Page 20 of Spite Crush

“What?” Zak’s eyes widened as he stared at me.

“Take your shirt off,” I repeated. “If one of us doesn’t move we’re going to stand here all night.”

“Do you just blurt out every thought that pops into your head?” he asked, his tone exasperated. But he did grip the hem of his t-shirt, dragging it up over his head before tossing it to the floor. “Some thoughts are inside thoughts.”

“Really? Well I find it the most expedient course of action sometimes,” I said as I raked my gaze over his muscular chest and well-defined abs. “How exactly does one get a body like that?”

“I pretty much just deny myself any form of pleasure,” he answered.

“Doesn’t sound worth it,” I whispered. I couldn’t stop myself from reaching out and splaying my hands against his chest. His skin felt as if it were on fire beneath my fingers and I almost recoiled in surprise, but his arms snaked around me and pulled me tight against him, plastering my body against all that heat and causing me to feel as if we might burst into flames together at any moment.

“Feels worth it,” he said as one of his hands slid into my hair, his fingers gripping tightly as his face lowered toward mine. “Is this really what you want?”

“A secret tryst with the man who can’t stop insulting me?” My heart was hammering so hard against my chest that there was no way he couldn’t feel it. “Yeah, Dempsey. I want this.”

And then his mouth was on mine and everything else fell away as I lost myself to the feel and taste of his tongue as it slid between my lips.

It seemed as if once that barrier was breached, everything we’d been to each other over the last week crumbled, the hostility changed to lustand we simultaneously seemed to try to crawl inside of each other.

His body pinned mine against the desk, one hand curling under my leg and pulling it from the floor as his hips rutted against me, our erections grinding together through our jeans as I clawed my fingers into his hair, holding him tightly against me, terrified that if he stopped, whatever spell this was would break and we would end up in that awkward phase we’d found ourselves in when he first arrived.

Zak shifted to press hot, wet kisses over my cheek and my throat as he continued to thrust against me.

My hands slid over his broad shoulders and down his hard, muscular back and I moaned when his teeth nipped gently against my collarbone while his palms skimmed up my ribs under my t-shirt.

“Wait,” I said, the word practically an exhale. “We need—”

“I need,” he groaned as he thrust against me again.

“Zak, please,” I begged him, forcing my hands between us andpushing him back a step as I steadied myself again. “We need to talk about this for a minute.”

“You talk too much,” he insisted.

Well, he wasn’t wrong about that.

“Condoms or test results?” I asked him, wanting to clarify before either of us were too far gone to think clearly about what we were doing.

“Oh. Right.” He let out a small chuckle. “Whatever you prefer,” he answered, grabbing his phone from the desk. “We get full physicals and testing every three months, so my results are only about six weeks old.”

“The band does every six months,” I told him as I stared around the room, trying to remember where I’d left my own cell. “My last one was three months ago. But I haven’t been with anyone in over a year, and we used condoms the whole time, if that eases any worry for you.”

Where the hell was my phone? I patted down my pockets as I walked to the nightstand, finding both empty.

“I’d offer to just trust you,” Zak said as he watched me continue to search. “But that’s not veryresponsible. So maybe we should just use a condom.”

“That’s cool,” I agreed, though I continued to sweep my gaze over the room. “Did you bring any?”

Silence stretched and I looked back at him again to see that he’d moved to start looking around as well. So that was probably a no then.

I wasn’t big on random hook ups, so if I wasn’t in a relationship, I tended to forget to keep them on hand. I wasn’t sure what Dempsey’s excuse was, but I was ruining the mood hard enough without alsoblaming him for showing up for sex without bringing condoms with him.

I knelt down and looked under the bed, nearly crying when I caught a glint of light reflecting from my phone screen. I stood and huffed out a sigh as I unlocked it and opened my patient portal up for Zak.

“How—”

“Best not to ask me those kinds of questions,” I interrupted, handing my phone over to him and accepting his in return.

We each took a minute to swipe through, both confirming for ourselvesthat all test results were clean and healthy before swapping phones back again.

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