“This probably isn’t fair to her either, Landon.”
I stepped into her personal space, and her breathing hitched. My hands went on either side of her face, boxing her in. She swallowed but fiercely met my gaze. I’d thought she’d push me away. I’d thought she’d stop me.
“Do you still feel the way you felt back then?”
“Landon,” she whispered. Her words came out breathy and soft. “Don’t do this.”
“Do you?”
“I haven’t spoken to you in months. At the time, Emery suspected what was going on, and I’m her best friend. There’s girl code to consider. I can’t do this. I can’t answer you.”
“She’s dating my brother. I don’t think that applies anymore, Heidi. Just answer me this; do you or do you not still care for me?”
She paused, frozen in place, with her ice-blue eyes boring into mine. She was trying to find where this was a trick or a joke. But she wouldn’t find it with me.
“Yes,” she whispered.
Without another thought, I pushed my hands up into her wild blonde hair and brought my lips down onto hers. I tasted her like a luxurious delicacy and then devoured her as if I could never have enough.
Fuck everything else in my life.
This was the moment when I made Heidi Martin mine.
Two
Heidi
Landon Wright was kissing me.
It was amazing. The best thing that had ever happened to me. He was fulfilling every fantasy I’d had in the back of my head over the last eight months. How many times had I imagined him doing this exact thing?
Last winter, when he’d driven me home from this exact bar, all I’d wanted to do was lean over and kiss him senseless. I’d wanted him to take me up to my apartment and fuck me. I’d wanted so much. And New Year’s, we had been so close to giving in and ending up in this moment together.
Yet, even as drunk as I had been on both occasion, I’d known he was married. I’d known how wrong it was to even want that from him. And I’d walked away.
Now, he was finally kissing me and answering all my silent pleas, and I had to stop him.
Fuck.
I shoved Landon backward with as much force as I could. Then, I moved away from the wall and wiped my mouth.
Fuck!
“Whoa!” I yelled at him. I took another step back from him. Putting distance between us was the only way I wasn’t going to give in again. “Whoa! Married!”
Landon leaned into the space I had vacated and sighed heavily. “Yeah.”
“Are you completely insane?”
He turned to face me, pressing his back against the bricks. His eyes were bright and full of lust. I could understand that look. I was sure it mirrored mine. But he also looked…remorseful. Like the last thing he had wanted to do was hurt me. Again.
“Uh, yeah,” Landon said, “a bit insane at the moment.”
“Well, Jesus Christ, what were you thinking?”
Because I needed an explanation. What the hell had changed that he would go from cutting me off entirely to making out with my face? If we hadn’t gone through with it on New Year’s when we had both been in the thick of it all, I couldn’t fathom how he could do it now.
“That I really wanted to kiss you, and I’d wanted to do it for too damn long.”
I held my hand up and tried to breathe shallowly. “You can’t say things like that to me.”
God, he’s drunk. Of course, I’d known that before I came out here with him, but I hadn’t expected our conversation to veer so far left. And, now, I would never be able to get the feel of his lips or the brush of his tongue or the taste of whiskey mixed with something purely Landon out of my head.
I couldn’t think about that or I wouldn’t be able to think about anything else. Ever.
“I can,” he said, meeting my gaze. “But you act like I shouldn’t.”
His dark brown eyes nearly made me lose it. He was too much. Tall, dark, and handsome was too cliché for Landon with his deep tan from endless days on the golf course and soulful expression. He was a man who had known loss and understood depression but had risen above. There was more to him than the gorgeous Wright looks. But it didn’t excuse his actions.
I didn’t want to be some mistake he’d made when his wife wasn’t in town.
“No, you shouldn’t,” I said. “I won’t do that again. I will not be that kind of girl. It’s disrespectful to me, and it’s disrespectful to Miranda. And…it’s just bad,” I rambled on because, if I stopped, I knew I’d be done for. My fingers were itching to grab him and crush his mouth to mine again. I’d wanted this for months. Even though there were a million and a half reasons that it was a supremely idiotic idea, I still wanted him.
And that had made dating nearly impossible. Somehow, Landon had become the standard that I held all other guys to. Not that I’d had much luck outside of Tinder hook-ups, and I refused to date my coworkers. That was the number one rule. One I had always completely adhered to. No matter how cute the new guy ended up being.
“Yeah, bad idea,” he agreed slowly. “I’m not trying to make you that kind of girl, Heidi.”
“Good, because that would never happen.”
“I’m just lost, and I want you to find me.”
I knew he was drunk, but damn it, that was cheesy. And, fuck me, I hated that I still thought it was sweet of him to say it to me. Even if he wasn’t allowed to.
“Stop that! No sweet talk.”
“I wasn’t—”
“How about no, Landon?”
Then, with all the strength I could muster, I strode back toward the emergency exit. I could do this. I was a strong, fierce, independent woman who worked in a male-dominated field and shattered glass ceilings. I could walk away from one boy. Even if he was a Wright.
Then, he touched me. His hand gently landed on my elbow. He wasn’t demanding my attention, just drawing me away from the door.
“Heidi.”
“What?” I asked in frustration. How was I supposed to leave him behind when he was being so irresistible?
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Stop,” I said. “Please.”
“I’m leaving her.”
My heart stopped beating. My lungs stopped working. My brain stopped functioning. What he was saying was impossible. I honestly couldn’t even believe that those words had come out of his mouth. There was no way in hell that he was leaving Miranda.
“Come again?” I whispered.
“I left Miranda at home to come here because I’m leaving her.”
My mouth fell open. He had said those words. He’d repeated them. He was actually leaving Miranda.
This isn’t a drill, team. This is the real deal!
My brain tried to catch up with the rest of my body, but instead, I stood there, like an idiot. There had to be a catch. There had to be some big joke that was being played on me. Because Landon leaving his wife was way too good to be true.
“Wow,” I said. Then, I blinked rapidly a few times and tried to recover. “I mean…how awful. That has to be so hard, Landon.”
He laughed humorlessly at me. “Heidi, you’re cute.”
I arched an eyebrow at him in question. “I tell you I’m sorry about your wife, and you tell me I’m cute?”