Oh, God, he’d make me cream on his predator’s touch.
“As long as you’re okay,” I murmur.
“Sure. I’ll do some writing after this.”
“Really?” I say, unable to stop the excitement from flaring in my voice.
He tilts his head. “Oh, no, not like that.”
“What do you mean? You’re not writing?”
“That’s what I call sitting in my office and staring at the screen. Writing.”
I interlock my hands, wishing I had a reason to stay.
And then Tanker the little fate-fueled dog pads over, whining softly and pawing at my leg. I lean down and tickle him behind the ear, hugging him close.
“Why don’t you write?” I ask as curiosity gets the best of me.
He lets his hands fall to his sides, a reverberation moving through his whole body. It makes his chest become even more pronounced as he turns to me. I think he’s going to lunge at me for a crazy second – his expression so possessive.
But then he reaches toward the nearby windowsill and pulls down a gym towel. The glass is clouded, distorting the pattern of the relentless rain. He wipes his face down and lets the towel drape over his shoulders.
“I don’t have an answer.” He laughs without humor. “I sit down and try to access that zone, the mood, my muse, whatever-the-fuck. I don’t know what to call it. But I used to be able to slip into it until it was like I was the character, whoever they were. I was experiencing the story. And the writing was just a formality. It was a way… to get something that had already happened down on the page.”
He glances at me, his face tight. His voice has become even deeper like he’s going to let out a bestial roar any second. “I know it doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t even make goddamn sense to me.”
“Maybe you could try forcing the words out,” I murmur. “Don’t worry about accessing that place, whatever it is. Just worry about getting the words out. Or is that too simplistic?”
He shakes his head slowly. His eyes never leaving me. I daren’t look down to see if his manhood is still making a huge outline in his gym shorts. If his lust for me is overriding the seriousness of the moment. I know it might. He’s ready to brutally fuck me until I’m creaming all over him.
But can I be that confident, sassy, sexy girl he needs?
Or will I turn into a withering crying mess because I can’t please my man?
No.
This is all wrong. This can’t happen. We agreed.
“If I could get rid of this feeling. Maybe…”
He trails off, shaking his head slowly. I almost cry out and ask him what feeling, and maybe what, what. I almost throw myself at him and claw at his chest, pressing my lips against him as though the harder I do it, the less real the future becomes.
But instead, I step back letting out an anxious shaky breath.
“So you’re alright?” I murmur.
He smirks, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. They are steady and intense. “Yeah, I’m fine. Are you, Rayla?”
No, of course, I’m not.
I’m being torn apart from the inside with need for this man, every inch of me screaming for his touch, for his hot breath over my skin, and his possessiveness and jealous words again.
But that was before Millie called, before we were reminded of how wrong this is.
“Yes,” I whisper. “I’m fine. See you later.”
“Bye.”
I feel his eyes on me as I leave the room. Or perhaps I’m just imagining that wishing it into existence so I can pretend I’m not alone, so I can pretend he wants me as badly as I want him.
He said he wanted a family. Said he felt the same crazy instant connection.
Now he seems to be able to separate from me so easily, to let me leave the room without kissing me, holding himself back.
I try to tell myself it’s good. It means we can hold the line.
But the words shimmer through me with the energy of a lie. Because even if I know it’s good, it feels wrong, so freaking wrong to be separated from my man.
I need his body against mine, his hand grinding between my legs, his finger rubbing my clit as I buck against him.
I bite down, bowing my head, telling myself to accept it. It’s over. We have to stay strong.
For Millie.
Chapter Fourteen
Roman
I was going to tell her, maybe with her I’d be able to write. I was going to ask her to sit in my study as I write. She wouldn’t have to do anything, just sit there, maybe read a book or even just scroll through her phone. But sit there looking like Rayla, with her perfect hair and her shy sassy smile and the beautiful certainty of her curvy body… making me certain we’ll have a family, a future, a forever.