His voice cracked a little. Not much, but enough for me to feel it.
I set the clippers down. “Ares…”
He shook his head. “I don’t want this shit, Naomi. But I ain’t got a choice. And I damn sure don’t want to be alone in the process.”
He reached up, grabbed my wrist gently, and tugged me until I was standing between his knees.
He made me look at him.
“You hear me? I don’t want to be without you, Naomi.”
My stomach knotted up.
He wasn’t lying.
I knew when this man lied… his left eye twitched.
It wasn’t twitching.
But I also had a man at home.
A real one.
A calm one.
A safe one.
Still… Ares had been my weakness for years.
“Ares… I can’t backtrack with you,” I whispered. “I feel for your situation, I do. But we’re supposed to be friends at best. I can’t be your comfort pussy when you’re down. I can’t do that.”
He tilted his head slightly, eyes narrowing, studying me like he was seeing straight through my clothes and straight through my soul.
“You think that’s all I want from you?”
“I know you,” I said. “I know how you move.”
“No, you don’t,” he murmured. “Not this part.”
His hand slid from my wrist up to my ass, gripping gently. I tried to pull away; he tightened his hold.
“Please,” he said quietly, so unlike him that it made me freeze. “I need you. You’re the only one I can trust.”
“Ares…”
“I mean it.”
He tugged me a little closer.
I felt weak and strong at the same time.
“Please,” he whispered again. “Don’t leave me by myself in this shit.”
His voice cracked something open in me.
“Ares… we can’t?—”
He hit me with the one thing he knew would break my whole damn backbone.
