“To be with you.” She leans back and grabs her goblet of wine and sips it, while staring up through her lashes at me, her eyes drinking me in sexily. “And I belong here.”
“No,” I laugh. “You don’t.”
“I do,” she says, rising, the front of her dress moving to the side, her breast peeking from below it. She slinks over and slides her hands up my chest until her dainty hands are clasped behind my neck. “We both do, Erik.”
“What’s gotten into you?” I say with a nervous laugh. She is beyond fetching, but her demeanor is different. Despite her overtly sexual bravado, she seems cold and humorless and I struggle to see her personality through her smolder.
“Come to bed with me, Erik,” she whispers, getting on her toes to softly run her lips over mine, sending a shiver down my back. My breath becomes shallow as I feel my resolve fading as the sweet smell of her swirls around me, coaxing my body into action.
“Kat, have you had too much to drink?” I finally spit out as I painfully extricate from her arms, avoiding looking down at her breasts.
“No, I just want you inside me,” she moans. “We’ve waited so long.”
“I want this too, Kat, but I’m concerned for you,” I sigh, my confusion at a zenith. “I’m not sleeping with you if you’re drunk or traumatized from last night.”
In answer she holds my gaze and begins to slowly finger the silky straps at her shoulders, and I can scarcely breathe as she begins to lower the top of her dress, the fabric catching at the peaks of her braless breasts, but exposing the rounded tops.
“Whoa,” I say, putting my hands up before she can lower her dress any further. I’m keenly aware that if she succeeds in exposing them that the dam of my control will break. Even as I stand there, at war with myself, visions of her nude on the bed are clouding my judgement. I can almost taste her.
“You know you want this,” she pleads, rubbing her hands down her breasts.
“I never said I didn’t, but something is off,” I admit, perplexed by this panting siren who has replaced Kat. “Can we take a moment to talk?”
Her shoulders drop and she cocks her head to the side, her eyes becoming shrewd. “Of course. I apologize.”
“Not to worry,” I say, brushing past her to sit at the intimate table she’d adorned minutes ago, eager to put a physical barrier between us. I’m still struggling with waves of lust that she magnifies with every provocative gaze she casts at me.
“Wine?” she offers, holding up a bottle casually.
“What?” I ask, furrowing my brow as I stare questioningly at her, expecting to see her eventually register that offering me alcohol is wrong, but her eyes continue to meet mine cluelessly.
She leans forward and fills the cup in front of me and I slide my chair to the side, taken aback. “Sobriety isn’t something I can put down and just pick up again, Kat.”
“Drink with me, Erik,” she coaxes, pushing the glass towards me, the ruby liquid sloshing up the sides, leaving a viscous residue as it slowly settles. The heady scent of it wafts to me, plugging directly into the temptation center of my brain. “It’s what lovers do.”
“Drinking almost killed me.” I finally rise quickly and stare at her with a mixture of disappointment and bemusement. It’s hard to not focus on the drink sitting at the table. The wine that I’ve dangerously just been given permission to drink by this woman I’ve come to trust again. I feel factions of my brain warring with one another as I try to reconcile her behavior. “This isn’t even slightly funny. What is going on with you?”
Her only answer is to throw herself forward, making contact and rubbing her body up mine. I grab her shoulders and gently push her back. “I need to go.”
“No,” she demurs, eyes narrowing at me dangerously.
“Yes,” I say nodding my head as I back away. “We can talk tomorrow.”
“Don’t do this, Erik,” she warns, the consequences up for interpretation.
“I’m afraid I have to,” I tell her firmly as I turn, seeing her watching me carefully, though now her luscious features are inscrutable. “Goodnight, Kat.”
She says nothing more as I walk quickly to the door, throwing one last glance over my shoulder at her. Her head is raised high and eyes marred with fury and I wonder where my Kat is.
Chapter 19
Kayla
I sit passively on the bed watching Cara haphazardly throw the last of her clothes into her soft, time-distressed bag before she looks at me expectantly. “Are you going to pack?”
I consider her carefully before answering, not ready for the backlash that my answer will inspire. “Not quite yet.”
“Oh Kayla, no,” she sighs, zipping the bag forcefully. “You cannot be thinking of staying.”
“You heard Erik,” I tell her pointedly, watching her face scrunch and shoulders sag disapprovingly. “I need to check on Kat.”
“No, you don’t,” Cara pleads. “You’ve already done what you need to do, so let’s leave. This place is fucking cursed.”
“Something is up with Kat,” I debate, hating the worried look that has haunted her eyes for days now because of my baggage. This insane situation that I could have never anticipated, but threatens us nonetheless. “He said he was concerned for her, that she was acting oddly. Like frighteningly so. I can’t just leave without checking it out myself.”
“You shouldn’t get involved,” Cara argues, her frustration demonstrated in every movement as she checks her bags and purse absentmindedly, trying to avoid my eyes. She’s tossing her belongings around aggressively and shaking her head furiously as I watch. “These are people you haven’t seen in a decade. Why are you suddenly willing to risk everything including your life multiple times for them?”
“Oh baby,” I sigh, letting my eyes show my disappointment at her lack of compassion, even if
