“Don’t say it.” The plea slips out quieter than I mean it to, but I still don’t move.
“Me,” he whispers, dragging his teeth along the shell of my ear. “It’s always been me, baby. I’d be so fucking good for you.”
“You don’t know how to be good,” I choke out, trying to care that we’re still in public, that anyone could walk by, but I can already feel two fingers moving in slow, teasing circles against my clit, and I’m completely fucking useless.
“I do bad things for the right reasons, and I’m not sorry. I’ll keep doing bad things if it means taking care of you.”
“I don’t need to be taken care of.”
But my body has a mind of its own, pressing back into him, desperate for his fingers to move just a little faster.
“Liar, you’ve just convinced yourself no one ever will. It’s why you’ve made yourself financially independent. It’s why you’re not married…”
“Pretty sure at this point, you’re the reason I’m not married, considering you’ve scared off every guy who’s gotten close.”
“It’s not my fault you’ve always had a thing for assholes.”
“It started with you. You were my first asshole.”
My voice doesn’t even feel like mine anymore. My body’s winding tight, and some distant part of my brain knows I shouldn’t be doing this here. James is definitely coming back… I’m definitely getting caught, and still, I don’t care.
“And I’ll be your last. The sooner you get your beautiful head around that, the sooner you can stop pretending you don’t want us.” He leans in, pressing a kiss to the back of my head, then inhales before removing his hand from between my legs.
My entire body screams in protest. I’m trembling from the edge he shoved me to and then abandoned me on.Rage and want crash into each other so hard that I can’t untangle one from the other, and I hate him for it.
“Now, I warned you to shut that prick down, and you didn’t, so if I have to step in, you’ve only got yourself to blame.” He delivers it coldly, like he didn’t just have his hand up my skirt in a public restaurant.
He slides back, giving me space I don’t know what to do with, and my hands grip the edge of the table so hard my knuckles go white. I turn to him, my eyes locked on his as if I could burn him alive if I tried hard enough.
“Don’t look at me like that, baby. You can’t pick and choose when you want something from me.” He tilts his head, his lipshovering just inches from mine, close enough that I can feel the heat of him again. “And you can’t poke a fucking monster with a stick and then act shocked when it wakes up hungry.”
Phoenix moves fast, disappearing so quickly it’s like he was never there at all, except my body is still thrumming with the ghost of him.
James returns seconds later, strolling toward our table and sliding into his seat, completely oblivious.
“Now, where were we? Oh—right. Dinner.” He laughs lightly, like he’s flirting with a woman who isn’t seconds away from melting into the carpet. “I had a better idea. We’ve got a big gala coming up soon. Board members, their families, and all the higher-ups will be there. Why don’t you come? You’d be saving me from a night of conversations I really don’t want to have.”
“I couldn’t…”
And I mean that. I couldn’t think of anything worse.
“You can bring a plus-one if you’d like. It might be a little less daunting.”
“Yeah, okay, sure. Why not? Sounds great.”
It sounds like I’d rather bash my skull into the table.
Chapter 10
Shannen
I’ve been here before.
At least it feels that way.
I’m walking barefoot, the pads of my feet grazing something that feels like grass, but softer, almost like velvet. But there’s no light here. I can’t see a damn thing. There should be a moon. There should be stars, something to break up this darkness, but there’s only endless black surrounding me.
I’m not outside. I can’t be. The air is too still, yet the wind finds me anyway, wrapping around my ankles and working its way up my body.
