Page 9 of The Worst Man

I wanted him to make me feel good. There were literally no words to explain how badly I wanted that. I was one hundred percent certain that if there were any man in the world who would know how to touch me in a way that made me lose control, it was Hank Talbot. After all, he’d already made me toss my inhibitions to the curb once tonight with our earlier drinking contest.

But still, I hesitated. This was so out of character for him.

Hell, it was completely out of character for me. I wasn’t the woman rich, handsome men propositioned for a one-night stand. Because yes, I knew that’s what this was. If I slept with him, I didn’t expect any grand declarations of love when we woke up in the morning. That was assuming he even stayed that long. Hank struck me as the love ‘em and leave ‘em type.

“You don’t think I’m serious, do you?”

I licked my lips and shook my head. “I think we’re both drunk and horny, and while I understand why any woman would want to scratch her itch with all that—” I flicked my wrist up and down as if to encompass the whole delicious package “—I don’t know why you’d want me. You could have had anyone tonight, including Natasha. It doesn’t make sense.” I felt my eyebrows dipping into a confused frown and I forced them back up my forehead. Just because I didn’t understand it didn’t mean I should provide him with any reminders of how I paled in comparison to our gorgeous colleague. Literally. I was so white my legs practically glowed when I wore shorts.

“But I don’t want Natasha. I want you.”

“But why?” I demanded, feeling my emotions rise and threatening to boil over. The longer this conversation went on, and the more he avoided answering my questions, the more I feared that this really wasn’t about me. That I was nothing more than a convenient vessel.

Hank blew out a breath and pinched the bridge of his nose. Looking up into the night sky, he murmured something under his breath. He shook his head and then dropped his face forward, spearing me with a heated gaze I’d never seen on him before. “You’re a smart woman, Miranda. Have you really not figured it out by now?”

Wait, what? He wasn’t making any sense. “I’ve also had a lot to drink tonight, so why don’t you spell it out for me. Slowly. And don’t use big words.”

His lips quirked up into a small smile. “That’s more your style, wouldn’t you say?”

I smiled back shyly. “Yeah.” That was one of the things we frequently sniped at each other about. He liked to accuse me of showing off my vocabulary, and I’d counter that he was just upset because he had a stilted one. None of it was true, of course, but the banter was still engaging and fun. With that realization, my smile intensified. “I love arguing with you.”

He took a step forward and grabbed ahold of my hand. Slowly, he lifted it to his lips and then kissed the inside of my wrist, his tongue flicking out at the last second, causing my knees to buckle. “I know.” He winked at my reaction. “It’s my favorite part of the day, fighting with you.”

“I’m so confused right now,” I admitted, pressing my other palm to my forehead and shaking my head.

“What can I do to convince you this isn’t about fucking for me?” His eyes sparkled with earnesty in the glow of the hundreds of neon lights surrounding us.

“Well, it is a little bit about fucking,” I said, reminding him how this conversation had begun in the first place.

His lips quirked to the side for a brief second in a shadow of a smile, and then his head spun on his shoulders to look back at the building behind us. When he turned back to me, my breath got caught in my throat. I couldn’t say exactly what it was, but in the last few seconds, his expression had taken on a new quality. He was still devastatingly handsome, of course, but he appeared resolute in a way I’d never seen before. “You want me to prove how serious I am about this?”

My eyes bounced between his, searching for clarity. “What are you doing?” I asked, equal parts excitement and dread mixing in my belly.

He canted his head toward the chapel’s front door. “I’m asking you to walk in there with me.”

“Why?” I both feared and longed for his answer. Feared, because this was absolutely insane. He was insane. I couldn’t marry him. We hated each other. Didn’t we? And yet, I longed for someone to have finally lose their fucking mind over me, too. To feel such intense passion that they were willing to do something so crazy, so momentous, that our lives would be forever changed for it. For once, I wanted to be the girl who brought a boy to his knees. In this case, figuratively.

In a moment of startling clarity, I realized that I wanted the grand gesture. I yearned for it with such a deep, overwhelming sense of need that I was truly considering this mad scheme. All he had to do was say the words.

“Why?” he parroted my question back to me, his voice dropping to a low, seductive purr. “Because I’m mad about you, Miranda, and if making you Mrs. Hank Talbot is what it’ll take to get you to agree to come home with me tonight, then that’s what I’m prepared to do.”

“You’re mad about me?” I asked, a wide, happy smile splitting my face. I wasn’t the woman men went mad for. I was the one they went on two or three dates with before emailing me to say that as lovely as I was, they just weren’t feeling it but they’d love to stay friends. Forever a bridesmaid, and never a bride.

Hank nodded and chewed on his bottom lip. He dropped his face forward and his hand speared through his tousled hair. With an air of sheepishness that tinged his cheeks pink, he finally said, “For about a year now.”

That was certainly news to me. If anything, our squabbles had become even more pronounced since the start of the school year. “What changed?”

“David and Victoria pointed out that all of my complaining about you might actually be masking a deeper emotion. One that was very different than the loathing I claimed to feel.”

I felt my jaw going slack. David Carstairs was another professor in our department, and Hank’s best friend. I sometimes felt bad for David having to witness our infighting, but Thackeray College’s faculty lounge was notoriously small. While I didn’t enjoy my colleagues witnessing our disputes, it seemed better to conduct them behind lock and key than to air our dirty laundry in the hallways where our students might overhear.

“What type of emotion?” I asked, the question coming out in a breathless rush. Knowing that he’d been thinking of me as something other than an angry shrew for a year now did something crazy in the pit of my stomach.

He took a step closer and cupped my cheeks in his large, warm palms. His eyes flicked between mine, and what I saw there made my heart gallop in my chest. With a certainty I’d never had before, I understood that these weren’t just words, meant to seduce me into his bed. Hank didn’t hate me. What he felt was something far more potent than that.

“I think you know,” he said, bringing his lips to mine again in a soft press of flesh on flesh. “Come inside the chapel with me, Miranda, and let me prove just how crazy I am about you.” He kissed me fully then, and I opened my mouth to him to let his tongue inside to dance against my own.

His hands coasted up my face and into my hair. Dimly, I became aware of him wrapping it around his fist. He tugged on it gently, and my head fell back with a moan. At least I think that sound had come from me. It was hard to tell with his teeth scraping against my pulse.

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