“No, West! It’s on both of us! But does that make it any better?” I pause, thinking about everything all at once, and I shake my head when a realization hits me. “And you wonder why I took out that loan. The last thing we need is something else to argue about.”
He glares when I stand to my feet.
“You’re so fucking stubborn.”
“And you can’t see past yourownshit to recognize that you’re not the only one in pain.”
He stands as soon as I finish speaking. He’s close, towering over me, and that heat is still there. Even when we’re at each other’s throats, at odds. It’s enough that I move toward the door just to put distance between us. But he closes in on me almost as soon as I think I’m in the clear.
“What do you want me to say?” he practically growls, standing so close that the warmth of his breath moves strands of hair across my face. “You want me to say that I fucked up? Fine, I fucked up. I shouldn’t have been drinking with the guys. Hell, maybe I shouldn’t have gone to the bar at all.”
“You being there wasn’t the problem,” I say with a shaky voice. “Your lack ofself-controlwas the problem.”
I stop speaking and he doesn’t say a word. Instead, he moves in closer, bracing his hand on the wall beside my head, making a fist out of the one in his sling. It’s not aggressive, just oozing with more frustration than before.
Only, I’m not even sure it’s the samekindof frustration anymore.
He further proves my point when his gaze moves to my lips, then to my throat where I feel my pulse racing like crazy.
I’m focused on his mouth, the softness of his lips as I recall how they feel against mine and everywhere else they’ve touched on my body.
I want to push him away, want to tell him he should go, but the anger and hurt I felt last night, and all day today have melted down, becoming something else entirely.
Something… primal.
“I… You should go.”
Our eyes lock as his darken.
“No.”
My brow tenses. “West—”
“No. Fuck that,” he adds, doubling down.
I’m suddenly more aware of the wall behind me, aware of just how solid it is, holding me in place, keeping me from escaping whatever this is.
Keeping me from escapinghim.
“We—”
Before I can even finish my thought, heat from his mouth covers mine. His tongue pushes between my lips and my hands ball into fists at my sides. It’s like high school all over again, flames blazing between us, yet we can’t fight this damn inescapable pull.
“I fucking love you,” he breathes into me. “You know that don’t you?”
I know it.
Feel it.
Revel in it.
My goal of staying to myself shatters, and before I can stop myself, my hands are pushing under his shirt, feeling how his stomach quivers beneath my palms. Solid ridges covered in hot skin. I push higher, clutching his chest, letting my nails sink into his flesh, partly to punish him for being such an ass lately, but mostly, I just can’t help myself.
He rocks his hips toward me, smashing my ass to the wall. His cock is rock-solid where it presses against my stomach as he cranes his neck to kiss me deeper. I had a point to prove when he showed up tonight, but the fact that my panties are now soaked means that’s all gone out the window.
His breath quickens when he pulls away. With hooded eyes, his hand moves from the wall to my hair as he draws me toward him again, this time turning a complete one-eighty with me locked against his massive body. I’m spun again, until my back’s to him, and I’m facing the back of the armchair. I suck in a breath when West bends me over it, roughly yanking my shorts down my ass and hips. I’m breathless for the few seconds it takes him to undo his jeans, cursing to himself the whole time as he tries to manage with the one hand, but he finally gets it. The tip of his cock is hot against my ass as he slides it down my skin, teasing it between the drenched lips of my pussy before finally slipping inside.
A deep, guttural sound rumbles up from his chest, leaving his lips as a husky groan. He’s still, locked tight inside me as I throb around him, unable to remember how long it’s been since he fucked me. As soon as the thought flutters into my head, West draws his hips back, then slams into me rough. Over and over again as my stomach grazes the soft fabric of the chair. My breasts bounce to his pace, my nipples hardening from the friction against my t-shirt.
