Chapter 10
Hayes
After two hours of working on our project outline, I’m exhausted, hungry, frustrated, and buzzing with need.
I thought I could manage my feelings and my physical reactions to being around Kelsie, but it’s fucking hard.
Between the stress of the car ride and the incessant text messages she keeps getting from Ben, I’m about to lose my shit.
“Kelsie, can you please just concentrate? Enough with the texting already,” I growl out in exasperation.
I swear her phone has been pinging every second in the past few hours. Each time it does, my body vibrates with a need for a release I don’t know how to get.
“I am,” she snaps back, glaring at me from behind her phone. “I can’t help it that everyone wants me right now.”
I scowl. “Your booty call can fucking wait.”
I try to tap out my last thought into the shared document we’ve been working on but feel her eyes boring into me. If she could shoot lasers from them, I’m pretty sure I’d be dead right now. I steal a glance at her from my peripheral vision and notice her body appears wound as tight as mine.
“He is not a booty call,” she snarls back. “And what do you care?”
“I don’t,” I reply testily.
God, why am I acting like this? It feels like we are on some emotional roller coaster today and my stomach is tangled in knots.
“You know what?” She slams her laptop closed and stands, folding her arms over her chest.
I make the bad decision to look up and see the way her boobs are pushed up between her elbows.
I leisurely put my feet on the coffee table because I’m not going anywhere. Not until I finish this damn outline that’s due later this week “What?”
“ARGH! You are so frustrating!” she says loudly, kicking my feet off the table. I press my lips together to keep from laughing. She’s acting like a petulant child.
“Yeah, well so are you, Kelsie. But we need to finish this outline…so do you think we can do that?” I ask, deciding to take the high road. One of us has to be an adult for a moment.
She sits back down in a chair with a huff and opens her laptop again while continuing to glare at me. “Fine.”
We spend another thirty minutes hashing out details and trying to get our outline into a better format. It’s way more time than I wanted to devote to this exercise. And as we work, it’s like Kelsie is trying to taunt and tease me, turning me into a frustrated, horny dude.
Earlier, she changed into a tank top with a low cut neckline and no bra. Her shorts—if you can call them that—are those tight black booty shorts that cling to her thighs. I sneak a peek as she moves her legs, pressing her heels under her ass. Is she even wearing underwear?
Every time she takes a breath, her perfect tits rise and fall. Fuck me. I remember when I fucked those perfect tits. I have done unspeakable things to those breasts and the image of them is seared into my brain.
“Stop staring at me,” she murmurs over her laptop screen as she moves a section of our outline. I watch her highlight the text on my screen and then she does the one thing that gets me every time.
I watch as she outlines her bottom lip with her thumb, then draws it down over her chin, over the expanse of her neck until it stops right in the pocket of her cleavage. Does she really want to play this game?
Fine. Game on.
“It’s getting hot in here,” I state and, without a second thought, whip my t-shirt off and toss it next to my bag on the floor. I lean back into the sofa cushions, letting my gray sweatpants fall further down my hips. She used to love my abs and obliques and would trace them with her fingers endlessly as we lay in bed together. I steal another glance and find her eyes glued to my abdominals.
I smirk.
“Yeah, it is kind of hot now that you mention it,” she agrees, taking the hem of her tank top and tugging it up past her belly button and then tying a knot between her breasts. I glance at her stomach.
Goddamn, she is so hot. I remember running the tip of my tongue around the center of her belly button before I’d move south to the waistband of her panties.
My cock begins to thicken in my sweats and I know if she looks, she’ll see the very visible outline of my hard-on. I do my best to focus on this last section of our outline, but it’s useless.
Her phone pings again and it takes every fiber of my being not to grab it and chuck it against the wall. It’s like she’s doing this on purpose to get me riled up.
Earlier today, she was so kind. She could have been obnoxious about my panic attack in the car, but instead she pulled over and gave me a glimpse of the Kelsie I once knew. Now, she’s acting like a total pain in my ass. I think she’s getting pleasure out of dangling herself in front of me as if I’m a kid and she’s the candy on a top shelf that I can’t reach, candy I’ve had before, candy that I know tastes amazing.
I watch her respond to a text and I ball my hands into fists.
“We should talk,” I say out of nowhere, pushing my laptop off my lap and then realizing my mistake when she lifts her gaze and it lands on my crotch.
“About what?” she asks, tilting her head to the side and smirking. “The fact that you get turned on while working on an outline about international business practices?”
I glance down at my sweatpants and unabashedly adjust my cock. “No, not that. We have…unresolved…things to discuss, don’t you think?”
She sighs. “Don’t want to hear your excuses. And besides, I think I’m going to grab a late night snack with Ben. So, let’s wrap this up.”
She closes her laptop and stands, heading toward her bedroom.
“Kelsie, wait,” I call out, hoping she’ll listen and give me a chance.
She waves me off and then turns the corner, shutting me out quite literally. What the fuck? I want to go after her. I want to make her listen to what I have to say.
I need to explain myself. She deserves to hear the truth, if I can just spit it out. I almost explained it when she pulled the car over earlier today. I wanted to, but I was in a full-blown panic attack. When I get like that, I can’t think straight and I’ll need to have my wits about me when I tell her everything.
If I tell her everything about the accident. Because if she knew all of it, she’d hate me even more than she does now. Who wouldn’t? Guilt wraps around my heart and squeezes it like a vise. As if on cue, my phone pings with a text.
Holden: How’s that project going?
I had told him about my project when he finally got in touch with me and that I was paired up with Kelsie. I didn’t exactly explain everything because if he knew why she was mad at me, he’d feel bad about it.
I’m not sure who harbors more remorse; me or Holden. Most days it’s a toss-up, but then I remember I can still live out his dream and he’s still stuck in a rut at home. I punch the sofa cushion with my fist. Life is not fair. None of this is fair.
I take a deep breath, trying to calm myself down.
Me: It’s going. Today was all right. We at least got the first draft of the outline done.
Holden: That’s good. Hope you work things out with her.
Me: Yeah…we’ll see.
God, this sucks. I wish Kevin was here. If he was, he’d totally know what to do. He was my best friend and there are days I need him more than anything. I just need someone to talk to.
Even though Holden’s my twin, I can’t always share everything with him. He’s still too fragile, so if I mention anything that isn’t positive, I feel like it’ll send him in a downward spiral.
I don’t know my teammates well enough to really share anything with them. And the only other person in my life I’d like to talk to…is currently pissed off at me and about to go out on a date with another guy.
That about sums up my life.
I hear the door to Kelsie’s room open and then she appears in the hallway and my jaw drops open.
She’s changed into a snug-fitting crop top in hot pink accentuating her tight abdominals. The black leggings hug her perfect ass and the bra underneath the top pushes up her tits in the most tantalizing way. It has me vibrating with the need to…well, do something.
Before I know what I’m doing, I stand abruptly and zero in on her like a launched missile heading toward the target.
She looks up from her phone, startled that I’m suddenly so close.
Her mouth opens to say something, but the words die on her tongue when I cage her between my arms, my palms flattening against the wall. A gasp escapes her lips.
“What are you doing?” she seethes through gritted teeth, but the look in her eyes tells me a different story. They flicker with heat and lust.
I lean down and growl, “Are you going out with him to make me jealous?”
She rolls her eyes and then snorts “It’s none of your business why I’m going out with him.”
I press in close so her breasts touch my chest. I feel every breath. Each inhalation and exhale. I lean my head down so my lips are at her ear.
“It is my business,” I whisper, my breath fanning over her neck. Breathing in her warm honey scent, I nearly lose my goddamn mind.
“Not anymore.”
“It never stopped being my business.”
“Fuck you, Hayes!” she says in a harsh tone, shoving me away with her palm. “You have no right because you left. Not me. You.” She digs a fingernail into my chest. While the pain is slight, her words cut deep.
“You’re right, I did, but?—”
“No! No buts! I hate you!” she shouts loudly.
I’m not sure if anyone else is upstairs in this house at the moment, but if they hear the shouting, they might wonder what’s going on and jump in to intervene.
Kelsie tries to push me away, her phone slipping from her hand and clattering to the floor. But she pauses, casting a glance at the phone and then back to me.
Instead of pushing me away, her hands move to my hips and she grips the hem of my waistband. I feel the electricity between us as the air seems to shift and I suck in a sharp breath. Her pupils dilate.
Wait. What just happened here?
“You want me, don’t you?”
“No,” she replies unconvincingly, fingernails digging into my skin at my waist. “As if…”
I run a single finger over the curve of her collarbone and then down her cleavage. Her breasts heave with a shuddering inhale of breath.
“Yes, you do,” I urge as I trail a finger around her nipple that hardens under my touch.
She sucks in another breath and repeats her mantra, this time with far less force and conviction. “Fuck you, Hayes. I hate you.”
“You already said that,” I tease and then shiver when I feel her finger trace over the ridges of my obliques.
“I do…hate you. I don’t want you,” she murmurs and glances down at the bulge in my sweatpants. She bites down on her bottom lip and she avoids my gaze.
I lean down, inhaling more of her delectable scent and run my nose along her neck.
“Then prove it.”