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“What, what? You’ve never had a good kiss?”
Alix’s lips quivered and her eyes narrowed a little further. Her nostrils flared. He’d just pissed her off, by restating that.
“No. For your information, I’m not a saint. I’ve been kissed. I’ve had boyfriends. I’ve done relationships. I’m twenty-two. I’ve been away for four years. I just- I want to know if it’s just me or maybe it was just them. I need to know.”
She looked shockingly and uncharacteristically lost in that moment. Uncertain. Like the little girl who used to run around the backyard with pig tails streaming out after her, demanding that they let her up into their tree fort.
“Okay, here are my conditions. One, the platonic thing is good. No feelings. No attachments. No falling in love.”
She snorted at that. “Why would I fall in love with you? God, I was right, you’re so high on yourself you’re floating off the ground.”
“Anyway, it’s a condition all the same. Just what you said, I’m just clarifying. Condition two is that we go back to being civil after this, even if you aren’t satisfied with said make out session or kiss or whatever you classify as second base. For the sake of our families. You’re back. I’m not leaving. We have to agree to be civil and put the past in the past.” He let out a deep breath. He wasn’t much for talking- mostly because in his experience, time spent with women wasn’t about filling it up with words. He had other things to keep his tongue busy with. This was probably the most he’d said to anyone in months. “Condition three expands on what you said. That no one finds out. As far as they know, you’re back. You’re happy to be back. You’re happy to be back even though I’m around. You’re happy all around. Got it?”
“I have another one,” Alix interjected, because of course she would. Having the last word was paramount in her world.
“I can’t wait to hear it,” he informed her dryly. It was like saying he wished she’d take a vow of silence and move the hell on and not be a childish diva about something that happened four fucking years ago and the way her lips pursed told him that she knew it.
“I want you to stop being an asshole all the time. That’s the conditions of the truce. If you don’t agree to them, then it’s back to hating you. I’ll make sure our families know that I can’t stand to be in the same room with you. It would really distress our parents, but worst of all, they’d think you did something terrible to cause it. They’d constantly be hounding you trying to figure out what it was, and I doubt they’d believe you when you say you have no idea, or that it was nothing. They’d want you to fix things, but here’s the kicker. I’d make sure you never could, because… well- you never can.”
Her voice was all sugar sweetness, but it was like putting icing on a cake made of rotting garbage. All nice on the outside until you cut into it and found it crawling with maggots.
“Jesus. You really turned into a frigid bitch, Alix Bear. If I had known at the time that you’d end up like this, I would have taken you in my car and fucked you right into next year like you asked me to. Then you’d really have a reason to hate me, because I would have ruined you for every other guy after.”
She flipped him off. He laughed. He loved seeing her rattled. He loved getting under her skin. They only threw words like that, back and forth at each other, too honest and too open, they were only terrible to each other because they’d grown up together. He and Chance had been friends since they were in diapers. Alix Bear was always just there and he knew that in her world, so were he and Chance.
If anyone could give her a hard time, he had a right. He also had a right to some fucking peace for a change and he was going to get it from her, even if she was still an immature little princess who needed his tongue down her throat to make her feel good enough about herself to move on, detach the stick shoved up her pretty, tight little ass, and get the hell on with it.
Alix spat into her palm. She held out her hand and waited.
He did the same, with the hand that wasn’t currently holding a blood-soaked towel to his head. He held it out.
She stalked forward, all cold confidence again, and smacked his palm with hers, so briefly, that he barely had time to feel the heat of her touch. Still, his cock twitched and something inside his chest tugged. His lungs burned, but then again, they were also filled up with pool water and strange chemicals, so maybe that was to be expected.
