“Fuck you, Slade.”
Shit.
“I knew I should’ve left you at the bar with Jennifer. Maybe if you’d gone home with her, you would’ve enjoyed the rest of the evening.”
Atticus spun on his heel and marched off. Slade went after him.
“Atticus, wait.”
He didn’t.
“Goddammit.”
Slade followed Atticus to his bedroom. He managed to put one foot inside before Atticus attempted to slam the door in his face.
“I’m sorry,” he blurted. “I …fuck.”
“I’m not in the mood to listen to your regrets tonight, Slade.”
“I don’t have any regrets.”
What he had was a shit-ton of confusion. He wanted to hate Carson. He damn sure didn’t want to lust after the man. And while he’d tried to chalk it up to being in the moment and doing whatever it took to have Atticus, he knew that wasn’t true.
Atticus gave up on trying to shut the door, so Slade followed him into the room. He took it in, noticing that it looked exactly the same as before Atticus moved in. There was nothing of Atticus’s that he could see. Not on the dresser or the nightstand. Not even a phone charger.
“I’m sorry,” Slade said again. “About last night. About now.”
“I don’t need your apologies.” Atticus exhaled as he sat on the bed. “What I need is to understand what the fuck is going on here.”
“What do you mean?”
Atticus looked up at him, and his expression was rife with incredulity.
Well, hell.
Looked like they were going to talk about this after all.
***
Slade wasn’t dense, so Atticus wondered whythe man was acting clueless.
Fine, perhaps Atticus was being a bit high maintenance for wanting to talk about what happened this morning, but he couldn’t help it. He’d spent the entire day thinking about it, wondering if it was a one-time thing or something that could potentially continue.
And in between, he was trying to figure out if he’d lost his ever-loving mind because he’d enjoyed Slade fucking him while Carson watched. He’d enjoyed it more than he’d enjoyed anything else in his entire pathetic life. Hence, the need to hash it out because Atticus wasn’t convinced it was real. Maybe it had been a really good dream. At one point this morning, he’d almost talked himself into believing that. Fortunately for him, he had some familiar aches that told him he’d definitely had sex this morning.
“What compelled you to fuck me this mornin’?” Atticus asked, needing answers because Slade wasn’t giving him anything to go on. They’d spent the day in the same office, and Slade hadn’t looked at him once.
Slade’s brown eyes glittered with heat. Something Atticus noticed happened anytime they were in the same room together. At least when Slade wasn’t trying to avoid him.
“You’re pretty damn impossible to resist,” Slade said, but his tone didn’t make it sound like a compliment.
“Did you even think about the fact Carson was there?”
“I…” Slade swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing slowly in his throat. “I was aware, yeah.”
“But it didn’t stop you.” It was more of an accusation than a question, but Atticus let the words dangle between them, wanting Slade to own up to what happened.
“No.” Slade’s gaze shifted to his feet. “It didn’t stop me.”
