against his chest, her brows drawing into a little vee as she stared up at him. “We’re… We’re not even dating, Paul.” Her voice was soft, threaded with confusion. “No way in hell am I having sex with you.”
He licked her taste off his bottom lip and started to smile, thinking they’d already covered the oral part, but her sudden glare killed it dead. “I’ll fucking worship you all night,” he promised, sounding desperate even to his own ears. But, damn it, he was desperate. “With my tongue and my cock. Hard and rough. Slow and sweet. Fast and dirty. However the fuck you want it, Rin, for as long as you can take it.”
“That’s not happening,” she said tightly, pushing against his chest until he finally got the hint and took a step back. “Despite my full participation in what just…happened, I’m still mad at you. You hurt me.”
There were those three little words again, and Paul felt like she’d just reached into his chest and took a mallet to his heart. “Fuck, I know,” he scraped out, ready to get down on his goddamn knees again and beg for her forgiveness. He curled his hands into fists at sides, fighting the urge to pull her back into his arms, where she goddamn belonged. Where he fucking knew she would already be, if he hadn’t been such a spineless prick. “I know,” he repeated roughly, “but we’re never going to get past it until you let me make things right. Until you let me prove to you that I’m in this one hundred percent.”
“Prove it to me how?” Karin demanded in a quiet rasp, quickly throwing her shorts back on, then reaching for her top. “With your dick?”
Frustration and regret tightened his features as he yanked his boxers and shorts up, his tone gruff as he said, “No. By being here for you.”
Pulling the top over her head, she blinked to hold back the stupid tears in her eyes, her throat burning and her head spinning. “I…can’t. Not like this, when your default is to keep everything inside and shut me out. You did it once, and you’ll only do it again.”
“I won’t.”
Picking her cardigan up off the floor and pulling that on too, as if an extra layer of clothing could somehow provide her with more emotional armor, she shook her head as she looked at him. “And what happens when life throws you another curveball? When something awful happens at work or with one of your friends? Your family? Life isn’t perfect and shit happens. Horrible shit, at any random time, for no rhyme or reason. What makes it bearable is having the people you care about by your side, working through it with you. I… I couldn’t go through the pain of watching you shut down in front of me. Feeling you shut me out. I don’t deserve it.”
His dark eyes searched hers, and she watched as disappointment fell over his beautiful gaze like a shadow. “You really don’t trust me at all, do you?”
A surprised bark of laughter slipped past her lips before she could stop it. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, tugging the cardigan so tight she was practically choking herself with it. “God knows I don’t find any of this funny.” She tilted her head a bit to the side as she studied his grim expression, her voice soft as she said, “But can you really blame me for not trusting you?”
“No,” he husked, looking away from her to pick up his own shirt, and even in the midst of one of the most wrenching conversations of her life, her appreciative gaze still ate up every ripple and flex of muscle as he pulled the shirt over his head. He ran both hands over his scalp, smoothing his hair back from his rugged face, then looked right at her as he pulled in a deep breath and quietly said, “Like I’ve already told you, Rin, I fucked up. I know that, and it fucking kills me. I just…”
She waited, heart pounding so hard it was a physical pain in her chest, but when he didn’t say anything—didn’t finish that thought—she finally gave a tired sigh. “Yeah, well, it’s late and Jase is going to be up early. I…need to get some sleep.”
“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath, his frustration so intense she almost felt bad for the way the entire conversation had gone. But she couldn’t take any of it back, because it was