“But he will get hurt.” The thought of Zo hurt by my betrayal, by me choosing someone else, fortifies me enough to pull away from Jared’s hands. I face him, breasts still heaving. I’m aching, throbbing between my legs, and my body is a livewire, humming with the electricity of his touch. “You have to respect my relationship.”
“No, I don’t.” Jared runs an agitated hand through his hair. “It’s your relationship, so you can respect it, but I don’t. You’re not married to him.”
“That would make a difference?”
He clutches the back of his neck, head lowered and eyes narrowed, as he considers the question.
“I honestly don’t know.” He shrugs, his face as open an
d honest as I’ve ever seen it. “I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you, so I can’t say for sure that a ring would stop me.”
This is worse than I thought, and I thought it was awful.
“Don’t you feel bad, though?” I ask, pressing the back of my hand to my forehead like I might have a fever.
“If you’re serious about not cheating on him, one of us has to care, and it’s not me,” he says flatly. “I’m not made that way.”
“Not made to care?”
“I’m not made to deny myself something I want.” He drops his eyes to the tight buds of my nipples still poking through the silk of my blouse. “Especially when I know it wants me back.”
“Don’t.” I cross my arms over my breasts.
“Don’t what? Tell the truth? You want me to lie to myself? I’m not made like that either.”
“You’re going to wreck my life, Jared,” I tell him, fear and longing muddled in the words, mixing inside of me.
“Only if you want me to,” he says softly. “Do you want me to?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Is that what this is about?” He flattens the fullness of his lips into a hardened ridge. “You want me to keep pressing you, keep cornering you until you give in so I’m the bad guy? The one who made you fall?”
“No,” I choke out, hating the picture he’s painting.
“You want me to relieve you of the responsibility? ’Cause I’ll do it. I don’t mind being the villain, but between you and me, we’ll know that you want it as badly as I do. I’m just the one with the balls to make it happen.”
“It’s not like that.” Tears burn my throat. “I’m confused.”
“No, you’re not.” He shakes his head decisively. “You’re not confused about the fact that you want me in a way you don’t want him. I know you, Banner. If you loved Zo, really loved him, there’s no way I could tempt you.”
God, he’s right. I hate that he’s right. I watch him in silence, sure that he’s not done.
“You’re not confused,” he continues. “You’re conflicted because you don’t want to hurt him, but you don’t want to tell him the truth. I, however, am not confused, and I’m not conflicted.”
He moves suddenly, breaching the imaginary fortress I erected to buy myself thinking room. He cups my face in his big hands, rubbing his thumbs over my cheeks.
“I know exactly what I want.” He bends and leaves featherlight kisses on my lips. “I want another chance with you, Banner. The chance that was taken from us. I want to make love to you with the lights on.”
He kisses my chin, caresses my throat. I close my eyes against what I see in his eyes. It’s so much more than the need to fuck, than the base urge of one alpha male compelled to take a woman from another of his species. It’s tender and sincere and all the things I’ve told myself all these years he wasn’t capable of.
“I saw you first,” he whispers, kissing the bridge of my nose where my freckles are.
“I had you first.” He kisses my face where the dimple dents my check when I smile.
“I want you back,” he declares, meeting my eyes and taking my mouth in a deep kiss, never looking away. He sucks my tongue into his mouth with eyes wide open, and the intimacy of it overwhelms me. I can’t close my eyes, can’t look away even when the kiss turns more aggressive, possessive. When he coaxes my lips open wider and goes deeper, taking and giving with every stroke. He skids his hands down my waist and cups my ass, kneading the muscles until finally my eyes drift closed and I slump against him, bliss stealing the last of my pitiful resistance. I groan and my hands creep up over his shoulders and around his neck, my fingers stealing into the cool silky hair. He presses me into the refrigerator door, hooks my leg on his hip, and opens me up, grinds his erection into the divide of my pussy.
“Jared, oh, God.” My head drops back as he pushes against my clit through our clothes. The pleasure swells with each forceful thrust, arrowing from between my legs and up through my chest, coiling at the base of my throat and then breaking free on a silent scream.