Page 72 of Down Shift (Driven 8)
“This is all your fault, you know.” The censure in his tone is laden with suggestion.
“Mine?” I lean back and mirror his posture, try to appear as nonchalant as he is, when my insides feel like an exposed live wire. “How so? If you’re gonna open the door, Zander, you might as well walk on through it.” A lift of my eyebrows in challenge. A hint of a smile to reinforce it.
His laugh is long and low, yet has an edge to it that I don’t quite understand. He leans forward, elbows on his knees, eyes focused on his fingers steepled together until they shift to meet mine.
“I meant what I said last night.” His voice is heavy with a sincerity that makes my heart beat faster.
“Which thing?” I have to ask because there were so many things he said. So many promises he made.
“All of them.”
Oh. I worry my bottom lip between my teeth as I try to make sense of this conversation and the events of the past twenty-four hours. “So then you’re mad at me because—”
“Look. I think we need to lay some ground rules is all.” He lifts his hat and runs a hand through his hair before slumping back in his seat, completely disregarding the previous train of conversation and shifting gears.
“Oh. Okay. Sure.” I nod, willing to agree so maybe we can bypass the awkwardness the next time we have sex. And even that thought feels so foreign for me. “Ground rules? As in boundaries, right?” I ask, full well expecting the flash up of his eyes, since he’s the one who overstepped the previous boundaries we’d set.
“Yes, as in those types of boundaries.” He takes a sip of coffee. Takes his time swallowing. Surveys the open deck around us and then looks up to the ceiling when there’s another loud clank, before looking back to me with curiousity reflected in his eyes. “Have you ever done the friends-with-benefits thing before?”
My laughter is tinged with disbelief. “Considering I’ve only been with you and Ethan, I don’t think you need to ask that.” The hitch in his movement is subtle but noticeable. Almost as if realization has hit him over my lack of experience. I speak quickly, not wanting him to think too much about it. “The question is, have you?”
“It doesn’t matter if I have before.”
“Serio
usly? You’re going to say that and think I don’t know the answer is a resounding yes?”
“Look, Getty.” He blows out a breath in resignation. “We live together, so this could get tricky. I figured maybe if we set some type of rules, it would help some.”
“Like no-spending-the-night type of boundaries?” I snicker at how ridiculous it sounds, since our living in the same house makes that impossible, and catch the irritation that plays over his features.
“Very funny, Getty.” My name is a verbal reprimand that he’s serious and while I get what he’s saying, heed the warning, I can’t help it. It’s almost as if I feel relieved knowing that there is no regret, no doubt, on his part, just rather a need for him to prevent the disaster from happening.
And I’ve had enough disasters so far, so I’m all for it.
“So that’s why you’ve been an asshole? Couldn’t you have just said, ‘Hey, we need to talk’ when you walked into the kitchen this morning instead of giving me the silent treatment while you drove me all the way out here?”
“No.”
“No?”
“I’m out here because I couldn’t sit at the house.” His eyes are focused on his hands and I wish he’d look at me so I could see what he’s not saying.
“Why?”
“Because I can’t get you out of my goddamn head.” He grits it out like it’s a curse and every part of me sags in relief at the roundabout compliment. At knowing the feeling is mutual because all I was doing standing in the kitchen was thinking about him.
“But what does that have to do with bringing me here?”
He lifts his face up and the intensity in his eyes when they meet mine is unwavering. “Because I don’t want to want you as much as I do, but I do . . . and if we’d stayed at the house, then I’m pretty sure I would have done exactly what I wanted to do when I saw you standing there in the kitchen.”
His tongue twister of a response doesn’t answer anything and yet it causes my pulse to begin to race at its implication.
“What did you want to do?”
The hunger in his eyes practically answers the question for him. “To fuck you, Getty.” Each word sounds like a thread of his self-control is snapping. His body is tense, hands fisted. “To bend you over the edge of the kitchen counter and fulfill one of those many promises I’d made to you last night.”
“Oh.” That ache is back, liquid heat spreading through my core at his explicit words, which turn me on in ways I never imagined they could.
