Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Creed
Flicking through the magazine that sits on the breakfast counter, I wait for her to appear.
I didn’t need to speak to her about Royce, I just needed to see her.
I must have some kind of sickness because this didn’t make sense.
I chased her down. I wanted her to fight back but all she done was shut me down at every given chance. It was infuriating.
Slicing my eyes towards the door when I hear the floorboards creek beneath her feet, my lips twitch when she appears in sweats and a tee. Her hair still damp, and her eyes are as wild as fire as they dance with mine.
She is cautious and I suppose she has a right to be.
“What was so important that you had to barge your way in here?” She throws her hand at the door then crosses her arms over her chest.
“Sit.” I nod, closing the magazine and fisting my hands into my suit trousers.
She rolls her eyes like a brat and slumps down on the sofa.
“Good girl.” I wink, and she blinks at me, and I see a slip of that facade she has masking her pretty face.
“What do you want?” Her sharp tone is back.
I lower myself on the coffee table in front of her, my eyes bouncing between hers. I know she is trying to read me, but I am giving nothing away.
“I wanted to see you.”
“So you lied.” Anger drips from her tongue.
I shrug my shoulders. “You wouldn’t talk to me.”
“So you lied.” She repeats the words again, but this time, they’re more venomous as they pierce my skin.
“Yes.” I lick my bottom lip and drop my head, hands pressed together.
“Unbelievable,” she scoffs and mutters under her breath, shaking her head side to side.
“Look.” I shuffle, moving slightly closer to her.
“I shouldn’t have just walked out in Monaco,” I admit, silently begging for her to look at me but her face is turned away and looking towards the small kitchen area.
“I freaked; I kissed my son’s ex-girlfriend…
I crossed a line I shouldn’t have.” I pause for a moment. “But I am not sorry for kissing you.”
That gets her beautiful blues on mine.
“Not one bit.” I swallow. “Honestly? I haven’t stopped playing it over. But I didn’t want you to hate me if we did go all the way…”
She says nothing. Her eyes are a little glassy. I really hated that.
“But I didn’t want to fuck up our friendship… I didn’t want to fuck things up between you and Royce.”
“There is nothing between me and him.” She swallows, her voice a ghost of a whisper.
“But there was.” That’s the truth. There was something. A whole full-blown relationship.
She palms away a tear. “Is that all you wanted?” she snipes as she pushes to her feet and tucks herself against the bedroom door.
“Yes.” My tone is exasperated as I stand and walk towards her.
“Good.” She drops her face and my heart aches inside my chest. My fingers automatically grab her chin and tilt her head back so her watery blues lock on mine. “This is for the best, Ace,” I murmur.
“Is it?” She pushes back and my heart stammers before banging against my rib cage.
Pressing my forehead against hers, I close my eyes and inhale heavily, her scent engulfing me. The way her voice hitches when she asks me the question tells me she knows it’s for the best, but like me, she doesn’t want it to be.
“Yes.” My whisper dances across her lips.
I find myself edging closer towards her, her lips parting and I am waiting for the moment she pushes me off her. The moment her brain clicks into action at what we’re both about to do.
But it doesn’t.
My lips are on hers, and only then do my hands skim down the side of her body. My large hands curl around her waist as she melts into me.
And there it is again.
The intrusive thoughts.
The reminder that this is Royce’s ex-girlfriend.
Yet, I can’t seem to stop even though everything inside of me is screaming at me to.
A soft whimper escapes her, her arms wrapping around my neck as she clings onto me and that’s when it hits me.
That whimper was all it took to bring me back around. I came here to shut this down in the hopes that the feelings that burned deep inside of me would extinguish into nothing but smoke.
Her tongue swipes against mine and I scrunch my eyes shut, forcing myself to pull away. I know this is going to break her all over again, but I have to do it. Not just for me but for her, too.
She blinks up at me, chest rising and falling and one of my hands moves to cup her face.
“We can’t do this; you’re my kryptonite, Ace…” I barely manage to get the words out when I feel the sting of her hand against my cheek.
“Fuck you.” Tears fill her pretty blue eyes and I hate myself in that moment.
She ducks out and moves to her bedroom, slamming to door even harder than before. My feet are anchored to the floor, my hand folds inside my pocket and eventually I move and walk out of the apartment.
I don’t know what I was thinking coming here.
I knew it was going to be a mistake, but I still came anyway.
I think I wanted to, needed to more so. My lips still tingle from our kiss.
My heart is still thrashing in my chest at the rush of feelings that wrapped themselves around it.
My skin slowly loses the blanket of goosebumps that cooled me.
I loved the way she made me feel but loathed it at same time.
Pushing out the door, I walk to the carpark and slip into my car, pulling out and booting it home. I need to put some distance between us.
I know work was going to be hell tomorrow, but I need to stay focused. We would be on the flight to Italy in two days. Once we were there, race weekend will keep us too busy to even acknowledge each other.
Dropping my keys onto the side table, I walk into the kitchen and see Russ, my housekeeper, has left a plate of food on the side with instructions. He lived here more than me; I was out of the country more than I was in it, but he stayed here most of the time.
Looking at the dish, I turn my nose up and pop it in the fridge. I’ve lost my appetite.
Heading straight for the drinks table, I reach for the scotch and pour myself a large glass and down it in one, wincing as I do. I pour another and do the same and on the third pour, I reach for ice and savour this one as I look out into the darkness of my garden.
Shaking my head, I reach for my phone and browse through her socials. I need to get my fix somehow.
She hadn’t posted today and my brows furrow, but she did post yesterday.
It’s a picture of her standing in the bar above the paddock, pulling a funny face.
The bridge of her nose is scrunched, one eye is closed, the other focused on the camera.
Her lip is slightly curled and she bites into her tongue that’s poked out, holding two fingers up.
Fuck, she looks good.
Dressed in the team’s polo, suddenly the urge to fuck her in that and only that overwhelms me.
Closing the app, I finish my drink and move towards the bathroom. I need her out of my head, if only for a moment.
Turning the shower on, I strip my clothes from my tired body and dump them in the corner.
Stepping under the stream of hot water, I let it beat down on my skin as I smother my body in soap and wash my hair before rinsing it off.
My hands rub down my torso, my muscles rippling underneath them as my fingers trail and dip.
Curling them around the thickness of my cock, my head falls forward, eyes lowered as I watch myself. I know this is wrong to be jerking off to her, but it is the only way I am able to relieve the constant thoughts of her, if only for a few minutes.
Soft strokes up and down make my breath shudder as I imagine her here in front of me. My lips on her neck, hands tuck around her hips as she reaches for me, wrapping her fingers around my cock and pumping her hand up and down.
My fantasy shifts to reality when my skin cools, my stomach knots, and I know that I am getting close. Shameless, but I am so fucking desperate for her. My cock aches with the anticipation of my orgasm I am chasing, needing it as quickly as I can to feel some form of relief.
Tilting my head back, I clench my jaw as my grip tightens, and my strokes become faster.
Breaths laboured, my eyes roll into the back of my head as pleasure rips through me. I cum, my hand still stroking up and down, my head slowly tilting forward as I look down at the mess I have made.
Shuddering, I rinse my hands under the shower then wash myself again from head to toe. Agitation bites at my skin as I step out and wrap a towel around me. Thoughts of her come flooding back and I storm across the room with a dark, thunderous cloud hanging over me.
I hate it.
I fucking hate it.
Sitting on my bed, the television is numbingly boring as it flickers in the background and there I am, like a lovesick fool, watching through her old videos.
I’m not a well man, clearly.
I am addicted and I swore to never let a woman consume me like Katrina did. She ruined me, or so I thought, and yet here I am, besotted with a girl half my age who used to date my son.
She is out of bounds.
I know that.
She knows that.
Yet, I still seem to crave her. She’s like a drug.
Dangerous and addicting, but once you get that hit, you forget about the reason you were hesitant in the first place.
Then comes the low, and fuck, am I in that moment now.
Second guessing why I did it, why I gave into it, but at the same time, counting down the minutes until I can have her again.
The worst thing is, we’ve only kissed.
She has me that fucked up and twisted from just a kiss and I am already dying for the next one.
Idiotic.
I’m like Jekyll and Hyde.
On one hand, I know I need to stay away. On the other, I am like the silly moth floating towards the light knowing full well it will consume me whole, leaving me as nothing but ashes at her feet and yet I still want it.
Scrubbing my face, I toss my phone onto the bed and turn the television off.
I was tired and grumpy and frustrated.