“Listen up, you arrogant bastard.” Anger vibrated through her arms and a charge shot from her toes to the crown of her head. “You don’t get to claim me. I’m not your property. I can do whatever I want.” Because she wanted to wipe that stupid smirk off his face, she added, “And I can do whomever I want.”
His lips flinched, but he didn’t back away, stepping even closer and touching the tip of her nose with his. Her vision was now swimming in dark hair, dark eyes, and the sexiest smirk she’d ever seen.
It’s not sexy. It’s stupid, remember?
But it wasn’t. And the rest of her knew it. Her nipples tightened, her body tingled, and the hand she’d wrapped around his shirt began to sweat…
“You do me, Sarge. No one else,” he said.
“I’m not”—she had to swallow around a very dry throat to finish—“doing you.”
“Brice McGuire doesn’t know how to make your body sing. I do.” He slid his nose along hers and moved his hand from her back to her hair. She shivered. “Want me to make your body sing, Sarge?”
“We”—she closed her eyes to unscramble her brain, then opened them again—“decided not to sleep together again.”
“You decided that.” Awareness lit the depths of his gaze and he ran his fingers up the back of her scalp, causing goose bumps to cover her arms. “After.”
After.
“Remember what happened after, Sarge?”
Of course she did. And judging by his sudden seriousness, he remembered, too. There was no doubting what happened after that night in the mansion.
Gloria had freaked right out.
Chapter 5
Where the hell are you going?” Ash asked as she stood.
“I’m…I can’t do this anymore, Asher.”
“What?” He sat up on the bed, naked, hair all over the place and eyes wild. “Don’t you fucking put that on.”
She was attempting to slip into her evening wear while willing her knees to hold her up. That last orgasm had made her wobbly. Probably she should lie down and recover. But lying down meant lying next to Asher and she couldn’t do that.
Dress on, she resumed the hunt for her shoes. “People are going to notice we’re missing,” she said, lifting the comforter from the corner of the bed and finding one of her shoes.
“I don’t care.”
Ah. She spotted the other one by the nightstand, half under the bed. She tugged it out with her toe and slipped it on, then balanced a hand on the bed to slip on the other one.
Asher propped on an elbow on the bed and frowned some more.
“Help me zip this, okay?” She turned, holding the front of her purple dress and moving her hair over one shoulder.
He climbed out of bed and stood behind her, and she closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to look at the damn near-perfect body she was refusing to climb into bed and snuggle with.
Leaning close, he whispered, “Don’t do this.”
Too bad she couldn’t shut her ears.
“Zip.” She worked up a glare, turned around, and shot him with it, then waited. He clenched his jaw but did as she asked. When he was done, he stood, hands on his hips, and glared back at her while she struggled to keep her eyes on his face.
“Why are you doing this?” His tone was just low and sincere enough to make her face heat.
“I don’t owe you any post-coital snuggling, you know. I didn’t agree to that.”
“Yeah, Sarge. I know.” His tone was weary. “You don’t owe me anything. You’ve made that clear. Not even an apology for assuming the worst and being dead wrong.”
“I saw her—”
“Yeah, you saw her. What you didn’t see was me fucking her.” He came closer and grasped her shoulders with his palms. “I did not sleep with Jordan after I slept with you. We fucked one time.” He held up a finger. “Once. That’s it.”
Gloria frowned.
He dropped his hands. “Know what I think?”
She crossed her arms over her chest. She didn’t want to know, but she figured she couldn’t stop him from speaking.
“I think,” he continued, “that you believe me. And I think you’re going to continue to pretend you don’t to save face, or try to ignore what just happened in here. And I’m not talking about the sex, Sarge. I’m talking about what happened. You’re freaked. Hell, I’m freaked. But it happened and I’m not going to pretend it didn’t.”
Something had happened. And he was right. She was freaked. Because in the tender moments when he held her eyes with his, when he started babbling about song lyrics, when he admitted he missed her, she realized something else.
She missed him, too.
The sex that was supposed to be a reprieve from their usual bickering had delivered, but an orgasm wasn’t the only gift. There had been a deeper undercurrent between them. One where they saw each other without the cover of for-show arguments and their egos getting in the way.
She’d been naked with Asher before but this was the only time she’d felt truly naked. She had to get the hell out of this room—out of this mansion—because she couldn’t let him any closer. He was way too close already. She could so easily go from having a good time to falling, and falling hard.