Page 37 of Keeping Kaitlyn

You know—the usual.

Finally finding my keys, I let out a sigh of relief while I fumble the right one free and jam it into the lock. “No.” I shake my head while I give it a twist. “Everything’s fine.” Shoving the door open, I stand in the wedge of it, blocking his path even though the alarm system Conner installed has started to beep, counting down the precious few seconds I have to key in my code before it goes off. “You don’t have to walk me to my apartment, Went. I’m sure if Conner is watching, he’ll understand that?—”

Instead of arguing his point, Went simply smiles and comes toward me, giving me no choice but to move out of his way. Closing the door behind him, Went resets the deadbolt before turning to look at me again. “You’ve got about fifteen seconds before that alarm starts squawking, Sunshine. I suggest you stop giving me a hard time and turn it off before it wakes up the whole fucking building.”

TWENTY

WENTWORTH

The truth of it is,I don’t give a fuck if Con is watching or not. Wanting to put on a show to feed the Gilroy family rumor mill is secondary to the fact that the same thing is happening that always happens when I allow myself to be around Kait.

I don’t want to let her go.

I forget what it felt like when she left me. I start to fall and I’ll find any ridiculous, half-baked reason to keep her with me for as long as I possibly can. If I’d been smart, I’d have let her shut the backdoor in my face, waited for her to lock it, gotten back into my car, and gone the fuck home where I can quietly obsess over her in peace.

Because obsessing over Kaitlyn Barrett is a habit I’ve never been able to break—I have about a hundred sketchpads filled with a thousand dirty drawings of her to prove it.

Which is why, instead of going home and giving myself some much-needed space to get my head right, I’ve trapped myself in an elevator with her.

“You can do this for Grace, you know.” She turns her head and angles it up so she can look at me. “I know what we agreed,but you can walk her to her door if you want. It won’t bother me.”

It’s the first thing she’s said to me since I forced my way in after her and locked the door behind us. I have my own key and security code for the center. Patrick gave them to me, not long after I started walking Grace home after work. Accepting them felt risky but refusing them would’ve sparked suspicion and eventually questions I didn’t want to answer. So, I accepted them but resolved never to use them because the center is Kait’s territory and we both agreed that I’m not welcome here.

And now, here she is, telling me that I am.

Looking down at her, I let my gaze drop to her mouth and instantly feel my cock swell. I’ve been half-hard for hours now. How I managed to get her tattoo done and keep the both of us dressed is as miraculous as it is confusing. The fact that I’m seconds away from knowing which apartment is hers, coupled with the fact that, thanks to Con and Henley’s wedding and Tess’sdo you want to fuck Kait?bullshit, I can’t avoid her anymore. I went from half hard to hard enough to hammer nails the second we stepped into the elevator. Lifting my eyes to meet hers, I give her a shitty smirk. “No, I can’t.”

I watch her forehead pucker, slim dark brows lowering over bright blue eyes. “Why not?”

It’s a stupid question.

Sheknowswhy not, but I’m an asshole so I’m going to answer her anyway. The shitty smirk curves into a wicked grin. “Look down, Sunshine.”

Bottom lip caught between her teeth, she resists, keeping her gaze pinned to mine—but only for a moment before curiosity gets the better of her, letting her gaze slide away from mine and down my chest. When it lands on the stiff outline of my cock, pressing against the front of my jeans, she lets out a soft gasp.Like it recognizes the sound, my dick jerks the second she makes it.

“You seem to have forgotten what happens to me when you’re within fucking distance,” I remind her quietly, just as the elevator we’re on reaches her floor with a soft bounce and the doors slide open in front of us. I ignore them and so does she. “If I let myself come up here, there’s no way in hell I don’t end up pounding on your door and there’s no way in hell you don’t let me in... and we both know what happens next because, as recent history has proved, hating you doesn’t make me want to fuck you any less.”

When I say it, Kait’s gaze jerks up to meet mine. Eyes wide like I just slapped her in the face, she shakes her head. “Went?—”

“I know.” My mouth twitches itself into another shitty smirk. “You’re sorry. You’ve already said that—now tell me why you left.”

The elevator doors slide closed before either of us have a chance to move. If Conner is watching, he’s probably wondering what the fuck is going on right now. Why Kait and I are standing here, staring at each other. Me, with an obvious hard-on, and her, looking like someone just punched her in the gut.

Fuck, this was a mistake.

Leaning past her, I jab the button that’ll open the elevator doors again while Kait stumbles back like I took a swing at her.

Yeah—Con’s gonna come looking for answers. He’s almost as protective of her as Ryan is.

Shit.

As soon as the doors open, I plant myself in front of them so they don’t close us in again and wait for Kait to step into the hall. Stopping, she turns toward me with that sick, punched in the gut look. “I?—”

Before she can say anything else, a door opens at the end of the hall and a gray and white, hundred-pound bullet shootsthrough the gap to barrel toward us at breakneck speed. Seeing what must be the infamous Mook, Kait gives me a pleading look before she turns away from me to drop into a crouch. Just when it looks like the dog is hellbent on barreling into her and knocking her down, he pulls the brakes and stops on a dime, inches away from plowing straight into her. Sitting in front of her, stub of a tail wagging so fast and hard he can’t keep his ass still, the massive Pitbull lets out an impatient whimper.

“He must’ve heard you,” Ryan says from his post in the open doorway. “He’s had his nose stuck to the crack under the door for the last five minutes.”

Kait lets out an exaggerated sigh while she lifts a hand to ruffle his ears. “Let me guess, your BFF fell asleep hours ago and now the second fiddle is home—is that it?”

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