For as many fists and elbows that I landed, he evaded, pushed away, caught.
It was under two minutes before I was out of breath, heart slamming, sweat starting to bead up on the surface of my skin.
"Mack..." he started, voice a little breathless too.
"I..." I started, ramming my elbow into his ribs. "Hate..." I went on, landing a lame slap to his jaw. "You," I concluded, hands planted to his chest, shoving hard enough to knock him back into the wall that led to my hallway.
"I know," he agreed, grabbing my arm when I rose it to strike again, then reached for the other, arms wrapping around me, pinning them to my sides.
"I hate you," I hissed again, though I wasn't sure if I was trying to convince him or myself at this point.
"I know you do," he agreed, voice calm as I huffed, trying to get my breathing under control.
"You're an asshole," I added, jolting my body, but there was no use, he wasn't letting go.
"I know I am." There was a softness in his tone, a sound that managed to shiver over my skin, something that made a shiver move, well, through my body.
And not an inside shiver either.
Nope.
"Mack..." he started, voice barely more than a whisper.
"I'm cold," I told him, trying to excuse my traitorous body's reaction to the nearness of him.
"No, you're not."
Obviously, I wasn't.
My heartbeat had just started to slow.
A bead of sweat had just slipped down my chest.
"Let me go," I demanded, but there was no denying the lack of conviction in my voice.
"We both know what is going to happen if I let you go."
The crazy thing was, I didn't.
I didn't know what would happen if he let me go.
I wasn't sure there was enough anger left to strike out again, to go at him again. Not with the confusion coursing through me, not with the way I seemed to be at odds with myself. Not with the way my body seemed to retain some sort of sense memory of him, one it liked, one it wanted more of after so long.
"You have no right to touch me."
"I know that," he agreed even as his forehead moved down, pressed to mine in an old, familiar way. A way that had my breath catching in my chest, making a choked sound I knew he heard.
"I don't even know you," I tried, knowing I was losing the battle with the part of me that had been nearly mortally hurt by him, by what he had chosen to do, that was hurt and mad and confused, and the part of me that had known the way his hands felt, how he kissed, the way his body moved.
"You know me," he objected, his nose gliding down the side of mine. "You know me better than anyone else," he added before his lips sealed over mine, erasing anything within me even resembling resistance.
This.
God, this.
This was what I had been searching for in the arms of other men, what my soul had been begging for all these years, what my heart had been so viciously denied.
This.
A kiss that made the world fall away, that made my belly flutter, my chest tighten, my heart swell.
When his hands released my arms to frame my face, when I had every chance to fight again, my arms chose to rise instead, curling up around his back, pulling him closer as my back arched, angling me closer to him, crushing my breasts to his chest.
His hands slipped backward, sinking into my wet hair, as his lips pressed harder, demanded more. Mine seemed to have no choice but to answer as a deep, undeniable desire started to pool in my lower belly.
It was my hands that got greedy first, sliding down his back, snagging the hem of his shirt, slipping it upward until he had no choice but to break away, whip it over his head. There was hardly a breath of time before his lips claimed mine again, hungrier, as my fingers traced skin that was familiar, yet foreign, a map remade with new landmarks, little raised and smoothe spots that my hands slid over, that my mind wanted to know the stories of.
By the time my hands moved downward, sinking into his ass, I could feel his need pressing against me, sending off sparks of desire across my skin even as his hand lifted, slid across my shoulder, found the strap of my bathing suit, slipped it off my shoulder. Then the other.
Finally, his lips ripped from mine as his hands grabbed at the bodice of the damp, tight suit, ripping it downward, impatient for more of me, something I understood far too well.
He paused as my breasts were revealed, but didn't stop, kept pulling the clinging material until it fell off my thighs, dropping to the floor.