“You wouldn’t dare.” She tried to shove him back, but he didn’t budge.
Heat flashed behind his eyes. “Try me.”
Her lower belly clenched at his words, remembering the way he’d spanked her over her kitchen table, and she barely resisted rubbing up against that scorching-hot flesh still pressed between her thighs. “So what? We’re still doing this?” She bit her lip, hated the strain in her voice, the need he had to have heard. Idiot.
He squeezed her ass. “I just need a couple days. That’s all. I have… There’s something I need to finalize, something that requires my entire focus. Believe me, no one will be happier than me when it’s over.”
She wanted to question him further, ask him about the shirt in his bathroom. Tell him what an asshole he’d been, that she didn’t deserve to be treated that way. But he chose that moment to bury his face against her throat and scrape his teeth against her skin, nipping then sucking away the sting, and the words got stuck in her throat.
“I’ve been going out of my mind, baby.”
He ground against her again, and she moaned, circling her hips, reaching for the release that was already so close just from having him pressed against her. God, she was pathetic, weak. She let her head fall back against the warm steel behind her in an attempt to ground herself, to regain some common sense. But her body didn’t give a flying fuck about common sense—it cried out to have him inside her again.
“Say you’ll wait, Alex. Say that you’ll give me a couple days.”
Right then, she couldn’t remember her own name, let alone the reasons this wasn’t a good idea. All her doubts were dissolving into a puddle at his feet. Then his mouth was on hers, and she was burning from the inside out. His tongue met hers, and she felt each sensual slide, each wild thrust between her quivering thighs. The world vanished around her. Her body didn’t want anything to do with logic, it wanted Deacon, his hands, his mouth, his cock inside her.
He pulled back, kissing her jaw, her neck, that spot below her ear. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. Her chest squeezed. Yeah, she was still pissed, hurt after what happened, the way he’d acted, but maybe… “For canceling our plans. God, I missed you.”
What? She froze. His words were like a bucket of ice water dumped on her head.
No “sorry for doubting you, for believing you could be sleeping with someone else behind my back.” No “sorry for letting you walk away and making you feel like the worthless whore that asshole had mistaken you for.” And no explanation for the time he suddenly needed or why there was a shirt in his bathroom covered in pink goddamn lipstick.
She shoved his shoulders, hard. “That’s what you’re sorry for? You can’t think of anything else? Nothing?”
“Alex…”
“Jesus, you really are nothing but a self-centered asshole, aren’t you?”
He’d stilled but kept his arms around her, not letting her push him away. “Talk to me, don’t fucking push me away, and don’t shut me out.”
Shut him out? He was the one keeping secrets and acting like a jerk.
This might be nothing but a business deal to him, but it wasn’t to her, not anymore. She’d tried to keep her emotions out of it, but she’d failed, miserably. There was no point denying it anymore. She wanted what he would never give her.
Deacon had been ashamed of her. So ashamed the woman he’d been seen out with over the last two weeks had been pegged as some high-class call girl that he’d canceled their dinner plans to avoid more embarrassment. He could give her all the excuses he wanted, but that was the real reason. To him, she would never be good enough. And that hurt. A lot.
The couple of days he needed were more than likely to cover his ass, in case the asshole Deacon had assaulted spilled his guts and all the nice people he’d introduced her to as his date thought they’d been breaking bread with Deacon’s whore.
The expression on his face when he’d let her walk out of his apartment was stuck in her head.
She’d given him a chance, an opening to admit he cared, and he hadn’t taken it. Because he didn’t feel that way about her. All he felt for her was lust. She was good enough to fuck, but only when it didn’t get in the way of business.
And she’d stupidly gone to him that morning, ready to spill her guts, to yak up all the feelings she’d kept locked in her heart for so long. She’d trusted him. Something she didn’t do lightly.
“Let me go.” He didn’t, he held on tighter.
“Talk to me.”
She shoved at his shoulders. “I said let me the fuck go.”