My jaw drops at his crass comment, but when I look around at the destruction of his once perfectly organized kitchen, I can feel my cheeks fire.
“Oh my God! Did we do this?” He pulls me off the floor and before answering, he pulls off the condom. Turning to look where I assume the trash can used to be, he lets out another laugh. I forget, for a second, the mess around us when he bends forward, and picks up the can and small amount of trash that spilled when it toppled over. My palms itch to take his firm globes in my hand and squeeze. He is head-to-toe tan, hard, and full of deliciously bulging muscles.
Shaking my head a few times before he catches me mentally molesting him, I take the room in again. The kitchen table is toppled over with at least one broken leg. Three of his four chairs are broken and in pieces around the table. There are a few pieces of what looks like a broken plate scattered around. Two bar stools are on their side. A house phone ripped out of the wall, mail on the floor, a hole in the wall near the floor, and peanut butter covers most of the floor around us.
What the hell?
“I had a feeling that you would be a wildcat.” He laughs softly, taking my hand in his and pulling me towards the stairs. And me? I just follow him, even with my mind still screaming to run, trapped completely under his spell and not ready to find the cure.
It’s been two months since I first took Dee home with me. Two months of the best sex I’ve ever had in my life. Two months, and I still don’t feel like she’s opened up once. I can see the war behind her eyes. She wants to want me, to want us, but it’s almost as if she’s afraid to let go of whatever fear I still see dancing behind her eyes. It’s not as strong as it was when I first met her, but it’s still there, and I don’t know what to do about it.
I’ve given into her whole ‘this will only be sex’ bullshit, because honestly, I never thought she would be so bullheaded about it. I think I’m an okay guy. I still call my mom every Sunday to check in, and my little sisters say I would make the best boyfriend. Some crap about how being raised by women means that there is no way I can screw a relationship up.
Never, not once, in my thirty-two years have I craved a woman the way I crave Denise Roberts. She gets under my skin like no other. She walks into the room, and I want to be near her. If one of the guys talks to her, I want to gut them, skin them, and maybe even behead them. She laughs, not one of those fake as hell ones she always gives Izzy and Greg, but the soul expressing belly laugh that she only gives me when we are alone. I’m near her, and the only thing I want is to claim her, make her mine, and let everyone around us know.
It’s not for lack of trying that I haven’t been able to break down her walls. I can see past it all. The happiness that doesn’t touch her eyes. Those moments when we’re out as a group and she looks like her world has crashed. The times that she sees a happy couple strolling down the street, and immediately, her face is full of deep longing. I just don’t understand why. I can tell, deep down, that she wants someone to hold her hand through life, but damn if she’ll let anyone do it.
There isn’t even any doubt in my mind. She’s worth sticking this out for and finding the diamond hidden beneath all the dirt.
Now, here we are after two months of constant companionship, almost nightly sex, and just about everything else a ‘couple’ does without the label. I’ve tried. She knows where I stand, but she is firm. She wants all the exclusiveness without the title. To her, there will never be an ‘us’, and if I’m not happy sharing her bed, then I can take a hike.
It’s those moments when I want to wring her fucking neck.
“Still chasing after the uncatchable, huh?” I look away from where Dee is standing with Izzy, her head thrown back in laughter, and her rich brown hair falling in curls down her back. Her jeans tightly hug her ass, begging for my hands, and her tits are about to burst through the thin material of her tee. Jesus, how pathetic am I?
“I’m not chasing.”
Maddox raises his brow. Yeah, I’m pretty sure he knows I’m full of shit. Even to my own ears, it sounds like a lie, because chasing is exactly what I’m doing.
“Right. And how’s that working out for you?” He takes a pull of his beer, glancing around the room before his dark eyes return to me.
I don’t say anything because really, what is there to say? I look around the room, trying to find a distraction. “What do you think about that?” I point my beer towards where Axel is sitting on the couch.