He snorted and glanced away. “For starters, by not letting you get into a fistfight with the guy who just covered all our asses and took one for the team. Jamie Shannon has never been in trouble with Sloan.”
“It was all of us. We all missed the mark, even Ardan.”
He leaned down and knocked his forehead against mine, and I got a wriggle in my gut, like maybe I should shove him away, but I didn’t want that at all. I needed him close.
“It’s okay because we did get a Reyes family member. Killough was pissed off, but Corbin is right. It’s the situation that got under his skin. Ardan told us we got Joaquin, but his contact was wrong. We would’ve kept working if we’d known Joaquin was still alive. Sloan was probably already planning his victory party and he likely had to call the caterers off.” Aspen waggled his eyebrows. The arse was trying to talk me out of my bad mood and bloody feck, I wanted to let him do it.
“Those are fair points,” I grumbled.
He cupped my cheeks, and I tried to duck back. He lowered his eyebrows, and I stilled. “They’re the same points Jamie was making.”
“Feck this,” I muttered and pushed on his chest.
He darted forward and kissed me again. I wallowed in the rush of pleasure that swirled in my gut and had me grasping his shirt so I could drag him firmly against my body. “Ye said we couldn’t do this,” I muttered against his lips.
Aspen frowned, and I smashed my mouth against his again. I let out a growl and shoved him toward the bed. He pushed back, and we scuffled for real, testing each other’s strength. I spun and used all my weight to dump Aspen on the bed.
“Ha!” I pointed.
The arsehole snagged the back of my legs with his feet, and I wobbled. He grabbed my waist and tugged me down. It was messy—I fell on him without catching myself, and he grunted, but there was a wide grin on his face. “Your pride will get you in all kinds of trouble.” He slid a hand behind my neck and teased his lips against mine until we were kissing again.
My cock was harder than a goal post by the time we broke apart, panting. “I wanna shove my cock in ye,” I said, nudging my wood against the hard-on in his trousers that was trying to make my acquaintance. His eyes shut, and I rocked against him until a knot of need settled low in my groin. The throbbing on my cockhead had me dropping my forehead to his shoulder while I ground against him.
He sank his teeth into my neck, and I stiffened as the pain and heat sparked through my blood, a potent aphrodisiac. “You’ll treat me with respect. I brought you in here to keep your mouth from starting some shit you don’t want to apologize for later. I haven’t changed my mind about us. As of right now, we still aren’t doing this.”
His words were worse than a bucket of ice water dumped over me. I froze and studied his serious brown eyes. “Then what are we doing on a fecking bed?”
“You tell me,” he said.
I got nothing back from him because his face was blank. My gut lurched and my cock was still hard—it was an awful combination. I climbed off him and stomped across the room. I yanked open the door and seethed inside, then slammed it again and spun toward him with my arms crossed. “Ye’re a fecking prick, ye know?” I whispered.
He snorted and put his hands behind his head. “Why?”
My brain was mush and my cock wasn’t going down since I could see Aspen spread out right here, and he looked as if he was waiting for me, cock ready to go. I scrubbed my fingers through my hair. “Ye know I fecking like ye and I have for years, ever since we decided we couldn’t fuck each other the first time we brought it up. What does it matter? The boys would find out eventually if we kept fucking. Why did I have to tell Vail right then? Why did that upset ye so much that ye would call it quits? Ye want me!” At least, I thought he did. Nervous energy crawled through me, and I hated it, and the sensation got worse as he stared at me without saying a word.
Aspen rolled to a seated position, then hopped to his feet. He didn’t rush as he walked over and rested his shoulder against the wall. He leaned in, and I drifted his direction. We met halfway and it was like a bolt from the sky smashed through my body. I was right back to where we were when we were grinding against each other on the bed, and my cock pushed against my trousers, wanting to escape.
He leaned back and ran his fingertips along my jaw, sending my heart soaring. “My mom told me once never to be with anyone who wouldn’t take me home to meet their family. And never to be with anyone I was ashamed to bring home to her. Vail and Fallon.... They’re my family. Hell, even Rowen’s my family.”
“I’m not ashamed of ye,” I said quickly, and I meant it, but I didn’t know if I would ever be able to explain the tangled web of bullshite that lived in my head.
“Then what are you afraid they will do?”
My mind spun and I stared into his eyes, feeling like the plane was falling out of the sky, but it wasn’t. No, that awful hole in the pit of my stomach was coming from directly inside me. He raised his eyebrows.
“Nothing,” I finally answered.
Aspen’s jaw hardened as he turned away, and I grabbed him to keep him from going. He glared.
“Feck, really? I have to fecking talk about this shite? Why can’t we just forget—”
“No.”
I closed my eyes. “I love ye,” I whispered. “Okay? Ye gotta know it. I don’t want ye gone or telling me to feck off. I don’t know. I don’t know what could go wrong, but it all could. Or maybe this just doesn’t work out, and Vail and Fallon and Rowen will be all sad about it, and then it’s down to me being an arsehole, isn’t it? Just like always. They’ll pick ye and....”
Aspen kissed me, and I leaned against him. I didn’t know how long we stood there teasing our hands over each other’s bodies, but eventually he lowered my zipper.
“I want to touch you,” he mumbled against my mouth.
