Someone I Used to Know - By Blakney Francis Page 0,42

open. Madeline was stretched out asleep on the extended side seat, leaving me to take my soggy place as far away from Declan as possible on the short bench seat after he followed me inside.

I would be surprised if I didn’t have crisscrossing bruises across my skin where my arms wrapped viciously around my body. Stubborn silence sewed our lips together, and my eyes resolutely lodged on the tinted black of the windows. I heard shuffling movements beside me, which I was more than happy to ignore, until he nudged my arm, forcing me to look at the shirt he’d removed to offer in my direction. I’d fantasized about unbuttoning that exact shirt earlier, and I sucked in a harsh breath at the sight of his subtly toned torso and chest.

As much as the sight tempted me, it also enraged me. I wanted him and he couldn’t even bear to look at me. I ripped the shirt from his hands and flung it as hard as I could away from us.

“I hate you,” I snarled, wrenching my arms away from body and refusing to cover myself a second longer.

I wasn’t ugly. Tyler Warford or whoever the hell he was sure wasn’t trying to cover me up. Plenty of guys hit on me. Declan Davies could go fuck himself and his phobia of my body.

The silence persisted long after we’d dropped Madeline off at her home. Finally we pulled up outside of Cam’s house, but an unsettling realization poured over me and I made no move towards the door. I couldn’t.

“Bet your regretting your little temper tantrum now,” Declan’s smug words almost pushed me over the edge.

He was right though. My state of undressed left me with no choice but to make the long walk across Cam’s manicured yard in nothing but my bra and panties.

“I hate you,” I repeated with a ragged breath of frustration. There was no way out of the situation without bruising my pride.

“Stop saying that,” his words were shackled with a grimace.

I faced him fully. My posture was confrontational, and I felt willful. I wanted to defy him in every way I could. “Why? Why should I? It’s true. I hate you.”

He jerked forward, extending his body down the long stretch of the car to grab his discarded shirt. It still remained in a wrinkled ball where I’d flung it. He sat back, closer than before. His proximity struck me lightheaded. All I could do was take a deep breath. He smelled like something indescribably delicious.

“I don’t like it,” he admitted quietly, as his eyes and movements focused on threading my limp hand through the arm of the shirt. I had almost forgotten my question. It took me a minute to wander back to sense.

“Why?” I whispered this time, making no move to stop him from dressing me like I was a doll. I wasn’t going to help him either though.

He’d gotten my other arm through the shirt and started slowly buttoning it back together. He took his time, and even though I couldn’t see his hooded eyes feasting on the skin he covered, I could feel its scorching hot tracks across my chest.

“I don’t know.” His eyes finally met mine as he finished, and I could see the truth as much as I could see how much it bothered him.

There was a flicker of something buried deeply in depths of gray, a hint at the fire that could have ignited the whole car, and burned up both of us in its powerful wake. It was just a glimpse, but once I’d seen it, I knew it to be true.

He wanted me too. He desired me in all the same ways I did him.

Our faces were so close, and my eyes fluttered shut as I breathed him in. All he had to do was inch forward. He wanted it too. I knew it.

So close…

His lips began to move, but not nearly with the purpose I’d expected them too.

“You should be more careful with how you act around Madeline.”

I groaned, falling away from him and letting my head bang into the window with a sharp sound.

I wanted to slap him. I wanted to scream. I wanted to kiss him whether he wanted me to or not. I wanted to hurt him. I craved the feeling of his lips on mine. I wanted to lash out. I wanted to taste him. I wanted to consume him.

But more than anything, I really just wanted him to shut the fuck