There’s what I know Iwant. And then there’s what I know isright.
And unfortunately for me, the two are simply not headed in the same direction.
Blowing out an explosive breath, I head back to the couch and pick up the television remote, turning the fucker off right where I paused it back when her side glances and sneaky blushes made my stomach flip. When curiosity got the better of me.
If I had never asked, maybe we’d still be sitting on the couch together. Watching a movie. Hugging. I could pull her closer and stroke her hair theway she likes. I could draw patterns against her skin and covet her every sneaky smile.
“Oliver?”
I jump and turn, my heart hammering inside my chest fast enough to make me woozy. Hope bursts through my veins, anticipation for what could have been. But she didn’t come back for me. She’s not even in this room. Sighing, I toss the remote down and grab my phone instead, then I make my way toward the hallway, flicking lights off as I go. “Yeah?” I step into the hall and slip my phone into my pocket. “You need something?”
She waits on the threshold of her bedroom door, half in, half out, her chest growing larger with every step I come closer to her room, her lungs expanding in search of fresh oxygen. I stop just two feet from where she stands, close enough to get a whiff of the honey in her hair, but not so close that she needs to back away.
Not so close that she’ll feel the feral fucking pheromones pulsing from my pores.
I look her up and down, over plain black yoga pants and a slouchy gray hoodie, then I peek into her room to make sure everything is as it should be. “You okay?” I hook a thumb over my shoulder. “We don’t have to talk about?—”
She darts forward, a flurry of activity and something akin to a battle cry in her throat. Then she wraps her hand around the back of my neck and yanks me down. She slams her lips to mine, sealing my fate and swallowing my soul like it was never mine to begin with, and because she’s a fucking vixen, strong and sure, she monkeys into my arms and circles my hips with her legs. “I don’t want to go to bed thinking we’rejustfriends.”
ROUND THIRTY-ONE
ROSE
Incensed, he grips my ass with a fierceness that sends me wild. His fingers bruise my skin and drag my cheeks apart. Then he slams me against the wall, inhaling my breath mercilessly and replacing it with his grunt of pain. Of desire. Of pure, vicious need.
“Oh, God.” I grind against the waistband of his pants, desperate for contact. Dying to be touched. To be used. To be loved the way I know only he could do it. “Ollie.”
“Say yes.” He pins me against the wall with his hips, freeing his hands and tearing my hoodie over my head until I’m left with just my bra. Plain, black, cotton. Nothing sexy here, and yet, he drops the hoodie and tastes my chest. “Rose, say yes.”
“Yes.”
“Now say no.” He buries his lips in the hollow of my throat, nipping. Tasting. Soothing with a stroke of his tongue. “Say the word. Say no.”
“No.”
“Good.” Breathless, he pulls back and searches my eyes with a wild desperation burning in his. “Yes. And no. You know those words. So now I’m gonna feast, and I’m not gonna stop till I’m done. Or until you say no.”
My stomach whirls with nervous energy. My heart stampedes against my diaphragm. Goddddd, my entire being buzzes with electric energy.
“Do you understand, Rose?” He pulls my bottom lip between his teeth and suckles. Bites. He caresses my thighs and hums the closer his thumbs come to my core. “Say no, and it’ll all stop. No humiliation. No rejection. No weirdness tomorrow. But until I hear that word roll off your tongue…”
I gulp.
“Tell me you understand.”
“I understand.” My throat burns dry. My lips, my tongue… my everything. Except my core. “I understand, Ollie.”
“Thank fuck.” He pulls me away from the wall and strides into my room, sliding his hand into my hair and tugging with a violence that winds me. He kicks the door shut, the slam of wood a cracking boom that does nothing to calm the fire in my veins. Then he presses my back to the door and tugs my head to the side, latching his teeth and tongue onto my neck. “You taste so fucking good.” He marks me. Drawing me callously toward an image I’ve already conjured in my mind.
We already did this in my dream. He already had me. Claimed me.
“Listen to you,” he rasps, slipping his fingers into my panties and growling when he finds me wet and wanting. Thrumming with need, and pulsing with desire. “You walked away, even with this slick between your legs?”
“Wanted you to follow me. Forgot you’re a gentleman and wouldn’t dare.”
“Wasa gentleman. Out there.” He slams a single digit into my pussy and clamps his lips over mine, trapping my cry of pleasure. Of pain. Then he adds a second finger and stretches me until the delicious combination—desire and agony—spears through my veins and sends me wild with the electricity turning my blood to fire. “Always a gentleman out there. But in here?” He pumps his hand, curling his fingers just right and drawing me toward an eruption that makes my thighs tremble. “Fuck, Rose.” He sets me back on my feet, pinning me to the wall and fisting my jaw with his free hand. He gives me no room to move. No room to breathe. No room to escape. And when he looks into my eyes, his perfect blue stare, he makes it so drowning seems like the way I want to go. “I can’t be a gentleman in here.”
I bow into his body, breathless and panting. I use him to stay upright, knowing that if he takes a step back and forces me to stand on my own, I won’t remain vertical. But I slide my hand under his shirt and feel, for the first time, how powerful and muscular he truly is. The lines and ridges of his abdomen. The dips and planes he works so hard for at the gym.
