Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
It was all Walker could do not to sweep the plates off the table and pick her up out of her seat and throw her down on top of it. Take her right then and there. But then, that wasn’t really good for his pride, or his reputation as someone who was good in bed.
“That’s a very polite request,” he said.
“I don’t really know how to do this,” she said.
She sounded calm. As she always did. But she looked like a stewed tomato. Her cheeks were bright pink, her lips practically trembling. And he wanted to kiss them.
He’d gotten a taste of her earlier. Just a taste. Right there in front of Alan. And it had been sweet. Enough to know that he wanted more than a taste now. He wanted everything.
He was the one who was about to beg. No two ways about it. This was his fantasy, years of fantasies, every fucked-up, malformed desire he’d had since he was in high school, come to life in front of him.
Addison Carey was admitting that she wanted him.
He should torture her for that. He should make her pay.
Far from sweeping everything off the table and clearing space for him to take her then and there, he should demand that she get down on her knees and beg for what she wanted.
Hope that he would grant her request. Every mask he’d ever worn was in danger of slipping then.
Every facade that he’d fixed thoughtfully into place was rapidly dissolving, because he had spent all these years pretending not to be bothered.
Not by the way that she treated him, not by the degree to which his desire had a chokehold on him. Not in any way.
And now it was all crumbling. All that cool, all that lack of care, turning into dust, because he did want her.
He did care. Because there wasn’t a single thing that he had wanted for this many years that he hadn’t gotten, other than her, and having that waved in his face now, a red flag in front of a bull, was sending him into a dark and beautiful place.
Because it reminded him of being a teenager, but without the helplessness. The intensity, yes, that push and pull that he had always experienced with her. That glory and terror of desiring her, and knowing that she could pull the rug out from under him in the next moment.
But she was looking up at him with sincerity and a very particular sort of defeat in her eyes. And he knew that she was lost in a hell made in high school just as much as he was. That she was as gloriously tangled up right now as him, and that was a whole new sort of revelation.
“Please don’t be mean to me,” she said, her voice coming out a whisper.
At that, the pettier part of him dissolved completely.
But so did his resolve, to not make this quick, not a fast and furious exorcism of old desires and intense current cravings, but to show her everything that she had been missing for all these years.
To turn Alan into a distant memory. Someone she couldn’t even recall, much less someone that she would miss.
He wanted to ruin her. For everyone that had ever come before him, and everyone that would ever come after.
It was intense, to a degree that set his teeth on edge, but it was real as anything.
“Oh, I’m not going to be mean to you. I’m not going to go easy on you, either.”
Her blue eyes went wide as she looked up at him, bit her bottom lip, nearly sent him into space.
He was so hard right now that he could barely see straight, and he didn’t want her to know that.
Didn’t want her to know just how fucked up he was in this moment.
How close he was to losing it completely.
He wanted to keep the control. It was perfectly acceptable for him to blow her mind. Yeah. That was the thing that was driving him now.
“I’m going to teach you,” he said, reaching over and gripping her chin, holding it between his thumb and forefinger, then sliding his thumb over that lower lip. “But you’re going to have to trust me.”
She let out a shaky laugh. “I don’t think I trust anybody anymore.”
“That’s fine. Outside of the bedroom, you don’t have to trust me. But inside of it, I need you to. Tell me. How good was Alan in bed?”
Her cheeks turned bright pink. “I don’t... I don’t know how to answer that question.”
“So not good then.”
“I mean it, I don’t know how to answer that. As good as... as good as the other men I’ve slept with.”
“And how many is that?”
“Three. Counting Alan.”
He chuckled. “Oh, baby girl. You have some things to learn.”
“What, just because I haven’t slept with half of Mustang River like you?”
“I mean, that is some evidence that you have some things to learn, yes. But also, because you didn’t know how to answer the question when I asked you how Alan was in bed. Because if he was good, you would know.”
“Wouldn’t I know if he was bad?”
“Not if they were all bad.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. How could I know good even without other comparisons, like let’s say they’re all the same degree of good—”
“Because if a man is good in bed, honey, when you think about him, your eyes are going to glaze over a little bit. You’re going to end up lost in thought.
You’re going to remember when you grabbed a fistful of the sheets and screamed his name, hell, you’re going to remember what it felt like when he had his head down between your legs, and he was feasting on you like he had nowhere else to be.
When a man is good in bed, princess, you know. ”
She was shaking now, he could see that. And he did feel a little bad. But not bad enough to stop. He wasn’t going to be mean. But she did have a little bit of a lesson to learn.
“It can be part of your new experiences. And also, getting a little friendlier with the locals.”
“I’m not going to be doing this with all the locals.”
“Who knows? Maybe once we’re finished, you will. Maybe I’ll give you a new zest for it.”
Of course, the very idea of her touching another man made him want to climb a tree like King Kong and pound his chest. He was doing great, staying rational about this.
But he had watched Addison Carey belong to other men for a long damned time. He’d had to bide his time, lie in wait. He had watched her play games, deny what they had, and pretend that she was too good for it. That she was above it and him. Fuck that.
Fuck all that. And whatever she did after this, it didn’t matter. She was his. Right now, she was his.
“Of course,” he said, looking at her, his muscles so tense he thought he might shatter. But he didn’t want her to see that. Didn’t want her to know that. “We haven’t even kissed yet.”
“We did,” she said.
“That wasn’t a kiss.”
“Our lips touched. What else would you call it?” She looked both baffled and furious, and he couldn’t think of a sexier combination.
“Nothing. It was nothing.”
“Much like good sex, Addison, if you’ve been properly kissed, it’s not up for debate as to whether or not it happened. Not for either person.”
“Maybe it’s just if one of the people is being a dick.”
There was a bit of a spark in her eyes, something angry, but also something that was more than a little bit horny.
The fight was what had always gotten to him. Well, not the fight alone, but he had always enjoyed the fight. It was sexy, it was exciting. Maybe it was because he had spent so many years with women who were willing to debase themselves to be with him.
Not that he was doing the debasing. It was about how they felt. In their hearts, they felt like they were better than him. They felt like they were lowering themselves to be with him, and it excited them. He had been happy to let them do it, just because it was hot.
But Addison... she hadn’t done that. She had been a bitch, she had been aloof, she had done her damnedest to run from this and from him, but she had never used him like that, and actually, he could appreciate it.
He could appreciate that, whatever dysfunctional bullshit had occurred between them, she hadn’t done that.
And he wasn’t debasing her, not here, even though she might feel like it right now. All he wanted was to marinate in that spark. The challenge. The thing between the two of them that didn’t exist between him and anybody else.
It was wholly unique, exciting, and it was what had always done it for him.
He had spent a lot of years being ashamed about that. That there was something about her inaccessibility that had turned him on. But he was past shame now.
Hell, if she could be, he certainly could be.
So he took her hand and drew her up from the table, positioned her so that she was standing right in front of him. “All I’m saying is, without a proper kiss, how can you make a decision about whether or not you want to do this?”
“You have to be kidding me.”
“Impatience is pointless. Particularly when you’ve been denying this for the last thirteen years.”
“Walker, I swear to God—”
“You don’t need to swear to him. You might see him soon.”
“You arrogant—”
He didn’t let her finish. Instead, he lowered his head, slowly, and touched his mouth to hers. It was slow. Light. Tentative, and he didn’t feel like being or doing any of those things, but he wanted to tease her. He wanted to show her what he was talking about. Show her exactly what he meant.
She stopped talking. Her breath came out in a short shudder, and then he touched his tongue to her top lip. It was enough to make him nearly burst with need. But he didn’t want her to see that, he wanted her to be the one doing that. He wanted to be the one on top.
Which brought to mind an image that just about ended things then and there. He wasn’t going to go down like that.
Instead, he traced the outline of her lips with the tip of his tongue, while she nearly melted underneath his touch.
He cupped her face, held her there, held her still so that he could deepen the kiss, deeper and deeper until his mouth was locked with hers, until his tongue was deep, sliding against hers and the slick friction was driving them both mad.
He didn’t crush her body against his, didn’t hold anything but her face, didn’t let his hands roam over her curves, and it was torture, but the most delicious, sweetest kind of torture.
When he pulled away, they were both shaking, lips swollen, slick, whole body desperate.
“There.” His voice sounded husky, rough. He didn’t sound like himself at all.
He was used to making the woman need, but he wasn’t used to needing in return, and even while he played this game, he didn’t feel like he was winning.
He felt like he was balanced on the edge of a cliff, and a slight breeze could send him right over the edge.
Where he would be exposed, revealed. Where it would become obvious that he was just as desperate for this, as greedy for this as she was.
Where he might end up being the one on his knees begging, and that just wasn’t how he did things.
“Oh,” she said, her voice a hushed exclamation, her eyelashes fluttering.
“Do you understand now?”
When she opened her eyes, and they met his, he could see that she was irritated. Irritated that he was right, but too far gone to put up a fight about it.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You’re a brat,” he said. “Has anyone ever told you that before?”
“No,” she said. “No one would dare.”
“Except me. I dare plenty. And you’re about to see just how much.”
He hadn’t made her beg, hadn’t made her admit a damned thing. He was failing at this. Failing at keeping the upper hand, failing at winning.
He just didn’t fucking care.
He swept Addison up into his arms, and she squeaked, gripping the front of his shirt and clinging to him as he barged through the door.
This had been too many years in the making.
And he was about to get what he wanted. What they both wanted.
There was no waiting anymore.