I want dessert. When can I pick you up?
The bees took flight in my belly, fluttering in that way that made me want to respond with Now as fast as I could type it. But their stingers were out, needling along my ribs and heart and everywhere, everywhere, wounding me with even the thought of being in Donovan’s presence while having to pretend that he didn’t mean as much to me as he did. How could I lie beneath him, how could I be naked in front of him, how could I let him move inside me and not fall even deeper than I already had?
But what was my other option? I wasn’t ready to end things with him either. That likely made me a masochist, something Donovan probably already knew about me, but it wasn’t a label I could live with for long. I was too strong. Too ambitious. Too willing to go after what I wanted.
Which meant that eventually I’d have to confront this.
Just.
I wasn’t ready yet.
Without responding, I turned my phone on silent and tossed it on my coffee table. He’d blown me off for an entire week. I could ignore him for at least one night.
Four hours later, I emerged from a shower to the sound of pounding on my door.
I already knew who it was. A hot rush swept through me while goose bumps pebbled along my skin.
He’d shown up at my apartment!
Fuck. He’d shown up at my apartment.
With a sigh, I wrapped my plain, fluffy terrycloth bathrobe around me and headed to answer it.
“What are you doing here?” I asked when, as suspected, I found Donovan on the other side of the door.
He was wearing tan khaki pants, a dark gray pullover, and a scowl that made my heart race and my toes curl with trepidation. “You didn’t answer my texts.”
“Texts” as in plural. He must have sent more.
This was the part of my plan that I hadn’t thought through. He’d already proven my secretary wasn’t a barrier. I should have expected this.
I leaned my face against the doorjamb. “It’s not fair that I can’t avoid you as efficiently as you can avoid me. I’m pretty sure your doorman would never let me up without your clearance.”
His jaw ticked. “You’re avoiding me?”
Obviously not anymore.
Resigned, I opened the door wide enough for him to enter. “Come on in.”
As he had last time he’d shown up at my apartment, he walked in as if he owned the place, which, of course, he did. Openly he surveyed the workspace I’d made for myself on the couch, my leftover Chinese still sitting next to my open laptop.
I closed the door and made my way over to the coffee table to pick up my phone, which I hadn’t looked at since I’d silenced it earlier. There were a total of seven texts from him.
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.