Chapter 16
Sixteen
December, Last Year
Wyatt
I’m standing at CJ’s desk.
In CJ's office.
In CJ's home.
It’s exactly the way I've pictured it—professional but offbeat. Pictures of people I don’t recognize, along with plenty that I do, line the walls.
Her ergonomic chair is an all-business black, and a fuzzy pink blanket is draped over one arm.
I barely resist the urge to pick it up and see if it smells like her.
It doesn’t matter, though. Her light floral scent assaults me when I wander closer to her desk. I close my eyes and inhale, and of fucking course that’s how she finds me.
“I know you're not in this room right now.”
My eyes snap open to find her standing in the doorway with her arms crossed tight under her breasts.
I'm sure I look guilty as fuck, which I am. Our friends are just outside this room at an impromptu holiday party following our annual Golfmas outing, and I just let myself into her space knowing damn well she wouldn’t want me here.
"There’s not a thing in this house that could possibly be of interest to me," I say in my most bored voice because old habits die hard, and I’m still pissed about July and am hoping her scorn will have its usual bucket-of-acid-to-the-face effect on me.
“Listen, asshole,” she hisses. “I’ve been extremely polite to you tonight out of respect for Liv, and—”
I snort. "You call glaring at me, spilling eggnog on my shirt, and stabbing me with a fondue skewer ‘extremely polite’?”
"You're lucky it was your hand and not your…” Her lips press together, but she doesn’t actually voice the word. Instead, her eyes drop to my dick, and the motherfucker in question starts to wake up. Fuck.
As casually as possible, I step behind her desk chair to put more objects between us, but it has the opposite effect when she mutters a curse and steps all the way inside the room, easing the door shut behind her.
"Nuh-uh, Wyatt. Nobody gets to steal any more of my ideas."
I grip the back of her chair so hard that my knuckles turn white. I know I should apologize for believing Reese over CJ for as long as I did, but I want her on her knees apologizing to me for being a fucking child in that alley, too.
Fuck. On her knees. Now I’m turned on, mad, and guilty. It’s not a good combo.
“I don’t need or want your ideas,” I growl.
She stalks to the desk and hits a button so all that shows on her monitor is the log-on screen. “Maybe not, but your girlfriend sure did.”
"She's not my girlfriend.” I try to take shallow breaths now that the floral scent is coming from the woman herself. “Or my fiancée. We’d already broken up this summer.”
Instead of putting more distance between us, I step out from behind the chair until we’re standing chest to chest, thigh to thigh in this small, dark room. Her back is to her desk, and the glow of the monitor outlines her brown waves and the curves of her body in a cool, white light.
"But she said—"
"I know what she said,” I snap, so fucking tired of everything about us being so twisted up and twisting me up. “But believe me. She’d moved out. It was over, and she was acting jealous for no reason. I don't lie about my relationships.”
“You don’t? Not ever?” Her voice is throaty as she shifts from side to side, dragging her breasts across my torso maybe accidentally but maybe on purpose.
I have to plead with my body to calm the fuck down as my frustration from our last encounter comes roaring back, along with the reminder that I did fucking lie.
I told Reese that CJ and I were nothing and never had been.
But how often have I thought about this woman over the years?
All that bitterness and disappointment kept her vivid and hot in my chest, and I feel sick that Reese must’ve known all along that our relationship was the shield I used to deflect those feelings.
And even then, loving another woman, truly wanting to marry her, was never quite enough to purge me of the loathing and the heady, miserable joy of fighting with CJ.
And even though I’m free to pursue her now, I don’t know how to turn any of it off.
So I go on the offensive, shifting forward to press her against the desk until my cock digs into her hip. Based on her sharp inhale, she likes it.
"Oh my god, I should have known,” she says as she rubs against me like a cat.
"What?" I growl.
“That you like being told you're a bully and a liar and a disappointment.“ Her voice almost breaks on that last word before her jaw hardens. “Because that’s what you are, and you’re about to come in your pants because I’m not afraid to say so. You’ve got a degradation kink. ”
No, I’ve got a CJ kink, I almost tell her, but I keep my teeth clamped together and thrust against her, rattling every loose item on her desk and watching in fascination as pink floods her cheeks.
Her plush lips fall open, and I say, “That degradation kink’s all you, I’m afraid."
"Me?" Her tits are still brushing against my chest with every inhale, and she's doing a lot of inhaling as I rut against her.
“Yes, you. You love fighting with me. You love hating me when I call you a manipulative, soulless bitc—”
She slaps me. It's a shock, but I grew up wrestling with Hollis and our younger siblings, so not only does it barely faze me, it sends a wolfish smile spreading across my face.
"That's right." My voice is pure gravel. "Do it again."
She's breathing harder than she did during the 5K, all flushed and panting and gorgeous. “I hate you.”
“I know you do. And why is that so fucking hot?” Her nostrils flare as I continue.
“You sit in this office all day writing your little reports and making your little recommendations, and it's only when you see me that you come alive.
That fucking paramedic never made you feel like this.
Isn't that right, sweetheart?" I have no idea where this is coming from, but I want it to be true.
“That’s”—she jolts when my hand lands on her hip—“that’s not even close to true.”
“But you wouldn't have met him if not for me, so I bet I know who you were picturing every time you fucked him.” I lean forward and press my mouth to her ear. “You pictured me every time, didn’t you?”
Her head falls backward on a moan as I slip my fingers under the hem of her shirt.
Her skin is burning up, and she shudders when I slide my hand over her stomach.
It’s a good shudder. A keep-touching-me shudder, so I move lower, hooking my fingers in the waistband of her jeans and keeping my eyes locked on hers as I slide the button free.
"You may have given up this pretty pussy for him, but did he get you this wet, this fast?
" I am gambling now, but I don't think I'm going to be disappointed when I finally lower the zipper and slide my hand down the front of her panties.
"You date that nice guy, and he leaves you bored.
But you catch me going through your files, trying to uncover whatever bullshit you're up to now, and what happens?”
Her only response is a whimper, so I wrap my free hand in her hair and force her face up to mine.
“What happens, CJ?”
Her gaze goes hazy when I tighten my fingers in her soft strands.
“Just nod if you can’t talk,” I command. “Am I going to find you wet for me?”
Her throat works as she swallows; then she gives a tiny up-and-down jerk of her head. It’s the permission I need to seek out her slit, and when I do, I have to lean forward and groan into her shoulder so they can’t hear me in the living room.
“I fucking knew it,” I say in a hushed growl. “You’re so wet it's already coating my hand."
Now she’s the one gasping when I catch her clit between my knuckles and squeeze.
"Am I lying?” I ask. “Or is it true that you’re begging for the man you hate to make you come harder than you ever have?”
"Fuck you, Wyatt," she whispers.
An evil grin crawls across my face. “So you want me to stop?” I start to pull away, but her hand shoots out so she can snag my wrist and hold me in place. Her eyes glitter with loathing and lust and frustration.
“Fuck. You,” she says again. “Go ahead and try. Show me exactly what kind of disappointment the last six years would have been if we’d—”
I shut her up by spearing her with two fingers, barely biting back a groan at the heat of her. We’ve never even kissed, and somehow it’s both extremely right and extremely wrong that this is the first part of me to be inside her.
“I need you to tell me this is okay,” I breathe into her ear as I pull out and slide back in again. “Tell me how much you want it. How much you want to give it up for the man you’ve fucking hated all these years.”
I press down on her clit and she stutters out a breath, fumbling until she can wrap a fist around the front of my T-shirt. “Do it, Wyatt.” She shakes her head almost helplessly. “I want you to."
So I do, pumping my fingers in and out of her while my thumb circles her clit. When she starts to moan, I clap my free hand over her mouth.
“Better shut the fuck up unless you want them all to know.” I withdraw my fingers slowly, loving the flutter of her lashes as I drag against her tight channel.
“Unless you want them to hear. Your best friend and my brother. The other two happy couples out there who haven’t noticed that we both disappeared.
Do you want them to know how much you love riding my fingers? ”
Fire burns in her eyes, so I shouldn’t be surprised when I feel the bite of her teeth in my palm.
I jerk my hand away with an unmanly yelp and resist the urge to check if she broke the skin.
It feels like she did, and my cock pulses at the thought of it.
Of course this woman would be all fight and fire and violence.
“Like anything you do could make me lose control.” She runs her tongue over her teeth, and I imagine her chasing the taste of my skin with it.
“You sure about that?”