Page 18 of Steele

“I know. I don’t blame Jeff for the accident. I don’t blame the driver. He died at the scene, too.” She finished her whiskey and set her tumbler on the coffee table. “I should’ve gone with Jeff. I should’ve been in that fucking car with them.”

Tears streaked her cheek. She tipped her head back. “I wouldn’t be living in this hell. I wouldn’t hate him because I’d be with him.” She glanced at me. “Brett, I don’t know where my anger ends and my grief begins. My emotions are all tangled up. I didn’t just lose my daughter and husband, but I lost the fairy tale. Oh god.” She scrambled to her feet and spun away from me.

I slowly stood, shifted in behind her, but I didn’t touch her. I wanted to. Our gazes met in the reflection of the window. “It’s okay to be angry. You were robbed of the life you were supposed to have.”

A moment stretched between us, then she turned toward me. “Jeff was cheating on me. It had been going on for a while. I didn’t know.” She wiped her cheeks with her fingertips. “So blissfully unaware.”

“Fuck.”

“It gets worse. I found out because the woman came to the funeral. She stood next to my baby’s casket, next to my husband, and cried.” Her voice was barely a whisper. “She was pregnant.”

My protective instincts wouldn’t let me stand here and watch her cry. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her against my chest. My lips rested against her temple.

She trembled against me. “She has his child, and mine is dead.” She hiccupped on a sob. “I know I shouldn’t, but I hate her.”

I inched back, hooked a finger under her chin, and lifted her face. “You didn’t deserve any of this.”

“I stopped asking myself why I wasn’t enough. I’ll never know.”

I narrowed my gaze. I might not have been a good husband, but I didn’t fuck around on Nat. I just didn’t prioritize my marriage. “Fuck him.”

“Any love I had for him died with him. His only responsibility to me now is to take care of my baby in heaven.”

She placed her hand on my sternum. Her gaze followed her fingers as she mapped the contour of my chest. Before tonight, I didn’t know her. Nothing was the same now.

Chapter Four

Jaymi

Firelight caught on the sun-bleached strands of his hair. It was long and tangled around his shoulders. The flickering flames sparked in eyes more amber than green.

Oh my god, he was dangerous.

Ryan’s T-shirt clung to Brett’s chest. His muscles flexed, and his heart pounded beneath my palm. Whiskey warmed my blood, but it was the heat in his stare that had my insides thickening like honey.

Whiskers shadowed the hollow of his cheeks and stubbled along his jaw. There was an intensity about him that had heat slipping under my skin. His lips were full and soft, yet I could imagine he would kiss me with a punishing intensity. He was so tall and strong and completely different from Jeff. Brett was rugged and dangerous. He wore his truth with the patches on his biker vest and the tattoos inked across his flesh.

I’d been married to a man who wore his lies with his Brioni suits and Cartier cufflinks. Both were dangerous to someone like me. Maybe that wasn’t fair to Brett. Divorce didn’t equal infidelity. Technically, Brett was still married, but I had no doubts that his marriage was as over as mine. Maybe, for tonight, I didn’t care. I needed someone with sharp edges to make me feel something besides grief and betrayal.

“Baby, you have to tell me what you want?” His large hand slid along my ribcage, sending chills across my flesh.

I skated my palms over the hard hills of his shoulders. I’d only ever been with one man. I thought we’d had passion, but I’d never felt this wild recklessness. I swallowed the knot of insecurity rising into my throat. “I want you to stay.”

His thumb grazed my cheek. He leaned in and breathed me in. “If I stay I’m going to spend the night balls-deep in your sweet pussy.” Then he dipped his head and pressed his lips to mine. With a whimper, my mouth opened and his tongue flicked against my upper lip. I wound my arms around his neck, stood on my tiptoes, and claimed his mouth the way I wanted him to claim my body.

A low growl rumbled from his chest and into mine as he held me tighter. His mouth slanted against mine, and his tongue invaded again and again.

Maybe I was a judgmental bitch, but I knew he’d fuck me filthy. He wasn’t going to treat me like a fragile piece of glass. My cracks didn’t mean I was broken. It meant I’d weathered a storm and survived.

I banded my fingers around his neck and kissed him with equal ferocity. I crushed my aching breasts against the hard slab of muscles of his chest.

As he kissed me, he tugged the band from my hair and cradled my skull. He held my head and kissed me with a fierce determination. He tasted of whiskey and sin. I wanted to be drunk and condemned.

Oh god. His cock thickened between us. He rocked against my pelvis. I shifted my hips, grinding against him. I wanted him to fill every hollow ache inside me.

“It’s been a while for me.” I smiled and nipped his lips.

“Fuck, baby.” Brett turned savage. He grabbed my ass and crushed me against his cock. His lips grazed along my jaw. My head tilted, and he branded my flesh with kisses along my neck. “I’ll make it good for you.”