Page 50 of No More Heartbreakers

Even four years after Jason, my shell was still pretty banged up. Maybe it always would be.

I pushed at Aric, pulling my mouth away. “No. Please, we’ve got to stop.”

Aric lifted his mouth but stayed pressed against me, his hands still buried deep in my hair. A phone rang somewhere in the newsroom. He glanced back in its direction and let out a hot breath.

“You’re right. This is not the place.”

He shook his head and smiled like someone coming off of an exhilarating but dizzying roller coaster ride. “I’ve been waiting a long time to do that. Since the first night when you drove me crazy on the dance floor. I’m so glad you said ‘yes.’”

“I didn’t say yes.” My protest sounded pathetically false, even to me.

“If you want to get technical. But your non-verbal response seemed like an affirmative answer. Unless my body language interpretation is way off.”

Aric’s lower half pressed gently against me again, causing me to catch my breath.

He felt so hard, so good, so tantalizinglyright. Without my permission, my body surged forward to meet his, desire overcoming willpower.

Feeling my heated response, Aric grinned and lowered his mouth to mine again.

“No.” I pushed at him, not hard, but firmly enough that he stepped back with a baffled expression. “This isn’t what I want, Aric.”

His hands went to his hips and his head dropped, his breaths purposeful and deep. He looked back up at my face.

“Could’ve fooled me.”

“I know, but—let’s keep the discussion between our brains instead of our… our…”

“Tongues?” he suggested helpfully, a wicked smile playing on his lips. “Lips? Boy and girl parts?”

“Our… libidos.”

Aric laughed. He turned and left the edit bay. I followed him as he kept walking toward the newsroom door and the station’s main hallway.

“Where are you going?” I said.

“For a walk.” The clipped words came over his shoulder as he continued moving away from me.

“A walk? Right now? We were talking. Are you mad?”

He stopped and turned around. “No. I’m not mad. But while yourbrainmay want to discuss things, I’ve got another body part that still wants in on the conversation. And I can’t spend any more time around that pretty mouth of yours until I get some blood back intomybrain. Give me a few minutes. I’ll be back.”

After about ten minutes, Aric did come back, windblown and pink-cheeked from the outdoors. He walked right up to my desk and sat on the edge, folding his arms across his chest.

“So what happened?”

“I’m sorry, I know I led you on by not stopping it sooner, but—”

“No, I’m not talking about a few minutes ago. I mean whatever it was that happened to you before. What was it? Bad breakup? Did Hale threaten you if you see someone else or something?”

“Oh no. Hale’s not like that. He’s a great guy. Wait—how do you know we’re not still together?”

He shrugged. “Just a good guess. When I saw you with him after the game that day, I could tell things were over.”

I wanted to protest, to tell him he was wrong. But I wasn’t sure he was. After all of Hale’s possessiveness last weekend, he hadn’t called.

“You don’t know everything. And why do you think something bad happened to me?”

“Because the signals you send out are more mixed than a Scrillex song.”

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