Lou tossed her leather pants and heels over to the corner of the room. Her teal eyes shone with defiance. “All I did was leave you to think about your actions and for the others to process what was said. I haven’t done anything wrong, Tate. You need to stop acting like I have.”
“I apologized for my behavior.”
“And I’m supposed to forgive you because you snapped your fingers, right?” I snapped my fingers at him. “Because you’re the head of this family, and no one disrespects you. Everyone jumps when you tell them to. Maybe you need to learn how to earn something for once. Earn back my respect.”
I reeled back as if she’d walloped me right across the face.
“I can guarantee you, Tate, that you didn’t initially chase me because you wanted kids with me,” Louisa continued. “How can everything we’ve done, all we’ve gone through, and everything we’re supposed to be to each other be erased because of this? I love you so much it hurts. When you hurt me, you’re hurting us. Our relationship is more than this. I believe that, and I meant it when I said we ought to be able to work through this. I’m willing to do the work. Are you?”
I couldn’t believe I’d lost Lou’s respect.
I never wanted that.
Not at all.
But this was my fault.
If only she could understand that my anger was a disguise for my anguish. I’d wanted to be a father my entire life. The idea of raising a child and seeing it grow and change was something I’d always looked forward to. For once in my life, something hadn’t gone my way. It was so far out of my control that the way I’d responded was by losing my shit.
“Of course I am,” I said in response to Lou’s question.
Lou unhooked her bra and removed it.
I licked my lips at the sight of her beautiful pink nipples.
She raised a single eyebrow and dropped it to the floor. “Good.”
She brushed past me, and I watched her wriggle her ass out of her panties. I felt myself stiffen in my pants. She was punishing me. I knew she was.
“No.”
No, what?I thought.
“You don’t get to touch, Tate.”
It took me a moment to realize what she was talking about. I had followed her right to the shower door.
Lou pushed me out of the way and pulled the door closed on me.
I stared at her through the glass as she stepped under the spray. My gaze traced the curvature of her spine all the way from her neck down to her pert little ass. I stared at the line that separated her ass cheeks, the exact spot I wanted to rub my cock, while my fingers traced her spine, and my teeth grazed the neck she was exposing by lifting her hair into a bundle on the top of her head. I should’ve been doing all of those things.
With a barely suppressed growl, I grabbed the shower door.
Lou glared at me over her shoulder with a mixture of anger and seductiveness. “I said…no.”
I gulped and reluctantly stopped in my tracks.
Ignoring me, she turned to the side and picked up the soap. Lathering it up, she ran the suds over the globes of her breasts, down her stomach and shapely legs.
We stared at one another while she slowly straightened up and massaged her pussy.
She released the tiniest moan and almost had me making a mess of my new slacks.
I splayed my hand out on the surface of the glass. “Let me in there, Lou.”
Lou narrowed her eyes at my growl. “No. This is a lesson, Tate, in understanding the wordnoand your apparent inability to handle it when it’s directed at you.”
“I guess I deserve this torture, then, baby?”