Floored (22 page)

“If this is some put-up to get back at me for today, I’m going to be very fucking disappointed.” He spoke up against her ear, and his voice crackled with feeling.

“I want you.”

He groaned. “You can’t say that and expect me not to…” He groaned again, his hand on her butt, his hip rolling against her.

She brought her hands up around his neck and looked into his eyes, alive with light. She pushed her fingers against his skull, anchoring him. “I want you, Sean.”

She brought his head down till their foreheads rested together, till their short breaths misted in concert. Now they’d kiss. Now she could satisfy that crawling, fluttering, spreading ache inside her. Now she’d know what desire like this felt like played out, experimented with, let loose. But until he kissed her it felt like chaos, a disorganised riot of senses, thoughts and careering emotions. “Please, Sean.”

She wasn’t begging; she was praying. She wasn’t asking; she was taking. She brushed her lips on his and he tightened his grip, pulling her to her toes, one hand coming up under her t-shirt, his hot palm flattening over her back, making her arch against his chest. It wasn’t so much a kiss as a promise of one, of many. She wanted to laugh, this hesitation was exquisite. The coming together might be more than she’d live through.

“Cait. I can’t.”

She did laugh. Her cheek against his. “I want this. I’m not running.”

“No.”

“It’s my choice. You haven’t forced me. I want to lose myself in you. I know you want me too.” She trailed her hands down his bare chest, feeling the satin of his skin, glossed from inside by strength and potency.

“No. No.” Sean had her face in his hand and he pulled away. “Jesus, Cait. We can’t do this.”

She stepped back into him. “We can. We so can.”

He dropped his hand and stepped back. “I can’t do this.” He turned his back, taking loud annoyed lungfuls of air. “Fuck.” He spun around to face her again, but he was way across the room. “How did this happen?” He was angry. How could he be angry?

“I don’t understand.”

“This is my fault. This morning. You caught me by surprise. I should never have said those things.”

“I liked what you said.”

“It’s wrong.”

Wrong. Wrong. Why was he saying that? This wasn’t wrong. He’d touched her like he wanted her, why was he pushing away now?

“Cait, you know I’m a master manipulator. But I’m not an evil bastard. I’ll play mind games with you, but I won’t fuck you up on purpose.

Liquid cold coalesced in her veins. She blinked tight against the hard slap of his words.

“You have to go back to your room. Forget about this. It’s a bad idea.”

This wasn’t happening. This was worse than losing it in front of him at the side of the road. This was letting him tear her heart out and wring it like a dirty kitchen sponge. “You don’t want me?”

“No.” He barked it like a parade ground order. “Not like this.”

“But…”

“Not like this. You don’t know whether to hate me or love me. We’ve been nothing but combatants. Fuck, you were virtually my hostage. I’ve got you in such a state you can’t choose for yourself.”

That ice in her body cracked, splintered, pricked her system with the flash of dead calm as he broke the rules again; insisting on what she should think and feel and want. Above the deep pit of humiliation for being so wrong, for letting him see her need so clearly, rose the fire of indignation and the stain of bitterness.

Sean had a hand pressed across his eyes. “Taking you this way—it’d be like rape.”

She hurt and she wanted to hurt him back. “I didn’t realise someone like you’d be so scrupulous. So goddamn fussy.”

He dropped his hand. “Hah, and there’s the reason this is wrong. You don’t know me. I don’t know you.” He gestured between them like she’d done. “What’s between us are lies and manipulation. And that’s an end to it.”

She needed to get away from him, before she imploded on the spot. There was no way he wasn’t going to get to see that. She went for the door. “I wasn’t expecting commitment. I only wanted to use you, like you’ve used me for amusement. I thought you’d be up for it.”

He followed her across the room. “I’m not up for it. Not like this.”

She wrenched the door open. “Get your own way to Ceduna.” She took one last look at him. He was clench-jawed and grim-lipped. He was intense eyes and tensed body. He was beautiful. He was perfectly dangerous, dishonest and untrustworthy.

And dead to her.

23: Fix

Jesus Christ
. What just happened? Sean sat on the edge of his bed and held his head in his hands. He was floored. The only thing he was clear about was Cait hated him for real now, and no kidding she meant what she said when she’d slammed out of his room. He was looking for a car hire place in the morning.

He needed a drink. He needed something to do as a distraction. Because what he wanted to do was to hit reverse, forget he had a conscience and tumble her into bed, where he’d keep her hostage for the next day at least. Though that might not be enough time to gorge himself on her. Not near enough.

He flopped back on the bed and stared at the spray cement ceiling. What he needed to do was go and straighten this out. He just didn’t know how to do that yet.

She got to him in a big way. In a way that crept up on him and surprised the stuffing out of him. Yeah, he wanted her. She was right. But he’d been so shocked she’d made the first move, so confident, so crazy sexy, and then so gone on what it felt like to have her willingly in his arms, he’d blown it all to hell.

Now he was even more confused than he’d been before. But it was simply too much of a mind fuck to go from spitting at each other in the dust to swapping spit in the bedroom with almost no time in between and think that was okay.

That was not okay. Because he was the aggressor and he could never be sure he hadn’t goaded her into it. That would be a kind of rape. If not physically, because she’d wanted it too, but mentally, because they were two screwed up fakers who’d crashed together with bad timing and worse rhythm.

And that was the right of it. He wanted her, but not like that. Not when she was reacting to how he’d pushed her buttons. Not if she was looking at him as some kind of saviour, some kind of cure. That’s not what he was about. He wasn’t anyone’s hero. It was too much responsibility for a bloke who some mornings had trouble remembering his name and still didn’t have the guts to call his own mother.

There had to be a better way of coming at this. Something more sane, something more equal, a place where the balance of power between them was a shared thing, less about his dominance and her seesawing between fear and courage. It didn’t need to be forever, but it could be serious fun, but only if he could be sure she wouldn’t get hurt.

But he couldn’t be sure about that because he’d already hurt her so easily. First by scaring her, then by toying with her and trying to shake her out of her hiding place, and now by rejecting her.

Shit. He didn’t mean to reject her. He didn’t reject her. It just couldn’t be like this. He hardly remembered who he was himself, did he remember how to be with a woman when she wasn’t a suspect or a colleague or someone he needed to use or extract something from?

Maybe not, because that’s how he’d been treating her, like a plot he had to unravel, a mystery he needed to know the ending of. She was more than a whodunit, more than a head game to keep him interested while he waited for the towns to roll by.

She had to be able to talk to him without checking herself, smile at him without pulling it back, laugh at him and enjoy herself, before he could let himself have her. Anything else would be harassing the witness.

There was only one way he was going to know she was really choosing him, and one way he’d know he was safe to choose. It was going to need work and a whole lot more honesty than either of them had shown so far. There was no chance he could quick talk his way out of this. He’d humiliated her. He’d have to show her where he was coming from.

He considered changing. Putting a shirt and shoes on at least. But nope, she’d been perfectly happy to run her hands over his chest ten minutes ago, and if things went the way he planned she’d be perfectly happy to do it again. Nah, that was a rationalisation. He just wanted her hands on him again. He left his jeans on and went down the corridor to her room.

She didn’t answer at the first knock. He looked around in a moment of panic. She’d had enough time to shoot through, but there was the Statesman parked in the space they’d left it. He knocked again and listened. Nothing. Not a sound from inside.

“Cait, open up I need to talk to you.”

Nothing.

“Cait, open up.”

“Are you hurt? Are you bleeding?”

He was relieved to hear her voice. “No. Open up.”

Nothing.

“Open the door or I’ll bust it in.”

That got her attention. “Go away.”

“Can’t do that. Something I need to fix.”

“I don’t want you to fix anything. Go away.” She was standing closer to the door now.

“Can’t hear you. Open the door.”

“Fuck off!”

Oh yeah. Loud and clear. Not what he’d been hoping for. “Stand back, I’m coming in.” He bumped his good shoulder into the door, once, twice. He only wanted to pop the cheap latch, not break the whole door. He hoped she hadn’t put the chain on. From inside she was calling him for all his sins and a few he’d not even considered. On the third tap the latch gave and the door swung wide.

“Get out or I’ll scream.” She was standing well away from the door. Their dress standards matched. She was only half dressed too. Just in a t-shirt. It skated around her thighs, showing him slender legs, muscles tight and ready to run.

“You’re screaming now.” He stepped inside and pushed the door closed. “You’ll wake the neighbours.”

“Get out. I don’t want to see you.” She folded her arms defensively and the hem of the shirt came up.

“No. But I want to see you.” He blinked to clear his head. “I want to see you a whole lot.”

She laughed bitterly. “That’s not what you said.”

“Yeah, well, you pretty much jumped me and I wasn’t thinking too clearly.”

“You said it was wrong. It was a bad idea. You told me to forget it ever happened. You said you didn’t want me.” She was so angry, but she’d been crying; her red-rimmed eyes, the shine on her cheeks, and the sniffle in her breathing gave that away.

“Oh, I want you. Just not the way you planned it.”

“You have a better plan?”

He grinned. This was an echo of the conversation about the apartment in Mildura. “I do. Come out with me.”

“Are you asking me to go on a date with you?” Her chin came up and her eyes went from narrowed to flared wide as she shifted from angry to incredulous.

“Yes. I’m asking you to come on a date with me. Three dates. Starting tomorrow night. Dinner and a movie.”

“You’re unbelievable.”

“Is that no?”

“Why would I go anywhere with you now?” She half turned away, dismissive.

“Because ten minutes ago you were ready to go to bed with me.”

“A lot can happen in ten minutes.”

“You’re right. Ten minutes can be a lifetime. Come out with me.”

“No.” That was punctuated with a head toss that made a hunk of her soft hair flick over her shoulder.

“Why not?”

“I don’t have to give you a reason.”

“Yeah, you do. I deserve one.”

She turned to face him again. “You broke my door in. You get nothing from me.”

It was feeling like that would be the outcome. “I made sure we didn’t do anything stupid. I can’t say I liked it. You in my arms—that’s my idea of a good time.”

“I hate you.” She swept a hand towards the door. “Get out.”

“I want you in my arms, in my bed, anywhere you’ll have me, but not like that.” She looked stunned. He understood that look. He’d worn it himself ten minutes ago. “You don’t know whether to kiss me or scratch my eyes out. I don’t want to wake up wondering if you regret your choice. I want to wake up knowing you’re with me because you want to be, not because I drove you to distraction and pushed you into it.”

“You’re no better than Justin. You want to control my choices. You want to make my decisions for me.”

“No. Caitlyn, that’s exactly what I don’t want to do. But I don’t trust myself. You and me. We’re not meant to be. We’re a cheat, we’re a con. We’re a car crash. I’m not right in my head and you’re hiding from yourself. That’s a homemade recipe for disaster. I want you something fierce, but I want to know when I take you, it’s not because any woman would do. You deserve better than that.” His hands came to his hips and her eyes followed. “So you tell me why you won’t come out with me.”

“Because I hate you.”

That look didn’t present like hate. “You think you hate me because I hurt you. Get to know me and hate me for real.”

“Get out.”

“I’ll go, but I want something first.”

“What?”

“Proof.”

“That I hate you?”

“Yep.”

“My word isn’t good enough?”

“Not even close.” He moved fast. He couldn’t wait any longer for this. He grabbed her arms and pulled her against him. “Show me you hate me, Cait.”

Her hands went to his chest. He locked eyes on her face, looked for any sign she wanted out of this crazy: a scowl, coldness in her expression, a mean twist to her lips. He got a quirked eyebrow, a pout, wide, excited eyes.

He kissed her hard, take no prisoners style. No mistake about what he meant by it. Total possession. She tried to push him away, hands on his arms, bracing back, and he almost let go, almost let her call the shot for herself, but her lips softened and her grip on him changed. Now she was pulling into him instead of away. He wrapped her closer, holding the kiss, opening his mouth to it, making it slower, softer, deeper. The swag of tension in his shoulders went slack when her hands came up around his neck. When her tongue met his, he groaned in delight. How had he managed to walk away from this?

He lifted her, backed her up against a built-in cabinet and sat her there. Now he could run his hands over her legs. He opened her knees so he could stand between them. He clocked desire in her face, in the way she rolled her eyes shut, arching her back to him when he put his hands under her shirt and over her breasts.