I can’t bear her guilty look, and I’m not so much of a coward as to let her shoulder all the blame. She looks up sharply. Her dark eyes are relieved but also hurt. I guess I’m probably looking the same. Emotions are complex things. Part of me wants her to be devastated at losing me. Part of me is hypocritically upset that she has replaced me so easily.
“No hard feelings then?” she asks tentatively.
I smile. “None at all. We were good together. Nothing but happy memories.”
She smiles back at me. My phone buzzes. It’s a message from my agent telling me to get to her office now. My heart sinks. It looks like Miranda Jones is already sticking her claws out. I’ve made a fearsome and dangerous enemy but I don’t regret a thing.
“I’ve got to go,” I tell Liliah.
She nods at me, and I kiss her cheek. She already just feels like a friend. I don’t know what to make of that, so I push it aside. I need to go try to salvage my career.
My agent freaks out and yells at me for nearly an hour. She doesn’t know how I have pissed Miranda Jones off and she doesn’t seem to care. She’s just frantic that the influential woman is trying to blacklist me. The outrage at the injustice of it seems to have turned my mousy agent into a firecracker of indigent rage. I leave her office feeling strangely reassured. She has definitely got my back, and it’s good to know someone is fighting my corner.
I’m just unlocking my car when my phone pings with a calendar notification. I have a meeting with an underwear company about doing some modeling shots for them. I groan, all I want is to go home to Mackenzie, but if his mother hasn’t got her claws into this job yet, I can’t fuck it up on my own.
It’s dinner time by the time I get home and I’m feeling stressed and tired. I unlock the door, kick off my shoes and look up to see Mackenzie walking down the hallway to greet me. I instantly feel a thousand times better.
“Hi,” he says warmly. “I made dinner. Well, actually I ordered pizza.” Suddenly his face falls. “Oh shit! Can you eat pizza?”
I grin. “It’s fine, I’ll just work out for longer, pizza with you will be worth it.”
He flushes and turns away, heading back to the dining room. I really hope it is a happy flush and that he doesn’t think I’m being too soppy or weird. I probably shouldn’t have said it, it is kind of intimate, the type of thing you’d say if you were dating, not whatever the hell we are doing. Too late to take it back now.
I sit at the table, and Mackenzie slides a pizza box in front of me. It smells delicious. He sits down next to me and opens his.
“It’s from this small artisan place, it’s the best pizza in the world,” he says.
It looks good but I’m dubious. He has given me a margarita but I usually order a ton of toppings. Pepperoni, mushrooms, peppers, the lot. But I’m willing to keep an open mind. I take a bite and my taste buds explode with delight.
“Oh, my god! This is amazing!” I exclaim with my mouth full.
He grins in pleased satisfaction, and I adore that look on him. It suits him. He should get to look like that more often. He shouldn’t need to be prickly and rude. I want him to live in a world where he doesn’t need defenses.
We eat our pizza in companionable silence. I could get used to this. Just being in his presence makes me happy. It’s all I need to be content.
When we have finished dinner, we make our way to the living room. I flop onto the sofa and nearly squeal with delight when he sits down right next to me. So close, that our legs are touching from hip to knee.
“Wanna watch some telly?” I babble. All my blood is threatening to leave my brain to rush to my cock. It’s making me feel a little dizzy. Just because his leg is touching mine.
“Sure,” he says easily.
I grab the remote and hurriedly flick the television on. We really should talk, about his mother, about us, about the future, but I just can’t face it right now, so like a coward, I scrabble for a distraction.
The TV resumes the last thing I was playing. An episode of Keeping up with the Kardashians. Embarrassment heats my cheeks, but then Mackenzie is kissing me and every thought I have ever had is evaporating. His lips are soft and warm and the feel of him ignites my entire body on fire with desire, lust and need. I want to breathe his essence in and keep him forever. Join our souls together for all eternity. He is the piece of me that has been missing my whole life and now I have found him, I am never, ever going to let him go.
He is undoing my trousers while he is kissing me. I groan as my cock is freed. He releases my mouth and slides to his knees, to kneel between my spread legs. He eyes my hard cock appreciatively, licks his lips in anticipation, and lowers his head, just as my brain is suddenly able to function again.
“No!” I yelp, jumping to my feet.
I accidentally knock him backwards onto his ass. His dazzling blue eyes stare up at me in confusion as I stand there above him, holding my trousers up.
“It’s not like that,” I gasp.
A rejected look is starting to spread across his face. Shit, I really need to explain myself better.
“I really like you, you are the hottest person on the planet but I didn’t get you away from your mother so you would repay me with sex. You don’t need to pay me. I’m not like that.”
It’s not very coherent, but I hope it will do. I watch his face closely as he slowly deciphers my words. His face falls. His eyes fill with insult, anger, humiliation, hurt and tears. Then he is gone. He moved so fast I barely saw it. The guest room door slams violently and I’m glad he hasn’t left the house.
