Things We Never Said (Hart's Boardwalk 3)

“I’m not arguing about this.”

I knew that resolute expression on his face so I didn’t bother arguing, even though my heart was hammering at the pending conversation. With a huff of annoyance to cover my fear, I whipped around and began to dress.

“Dahlia.”

I hesitated a second before I looked over my shoulder.

The man was staring at me like he was about to pounce and ravish me. Irritatingly my body awakened at the idea, tingles between my legs, breasts plumping.

Goddamn it.

“Next time I want you on your hands and knees so I can enjoy this view.”

My lips parted on a gasp of excitement that I quickly swallowed. I narrowed my eyes. “There won’t be a next time.”

Michael smirked as if he knew something I didn’t and then walked past me.

And his ass.

Oh my God, his ass.

It was the stuff of legend.

Regret filled me as I watched his rock-hard butt cheeks walk out the bedroom door, knowing I should have taken the chance to bite them. Too late now.

Forlorn, I quickly got changed, flushing a little as I did, overcome with flashbacks of sex with Michael. It had blown past all my expectations, and they had been pretty high. My God, I’d had a hair trigger climax. Blushing harder, I shook my head as I put one shaky foot after another into my jeans. Wait until I told Bailey.

Oh shit.

Bailey. My dad. They were probably wondering where I was.

I needed to check my cell, and it was in my purse. Wherever it was. A vague recollection of dropping it when Michael swept me up into his arms came to me. It was in his sitting room.

Once I put myself back together (well, sort of), I made my way down the hall. I wasn’t sure it was possible to ever be put back together the way I had been before sex with Michael. It had fundamentally changed me, and wasn’t that a big kick to my metaphorical cojones?

The kitchen sat off the sitting room, and I stood in a daze, staring at the awful emptiness of the place. Why did it bother me so much that his apartment was filled only with the necessities? There was no warmth, no personality. It tugged at something deep in my chest. I stood there so long, lost in those thoughts, Michael wandered into the room. Thankfully, he was dressed in sweatpants and a T-shirt.

“Coffee?” He walked over to the coffee machine. “Sorry it’s so cold in here. I have the heating on a timer. It’s coming on now.” He pulled two mugs out of a cupboard.

“I need to go. Can you give me my boots?”

In answer, he threw me my balled-up socks. “Your feet will be cold.”

I glowered as I bent to put my socks on. “They’d be less so if you’d give me my boots back.”

“Dahlia, stay and have a coffee with me.”

“I need to check my cell.” I ignored his placating tone, glancing around the place. Moving out of the kitchen into the sitting room, I saw my purse on the floor. My hands were shaking as I bent down to pick it up, and once I found my cell, it jumped out of my trembling fingers.

Suddenly Michael was there, bending down for the phone.

I opened my mouth to protest, but he took my hands, squeezed them in reassurance, and placed the cell in between them. His dark eyes held something like the tenderness they used to. “It’s okay, dahlin’.”

I bit my lip against the well of emotion that wanted to pour out of me and instead opened my cell phone case to distract myself. There were messages from my dad and Bailey.

Michael must have been looking because he said, “Tell them you’re fine. That you’re here.”

“I’m telling them I’m on my way home.”