AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Fuck me,” he bites out, right before his hand is hooking me by the back of my neck and he’s using it to pull me forward. Stumbling, I fall against his warm, hard chest, then whimper when his mouth crashes down on mine.
I might be shocked that he’s kissing me, but I don’t hesitate to kiss him back. Curling my hands up around his neck, my heart pounds as our tongues tangle together, and he holds me hostage with one hand at the back of my neck, the other circling my throat. His thumb under my jaw puts him in charge, and I’ve never been kissed like he’s kissing me—angry, hungry, greedy… like he can’t get enough. Like he’s trying to brand me with his mouth.
“Don’t mind me dying over here,” Nikki says, breaking into the moment, and he rips his mouth from mine, his chest heaving.
The stench of vomit cuts through the lust that had wrapped around me, and I loosen my hold on his shirt that is tangled in my fingers and take a step back, clearing my throat. When I look up and our eyes meet, my heart that is pounding falls into my stomach. His expression is conflicted, like he doesn’t know if he should kiss me again or get in his truck and take off.
Since I know I won’t be able to handle the disappointment of him doing the latter, I move around him and walk toward the truck, avoiding the mess on the pavement. “You’re going to have to get out on the other side,” I tell Nikki, and she lifts her head from the back of the seat where it was resting and looks down at the ground.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, lifting her eyes to mine, and I let out a breath.
“It’s okay. Just meet me on the other side.”
Without another word, she fumbles her way across to the back seat, and I meet her there, opening the door.
“Where are we?” She looks around, still in a daze, and I sigh.
“I didn’t know your address, so I brought you to my place.”
“You’re such a good friend.” She rests against me after getting out, and I turn, finding Tucker standing at the back of his truck with my bag.
“You got her?” he asks, and I nod. “I’ll wait until you’ve got her inside to take off.” He hands me my purse, then tucks his hands into his pockets. Telling myself that I’m not disappointed and that it’s good he’s going, since we should never have kissed, that our situation is complicated enough without what just happened, I straighten my shoulders.
“Thanks for getting us home.”
He doesn’t respond. He just watches as I walk past him, and I can feel his eyes on me as I let Nikki and me into my apartment. Still, I don’t look back because what’s the point?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
miranda
“I think you should start dating.”
At that out-of-the-blue comment from Emma, I look over at her.
It’s been two days since my divorce party, two days since I last saw Tucker, and two days since I’ve sworn off men for good. Thankfully, Nikki didn’t remember seeing him and me kiss, so I didn’t have to relive it with her the next morning when she finally woke up. But I did have a lot of time to think about what happened. A lot of time to get real with myself.
I was disappointed by his reaction, and the whole hot-and-cold thing is annoying at best. I mean, I didn’t ask him to have a drink; he asked me. And I sure as heck wasn’t the one to initiate that stupid, ridiculously hot kiss. He did that.
“Eli has a friend he wants you to meet. He has a daughter and just got divorced a few months ago,” Emma continues, obviously not reading my wayward thoughts.
“I’m not interested,” I tell her, grabbing another foil and folding it around the end of my color brush.
“You don’t even know who it is. How can you say you’re not interested?”
“Does he have a penis?” I ask, and my client, Lizzy, who is twenty-one and only beginning to find out how stupid men are, giggles.
“Yes,” Emma snaps.
“Then I’m for-sure not interested.”
“Is this about Tucker?” she asks, and I don’t look at her, because if I do, she will know I’m lying, and I don’t want to tell anyone—not even her—about the whole Tucker situation. As far as she knows, he drove Nikki and me to my apartment, dropped us off, then went on his merry way. Heck, he’s probably in Vegas right now, driving some other woman crazy with his mixed signals.
“It’s so not about Tucker.”
“Who’s Tucker?” Polly asks from where she’s curling her client’s hair.
“No one.”
“Imagine,” Emma talks over me, “if Ryan Reynolds and Chris Hemsworth manipulated natural science and created a bouncing baby boy together, then that baby grew up to be a stoic badass. That’s Tucker.”
