Stripped Down (9 page)

I probably really did look like an idiot, actually.

“Is helping you shower an option?” His grin was stunning. And sexy. And it totally hinted to the dirty things that had run through his mind as he’d asked.

I didn’t want to think about the dirty things we could do so I could get clean. Thinking about Beckett Cruz naked and in the shower was not a good idea—ever.

“No,” I said firmly, straightening my back as if the action would put more resolution into my answer. “You can’t help me shower. We’re supposed to be getting rid of our mistake, not complicating it.”

“Honestly, I don’t see how soaping you up in the shower would complicate anything. My cock is in rehab until we get this over with, so it actually seems like the perfect plan.”

I took the cloth out of his hand and wiped it over my face. “Really? Your cock is in rehab?”

“Mistakenly married or not, I’m behaving myself.”

“Perhaps you should have tried behaving yourself in the first place.”

“You came and sat on me, as I remember it.”

“And you fed me tequila and kissed me!” I clamped my lips shut as I realized we’d both raised our voices. I dropped my gaze to the cloth I was holding tightly.

Pinning blame on each other wasn’t the answer to this. Yes, he’d given me tequila, but I’d taken it. Yes, I’d sat on him, but he’d let me. Yes, he’d kissed me, but I’d kissed him right back. We were both guilty of being careless idiots.

I sighed and slammed the cloth into the sink. “Look,” I said, lifting my gaze to his. “Yelling at each other isn’t going to solve this, and neither is your being in my house. Unless there are papers for me to sign or a hearing to be at, quite frankly, I can’t stand to be around you.”

Beck slowly raised his eyebrows, his gaze never leaving mine. “I’m not sure you can insult me any more this evening.”

My expression matched his as I leaned against the wall opposite him. “I’m certain I can. I have a whole vocabulary of words for you I haven’t thrown out yet.”

He folded his arms across his chest and leaned back against the counter. “All right, then. Explain to me exactly why you can’t stand to be around me.”

“Why? So you can fire me?”

“I’m not gonna fire you, Blondie. But you seem to have built me up to be this disrespectful devil in your mind, and I wanna know what I did so wrong to you.”

Got me drunk. Kissed me. Married me. Fucked me.

A string of events any other woman would have been embracing, I was sure.

“Fine.” I stared him down and put my hands on my hips. “You’re egotistical. You have a misguided notion that the sun shines out of your ass and the world revolves around you. You can’t stand it when someone doesn’t give you what you want. You throw a fit whenever someone tells you ‘no’ like a petulant toddler. You go through women quicker than I go through underwear, and you don’t listen to people when they say they don’t want to be around you.” I took a deep breath and held his gaze as I delivered my final hit. “And you absolutely hate the fact that I can resist you, because there isn’t a single cell in my body that wants you.”

His indigo eyes darkened to a stunning midnight color as they fixated on me. Anger swirled in them, mixed with a dark hint of desire, and the pull of his gaze was undeniable. I wanted to drop my metaphorical mic and walk away, but his eyes and their hypnotic hold kept me in place, so I dropped my hands from my hips instead.

The air tensed between us, and I drew a breath in when he didn’t move or speak after a moment. Unfortunately, I couldn’t speak, either—mostly because my mouth had gone dry. It was so quiet that it felt like my exhale bounced off the walls as it shuddered out between my lips.

Then he moved.

He walked toward me, his large, muscular physique imposing but not threatening. It took him all of five steps to cross the room and stop in front of me. He towered over me, inches taller and wider than I was, but I held his gaze in a move that was either brave or stupid. Or both.

I wouldn’t back down. I would stand by the words I believed in, because I wasn’t the floozies he discarded so often without thought.

Beck flattened one hand against the wall next to my head and took my chin in his other. His touch burned my skin, and a tiny, electric shot darted across my jaw as his thumb twitched. “I might be all those things,” he said in a low voice. “In fact, I probably am, and I have my reasons for everything I do and everything I am. So you’re right about those, but you couldn’t be more wrong about your last statement.”

“Really? Do tell me how you know my body and my mind better than I do.”

He moved his hand so his thumb barely touched the edge of my lower lip. His eyes were intense on mine as he actually dragged his thumb slowly across the soft curve, and I couldn’t help but suck in a short, sharp breath as he tugged on the corner of my mouth.

Goose bumps danced across my skin. His light move was enough to jerk my body into a reaction, and I swallowed even as I defiantly held his gaze. Maybe he was right about my being wrong—maybe a part of me did want him, but I sure as hell wouldn’t admit it.

I would never admit to Beckett Cruz that I wanted him.

“Yeah...” he said in a low voice, leaning in and tilting my head back. “You don’t want me at all, do you, Cassie? That’s exactly why you haven’t pushed me away.”

“Actually, the opposite,” I said back, just as quietly. “I haven’t pushed you away because then you’d think I’m hiding something.”

“You’re hiding it anyway. You think you’re a good actress, but you’re not. I bet your cunt is wet right now. After all, I could tell you right now that I don’t want you, but it won’t change the fact my cock is as hard as a fucking rock and throbbing inside my pants for you, will it?”

I licked my lips. “And that’s where it can stay—inside your pants.”

“Fine.” He searched my eyes. “But I don’t need it out to do this.”

He lowered his face to mine before I could reply, and the next thing I knew, his lips were against mine, floury yet soft and oddly warm. The rich taste of coffee lingered on his tongue as he sucked my lower lip into his mouth and grazed his teeth across it. He wrapped his hand around the back of neck as he pushed my back against the wall and leaned into me.

I didn’t want to do this.

I didn’t want a sober memory of his lips over mine.

But I couldn’t stop it.

From the hardness of his body to the twitch of his fingers at my neck to the flick of his tongue against mine, I couldn’t stop myself from kissing him back and my hands from winding in his shirt. It was an irresistible urge. My whole body was consumed with the reality of his mouth of mine and his hands on me and his body against mine.

It was dangerous.

“Stop.” I breathed the word, forcing my arms between us. I flattened my hands against his chest and pushed him away from me, my cheeks flushing.

My lips tingled in the aftermath, and as I touched my fingertips to my mouth, they felt tender and swollen, yet they ached as if they wanted me to close the distance between us and kiss him again.

I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. This was wrong on every level.

“You need to leave,” I said in a low voice, not meeting his eyes. “And that can’t happen again. Ever.”

He didn’t say a word, but I felt the hotness of his gaze as he stared at me. His scrutiny was unnerving, and goose bumps formed on my upper arms, prickling across my skin.

“Tomorr—” My voice cracked halfway through, so I cleared my throat and used the strong sound to garner enough courage to meet his eyes. “Tomorrow. I want to sign the papers when I come into work. I want to file them so this”—I motioned between us—“can be over. Over, Beckett. That means this”—another motion—“definitely does not happen again.”

He still didn’t speak.

Not even as he took two steps back toward me before he paused.

Not even as his hand twitched as his side.

Not even as he turned and walked right out the door. Taking all the air with him.

I sank back against the wall at the gentle close of the door and slowly slid down it until I was sitting back on my heels. I dropped my head forward and buried my hands in my hair as I sucked in a desperate deep breath, allowing my heart to calm its rapid pace.

I’d never met anyone like him.

And I hoped I never would again.

E
ver since CiCi was born, I’d had a distinct lack of one thing in my life: friends.

As cute as they are, babies apparently aren’t good accessories. Because, you know, it’s super inconvenient to have this person to take care of when you should be partying.

Insert sarcasm here.

I didn’t mind most of the time, but sometimes, it was lonely. Like now. I would have given anything to have a friend I could talk to about the situation I was in.

I didn’t even need guidance—I just needed a place to vent, somewhere I could let everything out.

I needed someone to tell me it would be okay, even if it wouldn’t be.

Usually, that would have been my mom, but this was too big to put on her shoulders.
Way
too big.

Mostly, right now, I wanted someone to vent at because the sexy son of a bitch who was legally my husband had told me to be in his office before my first dance to sign the papers, and he wasn’t there. He’d fucking left me to do it alone, and his signature wasn’t even on them.

He could kiss my ass. I wasn’t signing them unless I knew he was. We signed them together or not at all.

I scanned the top of the desk for a notepad or a piece of paper. There was nothing there, so I turned and slowly looked around the room until my eyes landed on a printer full of blank, white paper.

Bingo.

I grabbed a sheet and brought it back to the desk to tell him exactly what I thought of him. Leave me alone to make me sign them without him doing the same thing? No. No, that was not how this worked. It wasn’t how any of it worked .

That was not what I’d mean when I’d said I’d sign them before him. I meant I’d sign them first... in front of his hot ass. Not in this empty freaking office.

I had no guarantee he’d sign them. He had no reason not to, but until I saw his signature scrawled in the space beneath his name, or he was here, he wasn’t seeing mine.

I didn’t have time to wonder if he’d do it.

I uncapped the pen and wrote.

Kiss my ass if you think I’m signing these when you haven’t and aren’t here.

Almost violently, I scratched a line beneath my words and jabbed the pen against it, leaving a dent in the page. I slammed the pen down on top with a huff and sat back.

My eyes lingered on the papers that were just peeking out beneath my note.

Was I being irrational? Maybe signing them was for the best. After all, I wasn’t the type of woman Beckett Cruz would marry.

Well, stay married to.

I brought nothing except a crazy and sweet little six-year-old. That wasn’t enough for most people, never mind someone like him.

“Beck? Are you there?” Mia’s voice filled the room, followed by a knock as she pushed the door open. Her green eyes flitted around and finally landed on me. “Oh, hi! Cassie, right? Is Beck here?”

“Somewhere,” I answered with a smile. I stood up. “I need to go.”

“Oh, no, don’t go on my accou...” She trailed off, her hand stilling mid-dismissal, and she stared at the papers in front of me. “You’re the one?” she asked quietly, her gaze coming to rest on me. “You’re the one he married?”

Panic rose inside me in the form of hot bile that threatened to make me vomit. Somehow, I forced it back down and glanced at the papers. There was no denying it—I was there. Cornered. Caught red-handed.

“It’s not a big deal,” I said quietly.

“Uh, no offense, but getting married is a big deal. Whether you’re sober or drunk.”

“It’s not what you’re thinking.” I looked up at her. “It really was an accident. And, now, I can’t seem to get rid of him.”

Mia’s lips twitched into a smile, and she tucked some of her red hair behind her ear. “Oh, trust me, I know. But you have a way out.” She grabbed the papers from the table, including my note, then barked out an infectious laugh. “Shit, this is gold.”

My cheeks flushed. Jesus, why was I embarrassed? “I just...”

“Wanted to get the message across?” She grinned. “I would do the same. Don’t worry.” She put the papers right back down then grabbed the desk calendar. “Of course he’s not here. He’s a pussy. I’ll call him and tell him there’s something in his office that requires his immediate attention.”

I swore her grin got wider. “Oh...don’t worry. I’m sure he’ll find it.” I stood and tugged my dress down. I felt underdressed standing next to her in her gorgeous, royal-blue dress.

I looked cheap. I felt cheap.

“I have to go work.” I forced a smile and stepped around her.

“He’s letting you... Never mind.” Her smile dropped and became as forced as mine.

I turned back to the door, but her cough caught my attention and I looked over my shoulder at her.

Her expression was hesitant, and her green gaze met mine. “Cassie... If you need to talk to someone about...this...” she said awkwardly. “You know you can come to me, right? I know Beck, and... Never mind. I’m overstepping.”