Asshole that he was, he wanted to push his fingers a little lower, wanted to slide them between her thighs and discover how hot and wet and aroused she was. And deeper, how tight and slick her pussy would feel around his cock as he buried himself to the hilt.
He swore beneath his breath and shook his head, hard, doing his best to dislodge the indecent images in his mind, because this was not the time or place. Ignoring the erection thickening against the front of his jeans took equal effort, and he forced his mind back to the issue at hand.
“We’re not done with this conversation,” he said as he started toward his room while pulling her behind him by the waistband of her pants, being just aggressive enough that she couldn’t stop him and was forced to follow. “You’ve had a bug up your butt the past few months, and you’re not leaving my room until you tell me what the fuck is going on and why you’re acting so irrationally, and why lately you always seem to be pissed off or annoyed with me.”
Reaching his room, he pulled his key card out of his pocket with his free hand and swiped the magnetic strip. The lock disengaged, and he opened the door and hauled her inside the suite. As soon as they cleared the entry area and were in the small living room, he finally released her.
She quickly put distance between them, then whirled around to face him. There was one lamp turned on next to the couch, and the drapes had been pulled open across the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the glittering lights of Vegas at night. The room was slightly shadowed, and while he would have preferred more light, it wasn’t a priority at the moment. She was, and he refused to be the first one to look away from their current stare-off and give her any kind of advantage.
Her chin lifted a fraction, her expression fierce and angry all over again. With her leather pants, purple-tipped hair, and sleeve of tattoos, she looked like the tough chick she liked the outside world to believe she was. But despite her being a spitfire right now, he reminded himself that beneath that stubborn, defiant exterior, she was the sweetest, most vulnerable girl he knew. She’d survived a hellish childhood, had endured the kind of pain that went soul-deep and would leave most people as twisted and fucked up as he was.
But not his Kitty-Kat. She’d always been his anchor, the one person who kept him balanced and grounded when his life felt as though it was spinning out of control. She’d saved his ass more times than he could count. Maybe it was his turn to return the favor, to try and be patient and understanding—two things that he admitted had never come easily for him.
Except judging by the tight pursing of Katrina’s lips and the irritation and restless energy nearly vibrating off of her, she didn’t seem to want his empathy. No, she looked like she was ready for an uncivilized altercation with him.
If that’s how she wanted to play this out, he’d give her the verbal brawl she was anticipating. He knew how to poke and prod and push her buttons. She wasn’t leaving this room until that fucking chip was off her shoulder and they cleared the air between them.
Since she didn’t seemed inclined to speak first, he did. “What did you mean when you called me a hypocrite?” he asked, wanting to know what he’d done to deserve that less-than-complimentary label.
“A fucking hypocrite,” she corrected him. “Because that’s what you are. You’re so concerned about me leaving with a random stranger—”
“Because you’d been drinking,” he cut her off, though he knew that excuse was only the partial truth. Watching her dance up on the bar, so lithe and hot and sexy—something she’d never done before—while other men lusted after her, had been the other very strong motivating factor for his rash actions.
“For the record, I am not drunk. Not even close,” she said as she folded her arms over her chest—tempting his gaze to stray once again to those plump breasts straining against the front of her corset top.
Damn, he wanted to pluck that tie and set those gorgeous tits free so he could mold them in his hands and take them in his mouth.
“I had two shots over the course of two hours,” she went on, oblivious to his wandering thoughts and gaze. “So if I decide to get up on top of a bar and dance and shake my ass, that’s my choice, not yours. And if I decide to leave with some hot random guy I want to fuck my brains out—which I was considering since I had so many eager males to choose from,” she said in a tone designed to provoke him, “again, I’m a grown woman and that’s my decision to make.”
Oh, yeah, she was all fired up, and he was still trying to get past the disconcerting image of her leaving with a guy she wanted to fuck her brains out.
His gut churned with something very green, like envy, and he didn’t like it. Not one bit. “I just don’t want you to do something you’ll regret later.” Jesus, when had he become such a goddamn liar? And when had her sex life, and who she chose to sleep with, become his concern?
“Oh, my God,” she said incredulously. “Aren’t you the one who told me on the plane ride here that I’m too uptight and I don’t know how to have a good time? And didn’t you bring up the fact that it’s been a long while since I’ve been laid and I ought to take advantage of Sin City and find myself a one-night stand and fuck him through the Kama Sutra?” she exaggerated.
He bristled in frustration and irritation, because somehow she’d turned all this around and was now intentionally pushing his buttons. “I never said that,” he replied heatedly as he moved toward her.
“Whatever. Close enough,” she said, waving a careless hand in the air. “And I don’t know why you’re so worried about who I might or might not screw when you were well on your way to hooking up with the first woman you came across in Coyote Ugly!”
As he neared, he saw two distinct emotions pass over her features—hurt, which was quickly followed by . . . jealousy? How could that be possible?
Certain he’d misread her fleeting expression, he pinned her with an unyielding look and got a few things off his chest, as well. “I don’t know why you’ve been so irritable lately, or what your problem is, but I’m getting damn tired of trying to figure out your mood swings.”
She sucked in an indignant breath. “Want to know what my problem is?” she said on a sudden eruption of outrage. “You’re my problem, Mason.”
She turned to leave, but he was faster. He grabbed her arm, and before she could shake him off this time, he pushed her up against the nearby wall. He flattened his hands on either side of her shoulders to cage her in, and pressed his hips hard against hers to keep her in place until he decided they were done talking.
“You don’t get to say something like that and just leave without an explanation,” he said in a low, harsh voice.
Her glittering green eyes flashed with a quiet but meaningful message for him to go to hell. Lips pressed tight together, she gave him the silent treatment—something she knew he hated.
He was prepared to wait her out as long as it took. “I have all goddamn night, Katrina.”
Seconds ticked into minutes, her willful and obstinate attitude never wavering, nor did her heated gaze. After a while, she tried to move to the side to escape him, but that maneuver only caused their lower bodies to rub together—the soft mound of her sex against the fly of his jeans.
He got hard—so fucking huge there was no way to hide his response to her and the position of their bodies. There was no way she could miss his massive erection, and still, he didn’t move, determined to wait her out for the answer she owed him. Except he hadn’t anticipated that the awareness and sexual tension between them would grow so increasingly thick he could barely remember why he’d trapped her there in the first place. To make some kind of point, yes, but all his aggravation gradually dissolved as male instinct and an undeniable bolt of sexual hunger coursed through him.
Forbidden desire and dark lust swirled through his veins like smoke, testing his control and weakening his will to resist this woman and all the dirty, filthy things he’d