Annalise tenses in my arms. “That was before.”
“Before the karaoke foreplay with another guy?” I roughly tug her head back by the hair until her eyes meet with mine. “If you want to play dirty, I’m all in.”
She presses her hands to my chest, not a shove, but far from intimate. “Alex, please. I don’t want it like this.”
“You don’t seem to want it at all.” I pull her closer. “How long has it been? A month? Two?”
“Things have been messy between us.”
“That’ll only make it hotter.”
“Alex—”
I scoop her up, hauling her into my arms. Her legs curl around my waist, arms looping behind my neck. Carrying her into the bedroom, I toss her on the mattress and crawl over her until she’s splayed out beneath me. Heart to heart. Breath to breath.
Colorful hair fans out across the pillow, her skin milky-white like whipped cream. Plump cherry lips quiver with emotion.
Her eyes squeeze shut. Cheeks flush with color. A whimper escapes her throat.
She doesn’t want you.
She’s repulsed by you.
She fucking hates you.
That goddamn voice.
It only makes me angrier. More determined to prove it wrong.
“Look at me.” I grip her wrists, pinning them to the pillow. “Look at me, Annalise.”
Her lids flutter open.
And I’m sickened by what I see.
Emptiness. Hopeless resignation.
Proof.
The voice laughs with spite.
I kiss her.
Our mouths crash together in a desperate, frenzied clash of teeth and tongues. My hands move with menace, shoving her dress up her thighs, fingers fumbling with her underwear. Tears spill down her temples, but she doesn’t fight me.
She just deflates.
“Tell me you want this.”
Her legs fall open like surrender. A small nod.
“Say it,” I demand.
Another nod. “I do. I want you.”
I tug off her underwear, shove down my zipper, grip her wrists harder. Bruising, needy, begging for something. A spark. A reckoning. Anything.
Look at me.
