Page 39 of Flipping the Script

“Jesus, no.” He sounded genuinely shocked. “I thought you were meeting someone.”

“So you wanted to watch?” Some of the anger left my voice, as did some of my defensiveness.

Another fun part of being a musician was that a lot of people assumed I was into drugs. I liked weed and had indulged in MDMA when I first started in the industry, but I’d never messed with anything else. I’d seen too many lives destroyed—or ended—by drugs to ever let myself get caught up in them.

“Don’t flatter yourself.” His tone was mean as he pushed off the tree and stood straight.

I did the same, my entire body going taut as a weird sort of energy filled me. It wasn’t restlessness or excitement, not exactly. More like anticipation, maybe?

“You saying you don’t find me hot?” I said incredulously.

“Fuck off.”

“You wound me.” I put both hands over my heart. “However will I live knowing you think I’m repugnant?” I dropped my hands. “But not too repugnant. Your dick proved that the other day.”

Why had I brought that up?

The last thing I needed was to think about that right now. I’d spent the last week thinking of little else.

Jesse made a sound that could have been a growl, but not quite, and took a step closer to me. “My dick wasn’t the only one proving things.” He took another step. “You kissed me.”

“You kissed me back.”

Awesome. Even I could hear how childish I sounded.

“I did.” He took another step. Now only about two feet separated us. “But I didn’t start it. You did.”

“It was a lapse,” I shot back. “A mistake. My dick got confused because you unlocked my fighting kink. That’s it.”

“Is it?” He closed the distance between us, stopping when his toes were nearly touching mine, and our chests were close enough to bump if I’d taken a deep breath.

“Yes.” I squared my shoulders, bringing myself up to my full height so I could look him dead in the eyes. “It had nothing to do with you. You just happened to be there.”

His jaw worked as he gritted his teeth. “Next you’re going to tell me you’d have done the same thing with anyone you found yourself rolling around the woods with?”

“Probably not.”

Confusion flashed in his eyes.

Even in the dark, I could clearly see the outline of his features, all the way down to the sprinkling of stubble on his perfect jawline and the little scar above his left eyebrow. He smelled like something earthy and a little spicy, with just a hint of the beer he’d been drinking.

“I doubt anyone else would have pissed me off enough to make me start a fight with them. You bring out the worst in me.”

“Hard same.” He dragged his tongue over his bottom lip.

I tracked the move, my body tightening for a whole different reason.

Fuck. I was attracted to Jesse.

It seemed stupid to only realize that now, but for the past week, I’d been telling myself that whatever happened between us was because of the circumstances. That it had been inevitable after so many years of animosity between us.

But that didn’t explain why I was getting hard just from having him so close now. Why his scent was affecting me as much as the flare of anger in his eyes.

Or maybe it was his anger I was attracted to and it had nothing to do with him?

That fight or wrestling match or whatever the fuck it was had been on my mind all week, and I couldn’t shake it.

I thought about it at work when I was doing mundane things like chores or paperwork, but the worst was at night.

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