“Get off me,” I ordered on a buck of my hips.
When my h*ps settled back on the bed, Ren was still on me.
Fuck!
Then his hands moved to frame either side of my face. He dipped his head so he was all I could see and his voice was a voice he’d never used. It was deep and it was sweet, but it was also weighty and thick and it kind of freaked me out (in a maybe good way) when he said, “Ally, baby, listen to me. I care about you, you mean something to me, and I don’t want to see you in a box under three feet of dirt without the tank of oxygen to keep you safe until I find you. Are you understanding me?”
He cared about me.
I meant something to him.
Yeah.
Right.
I’d give it to him. That was a maybe.
He just cared about someone else a whole lot more.
“I’m understanding you’re a bossy, annoying, in my face jerk who thinks he can tell me what to do when he cannot, no matter how often I tell you it’s my damned life and I’ll do with it as I please,” I retorted.
Something flashed in his eyes so fast I couldn’t catch what it was before he started, “Ally—”
“Now, get off me. I got shit to do. I have to get home to Denver.”
His body pressed mine into the bed. “We’re finishing this here.”
“Fine by me,” I agreed readily. “We’re finished. Leave me alone, and we’re all done.” I drew out the “all” sarcastically.
His face changed to a face I’d never seen before, either. It wasn’t sweet. It wasn’t impatient.
It was infuriated.
He’d been mad before, even really angry (see aforementioned notes about us yelling at each other a lot).
And his anger had a physical presence. So much so, its weight could fill a room.
But this was different.
The room didn’t feel its usual stifling.
It felt still.
And that freaked me.
“I just told you you mean something to me and you won’t give me ten minutes to talk this shit through?” he asked with deceptive quiet.
“No, because the only outcome that’s acceptable to you is unacceptable to me, so we have nothing to talk about.”
He shook his head, still looking very, very angry.
“Unh-unh. You rewound too far. You just ended things with me like it’s all the same to you.”
“Well it is,” I clipped (lie!).
“Bullshit,” he fired back (he knew I was lying).
“How many times do I have to tell you? We’re f**k buddies, Zano.”