He was taking up all the air. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. She didn’t want him to know. She tried to think of some names. Just throw out some names and maybe he would stop. “Alex.”
His eyes narrowed as he stared her down. “Alex McKay? You slept with Alex McKay?”
Damn it. It had been the first name to come to mind. “No. It was a different Alex. Alex Jones. And then there was Harold.”
“You slept with a man named Harold? How bloody old was he?”
“Damn it, it’s none of your business. Why are you being such a shit?”
He crowded her, obviously using his height advantage for maximum intimidation. “It is my business. You told me you wanted sex. You told me you had many lovers. You lied on both counts because your pussy had zero interest in me, and if you’ve had more than one or two hurried encounters I’ll be shocked. So I want the truth. How many and why? Why did you crawl into bed with me when you didn’t want a fuck?”
Every word felt like a little bullet peppered on her skin. She’d wanted some affection, but like all things in her life, it had gone utterly wrong. She’d been stupid to try and she just didn’t care anymore. He could think whatever he liked because he was an asshole. “None, okay. I haven’t had any lovers. Is that what you want to hear?”
He growled and turned away and then somehow his fist was going through the drywall.
The room got utterly silent and the moment seemed to linger. Chelsea stared, unsure of what to do. There had been more emotion in that single action of placing his fist through the wall than she’d ever seen from him. The trouble was she was pretty sure that emotion was pure rage. “Simon?”
He pulled his fist out, cursing as he opened the door to the bathroom and strode through, leaving her behind.
What the hell had just happened? Simon was always in control, always a gentleman. She’d never seen him less than perfectly courteous before she’d pushed him tonight.
Not always. Sometimes he was a Dom, and he’d brought her as close to pleasure as she’d ever been in her life.
“Go to sleep, Chelsea. I’ll spend the rest of the night in the guest room.” His voice floated out from the bathroom, a flat monotone, nothing like his usual lyrical tones.
Why had he turned on her like that? Shouldn’t men want to have sex? He claimed he hadn’t had sex in six months. Shouldn’t he have been all over her?
Maybe everyone was wrong. They’d told her Simon wanted her. Jesse joked about it all the time, but she’d offered herself to him and he’d turned her down in a deeply brutal fashion. What had he meant by asking her for a kiss?
Maybe he wasn’t as nice as she’d thought. Maybe he was just like all the rest. He was just better at hiding it.
He walked out of the bathroom, heading straight for the bedroom door, and she couldn’t stop. The voice in her head was telling her to let the man go. She could go to sleep and come up with a new plan in the morning. She could leave before he was awake. Hell, she could just accept the inevitable, head to her sister’s place and let Ian take over. Anything was better than picking a fight with Weston, who had just proven he was wishy-washy in the best case, a liar in the worst.
So why did she follow him out? Why did she march right behind him as he strode into the kitchen and opened the freezer?
He didn’t bother to look back at her. “I told you to go to bed, Chelsea. It’s late and I don’t want another fight.”
He might not want one, but she was primed to start one. “What’s up, Weston? Does the mighty Brit not like sad little virgins?”
He stopped for a moment, his head hanging down. “The bloody Brit doesn’t want to hurt a woman who has no idea what she’s asking for.”
So that was what he thought of her. “Really? You think I don’t understand the mechanics of sex. Wow. You do think I’m an idiot.”
He pulled out a handful of ice and quickly deposited it on a kitchen towel. “I never said anything like that. Though you’re naïve if you think that wouldn’t have hurt. Don’t try that on the next bloke. He’ll take you up on the offer and you won’t like it. You can’t tell a man you want him to take you hard and fast and expect to not get hurt.”
The next bloke. Not him. He was done with her. Somehow that hurt her deep. So damn deep. She hadn’t been aware that she could ever ache like that again. She’d been sure she’d buried that part of herself so deep she wouldn’t see it again, but Simon brought it out of her. He was her kryptonite, her weakness. Something nasty welled inside her. She wasn’t going to let him see her hurt. She’d done that when she was a child and it had only made her tormentors happy. She wasn’t going there again. “Maybe the next bloke will be able to get it up around me.”
She turned, but didn’t get more than a step away from him before he was whirling her around, her wrist caught in his hand.
Arctic blue eyes stared down at her and his jaw was as hard as granite. “I would suggest you tread very carefully for the next few moments. I’m a bit on the edge, love, and you’re acting like a righteous bitch. You’re rewriting history so I come out as badly as possible. Let’s not forget. You came on to me.”
“I won’t again. Trust me. I learned my lesson. You can be quite mean when you want to be.”
He dropped her hand and sighed, turning away. “I wish you would figure out which box to fit me in. It gets exhausting. One minute I’m pure evil and the next I’m some sort of neutered brother figure. This isn’t going to work, is it? I’m being a bloody fool again.”
Her anger deflated like she’d released a valve, and all the bad shit slowly leaked out in the face of his slumped shoulders. When she looked at it without the filter of her embarrassment, she really had been hard on him. It wasn’t his fault that he didn’t want her. It wasn’t exactly hers either. She’d always known he didn’t really want her. He had a hero complex and there was nothing wrong with that. “I’m sorry. I thought I could see what it felt like. I really didn’t mean to piss you off.”
“You don’t understand me at all.” He slumped into the kitchen table chair.
Probably not. She wasn’t good with people. It was why she should never have even tried. She’d spent most of her life hiding from people. Still, she couldn’t walk away. She picked up the discarded cloth and sat down across from him. His hand looked all right, just a few scrapes. “I don’t understand much of anything, Weston. Can I see your hand?”