After a kiss that’s hot enough to peel the paint off my truck, but I need to get the door shut.
I lift off of her and reach behind me, pull the door closed then turn back to her. But she’s up now, her hands pulling my shirt over my head and I chuckle. “No one has ever fought for me before, Walker.”
“I didn’t do it for this.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t care if you did.” And then she’s on me. Her body on mine, her skin hot under my hands. “Fuck me, Walker. Now.”
I’m not the kind of guy who has to be told twice. She sighs, loud and long when I push inside of her. And I swallow another cry with a kiss. Her fingers rake down my back and her mouth attacks my throat.
“Oh God, Belle.” It’s more of a bite than a kiss and I hold her there with a hand in her hair.
“Walker!” She cries out and her mouth latches onto my skin while her hips buck and her hands curl into my biceps.
When I come, I thrust upward, and her pussy clenches my dick, the walls tight enough I groan. “Belle.”
She gives me a last kiss before she moves off my dick and falls onto the seat beside me. “We just had sex in the Pitstop parking lot.” She nods. “I guess I can scratch that off the bucket list.” Her smile tailends on a chuckle and I’m still trying to catch my breath. This woman is more than I deserve, more than I dreamed I’d ever have in my life.
“What else is on that bucket list?” I’m busy yanking my jeans up when I look over at her.
She’s staring at me with her eyes half-closed. “It’s a work in progress.”
I nod. “Like me.” I tilt her head toward me. “I want to be better than a guy who punches out another guy in a bar because I’m jealous. And I want to be better than a guy who has sex with you in a parking lot. But I’m not better. I am who I am.” God help me. I want her to want me this way as much as I want to be better than I am.
“I want who you are. I want the fighter. I want the guy who will walk me out to his truck and not be able to wait out a ten minute drive to have me.” She smiles. “But I’m not property, Walker.”
And this is where it all goes left.
CHAPTERFIFTEEN
BELLE
Being with Walker has been an experience like no other I’ve had with a man. He cares about me, and he isn’t afraid to show it. I can see it. I can also see that he’s all alpha. All man. I love that about him, but like I told him, and I meant it, I don’t like being property. I refuse to stand for a man thinking he has that kind of power over me.
“What did you say?” His voice is hard now. Darker than I’ve ever heard it. And the stare is even darker. I should back off, take a minute and think this through, but I’m going on feeling right now. And I can’t stop what I’ve already started.
“I said I’m not your property.”I don’t want anyone seeing what’s mine.It’s what he said and there’s no way I misheard it or read the sentence wrong. He said it. He meant it.
I’ve barely got my clothes on, much less arranged when he opens the door and steps out. He turns and looks at me. “You said no one’s ever fought for you before.” There’s such disbelief in his voice, I don’t know for certain that what I’m doing is right, that I’m not making the biggest mistake of my life.
But I shrug because I’m not going to let him take the fight out of me. I have to be strong enough to take the time to figure everything out. How I feel. What I want.
It starts right now. “They haven’t. This isn’t aboutthat. This is about the kiss and about what you said to Maisie.” Not that I didn’t like it. I love all of his kisses. But this was loaded with things a kiss shouldn’t be. This was him staking a claim, marking me as his, without me agreeing or even being asked. And he needs to know it. And I don’t like what he said to Maisie at all. “That wasn’t fighting for me. That was showing off. That was the first strike of a pissing contest.”
I don’t like saying the description any more than I like that it’s the memory I will always have of tonight.
“What?” He pauses and his eyes go wide then narrow. In the dark depth, they flare with hurt, maybe even anger. “Seriously. What?”
I hear what I’m saying to him and I understand why he’s confused. I even hear how ridiculous it is to be angry at him when I was so happy that he fought for me–although I could’ve done without the violence of it–when only a few seconds ago, I was straddling his lap in the truck, when I barely have my bra pulled down.
I sigh. This is ridiculous. Every urge I have is screaming for me to give this up and throw myself into his arms, to beg him to forgive me for bringing it up and my mind is telling me to ignore the urges and stand my ground. I don’t know which part of me to listen to. I need to think about this.
But how can I when my head is full of him all the time? Of little things. Like the way he cradles my face when he kisses me. The way he gives my fingers a little squeeze every few minutes when we’re holding hands. The way he holds my chair for me. It’s a thousand little things. And I have to decide whether they add up to more than how unhappy I am about this one very big thing he did that tarnished how I feel about him.
I’ve never been in this kind of situation. I wasn’t lying about no one ever fighting for me. Part of that is because I don’t date this kind of guy. Part of it is because no one has ever claimed to have a right and there’s certainly been no real need to have a fight. I’m so far out of my element, I need time to think.
“I think I want to stay at my place tonight.” I have to get my head straight. Think it all through. And I can’t do that lying beside him in his bed. Or with him lying beside me in mine.
“Okay.” He shrugs, and for one heart stopping second, it doesn’t occur that he’s stepping back because it’s what I’ve told him I want. Instead, the irrational part of my brain thinks he doesn’t care about me, and maybe this whole thing isn’t about anything more than sex. It thinks it’s easy for him to walk away. Too easy.
