockside was my breaking point.

When he finished the confrontation with Brad, he’d stalked off the bar’s property with his soaking white shirt translucent and painted across his torso like it had become a second skin. Long, damp strands of his hair tangled in his face like he exited the river an angry merman who’d lost his trident. The clinging sea couldn’t cover his sharp cheekbones or the bright, blue flashes of his eyes as he ordered me into truck and backed out of the parking lot like we were making a criminal getaway.

Then, Wyn had to go and admit my past meant little to him. His mislaid attitude toward me was more due to his distrust of financiers than the fact men paid me for sex, because he sees the real me. Despite all my efforts to hide and craft the ideal girlfriend, there were enough fractures for him to filter through and like me for me. Breaks and weaknesses in my exterior that I didn’t realize were so apparent to him.

Is that even possible?

It’s never happened to me before with the opposite sex. Never. Especially in that order.

I finally opened my eyes and saw him as he was meant to be seen: tough but soft, destroyed but reborn, and mine.

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