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"Who the hell told you about that?" he asked me.
"So it’s true?"
"What the fuck does it matter if it is true?" he demanded, taking a step towards me. He could get all defensive about it, but he knew how this world looked at people like us – no, people like him. Nobody would look at him in the same light if they were to find out that he was into men. It would be practically admitting that he wasn’t the man they had thought he was, not the person who they could rely on to get shit done. Putting that information out there would have been dangerous, but I held it in my hand, clenched in my fist, ready to strike if I needed to.
"You know what it means," I replied, not backing down. We were standing just a few inches apart now. His dark eyes were blazing with anger, but I didn’t break his gaze. I could feel the rage coming off him in waves, and it should have been enough to get me to back down – but, instead, I found myself tempted, wanting to see how far I could push him before he would strike back at me.
"Oh, yeah?" he replied, drawing his fist a little higher. I didn’t flinch. I had dealt with plenty of guys who were far scarier than he was.
"Yeah," I shot back, my jaw clenched tight. In the quiet of this office, cut off from the rest of the world, it felt like anything could have happened. My eyes flicked down towards his mouth, drawn tight, ready to spit out some other defensive comment at whatever I came out with next...
And, before I knew what I was doing, I grabbed his face, and kissed him.
Our lips crashed together with a desperate hunger I had felt just a few times before in my life – the few times I had been with men, these hungry, needy, wanting encounters that had been so far removed from the rest of my life they didn’t even feel real. His stubble against my palms, against my chin, his teeth on my lip – I expected him to pull back, break away, but instead, his hands came to my shoulders and he pulled me in closer, tongue snaking past my lips.
The tension between us was boiling over now, consuming me, even as I tried to control it – the thought of him watching Jo and I, seeing me in that moment of complete pleasure, it was turning me on and I couldn’t deny it. I would fight him for Jo, if I had to, but right now, that desire was translating into something else entirely...
He let out a low growl, and it was that which brought me back to earth. I pulled back from him sharply, stepping away, my breath tearing out of my lungs, my cock half-stirred to life in my pants.
"What the fuck was that?" I demanded. He raised his eyebrows at me. His mouth was still slightly parted, like he was ready to go back in for another kiss as soon as I was ready.
"You started it," he replied, grinning, moving towards me again. "Not that I’m-"
"Don’t touch me," I snarled at him. It wasn’t fair to aim this anger at him, but it was filling me to the brim – anger at myself, anger that I had let myself get drawn into something like that. How many times had I shared those passionate moments with guys? A handful? Four, five over the course of my life? And every time, I hated myself for it. I hated that I couldn’t control myself, hated that it was so easy for me to just give in and let it happen. I was a freak. A fucking freak. And I needed to get out of here, right now, before I did anything else to ruin my career at the Flood.
I turned on my heel and headed out of the office, my heart slamming against my ribs, feeling as though everyone I walked past was going to be able to tell just by looking at me what I had done.
I needed a drink. A fucking strong one. Several, actually. Anything to get the memory of his mouth against mine out of my head – anything.
Because I knew I had just made the kind of mistake I couldn’t take back. And it wouldn’t be long till Jo found out. He would tell her about it, and she would know what kind of person I was, and there would be no way I could hide it any longer.
It scared the hell out of me. But, after a few drinks, I would feel a little better. Or at least I would have a harder time remembering his hands on my face and his teeth on my lip.
Chapter Fifteen – Jo
"You finished, baby?" I asked Kyra, as she hopped down from her seat at the little dining table.
"I think so," she replied, and she frowned down at her plate and then reached for her fork to take one more bite. "There – I am now."
I couldn’t help but smile. She was so damn cute.
"Okay, you scrape it off in the trash and put the plate in the sink," I told her. I had been trying to get her a little more used to doing household chores these days, even though I still felt such an urge to fuss over her and do everything for her. I knew I would need to get that out of my system eventually, and make sure she was capable of doing everything herself, but she was my daughter – it was only right that I wanted to pamper her, wasn’t it?
I got her a bath running as she cleared away her stuff and hummed to myself as the water ran. It had been a relatively peaceful day since I had gotten off work pretty early, and spending an evening with Kyra was exactly what I needed to try and clear my head after everything that had been happening with the guys recently...
Oh, try as I might to keep them out of my head, it felt as though they were there every time I did anything. After I had hooked up with Sasha the other night, my feelings had been even more of a mess than they had before. There was some part of me that wanted Sasha, some part that wanted Avda, and some part that wanted them both, at the same time, which I knew was utterly ridiculous. Sasha might have had an interest in guys, but Avda had shut down the mere thought of that the moment it had come up.
And he had been acting weird since the matter had crossed my lips, actually, now I thought about it. I couldn’t quite figure out why. Was he just old-fashioned like that, uptight in that specific way that came from a conservative upbringing? It felt like it would have been ridiculous for him to care so much about that, given everything else he did with his life, but sometimes, things didn’t have to make sense to take hold.
I bathed Kyra and put her to bed, reading her a story as I snuggled in next to her, and cuddling with her while she slept. Since I was working so many nights, it was easy for me to miss out on these amazing moments with her; the comfort of being this close to her, the feeling of my daughter in my arms. She was getting too big to share a bed with me these days, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to make the very most of it while I still could.
I kissed her temple and flicked on her nightlight before I left her to rest, and made my way back to the dining room, where there was still some clearing up to do; much as she tried to help, there was only so much she could manage. I had a few bills to sort out as hell, and I wanted to get as much handled as I could before I headed back to work the next day...
Or, at least, that had been my plan, until I heard a noise outside. My head jerked up, and I glanced to the door – it sounded like footsteps, heading towards the apartment. But we were both home...there was no reason someone would come down here unless they were looking for either of us, we lived at the end of a little alcove, not exactly a thoroughfare for this part of the building. Shit, maybe it was the super, come to tell me off about what I had been getting up to with Sasha the other night...
I rose to my feet and pressed my eye to the keyhole – and my jaw dropped when I saw who was on the other side. I opened it at once and planted my hands on my hips, glaring up at him.
"Avda, what are you doing here?" I demanded. He was swaying slightly on the spot, and I could see that he was drunk – drunker than I’d ever seen him, hardly able to stand upright. He leaned against the doorway.
