Page 52 of I Want to Know What Love Is

“For which one of us?”

My head screams at me to back away, to slap him, to fling an icy barb in his face, but I have nothing. Not one damned thing comes to my mind because I feel like I’m drowning in the deep dark intense look in his eyes that’s too real to insult with anything but the truth.

“Both of us.”

I touch him first. He’s so close, my hand goes to his chest all on its own. But I don’t push him away. I caress the sure, strong and fast thudding of his heart.

He closes in, pulling me into his arms as he lowers his face to mine. I breathe him in, his minty breath, his musky maleness. But he doesn’t kiss me, he only presses his forehead against mine, smooths his hand down my back and presses his fingers into my ass, moving our bodies together until his cock is squeezed against the v between my thighs, our hips clenched tight. I should push him away, but my arms go around his neck instead and then his lips find mine.

The sweet hot feel of those sensual lips against mine stun me and my mouth opens to him. Everything in me opens like a blooming flower as I taste him and he runs his tongue across mine, everywhere, exploring and intimate and holding nothing back. My heart slams my chest and I hear nothing but the blood roaring and pulsing and my breathing, his breathing growing harsher and faster. He bites into the flesh of my bottom lip, a gentle nibble, a branding, and then he lets my mouth go.

“We’re so fucked,” he says, the heat in his words could be passion or concern or both. I gather myself and push back from him in spite of the needy throbbing of my pussy. His hands drop away from me and my body regrets the move instantly.

“We?” I say, rejecting the reality he’s painted because it can’t be. “You mean you, separately, because we’re not sharing … anything. We can’t.”

“Except Finance 101.” He licks his lips as if he’s still tasting me and my pussy cries for me to take him and drag him home. “And your fucking ex-fiancée’s wedding weekend. Because I want—no I need—the chance to figuratively gut punch the sucker into a lower tax-bracket where it’ll hurt him most. I want to make his future father-in-law wish I was the one marrying his daughter.”

I groan, because he could probably do it. And cue the painful squeeze in my chest. But I haven’t lost my mind, so I regroup and call on my lazy survival instincts to man up.

“You’re adorable—”

“Don’t say that.” He moves in on me close and all barriers and pretense of there being nothing but impossibilities between us, vanishes.

“Dylan…” I stop because I don’t know what to say, his intense dark eyes filled to the brim with feelings, the same kind of feelings mirrored in mine, complex and weighed down with the flash of sensual need. I push away from him and he lets me go, but I watch the pulse in his neck jump, the tick in his jaw. Then god help me, my eyes are drawn to the long hard jutting cock standing his gym shorts to attention and the sight, everything it stands for, all the desire all the need to be desired, nearly makes my knees bend, nearly makes my will bend.

He doesn’t hide his erection or his need. With no shame in his voice, that smirk on his lips and the glossy pool of desire in his eyes he says, voice trembling with a quiet determined roar.

“I’m done pretending that there’s nothing between us. Done pretending we can deal with it by ignoring it, forgetting it or willing whatever this chemistry is to disappear. Because it should be obvious to you by now that it’s not going away, that the more we ignore it, the stronger it gets.”

“That’s impossible,” I rasp the words, low and shaky. He reaches a sure hand out to caress my cheek, his smirk changing to a tender smile.

“Seems that way, sha. I know. But ask me two months ago if I thought I’d be standing here with a boner, insisting that I need to be inside you and I would have called you couyon.” I turn my head away at his raw admission, breaking the contact of his hand even as I shudder, even as my core swells with need, the kind that gnaws at reason.

I step away in a heart-wrenching act of defiance because I’m the mature adult, aren’t I? That’s what I console myself with when his face goes cold to cover up the hurt. He’s quick, but I still see it and I wish to fucking hell I hadn’t, wish I didn’t know how hurtful I’ve been, that I need to be.

“We’re done with tutoring,” I say, looking him in the eye. He nods, backs away, but keeps his eyes on me.

“It won’t matter. I’ll still see you. In my dreams and I’ll still want you.”

I answer him with my eyes, shiny with regret and misery and acknowledgment that he’ll be in my dreams too. I can’t bring myself to admit it in words. I’ve already done enough harm, should never have teetered so close to…

“You should go now.” Before I change my mind and lose all control because I can feel it busting loose, all the lust and want and need and more that I don’t want to think about because it’s too much. I step away from the door and gesture toward the door. Then I turn away from him.

“I’ll see you around,” he says, but I don’t look at him. I stare out the dark window of my office like a coward telling myself I’m being smart, doing the right thing, the only thing, because there’s no choice, is there? But my churning gut and the tears streaming down my face don’t know about the right thing or the smart thing. The twisting in my chest doesn’t feel right or smart and I shut my eyes against the disorientation and let the fear and my survival instincts rule me, killing my heart with a long thorough stab as I hear the door click closed and feel the vacuum of his departure, the emptiness where his energy was a few seconds ago.

Chapter Twenty-One

Dylan

By the time I get back to BMOC House, the nausea has past, but the tightness in my chest is cemented in and the stabbing sensation through my shoulder blades feels like a permanent guest. As much as I try, climbing the back stairs on the way to the haven and privacy of my room where I plan to un-stash the bottle of emergency Baton Rouge Louisiana Bourbon given to me by Grandpa when I first left for St. Paul U. He said I might need it at some point along my growing up journey. I’ve decided this is the point.

“Hey, what’s up?” Shelby catches me as he’s coming down the stairs, no doubt to grab a snack from the kitchen to feed his insatiable need for fuel.

I look at him, trying to keep the emotion from my eyes and the tragedy in my heart shuttered from him. But maybe because I can’t make myself say any words, he knows there’s something. Does he know I’m about to fall apart? Probably not. And I scream at myself that I can’t fall apart, not over a woman—one I’ve never even had, who I’ve never shared more than a kiss with. That makes no sense. The picture of my dad rears up and I push past my friend, anger rearing up to swarm to my rescue.

“What the fuck?” Shelby turns around and follows me to my room. I don’t bother trying to keep him out. “What’s going on? Someone die?” He’s not joking, but I don’t answer him.

I open the freezer door to my small fridge/freezer and pull out the bottle of bourbon that I’ve been saving, break the seal and grab two glasses.