But I’m not poetic and I don’t care and my want for him is only primal.
I move behind him and he is still and quiet and he knows someone is here, but he doesn’t ask who. The muscles of his back and shoulders are broad beneath my fingertips. He is sweaty and hard and all man.
The truth is Rory doesn’t disgust me.
Not even a little bit.
I lean down to whisper in his ear.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Saint?”
“You can dispense with the games, Scarlett.”
“How’d you know it was me?” I pout.
“For starters, that door isn’t soundproof.”
Heat spreads across my cheeks, and my fingers dig into his back. He wasn’t supposed to hear any of that.
“And what else?” I ask.
“Ye’re the only woman in the world who smells this way.”
It doesn’t sound like a compliment and his voice is odd.
He’s trying to ice me out and fuck him.
My fingers reach around his waist and down to his shorts. But he grabs my wrist and pulls it away.
“I don’t know if I want to do this anymore,” he says.
And this is not the game I wanted to play. My voice is hollow when I try to joke with him.
“Writing me off already? Thought you’d at least make it to the final inning.”
“It’s not a game to me, Scarlett,” he says. “But it is to you. And the thing is…”
He pauses for a moment, and his shoulders flex when he pulls the towel from his face, allowing me to see him.
“I could really care about you,” he says. “And I want to. But not if you can’t do the same.”
I’m prepared to lie to him.
But when I open my lips, the words don’t come out the way they usually do.
Something is tugging on that line inside of me now. Pulling me away from Rory to a place where I can be myself again. Where nothing changes and everything stays the same.
But I’m not about to let go of him without leaving claw marks first.
That’s my excuse for climbing onto his lap and kissing him.
I don’t go straight for the lips. I grab his face and pepper him all over the jaw and the throat and I taste his sweat with my tongue and he groans. When I do press my lips against his, he’s still trying to hold out on me.
But I’m soft with him, the way he likes, and then I’m hard. His lips part and they are cold and they have never tasted so good.
He gives in, just like I knew he would.
It’s a victory and I want to celebrate but it feels wrong now. The way he’s kissing me and resenting me at the same time.
