Page 62 of Seeking Vengeance

His candor grates me. Will I be the next woman who wants more when he doesn’t? Is my heart his next victim?

“You’re judging me again,” he drawls. “I thought we were past this.”

I thought so, too. I really did. Now I’m not sure.

“Fine.” He sighs, his brows pinching. “I guess you want the full story?”

I don’t know. Part of me needs to understand how he could be unabashedly cruel. The other doesn’t want any more knowledge of him with another woman.

He leans in, dominating my personal space and grazing the stubble of his cheek along my jaw, his lips near my ear. “The truth is, I got back to Washington after meeting you for the first time and I couldn’t get your fucking phenomenal body out of my goddamn head.”

I shudder. Hold my breath.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he continues in a seductive murmur. “Couldn’t think straight. So I found someone to replace you. A woman with the same hair. A similar figure. A pretty face.”

My skin erupts in goose bumps, my nipples beading for reasons unknown.

His nose nuzzles the sensitive skin below my ear as he says, “I wanted to fuck her while pretending it was you. But no fantasy could live up to the hype.”

I shiver, every inch of me tingling.

“Less than an hour spent with you, Layla, and I was obsessed.” His lips brush my neck, the graze of his stubble providing the most deliciously contrasting friction. “Seeing you again only heightened the infatuation.”

My breathing labors. My core tightens. “But you didn’t sleep with her?”

“No.” His response is instant.

“Have you slept with anyone else since we met?” The need for answers is pathetic. I can’t help it.

“No.” He tastes my skin with a minuscule slide of his tongue. “And I won’t.”

I believe him.

I believe his words. His vibe. The hunger in his mouth as it delicately devours my neck.

Lust bubbles in my belly, seeping out through every nerve.

I don’t understand this yearning. This desire. It’s all-consuming. Mind-numbing.

I slide a hand around his neck, grazing my nails along his scalp to hold him close. “How long until we can get out of here?”

He snickers, the sound devilish enough to make my pussy clench. “As soon as you’d like.”

17

Layla

He leads me back downstairs,my hand in his, then through a staff door, along a shadowed hall, and out into a gated parking lot.

Matthew directs me to a black Roadster nestled between a line of sedans and compact vehicles, and opens the passenger-side door.

We’re on the road within silent minutes, the blood pounding from my building libido the only sound.

“Are you having second thoughts?” He flashes me a look of concern.

It makes me want him more. “I’m right where I want to be.”

His lips tweak in the slightest curve of approval before he concentrates on traffic. We head into the heart of the capital, not far from my hotel, and stop inside another parking lot, this one below a towering apartment complex.

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