I sigh heavily, wondering when I can get out of here. Do I really have to do lunch? Can’t I just, I don’t know…go home and veg on the couch with a big bag of Cheetos or something?
“She’s really had enough,” I hear Aaron mutter.
“Of me or the flowers?” Tyler responds with a chuckle.
“Both.”
“She just can’t get over us. That’s the problem, mate.”
And with that, I snap.
“Excuse me a moment.” I turn on my heel and stalk to the back of the store. That asshole—I don’t know who the hell he thinks he is. Where does he get off making me look like a fool in front of my best friend and her fiancé?
She can’t get over us. Ha! What bullshit. I think the only person who needs to get over it is him, because he’s the one who keeps bringing it up. And the damn asshole can take me from turned on to pissed off in the space of twenty minutes. Hell, if I gave him sixty seconds, he could probably do it in that, too.
Of course, the idea that I could go and cool off alone is totally fucking absurd because I can hear the prick behind me.
Tyler grabs my arm and tugs me into what looks like an office. He closes the door behind us and spins me into him. “You really are a feisty little thing, aren’t you?”
“Fuck you, asshole.” I glare up at him, shaking his hand from my arm and stepping back.
“Damn, Liv. Why don’t you tell me how you really feel?” he says with a smirk.
“Why? So it can go right over your egotistically enlarged head?”
“I might consider it for a moment. Actually, on second thought, you’re right. I won’t pay any attention.”
“You are the most arrogant, self-entitled, patronizing bastard I’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting in my life,” I hiss anyway. “And before you mention the pleasure, because you inevitably will, you should know the displeasure far outweighs the measly amount of pleasure you’ve given me.”
Tyler’s eyes darken, and he closes in on me, grabbing the back of my head and pulling me into him. His fingers thread through my hair and tug my head back so I’m looking at him. “Measly bit of pleasure? Didn't seem so small when you were screaming my name and begging for more.”
“Clearly you’ve never watched When Harry Met Sally. That movie taught a woman everything she needs to know about faking it.”
He presses his lips to mine in a crash of teeth and a tangle of tongue. He grips my hip and forcefully pulls me toward him, his grasp on my hair never easing as he sweeps his tongue through my mouth. The zinging tension of earlier is back, except this time it’s worse and it’s swirling around us and holding us together. Holding his mouth against mine, our bodies flush together.
My anger swiftly changes to desire at the feel of his teeth nibbling my bottom lip, and a whimper involuntarily leaves me when he pulls away.
“I don’t believe for a second you fake it, Liv.” He ghosts his nose along my jawline. “I can feel the realness of your reaction in your body. I saw it earlier—I felt it earlier. My fingers barely brushed your gorgeous arse and you moved away as if I’d run them along your pussy. Your body responds to me whether you want it to or not, and it does it so clearly. So obviously.”
“My body is a liar,” I breathe when he lightly sucks on my earlobe.
“Much like you.” His words are spoken again my skin with a gentle brush of his lips.
“My dislike of you is no lie, Tyler.”
“Your body didn’t get the memo, babe. Your body likes me. A fucking lot.”
“My body is deluded.”
He kisses down my neck to my pulse point, where he pauses and sucks lightly. I swallow my gasp. He slides his hand around to my ass and cups it, his fingers flexing against the material of my jeans before he brings his mouth back to my ear.
“Your body is smarter than you think.”
“My body operates on base desire. I operate on common sense.” Something which appears to be evading me right this second.
“Evidently. Your body has been responding to me all day, while your mouth has been fighting me.” He kisses a slow, lazy path up my neck. “Why do you fight me, Liv? You should know it’s pointless. You should know that, if I wanted to slip my hand down the back of these jeans and slide my fingers inside your pussy, I would. And you know you wouldn’t stop it.”
Tyler’s breath is warm against my lips, and he releases his grip on my hair, instead dropping his hand to my neck and curving his fingers around it.
I feel the truth of his words. Despite how annoyed I am at him, how he riles me, he’s right. Our arguing is like an odd form of foreplay that affects us both.