Page 21 of Bedding Rose
“Oh my God. Oh my God.” Rose immediately slides down my body to my knee, her arms detaching and pushing at me as a blush covers her cheeks. I step away, reaching for her hand, but her arms sweep up and she digs her fingers into her hair, a distressed expression overtaking her features.
It’s almost as if someone tied up my hope, handcuffed it to a beam, and poured cement all over it.
Fuck.
She regrets it.
She acted impulsively and now she regrets it.
No, don’t go there. She just needs a minute to process. And this fucker embarrassed her. She’s shy. Well, except with me. It’s probably just that.
Stoically, I go over to the teenager and pluck our coffees and fries from his grip.
“Your sister, huh?” His smirk makes me want to smack him, but I resist, until his eyes drift salaciously over to Rose. Then, I grab him by the collar and lift him up until his feet dangle an inch from the ground. I don’t say a single word. I don’t have to. His bug eyes and frantic apologies do all the work for me.
When I release the kid, I walk over to Rose, who’s turned her back on me and didn’t see that little exchange. I hand her coffee to her, careful not to touch her trembling fingers when she reaches out to take it because I’m going to give her a little time to process the line we just crossed. Can’t say I don’t need one myself. I swing my arm wide and gesture toward the Jeep.
We ride home in silence. I keep replaying the way she threw herself bodily at me, how good she felt in my arms. The things I want to do to her now …
I park in the driveway of her mom’s house, noting all the lights are off. Quique must still be asleep. I turn in my seat so that Rose and I can talk, but I’m surprised to find her simultaneously unbuckling and shoving open the passenger door.
“This never happened,” she mutters. The words burst apart the silence and send shrapnel right into my chest.
So sheisgoing to try to act like our kiss doesn’t exist—sweep it under the rug. Just like she has been about the night I found her in the bathroom and whatever set her off then. Well, I’m not going to let her get away with it.
“Yes, it did.” My annoyance and anger are clear in my sharp tone.
“No, it didn’t,” she growls forcefully as she hops out and then slams the door.
I debate climbing out after her, but I don’t. We need to deal with what’s going on between us ourselves before she starts screeching and bringing Quique into it. I stay in my seat and let myself enjoy the sight of her ass in the moonlight as she stomps up to the front door.
When she glances back, I just grin at her, delighting in the way her cheeks blotch red in either embarrassment or fury. Her lips can deny it all they want, but her body can’t. This shit definitely happened. And it’s going to happen again, I guarantee it.
ROSE
Istare at the ceiling fan spinning slowly, the stained wooden blades cutting across the white ceiling in a soothing rhythm, circling just like my thoughts.
I’m tucked under my covers, laying in bed. I’m supposed to be asleep already, but every time I try to close my eyes all I can see is that desperately intense, obsessive look on Angelo’s face.
My throat and my nipples both grow tight at the memory of the way he stared at me in that parking lot, of the heady sensations that swept over me almost like a spell. A look like that is dangerously intoxicating. Bewitching. Addicting.
It’s more tempting than anything I’ve ever encountered.
Why haven’t I been warned about that look?
Schools shouldn’t just campaign against drugs—they should campaign against overbearing assholes who can’t stand to let you make your own mistakes, who stalk you, call you relentlessly, and then sear you with a gaze that leaves your skin branded, permanently marked and painfully sizzling. That type of man is perilous. Bad for your mental health. He’ll strip away your ability to make good decisions and leave you lust-starved, craving him.
Butwhy him? Why couldn’t that look have come from anyone else, dammit?
Brutish blackmailers are apparently my drug of choice.
My fingers drift over my lips, which still feel swollen from his kisses. They might even be bruised.
I can’t believe I did that. Why? Why would I kiss him?
I never should have judged Daisy so harshly for forgiving Gunnar. Hot men should come with warning signs. Caution: Brain will short-circuit within a five-foot radius.
My logic had certainly failed me when I’d stared up into Angelo’s deep brown gaze and seen, not just the bossy caveman glare I’d grown used to, but actual vulnerability shining in it.
