Page 12 of Hidden With You

Then it hits me. “No. No, that’s bullshit.”

“I’m forty-four. What is that? Twice your age?”

“Not even,” I say. Technically true, but I’m staying silent about the fact that I’m not quite twenty-four. “What does that matter? It’s sex, not a relationship. And I am not my age.”

He winces but otherwise keeps it together. “Maybe not. But I’m mine.”

He slides me off his lap and onto the bench, then stands. I stay sitting, too angry to trust my legs to support me. Angry and frustrated and defeated. Because seriously What. The. Fuck?

I shove all my anger into my legs, forcing them to do their job as I stand, adjust my dress, and then march over to him.

“You think I’m some naïve college-kid? You have no idea. I’ve lived a full life and then some. I’ve seen things—done things—experienced things that—”

I cut myself off with a shake of my head. My personal traumas are not stories I wield to get a man in bed, and why it matters that this man knows me, I really have no clue. Because knowing is dangerous.

I’m not a girl who wants to get to know a guy. I just want the moment. The adrenaline. That sense of not being alone even when I am alone.

Which begs the question of why I’m fighting so hard for a fuck. Do I really care that much that he pushed me away?

Is my ego really that fragile?

Yeah. Apparently it is.

“You don’t know me,” I repeat.

“No,” he says. “But I know me. And as much as I want this—and trust me, I do want it—it’s not going to happen. I really am sorry.”

Then he leaves. He just turns and walks out of the atrium, leaving me pissed and horny and angry.

And wanting him even more.