Chapter 11
The rest of the week was a maddening cycle of contradictions. A relentless push and pull. An unbearable game I never agreed to play.
Creed walked past me in the halls as if I didn’t exist, his gaze a blade slicing through me with chilling indifference. And then, just when I convinced myself I meant nothing, he would appear.
A storm breaking through my office door, locking it behind him with a quiet, decisive click.
A hand gripping my waist, yanking me against his body as if the silence between us had never stretched into days.
A bruising kiss. Fingers threading through my hair, dragging my head back so he could consume me.
It was intoxicating. Infuriating. Utterly unsustainable.
Each time his lips touched mine, a flicker of hope ignited—a dangerous delusion that maybe, just maybe, we were finding our way back. But the moment he pulled away, his silence crashed over me like a tidal wave, drowning me in the truth.
He wasn’t ready to forgive me.
And maybe, he never would.
After a week of it, I’d had enough.
The final straw came late in the afternoon, after yet another grueling meeting that left me drained. My temples throbbed, my patience thin. I had barely settled into my chair, trying to focus on my endless to-do list, when the door opened with a sharp click.
I didn’t need to look up. I felt him.
The air shifted, charged with electricity, humming with an energy that only existed when Creed was in the room.
“Not now,” I said, my voice sharper than I intended, my eyes locked on my computer screen.
He ignored me. Of course he did.
Long strides carried him forward, his presence swallowing the space between us. The chair beneath me jerked as his hands spun me around, forcing me to face him. I gasped, my pulse hammering at the raw intensity in his gaze.
“What are you doing?” I demanded, pushing against the armrests as if I could somehow put space between us.
His voice was quiet, lethal. “What I always do.”
Hands gripped the arms of my chair, boxing me in, his breath warm against my lips. The weight of him was overwhelming, a cage I didn’t know if I wanted to escape.
“Taking what’s mine.”
Heat spiked through me. Fury and longing tangled inside my chest, an unbearable knot of emotions I couldn’t untangle.
I shoved against his hold, ripping myself free, putting precious inches between us before he could trap me again.
“Stop,” I spat, my voice shaking. “I’m not a toy, Creed. You don’t get to pull me in and disappear whenever it suits you. “You’re acting like—”
“Like I don’t know what I’m doing?” His voice was low, dangerous.
I shook my head. “Like you don’t care what it does to me.”
He tilted his head, something dark flashing in his eyes. “You still don’t understand.”
“Then stop keeping me in the dark.” My voice cracked, raw and unfiltered. “Because I don’t know where I stand with you anymore. I don’t know if I ever did.”
Silence. Thick. Suffocating.
Then—
“You have no idea what it cost me when you doubted me.”
I flinched, but I didn’t look away.
“I know I hurt you. But you don’t get to punish me forever for it,” I whispered, the admission like glass cutting my throat.
His chest rose and fell, a sharp, unsteady breath escaping him. He shook his head, then raked a hand through his hair. “I don’t know how to move past it, Peyton. I don’t know how to sit in what I feel for you and still recognize myself.” His jaw clenched. “And yet, I can’t stay away from you.”
Tears burned the back of my throat. “Then say that. Don’t touch me and call it something else.”
His hands curled into fists. “What do you want from me?”
“I want you to decide. Not someday. Not when it’s easier. Now.” My voice broke. “Because I can’t be your in-between anymore.”
His face went rigid, his gray eyes stormy, unreadable. He turned away suddenly, pacing to the far end of the office, dragging a hand down his face like he was fighting to keep himself from losing control.
“Damn it,” he muttered under his breath, his shoulders tense.
I wiped a hand across my face, exhaling sharply. “Say something.”
He turned slowly, pinning me with a look so raw, so furious, that my knees nearly buckled. Then he was on me again, backing me into the desk, his body crowding mine, heat rolling off him in waves.
“You think this is simple for me?” His voice was low, his hands unsteady when they gripped the desk beside me.
I didn’t bother to comment.
“You think I don’t want to let you back in?”
I swallowed, my throat tight. “Do it and stop standing in the doorway.”
His nostrils flared. His jaw ticked. His fingers flexed. “I can’t.”
“Then stop pretending this is my fault.”
His hands slammed down on either side of me, his body trapping me against the desk. “You don’t hear what happens to me when you’re close.”
“Then don’t come close unless you mean it.”
His voice turned rough, ravaged. “Every time you speak. Every time I even breathe you in—” His forehead dropped to mine, his breathing ragged. “You broke the part of me that stayed untouched.”
“And you’re breaking me by refusing to choose.”
A sob broke free from my chest, and I didn’t know who moved first—only that my hands were in his hair, his lips were on mine, and suddenly—
We weren’t fighting anymore.
We were burning. A collision of everything we couldn’t say. A war of control neither of us wanted to win.
His kiss was punishing, a mixture of anger and possession, his fingers curling painfully into my waist. I arched into him, my body betraying me, my hands fisting his shirt, pulling him closer instead of pushing him away.
His hands slid down, gripping my thighs, lifting me onto the desk, standing between my legs as his mouth trailed hot, punishing kisses down my neck.
“Tell me to stop,” he growled against my skin. “Tell me to walk away, Peyton.”
But I didn’t.
I couldn’t.
Because I didn’t want him to. And maybe—just maybe—he didn’t want to either.
Instead, I reached down, unfastened his pants, grabbing his heavy erection in my hand and positioned it between my parted thighs. I closed my eyes as Creed surged forward, guiding his hard cock inside of me.
Creed emitted a long hiss of air. “You feel so fucking good.” His hands gripped my hips, holding me against him, giving me a moment to adjust to his size.
I began rocking my hips, gliding along the length of his shaft, setting up a rhythm, drawing back to the tip before sinking him deep inside me again. “Oh yes,” I moaned.
“Fuck. I can’t get enough,” Creed hissed, aiding my movement, then speeding up, taking control.
He pumped his hips back and forth in a frantic need to release this pent-up frustration.
He grabbed my head, locking our mouths together, muffling our cries of pleasure.
Within minutes, I screamed as an orgasm overtook me.
I gripped him while he continued to thrust between my legs with feverish strokes.
I felt the pressure of his cock build while pleasure cut into my stomach, tightening my vaginal walls until I was gripping him so tightly he growled and finally released inside of me.
When the last of the tremors washed away, Creed stepped back and turned to look out the window while zipping his pants.
I took a deep breath, my pulse hammering against my ribs as I slipped off the desk and stepped closer to him.
The space between us felt fragile, stretched thin like glass ready to shatter.
I had rehearsed this moment in my head a thousand times, but nothing could prepare me for the way his presence still unraveled me.
“I love you, Creed.” There. I said it again.
The words left me with no hesitation, no way to take them back. They rang in the air between us, final and undeniable. My voice was steady, even as my throat tightened.
“But I can’t keep living inside your hesitation.”
Creed stilled.
I watched the tension ripple through his body, saw the way his shoulders locked in place, his hands fisting at his sides. For a moment, I thought he might walk away, that he’d do what he always did, shut me out, retreat into the cold control he wore like armor.
But then—he turned.
His gray eyes burned, dark with an emotion so raw it nearly brought me to my knees.
“I don’t want to lose what we have,” he admitted, his voice rough, the edges of it jagged with something dangerously close to fear.
My breath caught.
This was different. The Creed Kirkland I knew never admitted to fear. Never admitted to needing anything or anyone.
“Then stop treating me like something you’ll come back to when you’re ready.”
“I warned you I don’t know how to love,” he continued, his jaw tightening, his control fraying at the edges. “Because I don’t know how to fix how I feel.”
The confession landed between us like a grenade, full of pain and truth and the weight of everything that had ever been broken inside him.
I should have softened. I should have reached for him, told him it was enough that he was here, that he cared in his own way. But I couldn’t.
Not anymore.
I swallowed against the ache in my throat, forcing my voice to hold steady. “Either learn or let me go.”
His head snapped up, his jaw ticking, his breathing harsh. “I can’t promise you more than this.”
“Then this is no longer enough for me.”
The silence between us was thick, stretching, curling around us like a vice. He stared at me like he was seeing me for the first time—not as the woman waiting for him, but as the one willing to walk away if he let her.
And then—he moved.
Not toward me.
Away.
My heart fractured as he turned, his strides measured but filled with the kind of hesitation that told me he wanted to stay. That he wanted to say something. But he didn’t.
He reached the door. Paused. But never looked back. And then—he was gone.
The air in the room collapsed around me, crushing, suffocating. I braced myself against the desk, forcing a breath past the searing pain in my chest.
This was it.