“That’s part of the act. The act was acceptable, as I’ve told you. I’m talking about after the act.”
Interesting. I didn’t behave any differently than I ever do when I’m done with sex. I said goodbye and I contacted Christopher to take the woman home.
“I believe you left,” I say.
“That’s not how I’d phrase it. You didn’t say a word to me other than to tell me Christopher would take me home. You left me alone to get dressed—”
“Did you want help dressing?”
She uncrosses her arms and extends her fingers. “Would you let me finish? God.” She pulls her hair off her neck.
Her neck is fabulous—long and creamy and ready for my kisses. “Fine. Go ahead.”
“You kicked me out, Braden. It was…”
“It was what?”
“Humiliating, all right? It was fucking humiliating. I felt…disposable.”
Humiliating? I treat women well. I always have. I leave them satisfied. Every fucking time. Besides, I will never be held responsible for someone else’s feelings. I stopped that long ago.
“I don’t regulate how you feel, Skye. You do.”
She shakes her head and glares at me. Damn, she’s beautiful when she’s angry. All hot and bothered and ready for a good fuck.
But I glare right back at her. No way will I take the blame for how she’s feeling. “I don’t consider you disposable, so why do you?”
She curls her hands into fists. “I don’t consider myself disposable, which is why, Braden, if you want me in your bed so badly, you can’t treat me as if I am. You can’t just kick me out when you’re done.”
“We were both done.”
“Maybe you were,” she says. “Personally, I had several more orgasms left in me.”
Really? I resist the urge to chuckle. Does she truly think I’m that ignorant? That I can’t tell when a woman experiences something she’s never experienced before? She’s young. So young. Eleven years my junior. I need to remember that. She’s not nearly as experienced as I am, and she probably thinks I don’t have a clue that she never climaxed before me.
I run a hand through my hair. “I don’t normally let anyone spend the night at my place.”
True. I don’t. It’s nothing personal. I’m just not wired for a long-term relationship, and the sooner a woman understands that, the better. Allowing a woman to stay the night—to sleep in my bed—sends the wrong signals. It’s not that I don’t want a woman to spend the night. I believe I’d enjoy it—holding her, waking up next to her, fucking her in the morning. Of course I’d enjoy it. But so would she, and she’d continue to want more that I can’t give her.
“Then don’t,” Skye says, her brown eyes glowing. “I won’t go back to bed with you if you’re going to make me leave afterward. Simple as that.”
Fighting words. True fighting words. And if any other woman stood before me and said them, I’d nod, tell her goodbye, and walk away.
But I can’t walk away from Skye. My feet feel like they’re mired in cement, and the rest of my body seems caught in a force field.
This woman—t
his young and focused and, in some ways, immature woman—holds me in some kind of a thrall, which should bother me a lot more than it does.
I don’t beg women to go to bed with me. Ever.
But Skye somehow planted a feeling inside me, and it’s growing.
I want her back in my bed.
I will do whatever is necessary to get her back there.
I sigh, rubbing my forehead. “Fine. If that’s what it takes to get you back in my bed, you can stay until morning. Does that suffice?”