Page 10 of Hostile Cravings
My question threw him off and his brow creased like he didn’t know how to answer it.
“You do?” he asked, his tone curious.
“Of course, idiot. If they’re having sex with me one night, they’re doing the same with other women another night, and…ewww.”
He laughed, the tension fading, but he was still hovering over me. “You never let them go bare?”
“I…” I never had. I was on the pill for extra protection, but I had never been that attached to anyone, nor did I trust anyone enough to let them come inside of me. I wasn’t about to tell Tyson that, though. “No, it’s gross.”
He laughed even harder, and I hit his chest.
“Don’t laugh. With all the sluts you sleep with, you’re a prime example of why I don’t want that shit inside of me.”
His eyes hardened. “I use protection, bitch.”
My hand hadn’t removed from his chest when I’d hit him. It was still hanging there, the firm muscles below tense again. He glanced down at it, then back at me.
“All the time?” I asked, not really knowing why, but Tyson was like me in more ways than I wanted to admit. Both of usseeking something in the casual hook-ups we regularly had. That thought hit me hard because I knew it was the truth, even if we hated each other.
He lifted himself from me and rolled his neck, giving me a look I couldn’t read as I leaned up on my elbows.
“Most of the time, unless it’s serious.”
“And has it ever been serious?” What was wrong with me? I didn’t care, just like he didn’t.
His eyes scrunched, like he was trying to figure out the same thing. “Not in a very long time. Now get out of my bed and my room. I expect you to be gone when I get back or I’ll call that flight attendant up and have her blow me in front of you.”
He grabbed his phone and left, slamming the door behind him. Dropping back onto the bed, I stared at the ceiling, wondering why I’d asked those questions and why my heart had raced when he’d been hovering over me. Deciding that aggravating him again would make me feel better, I sat up and looked around the room. It was messy, but no more messy than my brother’s room. Rising, I walked, my fingers draping over the personal life of a man I’d never been close to, never caring who he was because he pissed me off so much. Small insights into the man he was. A framed picture of him with Casey when they were younger sat on his dresser. I picked it up, only then realizing how much older he was than me. Casey was a few years older than me, but Tyson was in his mid-thirties.
Chewing my lip, I set the frame down and picked up another picture. It was of a couple who looked blissful and in love. The woman was looking up at the man, her smile large as his hazel eyes looked back at her. Her long brown curls matched Casey’s and the mop of curls on Tyson’s head. Their parents. I’d never bothered going to Casey’s apartment, never caring what her life was outside of our family even when I’d dragged her shopping or clubbing with me. I knew their parents were dead, but that was all. I’dnever asked about them or really much of anything that didn’t pertain to me.
Replacing the photo, I shoved away the guilt that threatened to settle on my shoulders. I didn’t want to care about their life outside of me and my world. Nothing mattered but me and what made me happy. I fortified myself with those thoughts, knowing they were the same ones that had driven me for years and shaped me into the woman who Tyson detested, the one most people hated unless they were having sex with me.
Throwing my shoulders back and holding my head high, I trudged out of the room, determined to find my luggage and another room to sleep in. But I didn’t know this house and the further I got from Tyson’s room, the lonelier I felt and the more my homesickness hit. Turning around, I gave up on my search for my luggage and returned to his room.
After using the bathroom and finding it surprisingly clean, I walked into Tyson’s closet, thinking I’d grab a sweatshirt or something to keep the chill away that had seeped into my bones. My hand drifted over suit jackets and button downs. A variety of ties hung neatly in the back, where a small dresser sat. One drawer was open, and I pulled out the handful of dark silk scarves that seemed so oddly feminine among the rest of the masculine room. I would have questioned who they belonged to, but they were on top of more family photos and a small jewelry box with the name Lilly Raines engraved on it. I dropped the scarves but a blue one slipped free, landing on the closet floor.
I picked it up, rubbing the smooth material through my fingers as I contemplated why I’d thought wearing something of Tyson’s made any sense. No matter how cold I was, I didn’t want something of his on me.
I crawled into his bed, trying to forget his comments about stains and finding the smell of him that lingered on the sheets surprisingly comforting. I drifted off withthoughts of how irritated that made me, the scarf still in my hand and providing a strange sense of comfort.
The soundof water running woke me and I blinked. My eyes opened just as it turned off. Shit, I’d fallen asleep in Tyson’s bed. But he hadn’t woken me or thrown me out, which seemed strange. Lifting my eyes, I perused the room, not seeing him and wondering why he had left me sleeping. The shower. That was him in the bathroom. Sitting up quickly, my eyes met his. He was toweling his hair dry, the muscles of his chest flexing with every move of his arm. His black pants sat low on his waist and my eyes traveled the path to where they sat on his hips. Damn, he was sexy, and I hated how easily that thought had come to me. I needed to get a grip and remember that Tyson was an asshole who treated me like I was a gnat he couldn’t get away from.
But words wouldn’t form, and he beat me to the punch.
“I thought I said you needed to be out of my bed and my room, or did I not make that clear last night?”
“Is that what you tell all your women? Use them and kick them out that same night?”
“Damn right it is, unless I keep them longer so they can repay me with a blow job.”
I studied him, wondering how much of his macho talk was the truth. I knew he slept around because he did it when he visited my father, too, but he talked it up with harsh words and a bravado that made me think he was talking a bigger game. Or maybe he wasn’t, and he said things like that to cover the true reason he was such a playboy. The same reason I searched men out…to make me feel something other than the loneliness, the pain of the truth that I wanted more but didn’t know how to have more. That I didn’t trust any of the men I met to give me the more I craved. That the sex would dull the pain, that it would satisfy the hunger that sat below the surface.
“Repay you for what? For letting you fuck them?” I asked.
He walked into his closet, and I took in his muscular back, the power of it, of him. There was nothing about Tyson Raines that was like any man I’d ever been with, and I shook off the curiosity of what those muscles would feel like against my body. He came back out, buttoning up the dress shirt he now wore.
“For giving them the best orgasm of their life and then letting me fuck them.”
