Page 40 of Badd Love
I rolled out of bed, taking the quilt with me, leaving Dane naked on the bed. "I'm trying to be nice about this, Dane. I'm trying like fucking hell to be nice to you. If you were anyone else, you'd be gone already. Most likely, you'd be on a plane back to Alaska, and you'd probably be crying because I was such a vicious bitch to you. I can be like that. I'm kind of like a praying mantis or black widow. Once I fuck a dude, I turn mean. That way, they leave me alone before I get hurt."
He followed me across the room to the window, where I was standing with the blanket around my shoulders. I saw him in the reflection—huge and hard, all sun-browned skin and rippling muscles and messy, sexy, I-just-had-my-hands-in-it hair. "News flash, darlin'." He wrapped his arms around me from behind. "You were mean to me formonths. You screamed at me. Ghosted me. Blocked me. Avoided me. Ghosted me again after the wedding. Yet Istillhunted your ass down despite all that. And here I am, willing to keep taking the punishment."
"Why?" I asked. "Because we had some good sex?"
"Was itreallyjust good sex, Lindsey?" His voice was deep and commanding, now. "Was thatreallyall it was?"
"No," I whispered, unable to lie about it.
"No," he agreed. "It was the best sex either of us has ever had, by an exponential factor. You know it, and I know it. But it was also more than that, Linz, and you know that too. I'm not here hoping for a repeat of the sex. If that was the case, we'd have fucked just now instead of what we did."
"Don't," I whispered, the word a breathy whine.
"You know it's true. If I'd given you the slightest hint, we'd have fucked." He put his lips to my ear. "You know you want it again every bit as much as I do."
"Stop, Dane. Please just—just fucking stop."
"But we didn't fuck, did we?" He wasn't stopping. “We just fooled around. But you wanna know something, sweetheart?"
"Not your sweetheart," I growled.
He ignored this too. "Fooling around with you, just now? That was more intimate and real than an all-night fuck-a-thon with anyone else." He nipped my earlobe. "Tell me I'm wrong."
I said nothing—and that said it all.
"Say I listen to you,” he said. “Say I walk out that door and go home. You think this would be over between us?"
I was breathing hard, now. Swallowing a hot knot. "Shut up."
"You can't forget me. You can't get over me."
"Shut the fuck up!"
"I'm under your skin. I'm in your heart, Linz. You fucking know it."
"You're wrong."
"I'm not. You can lie to yourself, but you can't lie to me." He grabbed me by the shoulders, spun me around, and pushed me back against the window, the sill biting into the small of my back.
He cupped my face in gentle, powerful hands. His lips touched mine, teased, touched, slid—claimed. Hard. Fast. Deep. Just when I was about to soften into his kiss, he broke away.
Kept his hands framing my face. "You felt that, didn't you?"
"No."
"Liar." He slashed his mouth onto mine again, and kissed me until my heart pounded frantically and my knees shook and my belly flip-flopped. "Lie to me, Linz. Tell me you felt nothing."
"I felt nothing," I lied. "Not a single butterfly."
He yanked the blanket off of me and hurled it aside. His erection nuzzled my seam. "You want to try and fuck me out of your system, Lindsey?"
I whimpered. My hands lifted on their own and gripped his shoulders; I rested my forehead on his chest. "No."
"No?" He cupped my breast, bent, and sucked on my nipple until I gasped. "You sure?"
I shoved him away roughly, violently. "STOP IT!" I screeched. "So the fuckwhatif I'm falling for you, Dane? What aren't you understanding?" I stomped toward him and shoved him again; he let me push him, stepping backward, fully in control. "I can't love you! I’ve never been loved! I’ve never been anything but used and abused! Rune and her parents took care of me, sure. But that was as much pity as anything else. I have nothing to give you. Nothing!”
"Lindsey," he started.
