Page 73 of Cross-Checked

And when I fully finish and lie back on my ottoman, my phone drops to the ground. I feel like I’m liquid. I’m completely unable to pull myself together.

Until his voice rings out, filling my entire closet with his growling demand. “Get. Your. Ass. Over. Here. Now.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

McCabe

Standing in the door frame of my open front door, waiting for AJ to come over, gives me a minute to collect my thoughts after that unexpected little phone sexcapade we just had.

It was hot, but it would have been better in person. And the fact that she didn’t come over when I asked has me worried. I know that what’s happening between us is more than just sex, but still, she holds back.

What I’m wondering right now is if we can figure out a way to make this actually work—not just sneaking around and having sex whenever we can, but actually making a relationship work. She wavers between wanting that, and not, sometimes even within the same minute.

AJ opens her door a crack and slips out, turning and shutting it quietly behind her. She’s wearing super short sleep shorts that barely cover her ass, and a thin tank top with no bra beneath it.

“You look like you’re sneaking out.”

She gasps as she turns toward me, clutching her chest as she says, “Holy shit. I didn’t see you standing there.”

I cross my arms over my bare chest and lean against the door frame. “That’s because you were looking over your shoulder like you were afraid your parents might catch you.”

“I was trying to make sure my evil cat wasn’t going to attempt an escape.”

“Maybe she’s evil because you’re holding her captive?” I wink.

“When I rescued her, she’d been living on the streets. She had a horrible eye infection,” she says, stepping toward me, “and the vet had to remove it. She also had a terrible case of fleas and was so emaciated you could see every rib.”

“No wonder you wanted her,” I tease.

Secretly, I love that this tells me a little more about her. She collects strays, I think. She stepped up as her brother’s caregiver when she saw how their parents were neglecting him, and took in this cat no one else would have wanted. Under all that armor, there’s a soft heart, and I’m embracing the glimpses of her true self that she shares every once in a while.

“Yeah, well, she seems to hate me for it. Like, what does she want? To be back on the streets, starving and in pain? Plus, with only one eye, she’s not great at seeing things coming at her from her left side, so she could never be an outdoor cat.”

“Sometimes we want what we want, even if it’s not what’s best for us.”

Am I even still talking about her cat at this point?

She looks up at me, like she’s wondering the same thing. “I’m not going to turn her loose on the streets, so I guess I’ll have to endure her hissing at me every time I walk past. Kind of like I endure you growling at me when you don’t get your way.”

Reaching out, I grab her hip and pull her against me. “That wasn’t me not getting my way. That was you keeping literal walls between us when you didn’t have to.” I press my lips to the top ofher head when her arms circle my waist. “And we’re going to talk about why you keep doing that.”

I walk us backward into my entryway and shut the front door behind her, before pushing her back against it. Her chest is heaving, and as I slide my hand up her neck, I can feel her pulse thrumming beneath my fingers.

“You like the excitement of this,” I say as I hold her in place with my fingertips anchored firmly on her jaw.

It’s not a question, but still, she responds with a breathy “Yes.”

I hook the thumb of my other hand into the waistband of her shorts. “You like the orgasms.”

“Yes.” The word is a whispered pant, and her pulse increases.

“You like spending time with me, and you tell me things you don’t tell anyone else.”

She steps out of her shorts after I use my free hand to slide them past her hips and drop them to her feet. “Yes.”

When she lifts one leg to step out of the shorts, I grab her knee and bring it up to my hip as I press myself against her. I’m not sure how, but I’m already growing hard again.

“And yet you hold me at a distance.”

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