Page 25 of The Beast's Betrayed Mate
When she closed the distance between them, he wondered if she’d planned it that way. If saying they shouldn’t leave right away was actually just an excuse to get herself in his arms. But he couldn’t have cared less. Her mouth claimed his in such a deep kiss that his knees grew weak, and his knees never grew weak.
She hummed into his mouth with appreciation, as though the taste of him was what she had been craving since that morning. Or for longer…
He couldn’t deny that he had wanted it for longer.
He hadn’t thought that she was serious, and even if she had been, when she asked him out, he had been nowhere near the confidence she must’ve thought he had to take out a woman like her. So, he had rejected her outright. And to make certain that she didn’t come around, trying anything like it again, he had humiliated her.
He ended the kiss, pulling back, his hands running up her back even as he shook his head.
“What?” she asked, breathless, hand snaking between them to glide fingers up his erection through the fabric of his sweats.
He moaned, still shaking his head, and she stopped.
Fuck.
“I was an asshole,” he said. “Back in college. You didn’t really want to date someone like me, alright? I wanted to make sure that you knew.”
“Oh, my God,” she said, stepping away from him. “Another public service. Are you going to mansplain what I need to live happily ever after next or what’s this about?”
“No, I just mean… I wasn’t the right person for you.”
“No, you weren’t,” she agreed, her face hardening. “You made me feel like I was the smallest bug that wasn’t even worthy to be crushed under your hallowed boot, you dick.”
“I didn’t—”
“Mean to?” she stopped him. “But didn’t you just say that you did? But you were just trying to protect me, right? From the big, bad man who I had such a crush on for so long. What the hell does that even mean; you weren’t the right person for me? How the fuck would you know? You didn’t know me back then.”
“No, but I knew me, and you were such a wholesome, nice… I mean, you were kind to everyone.”
“Yeah, it’s a bit of a handicap, to be honest,” she grumbled, crossing her arms over her chest.
Her taste was still in his mouth, her scent in his nostrils again. He swallowed. He shouldn’t want her back in his arms. He should step back and accept her help in what he was facing because he couldn’t do this without her but that was it. What was he even doing? This desire might have been repressed for a long time, sure, but now was not the moment.
“Why are you even bringing this up now?” she asked.
“Because I don’t want to do anything you’ll regret,” he said.
“Fucking public service,” she shook her head at him, but then she smiled. “Who says I’ll regret it?” she asked, and before he could blink, she was pressed against him again.
Her arms around his neck, her breath across his lips, and he wondered if she was just proving a point. To herself, to him. But even if that was all it was, did he care?
Her hand slipped beneath the hem of his sweatpants, and he had to accept that, fuck no, he didn’t care one bit.
He caught her mouth with his, delighting in the soft noise he elicited, moaning as her fingers closed around his cock in a firm grip.
Oh, God, he thought as she began to stroke him.
He’d wanted this since the first day when she walked into his division, acting as though they had no history for about an hour before she started to let him know exactly how sour her memory of him was, and that she was there to remind him how little she owed him to make his life easier.
He’d chased her through that alley, wanting to pin her down, but now all he could think was how turned on he was by her taking command.
“Tell me what to do,” he murmured in her ear, reveling in how it made a wicked smile stretch across her mouth.
Chapter 8 - Olive
It had taken her a while to get over the slap to her confidence that he had delivered. She had always been a dreamer, someone who made shit up in her head and came to believe anything was possible. So, she had taken a handful of interactions where he had barely even spoken to her and built it up in her head to mean something.
She had become wrapped up in her idea of him as this guy who acted all tough and loud but longed for quiet nights at home on the sofa like any other nerd. Like her kind of nerd, anyway. And she hadn’t been able to line this image of him up with his frat boy behavior, leaving her to simply ignore the truth that had been right in front of her. Instead, she had leaned on her own perception of him. The perception that told her that deep down he was nice and funny and falling for her the same way she was. Or the way she had been falling for her idea of him, anyway.
