Page 51 of Enemies to Lovers

He shakes his head. ‘No thank you, pretty girl,’ he replies, and it gives me The Ick.

I wander over to the cool box and grab a beer, and Jamie appears at my side.

‘Evening, Cupid,’ he says, and I cock an eyebrow at him.

‘I prefer Facilitator of Love’s Young Dream actually,’ I bat back.

‘Let’s not get carried away,’ Jamie laughs. ‘I’m not sure I’ll stay much longer.’

‘No?’ I say. ‘Jasmine seems … hopeful.’

‘Hopeful?’

‘Hopeful of getting in your pants,’ I say. ‘If I may be so blunt.’

Jamie blinks slowly. ‘I don’t know how I feel aboutthat,’ he tells me. ‘But thanks for the heads-up.’

We stand. We drink.

‘Things going well with the Greek god?’ Jamie asks, after a beat.

I search for my response by looking up at the dark sky.

‘Sorry,’ he says, before I can answer. ‘I don’t know why I asked that. I don’t actually want to know.’

My eyes shoot to his. We look at each other.

‘Why … wouldn’t you want to know?’ I ask, so quietly I’m not sure I have even spoken.

Jamie lowers his voice to be equally low.

‘I think you know, Flo,’ he says, and my breath has become so shallow I could almost be hyperventilating.

I shake my head. ‘I don’t …’ I say, not understanding.Jamie doesn’t want me. Why would he infer he doesn’t want anybody else to have me?

‘Pretty lady, I thought you had left!’ Adonis slips his hand into mine and nods at Jamie.

‘Evening,’ Jamie says petulantly, but when I try and catch his eye again, he’s busy looking anywhere but at me.

‘Jasmine is over there,’ Adonis says, pointing her out with a group of girls over by a windbreaker. ‘Florence? Shall we walk?’

I don’t give an answer, just start going in the direction Adonis is tugging me in, and it takes a lot not to look back to see if Jamie is going to stop us.

Adonis doesn’t speak as we trudge through the sand to the exact same cave we went to last time. I don’t know why I’m doing this. I don’t want to be alone with him. I’m pretending.

He spins me round so that we’re chest-to-chest and leans down to kiss me. He goes in hard and fast, not soft and tender, like I tend to prefer. It’s like we’re having two different conversations: he’s on one topic and I’m on another. As I’m trying to figure out how I feel about his intensity, Adonis cups my face and runs his hands back through my hair, where he tugs.

‘Oh!’ I say, in a cross between surprise and pain.

‘You like?’ he asks, but I don’t. He doesn’t wait for an answer – his mouth is back on mine, swallowing all my words. This is a whole new side to the man. He’sbeing rough, and forceful. He either hasn’t noticed that I’m not reciprocating or doesn’t care.

I try to get into the mood, let myself be kissed and experiment with how it feels to submit to this dominance.

‘You’re mine, aren’t you?’ he says. ‘Nobody else can have you, because you are mine.’

That seems too full-on, but I don’t know how to pull back and ascertain the limits of what ‘mine’ means. I’m not anybody’s. No woman is a possession of any man. But obviously saying so would ruin the mood.

‘Mmmm,’ I say, thinking,I need to leave. I don’t want this.

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