“It’s not, but I’m still sorry. I wouldn’t have said that.”
“Wouldn’t you?” She cocked her head to the side and held the romance novel to her chest as if it was the most precious thing in the world to her. “Let’s not try to fool each other here, Clermont. You’re as cruel as the rest of them.”
She was right. I was. I would use her to get my revenge on her family, and I wouldn’t feel bad about it. I had decided the day I first met her that I would refuse to feel anything other than hate.
I had already let that slip with the way I wanted her physically. I refused to let it go to anything beyond that.
I refused to let her convince me to not use her. I would. I just hadn’t figured out how yet. I had thought that being cruel to her like Lucas had been to my sister would have set him off, but he had barely reacted.
Unless she hadn’t said anything to him.
But I didn’t suspect that to be true. This town had secrets, but everyone still whispered. Nothing truly stayed secret for long. Everyone had their own version of how things went down. Even if it wasn’t the truth.
The truth rarely mattered. Not when there were plenty of lies to cater to what they wanted. To what they cared to believe.
“I am.” I watched her mouth as she pulled her bottom lip into her mouth. “But I wouldn’t have been cruel about that.”
“Hi.” I jolted forward as my sister’s voice sounded from behind me. I had almost forgotten that they were still back there. “I’m Frankie.”
She smiled at Josie, but Josie was still looking at me like I had ruined her entire night. She looked at me like I had wanted her to only moments ago. Like I was the villain.
“Hi.” Her voice was shakier than before. “Josie.”
“I remember you.” My sister’s voice was calm and kind, and I didn’t know how she could stand here and talk to the sister of the guy who had ruined her life like that.
I didn’t know how she wasn’t screaming like I had heard her do night after night.
“I met you at the club,” Frankie reminded her. “It has to suck being around this one all the time.”
Josie laughed as Frankie nodded her head toward me.
“He is a bit much.” She didn’t even glance in my direction as she spoke about me.
“That’s putting it mildly.” Frankie bumped into my side gently. “I’d say he’s an asshole a good fifty percent of the time.”
“That too.” Josie smiled and tucked her hair behind her ear before she looked behind her. “I should really be getting back home.”
I could tell she felt uncomfortable with the two of us. Olly was still wading in the water behind us.
“Do you want one of us to walk you?” Frankie asked, but I already knew the answer.
“No.” Josie finally looked at me, and the hostility instantly came back in her eyes. If she didn’t hate me before tonight, before everything I had done, she did now. “I’ll be fine. It’s not far.”
“I’d rather walk you.” I took a step toward her, and she took a step back.
“And I’d rather you not.” The false calmness she held in her voice since Frankie arrived was now gone. She didn’t care who heard her or the way she felt about me.
“Why don’t you at least let Beckham walk you to the back of your property? It will make me feel better.”
Josie looked like she wanted to tell her to go to hell, but she didn’t. She nodded her head once, then took a few more steps away from me. “It was nice to officially meet you, Frankie.”
“You too.”
She didn’t wait for me. She took off in the direction of her house, and I followed behind her step for step.
“I really am sorry.”
She huffed and started walking a bit faster.
“I don’t need your fake-ass apologies.”
I sped up, trying to look at her, but she looked out toward the ocean. “I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it.”
Her head jerked in my direction. “And what about earlier? Do you want to say you’re sorry for that?”
I knew exactly what she was referring to. She wanted an apology for the way I touched her earlier. She wanted me to say sorry that I turned her on and made her ask me for it.
I wouldn’t though.
I wasn’t sorry for a second of it, and I wasn’t lying when I said that I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it.
“I’m not sorry for that.” I shook my head and watched her anger rise. “I’m just sorry we didn’t get to continue.”
She stepped toward me suddenly and a wave of her sweet scent washed over me. “That will never happen again.”
“It will.” I pushed a piece of brown hair off her shoulder, and her chest rose and fell like the ocean behind her. She could lie all she wanted about what happened earlier, but we both knew she wanted me.
Even if I hadn’t noticed her chest, it was impossible to ignore the way her eyes clouded over when I stood this close to her or the way her lips opened just slightly.
It was enough to make me want her just as badly. It made me want to prove to her how easily it could happen again.
“You think that you can have anything you want.” She had so much volition as she spoke. She meant what she said. Every single word of it. She truly believed that she could stop anything from ever happening between us. “But you are not a fucking god, Beckham.”
I hated that my sister had used my full name in front of her. No one used my full name outside of my family.
“You’d be shocked to learn what I am, princess.”
“Don’t call me that.” She didn’t look like she wanted me to stop calling her that. She looked like it made her want me more.
“Or what?” I couldn’t stop testing her. The thought of her pushing back, of her fighting me, it turned me on far more than anything else. Even more than the way her fingers dug into the book or the way her bare feet pushed into the sand as if she was trying to get herself closer to me without taking a step. “What the fuck will you do about it?”
I touched her collarbone with the edge of my fingertip, my touch barely a whisper, but it felt like I was screaming at her. I was begging her to make me stop or make me go further.
If she made me stop, if she pushed me, I would only push harder.
“What do you want from me?” She was staring up at me, and I knew that she would let me take this further. If I wanted to, I could easily lean forward and take her mouth. I could take anything I wanted.
“I haven’t quite figured that out yet.” I was lying straight through my teeth. I wanted to taste every single bit of her, then I wanted to ruin her. I would. Regardless of the way she was looking up at me or the lecture I knew Frankie was bound to give me once I got home.
I moved my finger from her collarbone to her neck, and I loved the way I could see her pulse hammering against her tan skin. I made her nervous.
“Well, I’m not here for you to toy around with while you figure it out.” She lifted her hand and slapped my fingers away from her skin. “You can go fuck yourself.”
I wanted to reach out and stop her. She was here for whatever I wanted her to be. We both knew it.