Page 68 of The Grumpy Billionaire
As if I could go anywhere.
It was like I hadn’t been kissed in years, and yet it felt like yesterday that I had been a lovesick teenager wrapped in the arms of this same guy.
Reid and I had learned how to kiss together, starting out awkwardly and getting better with practice. Lots and lots of practice.
Maybe it was because we’d gotten together so young, but something had happened to me back then that had apparently ruined me for the rest of my life.
Reid had infused my existence at the cellular level. I hadn’t really been able to enjoy kissing anyone else since.
He, on the other hand, had become an even better kisser in the years we’d been apart. And that meant…
I pulled my lips away, a shred of sanity returning to my overwhelmed brain. That meanthehad been practicing. Naturally.
“What’s wrong?” Reid shifted his mouth to my neck, torturing my hungry nerve endings with his persuasive mouth.
Of course he had been with other women. He was a grown man, a gorgeous one at that, and—oh yeah—he had a girlfriend.
And I had… had… something—right—I had promised myself not to get involved with Reid again. With anyone.
I pushed at his chest, and he released me, watching in bewilderment as I backed away, shaking my head.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“I just… I can’t, we can’t do this.”
He gave a half smile and rubbed a finger over his kiss-swollen lips. “Seemed like we were doing pretty well there to me.”
I looked around his bedroom for my coat and purse. Which of course were not in his bedroom.
What wasIdoing in here?
What an idiot I was. I turned and speed-walked back down the hallway to the great room where I located my coat draped over the sofa back and my purse on the counter.
I grabbed them and headed toward the front door.
Reid followed me. “Would you mind telling me what’s going on? One minute we’re making out like we’re going for a gold medal, and now you’re leaving?”
“That shouldn’t have happened. I didn’t want that.”
He was close on my heels, then in front of me just as I reached the door. Leaning his back against it, he folded his arms across his chest. He was breathing hard.
“Bullshit. You were just as into it as I was—I could feel you responding to me.”
“Move please. I need to go home.”
“Mara…” Reid threw his hands up in apparent exasperation. “Come on, don’t leave. Let’s talk. It’s obvious we want each other. Why are you fighting it?”
He reached out and wrapped his hands around my upper arms. I shrugged out of his grasp, but I stopped trying to leave. He was right—at least once our time together should end without me running away.
I had to face this—to address what had happened between us, what kept happening, what could never happen again.
“Okay—yes—there’s still some… residual attraction left between us. But it doesn’t mean anything. I’m not… interested in you like that. And you shouldn’t be interested in me.”
“Really?” He didn’t seem very impressed with my explanation. “Why the hell not?”
“Well, for one thing you have a girlfriend.”
For another, I treated you like garbage and left you, without a word of explanation.
