Something feels heavy inside my chest. A growing ache, filled with ugliness and resentment, pushes on my ribcage. It seeps through my bones and into my veins, hisses like steam out my ears and from my mouth in a tone that isn’t my own.
“So what if I did?”
What if something had happened? Honestly, it almost did. Alonso is hot. He’s a genuinely nice guy. I enjoy our conversations. He makes me feel good about myself. And his body is insane. I saw enough of it to know that I was missing out when I pulled back.
Alonso is a real possibility for me. Someone who could make me happy. Someone I could actually date, in public. Someone who isn’t afraid to show me that he’s interested. We had a lovely time tonight, ate a really nice dinner and then went on a walk in the rain to meetup with a few of Alonso’s costars at the bar inside his hotel. We’d even joked about hotel bars being bad luck for us, but before we went inside, he kissed me.
It was beautiful. Gentle, but not too soft. Deep, but not like he was trying to eat my tonsils. There was just enough tongue to make me want more. I felt it. From where our lips touched, down my spine, all the way down to my toes.
I felt it everywhere except one place. The tiny place that ached because as perfect as Alonso is, he’s not…him. Still, I pressed into it, deepened it, let him know I was interested. Because I can’t keep holding myself back for something that’s never going to happen.
After a couple drinks with his friends—not too many because I’d eaten light—Alonso asked me if I’d like to come up to his suite. He sweetly assured me that nothing had to happen, but that he was enjoying our time together and didn’t want the night to end yet. We weren’t drunk, but I was tipsy enough to shut out the part of my brain that kept reminding me that Alonso wasn’t Will. We made out, and it got pretty hot and heavy. I was into it, as long as I only listened to my body.
But whenever I looked up into Alonso’s ice blue eyes, I was struck by a double-image of hazel eyes, darkened with lust as he looked down at me in the early dawn light. If only that freeze-frame in my head could be of the switch when he realized I was awake and tripped over himself to get out of bed and run away from me.
As beautiful and kind and actually interested in me as Alonso may be, he also doesn’t look at me the way I’ve seen Will look at me—like he can’t breathe without me. The same way I feel when I’m away from him.
Before our make-out session could go too far, I pulled back. Despite being close to the edge himself, Alonso took it in stride and gave me space immediately. He got me a bottle of water and when I apologized, he put his hand on my shoulder and told me I had nothing to be sorry for. Then he said that if we were going to take this to the next level at any point, he’d rather be one hundred percent sober so he could savor every moment. And yeah, I almost lost some of my resolve in that moment. But it occurred to me that I shouldn’t have to be tipsy to want to go further.
After offering me a place to sleep, either in a guest room or in his room with his promise to keep his hands to himself, Alonso walked me out—not just to his door, but to the lobby entrance where Eric was waiting for me. He would have walked with me all the way back to our hotel if I hadn’t insisted he stay. I thanked him for the night, which really was wonderful, and gave him one more long, slow kiss. Lingering, just to be sure.
It guts me inside that even as perfect as Alonso is, he still isn’t the one I want. No, apparently, I’m stuck on this possessive caveman piece of shit who can barely admit he’s interested, much less give me anything that Alonso already has.
So, no, I didn’t fuck Alonso. I’d thought about it, and I probably would if we went out again. Because why the fuck not? How long am I going to torture myself like this?
“Why do you even care?” I ask Will again, my anger growing hotter by the second. “You don’t want me, so why can’t anyone else?”
He doesn’t answer, just stares at me like he’s swallowing glass.
I’m too tired for this shit. And too fucking angry. I move to step past him, but he shifts, blocking my path.
“Move, Will. I’m going to bed.”
“No.”
“Goddamn it Will, I don’t want to deal with you right now. I’m sick and fucking tired of you not giving me shit and taking every ounce of happiness and confidence I find outside of you.”
I shove at his chest, barely causing him to flinch. He grabs my waist and takes several long steps until my shoulder blades hit the wall. He’s too close—heat and tension and familiarity crashing together at once. We’re both breathing hard now.
“Get off me,” I say, but my voice betrays me. So does my body.
I shouldn’t like the way he’s boxing me in, the way he’s acting like a damn brute and trying to bully me into giving him—what? I don’t fucking know because he won’t tell me what he fucking wants.
“What the fuck do you want from me?!” I whisper-yell. The last thing I need is security running in here, or Jesse or Naz asking questions.
“Tell me, Ari,” he says, his low voice a cross between menacing and defeated. “Why him?”
“Why not him?” I goad, pushing against his chest again. “He’s hot,” I say, resorting to just beating at his chest since he’s a goddamned wall. “He’s nice.”
Will is practically vibrating with the tension he’s holding back. I can’t decide if snapping would be a good thing, but the chaos inside me demands to see him break. To show me some kind of weakness or anything other than his stoic bullshit.
“Because he wants me,” I spit. “Because he isn’t afraid to want me or to touch me. Because he doesn’t pretend he can’t see what’s right in front of him.”
Something flashes in Will’s eyes—dark and desperate.
“I see you,” he says between clenched teeth.
“Yeah? Well, what are you going to do about it?”
