Page 21 of Silent Cravings

“I’m beat,” I told him, and I wasn’t lying. I was downright exhausted, and there were still a bunch of emails I needed to follow up on. “You’ll have to have a little fun on your own. But we both know you won’t be on your own for long.” That got him laughing as he headed out.

Noah and Sienna followed him, with Sienna confirming availability for dress fittings in a couple of weeks.

“See you later.” Evan slung his suit jacket over one arm, barely looking my way before joining Colton and Rose on their way out.

Aria and Miles brought up the rear, with Aria stopping to hug me. “Try to get some rest,” she urged, studying me while Miles waited for her by the elevator. “You look exhausted.”

“And you are going to give me a complex about myself,” I retorted before playfully shoving her out into the hall. “IfI end up with a face full of filler before I’m thirty, it’s on you.”

At least it was something to laugh about as I closed and locked the door, leaving me on my own. The loft was almost painfully quiet after being filled with laughter and voices a couple of minutes ago.

I valued my solitude above most things. This was my safe place, my refuge, but there was a thin line between that and loneliness. I didn’t know that line existed until now as I wandered around, picking up glasses and tossing what little was left of the snacks I’d put out. Most of them had someone to go home to. Somebody to be with. I had emails, a vibrator, and what was left of the wine.

A sudden, hard knock at the door startled me into almost dropping a wine glass on the floor. “Lucian, I meant it,” I muttered on my way across the living room. “I’m not in the mood.” I wouldn’t have put it past him to try to convince me to come out, after all.

So, I was in no way prepared to find Evan standing in front of me when I swung the door open. “I left my tie,” he explained. “It’s probably on the chair.”

Dammit. He had a way of knocking me off balance. “Go ahead,” I shrugged, stepping aside so he could enter. He was so overwhelming in every way—his size, not to mention that damn cologne he insisted on wearing. Something he must have worn in the years since we broke up, right? Why had it never mattered as much as it did now when it turned my knees to jelly?

“You know,” I told him, turning to watch him fish for his tie in the space between the arm of the chair and the cushion. “I could have brought you the tie whenever you wanted. You didn’t need to come back up for it.”

“I figured I was still downstairs and might as well grabit.” He pulled out a length of navy blue silk and folded it neatly before tucking it inside his jacket pocket.

“Are you sure that wasn’t just an excuse to come back up here?” And it was. Time might have passed, but I could still see through him. Just like I could when I was sampling those dishes at his country club. He might as well have written his thoughts across his high forehead.

“Do you ever get tired of busting balls?” He tossed his jacket over the back of the chair before his brows knitted together. “I wanted to clear things up after Wednesday. I shouldn’t have thrown all that shit at you when I jumped you like that.”

For once, we were clearing the air after an argument. Did this qualify as growth? “It’s not your fault. I was messing with you, which you know,” I admitted when he scowled. “You were right to call me out. I don’t know why I wanted so much to tease you the way I did.”

That was all it took. One little admission.

The air in the room shifted until it crackled with energy. “I know why,” he told me in a low voice full of danger, taking one slow step after another in my direction.

Red flags waved in my head. “Wait a second.”

Either he didn’t hear me, or he didn’t care. “Why don’t you make up your mind?” he asked, stalking me like he was the hunter and I was the prey. I couldn’t deny the heat racing its way up my spine, making my breath come shorter and ragged. “Either you want me, or you don’t. And we both know you do. Why are you hell-bent on pretending otherwise?”

There was a plain answer to that question, but I didn’t want to get into it. Not now, not when the sight of his lustful stare stirred unspeakable heat in my core.

No, this couldn’t happen. If I didn’t trust him with thetruth, how could I trust him with my body?Because he’s so damn good at it.

Feelings and sex didn’t have to go hand in hand. The best sex was usually with the person it would be the worst idea to get serious with.

Just this one more time.

What would it hurt?

I knew before he reached me it was always going to be this way. We couldn’t be in the same room anymore without this explosion of heat, the sort that made a girl want to take her clothes off. I was wet by the time he ran the backs of his fingers down my cheek, my body already prepared and hungry for what I knew he would give me. Escape. Release. I didn’t know how much I craved them until now when his touch promised so much. No way would I risk losing it by telling him exactly why we were probably making a mistake by doing this.

“Not upstairs,” I whispered, taking him by the hand and pulling him to the chair he sat in earlier and probably hid his tie in so he’d have a reason to come back.

Dropping his pants and black boxer shorts, I shoved him down and then straddled him. If we were going to do this, it would happen my way.

I pulled the foil wrapper from his grasp and tore it open with my teeth before rolling it along his swollen cock.

“What are you doing to me?” he hissed in the instant before we kissed.

He thought I was doing something to him? He was the one making me doubt everything I ever thought I knew, wanted, or believed about myself. He made me throw everything I remembered out the window in favor of scratching an itch only he could reach.

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