There With You by Samantha Young
Regan
Iwas twenty-five years old.
You would think by now, especially after what I’d been through, that I wouldn’t be naive enough to assume that just because a woman got a man’s dick hard that it actually meant anything.
And boy, was Thane out to prove it didn’t.
My hurt was a deep, hot, wounded ache in my chest that I hadn’t expected. I had a crush on the guy, but after his treatment that morning, I worried my response meant it had developed into something more.
When he’d held me in his arms yesterday, I thought I was going to come out of my skin I was so desperate to have his mouth on me, his hands touching every inch of my body. Never had I been that turned on. And I’d read some smokin’, spectacular sex scenes in romance novels.
Now, Thane was not only acting like nothing happened, but he was treating me with cold politeness.
The kids weren’t up yet. I was in the middle of setting out their breakfast dishes and juice when Thane, dressed in a suit, came hurrying down the stairs. When I offered him coffee, he didn’t even look at me and just coolly told me he could get it himself. Then he disappeared upstairs again instead of chatting like he normally would before waking Eilidh and Lewis.
I blinked at the sight of him now.
He’d trimmed his beard. Like, really trimmed it.
And it looked amazing.
Was he trying to kill me?
“Your beard,” I said.
His eyes flicked up before moving away as he grabbed his car keys off the hook on the wall near the photo gallery. “Excuse me?”
“You trimmed your beard.”
“So I did.” He walked out of the kitchen toward the front entrance.
Was that it?
I wasn’t even getting a goodbye?
Tears stung my eyes, and I quickly blinked them back as I heard the front door slam shut.
“I hate men,” I whispered harshly. Even the best of them couldn’t escape the asshole gene when it came to sex and attraction.
* * *
THANE
He was thirty minutes from Ardnoch before he stopped fighting with himself to turn around and drive back to the house.
Now it was too late. He couldn’t be tardy for work after yesterday’s debacle with Paul.
Still, his gut churned with that awful feeling he got when he knew he’d done something wrong.
He’d handled Regan badly. There was a difference between reminding her they should act professionally around one another and acting like an insensitive bastard. Leaving without saying goodbye was fucking rude.
“Arsehole,” he muttered for the hundredth time as he pulled into the parking lot. How did he apologize now without getting her hopes up?
Would her hopes even be up?
He was assuming Regan gave a shit if he wanted to sleep with her.
“She gives a shit,” he said under his breath as he got out of the SUV. If he was being honest, they’d been dancing around their attraction to each other for weeks. That day at the beach, they’d most definitely been flirting, and when he’d seen her flirting with Jared McCulloch, he’d acted like a jealous arsehole then too. Thane thought he was past all the games and possessiveness at his age.
“Thane Adair?” A man stepped from between two vehicles in front of him, drawing him out of his thoughts.
Thane abruptly stopped walking.
Guard up at the suspicious behavior, and with the punch he’d given Paul in mind, Thane glanced around to see if they were alone. They weren’t. A few other employees were making their way to the lift. Relaxing slightly, he asked, “Who’s asking?”
The man drew nearer. His huge, dark eyes were haunted behind his round spectacles.
But Thane suddenly recognized him. Dread and anger and grief and despair and possessiveness fired within. “What do you want?”
“To talk with you. About Eilidh.” He slurred the words.
Rage consumed him, and he took a menacing step toward the man. “You will stay away from my daughter.”
Desperation lit up the man’s face. “But she isn’t yours, is she? She’s mine.”
A quick look around the lot told him they were alone now. Thane lunged at him, grabbing him by the shirtfront. He cried out, but Thane ignored his pleas, hauling him through a gap between cars to slam him against a concrete pillar. The smell of whisky wafted strongly off the bastard.
“Just because you fucked my wife doesn’t mean a goddamn thing. Eilidh is mine!” He was so furious, spittle flew from his mouth as he raged, “I don’t know why you crawled out of the woodwork now, but I’m warning you to crawl the fuck back in, or I will ruin your goddamn miserable existence. And you know I can.” He pushed him harder into the pillar. “Do you understand me?”
The man nodded as his trembling hand reached to straighten his glasses.
His fear doused some of Thane’s rage, and he stumbled away. “Get out of here … before I do something we both regret.”