Page 108 of Now and Forever

“That was totes awkward,” I commented before taking tedious steps toward the door and grabbing the handle, a hella sure sign that I wasn’t up for company. Regardless, he remained still, silent, as if he were in the throes of deep thinking. “Drew?” I raised my brow, hoping he would get the blatant message that he was the last person I preferred to be around. Call me bitter, but I needed to regroup. STAT.

“Chloe …” he murmured, gazing at me with those eyes that devoured me alive. It was one of those rare moments when he used all of their power, their intensity to capture me, leaving my mind muddled, my body in feverish excitement, and my heart in serious overdrive.

This is a trap. Think, brain, fucking think.I wasn’t in panic mode, although I was near to it. He was just too close for comfort, too naked, too everything for me to sanely handle him without hyperventilating. I felt like a deer caught with the headlights as he zoned in on me with his eyes before his body followed suit. He was a hairsbreadth away, and when his male scent hit my nostrils, I almost groaned in protest.

“Stop this—”

“Only if you promise to play nice.” Those eyes exclusively focused on my lips as if he were about to kiss me.

My body was a lost cause, but my mind hadn’t given up yet. “Don’t you fucking dare. Don’t even fucking think it!”

“Funny how these things work .Not so long ago, you welcome it without protest.” He was relentless, rattling me further.

I gave a mocking laugh. “Funny, isn’t it? I’m sure, with the hoard of women you’ve had daily, they all sound and feel the same to you.”

His breathing became ragged, holding me captive as he tried to rein himself in. “You’re the only virgin I’ve had, Chloe. Trust me, you felt different than the rest.”

“Ah, at one point, I was wondering if I had imagined all of that, because you vanished into thin air. You fucking left without saying anything. So, no, you don’t get to do any of this shit. You have no right.” The sarcasm couldn’t quell the bitterness I tried to hide away from his knowing eyes.

“Someday, you’ll thank me for that.”

He would never know how much his rejection had affected me. It had changed me forever.

“Somehow, I doubt that.”

His closeness, his warmth, and the familiar scent of him that used to drive me wild with lust and everything else… I knew I had to compromise somewhere in this, whatever this was, before it spiraled out of control. That was the last thing I needed at the moment.

“This is going to get really uncomfortable if we carry on this way, so I’m offering to start over. Let’s forget that night and pretend none of it happened. It was nothing. It meant nothing. So let’s not make this into something it wasn’t, all right?”

“You’re right,” he murmured as he slowly raised his eyes to meet my troubled ones.

Words that couldn’t be spoken out loud conveyed the ghost of our past. And that was where it should belong—in the past. We were now in the present. No point in turning back the time. No sorry or any form of apologies were spoken. Silently, we understood each other.

When he finally moved his intense, possessive eyes away from me, his body followed suit, quietly leaving me in the room as he shut the door behind him.

It’s over. I should breathe easy now.But even though I tried to reassure myself, the last thing I felt was calm and collected. The potent connection I’d had with him seemed as though it had unintentionally drained my soul, giving me the urge to cry.

How did one forget there was someone out there who had the power to unman one’s heart, one’s soul by merely looking at you?

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