Page 91 of Dirty Rock

“You don’t know shit.” I stepped forward.

“I know you better than you know your damn self because you can’teverbe honest with yourself. I’ve watched you do this self-destructive thing for the last three years.”

“Will you just let me speak?”

“I’m surprised it’s taken you so long, actually. I told you not to get it twisted. Itold you.”

“Wait a fucking minute. I haven’t got anything twisted. I just—”

She turned sharply, pointing a finger at me from across the room. “No, you fucking wait a minute. I’m not doing this. I’m not pandering to your every mood swing. I’m not going to stand here while you deny to yourself what made you go out there last night. Contrary to what you believe, I don’t get paid enough to take on extra work for this band, and there’s no amount of money that could make me put up with you flicking your switch off and on every two minutes just because you think we’re screwing enough now for you to treat me like shit.”

“What the hell?”

“We’re not. We’ll never be screwing enough for you to talk to me like that.”

“I haven’t done a damn thing apart from waking up in a bad mood.”

She took a step closer, pushing the longer lengths of her fringe out of her eyes. I fucking loved it when she did that, but maybe not when she was looking at me like she was a lion, and I was trying to steal her first cub.

“Just… don’t.” She growled.

I held my hands up in surrender. “Fine, I won’t. I won’t do the thing you’re telling me not to do if you can just clarify what the hell that’s supposed to be. I’m swimming out of my depth here, Jules. Help me out.”

“I’m not your mother.”

“Well, no.” I smirked, unable to control it. “That would be weird.”

Jules narrowed her eyes on me, frozen in place, and it was only then that I saw the slight tremor of her pointed finger. Julesnevershook.

“You can’t do this to me, Rhett.”

“Do what?” I whispered quietly, any humour sliding right off my face.

“Freak out.”

“Me, freak out?” I asked, pressing a hand to my chest and raising both brows. “I… babe… I’m not the one looking at the other like they’re about to tear them apart with their bare teeth.”

Her hand fell, slapping against her thigh as she stared at me. “And you can’t keep calling me babe. Or baby. It’s personal. Too personal. We can’t…” She shook her head, cutting herself off. I saw her swallow hard, and that heart of mine guided me towards her when I once would have wanted to run. I took a step. Then another. And another. She looked up at me through hooded eyes, her perfect jawline tense and her nostrils flared. The closer I got to her anger, the more I became wrapped up in my own comfort.

She was freaking out, too.

This wasn’t just about me now.

We were both feeling things that made us uncomfortable. Things that scared us.

We’d both got this twisted.

“Okay, Jules.” I stopped a few feet in front of her, my hands still in the air. “We’re just fucking here. I won’t call you babe. It’s too personal.”

Her chest bounced as her breathing spiked. I took another step closer, watching as her eyes drifted down my chest, down my abs, before they settled on that V she loved to lick at night.

“I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do. The two of us are going to go to work today,” I told her quietly as I closed the gap, carefully reaching down to hold her chin between my finger and thumb, “and we’re going to pretend like we hate each other again. We’re going to stand in that room together, and we’re going to keep the lines straight and clear. No kinks. No blurs. No twisting. I’m just some guy you secretly like to ride at night. Your dirty little secret. Nobody will ever know the sounds you make when I bury myself inside of you, because outside of this room, I’m nothing to you, right? And you’re nothing to me. We’re just work colleagues who screw.”

I lowered my head, my lips now only an inch from hers as I stared into her eyes.

She was panting, and I could read her body well enough to know that if I pressed my hand between her legs, there’d be heat there waiting for me. If I unfastened her jeans and slid my hand down her underwear, she’d be wet. If I nudged her blazer to the side, her nipples would be standing proud.

I pressed my lips to hers and closed my eyes, gifting her with the softest, most sincere kiss I could. I barely moved. I just held her there, a delicate piece of artwork propped between my fingers, while I stole her breath and handed over something neither one of us could see in return—only feel.

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