“No,” she says with conviction, even though her voice is shaky. “You’re not. ”
My body is not ready to process her rejection. My c**k wants inside of her so bad that I start to envision pushing her to the floor and burying my face between her legs, just like I did last time we were together, so she would have to acknowledge that we still very much want each other.
But the look on her face stops me. It tells me, Not gonna happen.
Anger rises up inside of me at being denied, not just because my body is craving her, but because it f**king hurts to get rejected. “I don’t get it. You want me, and I want you. Why are you being this way?”
“I do want you,” she says softly. “I want you a lot. But I want more than just sex. I need more than just sex. ”
I just blink at her, hearing what she’s saying… but not really. I’m not comprehending at all. I don’t want to comprehend, but I find myself asking, “What more do you need?”
“I want a relationship. Dating, conversation, shared secrets. I want it all, Matt. I deserve it all. ”
A myriad of emotions rage through me. My common sense immediately denies her request, and my walls stay firmly in place. Part of me though… part of me says, Go for it. Try it.
That part, however, is quickly drowned out with a thousand voices of reason telling me that I’m destined for hurt. That my life has been pretty f**king fantastic the last few years by subsisting on nothing but one-night stands. It’s not a bad life to go back to.
Shaking my head slowly, I say, “I don’t have that to give. ”
“Yeah, you do,” she says tenderly, her eyes seeming to look deep into my soul, like she sees something there that I don’t even know exists. “You showed me you do in Nashville. You have a lot to give. ”
She reaches a hand out toward me and, for a split second, I think about taking it. Then I’m backing away, locking the walls in place. I make a last-ditch effort to make sure that there’s not some other factor that I may be overlooking… that may be causing her to be stubborn about this. Again, I can’t understand why she’s turning her nose up at something that is so amazing between us.
But then, a thought strikes me. “Are you seeing someone?”
Before she can answer, an even more awful thought strikes me. “Fuck… please don’t tell me you’re dating Cal. ”
“No,” she says in exasperation. “I’m not dating Cal. We’re just friends. ”
Friends, my ass.
Heard that story before. Turned out his type of friendship involved putting his c**k in my wife. “Please… that man just wants in your pants, and he’ll get there, too. ”
“He doesn’t want in my pants,” she shouts at me. “You’re just going to have to trust me on that. ”
Trust?
She dared to throw out the word “trust” to me? The man who is the poster child for having his trust abused?
My lip curls upward in derision. “See, that’s just it. I don’t trust you. ”
Mac actually takes a step back as if I had slapped her, but I don’t feel guilty in the slightest. My lack of trust in her is nothing but the God’s honest truth. Why should she expect more?
I feel her slipping away for good. In fact, I know it’s a lost cause.
So I think my next words were nothing more than a set up to make sure that we ended this for good… once and for all… so I could have some f**king peace. Because I know what the answer is to my next question, and I’m counting on her saying no.
“I’ll ask one more time… Let me come home with you tonight. I won’t ask again, McKayla. ”
She shakes her head, eyes brimming with sadness. “I’m sorry. I can’t. ”
That’s what I needed. That’s what I was counting on.
She just gave me my freedom.
“No skin off my back,” I tell her quietly. No condescension, no mocking tone. I want her to understand how deadly serious I am right at this very moment. “You’re not the only game in town. ”
Chapter 21
Rifling through my inbox, I take another look for the Memorandum of Law my paralegal drafted for me yesterday. I know I put it somewhere on my desk, but the f**king night janitor probably threw it away. Flipping through the stack, I manage to neatly slice my finger open on a piece of paper, causing a barrage of curses to pour out of my mouth.
I suck on the cut, cursing internally now, and use my other hand to move shit around. Finally, I punch a button on my phone and when my paralegal answers, I snarl, “Brenda… where is that f**king memo you drafted for me?”
I can hear her sharp intake of breath, because I never cuss at my staff. “I put it on your desk before I left last night, Mr. Connover. ”
“Well, clearly you f**king didn’t, because I can’t find it,” I snap at her. “Print it off again. ”
I disconnect the call and flop down in my seat. That was wholly unfair to Brenda because I know for a fact she had put it on my desk because I saw it. But, of late, I seem to be taking all of my rage out on whoever seems to be standing closest to me.
Gee… wonder why that is?
I stare out the window until my office door opens, and Brenda practically runs the memo up to me. I snatch it from her hand and take a glance at it. Immediately, I see that she’s brought me the wrong document. I’m betting that she was so flustered by the way I talked to her, she just printed the wrong thing off.
Think that changes what I’m about to do?