Lifting her chin with a knuckle, his gaze was intense. “And I never lied to you, Chloe.”
She didn’t believe him any more than he believed her.
When their hungry mouths met, it no longer mattered who was in the wrong. Because being back in each other’s arms felt so damn right.
This wasn’t like last night, when she kissed him in a tequila-induced haze. This was him kissing her. Devouring her.
Controlling the action.
Intense need gripped her entire body, a moan escaped, and he took advantage, his tongue delving in, dominating hers in an erotic, hate-inspired duel.
This was pure, unadulterated chemistry, one soulmate connecting with the other despite the resentment thick between them. Because they had no choice in the matter.
Young love bound them together, even though adult life had torn them apart.
Cupping her cheeks with both hands, he kissed her methodically, and erotically. Smooth yet wild, and she nearly melted at the intensity.
Back then, he tasted like forbidden fruit. Freedom from the overbearing hand that rocked the cradle. Salvation from a future decided for her. But now, he tasted like regret. Missed opportunity.
And the reason she was placed on this Earth.
To be his mate for life, miles apart or together.
Tingles of desire shot through her, starting clear down in her toes and working their way up like effervescent bubbles. It made her knees weak, her stomach skip, and her hate seem like a cover for her real feelings.
She once loved this boy with every cell inside.
She still did.
And that nostalgia was magical. It made her kiss her enemy. It made her trail her hand down the bare, hot skin of his spine, blind to the burns that would form in the morning. It made her dip her fingers into the front of his waistband, grazing but not really touching, dancing with the devil.
It made her let go of the vendetta she’d held dear, laying down arms for one night of bittersweet reconnection.
But first, a little business.
“Do you have someone in your bed?” she whispered, her breathing coming in soft pants against his mouth, once he let them come up for air.
Lifting his dark head, he looked in the direction of the main house, specifically the back porch and the daybed, a sexy groove forming between his brows. “No?”
She laughed at his confusion. “No, I mean, in Florida. At . . . home.” He could have a loving, loyal wife waiting, for all she knew. Children, maybe.
And Jesus God, did that hurt.
This was his home. Maine Lane.
With her.
One of those dark brows rose dashingly, his lips tilting into a smile. “Still a no, cupcake.”
“I like that,” she said, smiling shyly back.
Liked that he didn’t have a playmate in Florida. Liked that he used the word cupcake as an endearment this time.
She didn’t have the guts to ask him about kids.
If he was a father, she didn’t want to know about it.
“You got some douchebag carpenter in your bed? ’Cause I can kill him seven ways to Sunday, and he’ll never see it coming. He can suffer, or he can go quick, your choice. Up to me, he’d suffer just for his egregious mayo oversight.”
He wasn’t joking, but she laughed anyway, hooking her index fingers into a denim loop on either side of his hips and tugging him into her. Felt an impressive hard-on.
“Please don’t kill Wyatt.”
“Can’t guarantee that.”
“No, seriously. There’s nothing there.”
As much as she wanted it, dreamed of it, in fact, a life spent with Wyatt would only hurt more than the one she lived now.
Seeing him each day. Seeing him with her each day.
For now, every Thursday was adequate, and yet, not nearly enough. She lived for that day. But it was time she started living for herself the other days. And this man in front of her? He made those other days worthwhile again.
When he stared at her, assessing the reliability of her word, she came clean about her pathetic sex life.
“I sleep on a twenty-year-old mattress with a cavernous dip in the center and several lumps surrounding it. You think I wanna bring a guy home to that? He’ll get sucked in before I have an opportunity to come. Trust me, that’s a hard no.”
He didn’t look as if he did.
Trust her, that was.
She dipped her hands back into his pants again, and that distracted him, his mouth coming down on hers again. Callused fingers tugged at the hook of her bra, and he skillfully yanked the lace away.
Her boobs always could coerce him into anything.
Making out on the daybed while his parents made dinner in the kitchen.
Making love—no, having sex—on the lumpy mattress in the carriage house while her parents fought in the mansion next door, debating where she was going to college, Harvard or St. Lawrence.
Making love—no, having sex—now, and on that same lumpy mattress, while they each fought an internal battle over who did whom the most wrong.
And suddenly, she was falling, bouncing back onto the bed and yelping in delight. She laughed as he came down over-top of her, his grin decidedly wicked. And then he lowered his gaze, his smile slipping.
“God, you’re still so beautiful.” He brushed the flat of his palm over her pert nipples, slowly, reverently, somehow finding restraint when all she wanted was excess. Hard and fast excess. “I’ve never seen such beauty.”
Swallowing, she closed her eyes and groaned when he lightly pinched the hard tips, his warm breath fanning over them at such close distance, but damn him, he didn’t touch her with his mouth like she so desperately wanted. Like he used to.
He didn’t kiss and lick and suck at her until she was breathless and begging.
Instead, he reared back to sit on his heels, his hands deftly undoing her shorts. “Off with these.”
Why he bothered to ask for help she didn’t know, because he stripped them down her legs, panties included, in seconds, leaving her naked while he still wore jeans.
Grimacing, he reached down and undid his button-fly, loosening the restricting denim outlining his impressive erection, but not unleashing himself.
Far more controlled than she was.
“Now you,” she said, nodding at his lap.
When he shook his head, trying to spread her legs open with a forceful hand on the inside of each knee, she pressed them together. “Uh-uh. I’m not gonna be the only one naked here. We’re not having hate sex while your jeans are still on.”
“Such a romantic.” He said it absently, his focus on the V between her legs. Reaching down, he traced the narrow line of hair with a feather-soft touch. “I like this.”
“Yeah? I’m thinking of growing it out. Waxing is painful, and I’m the only one who sees it anyway.”
His mouth quirked. “I like that even better.”
“You like a seventies-style full bush?” she teased, knowing what he meant but needing him to admit it. “You’re old school.”
When he looked up from her landing strip, staring at her with a need so sharp she felt it in her bones, for a moment she lost touch with reality.
Forgot the world around them. The problems surrounding them.
The hate between them.
“That nobody sees it. Nobody but me.”
“That sounds sexist. Besides, you forfeited the right to ownership ten years ago.”