I hated how that made me feel special somehow.
“Why are you avoiding me?” he asked, reminding me that he was here in the flesh.
“If I wanted to talk about it, I wouldn’t be avoiding you.” I threw the phone down and headed to the kitchen to pour a glass of merlot. I’d had one earlier, but the buzz had worn off, and I definitely needed something now.
Donovan leaned against the back of my couch and watched me, shaking his head when I offered him a glass of his own.
“Well, I’m here,” he said, hands curled into the sofa, “and I’m not leaving until you explain. Or until I’ve emptied my cock down your throat. The choice is yours.”
My knees buckled at the sight of his devilish grin. I quickly threw back half my glass to help steady my resolve. “I cannot have sex with you, Donovan.”
He seemed about to argue until I shot him a glare from hell.
“Fine. Sex is off the table,” he conceded. “For now.”
Thank god he’d agreed to that. Because I was already wavering. I felt warm everywhere, from my shower, from the merlot, from the way he looked at me—like he wanted to nibble every inch of my skin.
God, how I wanted to feel those nibbles turn into bites…
No, I couldn’t think about that. I couldn’t think at all with him in my house. I needed him to leave.
“I’m not talking about this with you, Donovan. You don’t want to talk about this with me either. I promise you don’t.” With my glass in hand, I stormed past him and gestured toward the door. “So you might as well just go.”
He didn’t move except to tilt his head in my direction. “You can’t possibly know that.”
Except, I could know that. I was sure of it.
“Donovan…” I pled.
“Talk, Sabrina. Talk or I’ll find a way to make you talk, I swear to god.” Both his tone and expression were serious. The kind of serious that scared the shit out of me and made my pussy clench and drip.
I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want to say this.
But it came hurling out of me like bad food that had sat in my stomach too long. “How can you be sleeping with only me and say we aren’t in a relationship?”
“What?”
I circled around in front of the sofa and started pacing. “You aren’t fucking anyone else. And I’m not fucking anyone else.”
He turned around so he was facing me. “Do you want me to fuck other women?”
“No.” I stopped mid-step, panic bubbling in my chest. “Do you want to fuck other women?”
His face told me nothing. “Not at the moment.”
That was a relief, at least. “Then how can you say we aren’t in a relationship? We’ve stopped using condoms.”
He shook his head slightly as though he thought the conversation was ridiculous.
Then, meeting my eyes, he came around the couch toward me. “We’re in a sexual relationship, then. Are you happier with that definition?” He grabbed the glass from my hand and took a swallow. “It’s just semantics, Sabrina.” He held the wine toward me, but I ignored it.
“What about the rest? What about the things you say?” I was happier with the word relationship, but this was so much more than just semantics.
“Like what do I say?”
I began pacing again. “Like when you tell me that you can’t work because you can’t stop thinking about me. Or when you go behind my back and tell Tom Burns to stick up for me at the job.”
“That was about keeping things running smoothly at the office. He could have caused a whole hell of a lot of trouble that we didn’t need.”
I stopped pacing and studied him. “I can’t tell if you’re only lying to me or if you’re also lying to yourself.”
“Oh, please. I’m not lying to anyone. I’ve been very truthful and forthright about what this is with you.” He took another swallow from the glass and set it down on the coffee table. Then he rested his hands on his hips and stared at me as though willing me to deny what he’d said.
Pulling my damp hair over to one shoulder, I tugged on it nervously. “You have. I won’t disagree.” He’d been forthright, if not always polite.
I just wasn’t convinced that he was facing the truth himself, which was most of the problem.
I dropped my hands to my sides. “But see, after you say that there’s nothing between us, you contradict it with actions that suggest exactly the opposite. You showed up uninvited at my apartment tonight when I didn’t answer a few texts! That’s not the behavior of someone who thinks this is just sex. It’s confusing and not fair, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do or believe anymore.”
We were face-to-face, both of us frustrated, and so far the conversation hadn’t gotten us anywhere at all.
With his eyes never leaving mine, Donovan sat on the arm of my sofa and seemed to let everything I’d said so far sit or settle or stir. The charge between us was a thick wall, and there was room to stand between his legs. I wanted to go there and lean against him. Wanted to smell him and touch him and fall into him like I had so many times before.
But I stayed where I was, my feet planted in the firm realization that it wouldn’t be enough anymore.
After what felt like forever, he asked the most important question of the night. “Sabrina, what is it you want?”
I closed my eyes briefly. It felt like déjà vu, but of course it wasn’t. He’d actually asked me that question before and then the answer had been so easy. I hadn’t known that the need and desire I had for him could take root inside me, could sprout into something bigger.
So I’d been honest when I’d told him then that I wanted him to touch me. And I was honest now. “I want what we already have.”
His shoulders relaxed visibly, and he reached out, grabbed my hand, and pulled me unexpectedly in between his legs. “Then I don’t understand what we’re arguing about.” He slipped a hand inside my robe and found my bare breast. Rubbing my nipple between his thumb and finger, he said, “Now is there anything else that you need to say?”
I gasped, arching with the pleasure. Another couple seconds of this and I was a goner. I had to fight to stay focused. “Yes. I want you to acknowledge that what we have is more than what you say it is.”
His hand dropped immediately, and he mumbled something incomprehensible under his breath.
He stared at me for several long seconds. “Acknowledge that it’s what exactly? We have a committed sexual relationship. Is that what you want to hear?”
“It’s a start.” Hope began to bud in my chest. He was listening, at least. He was talking. He was trying.
“And what else?”
I swallowed. “The ability to let it grow into more.”
“No,” he said adamantly. He pushed me away so he could stand and pace toward the fireplace and back. “Absolutely not. It can’t grow.”
I could feel the pain of his words between each of my ribs. How could he say that? It had already grown so much.
I tightened the belt of my robe around my waist and pretended that my eyes weren’t pricking. “I don’t believe that.”