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Olivia narrowed her eyes at me, looking frustrated. And hurt, my mind pointed out, but I didn't want to deal with the hurt right now. “If I did choose to stay with Buck last night, that's my prerogative,” she said icily. “We are both consenting adults, you realize.”
I rolled my eyes. “We live in a small town, Olivia. I know that you and I were never anything, really, but you realize that everyone in town had leaped to conclusions after seeing my car parked in your driveway. Now, they all think that you've dumped me to move on to Buck.”
“We were never anything?” Olivia asked, her anger faltering.
“If we were something, you have a funny way of showing it,” I bit out. “I think I would have at least deserved the courtesy of being told that our affair was over. But instead, I had to find out from Ernie that you spent the night with Buck.”
Olivia shook her head. “We stayed in a hotel,” she said, her tone incredulous like she couldn't believe I was upset.
“I don't care where you stayed,” I said exasperatedly. “I still heard about it!”
Olivia shook her head. “Buck drank at the wedding,” she said. “Open bar. He wasn't in fit shape to drive home last night, and I couldn't drive his truck since it's a manual and I've only ever driven automatic cars before. So our options were either take an expensive cab ride home or else stay in a hotel and wait until he sobered up. We chose to stay in a hotel. But nothing happened. We were in separate rooms, for crying out loud!”
“You expect me to believe that?” I asked bitterly. “I'm upset enough about this without you lying about it.”
“Without me lying about it?” Olivia asked, sounding incensed now. “I'm not lying. What do you want me to do? Provide the credit card receipts from the hotel? Should I call Buck and ask him to come over here and clarify things?”
“Of course that's your answer,” I sneered. “Call Buck, see what his solution is.”
“That's not what I'm saying!” Olivia cried. “Look, I don't know why you don't believe me, but this lack of trust is an even better sign that our relationship, whatever it was, is over. If you can't even trust me with something like this, how could you trust me with anything really important?”
I scowled at her. “We were never in a relationship,” I reminded her. “You made that very clear. What we were doing was just casual. You didn't even bother to stay exclusive.”
“What are you talking about?” Olivia asked.
“Georgia Witherspoon told me Harlan saw you kissing Buck right here in the daycare,” I snapped, folding my arms over my chest.
To my surp
rise, Olivia folded her arms over her chest. “Oh, Georgia Witherspoon told you that, did she? Was that when she came over to your place? You weren't exclusive either, were you?”
I snarled wordlessly. “I have zero interest in Georgia,” I spat. “She told me about what Harlan said over at Ernie's one evening. You can ask Ernie himself; I'm sure he overheard.”
“Right, the whole town is on your side,” Olivia said, sounding surprisingly bitter. For a moment, I wondered if she was about to cry. But she took a deep breath, folding her arms over her chest and composing herself. “The only person that I've ever kissed at this house is you. Out in the backyard, the kiss that you initiated. If you don't believe that, you can go fuck yourself.”
I stared at her, realizing suddenly that I was intensely aroused by her angry passion. Before I could help myself, I backed her into her hallway, cupping her check in my palm, tilting her head up, and kissing her soundly. The anger played in our favor, making the kiss steamy. Our teeth clashed, and our tongues fought for dominance. It was nothing like the tame kisses that we had shared in the past; this was something else entirely. And it shook me right to the core.
I pulled back, staring heatedly at Olivia, daring her to say something. My hand was still cupping her cheek, and my eyes darted toward her lips as she licked them. I leaned back in, kissing her again, this time gentler but more insistent.
She struggled against me, her hands pushing ineffectually at my chest, but from the way her mouth opened to me, the way her tongue twisted against mine, I could tell that she didn't want me to stop. Maybe neither of us knew what we were doing at the moment. If that was the case, maybe I could forgive her.
I took a step forward, closing the small gap between us, really leaning into her. Her body stiffened against mine, and our kiss became impossibly more heated, more lustful. At least, until she turned her head to the side, away from me.
I nibbled on her earlobe and then pressed sloppy kisses to her jawline and her neck, listening carefully to the little whimpers that she made. “Eric,” she whispered. “I didn't sleep with Buck. I don't want anyone except you right now.”
I smirked against her skin. “You want me, do you?” I asked her.
When I pulled back, she was biting her lip. I rubbed it with my thumb, and kissed her again, sucking the abused flesh into my mouth, licking at the marks she'd made in her skin. I could feel her responding to me, her mouth opening up, and her body relaxing against my weight, where I pinned her to the wall. She sighed softly as I pulled away, and it took a moment for her eyes to slide back open again.
“Oh, Eric,” she said quietly, drawing us both out of the spell of the kiss.
Chapter Twenty
Olivia
I hadn't expected Eric to show up there, and I hadn't expected him to accuse me of sleeping with Buck. Of course, there had been that little bubble of guilt inside of me, ever since I had invited Buck to go to the wedding with me, and it had been there through figuring out the arrangements at the hotel after the wedding. I'd felt silly, both for feeling guilty about it and for having drunk so much champagne that I couldn't get myself home that night.
In fact, I'd wanted to call Eric from the hotel that night, and the only thing stopping me had been the fact that my phone was out of battery and I didn't have a charge cable with me. I had a feeling that they probably had one down at the front desk that I could borrow, but I hadn't been able to get up the nerve to go down there and ask for one.
