For a heartbeat I remained frozen, overwhelmed by his aggression. And then I melted into the onslaught, legs opening to accommodate his hand, lips parting to accept his tongue.
He sat back heavily in his seat, chest heaving as he gripped the steering wheel. “Fuck. Sorry. That was uncalled for.”
“It was certainly unexpected. Are you okay?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know.” He ran a hand viciously through his hair and tugged. “What the fuck is wrong with me?”
“We don’t have to go out. We can go back to my apartment,” I said. I didn’t know what to do when he was this upset, and the only other time I’d seen him in this state was after the last time he’d seen Officer Cross. Obviously he was the common denominator.
Hayden shook his head. “No. I want to take you out and do something normal.”
I put my hand on his forearm. “It’s okay if you need a minute.”
He nodded and took another deep breath before saying, “Why am I like this with you? Why am I such a territorial prick?”
“You’re not a prick.”
“I am. I don’t own you. Who says that kind of shit to their girlfriend?”
My stomach did a little flip. I pried his fingers from the steering wheel and brought his knuckles to my lips, kissing them tenderly. “You were upset. You associate Officer Cross with painful memories, and he antagonized you. It’s understandable you would be defensive and feel possessive.”
“What did he say to you?”
“That I should wear my seat belt.” I bit his knuckle to distract him from my lie.
Hayden looked skeptical.
“Let’s not let him ruin the rest of our day,” I pleaded. “Didn’t you have somewhere you wanted to take me?”
He hesitated before flashing a salacious grin. “That’s right, I promised you a good time in exchange for a make-out session in my car.”
“It’s too bad you don’t have a garage—the hood sounded like it might be fun.”
Hayden shifted the car into gear. “That could be arranged.”
31
HAYDEN
I was still trying to calm the hell down. The parking ticket I could deal with. Cross’s implication that I was going to ruin Tenley, not so much.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Tenley asked, pulling me out of the dark spiral of thoughts.
“Yeah. Definitely.”
I received a few stunned looks as we were ushered through the restaurant to a private table in the back, nice and close to the wood-burning fireplace. I’d only been here once, to celebrate Nate’s fortieth birthday last year. They had a stellar menu.
Eating a meal with Tenley in a public place was strange. I constantly had to remind myself that I couldn’t touch her whenever I felt like it, at least not in the locations I gravitated toward. My self-control was limited when it came to her, particularly since the last time we’d had sex was over a week ago. I was trying to prove she was more than just a warm place to put my dick. But she looked hot and I was horny, so I was having difficulty behaving. She must have pinched my arm twenty times. I wasn’t doing anything particularly inappropriate; I just had my hand on her knee. It wasn’t my fault her * was like a magnet and my fingers kept inching north.
I decided to talk about something nonsexual. “I’ve been thinking about your tattoo.”
“Oh?” she paused, her fork halfway to her mouth.
“How would you feel about some modifications to the color scheme? I have some revised versions of the design we could look over tomorrow. If you like one of them, I could start filling in the color later in the week.”
Her eyes lit up. “You think it’s healed well enough?”
I’d been stalled out on the shading for a variety of reasons, many of which had nothing to do with the readiness of the tattoo. “Yeah. It looks good. We’ll start with a shorter session, maybe a couple hours?”
“I can handle longer.”
“I know you can, kitten. I’d feel better if we worked up to that, though. Okay? Shading is more painful than the outline. You’ll be uncomfortable.”
Tenley would sit through a four-hour session no problem, but that amount of shading would feel like absolute shit for days afterward.
“I can deal with the discomfort.” She looked up at me with her Disney eyes, all wide and pleading, lower lip jutting out in a sexy little pout.
“I know that, too. But an extensive session would put you out of commission.” My hand drifted higher on her thigh, my meaning clear.
“Oh,” she breathed. “We wouldn’t want that.”
*