SEVENTEEN

Dog

My hot tacky body pulls me from sleep, the temperature uncomfortable as I roll to get out of bed and hit a wall? Takes me a solid minute to remember that no, I haven’t forgotten changing the layout of my room; I’m just not in it.

I push onto my elbows with a groan, flashes of last night coming in waves; strong and then weak, clear and then foamy. Makes it hard to remember what actually happened and what I dreamed.

One thing’s definitely real though, and that’s the angry looking woman at the foot of the bed.

Mel rests her back against the wall, legs kicked out over the bed horizontally. “Feel any better?”

“Should I?” Head pounds like the bass at a fucking rave, but other than that …

“Considering you eviscerated the contents of your stomach, then you shouldn’t be too bad.”

Oh, yeah. Oh …

“Sorry.” I wince, partially from shame, mostly from the pain the sliver of sunlight through the blinds causes.

“I’d say you’d learned your lesson, but somehow I don’t think you have.” She folds her arms. “Am I right?”

I’ve got nothing. She caught me licking the remnants of whatever the fuck the prospects gave me out of the dip of some woman’s pelvis. Another inch to the left and I would have been licking the outer folds of her cunt.

Pretty sure there’s no coming back from this.

Also pretty sure that fucking ache I get in my chest when I look at what I’ve lost glaring at me won’t go away either.

“Guess I better get some coffee and hit the road, huh?” I toss the covers back and find I’m at least still wearing my boxers.

“Clothes are over there.” Mel points to where they’re laid out freshly laundered on her set of drawers.

“When the hell did that get done?” I check the time on my phone, which sits on the nightstand. Sure enough, it’s barely after dawn.

“Couldn’t sleep,” is all she says.

I hesitate on the edge of the bed, my feet on the floor, as she slides off and walks to the closet. Her back is mostly turned as she picks out some fresh clothes for herself, but as I study the glimpses of her face that I can see, it’s pretty damn obvious the woman hasn’t had a wink of sleep.

And yet here I was, in her bed, sleeping soundly.

Dick. I don’t deserve her, this, any of it.

“Thanks, Mel.”

She shrugs, slinging a clean pair of black denim jeans over her arm. “I wouldn’t have achieved anything by lowering myself to your level, would I?”

Ouch. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” she says slowly, turning to face me. “I could have gone downstairs, found some random guy to suck off, and tried to hurt you like you hurt me, but the truth is” —she sucks her lips to her teeth with a hiss— “I don’t think you would have cared.”

My nostrils flare, the look I give her is so fucking pissed off it makes her frown and place a foot to the side, ready to bolt.

“What?” She shrugs again, making me want to grab her by the shoulders and shake her until all the messed up shit in her head gets back to where it should be.

“Those lips of yours go anywhere near another man’s junk, I promise it won’t be pretty.”

I can’t even think straight when I look at her. All I see is the fuck-off eyes she’d be giving that asshole as she dropped to her knees. My fist curls, my forearm aching with the strain.

“My lips,” she snaps with a bit more sass than necessary, “can go wherever the fuck I please.” She frowns hard, doing that little head wiggle thing chicks do when they’re about to go off. “Why should the rules be different for me than they are for you?”

“What fuckin’ rules?” I ram my fist into the mattress to save from getting up and smashing it into the wall.

“You can suck some bitch downstairs, but I’m not allowed to—”

“Don’t fuckin’ say it again.” I hold a finger up, closing my eyes as I wince.

Her feet make soft padding noises as she hustles across the floor. Her breath is hot and minty over my face as she leans right in. I don’t dare open my eyes, don’t dare breathe her in too hard in case I snap.

“Suck. A. Dick,” she murmurs right in my face. “Choke on a cock. Let a man face-fu—”

My hand’s on her throat before I even fully open my eyes. “Don’t.”

She still glares at me; her fucking kissable lips an inch from mine. I screwed up, I get it, but it’s not as though I intended on hammering the fucking bitch after I was done. Shit, I don’t think I could have sported a fucking woody if I tried given how much I’d consumed.

There’s only one woman on my mind right now, and the feel of her pulse beneath my thumb tells me her heart races as hard as mine.

“There’s only one guy who’ll put anythin’ other than food in that mouth of yours, babe.”

“That so?” Her gaze drops to my lips, her right hand moving to the bed beside mine to steady herself.

“Don’t even try to test me.” I brush my nose against hers.

She sucks in a sharp breath, her eyes hooded. “Could be fun, though.”

“If you want to explain to your brother why he’s down a member when he gets back, then go for it.” I apply a little pressure to her throat, relishing the gasp that she gives in return.

She creeps closer, her legs on either side of mine. All the woman would have to do is drop her gaze and she’d soon see how this little interaction has got me all kinds of knotted up.

“Why are you so possessive, Dog?” Bitch drags her bottom lip over the tip of my nose. “We kissed once, that was all.”

“Done a fuck load more than that in my mind,” I utter.

A smug smirk makes the corners of her eyes crinkle. “Thought about me, huh?”

“Only thing on my mind lately.”

“Barely forty-eight hours since you picked me up.”

I shift my thumb under her jaw, tilting her head so our lips brush as I tell her, “Three years since I first caught a glimpse of you, though.”

She lets out a satisfied, “Huh.”

“Cherry red lips.” I place a soft kiss to her mouth. “Dangly black earrings.” Tilt her head to one side so I can kiss the spot on her neck where those earrings brushed. “And a strapless top that looked as though it’d drop right off these fuckin’ tits at any second.” She moans in the back of her throat as I first kiss her shoulder, and then bring my free hand up to cup her breast.

“I’m still mad at you.”

“So fuck me like you mean it.”

She rips out of my hold, my fingers no doubt bruising her neck a little as she pulls away. “You need a shower, asshole.”

Bitch. She played me like a fucking fiddle. Mel smirks as she backs up a couple of steps, her hips swinging. She knew what she was doing; the way her grin spreads as she checks out the erection tenting my boxers confirms that.

“Fuckin’ tease,” I growl.

Her lips part as she runs the tip of her tongue across her teeth. “Oh, baby. It’s just the beginning.”

She snatches up a pair of clean panties and a bra from the set of drawers and then takes that tight little butt right out of the room. I flop back on her bed, my dick bobbing in frustration at being left hanging.

All I can do is laugh.

Goddamn minx is going to make me walk through fucking fire to prove how devoted I am to her before she lets me anywhere near that fit little body. She’s in command of this game, and fuck it all if that doesn’t make me even hotter for the woman.

Just hope there ain’t too many rounds before she lets me tap out, because if this is how much it aches after the first brush-off, then I’m going to be well and truly ruined before the final bell.