Page 33 of The Arrogant One

She wore a dress—not like the other night, this one simpler and a bright red, shaped like a long, oversize sweater—with knee-high boots.

A color that looked ravishing on her.

And a dress I wanted to tear off with my goddamn teeth.

Pretty confident that she was alone, I walked in and locked the door behind me.

Sadie immediately connected eyes with me through the mirror and turned toward me. “What are you doing in here?”

“Coming to say hello.” I paused. “And coming to get some much-needed answers.”

She laughed. It wasn’t the kind of sound that came after a joke. This was a sound that told me she was shocked to see me, and this was the only noise she could muster. “Answers regarding what?”

“Why I woke up that morning and you were gone.”

She searched my eyes, a slow back-and-forth pattern, before she said, “Why does it even matter?”

An interesting response, given that I’d sworn she was into me. That entire night, I had fed a passion inside her, but I was positive it went deeper. I’d felt that shit straight in my chest, and I thought she had too. But the look on her face as she had glared at me from across the bar and in here was entirely different from the way she had gawked at me the other night.

“Why does it matter? How about I give you some honesty? Because that’s the only way I know how to give it. I’ve thought about you every goddamn day for the last week. How much I want you. How much I fucking need you.” I went to loosen my collar, realizing the top two buttons were already undone. “Maybe that’s a little dramatic, considering I only knew you for one night. But that’s what you did to me, Sadie. That’s the impression you left. That’s how you made me feel.”

“It was a one-night stand. Nothing more.” She clenched her fingers as they hung at her sides, her tone and stance so cold and turned off. “That’s what you told me, remember?”

“Is that all you wanted from me? One night? Is that the reason you left?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere.” I gripped the back of my neck. “Have you thought about me?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

I didn’t like that response at all, not the first time I had heard it or the second.

My brows pushed together out of frustration. “Why didn’t you leave me your number?”

“That doesn’t matter either.”

“All of this matters, Sadie. Please stop saying that.” I released my neck and shoved my hands into my pockets. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Her arms crossed, which pushed up her tits. “It amazes me that you don’t at least know the answer to that. I can understand why you’re clueless as to why I left and didn’t give you my number or?—”

“You left without even kissing me goodbye.”

Her eyes narrowed, and she stayed quiet.

“I wish you had woken me up,” I said. “I had a hell of a good time with you, and I didn’t want that good time to end. I wanted to get breakfast delivered and …” The thought of what would have happened next made my lips pull wide. “Then I wanted to?—”

“No, no, no.” Her head shook again. “Please don’t tell me what those plans were. I honestly don’t want to hear them.”

Jesus, this was getting confusing. She hadn’t wanted a one-night stand. That wasn’t the reason she’d left. But I should know why she was looking at me this way? Yet I didn’t have a fucking inkling.

Did she regret hooking up with me?

Had I fucked up somehow?

Or was it something else?

I pulled my hand out of my pocket and brushed my thumb across my lips. “You suddenly don’t want to hear about what I wanted to do to you, yet when I was whispering against your pussy in the shower, telling it just how I was going to fuck it when we got out, you didn’t complain then. And when wefinally lay in bed and I wrapped you in my arms and your face was on my chest, you fell asleep in seconds, more content than anyone I’d ever seen. Tell me, what happened between then and now?”