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“It’s been what?”
What she saw in his face devastated her. “Forget it.”
“You mean with Ashley and all the interviews?”
“That, my sister, my father—” He shook his head as if he had remembered who he was talking to. The woman who was only interested in getting a dirty thrill. The woman who didn’t merit his confidences.
“Lili, I don't know you very well but you’re clearly not ready for this. Maybe this Twitter crap is too hot to handle or since your mother’s illness, you can’t even recognize what you want anymore.” He gave another head shake, sadder now. “I thought there was something here, but I was mistaken.”
Her heart splintered at his words. He was tired of her excuses and she couldn't blame him. She deserved his contempt.
Dazed, she followed him to the door, her limbs leaden as sacks of flour, numbness stealing across her body. What was wrong with her? She got her earth-shattering orgasm and she didn't even have to touch his penis. Not officially. For a lot of girls, that was a win-win.
Damn, but she wanted to touch his penis.
She wanted to give him what he'd given her. A little joy, some shared comfort, because he needed it as much as she did. And yes, she was selfish and wanted more. She didn’t know what exactly, she just knew she wanted.
Steeling her spine, she swallowed and spoke to his departing back. “I was the fat chick.”
He halted, a wall of stock-still strength, and her breath trapped in her chest. That checked breath gushed out when he turned to reveal an inflexible expression.
She heard the anger in his breathing before he spoke. “I won’t stand for you putting yourself down like that.”
Rubbing her collarbone like it could give her three wishes, she reached back to the most painful period of her life.
“No—no, I don’t mean now, I mean then. Past tense. In high school, I was that girl, the fat girl, the one people laughed at. Body by Tortellini. I was bullied every day because of how I looked and made to feel worthless. It took a couple of years but I eventually shucked the fat suit and put it behind me.” Had she put it behind her? Clearly, not far enough. So what if she had a little junk in the trunk? Her curves were a helluva lot more reliable than any man in keeping her warm at night. “I’ve got a big butt and big boobs and I know I don’t square up to society’s ideals of perfection, but I like it. I like how I look.”
In place of the pity and platitudes she expected, she got his raw, consuming stare filled with some unnamed emotion. Annoyance or disgust, perhaps. His eyes, ice-frozen during her speech, watched her with uncompromising focus.
“You’re not the only one who likes it.” Voice low, heated, he stalked her. Slow and predatory. Pure, unadulterated sex.
She beat a hesitant two-step retreat. “What I’m trying to say is that it was a tough road, but now I’m fine.”
“So fine,” he murmured as he closed the space between them. Oh Lord.
Passing over his compliment, she also tried to pass over just how small she felt in his potent presence. He was so big. So vital.
“Dating someone like you would leave me exposed to all sorts of hate I don’t deserve.” Her voice spiked on “exposed” like she had spoken a word she’d only ever seen in print and was unsure of its pronunciation. Under his hard scrutiny, she felt exposed, more so than when he had brought her to scorching release. More so than when she had read the hateful comments of strangers. “I can’t go back to feeling like that girl. She’s in the past.”
The muscles in his jaw tensed. “So because of who I am, we don’t have a shot? Who cares what people say? Isn’t it enough that I think you’re beautiful and sexy?”
This is what she hated about hot guys. That warm and fuzzy feeling she got when one of them anointed her as worthy. Well, she was supposed to get the warm-and-fuzzies but right now, she was pissed at herself, at him, and the whole effed-up situation.
“I don’t need you to tell me I’m beautiful and sexy,” she lied, her throat burning with unshed tears. “I know I’m beautiful and sexy and I was doing just fine before you crashed my life party.” At his stricken expression, she realized how accusatory her outburst sounded. “I didn’t mean that the way if came out.”
To the rigid jaw, he added a healthy muscle tick. “You were doing just fine until I showed up and put you in the middle of a media tornado you don’t want or need.”
Maybe she had meant it the way it sounded. Had she been doing fine? Darn tootin’!
She’d been chugging along at an even keel, no muss, no fuss, and then Jack Kilroy did a hatchet job on her cozy existence.
He crossed his arms, drawing her gaze to his thick, muscled forearms. Very underrated eye candy, forearms.
“So let me get this straight,” he said. “If I hadn’t been in that walk-in minding my own business or you hadn’t been strolling by that alley at three a.m. wearing a Wonder Woman costume or you hadn’t pitched that skillet at my head—”
She opened her mouth and he gave her the hand. The nerve.
“—Or you hadn’t provoked me into kissing you in a public bar with half of Chicago watching or I hadn’t spent every moment since I met you imagining you naked—” He paused to take a breath and she matched him. “Your life would have been just fine.”
