Page 84 of The Wildest One

“You still think you’re that girl with barbeque sauce on her face, don’t you? You have no idea how other people see you.”

I silently agreed, the movement of my head coming on slowly. “But what does that have to do with anything? What are they going on and on about?”

“Nothing.”

“Beck—”

“I need to hear you say that deep down in your heart, you honestly don’t want anything to happen between us. That you’re going to be able to work with me every single day of this season and not think of me in any way aside from professionally.”

He walked closer, and when he got to the couch, he got down, kneeling directly in front of me.

My breathing completely stopped.

My thoughts weren’t in a safe territory.

My body was consumed with tingles, jitters moving through me at the speed of light.

But those were still on the surface, and what I was feeling was underneath.

Beck’s attention, presence, gaze—they shrouded me, like I’d pulled a heavy comforter over my head, letting the weight of the down feathers block the light to create this thick, increasing warmth.

That was him.

A build that never let up.

“I need to hear you say you’re going to be able to keep your hands off me. That you’ll be able to look at these fingers”—he hovered them over my knees, but never set them on me—“and my tongue and not think about what they can do to you. What you want them to do to you.”

Every word was a weapon.

Slashing me, cutting me so deep—he knew I was on the verge of bleeding out.

But I had to be strong.

I had to say what was right, whether I believed it or not.

“I’m telling you, Beck”—my lungs screamed even though I was feeding them air—“there is no other choice.”

“What I’m hearing is that you want me to give up?”

I held the back of my neck so my hands weren’t within his reach. “You have to.”

“You really think I’m that kind of guy? One who just walks away. One who doesn’t fight.”

I said nothing.

“Let me tell you something. When I hear things like this, I’m the kind of guy who fights even harder. You’ll see—and, yes, Jolie, you will see because I’m about to show you. It’s game on.”

“Fuck my life,” I groaned as Ginger picked up my call, gripping the steering wheel as though it were the bottle of whiskey I was going to guzzle at some point tonight.

“Are you in the car? Driving home?”

I sighed, “Yep.”

“I stopped at the store and got us some drinks. I figured you could use one. Or a thousand.”

“I love you.”

When I had agreed to move to LA, one of the best parts, aside from having the job of my dreams, was that my best friend wanted to move with me. That we wouldn’t have to live across the country from one another. We looked at apartments together, and she had immediately found a job in finance.