I still want you. To make sure it was really explicit, I said, ‘You mean just sex.’
‘I... Yes... That hasn’t changed. I think it’ll burn out if we just...’
‘Have sex again.’
Brodie nodded and then he cursed.Shite. He looked at me and gave a rueful smile that almost had my legs weakening. He said, ‘I’m usually much smoother than this, but you make me feel...a bit wild. Desperate.’
I remembered what he’d told me about his parents and that awful situation. The violence. I hated that I understood that he would be reluctant to give into extremes of emotion. But then, this wasn’t about emotion.
I turned to face him more fully. He might have had a major epiphany and changed his direction but nothing else had changed.
I reminded him, ‘You let me go.’
He countered. ‘You seemed happy to go. Would you have stayed if I’d asked you?’
I felt my face heat and cursed my helpless reaction. ‘I guess we’ll never know, will we?’ I was trying desperately to resist his pull. It wasn’t just sex for me when it so evidently was for him.But what about just one more time. A goodbye fuck?wheedled a voice.
‘What if I asked you now?’
‘Asked me to what?’ I wasn’t going to make this easy for him.
There was a glint in his eye. ‘If I asked you if I could kiss you.’
‘There’s no one here to see it. No one you need to fool.’
‘This isn’t for anyone else; it’s just for us.’
Oh, crap. There was no way I could walk away when he was being honest, or from the promise of another taste of him.
‘Just a kiss?’
‘A kiss, and if that’s all you want, then we stop there.’
OK, one kiss. A goodbye kiss. I could do that and walk away head held high. Tash would be proud of me. I had my post-coital delusions under control.
‘OK.’
Brodie closed the gap between us. He took my bag that was over my shoulder and put it on the ground.
Then he cupped my face with his hands and I felt the roughness of his palms, and that only reminded me of how he’d started out, working on sites, getting his hands dirty. Andhow they’d felt on me, gripping my hips or skimming over my breasts.
I was about to say,wait, this was a bad idea,but it was too late because he was kissing me now and I was grabbing his shirt and the world was spinning, and I was groaning into his mouth as everything flooded back to glorious life inside me.
After long drugging moments he lifted his head and I cracked my eyes open and looked up.
‘Do you want to come back to my place?’ he asked.
I didn’t even hesitate. That’s how weak I was. ‘Yes, please.’
Chapter 36
Brodie
Brodie sensed Jess behind him, moving around the carefully curated space of his apartment. The art on the walls. The leather couches. Low coffee tables. Imagining what she made of it made him realise that it had never really felt likehome.
He hadn’t felt remotely triumphant that she’d agreed to come with him. He’d felt like he’d had to move fast in case she changed her mind. And now she was here and Brodie needed to curb the urge to devour her. But that kiss... It had made a total mockery of him having had any sense that he’d been in control of himself since he’d let her go.
Everything he’d done in the last two weeks had been through a prism of her. Wondering about her. Wanting her approval. Realising that he was dissatisfied. Reconnecting with people who made him feel whole again. And yet it hadn’t been until they’d kissed that he’d actually felt any sense of peace.
