Page 58 of Dirty Rival
“Why wouldn’t you demand that I be exactly as brutal as you?”
“Because I want you to stay you and you’ll be better for it.” The doorbell rings again. “I’ll be right back.”
He heads toward the door in nothing but his unzipped pants and I focus on three words he spoke. Not with me. He’s heartless. He’s brutal. He’s spared me. It’s not comforting. What happens if he turns on me? And why am I not running? Because I’m not. I’m not even close to running.
Reid
I walk down the hallway toward the door, out of Carrie’s sight, and before I answer the door, I press a hand on the wall next to it and let my chin dip. What the fuck am I doing? I’m acting like I want things with Carrie that I swore I didn’t want in my life. More. Like I want more than sex when sex is the zone where I keep women. I need to reel this in, but instead, I'm not going to. I'm going eat sandwiches with Carrie and talk to her. I won’t even consider letting her go home tonight.
The doorbell rings again.
Fuck.
I open the damn door.
Chapter twenty-seven
Reid
Ienter the living room with the take-out bag in my hand and Carrie meets me by the couch, my T-shirt swallowing her whole, but damn I like her in it a little too much for comfort. And yet, I pull back from where we’re headed tonight. “Let’s go upstairs.”
Her eyes meet mine. “As in, to your bedroom?”
“Yes,” I say, sensing the tentativeness in her over my room and not sure where that is coming from. “To my bedroom. My favorite place to eat is up there.”
“Now you have me curious,” she says, the tentativeness fading quickly.
Pleased that we jumped that hurdle quickly, I motion her forward. “Then onward to the man cave.”
She laughs as we head to the stairs. “That sounds dangerous considering this is you we’re talking about,” she teases.
Dangerous.
That word hits about ten nerves, all connected to my past that I don’t intend to think about tonight, not with this woman, with Carrie, in my bed. We climb the steel stairs that lead directly into my master bedroom through an archway. “No door?” Carrie asks as we approach.
“It’s just me,” I say. “And I like to be able to see and hear everything at all times.”
“Talk about a control freak,” she teases as she passes under the archway directly in front of me, to halt a few steps inside the room.
I step to her side, taking it in with her as if I’ve seen it for the first time. The room is a V-shape with a fireplace to the right, and dark gray flooring throughout. Directly in front of the fireplace and several feet away, there’s a step up to the master bed, which has a gray leather headboard beneath which I plan to fuck Carrie until we can fuck no more.
“It’s very you,” Carrie says, glancing over at me. “Very powerful and masculine.”
I’d like to see that as a compliment, but it also tells me that despite all her pushing back against my every demand, the power thing is on her mind, it’s between us, and it’s a problem I need to deal with now rather than later. I motion to the pillars framing another archway just beyond the bed. “That’s our dinner location.”
She moves ahead of me to enter the round room wrapped in windows, with a gray sectional in the center, and a tree trunk-style gray coffee table set in front of it. “This is my favorite place in the apartment,” I say, as I sit down on the couch and pat the cushion next to me.
“I can see why,” she says, claiming the spot I’ve patted. “It’s like a little escape.” She indicates the bookshelves to our left and right. “What would I find if I explored?”
“A collection of law reference manuals, as well as fiction, and non-fiction pleasure reads. I come here to relax but also to think through big decisions.” I set two bottles of water on the table and then remove our sandwiches, setting hers in front of her. “I ordered our regulars.” I rest my elbows and glance over at her. “What’s yours?”
“Egg salad. What’s yours?”
“Egg salad,” I say, surprised at how many things I really do have in common with Carrie.
She smiles, and damn I love her smile. “They must have thought it was odd that two regulars ordered together tonight. How long have you been here and ordering?”
“Five years,” I say, opening my sandwich as she does the same. “You?”