Page 22 of Tap Left
I turn around to glare at him, and something comes over me. Something ballsy. Because I push him, still half clothed, right into the pool. The two second flash of surprise on his face before he hits the water is priceless. But my victory doesn't last long. Because the moment he comes up for air, he lunges for me and yanks me in after him.
I am not graceful on a good day. But even less so in a dress, underwater. I flail about, and Daire pins me to the side of the pool, his eyes dark and hot. "That wasn't very smart, Lola."
"Sorry?" I smile up at him innocently.
"You're not sorry.”
He's right. But then I think about his leg, and I cringe.
“I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
He lowers his eyes to mine. “As if you could.”
He's so close I can’t find the strength I need to reply. He’s drenched but warm. And I can feel him even when he’s six inches away. I can smell him on the breeze and time hasn’t changed that much.
I close my eyes and try to will my turbulent emotions away. For so many years I have carried these feelings. I have tried, and I have failed to rid myself of Adrian Daire. I don't know why the universe has cursed me with this love for a man who can never return it, but I know that right now I am powerless against it.
A dangerous game has taken root in my mind. It's been gnawing at me all night, desperate to be spoken aloud. It comes out, like word vomit, in the most horrendous way I could possibly imagine.
"Daire?”
“What, Lola?”
“Will you have sex with me?”
7
Daire
Iblink at her. And then blink again. I’m certain I misheard her. Half of me doesn’t care. That part of me wants to take her now before she changes her mind. The other half is dead sure I'm hallucinating. Lola did not just ask me to fuck her.
She backpedals quickly.
"That came out so wrong," she groans. "I'm sorry."
She looks up at me, her cheeks hot and pink and she's thinking way too much. I need to know what she's thinking.
"It's just that..." she whispers. "I don't know what guys want. I need… help."
She doesn't need help. She needs a muzzle because if she doesn’t stop talking I’ll be balls deep inside of her and there's not a thing she could do that wouldn't fucking please me. I don't tell her that though because I'm a prick. And she's still thinking of the endgame. She wants to use me to get what she can before trotting off to apply everything she’s learned to some other guy when she's done.
It pisses me the fuck off. It adds fuel to my desire to punish her. But it makes me want to fuck her even more.
“We can’t.” I close my eyes to reign in my temper. “You know why we can’t, LB.”
"I know it might be a little weird," she rambles on. "Given our history. But I promise you, it would just be sex. I won't get clingy. And when I go on my first date, we can end it then and there and never speak of it again."
“Lola—”
“Don’t say it,” she pleads. “This has nothing to do with him.”
“It has everything to do with him,” I growl. “I can’t be where he’s been. I can’t fucking do that.”
She looks up at me with glassy eyes, and she is so vulnerable right now, it kills me to say no. I don’t want to want her.
“Then it shouldn’t be a problem,” she whispers. “He never did.”
I back away to gain some restraint. My veins are throbbing, and my body temperature is rising. I can’t be nice to her. Not now. “Don’t fucking lie to me.”
