Just breathe.

Keep breathing. Nothing else mattered. I just had to keep breathing.

“What happened?” Austin finally returned, but I kept my eyes closed.

“I missed my mouth.”

“Not funny, especially taking into account what I had to do to get these pills,” he muttered. “I really thought she’d come.”

That got my attention. “Who’d come where?” I asked.

“I tried to stop Amelia from going—”

“Why? Why would you do that?”

“Because you’re still in love with her, you idiot.” He took two pills off the counter and stuffed them in my mouth. “And because I knew this would happen. My job is to get you what you need, right? Well, you need Amelia.”

“I’m fine,” I said.

“Yeah, you definitely look fine right now.” He helped me up from the floor, and I leaned on the counter for support.

“So she went to see him,” I said. I hated the fact that I cared enough to ask him, even now.

“Yeah. I made her late, so she had to run—”

“A ‘yeah’ would have sufficed.” Why was she running? She was just going to make herself look desperate. She was an Oscar-winning actress, for God’s sake. If the dimwit didn’t wait, she shouldn’t want to see him anyway.

“Do you need anything?” Austin asked.

“I’m fine.” It was my default answer, and I knew it annoyed the hell out of him. My feet felt heavy, and even though I was no longer shaking, my hands still ached. All I wanted to do was lie down.

“Why do you always say you’re fine when you’re not fine?” said a woman’s voice.

There she was, sitting in the middle of my bed in a bright yellow dress, her shoes forgotten at the edge of the bed and a bottle of vodka in her hand. When I turned to look at Austin, he was staring at her with just as much confusion as I was.

“Didn’t you have a date?” he asked her.

“I did,” she smiled, twisting the top off the bottle. “And funny enough, he was actually there on time, with a flower for me. It was cute. No, it was romantic…or it would have been romantic had your manager not screwed with my head before I went to see him. So I only stayed for a second, bought a bottle of vodka, and came back here…to you. Because I’m a fucking idiot. So, let’s get on with it.”

Austin quietly tried to make his escape behind me like I wouldn’t notice, but I let it go. I leaned against the wall opposite her.

“Get on with what?” I asked.

“The part where you jerk me around. Where you are kind one moment and then you’re an asshole the next.” She drank straight from the bottle, her nose bunched up, and then she shook her whole body like a wet dog before focusing on me. “The part where I find myself falling in love with you all over again and you kick me to the curb. That part.”

“Amelia, tomorrow is going to be—”

“Austin told me to choose and I chose. I’m here. I’m always here. It’s been how many years, Noah? How long are you going to push me away? I can’t be with anyone else until I get closure from you. So tell me why? Why aren’t we together? Why are you taking pills? Stop being a little bitch and finally make a choice—”

“Why is it always so easy for you to say or do whatever the hell it is you want?” I didn’t want to do this now.

“Nope, you’re not going to blame me for this!” she said with tears in her eyes as she took another drink. “I want to know. Do you—have you ever loved me?”

“Amelia—”

“Answer the question, Noah.”

“Amelia—”

“Answer the question!” she said, her voice louder now.

“I—”

“Answer the—”

“Yes!” I shouted at her. “Yes, I am, I was, I will always be madly in love with you. I will always wonder what you are doing and be jealous of men around you because you are the one woman I’ve wanted to be with, but never could be!”

“Why?” she asked.

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. Instead, I looked anywhere but at her. However, she came closer, her hands on the sides of my face, and forced me to stare into her eyes.

“Why?” she repeated.

“Because I’m a mess,” I whispered, not caring that my eyes burned from how badly I was trying to stop the tears from falling.

“So am I.”

“No,” I chuckled bitterly. “You are silly and awkward and unconfident, but you aren’t a mess. You’ve never been a mess. From the very beginning, it was me dragging you down. I’m so broken I don’t know even know where to begin to piece myself together. So how do I look at you, let alone love you, when I can’t even love myself? I hate Noah Sloan.”

The truth would set you free, they said. However, admitting that out loud didn’t make me feel any better than keeping it in.

She closed the space between us, her lips on top of mine. Her breasts brushed against my chest as her hands moved back to my face and gripped my hair. She tasted like butterscotch, and I opened my mouth, wanting more of her. My hands slid to her hips and grabbed her ass under her dress.

“Do you feel better?” she whispered when we broke apart, breathing in one other deeply. “If not, fuck me until you do.”

She couldn’t be serious.

However, like she had read my mind, she stood up and took a step back, unzipping the dress she wore. Her blue eyes never broke contact with mine. Like I was in a trance, I stood up, unbuttoning my shirt. I licked my lips at the thought of kissing her skin. When her dress dropped, so did my belt. She stood in the middle of my room in nothing but her red lace bra and panties.

We shouldn’t be doing this. I could have given her a dozen reasons why, but I couldn’t think straight. Not with her like this.

“Stop,” I demanded when she reached back to undo her bra. “I want to do the honors.”

“As you wish,” she smirked, dropping her hands to her side.

If this was a dream, I was going to enjoy it to the fullest. Taking her hand, I spun her around, allowing myself to unclasp her bra and slide it off her shoulders. As I grabbed her breasts in my hands, she jumped, taking a breath. Her hands wandered into my pants, grabbing my cock, and my breath caught in my throat. I could see the desire and lust in her eyes that matched my own. Grabbing her thighs, I lifted her up, her legs wrapping around me automatically as I moved us to the bed. I kissed her, this time not as softly as she had kissed me. This kiss was dirty, wet, sexual, our tongues playful bashing against one other.

“Ah…” She moaned into my mouth, rubbing herself against me.

My lips traveled from her lips to her side of her jaw, and she arched her neck for me. Grinning at how eager she was, I bit her skin softly as I worked my way down her chest until her pink, hard nipple was between my teeth. I kissed it before moving to the other one.

“Noah…”

My tongue trailed down her stomach, causing her breathing to quicken. Her whole body trembled under me, which only turned me on more. Spreading her thighs, I sat up to see her face when I slid two of my fingers into her wet pussy.

“Mmm…” she moaned, her back lifting up.

“If I told you the things I wanted to do to you…” I whispered, my heart pounding against my chest.

“Fuck….Noah,” she cried out when I licked her clit. She grabbed my hair, and I held onto her thighs, pulling her closer to my face.

Jesus, she tasted good.

My fingers slid in and out her alongside my tongue. She rocked into my mouth, tugging harder on my hair. She was wet for me, and I never wanted to stop eating her out….but I was so fucking hard I couldn’t wait. Licking my lips, I sat up. Her body was covered in a thin film of sweat.

“Noah please…I need you.”

“You have me.” She’d always had me.

Positioning myself between her thighs, I tried—God did I try—to enter her slowly. But her pussy was fucking glorious. I couldn’t help but thrust forward hard, a wicked grin spreading across my lips as I felt how her body responded and arched up to me. Her nails dug into the skin of my shoulders, and her breasts rocked harshly as I fucked her. There were no words between us, just grunts and moans. I took out all of my anger and frustration on her poor pussy, slamming myself into her so hard that the bed moved and hammered against the wall. All I could smell was butterscotch, and all I could hear was the sound of our pleasure and skin smacking together. She matched each one of my thrusts.