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‘I know. I know what he did. And I know he’s a good man. And I’ve tried to tell Sissi that too, but he hurt her, she’s still hurting.’

‘She isn’t the only one.’

His eyes dipped to her parted lips; it had been an epic mistake coming this close to her.

Her familiar scent – sugar and spice and all things nice – swirled through his senses.

Her honeyed eyes clawed their way into his very soul while his groin thickened and pulsed, his need for her heightened by the adrenaline still pumping through his veins.

High on the game, the impact, the fight, and her… fuck her .

* * *

‘Blake?’

It was part gasp, part plea, because his eyes, they were telling her something else.

He was angry, it was there, but more than anger, there was need.

His ravaged cheek, nothing on the ravaged look in his eyes.

The faint smell of menthol and male teased at her senses, the heat radiating off his half naked body, too, the power rippling beneath every muscle as he held himself still.

She only had to take a step and…

With a growl he claimed her mouth, his lips hard and punishing and everything she craved.

He forced her back against the door, plundered her mouth with his tongue, stripped her of her coat, her sweater, her tee…

His hands were rough upon her breasts, his mouth rougher still, but she wanted more. So much more.

‘Why do I still want you so bad?’ he growled, grinding his hips against her sweet spot, her leggings and his base layers doing nothing to hinder the rhythmic drill. Need driving against need as their breaths quickened and their bodies quaked.

‘I don’t know.’ She couldn’t understand it. Not after all she had done. ‘But I know I want you too.’

He spun her around, backed her up against the bed as he tugged her bra straps down, freeing her breasts to the nip of his teeth.

‘The door?’ she blurted on a cry.

‘Locked.’

He must have done it when he’d held her up against it, and oh God , how she wanted this. How she needed this.

He threw her on the bed as she kicked off her trainers, wriggling free of her leggings before pulling him back to her. His clothed need strained against her throbbing clit and then his fingers were there, slipping inside the lace – fuck!

Her core clenched, his deft caress making her legs fall open and her body arch back, pleasure tightening every limb as she planted her hands into the bed and begged him for more.

‘ Fuck, Astrid , you’re killing me.’

Hell, he was killing her too. She didn’t recognise herself in the woman she had become. A woman so utterly consumed by a man. By him.

‘Please,’ she cried, hooking her feet into his pants and thrusting them down his thighs, freeing his erection to the air, to her… ‘I want you.’

He rolled her clit until her thighs trembled and her pants were as loud as her cries. He covered her mouth with his hand, stifling her sounds, sending her dizzy and desperate and willing him for more.

‘Fuck, Astrid!’ His cock bucked between them. ‘I need you.’

She nodded, clawing his bruised behind and making him hiss.

‘Sorry did I hurt?—’

‘ This hurt I can deal with.’

He stole her breath with his fevered kiss, his cock sliding over her slick heat and she shifted position, getting him where she needed him the most and as he bucked, she sunk him in deep.

‘Baby…’ He gave a pained groan. ‘You feel so fucking good.’

Baby. Oh, how she wanted to be his baby again. Her nails clawed into his shoulders, desperate to have him stay. Desperate to have him lose his all. Lose it all to her.

It was mindless. Uninhibited. Raw. She came around him, her body clenching him to her, her eyes shooting open to see his head rock back, his neck cording, his torso tighten as he came with a guttural cry. It was beautiful. He was beautiful.

He rocked forward, his shoulders undulating with his breaths that gradually steadied out with hers…

‘We shouldn’t have done that.’

She stiffened. They weren’t the words she wanted to hear. Not the words she expected either. She stroked her hands up his sweat-slickened chest, over the goosebumps now rife across his skin and he tensed. Backed up.

‘You should get cleaned up.’ He tugged on his trousers and stepped away, eyes averted, hand raking through his hair.

‘Blake?’ She couldn’t move for fear now. ‘I thought…’

‘You thought what? That we’d fuck and everything would be like it was before?’

She licked her lips, the sickness in her stomach making her wilt as she closed her legs and righted her bra. Yes. Yes, she had thought that. Or near enough. Not before, but in the middle. Of course she had.

‘Blake, please…’

‘If you’re worried I’m going to tell Aiden about your sordid little scheme, you needn’t. I have no intention of raking up all that shit again and hurting him in the process.’

‘I wasn’t thinking about that.’

‘No? I don’t believe you.’

She dropped to the floor and gathered up her clothing, getting dressed on autopilot as her entire focus remained on him. ‘I was only thinking about you, about us…’

He gave a harsh laugh. ‘There isn’t an us. How can there be when it was all based on a lie?’

‘It wasn’t a lie. Everything I told you about me was true. I’ve told you more than I’ve ever told anyone. I’ve shared stuff with you I’ve never shared with anyone.’

She’d shared her heart…

And what about having sex without protection – you idiot!

Her eyes caught on the bed. It was hard to believe what they’d been doing just minutes ago. The connection they’d shared, how right it had seemed.

‘I’m clean if that’s what you’re worried about.’

Her eyes snapped to his. ‘What?’

‘The sex, Astrid.’

She swallowed the rising sickness. ‘And me.’

She didn’t think to tell him she wasn’t on the pill. She’d deal with it. There had to be a twenty-four-hour pharmacy nearby and she sure as hell could do with the walk. If she missed the coach to the airport, all the better.

‘Good.’

Good? Nothing was good!

She picked her coat up off the floor and shrugged it on, picked up her bag and unlocked the door.

‘Astrid?’

Her heart lifted, hope soaring out of her control. ‘Yes?’

‘Was it worth it? All this betrayal and secrecy, just so you could get your own back.’

‘I told you…’

‘I know what you told me, but I don’t understand how someone like you, or at least, the person I thought you were, could get caught up in a scheme like this.’

‘I guess you had to be there to truly understand how it was between us. They’re my girls, the sisters I never had, and I love them.’

‘ Sisters? You’ve known them what, two or three months?’

She held his gaze. ‘I’ve known you for a lot less and I still…’

He stiffened, his jaw clenching shut. How could she tell him now? Open up her heart in the face of his hate. But then, how could she not when this was what she’d come here to do? What Sissi had urged her to do? To take the opportunity her friend had never had and speak the truth.

She owed it to Sissi. She owed it to herself. And more than that, she owed it to the man before her.

Taking a deep breath, she wet her lips and let it go. ‘I still fell in love with you.’

He didn’t blink, he didn’t breathe, he said nothing.

And perhaps that was all she deserved for everything she’d done.

Absolutely nothing.

‘Goodbye, Blake.’

The coach, the hotel, the flight home – they all flashed before her eyes and she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t be in the same space with him and not break down.

‘Tell Preston I got caught up with a friend. I’ll find my own way back to New York.’

She walked and then she ran, desperate to be free of his world before her own came crashing in.

Stupid, stupid girl. Loving a bad boy. Letting them in.

Only Blake wasn’t a bad boy. He was good. He was kind. And she’d broken him.

She deserved to be broken in return.

Karma – it truly was a bitch.