“Fuck.Kasey, you have to work with me here.”
I shake my head. No. “A week,” I plead. “Let me forget for a week.”
He moves his hands to either side of my face, leaning in until we’re only an inch apart, our foreheads almost touching.
“No. You can’t go down that path or you might not come back.”
“I don’t care,” I wail.
“I do.”
Tears spill from my eyes and hopelessness slams into me. “I hate you,” I tell him. “I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.”
“I hate you, too,” he tells me, but the way he says it doesn’t sound like he’s telling me he hates me at all. It sounds like he’s saying something else entirely.
“I don’t want to feel like this anymore.” I don’t want to feel at all.
“I know, baby. I know. If I could make the pain go away, I would. Fuck, I’d do anything to make it go away right now.”
There’s that endearment again. I know it means nothing. He’s just being nice to me. Using comforting words, but what if it's more than that? Or what if it can be more than that? At least for a little while.
I reach for him, shifting in his lap. “Please.”
He holds me tight against his chest. “Anything, Kasey. Help me out here. What will make it bearable right now? This very moment? What else can I do? I can’t see you like this and not do something. I have to do something.”
I don’t let myself think about it. I lean back in his embrace and when he tilts his chin down to look at me, his eyes full of concern, I kiss him.
He responds immediately, his hold shifting until he’s grasping the side of my neck and angling me for a deeper kiss. Hot. Desperate. I pour everything I’m feeling into that kiss. My hurt. The pain. The anger over it all.
Our teeth clash. Our tongues duel. He slides his fingers into my hair and devours my mouth. There is no other way to describe it, and the longer he kisses me, the further the pain fades into the background. It’s still there, lurking in the shadows of my mind. I’m not naive enough to think kissing Dominique will make it go away forever, but it helps. It gives me something else to think about. Something else to feel.
But, I need more.
I shift until I’m straddling his lap and rock myself against him.
He groans, breaking the kiss. “Kasey...”
I see my own need reflected back in his eyes. He wants this just as much as I do. We may not get along. Hell, we might even hate each other, but this, this he can do. This will help.
“Are you sure?”
My eyes narrow and I shift on his lap, grinding against the hard-on he’s sporting beneath me. That should be his answer.
“Fuck.”
He captures my mouth again. After that, it’s a flurry of frenzied movements as we tear at one another’s clothes.
He lifts my shirt off and cups my breast through the thin lace of my bra. I arch closer to his touch, throwing my head back as he squeezes me in his hand.
“We should move,” he mumbles against my lips, but I don’t let that deter me. I slide my hand into his sweats, wrapping my fingers around him and giving him a firm stroke.
“Jesus Christ,” he hisses.
The next thing I know he’s on his feet, my legs wrapped around him. He carries me to his room, closes the door behind him, and then tosses me on his bed, my back sinking into the soft mattress. He doesn’t miss a beat. In a flash, he’s on me. His powerful body pressing firmly against mine.
He kisses me again and I gasp, his tongue seeking out my own and sliding into my mouth. I moan. He tastes so good. Like coffee and spice. His shirt rubs against my skin and I immediately hate it. I don’t want anything between us. I need to feel his skin on mine.
I claw at his shirt until he relents and tugs it over his head. Then I reach for the waistband of his sweats.
