I let out an annoyed huff and cross my arms in front of me.
“Are you finished?” PJ asks quietly with a quirk of one eyebrow.
“Oh, I’m just getting started, buddy.”
All of a sudden, he charges across the room, closing the distance between us until I have no choice but to quickly shuffle my feet and move until my back slams into the wall behind me and I have nowhere else to go.
PJ’s hands smack against the wall on either side of my head, caging me in as he holds his body just inches away from mine and stares down into my eyes.
“Do you know why I invited you to Charming’s that night your asshole of an ex-father-in-law showed up?” he asks in a low voice, his warm, peppermint-scented breath puffing in my face with each ragged breath he takes, and the woodsy smell of his cologne invading my senses.
I don’t know what’s happening right now and hate how much my heart flutters in my chest just by having him this close to me when he’s royally pissing me off.
He doesn’t wait for me to reply and answers his own question.
“I invited you and your friends that night because I wanted to scare you off. I wanted you to run away with your tail between your legs and prove me right, but it didn’t work. You persisted and you did everything I told you not to do. I never expected in a million years you’d give me the best lap dance of my life that night. Or rip your shirt off in the middle of your front yard, stand your ground, and kiss me back. I never expected this. I never expected you.”
My anger starts to wilt little by little with each word he says, and with his hands still pressing against the wall on either side of my head, he bends his elbows, bringing his body flush against mine.
“If you would have let me finish what I started to say when I walked in here, you would have heard me tell you that I can’t believe how fucking hot you looked out there,” he tells me softly. “Watching you strut out there on that stage with your head held high, all defiant and confident, was the hottest fucking thing I’ve ever seen. I didn’t repeatedly tell you no about dancing here because I thought you couldn’t do it. I did it because I wanted you to want it. I wanted you to get pissed off, and I wanted you to defy me.”
My mouth drops open in shock; I can’t believe he’s serious. That he’s real. I never thought guys like this actually existed.
“So, you’re not mad at me?” I ask stupidly, wondering where all that bolstering confidence I had when he stormed in here has gone.
“I never, ever want to put you in the same position your ex did—feeling like you have to do what I say and like you can’t make your own decisions and do what you want to do. I’m not mad, Cin. I’m so fucking proud of you.”
I can’t stop the tears that pool in my eyes, but I quickly blink them away.
“Okay, then why in the hell did you come here, slamming doors and ordering Ariel around and glaring at me?”
He closes his eyes for a few seconds and takes a few deep breaths, his chest brushing against mine with each inhale. When he finally opens them again, he removes one hand from the wall and traces his fingertips over my forehead and down the side of my face until he’s cupping my cheek in his hand.
“That wasn’t anger. That was frustration,” he mutters.
I look at him in confusion, and he pushes his body harder against mine until I’m completely trapped, with the wall against my back and the solid mass of him pressing into me from my chest to my thighs. He bends his knees and then pushes back up against me until I feel his rock-hard arousal against my core, and I let out a small whimper.
My hands wedge between us and I slide my palms up his muscular chest, clutching fistfuls of his shirt into my hands and tugging his face closer, until his mouth is hovering over mine.
“Do you have any idea how hard it was to sit in the back corner of the room with a table full of customers, listening to them talk about your body and the way you moved it? Do you have any idea how much self-control it took to stay in my seat, watch you grind against that fucking pole and not jerk myself off under the table? Jesus Christ, Cin,” he mutters, his hand sliding down my cheek, over the side of my neck until he gets to the opening of my satin robe, resting it right over the swell of my breast, pushed up and ridiculously perky thanks to the amazing bra I’m wearing. “I’ve been trying so hard the last few weeks to take it slow with you, to show you what it’s like to have someone worship your body and not care about anything but giving you pleasure, but watching you tonight . . . you make it really fucking hard to do the right thing and be a gentleman. I wasn’t mad at you when I came in here, I was annoyed that Ariel was here and we weren’t alone. I was irritated that I couldn’t do the things to you I’d been fantasizing about as soon as I saw you take that fucking stage.”