Page 67 of The Rogue

“I’m not being possessive. I’m being protective. You don’t know this bar. And this isn’t you.”

That was a lie. A lie. A lie. But he couldn’t tell her the truth.

“I’ve been to this bar a thousand times!”

“Not like this.”

“You’re ridiculous! You don’t get to say who I am. I’mtiredof who I am. That boring, responsible good girl hasn’t gotten me anything. She hasn’t gotten me anywhere. I’m basically the same age as you. Where do you get off treating me like I’m a babe in the woods? I’ve seen the same shit you have. I had the same kind of terrible childhood.”

She hadn’t, though. She didn’t know. Which was his fault and he knew that. But there were things he didn’t like sharing, not with anyone.

Though he knew her trust issues were the same as his. Rooted in the heart of the way their parents had treated them, and hell, she was homeless because of it. But he was just... he was just somad.

Mad about the idea that his beautiful best friend would go home with someone who absolutely didn’t deserve her because some other guy who didn’t deserve her had hurt her feelings.

“You deserve better than this,” he said.

“All right,” she said, tilting her face up. “I deserve better than random bar guys?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Okay then. Are you going to have sex with me?”

Chapter Fourteen

For a full thirty seconds all he could hear was buzzing in his ears. Because there was no way, there wasno fucking way she had just said that to him.

Not when he was trying to keep ahold of himself. Not when he was trying to keep his baser self from winning when he had no real experience with that. He wanted this to stay in the darkest, deepest part of himself and now she’d gone and saidthat.

“I... I absolutely will not,” he said.

“Why not? You have sex with everything that moves.”

“Not you,” he gritted.

“Because I’m not good enough?”

She was too good.

“No. No. That’s not it. That’s not why.”

She kept talking, and he needed time. He needed time to let what she had just said settle inside of him, but there was no time, because she just kept going, all drunken fury and boldness courtesy of the shots she had taken and her very low alcohol tolerance. And he was... he was all fucking done.

“I do not... No. Absolutely not.”

“Why not?”

“You’re drunk,” he said.

“You’ve never had sex with a drunk girl?”

“Not when I wassober.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Let’s get one thing straight. If I’m going to make a bad decision, it’s going to be when both parties are on equal footing.”

“So get drunk then. Take a couple of shots and have me. It doesn’t mean anything to you, you know that it doesn’t. You go and sleep with all these random women, but you won’t do it with me?”

“No. I won’t,” he said.

“But that doesn’t make any sense, unless there’s something wrong with me. Unless there’s something so repulsive about me that not even notorious man-whore Justice King will have me.”

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