Chapter 15
SHAWN
I watched Kara’s sexy mouth fall open then immediately slam shut, and the fire in her eyes burned brighter.
She thought this was manipulation. Her brain probably wouldn’t let her consider any option where it was the truth.
She stormed over to the window, as far away from me as she could get, turning her back.
When she claimed I meant nothing, well . . . I didn’t like that. The loss of control over my emotions that followed was shocking. She disabled my ability to think. Around her, I didn’t know up from down. Good choices from bad ones. Lust from . . . whatever this was.
I raked a hand through my hair to settle myself.
Apologize.
Every second that passed made it worse. I knew how it was with women, how they could stew in simmering anger and, left long enough, it would boil down to rage.
“Jason called me a selfish bastard, among other things.” I didn’t keep the shame from my voice. “He made it clear you were off limits, because . . .” I struggled to find a way to put it into words. “With women, I’ve been known to—”
She glanced over her shoulder to give me a plain look. “You sleep around.”
I sighed. “That’s a nicer way of phrasing it than the way he did. You deserve someone who wouldn’t do that to you. He asked me not to get involved, but I didn’t care. I wanted you.” My voice was resigned. “I had to have you, and I always get what I want.”
Her eyes were as cold and clear as a glacier and her whole body stiffened. “I am not yours to have.”
Her reaction told me how dangerous the conversation had turned, and a wrong step could be catastrophic. “I know that.”
“This was a mistake.” She folded her arms tight across her chest and turned again to stare out the window. Like she could block me out. The word mistake stung. What the fuck did she mean it was a mistake?
Her voice was final. “Maybe you should move into the other room.”
I was unprepared for the concept of Kara throwing me out. The disorientation, the unprecedented event . . . I refused to believe it. “Neither of us wants that.”
“Please. You don’t give a hell about what anyone wants except yourself.”
“Don’t be like this.” I was vaguely aware my control was slipping away again, but it came out before I could lock it down. “I’m not Paul. Don’t put that on me.”
The noise of shock from her was a knife in my heart.
“One of us,” she said, her voice like steel, “is going. Right. Now.”
The anger at myself made everything more difficult. “Fine, I’ll go.” I didn’t want to, but for once I’d put someone else’s wants over my own. “I’ll be next door if you need anything.”
I zipped my suitcase closed with aggression, yanked it off the stand, and marched for the door, hoping she’d stop me.
But she didn’t.
I ate alone in the room with almost all the lights off. Melodramatic, my mother would have said. Somehow, I was the only one in our family who wasn’t afraid of feelings. I didn’t view them as a weakness. I welcomed emotion. Well—controlled emotion.
Kara Hayward had turned me into an idiot who would say or do any terrible thought that formed in my idiot brain, but sleeping with her hadn’t been a mistake. I was certain. Because I wanted to do it again. And again.
I wanted . . . more.
So, I spent a long time thinking about how I was going to get what I wanted, and I didn’t get into bed until I had a plan laid out.
Yet sleep would not come, no matter how tired I was.
Concerning thoughts repeated in my brain, relentless.
My feelings were developing much too quickly for the woman next door, the one who loved to challenge me.
The woman who I was fairly certain despised me.