Page 98 of One Big Little Secret

My muscle memory recalls bright lights and laughs and velvet on my dick. To me, she was Lady Luck made flesh once upon a fucked-up time, and the losing streak she’s had doesn’t change it.

All I can do now is hope she doesn’t look down and see how hard I am, assuming she doesn’t claw my face off first for stirring up bitter memories.

She looks down and her face heats, too soon to blame it on the wine.

When she looks at me intently, does she see how badly I want to kiss her?

Her tongue flashes out, moistening her lips.

Goddamn.

I’ve never wanted any woman this much in my life. It’s absurd that it’sher,the girl I’ve already had who’s become as off-limits as buried treasure.

Normally, my relations are brief outside the bedroom. I bring few women back for seconds or thirds, much less fall into relationships that mean a damn.

But somewhere along the way, destiny stopped caring.

Years later, here I am, still wanting the same woman with a hunger so intense it strangles me.

“I’m sorry fate hasn’t been kind to you. I can’t tell you what you are and what you’re not, but I can tell you this, Salem.” I pause until I’m holding her gaze. “I never regretted meeting you. Not once. Not even when you showed up at The Cardinal to give me hell. I never wished it didn’t happen.”

“You didn’t?” Heavy disbelief echoes in her voice.

“It was a good night. All of it. The gambling, the conversation.”And the hottest gravity defying sex of my life. I don’t dare say that, though. “Look, I’m not as stupid as I look. I know it’s made things complicated now, but hell—I was young and stupid. You were everything I needed that night. After you, I didn’t hook up that much, and when I did… well, fuck. It’s like I was always chasing the same high I only foundonce.”

Her face blanks.

Yes, I’m spilling my spaghetti in messy piles now.

Baring my heart and the unspoken truths I haven’t admitted even to myself. Because Idon’tregret the hottest time I’ve ever spent with a woman, just like I don’t regret being here now on this disaster of a winter night with the dim lights that makes her eyes look dark and her lips delectable.

I want to be a stupid man tonight.

I want to kiss her into oblivion.

I want to own her.

I want her ruined until she’smine again.

And hell, kissing won’t scratch this itch that’s gone soul deep.

Not when I want to taste every part of her and press her into this worn sofa.

Not when I want her teeth in my hand, biting down as one ruthless thrust after the next rips an orgasm out of her.

Not when I could make her scream my name this time, when she never knew it before.

“Things were simpler back then, I’ll give you that,” she whispers, setting her glass down. I notice she’s finished already. I didn’t even notice her drinking much and I wonder if she just threw it back in a single gulp. “I miss it sometimes. Not that I’d trade Arlo for the past.”

“Same,” I confess. “Even six years ago, things were different for me. Less complicated.”

“But you were always rich. You were successful, or close enough, right?” Her shoulders tense as she shifts to face me, tucking her legs under her. “Do you know how many times Idreamedabout having your kind of success? Everything you’ve achieved, it’s amazing.”

“It came with a lot of sacrifice. There hasn’t been much of a life outside work, but it’s the life we chose, me and my brothers. My old man could’ve done something like this if he’d wanted, but he chose family instead. There are times when I wonder who was smarter.”

Oddly, his death gave us the kick in the ass we needed to get serious about living and carving out our piece of the Kansas City pie that has the Rory name on it. Not just a piece of a long ancestral shadow we think we’re entitled to by events almost a century ago.

“You talk like it’s too late for you. You can throttle back on work, can’t you?”

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