She ignored him. “Do you even know how to relax enough to enjoy sex, Spencer? Real sex? The emotional connection that comes when you know who the fuck it is you’re balling?”
“You know all about emotional connections then, I assume? Was it emotion driving you to rank your lovers according to some system? I’m curious. What symbol will I get?”
A shattered heart, she thought vengefully, turning away before she erupted. Well, worse than she already had. Sadly she could get much, much worse.
“We have to work together. I’m not getting in a pissing match with you.”
“You started this.” He grabbed her arm and spun her back to face him. For the briefest instant, his face was alive with heat and fury and passion. She’d never seen anyone so beautiful in all her life. “You’re not getting the PDA back. Not yet. Maybe not ever. Not until I’m done with you.”
She didn’t know whether to rejoice or slap him across the face. “When you’re done with me? Like an old tissue you can toss away? What if I say we’re done right now? Then what?”
“Say it.” She didn’t know if he was daring her or begging her, his eyes were so raw. “Say it, Kelly.”
She wanted to. God, she wanted to throw the words at him to see if that fleeting heat returned or left nothing but ashes. But she couldn’t. She didn’t know why or what made him different, but for the first time, she couldn’t just walk away.
Her chin trembled. She knew he saw it because his expression gentled. He loosened his hold, the pinch of his fingers erased by his pervasive warmth.
Spencer lifted his free hand to stroke her cheek, a brief touch that conveyed all that was unsaid. He didn’t want her to go. She could tell just from the way he was staring into her eyes.
Hard-ass Spencer didn’t really exist. At least not as much as he wanted her to believe. Why he preferred she think he was a bastard, she had no clue.
If this was a game, someone had forgotten to tell her the rules.
A long moment passed before she whispered, “Just take me home.”
Chapter Eight
Kelly didn’t come to Kink the next night. Spencer didn’t know why he’d expected her to or why he couldn’t even look at anyone else without seeing the innocent lust in her eyes when he’d asked her to suck his cock. The memory of her opening herself up to him in front of everyone had blazed itself into his mind. That wasn’t her. He’d known that from the get-go, but she’d trusted him enough to relax and see where it led.
He didn’t deserve her trust. He was a bastard. And tonight, he was alone.
“Looking for some action, stud?”
Nina. Again. “Since when do you hang out here every night?”
“Maybe I thought we’d rekindle some of the flames between us.”
At his silence, she let out a tinkling laugh. “Strike one.”
“Look, Nina—”
“Don’t worry about it. Lots of pricks in the ocean.” Grinning, she slipped her arm through his and picked up his drink, a gin and tonic. She took a sip and made a face. “No whiskey?”
“I have work to do.”
“And one’s never enough.”
Instead of the drink, he thought of Kelly. Once, twice, half a dozen times hadn’t begun to take the edge off his need for her. “No.”
“So where’s your pretty little brunette?”
“Little?” He swallowed a laugh. “She’s almost as tall as me.”
“Yes, but she’s hardly in our league, now is she?” Nina ran her fingertip around the edge of his glass. “She might as well be a virgin.”
“I wasn’t in your league once, if you’ll remember.”
“Oh I do.” Her rich, smoky laugh smoothed some of the hard edges inside him. When he was with her, being the Spencer he’d been before wasn’t like wearing a suit he’d outgrown. “But you were a quick study. That one’s got stars in her eyes, Spence. Mixed in with the stars are hearts.”