She cleared her throat. “I know it must’ve been confusing, since...since it felt like there was a little more going on than either of us expected.”
“A little more?” His gaze locked onto hers like a heat-seeking missile. “Do you moan like that when you have sex with your other friends?” He shook his head. “God, the way you looked at me, the way you welcomed my finger inside you—”
“Stop!” Embarrassed, she smoothed down her sweater. “I thought you’d be the one to understand how casual worked. You couldn’t have been in love with that woman who tattooed your name on her arm after only a few dates, and yet you slept with her. I’ve never slept with anyone I wasn’t in a committed relationship with. I was just trying to...to establish an understanding between us, to make it possible for us to have what we both wanted.”
“Yeah, well, after all that talk about how it didn’t mean anything, you surprised me.”
“You surprised me, too!” But what more could they have done to protect themselves? It wasn’t her fault their lovemaking hadn’t gone according to plan, wasn’t her fault that the moment he touched her, everything they’d said at the door had fallen away as if it was the words and not the actions that had no meaning. There’d been no emotional distance between them at all, which had spooked her as much as it had spooked him.
“Forget I brought it up,” she said. “I thought... I thought we could clear the air, but you’re obviously not ready.”
“I can’t imagine why,” he muttered sarcastically.
“What do you want me to do?” she asked.
“Nothing. I don’t want anything from you. Go to bed.”
She didn’t leave. She felt too bad about everything.
After waiting for several seconds, she tried to get him talking about something else. “It was nice of Brandon and Olivia to come by.”
He made a sound of agreement, but that was it. Then he got up to pour himself another drink—only this time he carried the bottle back to the couch with him.
“It’s getting late,” she said.
He had no response to that, either—except to toss back what was in his glass and to pour another shot. She got up and walked over.
His eyebrows rose when she grabbed the bottle, which he hadn’t yet put down.
“Are you sure you want to go on drinking?” she asked. “Facing the damage at the plant tomorrow won’t be hard enough?”
She thought he might jerk the bottle out of her hand. He had that right. It wasn’t her place to tell him what to do. But she was only trying to take care of him, and he seemed to understand, because after a few seconds, he cursed under his breath but allowed her to move the bottle out of reach.
“Come on. Let’s get you to bed.” She pulled him to his feet and led him to his room, where he fell back on the mattress, fully dressed.
After removing his boots, she was about to cover him up, but the way he was staring at her held her in place. “What?” she said.
“So are you going to let me fuck you or not?” he asked.
Her breath caught. “You think talking like that’s going to take the meaning out of it?”
His eyes glittered with hurt and anger. “I can show you how it works when it doesn’t mean anything,” he said, pulling her on top of him.
When she didn’t refuse, didn’t attempt to get up, he unzipped her jeans. “Tell me silence means yes.”
She closed her eyes. She should refuse, but it was the last thing she wanted to do. If she left his room right now, she knew she’d probably just come back in five minutes—or less—and by then he might have passed out. “Yes,” she murmured.
He quickly dispensed with their clothes, but instead of kissing her and holding her as he’d done before, instead of engaging his tongue and his hands and his voice, he put on a condom and turned her onto her stomach.