Page 3 of One Mistake

Reese Winthrop.

Wow.

Not the Reese Winthrop I knew ten years ago. Well, maybe like the one I’d met in the bar back then, but not the one I’d gotten to know. Not the one…

1

Reese

I was ten years younger the last time I saw him. I’d been naïve and stupid, then broken. By him. By Ryder Kennedy. And back then he’d been larger than life. Not just in size. Although he came in at a respectable six-four. Large in personality. Large in social status. Large in life.

Today, he looked small. Beaten by the life that once upon a time, he’d had by the balls. And it made my heart glad. Because along with being larger than life, Ryder Kennedy had been an asshole, a womanizer, a liar, and in my humble opinion, one not shared by the great state of Maine, a criminal.

And by beaten by life I didn’t mean his clothes—a pair of jeans that hugged his thighs and still remarkably tight ass, or the long-sleeved gray Henley that hid the Alpha Alpha Phi tattoo on the inside of his left forearm and managed to make his eyes look bluer than I knew they already were. Beaten by life referred to the new and lovely, well-deserved haunted look in his eyes. The slouch of his shoulders. The overall downtrodden attitude. All of it delighted me, too.

I stared at him. This was such a bad idea. Why I didn’t drink anymore. Drinking made me do stupid shit. Namely Ryder Kennedy. Which was why I’d gotten the hell out of Glouster. Away from the college, the fraternity, the scandal that rocked our alma mater to its foundation and almost landed Ryder, Finn, Keaton, and Jameson—the Glouster Four—in jail.

He stared back at me. “How long have you been planning this?”

I chuckled. “About a minute before I tased you.”

“Bullshit.”

“Does this look well-planned to you?” He was handcuffed to the bed, his feet tied to the footboard with a pair of mom’s old nylons. Nothing about this spoke to a criminal mastermind. I breathed out a long, slow, and much-needed huff then waited as if being a few feet from the man who took my virginity was nothing to be anxious over.

He jerked against the cuffs, then when the metal spindle he was attached to didn’t bend or break, he settled down. “Why are you doing this?” He spoke in a resonant, deep, voice, one I’d heard purr and growl, a voice that, even though I hated its owner, made my pussy wet. Unfortunately, I didn’t have drunken stupidity to explain that one away. But it could work for the kidnapping since I didn’t have any other valid excuse. “Because you overserved me at the bar last night.”

He laughed. Humorless. Flat. “You tase me, shove me in a trunk, almost suffocate me in your shitty car with the leaky exhaust, drag me to this shit hole, and it’s my fault?”

Oh, it was definitely his fault. I just couldn’t quite explain how. Yet.

I didn’t take exception to his classification of my mom’s house. To someone who grew up on the Kennedy estate in the Hampton Hills section of Glouster, Mom’s two-bedroom bungalow on the more affordable side of town probably seemed like quite the step down.

“What can I say? I was drunk.” A burst of air rumbled through the overhead vent and shook my head. For the love of all that was holy. Couldn’t he at least have had a pointed ear, a giant wart, some slight imperfection I could concentrate on?

“Juries don’t give a fuck if you’re drunk.” He scoffed and shook his head, his gaze locked with mine. “You’re going to prison.”

I went for the metaphorical jugular. “Oh, that’s right. You were prelaw before you decided to go dark side and post videos of your friends getting laid.” And because I wanted to remind him of who he was as much as what he did, I smiled. “How’s that almost law degree working out for you, bartender?”

“What the hell happened to you?” He broke the gaze and turned away.

“You did.” The fucking truth of it.

He glared at me. “I can’t believe I got kidnapped by bad girl Barbie.”

Bar girl Barbie? “Were you expecting to be kidnapped by a Schwarzenegger or a Stallone?”

“Didn’t really expect to get kidnapped.” He looked me up and down. “A strong wind could take you.”

I was a respectable five-seven without the two-inch heel on my boots. And I worked out. And I knew how to take down a monster twice my size and three times my weight. I was good at my job. Protector of the abused woman—once, with the lucky swing of a baseball bat, I kicked a mean husband ass. And once, in a right place right time situation, I pinned a jewel thief I’d been hunting between my front bumper and a wall while I sat in my car polishing off a chipotle chicken wrap and waited for backup. And there was the time I walked right into a cult compound and dragged out the fourteen-year-old daughter of a desperate mother then fended off the cult leader with his own shovel I found leaning against a tree on my way out. So yeah. I could handle myself.

And I didn’t one bit like him questioning it. After all, he was the one tied to the bed. My mind flashed to one of my favorite Ryder Kennedy fantasies, and I stood and sexy-walked toward him.

I leaned in and let my lips hover near his ear. Jesus, he smelled good—citrus and sandalwood—and I lowered my voice so he couldn’t hear how badly I wanted him. But not because he was Ryder Kennedy, and I’d spent a lot of nights alone in bed with my vibrator thinking of his hands, his mouth, and his dick. By this point, any man would’ve done the job. “I like my odds.”

But I still didn’t have a plan. And if I wanted to keep my job and stay out of jail, I was going to have to come up with one soon.

One Decade Ago