Page 36

I shake my shoulder, but he doesn’t remove his hand. Instead, he steps up closer, until his chest is flush with my back and his hand on my shoulder slides down my arm until his palm is at my stomach—covering my stomach, where our child grows.

I’m going to be sick.

“You’re right. I don’t owe you an explanation. I was with that woman before you ever came into MadInk, Cara, before I knew about you.”

All my runaway thoughts screech to a halt and my hands drop from my face. “What?”

“Yes.” He’s laughing now, shoulders shaking, bumping against me, and I know he’s not doing it to be mean, but is there anything really funny about this? I can’t find the humor.

His hand on my stomach presses in, and he shifts me, turning me so we’re face to face and his hand is at my back. “You might still be pissed when I tell you it was thenightbefore you came into MadInk, but if I’m going to be completely honest, for the last two months, every time I was with a woman, I was honestly just trying to fuck the memory ofyouout of my head.”

“That’s disgusting.” My brows furrow. If he thinks I’ll be flattered by his admission, I’m not.

“Might be, but it’s also real.” He cups the side of my neck, holding me gently. His thumb brushes back and forth against my sensitive skin, igniting pops of pleasure skipping down the length of my arms and chest. “What’s also real is that since we spent that night together, I’ve thought about little else besides being inside you again. So you can be upset I’m not a monk, upset I can treat someone like Abby—”

“Anna—”

“Whatever.” He grins. “Whoever. It’s not the point, and neither is she. You can be upset I would treat someone like her so callously, but it doesn’t change the fact that before she came home with me, she came on to me, she bought me a drink. She knew exactly what she was getting into when she slid into the car next to meandwhen I called her an Uber and sent her home. But don’t be upset that it all happened before you waltzed back into my life and told me you were having my child. That’s not fair.”

It’s not fair, and he’s right. While everything he’s saying is upsetting, it’s the way of the world and one-night stands, things I know so little about except through others. And is it really any worse than how I treated him?

All of my anger drains. Other than being embarrassed at her outburst, I don’t have a reason to be upset with Braxton.

“This is humiliating,” I mutter, pressing my hands to his chest. “I get what you’re saying, but I still don’t like it, and I don’t think I like knowing she’s been with you. I have to work with her occasionally.”

“And if I could change that for you, I would, but there’s nothing we can do about it except move on from it. Okay?”

He makes it sound so simple. I might be naive when it comes to one-night stands, but I’m not naive to how women behave when they feel they’ve been scorned. And if Anna believes she’s been wronged in some way, she still has the ability to make my job a living hell for the next several weeks.

I’ve been staring at his chest, at the dip in his throat where his dress shirt is unbuttoned because he’s gone sans tie. And now, I drag my gaze up the column of his throat, to his chiseled jaw and straight to his full, lush lips that have been all over me.

My body responds and his black eyes fire with lust at whatever he sees in my expression. I can only imagine what it is, because my body is responding to everything I see.

I’m flushed now, for an entirely different reason, so when he tilts his head and dips down, I don’t move away.

And when he presses his lips against mine, almost tenderly, like he’s testing to see if I’ll push him away, I don’t.

I inhale his masculine scent of spicy pine and man and my hands slide to his shoulder, seemingly on their own volition, and then my lips are parting as his tongue slides over my bottom lip and he dips inside.

And for the first time in months, I’m tasting him, inhaling his scent and digging fingers into his suit at his shoulders, and all of this is so familiar from our first time, I’m unable to stop the sensations rippling through my nerves, making me crave more of him.

“Fuck,” he mutters, his voice gruff as he yanks away from my mouth and tilts my head. He kisses my throat, sliding his tongue and his mouth along the side of me, right to that perfect, hidden, and invisible spot that shoots desire straight to my core.

“Oh,” I whimper, fingers digging into his suit and gripping him harshly, pulling him to me as my hips roll, pressing against him.

His length is hard against my stomach, his hands tight at my hips, and his mouth is doing such wicked things to my throat, my jaw, working back to my mouth, that I can visualize where all of this is headed…where all of this has gone before.

But I don’t want it to be like last time, with so much uncertainty and complications between us, so even though Idesperatelywant what he’s giving, I push his shoulders until he relents, leaning back from me.

“What?”

“I can’t.” I’m a gasping, breathless mess. “Not here,” I quickly amend.

“Okay.” He grins and presses his lips to mine. “Not here.”

“Not yet,” I quickly add, because sex isn’t on the table. Not tonight. Not this week or next.

If Braxton wants to date me, he has to do it my way.