Page 103 of Face Off With Fate

“Fuck,” he muttered against my lips.

I smiled. Couldn’t help it.

His hand slid to my waist and pulled me in. The full-length press against him had me moaning, and his grip tightened. Greedily, he consumed every little sound from my mouth, zeroing in on every small reaction.

I scraped my nails lightly through the hair at the back of his neck, reveling in the shudder that moved through him at my touch.

“You have any idea,” he said roughly, dragging his mouth along my jaw, “how hard it’s been sitting next to another woman while wanting you the entire fucking time?”

My grip tightened on his jersey.

“You think this has been easy for me?” The words came out more honest than I’d planned. I felt him still, pulling back enough to study my face. “I’ve thought about how I want to be with you this entire time, too.”

I watched something move through his expression. Something that made my chest tighten.

“Come home with me.”

The quiet plea landed low in my stomach. It sat there, warm yet heavy.

“What about Goldie?” I asked, scrambling to buy myself time to process what he’d asked. What saying yes would mean…

He chuckled. “She’s at my mom’s house having a sleepover. It’s just me at home tonight…”

The mood in the confined space shifted, charged with a new tension. Pressing in around us and filling every inch of the stairwell until there was nowhere left to look except directly at him. At the patient, steady way he watched me—waiting me out.

I pulled my lip between my teeth.

None of this was supposed to happen. An attraction to the man I represented wasn’t in the plan—wasn’t even in the margins of the plan—and yet here I was, in a concrete stairwell with my heart thrashing in my chest every time he looked at me like that.

Like he wanted me.

I swallowed, willing some moisture back into my mouth.

“So, I’m sleeping in the princess bed for our sleepover?”

Deflection through humor…basically my first language.

A muscle in his jaw ticked. His spicy, clean scent enveloped me. It had started to feel dangerously familiar.

Dangerously comforting.

Goosebumps erupted where Monroe’s hand dropped to my neck, the pad of his thumb stroking the sensitive spot behind my ear as he gripped me. Soft but unyielding, like he wanted to be sure my attention stayed locked on him.

I couldn’t think past the feel of his hand. Past the way his eyes hadn’t moved from mine.

“No, Trouble. You’ll be sleepin’ in my bed. If you want it.”

I blinked up at him, surprised by the emotion coating his words. The vulnerability underneath those last four words hit me with a force I wasn’t prepared for.

“That’s probably not a good idea.” A flake of red polish flicked off my thumb.

“Don’t care.” He dislodged my lip from my teeth but didn’t push for a response. Just let me stand there and slip into a spiral.

This would be different from the hotel room. This was a choice. One he was giving to me, knowing full well the decision would shift everything between us. Fireworks cracked overhead again, a low, rolling boom, but I barely heard it over the pumping in my ears.

Monroe would be fine if I said no, wouldn’t push it, wouldn’t bring it up again. We could walk out of this stairwell and slide back into our corners. Building the walls back up, brick by brick, until tonight—this moment, this thing between us—became something we’d forgotten.

We’d never acknowledge.