Page 47 of Love is Fake

“Sure, you didn’t,” I snark, “you just wanted him to think you and I were together so he’d step off! You did everything but pee on me in a bid to mark your damn territory!”

He mirrors my crossed arms, not looking even a little bit sorry.

“Why?” I demand. “You didn’t want anyone else playing with your toy?” My voice wobbles, but I refuse to let it break.

“My toy?” Lennox looks convincingly aghast. “Is that how you think I see you?”

“I don’t know anymore, Nox.” I fist my hands, digging my nails into my palms to distract me from the emotion rising up inside of me. I’m angry and frustrated and…so many other things I can’t quite put a name to. “I don’t understand you, Lennox. One minute you seem to like me, respect me even and then last night…” I trail off not really knowing what I want to say. Perhaps because there’s too much to say.

“Last night I kissed you,” he finishes, flatly, that emotionless voice of his coming into play again.

Angry Lennox is hard to deal with but, not as hard as this cold version of him I’ve seen in glimpses.

“Last night you kissed me like you wanted me and earlier tonight…you kissed me like you hated me.” I swallow the hurt down. “So, yeah, you made me feel like a toy, like this is all some damn game to you.”

“Izzy,” his voice is tender and, in an instant, he’s right in front of me, close enough to reach out and tuck my hair behind my ear. “I never meant to make you think that. I fuckinghatethat I made you feel like that.” He cups my face and – because I can’t resist him even when I know I should – I lean into his touch. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

He pulls me towards him and, when my arms snake around his waist, he crushes me against him, holding me as if he’s never going to let me go and I don’t think I want him to.

“If you didn’t mean to, then why did you?”

I feel him relax against me as he strokes my hair soothingly, his chin propped on the top of my head, holding me close.

“Because when I’m around you, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing half the time,” he sighs. “You make it impossible for me to think straight, so I say and do stupid shit.”

I blink, taken aback by his honesty and by what he’s saying. Slowly, I look up at him, needing to see his face when he answers my next question, because my heart is hanging in the balance and when he meets my eyes, it all but stops.

“You said last night wasn’t a big deal, heat of the moment.” I bite my lip, stalling but knowing I won’t get away from asking the question I really want to ask. “Did you mean it?” I add.

Lennox shakes his head, looking me dead in the eye. The heaviness I’ve been carrying around in my chest eases, bit by bit.

“I want you,” he growls.

Tingles of awareness dance all the way through me when Lennox traces my lips with the pad of his thumb. “Ireallywantyou,” he amends, his stare heating me from head to toe. He pulls me closer, though there’s not much closer I need to get to feel the hardness against my abdomen. “But it’s more than that, what I feel for you…” He shakes his head as if he can’t find the words. “I’m no good at relationships. I never have been, but you, something about you makes it easy to imagine something more and thatisa big fucking deal for me.”

I lick my lips and he watches the movement like a hawk.

“You need to stop looking at me like that, Isabella.” He draws out my name, making it sound so good. Too good.

My throat is raw with desire, but I still find the strength to answer. “Like what?”

“Like you’re thinking about everything you want me to do to you.” His voice is pure sex. Pure unfiltered sex.

“I, I don’t know what to say,” I tell him truthfully. I’m so keyed up, I don’t even know what to think. All I know is that being with Lennox like this feels too damn right to be wrong.

He quirks an eyebrow at me, looking heartbreakingly handsome. “Are you done being pissed at me?”

“For now,” I joke.

“Good, because I’m going to kiss you now.”

“Please,” I breathe, full of anticipation, and I don’t know who moves first and I don’t care, because this…feels…too…good.

Lennox kisses the hell out of me, his hands dropping to my jeans-covered ass, my legs snaking around him until they’re wrapped tightly around his waist. With a slight flex of his muscles, he holds me up as if I don’t weigh anything at all. Stepping forward, he traps me between his body and the wall. I grind myself against him as he captures my mouth, nipping at my lips and possessing me with his tongue.

My hands go around his neck and into his hair as his kisses burn their way through me. I’ve never been so hungry for anyone before, never understood that feeling of wanting to jump a guy’sbones as soon as I look at him. That was before Lennox. Now I understand it all too well, and from the way he’s kissing me like I’m water and he’s dying of thirst, I think he might feel this same overwhelming need. The force of it is frightening and in the back of my mind I wonder if something this intense can last and what I’ll be left with when it inevitably burns out. That’s while I can still string thoughts together, which doesn’t last for long.

Lennox’s hands cover mine, and he spread-eagles my arms against the wall, pinning me there with the weight of his hips grinding against my most sensitive part.

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