“Sorry, Rand,” she said, forcing the words from between clenched teeth, “but there is no way that’s going to happen.”
She made the words sound serious and strong, then rolled off his lap to sit beside him on the bed.
“Of course it is,” he said with a confident laugh. “You’re dying for me, Em. You’re dripping with want, the same way I am.”
“That’s some ego, buddy.”
Rand replied by lifting his hand to his mouth. His fingers glistened with the liquid desire he’d wrung from her. Sliding his tongue against one fingertip, he licked at the juices from her body, reminding her of how wet and wanton she’d been for him only a few minutes before.
She didn’t need the reminder. Her panties were drenched, the lips of her sex swollen, her core empty and throbbing with the urge to be filled.
But not by him. Not like this. Not when he’d come here to add the one notch to his bedpost he hadn’t been able to before.
Her body might want to give him what he desired, but her mind wanted to throw him off the damn roof for ignoring her for so long, then waltzing back through the door believing he could have her with a crook of his finger and a stroke of his thumb.
She needed to forget his fingers and his thumbs and his everything else and pretend he’d never reentered her life.
“Em, it isn’t what you think.”
“Yes, it is exactly what I think,” she snapped.
He reached for her, that strong, tender hand that could give her so much pleasure.
No. No pleasure.
Her brain had shut down—she had to get away. She also sensed, however, that the moment she got off the bed and walked toward the door, he’d follow. Trying to convince her. To seduce her.
He reached for her hand. “Stay with me,” he said, his voice throaty and sexy. “Let’s stop the wondering—we both know how good it would be.”
Yep. Seduction. He could seduce a nun out of her habit.
Emily had to get out of this room and make sure he couldn’t follow her. So, reacting instinctively, she lifted the handcuff and snapped it around his wrist.
His eyes rounded in shock. “What are you doing?”
She got off the bed and strode out of the suite’s bedroom.
He called after her. “Emily, you can’t...”
“You got it open once. I’m sure you will again.”
Then with his muttered curses echoing through the penthouse, she left, slamming the door behind her.
* * *
SHE’D LEFT. EMILY had handcuffed him to the bed, and strode out. Rand couldn’t believe it. She’d been aroused to the point of insanity—as had he—and yet she’d walked away.
He couldn’t understand it. Not only had she walked away from what she desperately wanted physically, she hadn’t even demanded a full explanation about why he was here. He’d told her part of it, that he’d come for her, certain she would at least be curious. Hell, part of him had hoped she’d still be the same wildly impulsive girl and throw herself into his bed, damn the reasons and to hell with the consequences.
But no, none of the above. Instead, after he’d admitted the truth—though without an explanation—she’d locked him up and stormed out of the penthouse, slamming the door behind her.
“Well, that didn’t go the way I envisioned it,” he muttered. He rubbed his free hand against his raspy jaw, wondering when, exactly, he’d lost control of the situation, and how he’d managed to screw this up so badly.
He had probably made a mistake coming here, and he’d definitely made one by telling her she was why he’d come. Hell, he’d waited for seven years; he could certainly have drawn things out a little more. At least until after she’d let go some of the anger she obviously still harbored toward him. Maybe then he could have explained why he’d never responded to her messages or tried to track her down.
The truth was, he had promised her brother he would leave her alone until she grew up. While eighteen might have been legally old enough for him to give her what she’d been begging for, he’d realized that emotionally she was nowhere near ready.
Emily’s childhood had been a screwed-up mess. Her parents had been embezzlers who’d fled the country to evade criminal charges, dragging Em and her brother to South America to live in hiding, practically keeping them prisoner. Their grandfather had rescued them, taking them in and raising them under a super-protective eye. Emily’s trip to California had been the first chance she’d ever really had to let loose and enjoy normal teenage experiences, and it had certainly been the first time she’d gotten physically close to a guy.
Yet none of that had seemed to matter the night of her birthday, when he woke up to find her warm, naked form entwined with his, her hungry mouth whispering desperate pleas. If Seth hadn’t walked in on them, he’d have plunged his cock into her hot body and probably never found his way out again. He’d been fantasizing about her since he’d first laid eyes on her, and for weeks he’d been holding off his twenty-one-year-old hormones with every ounce of strength he possessed. No guy his age would have been able to resist waking up to the girl he wanted more than anything begging him to take her virginity.
Seth hadn’t seen it that way, however.
Once big brother had walked in, they hadn’t been able to finish what they’d started. And Rand had wondered about it ever since, the way he occasionally wondered how his life might have turned out if that knee injury in his junior year at UCLA had been more serious. Or if his dad hadn’t died right before Rand’s junior year of high school. Or if he hadn’t said yes whenever his father had asked him if he wanted to play catch in the backyard as a little kid.
Those paths not taken, the things-that-might-have-been, had always intrigued him. But the one with Emily Crowder most of all.
Because, though they’d only spent a few weeks together, during those weeks, he’d experienced emotions for her that he’d never had for any other woman, before or after.
He’d fallen for her. Hard and fast. And even though he’d been angry about what had happened between him and Seth, and even though he’d kept his word to stay away, she’d never been out of his mind for long.
He hadn’t done anything about it, though, until a couple of months ago when he’d caught sight of her brother across a crowded reception hall. He’d seen Seth’s eyes but his mind had remembered Emily’s.
That was the moment he’d decided to track her down.
Rand had been at a turning point in his life that night, having spent months wondering why he had everything men wanted, but he wasn’t happy. He’d wondered why none of his relationships seemed to last, and why he didn’t care. He’d wondered why he couldn’t get one beautiful girl out of his mind. And suddenly, he’d needed to find out what had become of that girl, the sweetly passionate one who’d haunted him for so long.
He’d
