Page 8 of Sacrifice Bunt

“I have no fucking clue why. I've been nothing but nice to you every time I’ve seen you.”

“You've been nothing but nice to me every time you’ve seen me,” she mocked. “I think you're forgetting about a time.”

“I don't think so.” He racked his brain, trying to remember something, anything he did to annoy her.

“The night of the fire ring any bells?” She threw up her hands.

That had him stopping in his tracks. “Wait a minute, you're mad about the night of the fire? I saved your life. How can you be mad about that?”

“You walked in on me completely naked. You saw all this,” she ran her hands up and down her body, “naked.”

She had him there. “Yeah, you were naked, and I definitely looked, but as soon as that alarm went off, your nakedness was the last thing on my mind. All I wanted to do was get you to safety.”

“I think we would have been fine,” she said as if they hadn’t watched that fire tear through that building in a matter of minutes.

“Now I think you're the one not remembering. That was a bad fire, Zara. Anyone stuck inside would have died within minutes. I got you out of there before the building collapsed around us.”

“And then you left, you just left!” she shouted.

As she shouted at him, everything instantly came back to him, the adrenaline rush of that moment seven years earlier, as well as the memories of his dad, and his need to flee from the situation. Now it just came out as anger.

“What the hell did you want me to do?!” He raised his voice. He wasn’t sure why he was even arguing with her. Except, it stirred that same feeling inside him that he got when they goaded each other.

“Oh, I don't know, maybe stay. Maybe have a conversation. I didn’t even know who you were until years later when I saw you at a game playing with Heath. I had no idea you were a baseball player.”

“I didn't know you either, and it was the same for me. I saw you with Heath at the stadium, and I remembered you as the woman that I'd walked in on naked, and then saved from a fire.”

Both of them were breathing heavily, staring at each other, eyes intense. He wasn't sure who moved first, but in the blink of an eye, she was in his arms, and her mouth was on his. The urgency of the kiss was too much, yet at the same time, not enough. He wanted to consume her, to drink her in so that her taste would never leave his mouth.

She pulled away so fast that he practically got whiplash. Her eyes were wild, but also filled with confusion. “We are not doing this.”

Part of him told him to back off, but a small part, the part he listened to, told him to push her just a little more. Leaning in toward her, he latched onto her neck, nipping and biting the skin there gently. “It sure as hell seems like we're doing this.”

She whimpered. “Why does that feel so good? I cannot be doing this with you.”

He kept going, not letting up, not stopping. This was what he’d wanted for all these years. Zara in his arms, his mouth on her skin, tasting her, touching her. She tipped her head backward, giving him more access to her neck. He moved his mouth back up, finding her lips and taking them with a desperation that he'd felt for too many years. She was right there with him, her hands in his hair, her mouth taking just as much as it gave.

Until she pulled away again. “No,” she shook her head and pressed her lips together tightly. “I don't like you. I don't want to be doing this. I'm not going to do this.” She scooted as far as she could towards the door, crossing both her arms and legs as some sort of shield over her body.

He was torn between pushing her more or listening to her. In the end, he knew he couldn’t or wouldn’t push her, even if he knew deep down that she wanted this. Wanted him. He tried to stop looking at her, keeping his head down, looking at his feet. She confused him to the point of not knowing what came next.

He was never unsure of what came next. He always knew his next move, always had it right there waiting. Except, it seemed, when it came to Zara. This was twice now that she had turned his world upside down, leaving him clueless.

Maybe she was right. Maybe they couldn't do this. As much as he wanted her, it might be time to cut his losses and move on once and for all.

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