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“You talk a big game,” she says. “But that’s all it’s ever been.”

“I didn’t know you wanted to take pictures,” I defend, forgetting about my food.

“You never acted like you wanted to.”

I drop my fork onto the plate. “There was a lot of things Iwantedto do, Olive. Make no goddamn mistake about that. Sometimes, we don’t always get what we want. We don’t always get thepeoplewe want. That’s life.”

She stares at me. “Life sucks.”

Pressing my lips together, I lean back in my spot and stare at my food. “Yeah, it does.”

She scrapes her fork along the top of her waffles.

I break the silence with a question I almost don’t want an answer to. “I need to ask you something, and I want you to be real with me.”

Her eyes peek through the tops of her lashes.

When she doesn’t say anything, I take the opportunity to rip the band-aid off. “Has anything happened between you and Hoffman?”

What she can’t see as she gapes at me is my foot bouncing under the table. It’s always done that when I’m nervous. My agent told me I needed to get a handle on it when I do press because the media picks up on that sort of shit.

“Do you really want the truth?” she asks, stilling my limb. My shoe is cemented to the ground as we have a stare-off. Because I know the answer before she can confirm it. “We slept together. Once.”

I close my eyes, feeling the red-hot anger build from the very core of me. It spreads, burning my skin and boiling my blood.

“But you don’t have any right to be mad at me, Alex,” she points out, sensing my internal affliction. “We’re not together. According to you, we never were. I slept with him because I was mad at you. And because he was there and willing.”

Maybe it’s fucked up, but I feel better hearing that. Because if she’s that mad at me, it means she cares. “I’m not mad,” I finally tell her.

She snorts in disbelief.

“I’m not,” I growl, defensively. “But if Bodhi Fucking Hoffman was in front of me, I’d probably kick him in the nuts right now.”

Olive rolls her eyes. “Why would you do that?”

Because you’re mine,is the retort I have to swallow before it slips out.

“What exactly is it that you want, Alex?”

That’s a long list that neither of us has the time for. “What do I want? For starters, I want you naked and writhing with a vibrator against your pussy until you come.”

Her hand stills as her eyes peak up at me through the tops of her lashes. “That’s very specific.”

“It’s the truth. Want me to go on?”

I notice the subtle bob of her throat as she swallows.

“Do you want me to give you every detail of how I’m going to get you back to campus, strip you out of those clothes, and bend you over the bed? Because I can. It’s the scenario I’ve thought about while touching my cock most nights.”

I don’t miss the sharp exhale escape her lips. “You should get the check then,” she whispers.

My dick instantly hardens, but I tell it to chill out. At least for now. “You should eat first. We can burn calories later.”

“Promises, promises, O’Conner.”

My mouth quirks up to the side. “Sweetheart, you haven’t seen anything yet.”

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