Chapter 31 – Dylan #2
“You don’t get it, do you? You don’t see what I see.
” He steps forward and reaches out to me, but I yank my arm away.
I’m too hurt, too ashamed, too irrational to be touched.
I don’t trust myself, and if I don’t trust myself, then I sure as hell don’t trust what my reaction to even the tiniest ounce of comfort would be.
“Christ,” he mutters and paces from one end of the kitchen and back before turning to face me.
“You want your words? Here they are. You’re fucking gorgeous.
There, I said it, and I know you’re going to reject the compliment so I’ll say it again.
You, Dylan McCoy, are the things wet dreams are made of.
You and those thighs of yours you hate but I love. ”
“Grad—”
“No.” He holds his hand up to stop me, and he just stares at me with such intensity I can’t remember what I wanted to say.
“You weren’t a pity fuck, Dyl. You were far fucking from it.
You’re the woman I keep thinking about, keep wanting more from, but can’t bring myself to ask you for it because I can’t give you shit.
I can’t give you what you deserve because every time I think I can, I see Brody and Shelby.
So, how can I ask you for more when I can’t give you a relationship?
That isn’t fair to you . . . so I’m using you.
Yep, I am. Using you because you’re the only thing I can get lost in when nothing else has made a dent in my pain.
Using you because it’s what I need when I haven’t asked you what you need.
Call me an asshole. Call me a fucker. But don’t you ever tell me this started with a pity fuck. Far from it.”
“Grady. Please don’t.”
“Please don’t? Screw that, Dylan. You wanted to know until I started telling you the truth .
. . until I started telling you good things about yourself and made you uncomfortable, so hold tight, sweetheart, because I’m not even close to done.
” He takes a step toward me as I shake my head, conditioned to mentally reject the things he’s yet to say.
“This started the minute I saw you standing over there in a white fluffy robe held close at your neck, judging me like you had every right to. This started when you walked up to me in the kitchen and kissed the ever-loving life out of me to prove to Jett he couldn’t have you.
And guess what? That night, the taste of your kiss seared into my goddamn mind, making sure no one else’s kiss could ever come close.
This started when I walked in the kitchen the night of the fight so amped up on adrenaline wondering how in the world a man couldn’t get hard by just looking at you since that’s all I’d been doing since you showed up.
You were standing right there”— he points to where I was sitting the night of the fight—“looking so beautiful, and I couldn’t help myself anymore.
Sure, I was livid at Wes for what he said, but I was also so fucking thankful he didn’t get to do the things to you I was about to.
I jerked off imagining you on my cock the night the bastard brought you home from the bar.
Your moans. Imagining your body. Your taste.
Your hot fucking pussy. That was all I needed to fucking come, and I hadn’t even tasted you or had you at that point. ”
I look at him slack-jawed and stunned, his every word spoken with such conviction that they hit my ears and reverberate through my body so I can’t deny them.
He stares back, teeth gritted, eyes intense. He reaches out, pulls his hand back, and then reaches again without a hint of hesitation.
His lips meet mine. There’s anger on his tongue. There’s frustration in his touch. There’s passion in every movement of his mouth against mine.
I fight him at first. The mixture of his words and my anger and Wes’s shame spin in a storm of uncertainty, making my head dizzy and my heart ache, but his lips . . . his lips steal its thunder with each and every second they claim mine.
He takes without asking. He claims and seduces and demands without a single word. But the one thing that is constant is his anger. And just when I think I’m drowning in the swell of emotion his kiss evokes, he ends it abruptly. He shoves away from me as if he’s been burned.
He stands before me, my lipstick smeared on his lips, his shoulders heaving, his hands flexing at his sides, and his eyes piercing.
“If that’s pity, Dylan, take pity on me, because I’m the asshole who would do it all over again without a second thought.
So blame me. Hate me. But don’t you ever fucking blame yourself again. ”
Grady heaves in a deep breath and then throws his hands my way as if to say he’s so angry with me and this conversation that he has nothing else to add.
Then he slams out the back door, leaving me standing there staring after him with my fingertips touching my lips.
Lips that are still buzzing from his kisses.
My head is a bigger mess than when I walked in here, but for a very different reason.
Tears well in my eyes, and a contradictory laugh falls from my lips.
“You were standing right there looking so beautiful, and I couldn’t help myself anymore.” Talk about the unexpected. Now what the hell am I supposed to do?
Find ’em hot and leave ’em wet just got a whole new meaning.