Page 48 of Give Me a Reason

“Don’t be silly. We’re family.” Anne hugged her and rose to her feet. “Joe, take good care of my girls.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He gave her a two-finger salute. “Get some rest, and we’ll see you in the morning.”

Anne drove Bethany’s car back to the villa with Tessa in tow.

Pete and Katie went with Frederick in his SUV.

Both cars arrived at the villa within a minute of each other, and they all filed out on weary legs.

Anne punched in the security code and led everyone inside, turning on the lights as she went.

“Good n—” Katie yawned before she could finish.

“All right. We need to get you to bed.” Pete gave them an all-encompassing wave and ushered his wife toward their room.

“Rest well,” Anne called out, then followed Tessa and Frederick down the hall.

“I’m going to wash up first,” Tessa announced at the foot of the stairs. She trudged up several steps before she stopped and looked over her shoulder. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“Of course not.” Anne blinked, surprised that her sister bothered to ask. “Go right ahead.”

After Tessa disappeared up the stairs, Frederick stepped closer to her side. “You must be tired.”

“A little. I think we all are.” Anne lingered at the bottom of the steps, smoothing her hand over the railing. When the silence stretched on, she glanced at him from beneath her lashes. “You should get some rest.”

“Yeah.” He scoffed, tension bracketing his mouth.

Anne sighed in helpless frustration. “Stop that.”

“Stop what?” Frederick frowned, looming over her.

“Stop blaming yourself for what happened,” Anne said firmly, even as awareness skittered across her skin. “No one else does. We all know it was an accident.”

“An accident that could’ve been prevented.” His eyes filled with remorse. “And she might not have run off if I’d—”

“There’s no use regretting what already happened.

Regret doesn’t change the past.” Anne heard her own words and realized they were meant for both of them.

She was afraid she’d revealed too much, but she didn’t scramble to take them back.

No. She would own them. She climbed onto the first step to look at Frederick eye to eye and forced the rest of the words out.

“The only things we can change are ourselves and what we choose to do in the future.”

His lips parted as her words sank in, but she didn’t let herself look away.

She wanted him to see that she understood regret.

I regret leaving you. And she wanted him to see all that she learned.

But I’ve changed. If you love me again, I’ll never doubt I deserve your love.

She wanted him to see that she would choose her own future. From now on, I will always choose you.

He looked away first, his throat working, then said with a strained smile, “So no more walking on unfamiliar hiking paths in the dark?”

“Definitely not.” She pushed aside her disappointment when he didn’t acknowledge the deeper meaning of her words. But what had she expected? He was distraught and exhausted. They both were. “And learn to say no to unwise suggestions, no matter how charming the asker may be.”

“You’re as wise as always, Anne.” He gave her something between a nod and a bow, a tired but genuine grin tugging at his lips.

“I don’t know about that.” Her eyes dropped to his mouth—and the crooked smile that begged to be kissed—and her breathing promptly grew shallow. She felt distinctly unwise at the moment. “But on that high note, I’ll say good night.”

Without waiting for him to reply, Anne bolted up the stairs and into her suite.

She closed the door and leaned back against it, her heart thudding in her chest. The man was suffering, and she was lusting after him like a teenager—a self-absorbed, tactless teenager.

She blew out an unsteady breath and pushed away from the door.

She heard the shower running in the bathroom and figured Tessa would take a while, so she let herself out onto the balcony overlooking the swimming pool.

Other than the glow of the full moon and the soft lighting of the pool, the vast expanse of land surrounding the villa was pitch black.

The stars crowded the inky sky and glistened above her, and she closed her eyes, breathing in the serenity along with the cool night air.

But her eyes shot open at the soft scraping of a chair below her.

Frederick lowered himself onto a lounge chair with a bottle of wine in his hand.

He didn’t seem to have a glass with him, and when he took a swig directly from the bottle, Anne realized why he hadn’t bothered.

He dropped his head into his free hand and gripped a fistful of his hair.

He’d been putting up a brave face all night, smiling at her gentle teasing. But he wasn’t okay. Not at all.

Without thinking twice, she rushed down the stairs and out to the back of the house. She stopped in the shadows and watched Frederick gulp down more wine, his Adam’s apple working along the strong column of his neck. She could feel her pulse flutter frantically at the base of her throat.

Was she betraying Bethany by coming down here?

Even as guilt twisted inside her, her feet carried her toward the man who held her heart.

She loved her cousin, but Anne couldn’t leave Frederick to suffer on his own because of Bethany’s one-sided crush.

Is it one-sided, though? She pushed away her doubts.

“Frederick.” Her voice was barely a whisper, but his head shot up, his eyes zeroing in on her even though she was cloaked by the shadows.

He grew eerily still, and when he didn’t say anything for what felt like an eternity, Anne dropped her gaze to her toes and wondered if she’d made a mistake coming down here.

The silence stretched on. This was definitely a mistake.

She should go back to her suite. But her feet stayed rooted to the ground.

Glass clinked against the tiled side table as Frederick set aside the wine bottle, and he slowly unfurled himself from his seat.

“Go back inside, Anne,” he said in a voice dark with warning. “I have no willpower left after keeping my shit together all night. You need to go inside. Now. ”

Even as he warned her away, he prowled toward her, as graceful and powerful as a panther, until Anne had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes.

She’d kicked off her shoes when she’d gotten to her suite, and she barely reached his jaw on her bare feet.

But he came closer still until he loomed over her, and she bared the vulnerable column of her throat to hold his gaze.

“Why are you here, Anne?” His low growl scraped down her spine in a shiver of awareness. Then he ran the back of a finger down her exposed neck. “What do you want , Anne?”

“I want you to stop blaming yourself,” she said haltingly. The need to soothe his pain had propelled her down the stairs, but was that all? “I want you to stop hurting.”

“No, Anne.” He gripped her chin between his fingers. “What do you want?”

“I—” You, you, you. She shook her head as tears sprang to her eyes. “Frederick, I—”

She didn’t know what she’d been about to say, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered as his mouth claimed hers in a searing kiss. She whimpered and leaned into him, immediately hungry for more. And liquid warmth spread in her stomach and traveled to her core.

He buried his fingers in her hair and tilted her head to deepen the kiss. His tongue swept across hers, and her knees nearly gave out. But it still wasn’t enough. She needed him to kiss her as though he would die if he stopped. She wanted him as desperate as she felt.

Her fingernails dug into his shoulders as she clung to him, pressing closer and closer still.

With a grunt, he pulled her flush against his body and lifted her clear off her feet, and they were moving.

A chair protested as it was shoved aside, and the side table scraped loudly against the pavers.

She vaguely registered the sharp chime of glass breaking, then her back was pressed against the cold wall of the house.

“Tell me to stop,” he rasped against her lips, his thumb brushing across her cheek.

She pushed onto her toes and kissed him, her tongue hot and slick against his.

“Anne.” He swept his hand up her waist and cupped the side of her breast. “Tell me to stop.”

She rocked her hips against him and gloried in the feel of his hard length pressing against her.

He groaned deep in his throat, the sound vibrating in her chest. She moaned and squirmed against him.

Muttering a curse, he swung her into his arms and carried her inside the house.

She trailed kisses down the sharp line of his jaw and scraped her teeth against a tender spot on his neck.

“Fuck,” he gritted out and kicked his bedroom door shut with his foot. He set her down on the floor and ripped off his shirt in a single motion. “Tell me to stop. Or God help me, I’m going to fuck you until you forget where you end and I start. To hell with the consequences. Tell. Me. To. Stop. ”

She fumbled with his belt buckle, then his zipper, and pulled his boxer briefs and jeans down to his ankles. He kicked them off the rest of the way and stood gloriously naked before her. She walked backward, her greedy gaze roaming over him.

“No, I don’t think I will,” she said softly as she unbuttoned her shirt. He made no move toward her, but his cock strained toward his stomach. She gulped with nerves but didn’t stop removing her shirt.

He expelled a rough breath when she shrugged her shirt off and reached back to unclasp her bra.

When her lace bra landed on the floor beside her shirt, Frederick took himself in his hand and pumped hard twice, hissing through his teeth.

Moisture soaked her center as she shimmied out of her jeans, then she shucked off her wet panties.