Page 55 of Dirty Rival
Feeling as if I’m suffocating in my own stupidity, I press on his chest. “I need up.”
Chapter twenty-six
Carrie
“Ineed up, Reid,” I repeat when he doesn’t move.
“Hold on, baby,” he murmurs, the endearment rolling off his tongue in this intimate, warm way, that does crazy things to my stomach, and feels nothing like his arrogantly delivered “sweetheart” references.
He reaches over me and before I know his intent, he’s pressing tissues between my legs, and as silly as it seems, it feels more intimate than anything we’ve done so far. It drives home the absence of the condom, the undertone of asking for and giving trust between us. “Baby?”
He eases back to look at me. “Did that bother you?”
“Since when do you care what bothers me?”
“Answer, Carrie.”
“No,” I say. “It didn’t bother me. I just—we’re—just—I need a bathroom.” I roll away from him and sit up, tossing the tissue in a well-placed trashcan.
Reid is sitting next to me in a flash, snatching up my blouse as I reach for it and tossing it out of reach. “What are you doing?” I demand.
He grabs his shirt and settles it over my shoulders. “Making sure you stay.”
I glance over at him. “I don’t like an awkward morning after, and all of my things are in my apartment. I should just go now.”
“It won’t be awkward because this isn’t some drunken mistake. I was an asshole in the office.”
“Yeah, you were.”
“I was pissed at you.”
“Pissed at me?” I ask incredulously. “For what?”
“Because I was sure once I fucked you, my obsession with fucking you would end, but it didn’t.”
“So you were an ass to me,” I supply.
“Yes. I was pissed. But—I’m sorry.”
I blanch and rotate to face him. “Did you just apologize? And, with a bonus of you being naked while doing it?”
“I did, in fact, apologize while naked.” He reaches up and strokes hair behind my ear, the touch remarkably tender, his voice softer now. “We’ll get up early and I’ll walk you to your place so you can get ready.”
I catch his hand, needing to control what I can about where this is headed. “If I stay, then tomorrow morning, it’s over. We don’t do this anymore.”
“No,” he says. “I’m not going to say that. I’m not going to make you a promise I can’t keep. I already know that I’m not only going to want to touch you tomorrow. I’m going to touch you tomorrow, Carrie.”
“We’re supposed to be fucking each other out of our systems,” I remind him.
“And so we’ll keep trying.”
“You’re confusing me, Reid.”
“You and me both, baby.” He leans in and kisses me. “Stay. I want you to stay, and I want you to want to stay.”
He wants me to stay. I want to stay. I can’t seem to say the words, though. I can’t seem to get my head around what I’m doing with this man. But I’m staying. We both know that I’m staying. “Are you going to feed me if I stay?”
He laughs, and I’m not sure I’ve ever heard him laugh, not like this, not natural and at ease. “Yes. I’ll feed you. I’m starving for food and you. There’s a sandwich place I love around the corner. They deliver.”