I clam up, not knowing how to respond. He heard. I know damn well he heard, so the fact that he wants me to repeat myself tells me he simply wants to hear it again. Surely if he wanted to forget about last night, or pretend he hadn’t heard what I just said, he wouldn’t push me to repeat myself. My conclusions are only strengthening by the minute, which means I’m currently holding the cards. I’m the one who dictates what happens next, but I’ve just realised something. A significant something.
I want it to happen again.
He makes me feel alive.
Whether I’m raging at him or struggling to keep my hands off him, he makes me feel alive. My heart pounds every time I’m with him. He makes everything colourful. I keep coming back for more of the predictable, intoxicating clashes because deep down, I’m addicted to the rush of blood to my head each time he pokes me. I like the way I feel around him. I like him. Unconventional, daring, cocky but smart. Unapologetic for who he is. Passionate about his passion. A total maverick, just like his gramps said. Truly spirited. And he’s unearthed a spirit in me, too. Everything had been sucked out of me – my soul, my heart, my essence – leaving a void, which rapidly filled with sadness and bitterness that was slowly drowning me. There was no spirit. There was no passion. I had become an empty shell who existed, who went through the daily motions of life without . . . life. Or hope. Any smile I cracked was followed quickly with gut-wrenching guilt. Any attempt to distract myself, to move on, was followed rapidly by a mental beating by my conscience.
‘Eleanor?’ Becker breaks into my reflections with his soft tone, and I realise I’m looking straight through him, seeing things from my past that need to stay where they are. Miles away. But now I’m here. In my present. I should be sensible, given that Becker seems to have momentarily lost his reason. ‘What did you say?’ he repeats, starting to breathe heavily, bracing himself.
I’m going to be sensible. I have to be sensible. ‘I said . . . no.’ Rational thought has abandoned me, as it always does when I’m with Becker Hunt. It’s been ambushed by recklessness, and in this enlightening moment, I seem to have lost the inclination to reason with my idiocy. ‘And you really don’t want me to stop looking at your arse,’ I add.
He gives me a lopsided grin. ‘It’s a good arse.’
‘You have no idea,’ I breathe, feeling something between us shift. It’s acceptance.
But then his smile falls away and his gaze falls with it, before he breathes in deeply and slowly lets his eyes climb up my body again, pausing now and then. When we’re staring at each other, for what feels like minutes, he asks, ‘What’s happening here, princess?’
‘I don’t know,’ I admit quietly, willing him to give his thoughts on our confusing clashes – both the mental ones and the physical.
‘Me neither.’ His whole forehead creases as he slips his hands into his pockets. ‘You piss me off on an hourly basis.’
‘Likewise.’
He smiles. ‘You also turn me on as often.’
‘Likewise,’ I say again, no holding back.
‘Trying to be angry when my cock is throbbing isn’t easy. It’s like the anger enhances how much I want you.’
I lose my breath, my hand beginning to shake on the gold doorknob. I’m not sure whether it’s safe to release it. My legs feel like jelly. He’s really not holding back. ‘Becker, I love this job.’ I need him to know that.
He begins to nod slowly in understanding. ‘And I love you being here.’
‘To annoy you?’
‘To look at you.’ He starts to approach me, and my back instinctively melds to the door. ‘I could look at you all day, princess.’
‘You don’t get to call me princess,’ I murmur. I’m being arrested by a desire so potent, I’m struggling to remember what he should be calling me. What’s my name?
He reaches me in a few lazy strides and presses the whole of his front into mine, pinning me to the door. I gulp, scared to look into his eyes. Becker doesn’t have the same fear. He rests the tip of his finger lightly under my chin and applies the lightest of pressure, not forcing me at all, so when I lift my face to confront him, he knows it’s with nothing but willingness. Our mouths brush. If I let my tongue venture past my lips, I could taste him again. This close, it’s all I can think of. But then he speaks, and my hunger reaches unbearable levels. ‘What I choose to call you won’t feature in that pretty little head of yours, princess, when—’
‘You’re violating me in the most delicious ways imaginable.’ I let the words out on a wisp of lustful air and release the doorknob.