Page 35 of Dirty Love

—seventeen—

Tabitha

We dance for a couple hours. There aren’t any more text messages, and I never see him, but when everyone else decides to go to an all-night club on Sunset Boulevard, I beg off and head back to the hotel.

I hate being alone, but I don’t think there’s much risk of that when I get upstairs.

I’m not wrong. The elevator stops on the third floor, and my pulse jacks up as the doors open.

Wilson gets on. His jaw is hard, his eyes piercing. He doesn’t say anything, but he presses the sixth floor button. As he moves, I catch the scent of him, cool spring morning and fearlessness. It’s the height of summer in Los Angeles, but that doesn’t touch him. And beneath that sweet, grassy scent is something more masculine. Something familiar.

His scent carries with it markers of our night together. Reminders of a bond I didn’t ask for and don’t know how to handle, but one that made me happy, too.

For better or worse, I’m glad to see him. No, glad isn’t it. Glad doesn’t touch how I feel.

Relief, hunger, ache…

I’m his.

There’s no denying it as he stands next to me.

When the doors open again, we both get off.

His room is right across from the stairwell. He lets me in, and my skin tingles as I move past him, but he doesn’t touch me.

He still doesn’t say anything.

It’s a small room, standard size. A bed, a television on a dresser, and a small desk. That’s covered in computer gear. A laptop, a tablet, a few black and silver bricks that look like external hard drives. Wires running everywhere.

My pulse leaps, a nervous beat I can feel in my neck.

“This is dangerous,” I whisper.

He crowds behind me, his hands on my hips. Rough, demanding. “Wouldn’t want it any other way.”

Lord help me, but that works. It makes me wet, it makes me ache. “I…” Tipping my head back against his chest, I close my eyes.

“I know you’re tired,” he whispers. “Let me take care of you.”

“I’m not yours,” I protest weakly.

“Shut up.”

“You aren't listening to me.”

“I am. I'm just disregarding your protest. Maybe I am not yours yet, but you are definitely mine. Mine to protect and mine to worry about.”

“How can you know that? We just met.”

“Life has a fucking twisted sense of humor. I promise you that five days ago I thought I would never have someone like you in my life.” He makes a disbelieving sound. “And then you…were you.”

I don’t know what to do with that kind of tenderness. And when I spin around in his arms, from the look on his face, neither does he.

When we crash together, there’s nothing tender about it. He hauls me up his body as he consumes my mouth. I kiss him back, desperate for more. Biting, tasting, soul-stealing and everything in between. I want to climb inside him, be his and let the rest of the world go. Never stop kissing him.

I want so much that I can’t have.

With a groan, he squeezes me to him and turns. But instead of the bed, he carries me into the bathroom, bumping into the door on the way in. He sets me on the counter and leans in, kissing me softly this time. So soft it hurts, and I push him away.

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