“Is that what this is?” he asked, his voice low. “You’re vetting my dating profile now?”
“I’m just asking,” I gritted out, feeling frantic. My chest felt tight, like the panic attack in NYC, but this was sharper. Angry. “I mean… are they?”
“Are what?”
“Women,” I demanded, stepping closer. “Is that what you’re into? Is that who you usually go home with?”
Cal let out a short, dry laugh. He stepped off the wall, invading my personal space until I could smell the faint scent of his cologne mixed with the bar’s smoke.
“I’m bi, Silas,” he said. His voice was matter of fact. Casual. Like he was telling me his coffee order.
The admission hit me in the chest.
“Oh,” I breathed out, the fight draining out of me for a split second, replaced by a sudden, overwhelming realization of just how many options he actually had.
“Yeah.Oh.” Cal smirked, stepping closer until our chests were inches apart. I could see the condensation of his breath in the cold air. “So if you’re done doing a demographic survey, tell me what your actual problem is.”
“My problem,” I hissed, the anger flaring back up to cover the insecurity, “is that she was all over you.”
“She was asking for a lighter.”
“She was looking at your mouth.”
Cal’s eyes dropped to my lips. Dark. Heavy. Possessive.
“So are you.”
I froze. He saw it. He saw everything. He saw the way I tracked him in the ring, the way I watched him change in the locker room, the way I had been staring at his mouth for the last ten minutes.
“Shut up,” I whispered, my voice trembling.
“Make me,” Cal challenged softly.
I snapped. I crashed my mouth onto his.
I grabbed the lapels of his leather jacket and yanked him up, kissing him with sixty-two days of repressed hunger, anger, and jealousy.
Cal groaned into my mouth, a low, sound that vibrated against my lips. His arms came around me instantly, crushing me against him, lifting me slightly off the ground. The friction of his body against mine, hard, heavy, solid, sent a jolt of electricity straight to my groin.
I was hard instantly. Painfully, achingly hard. It felt like my jeans were suddenly two sizes too small, the denim cutting into me as I pressed my hips against his.
I gasped, breaking the kiss for a split second to breathe, but Cal chased me. He bit my lower lip, hard enough to sting, before soothing it with his tongue.
But just as I tried to deepen it, to lose myself in the taste of him, he put a hand on my chest and pushed.
I stumbled back, chest heaving, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. The cold air hit my wet lips like a slap.
“Stop,” Cal said. He wasn’t out of breath. He looked calm. Terrifyingly calm. “You’re kissing me like you hate me.”
“I was proving a point,” I stammered, the lie tasting like ash on my tongue, my chest heaving with exertion.
Cal stepped off the wall, adjusting his jacket. He stepped into my space, forcing me to look him in the eye.
“No,” he said, his voice dropping to a low, mocking drawl. “You’re kissing me because you’ve been starving for sixty-two days. You think I don’t see it? You think I don’t feel you burning a hole in me every time I change my shirt?”
My heart stopped.
Sixty-two days.
