“You want to talk?”
He nodded slowly, his teeth bared.
“You never want to talk.” Her voice shook as he leaned in and took a deep, carnal breath at her neck.
“I talk all the fucking time,” he insisted.
“Fine. Then talk,” she said, trying to duck under his arm but finding herself going nowhere as he cupped her jaw, holding her lightly by the throat.
“Do you know what it does to me to be that close to you and not be able to touch you like I want to?” he asked, his voice soft and jagged.
Wordlessly she shook her head.
“It’s fucking torture. It’s a new ring of hell to know what your skin feels like, to know what you taste like, but I still can’t touch you unless we’re alone.”
The hand at her throat coasted down over her shoulder and chest to her breast.
She drew in a breath. Her body melted against him, succumbing, surrendering.
But then his touch was gone, and with a growl, he slapped his palm against the wall above her head.
“I can’t keep doing this, Remi,” he said.
Panic bloomed in her chest. He was doing exactly what she’d feared he’d do. She should be the one who was supposed to put an end to things. She should save herself the agony of...this. She should be the one to withdraw. But he was beating her to the punch. Again.
“Then don’t,” she snapped. Anger and fear joined forces inside her, making the world come into sharp focus. The flare of his nostrils. The parting of his lips. The fire in his eyes that threatened to burn her to ashes.
“I can’t help myself,” he confessed. “I know how this is going to end and I can’t stop myself from wanting more anyway.”
“What kind of more?”
His breathing was heavy and hot on her face.
“I saw what your parents have tonight. Decades of it. A life together. A partnership.”
What was he saying? She was having trouble catching her breath. It came out in a shallow whistle.
Brick swore and pushed away from her. She sagged against the wall. Spotting her clutch on the table, he opened it and fished out her inhaler.
“I don’t need it,” Remi insisted as he returned it to her.
“Then take a fucking breath and prove it.”
“God, you piss me off.”
“Right back at you, baby. You piss me off, wind me up, and leave me wanting more of something I never should have had in the first place.”
“Why did you marry Audrey?” Her question slashed through the air like a whip. Silence rang in her ears after.
His mouth closed in that firm line. His answers locked in the vault.
“What? You wanted to talk. So let’s talk. Why did you marry Audrey? Why did you pick her? Why not me?”
He was so stubbornly silent.
She shoved at his chest, not moving him an inch. Somewhere in the back of her mind, it registered how much they both seemed to like it.
“Because I couldn’t have you,” he said hoarsely.
“Why the fuck not, Brick? You knew I loved you.”
Again, she was met with silence. But this time it wasn’t so indomitable. Brick was vibrating with an energy that demanded to be let out. With words that wanted to ring their truth.
“You loved me?” he repeated.
“Of course I did. I loved you, and you chose my best friend over me. Why?”
“Because I couldn’t fucking have you!”
“What does that even mean? Why not? Audrey was my age. So it wasn’t that I was too young. My parents have adored you since they met you. I wanted to be yours so much, and you just kept rejecting me.” Her voice broke along with the dam of emotions she’d held back for too long.
He was trembling against her, and she knew something was about to happen.
“You rejected me over and over again,” she whispered. “You made up reasons that we both know were just excuses. Then you chose someone else. And when you finally let us start to explore this thing between us, you give me a couple of orgasms and say you can’t do it anymore. What do you want from me, Brick? Am I here just because Audrey isn’t?”
“I married Audrey to ruin any chance I had with you.”
She felt sick, dizzy, devastated. And in some mean, dark corner of her mind, a little voice said I told you so.
“Why?” She barely managed to get the word out.
“God damn it. I can’t live with you looking at me like that,” he snapped.
“Like what?” A tear slipped out of the corner of her eye and burned a path down her cheek.
“Like I just destroyed you.”
Her laugh was humorless. “Many men have tried,” she quipped, wiping her cheek with the sleeve of her sweatshirt.
“Don’t fucking joke about that,” he said, whirling her around to face the wall. She braced herself against the drywall and cursed her body for begging for what she wanted. She tilted her behind back, offering herself to him.
His hand coasted down to cup her rear end.
“Do you see what’s happening here? I can’t control myself around you. I never could.” As if to emphasize his point, he tracked his fingers up the valley between her cheeks, finding the thin band of her thong.
“You’ve done nothing but control yourself!”
“I’ve been hanging on by my goddamn finger nails for years, Remi. I’ve got nothing left. Every time you make me chase you, I lose a little bit more willpower. Standing here now, saying the things I should have said years ago, and all I can think of is how much I want to pull this shirt up. How much I want to put my hands on you. How much I want to hear the sound of my hand connecting with your skin. How much I want to see that cheek turn pink with my mark. How much I want to hear you say you’re sorry for making me chase you in that breathy little voice you have when you know you’re about to get fucked.”
Her entire body was shaking now, quaking between the wall and the man.
And when he sank behind her, when those hot finger tips under her sweatshirt skated higher, bringing the material with them, she let out a shaky moan. He held the hem against her back and stroked the skin exposed by her thong with the other.
“You haunt my every waking moment, Remington. The best thing about this world is that you’re in it. But I can’t have what I want.” She could hear the agony in his voice.
“You aren’t making any fucking sense! What is so horrible about the idea of being with me?”
“Because I won’t survive you! Because if I did get lucky enough to lock you down, eventually you’d find out.”
“Find out what?”
“That I don’t deserve you. That I’m not good enough for you. That all I have to offer you is protection and sex.”
She gasped as he took a handful of flesh and squeezed.
“Those are the only reasons you come to me,” he whispered. “The only reason you’re standing here taking this is because you want it almost as much as I want to give it to you.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing,” he breathed, running his fingertips over her curves, “if there’s more.”
“What more do you want from me?” Again, she arched her back, tilting her rear end up in invitation.