I knew he was right behind me. “Francesca.” He grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me toward him.
I slapped him hard across the face. “Fuck off, Wolfe.”
He turned with the hit and closed his eyes. “Fuck. I usually have to pay extra for that.”
“You’re such an asshole.” I continued forward and tried to snake my phone out of my clutch.
He quickly caught up to me and blocked my path. “Francesca, listen to me.”
“Get out of my way, or I’ll slap you again.”
“Don’t tempt me with a good time.”
I raised my arm to slap him again.
He caught it and twisted it down before he kissed me.
I shoved him in the chest but only pushed myself back.
“You’re right. I’m being an asshole,” he said as he took a step closer to me. “I’m just angry that you refuse to give me a chance over a situation that’s not even comparable to what we have.”
“Wedon’t have anything, Wolfe.”
“We don’t?” he asked, his eyes hard. “So you just let all your one-night stands come inside you?”
I felt the ferocity burn like flames up my spine. “If I’d brought my gun, I’d shoot you right now.”
“I know the answer is no,” he said. “I’ve been with a lot of women. So many women that you would judge the fuck out of me if I gave you a number. But never once in my life have I ever feltthis.”
“What?”
He pointed back and forth between us. “I don’t even fucking know, Francesca. But whatever it is, I feel it all the time, even when we aren’t together. I think about you when I’m not with you. I would kill a man if he just looked at you wrong. And it’s bullshit that you compare this to a man who waited so fucking long to be with you.”
“He didn’t feel that way about me until then.”
“Fucking bullshit. He was always in love with you.”
“You don’t know him.”
“Trust me, I fucking know,” he snapped. “Francesca, I want a real chance. As much as I love it when we fight, and your sexy stubbornness makes me harder than steel, I want a shot. I don’t want to be compared to some guy who didn’t deserve you. Who waited so long to be a man and tell a woman he loved her. Because I knew I wanted you from the moment I looked at you, and I cut myself how many fucking times just to be in the room with you. You’re going to give me a chance—because I fucking earned it.”
I was paralyzed by his words, shocked by the way he could take my breath away with his intensity and his passion. I’d never met another man like that, who was crazy and passionate and so expressive all at the same time. “It doesn’t change the fact that my father will kill you if he finds out about us.”
“I told you to let me worry about that, alright?”
I swallowed, utterly terrified and enthralled by him at the same time. I’d never met a man who came at me so hard, who’d looked at me once and didn’t stop until he had me. Men had shared their unrequited feelings for me before, but it was never as intense as this.
“Now let’s go back inside and finish our dinner.”
I glanced past him down the street, seeing a little boutique hotel about a hundred feet away. “Can we get it to go?” My eyes moved back to his intense stare. “There’s a hotel down the street.”
He stared for several heartbeats, his eyes equally maniacal and intense. Then he reached for his wallet as he moved toward me, pulling out a black credit card and placing it in my palm. “I want you naked on the bed when I walk in there.”
He let himself into the cheap hotel room with the bag of food in his hand. He tossed it on the dresser where the TV sat before he dropped his long-sleeved shirt down his arms and yanked his t-shirt over his head.
I was naked on the bed, so anxious for him I felt the slickness between my upper thighs.
He kicked off his boots as he looked at me lying there on top of the bed, his eyes hungry for my flesh. He undid his black jeans then yanked them down over his narrow hips with his boxers, revealing his steel rod for a dick.
