“You haven’t threatened my job or a promotion if I didn’t have sex with you, and Damon is my brother, not my keeper. Those are bullshit reasons.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Yeah, it fucking is that simple,” she said hotly. “Either you want me or you want an excuse not to be with me. Pick one.”
“You don’t understand what it’s like for me.”
“I took a bullet for the last man who said that to me,” she snapped. During one of our conversations, she’d admitted to a relationship with a fellow officer in Charlotte. They’d gotten together after a breakup of a long relationship and when things got serious, he freaked and told her it was too soon for him. The next day, she’d used her body to shield him from a perp and took a bullet in the shoulder. He’d put in for a transfer a week later.
“This isn’t the same thing,” I told her.
“No, it isn’t. This is worse. Fact is I’d rather have another bullet dug out my shoulder than deal with the same crap with you that I went through with him.”
“I’m sorry, Laura. I just can’t.”
“Bullshit,” she said. “I can see who I want and so can you. What you’re saying is you don’t want me.”
“You think I don’t want you? You think I’ve slept decent since I had you in that bed? The only time I fall asleep I dream of burying myself inside you, the way you looked when I had you in my lap, when I was driving into you. Laura, it’s killing me not to have you.”
“Then quit being so fucking dramatic and take me!” she said. “Unless you’d rather be a coward and a saint and never allow yourself to feel anything too deeply. Look, it was terrible that she died and she didn’t deserve it and neither did you. But do you think she wanted you to spend the rest of your life like the goddamn walking dead?”
I shook my head, getting angry now. “You don’t know a fucking thing about it.”
“Of course I don’t because you won’t talk to me!” she yelled.
“I’m talking to you now and you called me a coward. Why would I wanna say more?”
“Because you feel something for me, dammit. I know you do. You’re just too chicken shit to do anything about it. And I’m not gonna do this with you, have sex and then you run and hide and feel guilty. You have to choose. Me or the past.”
“It’s not that simple. How many times do I have to tell you before you get it through your head, Vance?” I shouted back, stepping closer to her.
“Yeah, I forgot. I don’t know how it is for you. I don’t know how it is to feel lonely and terrified of letting myself get swept up in something that has the power to pull me under like a riptide, right? I don’t know what it’s like to risk a relationship with my brother, right? I don’t know what it’s like to watch someone I love dying before my goddamn eyes, right? I don’t know what it’s like to know that a fucking serial kidnapper was at my fucking house, right? You’re the only one with a goddamn complicated life, RIGHT?” she shouted, louder and angrier by the word.
I grabbed her then and kissed her, crushed her lips and plunged my tongue into her mouth. God, she felt amazing, hot and soft and sweet, clinging to me, both of us breathless from fighting, from lust. I backed her up to the kitchen counter and kissed her cheek and ear and neck, my hands going to her breasts and fondling them through her uniform. They were heavy and sensitive, her hooded eyes telling me how badly she wanted me. Her hands were in my hair, and I bent her back over my arm and plundered her mouth with mine. Kissing her was like falling into the darkness, velvet and intoxicating. I didn’t need to breathe as much as I needed this, the way kissing Laura made me feel alive again, made every part of my body light up on fire with one purpose, to worship her, to make her scream my name. I got hard every time I remembered her saying my name while I was thrusting my cock inside her, so tight and hot and soaking wet. Like honey.
I was going to have her again right here. There was no stopping the combustion between us once we touched. I would make it so good for her, so incredible that she’d be too weak to stand when I was done with her. She’d been right. It was simple, as simple as this, as holding her close and never letting go. As simple as needing her all the time.
“It was never that I didn’t want you,” I said raggedly, taking her mouth again urgently.