“Where’s Greta?” I ask Kyle, when I walk through the door and see him holding Ellie.
“I sent her home,” he says, without bothering to look at me.
“But I need to pay her, Kyle.”
“Do you think I’m stupid, Lexi? Of course I paid her.”
He still hasn’t looked at me. In fact, he’s doing everything in his power not to look at me. He’s pretending to wipe something off the counter, but I can see from here, the counter is perfectly clean.
“Is something wrong?” I ask, closing the door and walking across the room.
“What could possibly be wrong?” he asks sarcastically. “Ellie’s happy. I had a great day at work; diagnosed a difficult case. Oh, and you—there’s obviously nothing wrong with you, I mean with all your exercising and all. And there sure as hell isn’t anything wrong with Conner Ridley.”
I have to pull my lips into my mouth to suppress a smile. He must have seen me talking to Conner. “Oh, you know him?”
He finally turns and faces me. “Everyone knows Mr. 2105.”
“What?”
He raises a questioning brow. “Do you mean to tell me he didn’t give you his apartment number?”
“He told me,” I admit. “But he was just making polite conversation.”
“Polite, my ass. He tells everybody his apartment number. And he’s slept with every woman south of fifty who lives in this building.”
My jaw falls open. “Really?”
“Yes, really. So stay away from him, Lex. He’s bad news.”
“We were only talking, Kyle. He’s nice.”
He shakes his head in disgust. “Of course he’s nice. How else do you think he gets women to follow him home?”
The vein at his temple is pulsating and I have to bite my lip to hold in the laughter. Skylar may have been right. However, he’s hardly declaring his love for me. More like looking out for his roommate, I’d say.
“Did you tell him where you live?” he asks, putting Ellie down in her playpen.
I look at him like he’s gone crazy. “No, Kyle, I didn’t. You know me better than that.”
“Do I?” he asks.
I narrow my eyes at him, not bothering to justify his question with an answer. I think he has gone crazy. Or better yet, I think Mr. 2105 has made him crazy.
I walk over to kiss Ellie before I head to the bathroom to take a shower. “Ellie will be fine in there for a few minutes while I clean up.”
I close the bathroom door behind me, but it immediately opens and Kyle walks through, pinning me against the counter with his stare. “Do you want him, Lexi?”
“Do I want the playboy of the western world? No, Kyle. I don’t want him. Now would you mind if I shower, please?”
“He was eye-fucking you and you were letting him,” he says, crossing his arms defensively.
“Eye-fucking? Are you kidding me, Kyle? What is wrong with you?”
He shakes his head. “I think we’ve already determined that nothing is wrong with me. What the hell is wrong with you that would make you want to talk to that scumbag?”
I blow out a frustrated breath. “I didn’t know he was a player. Give me a tiny break for not being able to read everyone’s mind, okay? Plus, I was only talking to him. For like two minutes, no less.”
“Is that why you have your tattoo covered up?” he asks, nodding to the bandage on my wrist. “So you can talk to guys? Or is it so they won’t know you have some other man’s name branded into your flesh?”
I don’t even know what’s happening to him right now. Where is my nice, kind, save-the-world roommate? “You’ve gone mad, Kyle,” I say, trying to push him towards the door.
He doesn’t budge a single inch. “Tell me the truth, Lex. Is that why you have your goddamn tattoo covered?”
“It’s none of your damn business why I have my tattoo covered!” I yell. “And what if I was out trolling for guys—why would you even care?”
“Of course I would fucking care, Lexi.”
“Then prove it!” I say loudly. “Prove to me that you don’t want another man’s lips kissing mine. That the idea of someone else’s hands on my body doesn’t make you crazy. That the thought of me making love to Conner—or any other guy—doesn’t make your skin crawl. Because when I think about you doing those things with anyone else, I want to die, Kyle.”
He takes a single stride, closing the gap between us before he devours my mouth with his. I may even taste a little blood due to the violent way his lips are claiming mine. But I don’t care. Because every fiber of my being wants to be claimed by this man. Every beat of my heart and every cell in my body lives for this feeling. The feeling I get when he’s touching me. I never felt it before him, and I know I’ll never feel it with anyone else after him.
He lifts me up onto the counter, kissing, licking and sucking on my neck. It doesn’t even register that I’ve just been sweating and desperately need a shower. I can’t think of anything but what his lips are doing to me.
He lifts my tank top over my head and swiftly removes my sports bra, cupping my breasts in his hands as he leans down to worship them with his mouth.
“Oh, Kyle,” I say breathlessly, fumbling with his belt as I try to undo his pants.
He helps me remove his pants and then my running shorts. His hungry eyes run over my naked body, making me feel as if I’m the grand prize; the biggest and best present under the tree; the winning lottery ticket. And I’m fairly certain I return the sentiment with my own heated gaze. Because he’s all those things. He’s all those things and more.
He runs his thumb across my clit and I shudder. A moan escapes me when he puts a finger inside me. I reach down and grab his manhood, running my hand up and down his length in firm but gentle strokes until his moans of desire mingle with mine.
“God, Elizabeth,” he says, gasping.
My eyes fly open when I hear him call my name. But it’s not my name. Not really. And it dawns on me. I finally understand it. I understand that he only calls me Elizabeth when we do this. When we get hot and heavy together. When we get real with each other and let all of our emotions come through.
Because the truth of it is, he wants me to be her again. He wants me to be Elizabeth. The girl with no past. The girl without a predetermined future.
And I know I finally have my answer.
I have to dig deep for my willpower as I push him away. “Stop,” I say, my voice cracking with emotion.
His hands immediately fall from my body. Of course they do. Because he’s not Grant. Because he’s nice and kind and generous and he would never make me do anything I didn’t want to do.
“What is it?” he asks, looking me over while bracing a hand on the mirror behind me. “Are you okay?”
I fight back tears as I reach a hand up and trace the hard angles of his face. “Kyle, have you changed your mind? Have you decided that this is enough for you? That this—right here, right now, is enough for you? Because Alexa Lucas has to be enough or this will never work.”
He looks down at the floor. It’s all the confirmation I need.
I hop off the counter and pull my towel from the hook on the back of the door to cover myself. “I’m moving out.”
He looks at me with guilty eyes. “Lex, no.”
I nod in affirmation. “After Piper’s wedding next weekend, I’m moving in with Baylor. She offered Ellie and me her guest room. It’s the right thing to do, Kyle. I have to do it. I have to do it for me.”
He backs up against the wall and runs his hands through his hair. “I don’t want you to go.” His torn voice is rough and thick.
“But that’s the thing, Kyle. I don’t think you really want me to stay, either.”
His eyes fall to my wrist. In the midst of our passion, my bandage came off, revealing my redesigned tattoo. He takes my arm in his hands and examines it. I have to admit, Spike did a fantastic job. You’d never even know this tattoo was created from another one. The entwined hearts are still there, but instead of the single word scripted over them, there is now an entire sentence.
His fingers trace the edges of my reddened skin as he silently reads it. ‘Take Nothing For Granted.’
He looks up at me. “Shit, Lex. You have your very own Chinese proverb.”
“Nah,” I say. “But I think the guy from Boston might just be onto something.”