Dark Sexy Knight (A Modern Fairytale)(65)

He took a deep breath, his eyes scanning her body reflexively. One thing was certain: Sandy had always been hot. At five nine and wearing three-inch heels, she looked him almost in the eyes, the emerald orbs popping from her creamy-white skin like gemstones. Her lips were as full and red as they’d been two years ago, and Colt had a sudden flashback to them clamped around his cock and inhaled sharply, meeting her eyes.

What had she asked him? Fuck. He couldn’t remember.

She chuckled, a low throaty laugh that told him she hadn’t given up smoking since moving away. “Go ahead and look. I like it.”

He took a step back, frowning at her. “I’m with someone now.”

“Ohhh.” Her eyes widened innocently. “You don’t say.”

“Yeah.”

“Not the titless little blonde in the gift shop?”

“You already know,” he said, putting his hands on his hips.

“You can’t be serious,” she said, thrusting her size-D chest his way as she pushed her breasts up and over her corset until he could see the edge of the dark pink flesh that circled her nipple. “We had a good thing, lover.”

“We had a shallow thing, Sandy.”

“You want something . . . deeper?”

Her eyes dropped to his chest, tracing the lines and ripples of his naked muscles, and f*ck, but the heat in her eyes made his cock jump without warning, and he hated himself for it because she f*cking noticed.

“Oh, ho!” she said, laughing as her eyes slid slowly back up his chest to meet his scowl. “Maybe you liked shallow more than you remember. I know I liked shallow. A lot.”

“No, I . . . f*ck this. I have to go,” he muttered, totally disgusted with himself, even though his reaction was physiological and had no bearing on his feelings for Sandy, which amounted to less than nothing.

He was in love with Verity. She was the best thing that had ever happened to him. Had she heard that Sandy was back? Did she know? Fuck. Her words—I’m not good at sharing—suddenly resonated in his head. He needed to see her, to talk to her and make sure that she knew that Sandy was no threat to what they had.

He stepped around Sandy, but she grabbed his arm, and when he turned around, she was waiting. She leaned forward quickly, her lips pressing against his, but Colt reacted immediately, pushing her away as forcefully as he dared. She stumbled back a few steps before righting herself.

“I said I’m not available,” he growled softly.

Sandy looked over his shoulder, toward the doorway of the barn, raising her voice considerably to be heard from several yards away. “Looking for someone, honey?”

Colt whipped around just in time to see Verity’s face contort, her sweet lips falling open, her chest heaving with short, shallow breaths.

“I . . . I’m just . . . I . . . no!” she said in a broken voice before turning and disappearing from sight.

“Verity!” he yelled, starting after her.

“Looks like you might be available after all,” said Sandy from behind him, grasping his arm.

He stopped and turned slowly to face her, yanking his arm away and forcing his fisted hands to stay curled and motionless by his sides. “Stay the f*ck away from me.”

Then he turned around and ran after Verity.

***

Tears tumbling down her cheeks, Verity ran through the employee hallway, stopping at the gift shop to grab her purse from under the counter and continuing to the double doors where the evening audience would be lining up in about an hour. She ignored Beverly’s calls and could barely see through her tears, but she didn’t stop running until she got to Colton’s car. She unlocked it, opened the door, sat down, and put the key in the ignition. She didn’t know where she was going. She just knew she had to get as far away from The Legend of Camelot as possible.

Putting the car in gear, she floored it into reverse, then forward, beelining for the exit and pulling out onto Peachtree Road. Her tears wouldn’t stop, blinding her as she raced through a red light, almost getting sideswiped before she realized that she’d kill herself if she didn’t slow down.

It was too good to be true . . . too good to be true . . . too good to be true, she repeated over and over in her head, finally pulling into the parking lot of a Walmart. I should have known my bad luck wasn’t gone.

Tears cascaded down her face in streams as she rested her forehead on the crest of the steering wheel, letting herself have a long cry. Eventually, after quite a while, the tears subsided a little, and she decided to try to make sense of what she’d just seen.

Was there any chance they hadn’t been kissing? She shook her head, more tears falling. No. His lips were scarlet from Sandy’s lipstick.

Verity gulped, sniffling as more tears wove their way down her cheeks.

It didn’t look like a passionate kiss, whispered her heart.

“But it was still a kiss,” she said aloud in a pitiful voice.

He didn’t have his arms around her.

“But her hand was on his arm. He was letting her touch him.”

He broke off the kiss quickly.

“Probably because Sandy noticed me standing there, and they wanted more privacy.”

He yelled your name as you were running away.

“Did he?” she said, thinking back. She didn’t remember him yelling her name, but she’d been so upset, maybe only her subconscious had registered it. Everything was becoming jumbled and mixed-up in her mind.