I slam my eyes closed, feeling the tears brimming along my lids, seeking their escape.
“So you are telling me that you kissed her back?” I ask, glancing back at him.
“What? No!” he stresses, his eyes wide with panic. “I just meant if it weren’t for the alcohol that the shock wouldn’t have slowed down my senses. I admit my lips were attached to hers, but never for one minute did I move my lips against hers, or lean in to deepen the kiss. I swear, baby …”
My eyes trace over his hand as I watch how his fingers inch closer to mine until his whole hand covers my own. Shivers erupt around me from the touch of his skin. It happens every time he touches me, but right now I can’t bear it. Even though he hasn’t betrayed me, everything is still too raw, too fresh.
I shake my head as I unclasp my hand from his and stand, needing to make some much-needed space between us. I need to think. I need to breathe.
“But your lips were still on hers, the same lips that I kissed only hours earlier. The image of her lips against yours—whether you were kissing her back or not—is an image that simply can’t be erased.” I turn around to face him, and I ignore the way my heart falters as I take in his glistening emerald eyes that have been swallowed up with pure emotion.
“If it was anyone else I’d be able to forget, but it wasn’t. It was Riley, who I’ve been insanely jealous of since the moment I met her, and it seems my jealousy was warranted all along. And if you had opened your eyes to her discreet touching, her flirtatious smiles, her lack of fricking clothes for the past two days, then maybe you wouldn’t have found yourself in that situation in the first place.”
Suddenly he’s on his feet and gripping hold of my arms in a tight embrace, his face inches away from me, his hypnotic eyes boring into mine.
“You don’t see it do you?”
“See what?” I tremble.
“The reason why I haven’t acknowledged her.” He brings his hands up to my face, cupping my cheeks with his tense touch that sears into my skin like wildfire. “You, Ava. You are the reason why she hasn’t even registered on my radar because all I ever see is you. You have me bound so tight that even if a girl was standing naked in front of me, I would be blind to it because when I’m with you, everything else around me just fades away. Hell, when you’re not with me, I still find it hard to even look at another woman because you’re on my brain twenty-four seven. I become blind to those around me because it’s only you I can see. It’s been that way since the moment I met you.”
My eyes flutter closed when he dips his head and gently presses his lips to mine, causing my breath to catch at the back of my throat. After a few seconds he pulls away and rests his head against mine, looking down at me with an intensity that sends shock waves through my nervous system.
“I love you.”
I give out a heavenly sigh, my body tingling from the feel of his breath against my lips. “I love you, too.” I step away from his embrace, ignoring the chill I feel at the loss of contact, even in the eighty-degree heat. “But I can’t be around you right now, I just … I need to be alone. Please … I need time to let tonight sink in.”
“You promise to still be here in the morning?”
I give a gentle nod. “I’m not going anywhere; I just need some time alone.” He takes a step forward and presses a kiss to my temple before slowly distancing himself.
“Okay. I’ll stay with Tyler in the pool house for the rest of the night.”
He seems to hesitate for a moment, but eventually he begins to walk backwards, his eyes never straying from mine. “I’ll see you in the morning.” He turns around and I can only nod as I watch his retreating back walk in the direction of the house, but not before taking one final glance.
Once alone, I drop my exhausted body on the porch steps and I let the past twenty-five minutes soak in, trying to let my body catch up with the overwhelming emotions that flow through my veins.
It’s only when I feel Alana’s motherly arms wrap around me that I finally set my emotions free by letting my tears fall without any interruptions.
I HAVEN’T SLEPT A wink.
How can I when I know my fiancée is hurting? Hurting because I’m a fucking idiot. I’m supposed to be the person in her life who protects her … who looks after her, but it seems even I’m not immune to breaking her beautiful, fragile heart.
When I walked away from her last night to give her the space she needed, the space she needed away from me—which was by far one of the hardest things I have ever had to do—I headed straight to the pool house. I stripped down to my boxer shorts, lay on the sofa and stared up at the ceiling, replaying everything in my head.
I kept going over the look of despair I saw piercing into the very soul of me last night, when Ava thought I had deceived her. How can she even think I would be interested in another woman when all my thoughts are consumed by only her? Well, her and Lily. I’m so deeply and madly in love with her that I’m pretty certain it borders on clinically psychotic. I’m obsessed with her, one hundred percent spellbound and in love—and as my brother even called me last night: pussy-whipped.
I think I’ve always felt that way about Ava, even from the very first moment I laid eyes on her, the new mother of a twenty-seven week old preemie while she sat in her wheelchair in complete and utter silence, watching her baby with an awed gaze that mesmerized me. She drew me in like a moth to a flame, and the instant my fingers came into close contact with the fire, I knew I was too late … She drew me in until I was too far gone. I was hers … even if she wasn’t mine.
Yesterday we were blissfully happy; laughing, and having hot, incredible sex, but today … well I’m a miserable son of a bitch because I feel lost without her.
It doesn’t help that when I tried to see her this morning, just to see if she was okay and try to somehow make up for my colossal fuck up to her, my mom wouldn’t let me within a mile of her. She was beyond pissed at me, and it seemed Ava had a new protector in the form of my mom. In a firm do-not-argue-with-your-mother kind of way, she told me, “She doesn’t want to see you. Thanks to you, that girl was a wreck all night. You need to stay away until she’s ready to see you. Let her breathe, Ashton.” Reluctantly I turned away but, in that moment, I came face to face with Riley, and I swear if the look of wrath my mom threw her way could kill, Riley wouldn’t have stood a chance.
Crunching down on my jaw, I purposely ignored Riley and focused on my mom. “Can you at least tell her that I love her, please?” I implored.
My mom nodded before turning away, heading in the direction of the guest room that had somehow turned into some kind of bridal sanctuary, but not before shooting another dagger at Riley.
I turned and began to walk downstairs when Riley called out my name. Angry at the fact I couldn’t see my fiancée thanks to Riley, and her need to fuck up my relationship with the only woman that matters to me, I turned to her and said, with a menacing grit to my voice, “Stay away from me. You’re the reason why my fiancée won’t fucking talk to me.”
That led me to now, standing with my brother at the top of the makeshift altar, sweating my balls off as the sun pounds down on us in the afternoon heat as the chairs begin to fill up with guests.
“Jesus, man … whose idea was it to wear goddamn tuxes in the middle of freaking August?” I complain pulling at my collar, hating the way the oppressive heat makes it feel as though it’s constricting my airways.