Page 50 of Slow Burn (Driven 5)
“Oh right, I forgot.” He shakes his head, contempt in his eyes. “You’d explain, but oops, you’re sorry. You thought you could, but now you can’t …,” he says, repeating my lame excuse back to me.
Yep, I’m seriously fucked here. There’s nothing I can say to explain why I left without telling him the truth, and that’s a line I’m not crossing. “Becks …” His name is a sigh on my lips as I try to figure out how to respond. I obviously didn’t think this whole silent-treatment thing through very well. How stupid was I not to realize I was going to have to face him, talk to him, explain my actions at some point since our best friends are married? Shit!
“Was it something I said?” He pushes off the counter and walks the few feet to stand across the island from me before he continues. “Because I do believe you begging for me to make you feel owned was a request. Did I not do what you asked? Did I not own you enough?” The derision in his tone matches the contempt in his eyes.
I don’t even attempt to respond to that, wouldn’t have an answer to give even if I could, because he not only owned my body that night—he started owning my heart too. My pulse thunders as I watch him, anticipating what his next words will be because I know regardless of what they are, I deserve them.
He twists his lips as his stare bores into me, daring me to answer him so that he can knock my excuse away. “You see, I’m just having a hard time comprehending what the hell happened because after hearing you say we are, I woke up in an empty apartment, which seems like your way of saying we aren’t. Care to fill me in on what the fuck happened?”
His words reach their mark, and I shake my head as his cologne hits me from his nearness and immediately makes me think of that spot beneath his jaw that smells the strongest of it. My body wants to respond—step toward him, reach out to him—but I do neither because making that physical connection is something I can’t allow myself to have.
“No, I just …” My words falter when he braces his hands on the counter in front of him, a slight smirk on his face that doesn’t reach his eyes. I can see them clearly now, along with the tension evident in the broad lines of his shoulders.
I bring my eyes back to his. “I thought you couldn’t come today?”
“Oh, I think I demonstrated that I can come just fine, City, so let’s quit your avoidance game, shall we?”
“That’s not what I meant—”
“I don’t think you know much of anything right now.”
He tilts his head to the side, no signs of the laidback guy I’ve come to know. “I didn’t take you for the kind of girl to sneak out without a word, refuse to answer your phone or respond to a text”—he shrugs—“but shit, it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve misjudged someone’s character.”
His words sting, and his questioning of my character shifts the temper I have on simmer to boil. Hell yes, I want the man, but if he can’t handle me now at my worst, then he sure as fuck doesn’t deserve me at my best. And I know he has every right to feel how he feels, but I’m in self-preservation mode—my ample ingestion of wine helping fuel my irrationality—and I don’t want to deal with this shit right now.
“We said no strings, right?” I bite out, leaning against the counter behind me, Bitch 101 in session: Don’t question me when you don’t know shit, or I’ll get nasty. “Did something change that I don’t know about? Last I checked, I wasn’t required to give lengthy good-byes before I take my shimmy of shame back to my place after a quick fuck.”
I see the hurt flash in his eyes, and it kills me but tells me so much at the same time. That brief flicker of emotion confirms that he has feelings for me, and that alone has my defenses up and panic beginning to strangle me. I may have told him that night we are, but that was before the lump and the possible results. He can’t have feelings for me.
He just can’t. I can’t allow it. I need to go back to how we were when we started things—casual, simple. Temporary.
My heart races. I grip the counter to prevent him from noticing my trembling hands. But I meet his glare and match it, waiting for the ball of hurt to be hurled at me.
“A quick fuck?” He runs his hand up and cups the back of his neck before continuing. “A quick fuck doesn’t make you forget your own name because you’re so busy moaning mine.”
His words stir the desire within me. I’m not used to this side of Becks, and as much as I like it, as much as I’m turned on by it—by him—I’m also pissed. At him. At me. At the world. This wasn’t part of the game plan here. Irritation sparks anew so that now we’re firing barbs at each other. And I’m not even sure we’re doing anything other than purposely trying to hurt each other so that we can protect ourselves.
Or maybe that’s a bunch of psychobabble bullshit that holds no relevance, and I’m trying to justify why I’m being a bitch and pushing him away.
“You’re quite full of yourself, aren’t you, Daniels?” It’s all I’ve got because he’s right. The question is how do I get out of this situation without hurting him any further and keeping possibility between us if the cards do fall my way in the coming weeks.
He rounds the counter so that he faces me in the small space between the island at his b
ack and the kitchen counter at mine. His eyes glint with contempt as he observes me and judges me, and I hate the feeling. Hate recognizing the emotions I see within them when I just want to tell him to hold on. To hope against hope for me that I can call in a few weeks and explain this all to him. Explain the push and the pull between us and why I’ve walked away.
I just hope it won’t be too late.
We continue to speak volumes without words. “You know what, Haddie? I call bullshit here…. What I just can’t figure out is what exactly is making you lie to me, why you let me get close and then push me away.”
His words cause a sliver of hope. The good man that I’ve always taken him for has returned. Suddenly I’m both grateful and fearful at the same time that he might be able to see through my pretense. I’m trying to improvise a game plan in my head because I know with Becks I need one or else he’ll say, Come, and I’ll say how many times.
Christ on a cracker, he unnerves me in so many ways when he’s this close to me. My phone chimes with an incoming text on the counter behind him, and we both jump, startled by the sound, which shatters our accusatory silence. Becks twists and reaches for my phone, his expression shuttering when he glances down at the screen.
“Well, I guess I have my answer. It’s not that you can’t with me, but that you can with him,” he says with disbelief before handing me my phone and striding out of the kitchen.
As hard as it is to tear my eyes away from him, I’m at a loss as to what he’s assuming until I look down on my phone. Dante. His name lights up my screen as well as the text that follows it. I stare at it understanding why Becks just left, cursing and thanking Dante all at once for his inopportune timing.
Are you coming home tonight or staying at your parents? I miss you.
