Page 38 of Ravage

I couldn’t stomach the embarrassment.

Not now. Maybe not ever.

I groaned and reached for another sip of coffee. My movie was good, really good, but it was hard seeing these fictional characters fall in love so easily. It wasn’t that way for me. It was just the opposite.

A sense of bitterness had me reaching for the remote, and the next thing I knew, I was watching some horror flick about a serial killer that seemed much more believable. “That’s more like it.”

I’d just managed to make it through the grossest, bloodiest murder scene I’d ever seen when there was a knock at my door. At first, I thought it was just my imagination, but then there was a second knock, louder this time. It was Sunday afternoon. It couldn’t be someone from work, so I assumed it was Jax or maybe Chrissy was stopping back by.

I dragged myself off the sofa and shuffled to the door, and when I opened it, my stomach took a nosedive when I found Ravage standing in the entryway. He held a pint of my favorite ice cream in one hand and a bottle of Tylenol in the other.

I sounded less than thrilled when I grumbled, “Ummm… what are you doing here?”

“We need to talk.”

“Actually, we don’t.”

“We do.”

“If you’re talking about last night, we really don’t.” His eyes narrowed ever-so-slightly. “You were right about everything. I was drinking too much and wasn’t thinking clearly. And I let Chrissy get in my head…”

Clearly unfazed by my declaration, Ravage slipped past me, making me lose my train of thought, and closed the door behind him. Yes. The arrogant ass walked in without an invitation and closed the door.

If it was anyone else, I might’ve been surprised or even concerned by the brash move. But that was Ravage. He was protective, often overbearingly so, but I trusted him. It was one of the reasons I’d blabbed to him last night.

I just stood there and stared at him. He held out the ice cream and Tylenol as he announced, “For your hangover.”

“You brought me ice cream.”

“And Tylenol.”

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“Just take it, Emery.”

I took them and immediately marched over to the fridge, placing the ice cream in the freezer. I actually needed a couple of Tylenol, so I quickly opened the bottle, took out two, and shoved them into the cabinet. I grabbed a glass and filled it with water as I told him, “Just forget about anything I said… I wasn’t serious.”

“You seemed pretty serious last night.”

I felt my face turn hot as I tossed the Tylenol back and drank a few sips of water, hoping it would give me a second to think of a good response. It didn’t. “I was drunk.”

“I’m aware.”

I couldn’t believe this was happening. It was bad enough that I’d made an ass of myself. Now, Ravage was here, throwing it all in my face and making me feel even worse about it. “I wasn’t going to do anything.”

He gave me a look. “You were considering it.”

“I had my reasons.”

There. I said it.

His expression didn’t change, but his tone softened. “I remember that, too.”

That was all he said, and then he waited.

I hated how patient he was. I hated it even more that he wasn’t going to let me out of this without a real conversation. “I shouldn’t have asked you to have sex with me. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

“Does that mean you’ve changed your mind?”