Page 18 of The Hang Up

“No…”

“You can tell me anything.” He wrapped his hand around the back of my neck, anchoring me. I’d been holding it together for so long so everyone else could do what they needed to do. And now Joshua was here doing the same for me. I touched his face. Scraping my fingers over his stubble. All I'd had to do was ask, and now he was here, holding me. “Brock,” he said, tightening his arm around me and pulling me closer, resting his forehead against mine. We shared a breath, making the moment even more intimate. “I’m trying to be good, and you’re making that difficult.”

I wanted to hold on to the sweetness of the moment. The parts of Joshua he hid away. I wanted to keep and protect them forever like my baseball cards, but the fear was also there. Fear that he would reject me again and again. Especially if I told him why I’d been so upset. I squirmed in my comfortable seat. Well, there was one part…

“Stop. Moving.”

The giggle escaped me before I could stop it. This was what happened when I went without sleep. “My first couch had this broken spring. And it was always poking me. It was big—” Oh Lord. I swallowed. “So…big.”

“Brat. You’re making the problem worse.”

“One man’s problem is another man’s opportunity.” I snaked my hand between us, but he shifted, grabbing my hand before it could reach its goal. My stomach felt like it had a giant hole in it. I recognized that feeling. Rejection.

“Sorry,” I said, trying to climb out of his lap and the tight band of his arms. “For fuck’s sake, Joshua, let me go.”

“You need a spanking.” His words had a low intensity that sparked a fire in me. And pissed me off.

“Excuse me?” I expected the anger…but the need burning through my body at the thought of Joshua’s big hand on my ass surprised me. I fought back tears of frustration and anger, and also the hard-on I was trying to hide. “I’m not a child.”

He sighed. “You definitely aren’t. But your attempts to deflect—I don’t like you hiding things from me.”

“And I don’t like you manhandling me.”

His eyes flashed like lightning in a storm: dangerous and exciting. He lifted me by the hips and brought me down again, so I straddled him. Not what I wanted at all, but in this new position, I could feel his hard cock against mine. “I think you do.”

“What?” Focusing on words instead of the heat of his body, the teasing slide of his erection against mine, even through layers of clothes, was impossible. “I’m sorry, what?”

His hands moved to my face. “I was trying to avoid this. Are you listening, Brock?”

I nodded, chewing on my lip as I held back a moan.

“Stop that.” He used his thumb to pull my lip from my teeth. “I want you. I need you to believe that.”

“I do.” The evidence was there—in his body and his eyes.

“But you asked me here to help you. Not to fuck you.”

This time, I couldn’t hold back the whine. God, I wanted that. Desperately. “Joshua—” And then I got it. “You’re—oh fuck—this is payback.”

“You caused this problem.” He moved his hips, and I closed my eyes against the sensations. Teenage Brock would have embarrassed himself already. And I wasn’t far behind. “I need you to pay attention to my words.”

“You’ll have to let me down for that.”

“No.” How did he make that word sound so possessive? “Focus on me, Brock.”

I nodded again. “Okay…yeah, I’m good.”

“If we give in to this, you’ll hate me—don’t shake your head—you will. You’re vulnerable right now. Hurting. This is what I do. Tearing someone’s defenses down and then using those against them. Not with sex. Never with sex, but in business? This is what I’m good at.”

I shuddered at his words. His intensity. “I could never hate you.”

He smiled. Those damn dimples. “We both know that’s not true. But you reached out to me—trusted me—and I won’t betray that trust. Or”—his hands cupped my face so I couldn’t look away—“let you distract me.”

What was wrong with me? I’d vowed not to do this again. But knowing Joshua wanted me? It made wanting him more difficult to ignore. “This isn’t why I texted you.”

“I know.”

“And I get that this can’t happen. We both have too much to lose. But I need something.”

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