Love to Hate You (Hope Valley #9) - Jessica Prince Page 0,55

to maintain our connection. I lowered us both down, resting my forearms on the mattress so I could look down at her. “You good?”

“I—” She stopped to pull her kiss-swollen bottom lip between her teeth and bite down. “I don’t know. I mean, physically, hell yeah. But . . .”

“But what?”

She hesitated for so long I started to grow anxious. This wasn’t just about the incredible sex, at least not anymore. This woman was under my skin, and there was no longer any point in denying how much I liked having her there. She was funny and fiery. She didn’t take any shit. She loved her family fiercely. She had a good heart, and there was no doubt our sexual compatibility was off the charts. She was the only woman I’d ever been with who knew exactly what she wanted, but she didn’t just ask for it, and she didn’t take it either. No, she demanded I be the one to give it to her. And I got off on that in a huge way.

It wasn’t about wanting to fuck her again. I just wanted her. I wanted to be able to touch her and kiss her, to tease or hold her whenever the hell I wanted. I wanted to show her there were men out there better than her dick of an ex-husband.

Everything I was feeling in that moment was completely foreign to me. They were the very things I’d insisted I’d never want, that I fought against feeling for as long as I could remember. But having her here with me now, all that gorgeous light red hair fanned out on the bed beneath me, the thought of something serious, something permanent, didn’t terrify me at all. Not when it was Hayden I saw that with.

And just thinking of having something long-term with this woman had my dick swelling to half-mast. I decided right then and there, even if she fought it tooth and nail, it wasn’t going to matter. The end result would be the same no matter what. I was keeping her. She’d just have to deal with it.

“I don’t think that was very smart of us,” she finally said in a tiny voice.

I raised my brows high on my forehead. “Really? ’Cause I think what we did was pure fuckin’ genius.”

Her lips curved up as she giggled. Hearing that and seeing her smile made my dick twitch, which caused her eyes to go big. “Wait. Already?”

“You have to ask that after the last time?” The muffled sounds from the party happening outside filtered through the window just then, reminding me we had other obligations and couldn’t spend the rest of the day and night in this bed like I wanted. I let out a grumbled curse at having the moment ruined. “Looks like we’ll have to take a raincheck on that.”

“Micah.” Hayden’s voice was dripping with trepidation as she said my name. “Everyone out there is gonna know what we just did.”

“Okay. So?”

She arched a single brow in bewilderment. “So? So our friends are gonna think there’s something going on with us.”

“Good,” I stated simply. “Then we’ll all be on the same page.”

“Micah!” she cried agitatedly, giving my shoulder a weak shove that didn’t budge me at all. “They’re going to get the wrong idea! They’ll think we’re together or something. Like, a couple.”

I grinned down at her, finding her cluelessness adorable. “Baby, that’s not the wrong idea.”

“Yeah, but—wait. What?”

“That isn’t the wrong idea. This is happening.”

“But—we haven’t even talked—”

Lowering my head, I silenced her with a hard, hungry kiss, dipping my tongue into her sweet mouth for just the smallest taste before pulling back. She followed after me, a sound of displeasure rasping up her throat at me having stopped. “You just proved my point,” I stated smugly. “One kiss, and you were chasing after me for more.”

Her brows dipped and her face scrunched up in a scowl. “Don’t be arrogant.”

“Don’t be so damn stubborn,” I threw back. “What I’m getting at is that we’re both drawn to each other in a way that’s impossible to ignore. I’ve never felt about another woman the way I feel when I’m around you, and I want to explore that, Hayden. And you can argue all you want, but you want to explore this too. You know I’m right.”

She blinked up at me slowly, the deep blue of her eyes full of fear. For a moment, I thought she was going to deny it, but she surprised