Page 81 of The Arrogant One

I could tell she was joking, but I still said, “You don’t.” I grabbed her hand. “I want this. You. Us. All of it.” I waited. “I hope I’ve made that clear. And I hope none of this changes how you feel.”

The emotion had completely drained from her eyes, but it was back. “You’ve been different for me too. From the beginning, nothing has felt like anything I’ve ever had.” She stopped to breathe. “I like you, Lockhart. I really, really like you.”

“Why do I feel like there’s abutcoming?”

Her face lowered, and she stared at the way I was holding her hand. “There’s nobut.” She finally glanced up again, her chest rising and falling. “Nobutat all.”

“We’re in this.”

This time, the emotion came through her lips as they pulled wide. “Yes. We most certainly are.”

As I smiled, I stroked my thumb around hers until I felt the roughness of plastic. There was a Band-Aid wrapped around the back part of her thumb. “What did you do to yourself?”

“Oh. That.” Her cheeks flushed. “I burned myself cooking.”

I grinned. “What were you making?”

“Just … I don’t know … sautéing some veggies.”

“Shit.” There was a series of vibrations in my pocket. “One second,” I said, and I pulled out my phone, exhaling when I saw the message on my screen.

Walker

We need to talk.

“Is everything okay?” she asked.

I tucked my phone away back in my pocket. “It’s just Walker. He’s pissed.”

“At you?”

I gave her an exaggerated nod. “Oh, yeah.”

“Why?”

“I’m assuming by now, he saw the Celebrity Alert, and that stirred up a shit ton of drama.”

“Why would he be upset about the alert? Unless you’re talking about the part that mentioned you guys buying Horned. Wait, is that really why you and Beck were there that night?” She held up her hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to drill you. None of this is my business, and you do not have to talk to me about any of it. I shouldn’t have even said that?—”

“Yes. To all of it.” I released her hand and was back to holding both feet, pushing under her toes, and her eyes told me how good it felt. “I’m admitting that to you because I trust you.And I hope that bit of knowledge I just confessed proves my trust.” I held still. “I never talk about work to anyone outside of the family. I can’t. But I just did with you, and I see that happening more. Because what I also see with you, Sadie, is a long future. A future that has no end date.”

She stared at me silently, and then she maneuvered onto her knees and crawled the short distance up my body, straddling my waist, her arms wrapping around my neck. “I want that too.” She lowered herself, aiming her pussy on my cock before she kissed me and whispered, “And I want this.”

TWENTY

Sadie

Ihadn’t climbed onto Lockhart’s lap because he’d confessed that he withheld his family’s business and then trusted me with top-secret business information and the guilt was eating me alive. I’d climbed onto his lap because the man filled me with a sexual energy that I hadn’t known was possible.

But I’d be lying if I said the guilt wasn’t present. That when he had been honest about his reasoning, I’d had every chance to come clean, and I couldn’t do it, and that made me feel like the worst person alive. The words just weren’t there. I’d tried to spew them from my lips, and they wouldn’t budge. I just wanted to get this boulder off my chest and share that part of my life, and something wouldn’t let me.

That same something also reinforced that he was the man for me, especially after he shared his feelings. I couldn’t let him go despite what Dear Foodie wanted or what was best for her future—those things didn’t matter.

What mattered was the way I felt about him.

But instead of opening the door of honesty, I’d let the tingles inside me win. I let them send me to my knees, and I’d crawled over his legs and sat on his lap and wrapped my body around his.

And while I brushed myself over his growing hard-on, I said in the softest tone, “And I want this.”