Briggs (Carolina Reapers 7)

“You?” she challenged like she read my damned mind.

“Duchess, you couldn’t handle me when I was twenty-two, what the fuck makes you think you’d even know what to do with me at twenty-six?” I cocked a brow at her, breathing in Chanel No. 5 like it was more necessary than fucking oxygen.

Her lips parted. “I think I handled you pretty well last night.”

A slow grin spread across my face, and my dick thickened. “Is that what you think happened? Those were my legs wrapped around you squeezing tight? That was me asking for more? That was me, unable to walk away?”

“You’re an asshole.”

I pushed off the mirror and took a breath. Holy shit, I’d gotten that close to her and hadn’t taken what I know she would have offered up. Congratulate your self-control later and survive the now. “Glad you’re finally catching up.”

She shoved past me, throwing the shirt onto a pile of discards. “When did you become such a prick?”

“Because you think one night with me when I was a kid qualifies you as an expert?” I fired back. “You sure as fuck didn’t stick around to see the fallout, did you? When I had to explain to my mother why it didn’t matter that I’d bought her a house in Calgary—her very first house, I’ll add, because I was being traded to South Carolina.”

“You weren’t there when it hit the fan for me, either!” she countered. “Trust me, Crossland screamed at me for days!”

“Ahh, Crossland.” I folded my arms across my bare chest. “The only man you actually take orders from. How unfortunate that you suffered his displeasure. How…devastating.”

“Oh my God, are you ever going to get over it?”

“Easy for you to say when you weren’t the one who paid the price!”

“Like your life is so bad?” She flung her arms out. “Oh, poor Briggs, star NHL player. Had to take his millions from a different team. Looks like it worked out just fine for you! And don’t think I haven’t seen your women in the tabloids. Looks like you’re really suffering.” She rolled her eyes.

“Checking up on me, Duchess?” Had to admit, the thought gave me a thrill of pleasure.

“What, like you never once checked on me?” she challenged.

“I don’t exactly troll the sites for kiddie p—"

“I wasn’t a baby! I was seventeen!” she shouted.

“Exactly!” I grabbed the shirt I’d come with from the couch and yanked it on. “All it would have taken was one fucking sentence—two words from your lips, and none of it would have happened!”

“Don’t you think I know that? Don’t you think I’ve felt guilty every day since Cross told me he traded you? I had no idea who you were, Cormac! Just that you were some insanely beautiful guy who looked at me like I wasn’t some damaged teenager who needed therapy after losing her parents. Forgive me if I wanted to live in that moment a little longer.”

“It’s not like I knew who you were, either!” My stomach sank as the words tumbled out of my mouth. The truth of the matter was that she’d been a reckless teenager, and I hadn’t been smart enough to bluntly ask her age. We’d both been foolish. At least she had her age as justification for her idiocy. I’d just been...what? Blinded by a seventeen-year-old? Yes.

“I know I sure as hell liked you a lot more then than I do now!” she snapped.

I stalked forward, and she backed up until her ass hit the table, holding her breath while I reached around her to grab my keys. “That’s the difference, Duchess.” I whispered, my lips brushing the shell of her ear. She shivered as I pulled away slowly. “I grew up. I changed. You’re still the same spoiled little girl from the pool room.”

She sucked in a breath like I’d wounded her.

I headed for the door.

“You have no idea who I am now!” she called after me.

I turned in the doorway, taking in the way she’d wrapped her arms around her waist like she needed to be held together. Don’t fall for it. “I know that a woman who had truly learned from the mistake of hiding her age with a man she claimed to like would have been open about who she was before having that same man sign a contract four years later.”

Her mouth dropped open, then snapped shut. “I was helping you!”

“Yeah, keep telling yourself that. See you in New York, Duchess. No need to beckon—I’ll be on time.” I muttered a curse as I walked away from Bristol twice in the same number of days. I deserved a fucking award.

“Oh yeah! Well, your shirt is on backward, jackass!” she shouted down the hall after me.

I ignored every wide-eyed assistant and just kept going.

It wasn’t lost on me that the next time we’d be in close quarters, it would be on her turf. But I sure as hell wasn’t playing by her rules.