Page 8 of Back in the Saddle

His other arm snaked around my belly and he pulled me tighter to his body.

God, every inch of him felt hard, totally unyielding, and he was very warm.

Lord.

“I make my point?” This time his voice was rougher, almost thick, and I was still insanely pissed, but it did a number on me.

“Please, let me go.”

He did, and he didn’t.

He let me go enough to whirl me around, then he pressed me back into the car, front to front. He had one arm tight around my waist and the other hand he rested on the soft top beside me.

But, oh crap.

This was worse.

Bya lot.

“You think I want to be out at two in the morning having a frustrating as fuck conversation with a stubborn woman who knows I’m right?” he asked.

“Fine. Great. I won’t ever come here again,” I lied.

“You’re lying,” he called me on it.

I could take no more.

Honestly, could you blame me?

“Can I just go home?” I demanded.

His onyx eyes roamed my face for what seemed like an eternity (and as per the Official Crushing on a Guy Handbook, which I’d recently spent a good deal of time memorizing, in the section where it dealt with unrequited crushes, it was considered an actual eternity) before he let me go and stepped away.

“You have friends,” he pointed out, going softly now, because his tone was just that.

Yeah.

I did.

Good ones.

And we’d just gone through a shitstorm with Raye.

I loved them, and I knew they’d take my back.

But this was…personal.

Private.

Family.

“It’s a family thing,” I told Eric.

Those onyx eyes moved over my face again before he sighed. Heavily.

“Just be smart,” he said.

As if I intended to be dumb.

---