Page 35 of Break for Me

“Don’t tempt me.”

This motherfucker.

In what was probably the worst move I could’ve ever made, I turned to face him. He wasn’t smiling, or even smirking now. He wasn’t joking anymore. I knew this look and I knew it well.

“Even if you have a giant dick to back up this ridiculous attitude, you’re probably still the kind of man who doesn’t actually know how to use it to please anyone other than yourself.”

His hand was around my throat a second later. Not actually hurting me, just squeezing enough to make me uncomfortable when he used my neck to pull me up closer to his face until I was standing on my toes.

“Are you picking a fight? Or flirting with me?” He asked.

“Yes.”

He smirked that time. “It’d be my fucking pleasure to show you just how easily I could ruin regular men for you, Fancy Face.”

I tried to laugh. It probably wasn’t very convincing.

“So easily worked up,” I choked out. “Can your masculinity really be that fragile?”

His masculinity wasn’t even remotely fragile, but my self-control was. And the only chance I had at keeping the upper hand here was by clinging desperately to my only God-given superpower, the one that got under his skin better than anything else…sarcasm.

He used my neck to push me backward toward the hotel entrance once more. I went in this time and paused just inside the door, waiting for him to tell me where we were headed. He walked past me without so much as a glance in my direction, with his hands in his fucking pockets, like he couldn’t have been less interested in what I was doing. I knew exactly what he was doing and it still didn’t offer my brain any help. All I wanted in the fucking world right then was for him to be so consumed by whatever was burning between us that he couldn’t think straight either. But he was definitely playing the game better than I was in this moment. I considered turning right back for the door just to make him chase me another time, but I was afraid that that would take the lust right out of the situation and replace it with just anger. I wasn’t willing to take that chance so I followed him to the elevator in the middle of the first hallway. He didn’t even wait for the doors to close before he’d turned to face me and backed me all the way into a corner. He brushed some of the hair away from the side of my face before his hand went down to my jaw. I couldn’t breathe anymore when his thumb moved across my bottom lip.

“Triss.”

Fuck.

“Jersey.”

Why was he being so pleasant about this? Why was his touch so soft? I was entirely unprepared for whatever this was. I needed rage and attitude. That’s what was fueling this.

“If you don’t want this to happen, I need you to say something now. This is the only chance I’m going to give you to tell me to stop before I fuck you right into tears. And you can think about it for a second before you decide. You probably should.”

The way that thumb continued back and forth over my lip. Jesus.

“I’ve never been gentle with you, Fancy Face, and I don’t intend to start now. This won’t be slow and easy. I want your screams. I want you to break your fingernails on my skin. I want the fucking air in your lungs.”

There had to be a fucking puddle beneath me on the floor of this elevator by the time it dinged and the doors opened.

The way that he simply backed away from me and turned to go into the hall like he hadn’t just spoken me right to the edge of an orgasm about drove me straight into hysteria. I followed the fucking psycho to the door of our room.

“Jersey?”

I paused and waited for him to look at me. He was doing a fucking stellar job at keeping himself together, but I got a brief glimpse of what was really happening under the surface when his jaw clenched at the sound of his name. He pushed the door open and held it, waiting for me to walk in first.

“If I don’t answer you outright in this moment, can I offer my answer after we’ve started? Not to be a huge bitch about it or anything, but most guys talk a giant game and then fail miserably at following through. If you’re awful, can I tell you to stop then?”

I turned back to face him once I was in the room, and I was proud of myself for only panicking a little when he turned the deadbolt on the door into place.

twenty-seven

JERSEY

I wanted to fucking stab her, and I wanted to kiss her.

What a strange way to feel about someone.

She was trying to agitate me and no matter how aware I was of that, it was still working. She seemed to react so much more when I was gentle with her, so that’s what I did again. I went to stand right in front of her and ran my hands from her shoulders down her arms and to her hips.

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