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I wait until they’re inside before I fish my phone out of my pocket and call the number. According to the device in my hand, I have called it over one hundred and fifty times, and I wonder if that’s a lot since I’ve only been calling it for the last two weeks. If I thought I was all cried out, my body proves me wrong. As soon as the voice I long for reaches my ears, I’m reduced to a mess of snot and tears.
When the message is finished, I hit the star on my keypad to leave a message of my own. I know my messages will always go unanswered. But like a true addict, I revel in how good it feels in the moment, and I pay no attention to the heavy weight of sorrow that follows once the initial high is gone.
“Mia, people are asking about you.” Coen’s voice startles me so much that I end the call without saving my message and try to hide my phone in my sleeve. It’s not until Coen narrows his eyes and looks at the sleeve as if it’s offending him that I realize my mistake. “Show me what you’re hiding,” he demands in a voice that leaves no room for argument.
I try to sound normal when I say, “I’m not hiding anything.” Although I fail spectacularly, I’m not deterred from keeping up the ruse. If anything, it angers me that he’s out here meddling in my affairs and accusing me of hiding something. It angers me because he’s right, and now there’s no way out of it.
“Try again, without lying this time.”
Deciding to change tactics, I show him my phone. “You startled me, and I didn’t know who it was. It’s just my phone.” I force a smile onto my face, the very one I used to give clients once I had given them a lap dance.
“Who are you calling all the time? We’re all here.” Even though he’s right, I don’t like the assumption that he knows everyone I know.
Shit, I don’t know why I keep making such a big deal out of everything Coen says and does. Logically, I know he is only trying to understand and that he’s concerned about me, but I’m not feeling very perceptive to logic or reason right now. I want to argue. I want to yell at the entire world, and I want everyone to feel as lost and broken as I do.
This is why I sought Lila’s company this morning. I don’t care about her feelings, and I don’t have to consider them. Does that make me a shitty person? Perhaps, but I can live with that.
“Let me go, please. I can’t do this right now, maybe ever.” I swallow audibly and look into his light brown eyes. Coen isn’t keeping me here, but he is positioned between me and the alley exit.
When Coen takes a step closer to me, I automatically take one back. The brief look of pain in his eyes breaks my heart, but I can’t stop myself from doing it every time he tries to get closer to me. Coen’s eyes darken with each step I take, and I’m so caught up in this step-by-step exchange that I don’t notice I’m boxing myself in until I feel the wall at my back.
“Nowhere to run now,” he says.
Before I can muster up a reply, his lips crash into mine. This is not a sweet and tender kiss, it’s brutal and unforgiving. Rather than sensual licks to make me open my mouth to him, he bites down on my lip. My surprising gasp is all the access he needs, and Coen takes advantage of it immediately. The scruff on his cheek and chin rub against my tear-dried skin, almost causing a burning sensation as he moves his entire face against mine.
“Coen,” I half-moan when his hand wraps around my neck in a solid yet careful hold. And when his other hand finds its way under my dress and rests on the apex between my thighs, my half-moan becomes a full-blown moan. A primal sound that he swallows and keeps for himself.
“Tell me to stop. I fucking dare you,” he taunts, all the while letting a single finger trace the length of my clothes-covered pussy.
Even though I’m enjoying the hell out of his rough kisses and touches, a part of me wants to push him away. Not because I don’t want him. My now damp underwear proves exactly how much I want him. No, it’s because I want to rile him up. To take some of the control he’s stealing through skillful manipulation.
“St—” That’s all I manage to say before he pulls back.
Coen flexes his hand around my neck ever so slightly and looks me dead in the eye. “If you finish that word, you better mean it. Because if you tell me to stop, I will, but I’ll put an end to everything. I get that you’re grieving and don’t know how to deal, but we’re not fucking teenagers. You don’t get to have tantrums and punish us for your inability to deal. So, if you stop me, that’s it.”
The ultimatum makes me feel indignant, and I’m tempted to press my luck. Who does he think he is?
“Are you saying that if I don’t let you fondle me in this alley right next to Mark’s wake, we’re done? What was that you said about not being teenagers?” I huff in frustration.
Coen refuses to take my bait, and in an irritatingly calm voice, he says, “Use your vocabulary, Mia. You can tell me to stop touching you, to stop kissing you. You can even tell me to back away. But if you just say stop without elaborating, I get to interpret that as I want to.”
Check. Mate.
I can’t decide if I’ve lost or won, neither and both, I suppose. To be lucky enough to have a guy like Coen, who isn’t afraid to call me out on my bullshit and push me… How can that be anything but a win? I might have lost the battle of wills and some of my pride, but there’s a reason pride comes before a fall. And right now, I have to swallow mine or lose yet another part of my heart.
“You’re right,” I say, and then, because I’m only human, I tangle my fingers in his brown hair and force his lips back on mine. It’s only thirty percent because I don’t want to be told off anymore, and seventy percent because his mouth belongs on mine, and every second it isn’t there is a waste.
Even though the kiss is less angry now, Coen is still dominating it. I’ve all but forgotten about the hand wrapped around my neck until he squeezes at the same time as his other hand delves beneath my stockings and underwear, so he’s touching me skin-to-skin.
“Oh, Coen, don’t stop,” I moan into his mouth as I feel myself getting wetter.
Coen rubs two fingers between my folds, spreads my wetness around my clit, and rubs it agonizingly slow.
“Do you want my fingers inside your greedy pussy?” Coen asks, and I eagerly nod. “Use your words, Mia. Yes or no.”
I pull back to look into his hooded eyes and pant, “Yes, I want you inside me.” I move my hand to palm his cock, straining against his black suit pants.
“You don’t get to see my cock until you let me see your pussy. I would let you jerk me off, but I feel it would be too disrespectful to walk inside in cum-stained pants.”
