I have always known this but refused to admit it because then I’d have to confront the feelings I’ve pushed away and shoved deep down inside for years.
But the lid is off, and I’m denying nothing anymore.
Even though I’m most likely all wrong for her, I want her too badly to do the right thing and walk away.
I’m going to be selfish to my core and fight like hell to reclaim her heart.
“You, you—” She jabs one slim finger in my chest. “How dare you pull a gun on my boyfriend!” she screams, glaring at me like she’d love to chop my head off my neck. “You had no right to show up at my place and threaten him.” She throws her hands in the air. “What the hell is wrong with you?” She shakes her head, briefly looking around, and her face contorts in a grimace. “Seb doesn’t know anything aboutla famiglia, and I want to keep it that way. You showing up and shoving a gun in his face isn’t fucking helpful.”
“Damn, your cursing really gets my juices flowing.” I waggle my brows and move in closer. My gaze drops to her tempting lipsas my dick stirs to life. “Angry Lili turns me on like you wouldn’t believe.”
Her eyes pop wide. “What?” she splutters.
I risk moving a step closer until there’s only scant distance between us. “I like this side of you.” I reach up and thread my fingers through her hair before leaning into her ear. “I like every side of you. You’re perfect, Lili.”
“What are you doing? What even is this?”
“I like you, Lili. I like you a lot.” She stares at me with confusion etched all over her face. I need to do better. Swallowing a sudden bout of nerves, I force the words from my mouth. “I think I love you.”
She blinks rapidly, shock written all over her face. I spot the moment she snaps out of it. “Youthinkyou love me?”
I nod, clasping the back of her head and drawing her face closer until our mouths are only a hair’s breadth apart.
“What…what are you doing?” she whispers, watching me devour her lips with my eyes.
“I’m going to kiss you.”
She shoves me so hard I stumble over my feet.
“Like hell you are!” She steps around the kitchen counter, placing a solid barrier between us.
“I’m putting the cart before the horse, I know, but this doesn’t have to be complicated. You like me. I like you.”
She snorts out a laugh, muttering under her breath. “Are you seriously for real right now, Caleb?”
I frown. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
She throws her hands in the air as anger replaces the dazed look on her face. “Oh, I don’t know. What about how you’ve ignored me for years while you screwed your way across the city? Or how you’re suddenly interested in me now I have a boyfriend.” She leans her palms on the counter and glares at me. “Or how about the fact you onlythinkyou love me?” Fire dancesin her eyes, and I’m seriously aroused. I adjust my dick behind my jeans, purposely not disguising the motion.
Elisa glances briefly at my crotch before lifting rage-filled eyes to meet mine. “And let’s not forget the biggest reason of all. You had sex with the girl who’s made my life a living hell at NYU, or did you forget you let her take a ride on your dick?” she shouts.
“I didn’t know she wasthatgirl, or I never would’ve fucked her.”
“The reason how it came to be really doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change the facts.”
“She set it up to cause you pain, and I am going to make her pay.”
“If that’s true, it only worked because you fell for it. If you weren’t such a fucking manwhore, she never would’ve been able to hurt me like that. So who is really at fault, Caleb?”
Shock flitters through me at her words and the venom laced behind them. Worry creeps up my spine. “I wish I could take it all back.”
“But you can’t, and it’s irrelevant now anyway. I have moved on. I’m over you,” she says, emerging from behind the protection of my island unit. “I am sooooo over you.” She looks at me like she means it.
Panic jumps up and slaps me. “I lied about how it went down. I didn’t know who she was, who they were. They tricked me.”
“And you lied because my dad told you to cut me loose. I know, and I don’t care anymore.” Resignation threads through her tone, and my panic accelerates a few notches.
“I want to take you on a date,” I blurt like a thirteen-year-old geek with his first crush.
