Reed eased his hips back, then drove inside her again.
“Shower!” she croaked. “I’m not…dressed…and—” her voice lowered to a hiss, “Oh God, don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”
Reed didn’t stop. Chuckling quietly, he thrust into her with long, hard strokes that made her vision go blurry again.
“Can you…check the other apartments first and then come back?” she practically wailed at the door. “I won’t be long… I—”
Reed gripped her hips and started fucking her in earnest.
Darcy bit her lip to contain a moan. “I’m almost done—I mean, dressed! I’m getting dressed.”
There was a beat, followed by a cheerful reply. “No problem. I’ll start at the other end of the hall and make my way back to you.”
She registered vague sounds—the soft thud of footsteps, low male voices in conversation, another knock from somewhere farther down the hall. But her attention was elsewhere. Every thought, every frantic heartbeat and ragged breath was focused wholly on Reed. His cock moving inside her, warm hands gripping her hips, sexy lips brushing her ear as he bent down to whisper into it.
“I promised you nice and slow, but circumstances have changed. Hold on for the ride, baby.”
Then those greedy lips captured hers in a kiss, and the rocking of his hips turned ferocious.
She came the moment his tongue touched hers. Choked on the blissful moans doing their damndest to slip out. She had to tear her mouth away from his, bringing it to his shoulder instead and biting his hot, male flesh to stop from vocalizing her pleasure. Reed grunted in pain, but he didn’t slow down. The sound of flesh slapping against flesh echoed in the room with each furious thrust. His fingers dug into her waist, and the low groan he released told her he was close.
“Coming,” he hissed out.
As his cock pulsed inside her and his shoulders shuddered from the force of his pleasure, Darcy was struck with realization. A clear, persistent truth she couldn’t deny if she tried.
Once wasn’t going to be enough.
Not by a longshot.
Chapter Eight
As Reed followed Darcy to the front door in silence, he snuck furtive glances at her, then kicked himself every damn time because her rosy glow and sated expression painted a picture of a woman who’d been well-sexed.
It only made him want her even more, but damn it, he wasn’t allowed to. He’d given himself one free pass, thrown good judgment out the window and taken what he wanted. But he couldn’t do it again. Sex with Darcy Grant was no longer on the table.
Darcy stopped at the door, her forehead creasing. “Now what?”
Reed puffed out a breath. “Now I go home.”
“I see.” Zero emotion in her voice, but he sensed her displeasure. “And then what?”
“And tomorrow afternoon, I’ll be at the school for the second day of the workshop.” He paused. “And tomorrow night, I’m going to talk to AJ.”
“Talk to him about what?” she said in confusion.
He shot her a pointed look. “What do you think? I’m going to own up to being a selfish son of a bitch and confess that I slept with his ex-girlfriend. And afterwards, I expect I’ll be rewarded with a black eye, maybe two. Then again, AJ’s a lot deadlier than he looks, so it could be much worse.”
Darcy’s bewilderment only seemed to get stronger. “But you already told him everything.”
He frowned. “No, I didn’t.”
“But…” In the blink of an eye, she dashed to the living room and returned a moment later with her cell phone in hand. “He sent me this text earlier, and it totally sounded like he knew about us. You said you would tell him last week…”
“I say a lot of things,” Reed muttered. “But I didn’t tell him. I kept chickening out.” He sighed. “Can I read the text?”
She handed him the phone without a word. Reed skimmed the message, then heaved out another sigh, this one weary as hell. “I think he was talking about the self-defense class, Darce. About the workshop working out, not you and me working out.”
She was stricken. “Crap. Oh crap. I’m such an idiot.” A strangled noise popped out of her mouth. “The only reason I let this happen was because I thought I had his approval.”
Reed arched a brow. “That’s the only reason?”
She slowly shook her head. “No, it wasn’t just that. I wanted you. I won’t pretend I didn’t.” Her throat dipped as she visibly swallowed. “I still want you.”
His throat tightened. “I still want you, too.”
The confession jerked his cock to attention, as if the big guy wanted to voice his agreement. Christ. Ten minutes ago, he’d come so hard he’d seen black spots, and his dick was still nowhere near satisfied.
The memories of Darcy’s beautiful naked body flashed through his mind, taunting him. Her silky skin, endless curves, those perfect tits he’d barely even touched. There were still so many things he wanted to do to her, damn it. Flick his tongue over her pale pink nipples, lick the soft swells of her breasts, trail kisses along the flat expanse of her belly. And don’t even get him started on everything he could do south of that delicious border.
“Look…we’ve already crossed the line,” Darcy said miserably. “We might as well have a fling.”
His stomach went rigid. “A fling,” he echoed.
“Do you want to call it something else? A casual affair? A liaison?”
It didn’t escape him that the word relationship hadn’t made it on her synonym list, but then again, why would it? Reed knew what she thought of him. In Darcy’s eyes, he was a player, a bad boy, a shallow, impulsive man she’d never dream of getting serious with.
His heart clenched at the discouraging thought. Fine, maybe he’d been that way once upon a time, but over the past few years he’d worked his ass off to break those old destructive habits.
When he’d first met Darcy, he hadn’t taken one look at her and thought, man, that’s a chick I want to bone. He’d known right away that the woman was special. Everything about her, from her contagious laughter to her sunny demeanor to the way she challenged him, had told him Darcy Grant was someone he could fall in love with.
But evidently he wasn’t someone she could fall for.
Which hurt a lot more than he’d ever admit to her.
“So you just want to screw around with me for a while? A few days, a few weeks, maybe even a month?” It was difficult to curb the sarcasm dripping from his tone.
His heart only squeezed tighter when Darcy appeared genuinely confused by his hostility. “Are you saying you don’t want to have sex with me again? Because you seemed pretty into it ten minutes ago.”
How fucking perfect. It hadn’t even occurred to her that he might be interested in a relationship. In her mind, sex was all he was capable of wanting from someone.
But hell, why was he getting angry? It didn’t matter what he wanted. Even if she had viewed him as a worthy partner, she was still AJ’s ex-girlfriend. Any relationship they had would always be haunted by AJ. It’d be a never-ending spiral of guilt.
Sex, on the other hand, well, he was perfectly capable of performing that particular task, even when riddled with guilt. He’d get an ass kicking from AJ regardless, so why not experience a few more earth shattering orgasms with Darcy while he had the chance?