Page 53 of Miss Behaved
“Back to what?” I don’t even try to hide the snap in my tone.
His eyes narrow. “You pretending like I don’t know you. Chatty means you’re happy. Rambling means you’re nervous. Quiet means you’re pissed about something.”
“You don’t know me,” I say back to him. My eyes glance to the now-empty doorway. I wonder if he got her number or slipped her his room key.
“Genevieve,” Carson says, dragging my attention back to him. “The redhead by the door. You’re wondering who she was, right?”
“No,” I lie.
Carson rests his elbows on his knees, and it brings him to the edge of my personal bubble. One inch closer and he’d pop it, along with my ability to resist him.
“She’s an old friend,” he says.
“So an ex-girlfriend,” I shoot back at him. “You forget, I know you too.”
“Fine. Ex-girlfriend, if that’s how you want to label it.”
“And how would you label it?” I set my glass down a little harder than I’d planned.
“I wouldn’t,” Carson says. His knee brushes the edge of mine, and if it weren’t for my bones I’d melt into a puddle at his feet. “She’s in the past.”
My chest feels tight again. If it’s possible for hearts to hurt, mine does.
“Is that what I am as well?” It’s almost a whisper. “The past, popping up to haunt you?”
Carson’s jaw clenches, and his eyes narrow as they take me in, darkening like they did when I was in his bed. Not angry, but full of something I can’t read for a man I still feel like I know so well.
“You were never the past, Monica.” He reaches his hand out and plants his warm palm on my leg. “But you’re right about one thing,” he says, swirling a finger around my knee. “You’ve spent the last ten years haunting every corner of my fucking head. And I didn’t realize it until the moment I saw you again.”
Someone come get this heart, because it’s fallen from my chest and is flopping around the room like a wet mess waiting for Carson to claim it.
It takes all my energy to fight for a breath, and the air I breathe in is hot and filled with the woodsy scent that is Carson.
Don’t think about Carson’s rock-hard body.Fat chance.
Don’t fantasize about kissing Carson’s pillow-soft lips.Dumbest rule I’ve ever heard.
Under no circumstances should you act on any of the thoughts that disobey rules one and two.Aren’t all rules made to be broken?
I look into his eyes and break all three of them.
“Take me to my room.”
22
Carson
“I’mbeginningtofeellike you might be using me,” I say as Monica slips her hands around my waist while I open the door to her room. Her fingers play with the edge of my zipper, and if I didn’t think Agnes and Nadine would grab the popcorn and cheer us on, I’d slam her back against the wall and take her right here in this hallway.
Stepping up on her tiptoes to rake her teeth along my neck, she says, “Would you prefer I use someone else?”
“Fuck no,” I tell her, pulling her into her room and kicking the door shut with my foot.
She laughs, and it makes my dick stand at attention, but as we back into the room, she pulls out of my grasp and makes her way inside. She kicks her heels off to a corner of the closet and unravels the long string of pearls from her neck. The faintest bubbles are imprinted on her skin from where the necklace tugged at her all night.
It’s my first time being in Monica’s space, and even though it’s not her actual home, it still feels like her. Toiletries are lined up on the counter in a perfect row, sorted from makeup to toothbrushes to hair ties. Clothes are on hangers and in the dresser. A laptop, notebook, and pens are neatly laid out at the desk. The bed is made, and while that might have been room service, I know her well enough to know it probably wasn’t.
Everything in its place.
