Page 82 of What About Love

She wrenched free and took a step back. “What is wrong with you? You don’t want me, yet you act like an ass at the thought that someone else might. You can’t have it both ways, T.”

He pushed her back against the wall—it seemed he was forever doing that—and she thought she heard him murmur “beautiful” before his mouth, searing hot and demanding, opened over hers, his tongue plunging deep. His hands dove into her hair, holding her still as his hips thrust forward, the hard length of him pressing into her belly.

“Feel that?” he challenged. “I never said I didn’t want you.”

Her skirt came up the next instant and his hands dove into the back of her panties, cupping her cheeks.

“T,” she breathed. Wanting him for so long, she quickly lost her resolve and melted into him. He responded immediately by lifting her against him. As he did, she lost a shoe. Rather than let her feet dangle awkwardly a foot off the ground, she wrapped her legs around his hips.

His chest anchored her against the wall as his lips found her throat. The rasp of his zipper and the crinkle of a wrapper barely registered, unlike the long fingers pulling the crotch of her panties aside. That definitely penetrated her lust-clouded brain. As did the hard thrust of him up inside her.

Her head fell back and her mouth opened, thirsty for air as he plunged into her repeatedly. Hard and fast, he took what he wanted, and she gave it freely. Reveling in the feel of him inside her, against her, his mouth hungrily gliding across her skin.

She felt her body tighten as he built the need inside her. Too soon, her climax neared.

“So hot and tight. I’ve wanted this again so badly, darlin’.” The husky whisper came from deep in his throat as he lifted his head.

In his face she read need, as great as her own, but also something more, something powerful and more intense than arousal over good sex. Before she could decipher what was there, his mouth came down, greedily claiming hers again.

She couldn’t think about anything except his body moving against her and inside her, or the hand that slid around in front. Finding the nerve center with his thumb, he went to work, driving her need higher and keeping her there, as if riding the crest of a long wave. Inevitably it broke, crashing over her in a rush of pleasure.

It didn’t recede afterward, finding more joy as she felt him tense against her, pumping his hips harder. He shuddered, his head falling forward as he groaned along with his release in a low, deep, sexy rumble in her ear.

After a few slow, indolent thrusts, he stilled against her, motionless except for the rapid rise and fall of his chest. In that instant, she felt him pull away, not physically but in the way he had in LA. She could tell before he raised his head and she saw the look on his face.

Frustrated and confused, she gripped his hair and tugged. “Don’t do this again.”

“I told you, Angie. I can’t—”

“You can’t?” With all her strength, she shoved at his shoulders. Having well over one hundred pounds on her, he didn’t budge. Hurt and anger in equal proportions crept into her voice as she choked back tears. “At least tell me why. You owe me that?”

His eyes burned with regret as he stared down at her. Silent moments dragged on until he lowered his head. Whether to kiss her or something else, she’d never know because she turned away.

“Let me go,” she whispered, her voice raw with emotion.

Something must have penetrated. Maybe her desperation, or her anguish because he released her and stepped back.

“Stop this,” she pleaded, as she righted her dress, her misery so acute it was a physical pain. Her voice was a ragged whisper when she continued. “I deserve to be more than a meaningless fuck against the wall.”

In the quiet that followed that verbal blow, she heard him grunt, as if someone had slammed a fist into his gut. She ignored it, knowing from experience it wasn’t what she thought, or hoped it to be.

Holding onto the wall, she stepped back into her shoe then bent to collect her bags. Standing, she straightened her shoulders and looked him dead in the eye. She didn’t know how, but she did it even though she wanted to cry for what he was passing up or worse, beg him to love her.

Then she told him what she did out of a deep need for self-protection. “Since you don’t want to be a part of it, you’ve got to let me live my life without you in it.”

Although it killed her to do so, she walked away. In the end, rushing down the hall, slamming through the exit and into the stairwell. As she took the steps at a near run, which wasn’t easy in heels, she gave thanks he didn’t follow because if he had, she couldn’t have found enough strength to push him away again.

***

AFRINGE BENEFIT OFworking for Rossi was free club membership; otherwise, she’d never be able to afford the exorbitant annual fee. Not that she had any need of it, when she never planned to go beyond the lounge again. But it made check-in for Elena’s show easy.

By the time she arrived, she was an hour late and had seriously considered not coming at all, but she decided alcohol and the girls were better medicine than crying pathetically at home over a man who could never be hers.

Been there, done that. And in T’s case, it was rinse and repeat.

As she pushed through the doors, she stood still for a moment while adjusting to the low light of the room. A tall, thickly muscled, dark-haired man walking through the bar made her start with alarm. On second glance, she realized this man was not as tall, and was nowhere near as broad shouldered as T. He also didn’t have the command of the room that T did.

Conceding that she’d been searching him out, she damned him and the control he had over her. An hour after she’d left him, his presence continued to surround her. He consumed her thoughts. She could still feel the heat of his hungry kisses, the grip of his demanding hands in her hair, and his strong but gentle fingers gliding over her breasts, pinching and rolling her nipples, and torturing her clit in the same delicious way. And his glorious cock, the length and breadth of which had filled her so completely, beyond that of any man who’d come before him, left her tingling with an internal ache that she never wanted to fade away.

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