Page 4 of What She Deserves
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Rashad grabbed her wrist before she could walk away. His fingers tightened in a near-plea to stop, wait. He needed to hold on to her a moment longer.
He edged closer. “Can I call you?”
Layla backed up, something flaring in her eyes as she tipped her head back to look up at him. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. We broke up for a reason.”
He forced out one of his disarming smiles to tear down the barrier she had erected between them with her cold voice and even colder eyes. “I just want to be friends.”
Anyone listening to their conversation would not possibly believe that, but he had to try.
A faint smile crossed her lips, but there was no humor there. Only silent mockery and a sort of… disappointment.
“You haven’t changed, have you? Still the smooth talker. Still working your charm on the ladies to get them out of their panties. Still playing the same old game you always have.”
Her comments stung, an affront to the way he viewed himself. Sure, he loved women and enjoyed their company, but she insinuated something much more sinister behind his actions. He was always upfront and honest with his liaisons, clear he didn’t want anything long term. Layla had been the one exception to that rule, knocking him off his game for six months—a short amount of time for the average couple, but practically the equivalent of years when Rashad considered the length of time he usually engaged the women he slept with.
“I’m not playing a game. You can pretend you don’t care, but we both know you and I were great together.”
“We had our moments, I’ll give you that, but it’s been almost three years—a long time, and you didn’t call once.” She met his gaze head on.
Guilty as charged. He’d pretended not to care, pretended her departure from his life was one of those things, but as the days turned into weeks and weeks into months, he came to appreciate her importance, and meaningless hookups continuously failed to fulfill him. He had intended to call or produce an excuse to visit D.C., anything to see her—but never followed through. Becauseshe’dleft, so he continued living life as usual. Dating, working, convinced he was over her no matter how many times she came to mind. Seeing her tonight made him wonder if all that had been a lie.
“Not because I didn’t care.”
“Mhmm. Well, I’ve moved on.” She gently but firmly extricated her arm from his grip.
“You seeing someone now?”
Layla lips tilted up at the corners, the wry smile and seductively narrowed eyes giving nothing away. “That’s none of your business.”
“I’m making it my business.”
“Why do you care?”
“You told me you’d think about it, and then the next thing I knew, you called and broke up with me. No explanation. No chance for renegotiation.”
“What would have been the point? You wanted to slow down. Those were your words. I gave you what you wanted.”
“I didn’t wantusto end,” he grated.
“Ohhh, you wanted to continue seeing me on your terms. Well, sorry to disappoint you, honey,” she said, patting his chest. “I have my own terms, too, and I wasn’t interested.”
“Have you been seeing someone?” He asked, a glutton for punishment, hating that he needed to know.
She watched him with a bit of a smirk on her lips. “Did you think I would be sitting around, twiddling my thumbs, waiting for you to want me again?”
“I never stopped wanting you,” he said in a low, raw voice.
The words got to her because her lips parted, and his eyes tracked her gulp from the top of her neck to the base of her throat. She tucked her hair behind her ear, her nervous tick giving him a sense of satisfaction because it meant she was not nearly as indifferent to him as she pretended to be.
If nothing else, he knew she wanted him by the fire in her eyes and the way her hungry gaze ate him up. She would fight him every inch of the way, however, simply to prove a point.
“I’m not naïve enough to believe that your desire for me means you’ve been sleeping alone, and certainly not for almost three years. You shouldn’t be naïve, either,” she said.
The thought of her clawing another man’s sheets and sobbinghisname was enough to make him want to punch the wall, but he maintained his calm.
“Whoever the lucky bastard is, maybe I should put him on notice.”
