“Am I interrupting?” Wyatt asked, his tone cool.
Kade turned in his chair, sitting upright and planting his feet in the sand. “Nah, man. Your girl was just giving me sage advice about my piss poor dating life.” He slapped the tops of this thighs and stood. “And now that I’m thoroughly depressed, I think I’m going to go find Carmichael and see what he has to say about the hotel deal.”
Wyatt crossed his arms, nodding. “Good luck with that.”
Kade sent Kelsey an oops look from behind Wyatt and then gave a little wave. “See y’all later.”
Wyatt waited until Kade was a good distance away before sitting on the lounger Kade had vacated. He leveled a stare at her.
Oh, shit.
* * *
Wyatt was working damn hard to keep his expression placid. The wave of Mine! that had flooded his system at the sight of Kade kissing Kelsey’s hand was strong enough to make his hands vibrate. Pure adrenaline.
“How’d the meeting go?” Kelsey asked, her tone higher-pitched than normal.
“I’m about ninety-five percent sure she and her husband will go with A&A.”
Kelsey’s smile lit her face. “That’s fantastic.”
“Enjoyed your afternoon?”
She wet her lips. “Kade and I are friends, Wyatt. That’s it.”
He leaned back in the chair. “Did I suggest anything different?”
She crossed her arms over her chest, and he almost smiled at the petulant child expression on her face. “No, but you might as well have drawn a circle around me in the sand and mounted a Keep Out sign with the way you looked at Kade.”
He reached out and unfurled her arms, then brought both her hands to his mouth for a kiss. “Seeing any man touch you makes me jealous and protective. I can’t help that. It doesn’t mean I don’t trust you or that I suspect anything is going on.”
She blinked at him. “So you’re not mad?”
“Of course not. Plus, I think I used up my daily allotment of being an asshole this morning.”
She laughed and lay back down in her lounger, facing him, “I’ll be on the lookout tomorrow then.”
He let his eyes travel over her. Her curves were all glossy with sunscreen, and he could see the barest of bruises peeking out near the bottom of her bathing suit. The sight nearly had him climbing on top of her out here where anyone could see. But he had to get shit off his chest first.
“I’m sorry for snapping at you earlier,” he said, peering over his shoulder to make sure no one else on the beach was in earshot. “You deserved to be left kneeling and wanting. That part I don’t apologize for. I’m your dom and you tried to control the situation again. But what you said about work was right, and I shouldn’t have gotten mean about it.”Author: Roni Loren
“It’s all right,” she said softly. “It wasn’t my place to say anything. It’s your business.”
He raked a hand through his hair, her understanding making him feel like even more of a jackass. “It’s just, I don’t know how to turn it off. I’ve never not worked on a Monday. Even when I had my appendix out, I held a conference call from the hospital the next day.”
She frowned. “Why? Is your job that unforgiving?”
He released a breath. “No, but my dad once told me that being successful is all about inertia, and I took it to heart.”
“Inertia?”
He stared out toward the dark blue waves and recited the law. “Yes. ‘A body moving forward will continue in the same direction at a constant speed unless disturbed by outside force.’ It’s a law in physics, but Dad applied it to life, meaning as long as I kept moving forward with the same routine and intensity and didn’t let anything distract me off that path, I’d reach whatever goal I had set for myself.”
“Oh.”
“The only time I let something move me off that path was in college. Mia.” He turned to meet Kelsey’s eyes. “Suddenly, I was so far off course, I didn’t even know where the path was anymore. I was okay with it at the time. It felt freeing—a rebellion in the face of that tight hold I’d always kept on myself. But falling in love with her and then losing her fucking destroyed me. The year afterward, I became someone I didn’t even recognize. My grades slipped, my thesis went unfinished, and I didn’t give a fuck about much of anything. I just wanted to be numb.”
“Been there,” Kelsey said quietly.