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I try to hold back—I really do—but I shoot my hand out and wrap my fingers around her delicate throat. “Why do you think so fucking terrible of me?”
“I don’t. Don’t you get that? I think terrible ofme.” Her tears fall, and she takes a shuddering breath. “Jackson waited, what? Four whole hours before he was with someone else? Why wouldn’t you do the same? I’m nothing?—”
I tighten my fist, silencing her. “Stop. Don’t say another fucking word.” My voice has never been this vicious toward her,and I hope she understands it comes from a place of concern, not malice. “I don’t want to be with anyone else. Get that through your pretty little head. Why would I?”
I loosen my grip, but she doesn’t respond.
“That’s the second time you’ve mentioned my ex today. Start talking.”
I’m a demanding asshole, but fuck, she trips every bit of my self-control.
She lowers her sheepish gaze, and I growl, “Look at me.”
Her eyes meet mine—after rolling—and I swear, I’m bending her over my knee next.
“My grandmother and I Googled you. She wanted to see pictures of you.”
She was gossiping about me, and despite being frustrated and pissed, a satisfied smirk tugs at my lips.
We have so much to learn about each other. She doesn’t fully comprehend my need for dominance. She desires it, but she has no idea what it involves. If she did, she wouldn’t be setting me off constantly.
Unless she likes my reaction, which may very well be the case, at least partly, I can’t say I don’t enjoy her taunting me.
I have yet to meet her grandmother, and we don’t take pictures together as she did with Jackson. I add it to my list of things that’ll change, along with her putting herself down, but I need her to trust me first.
My anger fades, and my tone softens. “And what? You saw photos of me with my ex and thought…?”
“Do we have to do this?” she whines, trying to scramble off my lap.
Unfortunately for her, I’m quicker. I twist my torso and toss her onto the couch, pinning her with my body. “Yes, it affects how you think of us.” I raise her shirt and kiss her slightly rounded stomach. I splay my hand over our baby possessively.This is mine.She’smine. “Tell me, Aurora. I can’t fix what I don’t know.”
She answers in a flurry of words. “Your ex is successful and wealthy, and maybe you wouldn’t have left if she hadn’t been unfaithful.”
I trail kisses over her belly. “I wasn’t happy. Catching her with someone else was my wake-up call, my escape. You make me happy, happier than I can remember.”
Her retort is immediate. “You deserve better. I’m a mess.”
“You are.” I lean back and strip off her leggings or yoga pants or whatever the fuck these things are that highlight her fine ass. “But I’d have you no other way.” Grabbing her by the thighs, I yank her to me, working her shirt over her head. “So stop putting yourself down. You’re testing my patience tonight.”
Finally, she gives me that flirty smile and those adoring eyes. “That’s too bad. I like you all growly and rough.”
I bite her nipple through her bra. “Do you? I’ll have to come up with better punishments.”
She tangles her fingers in my hair. “Please don’t. I love you exactly as you are.”
And there it is, what I’ve been attempting to avoid since finding out we were irrevocably connected—attachment and the dreaded ‘I love you.’
I don’t know when I stopped pushing away the idea of something permanent and let my desires take a front seat in my brain, but now, it’s everything I want.
Alone with her, there’s no panic over our relationship interfering with coaching, no fear of being exposed publicly and dealing with my ex, whose endearments were never real.
I remove my shirt, and her soft hands glide over the contours of my stomach, leaving an inferno in their wake. She unbuttons my jeans and palms my length over my boxer briefs.
My breath hitches. “You keep doing that, and we won’t reach the bedroom.”
Raw lust gleams in her devilish eyes. “Screw the bedroom. You can fuck me on every surface here.”
“That’s my dirty girl.”