Mister West R.J. Lewis (macos ebook reader txt) 📖

and it’s far from decent. I wonder what he sees when he looks at me. Conflict? Lust? Intense need? It takes everything in me to tear my eyes away. I pull out the phone from my pocket and check the time. It’s nearly eleven. We’ve been talking for over two and a half hours.

“Wow,” I whisper on a small laugh. “I really have to get back, Aidan.”

“Let me walk you home,” he urges. “I need to know you make it back alright.”

His concern is sweet. “Sure.”

We don’t say anything on our way to my apartment building. He doesn’t get close to me, but a part of me wants him to. I’m glad he has more restraint than me. I don’t think I’d have moved away if he were nearer.

By the time we reach my building, the silence is unbearable. I turn to him and he’s already looking down at me. I don’t know what to say, but all at once I’m panicked that our special moment has come and gone. That I won’t be seeing him, and it’s like a knife in the chest if I don’t. Fuck, I’m hesitating and moving closer to him, and I shouldn’t but I am. His eyes come alive as I near, and he’s still, frozen to the concrete, giving me the control. I stop when I’m inches from his body and feeling the heat of him. I’m burning. I want to say I want to do this again, but the words are stuck in my throat.

“Aidan,” I start. My voice is tiny and foreign to me.

His chest is moving faster, and before I can say another word, his arm wraps around my waist and he’s pushing me back. My back hits the wall of the building and he’s over me, enveloping me in his strong arms. My eyes are wide, and his are pinned to my face. He looks torn and uncertain.

“I want to kiss you,” he says. I can feel his breaths against my mouth, he’s that close. If I move an inch our noses will touch, so I remain still, holding my breath to keep from panting. “Do you want that, Ivy?”

I nod and say nothing.

“Yeah,” he mutters. “I knew you would. You’re so fucking sweet.”

I’m hardly blinking. My focus is on him solely. His arm is still around me, his chest nearly touching mine. His other arm comes up and rests against the wall. He’s looking at my mouth more than anywhere else. He wants to kiss me. I can see the war inside of him. He’s losing and drawing closer to me. The second I feel his nose against mine, I shut my eyes and wait. My entire body tenses, my heart hammers, my mouth parts. Our breaths mingle, and the anticipation makes my sex throb harder. I wait for the taste of him on my tongue. I don’t care about anything else but what it would be like to have our mouths crashing together, our tongues swirling without rhythm, his chest pressed against mine, his hand between my legs.

I wait, and I want, and I’m needy, but nothing happens. When I open my eyes again, he’s pulling away and running a hand through his hair, a look of frustration in his eyes.

“Are you okay?” My voice is small.

He looks at me and his face is hard. The warmth from before is gone and I’m startled by the contrast.

“I rushed it, Ivy. I have to go,” he tells me abruptly. “Good night.”

He turns without another word and walks away. I watch him for some time until he disappears. Feelings of embarrassment and rejection swirl inside of me. I hurry back inside, in my beer-smelling apartment, to the mess in the lounge room, to the despair that is my home. I sit down on the couch and cover my face with my hands.

Aidan

Temptation is a new sort of cruelty I do not recognize.

My body is hot. My mind is blazing. I make it to my car and slip inside, and then I just sit there for minutes on end. I’m pulsing with need, panting for the warmth of her sweet little body. My heart hasn’t stopped beating out of its chest.

I don’t know what it is about Ivy that sends me over the edge. She’s addictive and sexy and so fucking witty. She’s not the hollow kind of girl I’m used to. She’s beauty and fire and depth.

She makes my soul sing.

What’s startling the most about our dynamic is she thinks I’m respecting her boundaries. She doesn’t know that I wouldn’t have fought taking her against that wall if she were anyone else. But she’s not anyone else. I won’t be able to shut off after I have her. I won’t be able to let her go, and that’s a problem.

That’s a very big problem for me.

Because it means I’ll be slipping back into a state I don’t long to be in. A state I’ve been running from for a couple years now. It means opening that door again and letting myself feel, but it’s already too late to stop myself.

I’m fighting a losing battle because I crave her already.

Twelve

Ivy

The bang is what wakes me up. I open my tired eyes and leap to my feet. I’m confused and disoriented for a moment, glancing around the room, realizing I’d fallen asleep on the couch with the phone in my lap. I’m still in the clothes I left to see Aidan in.

When I hear groaning, my blurry vision zeroes in on the entrance. Derek’s on the floor – on his stomach to be exact – barely moving. The front door is wide open, the knob against the wall, and it’s then I know he must have kicked it open.

I smell him before I’m even near him. A horrid alcoholic stench mixed with vomit and sweat. My stomach roils and my chest tightens in disgust. I put a hand over my