Love Bug (The Prescotts Book 3), Tara Wyatt [best mobile ebook reader .txt] 📗

saw: a rich, good looking guy with an expensive penthouse and a six pack. When he wanted sex, he had no problem finding it.

And yet…he knew it wasn’t like that with Willa, as much as he tried to group her in with other women he’d had casual hook ups with. She was special. Different. Under his skin in a way that was totally foreign to him. And he knew it was because he cared about her.

More than cared about her, if he was honest. Willa made her feel things he hadn’t known he’d been capable of feeling, and it felt as though the ground were shifting beneath his feet, leaving him off balance. She’d pulled him in right from the start with her warmth and intelligence and humor. With her delicate, untouchable beauty. And then he’d almost lost her the night of the home invasion. That night, he would’ve done absolutely anything for her, and he had. He’d slept with her when he had no business touching her. No fucking right. But he’d done it anyway, and sometimes he tried to delude himself into thinking that he’d had sex with her because she’d asked, because it was what she’d needed after the horrifying experience she’d had. But he knew that wasn’t the full story. She’d asked, and he’d been more than willing.

He hadn’t been lying when he’d told her that she was everything. She was. She was everything he thought about, everything he craved, everything he longed for. There wasn’t a day that went by that he didn’t think about her. That he didn’t think about them, together in his bed. That he didn’t imagine a future that would never, ever happen.

He closed his eyes, allowing himself the small luxury of imagining how things could’ve gone differently in her office, when she’d told him she’d wanted him. He imagined locking her office door and then sitting her on her desk, kissing her until neither of them could breathe. Until kissing wasn’t enough. He’d spread her out on her desk, tugging her to the edge and with her legs around his hips, he’d bury himself inside her, over and over again, his fingers working her pretty little clit until she came around him, clawing at his arms, legs shaking as she screamed his name…

His dick twitched and he forced himself to push it all away. He scrubbed a hand over his face and checked the time. It was after eight and everyone else had long gone home, but he’d stayed to catch up on work. Stayed because there was nothing for him in his empty penthouse. He dragged his attention back to the lines of code in front of him, telling himself this was what he wanted, to get lost in a project, but he couldn’t focus. All he could think about was Willa.

Willa kissing him. Moving underneath him. Telling him she’d wanted him for a long time.

Images filled his mind, so bright and intense that he could’ve sworn he smelled her, here, now. The delicate, light floral of the perfume she always wore, it was right there, right at the edge of his senses. Wrenching his mind back under control, he forced himself to remember the hurt in her eyes the morning after. A few days ago in her office. The hope that he kept smothering because that was who he was, and the sooner she learned that, the better. It didn’t matter how he felt about her. She couldn’t be his.

The thought sent a pang slicing through him, like he’d been stabbed between the ribs, and with a grunt he pushed away from the desk and stood, crossing his office to a cabinet in the corner. Opening it, he pulled out a bottle of scotch and a glass, then took them both back with him to his desk. He couldn’t stand this longing anymore. This wanting, this needing. Numbness beckoned.

He poured himself a generous glass and drank it down in one gulp, then poured himself another. It cut a warming path down the center of his chest, some of the tension ebbing out of his neck and shoulders. And yet with every breath, with every passing second, there she was. Willa.

And so he did something he hadn’t done in a long time, even though he was no stranger to torturing himself. Setting the glass down on his desk, he unlocked the very bottom drawer, pulled out the slender box he kept there, and opened it.

It was a necklace, the last gift he’d ever given Sophia. He remembered picking it out, choosing the white gold chain with the diamond and sapphire star-shaped pendant at the end. Looking back, he knew it was an apology for not buying her the engagement ring she wanted. A consolation prize.

Sophia hadn’t done anything wrong. She’d only wanted to be loved. And he hadn’t given that to her because he was fucked up and toxic and a cold bastard.

And now she was dead because of him. Because of what she’d wanted that he couldn’t give.

He lifted the necklace from the box, letting the jeweled facets catch the light. Her family had insisted he keep it, as a memento, and so he had, but not because of the fond memories it held. He kept it as a reminder of who he was and the devastation he was capable of, given the chance.

If he hadn’t been so broken, so damaged, Sophia would still be alive, and that was a fact.

Still holding the necklace, he picked up his glass and drained it again. He went back and forth between wanting to feel the pain of what he’d done and just wanting to be numb. To not feel anything anymore because it all hurt too fucking much.

Setting his empty glass down, he stood and walked to the windows lining the back wall of his office, the necklace still in hand. With the chain looped around his fingers, the pendant dangled free, winking at him. Glittering darkly with the truth