“You didn’t email me back,” she said, pulling her mouth away to dot kisses along his jawline. “Eight emails, you didn’t respond.”
He let out a low chuckle. “Someone’s been counting.”
“Someone’s been ignoring,” she countered.
He stilled for a moment, before his hands slid down from her shoulders to her waist. “Isn’t that what a soulless man is supposed to do?”
Brooke sucked in a breath, not just at having her own tantrum thrown back in her face, but at the hurt in his face. At the pain in his eyes.
“Seth.”
He didn’t give her a chance to respond, instead slamming his mouth down on hers once more with even more force this time, the heels of his hands digging into her rib cage as he held her against the wall, his mouth bruising, punishing . . .
And she wanted it. She wanted it all.
Her tongue tangled against his, her fingers clawing at his shirt as her purse dropped to the floor with a messy thump, the keys in her hand falling with a noisy clank as they wrestled with each other’s clothes, heating each other’s skin even through the thick layers of their winter coats.
Brooke’s hips tilted forward, needing to be closer, and Seth hissed out a curse as she rubbed against the bulge of his erection.
He slammed a palm against the wall behind her head before pulling back, groaning in frustration as he did so.
His breath was warm on her cheek, and Brooke kept her eyes closed, relishing the closeness, just for a moment.
“What are we doing here?” he asked.
Brooke could only shake her head. “I have no idea. I don’t know how to think around you. I have things all planned out, and then . . .”
“And then what?” he asked huskily.
“And then you look at me, and I just, I just want.”
“I take it this wasn’t in your plans,” he said, gently resting a thumb against her cheekbone.
“You mean Maya playing matchmaker? I had a hunch when she insisted you tag along, but I definitely didn’t plan on her ditching us.”
“I’ll admit I’m having a hard time being pissed at her just now,” Seth admitted.
Brooke opened her eyes to meet his. Their icy blue was unreadable. “I’m actually kind of glad she left. There are things I need to say, and I’m grateful not to have an audience for it.”
He slowly pushed back from the wall, moving his warmth away from her, and her fingers clenched in a reflexive urge to tug him back. To tuck against his body and ask him to hold her. Or kiss her. Or take her against the wall, or . . .
“I’m listening,” he said.
Seth crossed his arms, and the closed-off stance definitely didn’t bode well for his reception of her apology. But she had to try.
Buying time, she knelt, picking up her purse, shoving the spilled lip balms and umbrella and hair bands back in. She picked up the keys in her other hand, jangling them in her palm nervously as she stood up once more and looked him in the eyes.
“I need to say that I’m sorry,” she said, deciding on directness.
His eyebrows lifted. “For?”
“You brought me breakfast and I . . . freaked out. Unnecessarily so. And I said some nasty things when I left your place that morning. Things I didn’t mean and that aren’t even true.”
He looked away, and Brooke’s chest squeezed. She reached out a hand, her fingers touching his forearm. “They aren’t true, Seth. I was feeling uncomfortable after the intimacy between us. I was embarrassed I stayed over when I didn’t mean to, and the whole thing—it felt like too much.”
“Can I ask you something?”
She nodded.
“Are you mad because I offered you breakfast? Or because you wanted to stay?”
She opened her mouth to deliver a safe, diverting quip about not being a morning person.
Then she saw the bleak look of vulnerability on his face, and she realized that she wanted to be a little bit brave. For him.
“I freaked out because I realized I wanted more than the breakfast,” she said. “I went in thinking I wanted only the sex, thinking I could be okay with that, but I ended up getting cuddling and breakfast, and then I wanted more. I wanted . . .”
“Lunch?” He supplied when she broke off.
Brooke let out her breath on a little laugh. “Yeah, maybe. But then what if I’d wanted lunch to become dinner, and then dinner had turned into more sex, and then more sleeping over, and then, you know, repeat.”
“Would that be so bad?” he asked, taking a step closer to her. “Us spending more time together?”
Her heart knew exactly how it felt about that question. It jumped a little in excitement at the very suggestion of it. Her brain, however . . .
“Give me a chance, Brooke. I may be a bit ruthless, too ambitious for my own good, and cold as ice, but what you see is what you get. I can offer that much, at least.”
“You’re not cold,” she whispered, moving closer to him, her eyes locked on the knot of his tie, which was just slightly less tidy than before, courtesy of their groping.
“No?” he asked huskily.