Page 64 of Carter

“Oh, so I’m to blame for your inability to open your mouth and tell them to go away?”

He scoffed and shook his head. “And I thought I was the only jealous one here! You’ve never told me once until now that it bothers you when girls come up to me. Now you act like I’m fucking them behind your back—”

“That’s not what I’m saying!” I hissed.

“Then what are you saying?”

“I’m saying you can’t have your cake and eat it too, Carter.”

His eyes widened. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

He knew exactly what I meant. I wasn’t going to keep doing this. Not until he took the leap with me. He couldn’t touch me intimately and tell the world I was just his friend, while girls got to be all over him.

No, not anymore.

I was done—fucking done with it.

When there was jealousy in the mix, when anger started to set in and you began to hurt, that was indication enough our friends-with-benefits bullshit no longer applied.

“You need to decide what you want,” I told him shakily, swallowing hard as I realized the weight in my words. “You can’t expect me to just wait around for you.”

He ran a hand through his hair, staring in astonishment at me. “At this point, I didn’t think you were. I thought we liked how things are.”

“I don’t want tolikehow we are,” I expressed to him with a knot in my throat. “I want toloveit. I want to be invested in a person that is invested in me too. Instead, I feel like some spineless moron that’s taking you however way you’ll give me. I can’t keep doing that, Carter! You need to decide what you want.”

He was shocked. I’d never seen him look this way. His body froze, and his hands closed into fists as he fought to contain his composure.

“You’re not thinking straight,” he said. “It’s been a hard few days. We’ll go to bed –”

“No, I’m not going to bed. I want you to decide right here and now, Carter—”

He rushed to me then in two long strides. His hands flew to my face, forcing it up to him so he could kiss me. His mouth harshly pressed against mine, but I shook away from it and pushed him back. I wasn’t going to allow him to distract me with his touch. That wasn’t going to work anymore. I wouldn’t allow it.

“Don’t do this,” he whispered just then, hands still on me. “Don’t force my hand, Leah.”

I crossed my arms and looked away from him. My eyes ached from unshed tears because I knew exactly where this was going. “I am doing this,” I replied, surprised by how certain I felt. “We’ve been together in a way that you can’t call ‘just friends’ for months now. Either you want me, or you don’t.”

“Of course I want you,” he immediately replied.

“Thenbewith me,” I pleaded.

“Iamwith you.”

“No, you’re holding back, Carter. I want all of you. I want us to be together. I wantmore. Why is that such a leap for you?”

His hands fell to his sides.

There was a lost look on his face. He looked like a man at war with himself, still offering no response.

I felt my anger levels begin to rise. I couldn’t understand this. “Why can’t you commit?” I demanded, reaching the end of my rope. “I don’t understand! What has happened to you in your life to make you so…”

His eyes pierced into my own like daggers. “So what? Just say it.”

“Sounfeeling!”

That was all it took for his fuse to blow. He took a step back, pointing at me as he harshly claimed, “I told you right from the beginning not to expect more from me!”

“You started this by kissing me, Carter! By filling my head with your words, by touching me the way you do! You wanted me to want you, and when you have me falling over my own two feet to have you, you just keep me at arm’s length, and I can’t keep living like this anymore. It hurts too much to be in love with someone that doesn’t want me as much as I want him.”

---