What is he talking about?
I wasn’t the one who yet again shut things down, the one who is hot and cold. That’s him.
I know exactly what I want, and I haven’t been shy about communicating it.
“Get dressed. I’ll take you home so you can shower and change. And then…” He trails off, his jaw ticking before he continues. “We’re going to have a conversation, Maisie, and you’re going to listen to every fucking word that I have to say before you open that pretty little mouth to talk shit to me and then storm off before I can respond. Yeah?”
I manage to keep it together, white-hot arousal shooting through my veins, heat pooling in my belly at how gravelly his voice has gone, from the pure dominance in his words.
It’s so hot that I realize something mayactuallybe wrong with me.
“Fine.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX
WILDER
What the fuckam I doing?
It’s the same thing I’ve said over and over since the moment I picked Maisie up last night, the thought making itself a permanent fixture in my head.
I know what Ishouldbe doing. Which is staying away from this girl. Doing my fucking job. Keeping my head down and focusing on cleaning up my image so I can get back to the NHL.
The same mantra I’ve been reciting so much, I’m sick of saying it to myself.
Yet, here I am, standing in the living room of her apartment.
Telling myself that the only reason I’m here is to have the conversation that we should’ve had the night that she stormed out of my office.
By doing that, I guess I’m only proving her right, that I’m lying to myself.
The alternative is facing the truth, and fuck knows I’ve never been good at that. So whatever, I’ll keep telling myself that I’m not losing my goddamn head over her, that I’m only doing what needs to be done by drawing a line and not crossing it.
For real this time.
I shove my hands in the pockets of my sweatpants and look around, my gaze traveling over the mismatched pieces of furniture that still somehow feel like they go together, even though they’re different styles.
There’s a large cream-colored couch that fills the room with light blue pinstripes running vertically down the fabric. It reminds me of something from the nineties, but it looks soft as hell. The kind of couch that you’d nap on after lunch.
I’m not sure what I expected her apartment to look like, but it’s… bright, a lot of funky colors and pieces that you’d find at an estate sale or something. Shit that feels like her.
What the fuck am I even saying?
I don’tknowher. How would I know what feels like her?
“Meow.”
I look down and find a large ball of fluffy black fur weaving its way between my legs, brushing against my pants before it flops down on the rug, blinking up at me.
“Uh… this is my cat, Sir Sebastian. Or Sebastian. Or… Seb,” Maisie says as she walks up, scooping the furball into her arms and snuggling it against her face. “He has no concept of personal space, sorry.”
The thing looks at me and meows again, as if he understands what she’s saying and agrees, but a second later, he leaps from her arms and winds himself back around my calves, resuming his incessant meowing.
I fucking hate cats.
One of the foster homes I was in early on had a cat, and the asshole pissed on my things every chance he got.
