Page 72 of Strike Zone

I graze my hand down her side before guiding her hand to my crotch. “If you need evidence of what you do to me, this is it.” She gasps, turning her head to avoid my gaze. “Say it, Diana. Tell me it doesn’t make you angry to think of another woman finding pleasure in this.”

Her fingers trace the length and girth of my erection. “It won’t change anything.”

“Say it. Once. I need to know.”

“It makes me physically sick to think of you with another woman. There. I said it. Now, can you leave?”

“Not yet.” I lift my hand from hers, but she continues to press against my straining cock. I ghost my lips up her neck, so close I can feel her pulse racing. “Do you know why I know it bothers you?”

“Because I’m sad and pathetic.”

“Wrong. I know because I feel nothing but rage when I think of another man putting his hands on you. Of him claiming you, tasting your arousal, and having everything I want and can’t have.”

“You don’t mean that. I’m not your charity case or your chance for a do-over of your childhood.” Fucking hell. I opened myself up to her in a way I’ve never done with anyone else, and she uses it to push me away.

I drop my forehead against my arm before forcing myself to walk away. If I don’t, I’ll say something I regret or kiss her with wild abandon until she forgets everything and everyone except us.

“I can’t believe you threw that in my face. I trusted you with something honest and raw, and you twisted it, using it against me because you’re scared you might actually want me. Or that I, in return, might crave you with every breath I take.”

“Linc.”

“Diana, I’m going to go home, and I’ll call you in the morning.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“What? Leave or talk to you tomorrow?”

“Both.”

“If I don’t leave now, I’m going to kiss you, strip you, and fuck you. Are you ready for that, Diana? Because once I sink balls deep inside you and make love to you until you don’t remember your own name, there’s no going back. Friendship won’t be enough, and our pretense of ‘it was only fucking’ will crumble.”

I wait an eternity for her to say the word. Give me the green light. Tell me she wants me too.

“I can’t lose you. You’re my best friend.”

“Friend?” The word is a dagger to my heart. I’m the bladesmith of my own destruction. I handed her the knife with friendship emblazoned on the sheath, and tonight, I put the point of the blade over my heart. I never expected her to push it into my chest.

“Yes.”

“Okay. Then I’ll see you around… friend. Let’s just call tonight a drunken mistake.” I lean in, pressing my lips to hers in a gentle, chaste kiss, the taste of her lip balm lingering as I savor the moment. I don’t push my luck, but it takes everything inside me not to deepen the kiss. In the end, I pull away and head for the door, the way I did that first night in Vegas. She didn’t want me then, and she doesn’t want me now.

When will I stop torturing myself?

I have to walk away tonight, knowing that the only thing more painful than leaving would be staying.

Chapter Sixteen

DIANA

What am I so afraid of? I let Linc walk out of here an hour ago, and I’ve been staring at my bedroom ceiling this entire time, replaying our conversation over and over in my mind. I can’t believe I was so careless with his heart. It makes me physically sick to know that I used what he told me about his childhood to put a wall between us again.

I have to apologize. I need to tell him that I can’t stand the thought of losing him, not just as a friend or the father to our unborn child, but as—I’m afraid to even think it or let myself dream.

The one day I need to leave the house quickly, and I can’t find my damn keys. I search high and low. Fucking pregnancy brain! They’re nowhere to be found. Not in my purse or the bedroom. I pull apart my closet, wondering if I laid them down while I was trying on every outfit I own or at the least the ones that still fit me. I strip the bed and shake out the pillowcases. If there’s a harebrained possibility of somewhere I’ve misplaced them, I’m checking it. By the time I scour the living room and toss all the cushions on the floor, I give up.

There’s a concierge in the building—how bad could it be to leave the door unlocked for an hour? I need to see Linc, and I’m afraid if I wait, I’ll talk myself out of it. Telling Brooke that I’m pregnant was nothing compared to the anguish of imagining Linc with another woman. If I don’t go to him now, I might be too late. I’ve been in this place once before with him, and last time, I ran. I made the wrong decision, and I’ve regretted it every day since. Why can’t I let myself be happy?

In my haste and apparent loss of spatial awareness due to growing a human, I stub my toe on one of the barstools at my kitchen island on my way to the door. “Son of a mother!” Hopping on one foot, holding the other, I let fly a string of expletives, quickly followed by a terrified scream when my front door bursts open.

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