He’d just been gazing softly at Ava (well, not “just”, but not three months ago either!) and now he was saying this shit to me.
“Zano, we’re done,” I reminded him.
“You can be done, but I’m not. So we’re gonna explore this and see where it leads until we both make a decision we agree on about where it’s heading.”
Oh crap.
Now he was giving me the macho alpha bossy shit.
“Zano, I—”
“Shut it.”
My back snapped straight. “Don’t you tell me to shut it, Ren Zano.”
I watched his shadowy head shake before he stated, “Baby, you’re gorgeous. The way you wear a dress is goddamned foreplay. The way you give me everything and nothing, making you a challenge only a real man would accept, is all kinds of hot. The way you give as good as you get in bed, totally unselfish at the same time phenomenally greedy… fuck,” he growled, and I felt that growl straight in my happy place. “You’re the best I’ve ever had, Ally. Bar none. And the way you love, stubborn, tough, unshakable, is unbelievably f**kin’ beautiful. And still you’re a serious pain in my ass. But I found, not havin’ you, I got off on the pain. I missed it. So I’m takin’ it back and we’ll see how it goes.”
“I know how it’ll go,” I returned. “Nowhere. We’re done, Zano.”
“Tell me you haven’t missed what we had,” he demanded.
I clamped my mouth shut, because even for self-preservation’s sake, I couldn’t utter that colossal of a lie and I was totally down with lying if the situation warranted it (or when it didn’t and I just needed to save my own hide).
He knew it, damn it all to hell, and I knew he did when he whispered, “Come here, Ally.”
I put my hands on my h*ps and stated, “If you want to rewind and start up again, I’ll consider it. But, pointing out, we’re rewinding, not rewriting. We’re f**k buddies, Zano. We enjoy each other. You go your way. I go mine.”
“We were never f**k buddies, Ally.”
I wished.
I also rolled my eyes.
“Now come here,” he went on.
I rolled my eyes back to hm.
“Tell me, exactly, why it is I have to walk the three feet that separates us?” I asked.
He was on me in a flash, which meant I was in his arms, plastered to his body. He had one hand in my hair cupping the back of my head, holding it steady for whatever he wanted to do to me.
Great.
That was on me. I’d challenged the alpha and there I was.
I knew better.
One could say I was seriously off my game tonight.
God!
And he felt good. So freaking good. Hard with his heat burning into me.
He was also in a suit.
I was screwed.
“Do you agree to f**k buddies?” I pressed, even as my hands lifted to his biceps and felt the rich material of his suit jacket.