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I nod, and he drops his fingers.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have spoken to you the way I did. I should have just told you I didn’t want to talk about it and that was it, but I just got really, really pissed off.”
“No kidding,” I mutter.
“Shh,” he scolds, flicking my bottom lip with his thumb. “It frustrates me because I wish you’d recognize what we could have… What we already do have. I wish you’d stop fighting me at every turn. I want more with you, Liv. I want more than just sex, okay? I want you, and I want you and me together.”
I push my hair from my face and look down. “I know. And I know we kind of have more than sex anyway, but I don’t want to accept it yet. And that isn’t fair to you, Ty. You shouldn’t be forced to be in a relationship I refuse to think of as a relationship.”
“Are you breaking up with me but not really breaking up with me?”
“It’s not fair to you,” I whisper. “I can’t expect you to go along with what I want or think of us the way I do when I can’t think of us the way you want. When I can’t accept us the way you want.”
“Wow. This is awkward.”
“I’m sorry.” My chest constricts. “I should probably go.”
“Oh, wow. Now it’s awkward.” He laughs. He reaches out and wraps his arms around me, tugging me into him. “I didn’t mean awkward that way. I meant this is awkward because I have no intention of letting you go.”
I breathe him in. He smells like English tea and sweat—not the hottest combination, but it’s something real and natural. And Tyler.
“But I can’t stay,” I mumble into his chest, resisting the urge to hold him.
“No, you can. Don’t you get it, Liv? I understand everything, okay? I don’t know what’s happened in your past, but I know it’s obviously something really important. Something that has a huge impact on the way you are right now. On why you fight something that’s come together so naturally.”
“I don’t understand.”
He rests two fingers beneath my chin and tilts my head back. His eyes meet mine. His eyes, dark and honest and captivating. “What I’m saying is that I know you’re not fighting me because you want to. You’re doing it because you have to. I also know that, one day, you’ll stop fighting because you’ll see how absolutely futile it is. And when that day comes, I’m gonna be right here waiting for you to see sense.”
“I still don’t understand.” Frustrated tears burn my eyes. Why won’t he let me go? It would be easier if he would. I never came here to stay. I never came to take this anywhere other than the end, but he’s making it impossible.
He’s making me need to stay.
“I’ve never met anyone else so perfect for me—inside and outside of the bedroom—and I’m not letting you go. I’m gonna take you any way I can get you, baby girl. Any way at all. Even if that means it’s on your terms.”
“You’re crazy,” I whisper, a tear falling down my cheek. “You don’t get what my addiction is, do you? You don’t get how I could destroy you, me, and everyone around us. I could hurt us all without batting an eyelid because that’s what my addiction is. It’s just too tempting to fight.”
“You’re the biggest temptation I’ve ever been faced with. I’m not going to let you hurt us. Do you see that?”
“No, because you don’t know.”
“So tell me.”
I shake my head and drop it to his chest. I finally give in to the restlessness of my arms and wrap them around his waist. I draw in a deep, shuddery breath against him. “I can’t. I’m just…not ready. I’m not ready for a lot of things. I don’t think I’m ready for us.”
“I wasn’t ready for you when you walked into that fucking shoot, but here we are. Truth is, I’m not just a sex addict anymore. I like to think of myself as a sex-with-Liv addict these days.”
A laugh leaves me. “I’m not surprised. We do it enough.”
He smiles against my neck. “Come on. You trust me. I trust you. If we’re fuck buddies with a little undefined extra for now, then that’s what we are.”
“I don’t have a choice, do I?”
“No, you do. Until tomorrow when my plan B is to barge into your bedroom and make you come so hard you forget why you should say no.”
I sit up straight and look him dead on. “Do I get to choose plan B?”
“If you really want to.” He smirks.
