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I can’t do my job as a weak woman. I can’t tame horses or barrel race or competitively shoot as someone who doesn’t have the strength to command her own body.
“Fuck you, Elias Finchley. Get out of my house. Get out of my life. I never—” My voice hitches as I wrestle with him, managing to wrangle my way onto the floor, him surrounding me. “I never want to see you again.” It’s a whisper. It’s defeat. It’s death and loss. “Ever.”
I fight to hold back traitorous tears. I won’t let him see me weak. I won’t let him see me cry. He doesn’t get to know how he slices me through.
I lie pinned to the floor, wedged between the sofa and the coffee table. I turn my face as far as I can away from his sight and clench my jaw.
I mentally assess an escape. Not that this one got me free. Hell, I’m in worse shape now than before I began.
“No.” Eli’s one-word growl is his only response.
I want to give some zinger of a retort, but I know how close I am to breaking and I can’t afford it. I can’t afford for him to know it too.
So I still.
“No,” he repeats. “No, you fucking don’t. You do not get to dismiss me again, Brighton. I’m not that man. I’m not a man you get to tease and fuck and dump.”
“What?!” My eyes are livid. But with my mouth open and my face turned to him, he kisses me. I resist.
I do.
For as long as I can.
Until I can’t.
And the moan that breaks free from me tells him he’s won.
He pulls back. “Darlin’, if you don’t want me to call you ‘baby,’ I won’t.”
“I—”
He stops me with a kiss. His thighs squeeze mine, pinning me, emphasizing his words. “But let me be plain, Bright. You will not dismiss me. I’m done skirting around my attraction for you, our chemistry, this … desire.
“I’m laying it out there, darlin’. I want you. I want this. But I can’t do soft, vulnerable Brighton followed by turbo-bitch Brighton and not know which personality I’m waking up to.”
My eyes slice to slits.
No, he didn’t.
I buck my hips, trying to get free, trying to get to a space where I can think. “You don’t get to dictate my mood.”
“Turbo-bitch Bright isn’t a mood, darlin’. It’s you shutting down and shutting me out. It’s you not trusting me. It’s you dismissing me.” His hard face studies mine for longer than I’m comfortable with. Too long in fact. “But that’s not what you want, is it, Bright?”
I see the light dawning.
“Oh, darlin’, I didn’t see it. But I’m getting the whole picture now.” He pulls back, his eyes roaming my features, puzzling out all he sees. He leans down ever so slowly, his eyes flitting between my eyes and my mouth. “Fuck me. Brighton Ranger is in love with me. And I missed it.”
He takes advantage of my gasp and takes my mouth, slow and languid, moving around my body. He no longer pins me. His hands skim my waist, my breasts, my inner thighs.
He wraps one of my legs around his waist, opening me to him, still clothed. He rocks.
I want to punch him and pull him closer.
I want to run away and hide in him.
I want to close my eyes and wake from this dream, all at the same time.
He pulls back and holds my eyes. “You missed it earlier, so I’ll say again. I hope you hear me this time. Those women—they could never be you, Brighton. There’s no comparison. You’re…” His gaze roams my face before he looks away, as if calculating his next move. “You’re… You’re everything I’ve ever dreamed of.”
