Page 39 of The Players We Hate
Right now, he was a guy carrying too much, the kind of weight that never really let you breathe easy. But sitting here with me, it eased, even if only a little.
And me? I was unraveling in the best way.
He tugged off one boot, then the other, setting them on the floorboard. His hand didn’t leave me. His hand skimmed over my thigh, unhurried, as if he needed to remember every curve.
“You keep doing this,” he said, his voice low and thick. “Showing up when I’ve almost convinced myself to stay away. Now tonight, with you sitting here in red, you look like temptation itself. And I’m barely holding on to the control I have left.”
A shiver ran through me, but I didn’t back away.
“I didn’t come here to mess with your head,” I whispered.
“No,” he said, his thumb tracing a slow path over my skin. “You came here dressed like sin, and now you’re sitting in my lap like you’re not dangerous.”
I smiled barely. “Maybe I’m both.”
He exhaled a shaky breath, his forehead leaning into mine.
“This isn’t just about tonight,” he said, voice rough but certain. “I don’t want you thinking I’m here for some quick hookup because I’m not. I’ve told myself where the line is with you—what I’ll let happen, what I won’t. You matter too much for me to screw this up.”
I swallowed, heat unfurling in my chest. “You’re nottakinganything, Talon. Not if I want to give it.”
He stilled.
The tension in him didn’t ease. It shifted—less about control, more about raw need, maybe even desperation he was fighting to hold back.
“You’re making this hard, Wren.”
I reached up, brushing my fingers along the edge of his jaw. “Maybe you don’t always have to do what’s easy.”
His mouth hovered near mine, his breath uneven, but he didn’t close the gap. I couldn’t either.
We just sat there, the silence heavy with everything we weren’t saying. No party. No masks. No walls.
Just him. Just me. And the truth sitting between us, impossible to ignore.
“You’re driving me fucking insane,” he murmured, brushing his knuckles along the outer edge of my thigh. “You walk in dressed like this and expect me to stand there?”
My skin burned beneath his touch.
“You’ve got no idea what you do to me. No fucking clue.”
I started to say something, but his hand moved first, slipping higher under my dress. My breath hitched when his thumb brushed the inside of my knee and kept going. I tensed, heat shooting through me when he stopped just short of where I wanted him most.
Then his voice cut through the silence, rough and low.
“I meant what I said. I’m not fucking you tonight.”
The words were harsh, but the smirk that curled at the corner of his mouth when I whimpered said everything.
I hated how much I wanted him right then. Hated how badly I wanted to beg him to forget every noble thing he thought he was doing bynotgiving in.
“Still,” he murmured, “that doesn’t mean I’m not gonna make you fall apart for me again.”
His fingers brushed the edge of my panties, and my whole body jolted.
“You’re soaked,” he muttered, more to himself than to me. His hand trembled slightly. “Jesus, Wren.”
In the soft glow from the dashboard, I could see his pupils blown wide as he tilted his head up at me, his voice catching somewhere between awe and possession. “You’re gonna ruin me.”
