Page 44 of Just a Little Crush

There was so much good in her, and the thought of Alyssa doing anything to demean her character in any way set me on edge. “I’m not dropping this until you tell me what Alyssa said or did to you before she walked out of the ladies’ room.”

She huffed out a little sigh, and I would have smiled at her little show of defiance if the issue wasn’t so serious to me. “She just pointed out that I’m not a good fit for you, and she’s not wrong,” she said, and before I could respond to that comment, she quickly continued. “And there is something I need to tell you. It’s about my past. I didn’t think it would matter since our relationship wasn’t real, thatthis,” she said, waving a hand between us, “was just temporary, but Alyssa dug up some information about me and if she uses it to her advantage, it could affect you.”

“Okay,” I said, unable to imagine what that could be.

She swallowed hard, and though her eyes were steady on mine, I saw the flicker of something vulnerable in her gaze that made my chest tighten. “Do you remember our first night together, on the drive to your place, when you asked me about my parents and I told you they were both gone?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“I lied,” she said, and before I could react to that, she quickly went on, as if she wanted to get all of the truth out in the open without any interruptions. “I lied because…my father was an abusive and drunk asshole my entire life and took his anger out on my mother, who was so afraid of him she made excuses for his behavior, but it was bad. We lived in a trailer park, and the circumstances were shitty because we were poor and my father couldn’t keep a job because he was an alcoholic. He beat my mother regularly because of his rage issues…until one day he went too far and choked her to death.”

I stared at her in shock, because that was the last thing I’d expected to hear.

She took advantage of me processing that information and continued in a rush. “So, yes, while my mother is gone, my father is serving a life sentence in prison for her murder. Valerie and I left Connecticut and moved to New York because we wanted to sever all ties to our father,” she said, her voice hoarse and her entire demeanor stiff, which I hated. “I know that this isn’t something that could negatively impact your custody case, not when your own twin is in prison for some pretty heinous crimes of his own—”

“I agree,” I interrupted her, before she kept rambling. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t shocked because this was the last thing I’d expected to hear, but you’re right. I doubt this is something that would be detrimental to the custody case, so what’s the issue, Stevie?” I asked, because she was clearly very upset.

She wrung her hands in her lap. “Alyssa now knows all this and insinuated that ‘once the word gets out’ about my past, where I come from and what my father did, that it’s going to make me look like a desperate gold digger who latched onto you for your money…and she’s not wrong about that perception.”

I laughed harshly and shook my head at my ex’s last-ditch efforts to try and undermine what I had with Stevie. “The only one here that is desperate is Alyssa.”

“But it’s true how things could look,” Stevie insisted, her fingers still twisting together anxiously. “And the thought of my past creating some kind of scandal for you…”

Reaching out, I cupped the side of her face in my palm, then stroked my thumb along her cheek in an attempt to calm her. “Do you honestly believe I give a shit what other people think about me or anything else in my personal life?Iknow who you are, Stevie, and it’s never been a gold digger or the kind of woman who would ever take advantage of me, and that’s all that matters to me when it comes tous.” I emphasized that word, wanting her to know we were in this together, whether she realized it yet or not.

“We all have pasts, and yours and mine are not pretty,” I went on. “But you have to know that I understand about your father because of my own situation with Lance. I just wish you would have trusted me enough to tell me before now.”

“I know,” she said, and ducked her head. “It’s not something I’m proud of when it comes to my family, and I didn’t think my past was relevant to our arrangement.”

I lifted her chin back up so her eyes met mine. “That’s where you’re wrong, Stevie. Everything about you is important and relevant to me,” I said, meaning it.

She gave me a small, regret-filled sigh. “I’m sorry…I didn’t want such an amazing night like tonight to end like this, with such a serious and uncomfortable discussion.”

“Tonight isn’t over, and we can end it however we like,” I countered, unwilling to let my ex’s vindictive behavior ruin anything. In fact, I was more than ready to leave the conversation behind for now and focus on the only thing that mattered to me tonight. Stevie.

Before she could argue, I smiled at her and let my fingers trail lightly down the side of her neck. Her eyes darkened with desire, and I watched as she shivered and her nipples peaked against the soft cotton T-shirt she wore—the exact reaction I was hoping for.

“Given the choice, I want tonight to end with me buried deep inside of you, and you coming around my cock,” I murmured huskily. “Preferably with you screaming my name.”

She bit her bottom lip and blushed adorably, my dirty talk doing the trick of putting her in a completely different frame of mind. “That would be my choice, too.”

Decision made, I stood up and so did she. Taking her hand in mine, I led her back to my bedroom. Once there, I pulled her shirt over her head and tossed it to the floor, leaving her in just her panties. Then, I framed her face in my hands and kissed her, slow and soft and sweet. Her lips parted on a moan, and I swept my tongue inside her mouth, keeping things at a languid, unhurried pace.

After a few minutes of slow, deep kisses, she pressed her palms against my bare chest and gyrated her lower body against mine, making inarticulate noises in the back of her throat. The kind of needy, impatient sounds I was striving for.

I’d imagined under regular circumstances that our night would have ended much differently, with wild, hot, filthy sex. The kind that was fast and hard and primitive because of how greedy and insatiable she made me feel. That’s mostly how it had been between us since our first night together—uninhibited, mindless, I-can’t-keep-my-hands-off-you, orgasm-inducing fucking.

But tonight, my only goal was to make love to Stevie. To take my time, despiteherimpatience, and savor everything about her. To make her feel special, and adored, and most importantly, chase away any of those insecurities that Alyssa had planted in her head.

I wanted every last one of those vulnerabilities gone, and when I was done with her tonight, I didn’t want her to have a single doubt in her mind that she was mine, in every way that mattered. The words would come next, when she was ready to hear them. I had every intention of rectifying this temporary arrangement of ours once the custody case was over in a few weeks. When Stevie would be more apt to believe my intentions toward her were real and true and not all part of some fake relationship ruse I’d paid her for.

But for right now, I was going to show her without words what she meant to me. I was going to shake things up and spend the next hour unraveling every part of her, until she was stripped down to nothing more than raw, intense emotion. So that when I finally slid inside of her, there would be no doubt in her mind who she belonged to.

Me.

I lifted my mouth from hers and looked at her beautifully flushed face. Her eyes were heavy-lidded and glazed over with desire as I slipped my hands into the waistband of her panties and pushed them down her legs until she was completely naked.

“Get up on the bed and spread your legs for me,” I ordered gruffly, while I removed my sweatpants.

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