I shook my head. “You can leave.”
“Jillian.”
“I think you need to leave,” I said this time.
“Open the goddamn door or I will fucking break it down.”
Well then.
Casting my gaze to the ceiling, I let out a ripe curse and then unlocked the bathroom door, because I didn’t put it past him to do it. “Better?” I shot back.
Brock stared at me, his jaw working, and damn it all to hell, he looked so rumpled and sexy with his hair nearly standing up and one tail of his shirt hanging loose. “Were you completely unaware of what you were doing last night? I need you to be honest with me, Jillian. Did you have no idea what you were doing?”
Part of me wanted to say that I was, but that wasn’t completely true. I’d been aware. I woke up from a dream and I’d wanted him, and he was there and . . .
“I knew you were buzzed, but I had no idea you were that—”
“I wasn’t that drunk,” I whispered, knowing I could never let him believe he somehow took advantage of the situation when he hadn’t, just to save face. “I knew what was happening, but I . . . I just wasn’t thinking. I knew. Honest.”
His eyes searched mine as some of the tension eased out of his shoulders. “Now I want you to listen me and I want you to listen real good. If you think for a second I can go around and pretend that I didn’t have my fingers in you and you didn’t come all around them, you have another thing coming.”
“Oh my God!” Horrified, I pressed my hands to my cheeks. “Can you not be any cruder?”
“Crude?” He smirked as he leaned against the door jamb, effectively trapping me in the bathroom. He crossed his arms. “You sure as hell didn’t have a problem fucking my hand last night—”
“I was drunk. Like, I thought I was still sleeping,” I argued.
“So do you normally dream of me then?”
My nostrils flared as I inhaled deeply and counted to five. “I do not dream about you.”
A smug half-grin appeared on his face, and I wanted to smack it off. “Yeah, I’m going to have to call bullshit on that.”
“You can call bullshit on your face for all I care,” I fired back, and his brows flew up. That sounded lame to my own ears. “The point is, I didn’t mean for that to happen last night and it shouldn’t have.”
A muscle flexed along Brock’s jaw as he eyed me. “I know you didn’t mean for it to happen, but it did. And maybe it shouldn’t have happened like that, but it did.”
I inhaled sharply as I blinked. Tears threatened to erupt, and with this headache, without coffee, and considering what had happened last night, it was going to be an epic meltdown. “Please,” I asked, begged really. “Please, can we just forget this? Can you just leave?”
For a moment, I didn’t think Brock was going to leave. I thought he was going to stay there, standing in the doorway of the hallway bathroom forever, but then something crossed his features. His jaw softened, as did those dark eyes of his. “Okay,” he said, pushing off the door and unfolding his arms.
“For now, I’ll let this go, but I don’t want you acting fucking weird over this. What happened out there, on the couch, isn’t something I’m ashamed about. You shouldn’t be either.” He stopped, drawing in a breath. “Don’t let this screw up what we’ve got happening here. Okay?”
I wanted to ask what exactly he thought was happening here, but all I could force out was a weak, “Okay.”
Chapter 18
Somewhere between the weekend and Monday morning, I realized that something I’d fantasied and dreamt about since I was old enough to know what those sex scenes in the books I read were really describing had actually happened.
Brock had kissed me.
Well, I had kissed him and he’d kissed me back. It wasn’t a long and passionate kiss. When I was younger, I’d dreamt of the kind of kisses that curled the toes and stole your breath. This kiss had been brutal and fast, and not only that, but he’d touched me—a part of him had actually been in me.
I couldn’t even wrap my head around it, because it didn’t . . . it didn’t count. It wasn’t real. I’d been out of it and he’d been half-asleep when he woke up, discovering me rubbing all over him like a cat in heat, and Brock . . . Brock responded like most men would’ve. And he hadn’t even gotten anything out of it. I’d fallen back asleep almost immediately.
What happened had meant nothing.
It couldn’t have, because we ending up being a disaster once before and we’d be a total catastrophe now. I had to guard my heart and I had to listen to my head. There was too much at risk for me to travel down that path again with Brock—my job, what I was hoping to accomplish for Avery and Teresa, and most importantly, my happiness.
I needed to keep my distance, so when my phone rang Sunday night, and it was Grady, not only was I surprised he was calling, I was almost eager to answer.
“You busy?” he asked when I answered.
“No. I was just reading,” I told him, glancing at the Kindle on the couch next to me. The screen had long since faded out and Rhage currently had one paw resting on the black edge as if he were daring me to try to pick it up.
“So, I’m going to be home this Saturday,” he said, and I couldn’t help think that even Brock would’ve asked what I was reading. The moment that thought popped into my head, I wanted to smack myself with the Kindle. “And I was hoping you’d be free and we could finally catch that dinner.”