Page 53 of Unforgettable

And then Vivian delivered my favorite “I almost peed my pants” line, and I threw my head back laughing. In another second, I turned to Josh to make sure he’d heard it as well. My face was cast in odd shadows from the bright screen behind me and the subtle car lights all around us. You couldn’t completely discern all of my features, but I was definitely smiling.

“What’s so interesting about a video of me? Besides the fact that both you and Reed have some weird thing with videoing me when I’m not looking.”

I reached forward to hand him back his phone, but Josh gripped my wrist and tugged me from my spot a few feet away. His arm wrapped around my waist was the only thing that kept me from narrowly missing his family jewels with my knee.

Josh seated me between his legs, my back pressed against his chest and facing the screen.

“You could have just asked me to come sit by you,” I grumbled.

With one arm wrapped around my waist, he repositioned the blankets to cover us both.

Once the blankets were arranged to his satisfaction, he reached for his phone once again and held it in front of us. He pressed play, and I did what I could to hide the tiny gasp that escaped my throat when he leaned forward and I felt his hot breath on my neck.

“You are more interesting to me, Amanda,” he said and then ghosted his lips over my exposed skin. A shiver worked its way through me. I could feel the smile pull at his lips as they continued to dance over my skin. He trailed an intentional path up to my ear and back down my neck.

“That moment was so perfect that I needed to save it. And when you were on your date last night, Reed sent me a photo and then a video of you. You were smiling, and you had this amazing look of… wonder on your face. It was beautiful. Actually, it was breathtaking, andfuck, it made me so jealous. I saved it and replayed the video over and over again. I wanted to be there, too. I wanted to see that look on your face and help make you smile. And that asshole knew exactly what he was doing. So, I decided to give him a taste of his own medicine.”

My breath hitched in my throat. As his words surrounded us, his mouth continued sucking and kissing my neck. Each time the video would stop, he would press play again, and I’d watch myself laugh and swing my head around to look at him.

I did look happy. I wassohappy.

And the fact that he noticed it and had the idea to video it so he could relive it over and over again was almost too much.

Not a single coherent thought was possible for several long seconds. His words and hands pressed eagerly against my stomach, along with his lips and tongue lavishing my neck, were all too much.

With one deep, painful breath, I was able to open my mouth and pull myself from his orbit just enough to make one simple statement.

“A little competition is fine, but if it escalates…”

“Baby girl, it’s all in good fun. Just a little friendly competition between friends. And you can’t blame us either when you’re the only thing either of us has ever wanted.”

At the same time, he nipped at my ear and then soothed it with his skillful tongue, my heart leaping into my throat, the emotion bombarding me.

In two dates, they’d both shown me the best they could that what he said was true. It was all too good. They’d been the best dates of my life. Which is why my stomach sank. The emotion in my throat morphed into something different. It was simultaneously hopeful and daunting.

Nothing would ever be the same again.

SIXTEEN

Reed

No matterhow high the volume, I couldn’t get the music in my headphones loud enough.

Usually a hard workout, with cardio and weight training and loud-ass music, did the trick to clear my head. But it wasn’t fucking working.

My muscles were aching—the kind of ache I lived for—and my lungs were on fire. Each breath was more difficult than the one before as I pushed myself harder on the treadmill. My labored breaths, the hum of the machine, and my pounding footfalls were all drowned out by the music blasting in my ears.

I’d long since lost my shirt. The sweat quickly drenched the thin material during our third set with the battle ropes.

I glanced over to the treadmill next to me and found Josh also had his treadmill nearly as high as my own. His headphones were also in, and like I’d found myself only a few seconds earlier, he was staring off into the distance, not looking at anything in particular but lost deep in his own thoughts.

When he’d walked into the gym late that morning for our workout, we hadn’t discussed the workout nor had a conversation about what we wanted to do. With only the looks on both of our faces, we’d agreed to the workout we needed—something that would push our bodies to the brink and hopefully keep our minds occupied for an hour or two.

Although I suspected that neither of us was feeling much better, we were at least thoroughly exhausted and had expended the energy we were wasting on worrying about our predicament.

My palm slammed down onto the stop button, probably too hard, but the belt immediately stopped.

Without the movement, and my legs pumping underneath me, I felt the nearly two-hour-long workout and six miles on the treadmill throughout my body.

---