Just Friends (19 page)

“Why?”

“Obviously because I have company.” 

“Why is he here?”

“What do you want?”

“So you’re not going to answer my
question?”

“I don’t owe you an explanation. We’re both
free agents, able to do whatever we want with whomever we
want.”

Not liking that answer at all, he gritted his
teeth. “I bought these for you.” He extended the flowers to
her.

“You actually went to a store and picked
those out?” she asked, not moving to accept his gift.

“Yes.”

“You mean you didn’t get Diana to do it for
you?”

“I said
I
picked them out. I went to
the florist and specifically asked for carnations because I know
they’re your favorite.”

Her face remained impassive. “You wasted your
time.”

Trenton set the flowers on the bar and took a
deep breath. “You’re not going to make this easy for me, are
you?”

“I don’t know what you want, Trent. I didn’t
hear from you for an entire week, and then when I do see you,
you’re doing the same thing you always do—hooking up. Nothing
changed. Tell me what you want so I can get back to my
company.”

“You think I’m going to leave you here with
him, with you dressed like that?” He scanned her body, even more
annoyed when he noted once again how tight the jeans and shirt
were. “You must be out of your goddamn mind.”

“There’s nothing wrong with the way I’m
dressed.”

“Everything is wrong with the way you’re
dressed,” he fired back.

“If it bothers you so much, get out.”

“
I just said
, I’m not leaving you here
alone with him.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

“Actually, I do.
He’s
getting out of
here.”

“No, you are. You can’t throw him out. I’m
throwing you out.”

“Wrong. Trust me, he’s leaving, and he’s
leaving all on his own. Watch.”

Trenton strutted back to the living room and
went to stand over Connor on the sofa. He smiled when the other man
looked up at him. “It’s time for you to go.”

“Go? I don’t understand—”

“Stop it, Trent!” Alannah said behind
him.

“Alannah and I need privacy. Two’s company,
three’s a crowd and all that.”

“What’s going on?” Connor looked around
Trenton to Alannah.

“No, look at me,” Trenton said, speaking in a
calm voice. “I’m trying to be nice, but pretty soon I won’t be nice
anymore. So I’m asking you again, please leave. Now.”

“Stop trying to intimidate him.”

“I’m not trying to intimidate him,” Trenton
said, watching Connor’s expression shift from confusion into quiet
alarm.

“If you lay a hand on him…”

“I won’t do anything to him—personally. I can
pay someone to do that for me. Someone who can make it look like an
accident.”

“
Trent!”

Connor jumped to his feet. “I think you’re
right. I better go.”

“Good idea,” Trenton said.

Connor edged around Trenton and rushed to the
front door. Alannah hurried after him, and Trenton flexed his
fingers so as not to yank her back.

She placed a hand on Connor’s arm. “You don’t
have to leave.”

“It’s best that I do.” He eyed Trenton
warily. “You’re a wonderful woman, Alannah, and I was looking
forward to getting to know you better. But you and”—his gaze moved
to Trenton again but jumped away—“you and your friend need to
figure out what you’re doing.”

“He’s bluffing,” Alannah said.

“No, I’m not,” Trenton interjected.

She glowered at him, but her attention
returned to Connor when he took her hand. “Maybe it wasn’t meant to
be. Take care.” He patted her hand and left.

Quiet descended on the room. Even Angel
didn’t make a sound. She watched from the safety of the cage’s
interior as the night’s events unfolded.

Alannah didn’t say a word and simply marched
past Trenton, as if he wasn’t even there.

“Alannah.” He caught her by the arm and she
yanked away.

“Get out.”

He’d never heard her voice so low and filled
with fury. Duplicate circles of red suffused her cheeks, and her
eyes spat green and brown flames.

“I have something to say.”

“I don’t want to hear it.” She pointed to the
door. “Go. Now. You’re not welcome here.”

“And he was? Why the hell is he welcomed and
not me?”

She stared at him and refused to answer.

Trenton walked closer. “I asked you a
question.”

“I don’t have to answer you.”

“Why was he here? Why are you dressed like
that?”

“I didn’t do anything wrong. You can’t make
me feel guilty.”

“Feel guilty about what? Be woman enough to
say it,” he said, repeating a variation of the same words she’d
thrown at him outside Ingrid and Josh’s home.

“You want me to tell you?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Fine. I wanted to sleep with him…to…”

Trenton listened, jaw aching from clenching
his teeth so hard. “To hurt me,” he finished for her.

She bit the inside of her bottom lip, the way
she always did whenever she fought back her emotions. After a
couple of blinks, she responded in a quiet voice, “Yes.”

“That’s not like you. That’s not the kind of
thing the Alannah I know would do.”

“I’m not the Alannah you knew.”

“You’re the same Alannah I’ve always known.
If you’d had sex with him, you would have hated yourself for using
him.”

“Nice try, Trent, but I’m sure I would have
been fine.” She cocked a brow at him. “I need to have my needs met,
too. Maybe I wanted someone to go down on me tonight. You know,
just to take the edge off.” Her eyes challenged him.

Trenton felt bile rise in his stomach,
nauseated by the thought of another man putting his head between
her legs. Kissing her, tasting her, owning her with his mouth.
“That is
not
okay.” Her eyes widened. He stepped closer and
towered over her, forcing her to tilt her head back to look him in
the eye. “No other man is allowed to do anything to you—touch you,
kiss you, or go down on you.”

“You’re such a hypocrite.” Pain shone through
the anger in her eyes.

His gut burned with shame. “I’m sorry about
the thing with Beth. I feel like shit.”

“Good, because that was a shitty thing to
do.” She averted her face from him, but not before he caught a
glimpse of her pained expression. “How could you…do that?” she
asked in a tremulous voice.

The sound of her hurting gutted him.

Her arms closed over her midsection in a
protective fold. “I know we never said…I mean…I just thought…”

Trenton reached for her and then withdrew,
unsure if she’d pull away from his touch. “I messed up.”

“Yes, you did.” She looked up at him, eyes
laden with vulnerability. “You hurt me. Every other time I’ve been
hurt, I could come to you. I could cry on your shoulder, but
you
were the one who hurt me.”

“Alannah, sweetheart…”

“You didn’t even call after. You acted like I
didn’t matter to you.” Her voice thickened at the end.

“Didn’t matter?” Trenton expelled a deep
breath. “You know you matter, you’ve always mattered, but I could
control the situation. Now that you’ve changed I feel you slipping
away from me. You’ve changed your hair, you’ve changed your
clothes. You don’t return my calls. You’re dating a man who’s so
perfect he makes me
sick
.” He stared down into her shocked
face. “You matter. You matter too much. Goddammit, Alannah, you
matter so much that I
need
you. Like air. Like water. Like
food. I—” He took a deep breath, struggling to articulate
everything he felt inside. Finally, he clenched his fists and said
with resignation the words he’d fought to acknowledge for far too
long. “I love you.”

Her mouth fell open.

“I do.” He stepped close and cradled her face
in his hands. Her eyes held a combination of wonder and confusion.
“I fucking love you. Everything you do lately has been driving me
out of my mind, and it’s because I love you. Connor can’t have you.
I’ll camp outside your house every night if I have to. If he tries
to weasel his way back into your life, I’ll have somebody break
both of his legs until he wises up and leaves you alone.”

Her eyes widened. “You can’t—”

“I’m serious. I’ll do it. I’ll do whatever it
takes, because I love you. I. Love. You.”

Her gaze lowered to his mouth, anticipating,
and his head swooped down to give her exactly what she expected.
Fisting his hand in her hair, Trenton pulled her in tight and
lowered his lips to hers in a kiss that made his heart skip a beat.
As her arms locked around his neck, he kissed her with rising
passion, a man who understood the value of the prize he had and
couldn’t afford to let anyone take it away from him.

“Baby,” he murmured.

She placed little pecks against his mouth,
nipping at the corners with her lips and teeth. The teasing ignited
hunger in his blood. He had to make love to her. They’d been apart
for too long.

Growling low in his throat, Trenton tossed
Alannah over his shoulder like a caveman and raced up the
staircase. He kicked open the door of her bedroom so hard it
bounced back from the inside wall, but he’d already taken long
strides to the bed and tossed her onto it.

Moving quickly, he dragged her pants and
underwear over her hips and dropped them to the carpet. Then he
stood back and just stared at her, feasting his eyes on her
nakedness. His gaze drank in the bare legs, the trimmed mound, and
the softness of her flat belly.

She covered her most intimate place with
trembling fingers in a tentative display of modesty. But Trenton
brushed her hands away and licked his lips, contemplating how she’d
taste when he put his mouth on her again.

He grabbed a pillow and put it under her
bottom, tilting her hips up to just the right angle.

“Still mine?” he asked, placing a possessive
hand over her heated flesh and stroking his digits through the
slick moisture he found.

“Yes,” she said breathlessly, writhing under
his touch.

“I want to hear you say it.”

“Yes, it’s yours.
I’m
yours.”

He grabbed her calves and pushed her knees
back to her chest, keeping her legs wide. She twisted in
anticipation, but he held her fast.

“Nobody gets to go down on you but me.”

He lowered his head between her legs and used
gentle flicks to taste the moisture between them.

“Trent.” His name trembled on the tip of her
tongue, and the sound sent shivers shimmying down his spine.

An all-consuming need to drive her out of her
mind, to turn her inside out, consumed him. He ravaged her with his
mouth, groaning at the delicious taste of her juices as he circled
her drenched clit and plucked at the sensitized folds.

Her hands found their way beneath her black
top and she fingered her nipples, eyes closed, quietly chanting his
name. Attuned to her body, he monitored each reaction—how her hips
moved when he deepened the intensity of each stroke, how the
decibels of each moan increased with the speed of every swipe.

His reward was a gasping cry when she
climaxed hard in a display of shakes that gave his ego a hefty
stroke and left him with a self-satisfied smirk on his face for a
job well done.

Alannah lay there, moaning, saturated with
pleasure, when he informed her, “I’m just getting started.”

With his help, she wriggled out of her top,
which he then tossed to the floor with her other clothes. He
shrugged off his shirt and then his pants followed suit. Quickly he
donned a condom and came down on top of her. He tasted her lips
again, their mouths meshing together in a soul-searing kiss.

Turning her onto her side so she faced away
from him, Trenton breathed into her ear, “Guess what else?”

“What?”

“You getting all this dick tonight.”

Alannah inhaled sharply, closing her eyes as
if the very thought was too much to contemplate.

“Think you can take it?” Trenton asked.

“Yes,” she said softly.

He spread his fingers over the flat line of
her belly and slid down to the damp curls below. “Let me hear you
say it, sweetheart.”

“I’m taking all this dick.”

She reached back and fondled him, stroking
his length until he groaned into her neck. He pressed against the
cushion of her butt and gripped her hips with a firm hand. “That’s
right,” he said, voice strained and thready as he readied for
entry.

Broken breaths emitted from her throat as he
turned her onto her stomach and entered her from behind. He started
slowly, taking the sounds of pleasure as encouragement to slide
deeper. His hands canted her hips higher, his own breathing a
fractured and labored sound.

“You okay, sweetheart?”

“Yes,” she panted, pushing back, urging him
to fulfill his promise.

That was all the encouragement Trenton
needed. He thrust his hips and surged inside of her.

Alannah cried out and curled her fingers into
the sheets. Her entire being focused on the spot between her legs,
where Trenton’s thrusting motion grew more and more urgent. She
bounced her hips higher, every muscle concentrated on accommodating
him.

He set his mouth to her ear. “That’s it. It’s
all yours, sweetheart. Take all this dick.”

His mouth was a hot suction on her back. His
big hands were hot clamps that held her fast so he could plant his
body deeper. Excruciating pleasure spiraled through her blood and
eclipsed the discomfort she initially experienced.

“Still with me, baby?”

“Yesss.”

“Good. Cause I want you to love it,
sweetheart.” He spoke softly, his lips pressed to the sensitive
groove behind her ear. “I want you to love this dick.”

Alannah gasped, body shivering at his erotic
request. Pleasure and pain comingled, and her body creamed around
him, making it easier for him to slide even deeper. She’d never
known this type of sensation, such an unprecedented fullness that
left her gasping for air.