Pull You In (Rivers Brothers Book 3), стр. 20

Just freaking tired.

"That seems halfway believable," he relented, his thumb starting to trace across the sensitive inside of my wrist.

"I don't want to talk about it," I told him, gaze falling from his face.

This was the point where my ex would have started an argument with me, not believing I had a right to take some time to sort through my thoughts before I talked about them. He wanted to know what I was "pissy" about immediately. And if I didn't want to talk about it before I got a chance to think it through, the yelling would start.

"Alright," Rush said, nodding. "But if you do want to talk about it, I'm right here."

Him being right there was part of the problem, wasn't it?

Maybe it would be good to get back to Navesink Bank, away from this fantasy. Then I would stop calling his line at work. I would put some distance between the two of us, maybe move onto something healthier.

"I appreciate it," I told him, meaning it, waiting for his thumb to finish one last swipe before pulling my wrist away, and going around the bed.

I settled in on my side, facing away from him, telling myself it was the surefire way to ensure that I didn't end up plastered to him by the morning.

I underestimated my subconscious's desire to be as close to him as possible.

Because I woke up to a grumbling sound in my ear, making my eyes snap open, my brain scrambling to understand the origin, the reason for that noise.

It was then I felt the warmth on my back from the top of my head to my thigh, the arm casually draped over my hip.

Rush.

I had shimmied back into him while I was asleep.

In fact, my butt was rammed back into his pelvis. Where I found the origin of the groan.

His erection pressed into my ass. Which I must have wiggled against in my sleep.

"You're killing me," he murmured into my ear, breath hot, making a shiver move through my insides.

"I'm sorry. I, ah, I don't know why I can't, you know, stay on my own side of the bed. I guess I just... it's been a while since I shared one, I guess. My boundaries are, um, off. I will scoot," I told him, my body trying to lurch forward to do just that.

The arm around my hip stopped me, sinking into my hip bone, jerking my back into him.

"Don't you dare," he told me, voice low, sexy, turning my insides to liquid.

This was how he sounded on the phone.

Husky.

Commanding.

Voice full of promise.

If there had been anything resembling resistance in me, it evaporated in an instant. Though, truly, I didn't think it had ever been there. Not with regard to him.

"Rush..." I had no idea what I was trying to say when his name left my mouth. Was it some attempt to de-escalate the situation, to remind him that we worked together, that it would get messy? Or to beg him to push me down, to whisper those dirty things he said to me over the phone, to slip inside me, to erase the months and months of longing, but not having?

I had no idea.

Because Rush scooted back, making me go somewhat flat, looking up at him, finding hungry eyes I was having trouble believing were meant for me.

Yet there they were.

Looking down at me.

Heavy-lidded.

Smoldering.

"I..." I started, again, having no idea what I was going to say.

But just this once, that was okay.

Because Rush leaned down and silenced me, his lips pressing to mine.

Not hard and hungry, the way I had imagined them over the phone. But soft, sweet, almost a little tentative.

I felt like my entire body went boneless at the contact. A small sighing sound escaped me as my hand rose, sliding across his jaw and to the back of his head as his lips pressed deeper, harder, got more demanding as his body shifted over me, his welcomed weight pressing me deeper into the mattress.

His tongue traced the crease of my lips, moving inside when they opened on a whimper, claiming mine as my arms went around him, pulled him tighter to me.

No thoughts could penetrate my mind in that moment.

Until it happened.

Until we heard it.

Ringing.

A phone.

Somewhere in the house, a phone was ringing, a lifeline to the outside world that seemed to have forgotten all about us.

Rush's lips ripped from mine, his body pressing up, looking down at me with drawn-together brows for a long second, like a part of him was struggling to comprehend what the sound meant.

But then it seemed to get through the fog in his brain, having him flipping over me, rushing out of the room, going through the pitch-black house at a dead run as I folded slowly up, trying to push down the disappointment flooding my system, the sensation of something important lost.

Because there was a little devil whispering in my ear that we would never get this same moment again, nothing was ever going to line up the way they had lined up this night.

It was over.

Stifling a pathetic whimpering sound, I climbed out of the bed, grabbing the flashlight and the hurricane lamp, carefully making my way down the stairs, finding Rush standing in the living room we never went in because of all the heads on the walls.

In front of him, a cabinet was open, a long curly phone cord spilling out, slithering up Rush's shoulder to the old-fashioned off-white receiver he had pressed to his ear.

I had no idea who was on the other end of the phone, but whatever they were saying had wiped all that softness, all that heat from his face, leaving instead what looked a lot like anger there instead.

"Yeah, well, it's not fucking funny. Something could have happened," he said, turning his wide back to me as he spoke, making me feel like I was intruding on something personal.

Shut out, I set down the oil lamp a few feet away from him, taking the