Sweet Hope (Sweet Home #4)(28)
I drew my hands down my face. “Aliyana… if you saw the real me… if you saw straight into my soul, you wouldn’t be sitting here with me now.”
Aliyana’s eyes widened. “What do you mean by that?” Her voice was now shaking. I’d scared her. Good. She should be scared of me. I wasn’t the right kinda guy for her. I’d only just met her, but I knew she should be setting her standards a f*cking mile higher than me.
“Exactly what I said. If you knew the real me, what I’ve done in my life, you’d be running away right the f*ck now.”
“Wh-what have you done?” Her eyebrows pulled down to form a frown. “Why are you so hard on yourself?”
“Penance. A whole lotta f*cking penance I need to pay.”
“But I can’t believe that of you.”
“You’re wrong.”
She shook her head adamantly. “But—” She went to argue.
Slamming my fist down on the table, I gritted my teeth, cutting off whatever she was gonna say. “You know f*ck all ‘bout me, girl,” I hissed, my voice too low to be anything other than a rumbling threat. “You might think you know my art, but you know shit about me.”
Straightening in my chair, I waved to get the server’s attention, motioning for the check.
Aliyana didn’t say anything else. In fact, she picked up her purse and walked straight out of the café.
The servers watched her go, nudging each other as they stared at her ass. I jumped from my seat, pulled out a fifty, and pounded over to where the Italian punks stood gaping and slammed the note on the countertop.
As soon as they laid eyes on me, they backed off, hands held high. Their faces drained to white, seeing how much they were f*cking me off and I marched out of the café to see Aliyana beside my Camino. I pulled out a smoke and, as always, placed it between my lips, taking a soothing drag. For once, I embraced the shower of rain that was pouring from the always-gray sky.
As I reached the car, Aliyana kept her head down and slid silently into the passenger seat.
My stomach rolled.
I’d really f*cking hurt her.
By the time we got back to the gallery, I’d burned through three smokes and a shit ton of guilt. But it was for the best. I was no one a girl should get with, especially one as good as her.
As I pulled the car to the shadowed side entrance, I waited for her to get out. But she didn’t move. The air in the cabin of the Camino seemed to crackle with electricity, and the heat of the stagnant tobacco-filled air built until it was unbearable. I could hear every single breath that came out of Aliyana’s mouth, and with every soft inhale and exhale, my cock seemed to harden more and more, the feel of it trapped under my jeans almost painful. I risked a glance to the right. Aliyana faced forward, gripping her purse tightly on her lap with both hands.
It was only meant to be a glance, one last look at her before she left my car. I was only intending to drop her off here at the gallery, leave, and never come back.
“I need the title and information about the angel sculpture. Could you come by one night to get it done?” Aliyana said. I couldn’t f*cking stand how sad she sounded.
I nodded mutely, unable to speak, and turned to stare out the windshield again. But as Aliyana started to reach for the handle on the door, something inside of me snapped. I couldn’t take how upset she was at me. I couldn’t take her leaving and not knowing how she f*cking tasted.
Before I knew it, my hand reached out to my right, and wrapping my fingers around Aliyana’s arm, I pulled her against my chest, only briefly catching her eyes widen and her mouth suck in a shocked gasp, before I crushed my lips to hers.
Moving my hands from her arms, I wrapped one at the back of her slim neck and the other to fist her hair. As I forced my tongue into her mouth, both of us groaned at our tongues clashing together.
She tasted amazing, and any part of me that wanted to take this slow was overridden the second her hands dropped her purse to the floor and lifted the bottom of my shirt to my stomach. Grunting as her palm scalded my skin, I pulled her closer still with my hand on her neck until her tits were pressed against my chest. Aliyana released a breathy moan, her fingers tensing until her nails scraped down my stomach, my skin burning at the marks she was making… the marks trailing down my stomach to the top of my jeans.
My cock was pressing against the zipper, f*cking begging for her hand, my tongue fighting against hers for dominance. But as soon as Aliyana’s fingers began tearing open my button, I froze.
Fuck.
We had to stop.
What the hell was I thinking?
Aliyana broke away from my mouth, her full lips and wet tongue moving down to lick and nip down my neck. Under her hands, the button on the top of my jeans popped open, and she began pulling down my zipper… the jeans the only barrier between her and my dick.
Squeezing my eyes shut, knowing what I was gonna do was gonna be painful, I trapped her hands between mine. Aliyana’s head snapped up, and unable to resist, I pressed my palms on her cheeks and smashed our mouths together one last time, before pushing her back and ordering, “Go.”
Aliyana fought for breath as I sat with my shirt pulled up and my zipper half down. “But—”
“GO!” I said louder, shifting back to fasten my jeans, my hands lifting to grip the steering wheel. Aliyana inhaled a sharp breath, but I didn’t look her way. If I did, she’d be laid on this seat and her * would be strangling my cock in about ten seconds flat.