Page 80 of Butterfly Effect

He studies the sink. “I don’t bring anyone to my home. Only hotels,” he admits. “And they leave once they get what they want.”

There’s an unfamiliar longing in the darks of his eyes. My heart clenches.

“Girls don’t stay here,” he adds.

“I stay here, and I’m a girl.”

Wade denies it, crossing his arms across that broad, chiseled chest and leaning against the doorframe. “Not some girl.”

The edge of my mouth curls into a sneer as cool water rushes over my palms. “Right.”

He doesn’t blink. “Gabe.”

I push past him back to the bedroom and unsuccessfully try to free myself of the lacing on the back of my dress.

“Are you always this defiant?” Wade lightly taps away my hands and loosens the ties. The chiffon falls away. He pulls a soft white shirt out of God-knows-where and fits it over my head, guiding my limbs and covering my sudden nakedness.

“And if I am?”

“That’s too bad,” he murmurs. “No worries, I’ll find new ways to make you succumb.”

“You’re so full of yourself.” It’s aggravating, and somehow,I’mthe one climbing into his bed and tucking myself in. What the fuck am I doing?

It’s too late, and I’m too stubborn to back down. I have pride!

Or something.

“Try me.” Wade shimmies below the covers and notches himself into the crook of my neck. He positions me around him, placing my arm over his shoulder and hooking my leg around his. “And don’t lie and say that doesn’t feel good.”

I don’t argue. I don’t fight him. He’s warm and firm. His heartbeat is steady against mine. Those strong fingers thread through my hair and massage hypnotic circles into my scalp.

Good? Yes.

What’s worse is that it feelsright.

Stop it. It’s only sex, Gabe. Sex with aftercare.

“I still hate you.”

“Hate me all you want, but don’t move,” he warns. “You accept my apology?”

Our breaths grow long and slow.

“Yeah,” I say selfishly. He has nothing to be sorry for. I should be apologizing for being a dick the whole evening.

Wade hums into my skin. “You’re the only woman who’s ever stayed the night, Gabe Finch.”

I am in the deepest of shit.

Pretending like I didn’t sleep with Wade Boehner again is proving difficult. Pretending I didn’t feel something this time, too? Even more difficult.

Mostly because he wouldn’t stop texting me while we were separated this week, but partially because I just let him eat me out in the backseat of his new SUV.

“You didn’t have to pick me up.”

“What kind of boyfriend would I be if I didn’t?”

Wade didn’t need to know I was relieved by not having to drive the hour-and-half from Toronto to Kitchener alone after a long flight from Florida. Or that I kinda felt bad that he came down from Ottawa simply to get me.

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